John C. Eastman professor of law at Chapman University has already jumped on the birther bandwagon against Democratic vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris. And Newsweek magazine has decided they are so cool with it, they gave him space to air his views.
https://www.newsweek.com/some-questions-kamala-harris-about-eligibility-opinion-1524483
Or maybe more accurately, he builds the bandwagon, hammering together specious legal arguments that people born in the U.S. – “natural-born” citizens by definition – are not natural born citizens. This is, however, long-settled law.
And there is no question Harris was born in California, which was also unquestionably part of the U.S. in the 1960s.
Eastman admits “our government’s view of the Constitution’s citizenship mandate has morphed over the decades to what is now an absolute ‘birth on the soil no matter the circumstances’ view,” but, he argues, since that definition didn’t become clear until the 1960s, Harris is not subject to it.
To argue his point, Eastman has to reach back to openly rascist reactions to economic situations in the early and mid 20th Century: “children born on U.S. soil to guest workers from Mexico during the Roaring 1920s were not viewed as citizens, when, in the wake of the Great Depression, their families were repatriated to Mexico. Nor were the children born on U.S. soil to guest workers in the bracero program of the 1950s and early 1960s deemed citizens when that program ended, and their families emigrated back to their home countries,” he argues.
So his argument boils down to “we were still pretty racist when she was born, so she doesn’t deserve citizenship.”
Funny, I don’t remember him using these arguments when he ran (and couldn’t even win the primary) against Harris for the California Attorney General office.
I wonder why?
Just a stab in the dark, but maybe open racism doesn’t work in a state where a sizable percentage of the electorate is people of color?
I suppose that, thanks to the king of racist Birtherism being elected to the highest office in the land, we should expect it to rear its ugly head regularly now.
The shocking thing is that a formerly-admired national news magazine would print such drivel. This shock was not lost on the magazine’s readers, or fellow journalists, who have heaped scorn on Newsweek for following a path watered with the blood of countless people of color.
Which, of course, led Newsweek opinion editors Nancy Cooper and Josh Hammer to leap to their own defense in an editorial note that, even though the arguments in the piece were rated false by Snopes and “pants on fire” by Politifact, states the legal issue is not settled.
In their defense, they bring up questions raised about the eligibility of political candidates John McCain (born in Panama) and Ted Cruz (born in Canada) as proof.
What they fail to mention (or perhaps realize) is that those arguments were mainly brought up not to as much to question the candidates’ standing, but to point out the right-wing racism that lay in challenging Barack Obama’s citizenship, which Birthers argued, was in question even if they accepted that he was born in Hawaii (which he was) because his father was from Kenya.
They also fail to note when Newsweek ran editorials on the subject, leading one to believe they either:
- didn’t – which would mean they were either unaware of the subject at the time, or didn’t see it as a legitimate argument worthy of their pages
- or did, and for some reason don’t want to make it easy for readers to find the material they are so desperately pointing to in their defense.
My guess is the former, although the latter may be even more damning, if they did their job and pointed out at the time the nature of the arguments.
If my guess is correct, why then, did Newsweek decide even more ridiculous arguments than the deliberately specious arguments it uses to defend itself were worthy of the space it reserves to inform the public of the important issues they need to understand?
The only difference I can see is the hue of the candidate’s complexion.
From the backlash of readers, it’s safe to say I’m not alone.
This must stop.
It’s bad enough that we have long accepted the wink-wink-nudge-nudge-knowhatimean? dog whistle racism of the Republican party.
We must not accept open racism becoming an acceptable part of our political campaigns.
We must not let journalistic institutions normalize it.
Let Newsweek know where you stand.
Let Newsweek advertisers know you will not purchase products they promote through through racist fear mongering disguised as journalism.
People have the power to stop this by acting decisively.
They also have the power to let it continue by doing nothing.
Remember, when you see oppression, failure to act is not neutrality, it is taking the side of the oppressor.
Or in more recent popular music phrasing,
“If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”
Don’t make the choice to accept racism in our politics.