Bad Meme Alert

A double-edged meme

A break from theology today to take on another one of my favorite subjects: meme analysis.

A friend of mine posted the above meme on Facebook.  (I posted a short response to him already...and remember, I love you guy, even if I don't find this meme compelling.)  I've seen memes like this before, and it's clear what the intended message is: when those of non-Native American descent criticize immigration, they're being hypocritical.  They (or their ancestors) were immigrants to the Americas, and it's hypocritical to be against immigration now, if you (or your ancestors) were beneficiaries  of immigration in the past.  In other words, it's criticizing our idea of fairness--having one standard of behavior for yourself (or your ancestors) and another for others.

If left at that level, this would be a pretty good message to support the idea of immigration.  No one wants to be a hypocrite (or at least called out as one).  Most of those with European ancestry here in the Americas feel at least a twinge of guilt over what was done to the Native Americans.  I mean, it's pretty hard to argue for the morality pushing people off their land and taking it for yourself simply because you're stronger than them and you can.

So we might say "Hey, I feel bad about what my ancestors did to the Native Americans.  And I'm a beneficiary of that.  And I can't be against refugees coming here, unless I also am against what my ancestors did.  And if I'm against what my ancestors did, I'd pack my bags and return to Europe if I really meant it."

But let's take a deeper look.

First, I think it's pretty uncontroversial to say that great evil was done against the Native Americans.  (And if someone brings up atrocities that Native Americans did to European immigrants, let's remember that we came uninvited.  Those atrocities could not have taken place had our ancestors stayed in their own homeland...just like if someone decided to take your house and you pushed back a little too vigorously)  So this brings up the first counter-point to the meme:  the Native American had a completely rational fear of immigrants.

Let that sink in: maybe in some cases it was just a handful of refugees who were more or less willing to live at peace with those already in the Americas (think the Pilgrims or Quakers).  But it's obvious that that was just the nose of the camel.  A Trumpesque Native American in the 17th century, crying alarm at immigration, was completely rational, as history bares out.  Many of the immigrants from Europe--it didn't have to be all of them, mind you--were willing to kill the Native Americans and steal their land that, in the end, the country was won for Europeans and lost for Natives.

And European Americans not only took the land, they attempted to stamp out Native cultures.  Forcing Native children to attend schools where only English was taught, and where their religious beliefs and practices were looked at as laughable superstition and they had to be "corrected" to become Christians in the way the Europeans understood Christianity to be.

So...if the Native Americans had a legitimate fear of immigration, perhaps those against immigration today have legitimate fears, too.  They may not, but this meme, rather than attempting to say "immigration is nothing to fear" does exactly the opposite.  By bringing up the fate of the Native Americans, one might think that it's perfectly legitimate to fear immigration.  Maybe people who come to this country with a completely alien way of life, with different values, could change the shape of this country.  Unquestionably, European immigration (and forced African immigration on slave ships) made the Americas incredibly changed from what the Natives had.  Can other waves of immigration further change this country as well?  (A melting pot doesn't make everyone like what was their before...it mixes what was here before with what comes later.)

Secondly: does anyone think that more immigration will help Native Americans?  At best, it would just mean status quo...but ultimately, it means a greater non-native population.  If it was wrong for non-natives to immigrate to America because of what it did to the Native American population, why would additional immigration be considered something that would help them?  Thus, bringing up sympathy for Native Americans as a reason to have sympathy for refugees makes little or no sense.  Just as European civilization was completely different from Native cultures, Middle Eastern, African, and Asian cultures are likewise alien to the Native American.  Indeed, additional immigration is actually the exact opposite of helping the Natives in their own lands.

Thirdly: very few Americans, no matter how guilty they might feel about what happened to the Native Americans, are actually going to do the one thing that they could do to address this specific thing: that is, give their property back to Native Americans, pack their bags, and return to their ancestral homeland.  That is a true cost, a true sacrifice.  But it could be done, and it would actually directly address the theft of Native lands.

You could also create a time machine to help Native Americans...



Instead, many will bizarrely double-down and essentially say: "Yeah, immigration was totally bad to the Native American peoples.  So because I feel bad about that, we need to do something about it.  What can we do?  More immigration!"

That, of course, makes less than zero sense.  But it's a lot easier to let someone move in (as long as they don't take your property directly) than to voluntarily move out and give away your property.  There is little direct cost in supporting immigration--and a pretty steep cost in supporting personal emigration.  And at least you can say "Hey, I'm not a hypocrite--my ancestors were immigrants, and I'm not barring new immigrants!"  The conscience is soothed at a relatively light cost.

There may be hundreds of reasons to be against immigration, and hundreds of reasons to be for it.  But, like most memes, this one adds little to the conversation, and indeed ends up failing to communicate what it's allegedly trying to.  Like all memes, it is more emotive than demonstrative.  Rational discussion and debate is short-circuited, and a false either/or binary choice is fostered: either you are for unlimited immigration with no restrictions, or you're a xenophobic isolationist who wants zero immigration.  Very few people actually fit into this binary pattern, but like all things on the Internet, it is easier to demonize and categorize than to have conversation and careful analysis.