Weirdo Video: Don't Be a Sucker (1947)

Source:The New Democrat

What you see in this film with the bigot in the beginning unfortunately has a long history in America. But I’m only going to go back to the 1890s or so and talk about bigotry toward non-English immigrants in America. The Irish, even though they are essentially brothers and sisters of the English, but tend to practice a different religion than the English in America and back in Britain. The Italians, the Jews, the Poles and other Slavic immigrants in America, the Chinese and Japanese and then move it a hundred plus years and you have xenophobic attitudes towards Latinos and Arabs and other Middle Easterners.

The guy early on in this video was repeating bigoted attitudes about people who looked different and talked different from he did. And because of that and especially if they were born in a different country, this guy considered them to be Un-American. Even though he was being Un-American with his hatred for ethnic and racial diversity in America. Something as a country that we celebrate by in large and have celebrated for a very long time. But with this guy all you get is bigoted attitudes and accusations about immigrants who look different and talk different from him. And he’s accusing them of taking American jobs and trying to force a different religion on the country.

The same xenophobia in America that we see today is nothing new. That if you’re not Caucasian and of European descent you must be some foreign invader that is trying to poison the flavor and character of the country. And imposed your foreign values on the rest of the country. That you are not here to contribute and produce for America, but to take advantage of our welfare system and take jobs from blue-collar Americans who have been in forever and whose families have been here forever. This attitude is small as far its supporter and people who actually believe it. But you hear it a lot from the Far-Right on talk radio. And is something as a country that we should be educating more Americans about so they don’t end up taking it seriously.