Newspeak Nations: How Language Erases Struggles – by Charlie Martin

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Newspeak Nations: How Language Erases Struggles – by Charlie Martin

I’ve been re-reading George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” again, something I recommend anyone interested in politics or writing should do regularly. Here’s a bit that struck me today:

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among people who should and do know better.

Orwell, like Ayn Rand, wasn’t so much inventing a fictional world as he was fictionalizing the world he knew, enhancing it to make a point. To clarify it, Orwell wrote in the Appendix to 1984:

“The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible,…”

The thing is, we’re not dealing with Newspeak, at least in detail. Instead we are seeing people on both sides parroting phrases they’ve heard elsewhere in place of thinking about what they mean.

My maternal grandfather Bill McClintock was born in the Choctaw Nation. Now, by definition, a nation is a group of people with a shared culture, history, and identity. There’s no question that the Choctaw Nation was and is a nation.

But when he was born there in 1895, the Choctaw Nation was part of Indian Territory, along with the Cherokee, the Chickasaw, and the others of the Five Civilized Tribes. The Indian Territory was part of, and under the authority of, the United States. Grandfather was born in the United States, not in some country — I don’t know, Choctawland maybe.

Through a succession of decisions made by the Great White Father, Indian Territory was broken up, opened to white settlement, and eventually became part of the state of Oklahoma.

Now, by definition, a country is a defined geographic area with an independent government, and borders.

There was no country of Choctawland because while it had more or less fixed boundaries, it was wholly contained in the United States, and while there was a tribal government, it was effectively subservient to the Federal government and not really independent or sovereign at all. (Oh, there was some face-saving assertion of sovereignty, but it was subject to regular intrusions, more in sorrow than in anger.)

This linguistic distinction—nation versus country—matters. I felt it sharply when someone claimed Israel was a country long before May 14, 1948. My objection isn’t about doubting Am Yisrael, the Jewish people, who have existed for millennia, nor do I question their deep historical and spiritual connection to Judea or their right to return to their ancestral homeland. My issue is the sloppy conflation of nation with country, which muddies history and erases struggle.

To unpack this, let’s look at the Balfour Declaration:

His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

The language there is instructive—hard to beat the imperial sleight-of-hand of a British diplomat—in that it says “a national home for the Jewish people.” The phrasing is cagey, leaving room for endless interpretation, but it was declaring that Jews should have the right to enter Palestine when it was removed from Ottoman control.

What it didn’t say was that the Jewish nation was to be a Jewish country. And, under the Balfour Declaration, it wasn’t. In effect, the British were asserting their intention to create a Jewish Reservation in Palestine, just as the United States created an Indian reservation following the Removal. You remember, the “Trail of Tears.”

There followed 30 years of struggle and a revolutionary movement to establish the country, the state of Israel in the territory once called Palestine since the Romans.

Insisting that Israel had been a country since time immemorial denies the struggle that made Israel a state, and denies the ability to think about that struggle.

When someone insists Israel was a country “since time immemorial,” they’re not just wrong—they’re wielding language to erase history, much like Newspeak aimed to erase thought.

Just as the Choctaw Nation’s struggle for autonomy was buried under U.S. promises of “sovereignty,” the Jewish nation’s (Am Yisrael’s) fight for a state was no foregone conclusion but a hard-won victory against imperial odds.

To conflate nation with country is to deny those struggles, to dull our ability to think about power and resistance. Clear language isn’t just pedantry—it’s a rebellion against the fog that hides truth.

78 thoughts on “Newspeak Nations: How Language Erases Struggles – by Charlie Martin”

  1. I recommend C.S. Lewis’s Studies In Words for anyone interested in language. It demonstrates the bad things that happen when words drift.

    (Mostly the creation of useless synonyms and loss of ability to make distinctions.)

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  2. In the case of Israel, it was a country at one time, then was conquered and destroyed, then centuries later was reestablished. The same thing has happened throughout history to other countries. Poland is an example. Holland is another (it was a republic, was conquered by Napoleon, then restored as a monarchy in 1815).

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      1. Holland, or Poland?

        Holland began its war of independence in 1568, finally winning it in the Peace of Westphalia (1648) where Spain recognized the Republic of the United Netherlands. Around 1795 or so France conquered Holland and made it a French province; after the defeat of Napoleon in 1815 the nation was recreated as a kingdom, at the time incorporation what is now Belgium and Luxembourg. Belgium split off in 1830.

        As for Poland, Wikipedia tells me it was a nation from around 1000 to 1772-1795, then again became one in 1918.

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  3. Hmm. For a couple thousand years up to 1047 BCE, Israel didn’t exist as a country, although the Jews did comprise a nation, and occupied most of the area that is now modern day Israel. Prior to that time, there were a lot of different people coming and going throughout the region, with only temporary settlements being established. The Jews created a country, ruled by Kings, from about 1047-930 BCE. From 930 to 722 BCE it was split into two countries, both ruled and dominated by the Jewish people.

    The Neo-Assyrian Empire conquered the northern kingdom in 722 BCE. The southern kingdom continued until it was conquered by the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 586 BCE. 539 saw the Persians conquer Babylon and take control of the region. And they lost it to Alexander the Great in the late 330s BCE, which lasted until the Hasmonean Kingdom.

    The Hasmonean Dynasty reestablished the Kingdom of Israel from 104 to 37 BCE, when it was conquered the Roman Empire and ruled by them until the Muslim conquest of the Levant.

