Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Regarding this: Busch: Who will watch public health if Kenwood is chosen?

I'm not familiar with Legislator Busch. Perhaps she's a lovely person.

I do wonder, though, if she is aware that she is joining a not-proud tradition of suspecting immigrants of being diseased.

For example, here:

At times, native-born Americans' fear of disease from abroad became a rationale for an equally great and preexisting prejudice, fear of the foreign-born, or nativism.1 (p. 9–11, 88–9) Nativists stigmatized particular immigrant groups as the carriers of specific diseases, rationalizing their prejudice with medical and public health arguments. Medicalized prejudice became the foundation for the arguments of immigration restrictionists. Examples of the stigmatization of the foreign-born as disease carriers are ample. In the 1830s, impoverished Irish immigrants were stigmatized as the bearers of cholera.1,20 (p. 32–3; p. 137–8) At the end of the 19th century, tuberculosis was dubbed the “Jewish disease” or the “tailor's disease.”1 (p. 155)

Further, I wonder if Busch's concerns are related to her forthcoming plans to volunteer at the facility, should it come to be used. One could understand her concerns, if she were planning on spending time there. Otherwise, not so much.

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