There are few things more nauseatingly transparent than some two-faced, posturing liberal who claims to sympathize with the oppressed, only to attack their means of resistance as irresponsible and misguided, doing the job of the bigoted right in the process. Such sentiment was poignantly expressed in Joey Labuz’s article in yesterday’s Herald (“Progressive Dane’s good intentions have poor execution”).
Labuz begins his piece by writing that, “Every once in a while you get the feeling an issue will be decided in a certain way.” He goes on to write, “But, somehow, in the end, everything turns out OK.” I confess that none of this makes a morsel of sense to me, even after reading the entirety of these sentences in their proper context several times over. But if the writer is trying to say that the County Board’s vote against the amendment to cut off new funding for the xenophobic Dane County Sheriff, Dave Mahoney, subverted a dangerous attempt to address the issue, he only succeeds in demonstrating his own misinformation and prejudice.
Labuz claims the supervisors and activists — principally the Immigrant Workers Union and Progressive Dane — should have dealt with the sheriff’s policy of voluntarily reporting undocumented immigrants to federal authorities in a different way. Cutting off new funding, according to Labuz, would have endangered the broader community because it would have decreased the number of deputies.
What he neglects to say — and likely doesn’t know himself — is that the amendment wasn’t intended to cut five positions from the sheriff’s budget, but to deny his request for five new deputies. Considering Madison just hired an unprecedented 30 new police officers this year, it’s hard to see why any more positions are necessary. In this context, Labuz’s only stated objection to the amendment and associated protest — the “general safety of the public” — is exposed for what it is: untrue.
It’s also worth pointing out, however, that Labuz’s notion of “public safety” only extends to those who have proper documentation. For Dane County’s mostly-Latino immigrant population, the largest threat to their well-being comes from the sheriff himself. Every day, undocumented workers drive to work with the fear of being pulled over, walk alone at night with the fear of being racially profiled and wait at home with the fear that their family members will not return — always with the thought of deportation lurking somewhere in their minds.
More deputies on the street likely brings no comfort to their community — indeed, quite the opposite is true.
Labuz’s ignorance continues unabated in the second half of his piece, where he finds it “difficult to fathom” why “alternative” options were not discussed. Apparently, he just started paying attention to this issue last month. The sheriff has been pressured from a variety of angles — through public hearings, media campaigns, etc. — over the last year, his treatment of immigrants remaining consistently abhorrent.
Labuz’s objections may have little to do with factual accuracy, but the techniques employed in his piece are worth pointing out given their prevalence in local discussions of the immigration issue. Rather than discussing the issue itself, Labuz and his ilk resort to attacking the tactics of PD and other groups, tip-toeing around the rather obvious fact that they really have no problem with the sheriff tearing apart families in the most despicable fashion. Rather than printing another article disingenuously condemning the strategy of the immigrant community (as embodied in the Immigrant Worker Union) and their PD allies, the editors of this paper should encourage their columnists to write honestly about their sympathy for the xenophobia of local law enforcement.
Even though the amendment ultimately failed — only the PD caucus and one liberal ally voted for it — its passage was never really the point. Had it been successful, the sheriff wouldn’t have been mandated to change his policy, anyway. The amendment was part of a broader strategy to pressure county supervisors to take a position on the sheriff’s policy, and in this sense, it was successful.
At the budget decision, Scott McDonell, the dean of the liberal caucus, was forced to take the awkward position of both criticizing the sheriff and speaking against the amendment. As a result, he is now on record as an opponent of local cooperation with federal immigration authorities, except in extreme cases. Community progressives intend to hold him to his word.
Now, a new ordinance, an updated and tightened version of the 2004 “sanctuary” resolution, is being crafted and will be introduced early next year. Its passage will be predicated on continued activism and maintaining the profile of the plight of the immigrant community. It also relies on a broader electoral strategy, one which assumes most people in this county do not support the demonization of society’s most vulnerable population. The nonsense printed in this paper aside, I’m confident such an assumption will prove true.
Kyle Szarzynski ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in history and philosophy.
