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Tuesday, April 11, 2006
InstaPunk Protest
Pics!
Not quite as huge as the Newark, DE, protest, but a good turnout for Salem
Not quite as huge as the Newark, DE, protest, but a good turnout for Salem
LEGACY. I won't make any bones about it. I thought my coverage of the Salem County Illegal Immigration March was going to be the splashiest in the southern New Jersey-Delaware region. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered via Instapundit that we'd been upstaged by Newark, Delaware. If you look at the map, you can see why Salem and Newark might be considered rivals.
I should have realized, probably, that Newark's status as a university town makes it a lot easier for them to hit the magic dozen mark when it comes to assembling protesters in a great cause like this one. Even so, the startling scale of the Newark march drained a lot of the verve out of this report. But here goes anyway.
The protest organization meeting was scheduled for Sunday morning in the Salem Oak Diner, which sits across the street from the highly symbolic Salem Oak, the tree under which the county's first Quaker immigrants signed a treaty with the Indians in 1675. Unfortunately for the ambiance of the current assembly, that treaty was one of a handful ever signed with the Indians that was actually honored. Maybe that's why the organizational meeting was so subdued.
An atmosphere of calm prevailed at the meeting.
As it happened, I didn't encounter
Carlos at the meeting but later, outside the diner (see above) when
he initiated the march through Salem's downtown section. I had the
opportunity to interview him at some length, since other media seemed
less eager to get too close to the protest activity. While not actually
an immigrant, Carlos Harris, 34, of Cowtown, has an
interesting story to tell. His family is mostly Scotch-Irish stock, but
Carlos's mother visited Texas once with her cattleman grandfather and
had a brief dalliance with a Brahma bull rider named -- you guessed it
-- Carlos. Nothing came of the romance because Carlos was deported to
Mexico after an obscure incident involving some toxic homemade tequila,
but when the young lady got married some years later, her husband
always teased her about her Mexican boyfriend, which made her so
furious over time that she defiantly (and still under the influence of
the epidural) named her firstborn son after the long lost rodeo rider.
Carlos explained that his mother doesn't get around very well anymore,
so he decided to join the protest on her behalf. Her position is that
the idea of a wall along the border isn't very friendly and should be
more like a fence, maybe with some broken glass on top.
The actual march was peaceful and lacking in serious confrontations. Once, a car approached Star Corner, the town's main intersection, while Carlos was demonstrating there, but it turned right and Carlos assured me he never felt threatened.
A moment of near-collision between traffic and the protest at Star Corner.
The actual march was peaceful and lacking in serious confrontations. Once, a car approached Star Corner, the town's main intersection, while Carlos was demonstrating there, but it turned right and Carlos assured me he never felt threatened.
A moment of near-collision between traffic and the protest at Star Corner.
The remainder of the event was, well,
uneventful. Carlos proceeded the additional block up Market Street to
the County Courthouse, where a friend had promised to come by and give
him a ride back to Cowtown. I would have stayed till the ride came, but
it was almost time to feed the dogs and I had to go. I snapped one last
picture as I was driving away.
The climax of the march at the Courthouse.
The climax of the march at the Courthouse.
"Adios, Carlos," I yelled.
"What?" he replied.
And I guess I'll leave it at that.
UPDATE. I see that other bloggers, especially Michelle Malkin, are still trying to publish the flashiest and most sensational protest coverage they can find. This is kind of an insult to small town activists everywhere. We do the best we can. With what we have. So don't be such a snob about it, okay?
UPDATE 2. The Newark blogger has now penned a completely slighting entry about the Salem protest in support of illegal immigration. He says I'm "making excuses," but what could I have done, short of making up a much larger demonstration that didn't occur in fact? Like my role models at the New York Times, I am simply an impartial journalist who makes up the bare minimum of news necessary to inflate my sense of self-importance virtue. Perhaps Don'tSeeTheLight.com should learn from my outstanding (if I dare say so myself) example. And if he ever ventures over the bridge into OUR territory, he should bear in mind that we're not a bunch of college radical pussies here, but centuries worth of inbred gene pools that would scare the hell out of Ward Churchill himself.
"What?" he replied.
And I guess I'll leave it at that.
UPDATE. I see that other bloggers, especially Michelle Malkin, are still trying to publish the flashiest and most sensational protest coverage they can find. This is kind of an insult to small town activists everywhere. We do the best we can. With what we have. So don't be such a snob about it, okay?
UPDATE 2. The Newark blogger has now penned a completely slighting entry about the Salem protest in support of illegal immigration. He says I'm "making excuses," but what could I have done, short of making up a much larger demonstration that didn't occur in fact? Like my role models at the New York Times, I am simply an impartial journalist who makes up the bare minimum of news necessary to inflate my sense of self-importance virtue. Perhaps Don'tSeeTheLight.com should learn from my outstanding (if I dare say so myself) example. And if he ever ventures over the bridge into OUR territory, he should bear in mind that we're not a bunch of college radical pussies here, but centuries worth of inbred gene pools that would scare the hell out of Ward Churchill himself.