    Muslims conquered the area between 636 and 641. The Muslims lost control in 1099 after the First Crusade, when the Kingdom of Jerusalem was established, and that fell when the Muslims reconquered it in 1187. Israel did not exist under the Ottoman Empire from c. 1299–1922, when Britain took control of the region.

    So realistically, Israel has the valid claim of first homeland, nation and country for the area. They’ve lost it several times, been conquered, enslaved, and forcibly removed from it, only to keep coming back. They have current ownership of Gaza, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights by right of conquest, taking them from the aggressor nations around them. They also took the Sinai from Egypt, and then wisely gave it back to them, since they didn’t have the means to militarily control it, and it contained nothing of value to them at the time. They retain their current territory as being easier to militarily control as a safer border.

    As for the current crop of people calling themselves Palestinians, they are mostly the Arab Muslims that chose to side with the surrounding Arab countries, and voluntarily left Israel to give those countries a clear field of fire during the Arab-Israeli war. Rather than staying and fighting for their land, they sided with the enemies of Israel, and therefore forfeited any rights to those lands.

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    1. The term “Palestinian” was created in the 1950s by a Saudi journalist. Until that point, the people who departed what became Israel in 1948, anticipating that it would be overrun by the Arab armies and they’d go back, were called “Arabs.” It’s an interesting sleight-of-word that has been very effective.

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        1. I know the feeling.

          Add in the, “Mary & Joseph were asylum seekers,” and “Jesus was an illegal alien,” posts and it’s surprising I haven’t already happened to somebody.

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            1. Papyrus scrolls? Pretty swank. Scraped hides and clay tablets might feature rather prominently.

              I vote for clay tablets, personally; they could be repurposed when filed for bricks in Tower of Babel 2.0.

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              1. Saw a picture of a tablet from somewhere in the 3000s B.C. which was a complaint to a contractor about a bad copper shipment.

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                  1. He’s probably the subject of the chapter on businessmen in Mesopotamia in the book I read earlier this year. The dude would have kept lawyers in business in four city-states, if lawyers had existed then. (And his sons and sons-in-law never could run things right, if we believe his letters.)

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              2. Swank? In Egypt? Where the stuff grew?

                It was the parchment — or hides as you put it — that was swank. Longer lasting but oh so much more expensive.

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                1. I’d go with the clay tablets anywhere within a mile or two of the Nile. Wherever the ‘border’ between Egypt and Israel was in the years 0-5, probably not.

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            2. Does it not? Particularly since they were ALL in the Roman Empire. That’s like being refugees from Colora– Oh, wait. Okay, but we dind’t need to apply for asylum. And we speak the language. One of us with an ATROCIOUS ACCENT. (Okay, he’s from Connecticut. Joking, joking. Obviously my accent is the atrocious one.)

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          4. I mean, honestly – being required by law to return to the husband’s birth city to be counted for a census is being a refugee now?

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            1. They try to equate the Flight into Egypt as being, “illegal immigrants.”

              *Sighs*.

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              1. And at the time, not many countries, at least those that existed, had any immigration laws in the first place. So they couldn’t be illegal immigrants.

                “One copper per person to enter the country, 2 coppers per beast of burden, 3 for a wagon. You, the woman, the kid, and the jackass come to 5 coppers. Pharoh’s representatives all wear this kind of kilt and a beaded or leather torque. Obey them or die. Thank you. Welcome to Egypt.”

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                1. True, but both Israel and Egypt were part of the Roman Empire. [Wink]

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        2. Yeah. Just because Saint Nicholas was Greek doesn’t mean Christ was.

          Actually, I expect asking some of the ‘Palestinian’s what part of Greece they hailed from would also make some heads explode. Perhaps literally as well as figuratively…

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        3. “One of these days I’m going to inadvertently happen to someone.”

          I am so stealing that phraseology! That’s beautiful! And so innocuous if you don’t think about it.🤣

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      3. Nit: you find the term predating 1950s, but used as a geographic term (eg. Bostonian or Seattleite) rather than as an ethno-national one.

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        1. I should have been clearer. “Palestinian” in the current usage, not as a “person residing in” usage.

          Sorry about that!

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  4. Then toss in all the euphemisms for euphemisms that keep getting piled onto different groups and causes. Truth vanishes, smothered under a blanket of “caring and sensitivity.”

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    1. Weaponized emotion. I saw that recently on a FB post on the subject of ICE—it was lamenting that Broadway (in Tennessee) was “going dark” due to ICE raids and fears of losing their cooks and servers. With the usual lament that due to MAGA and so forth that everyone had lost their empathy.

      And nobody in the comments seemed to realize that if these things were really happening (random FB post, after all), the people you should question are the BUSINESSES who were hiring illegals. “Oh, but American citizens won’t do the work!” Uh huh. Keep telling yourself that. Maybe citizens won’t be underpaid, but they’ll do the work.

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      1. I didn’t ‘lose empathy’ for illegal aliens; never had any to begin with.

        Besides, if sending them back to their home countries from the Eeevul RRRAAACISSST!! Hell of America is such an atrocity, how much worse must those countries be? Why aren’t they Eeevul?

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        2. Maybe it’s the Buddhist thing, but I have a lot of sympathy for illegal aliens, and have since I was a five year old meeting the braceros and “wetbacks” working on my grandfather’s ranch. They, like everyone, are responding to incentives, and that isn’t an excuse not to have metta toward them. And I grew up among people who spoke Spanish at home and who had spoken Spanish — and a dialect closer to Cervantes than modern Cuba or Madrid — since their families were in New Spain, not New Mexico.

          It’s the people who set up the incentives, with special “parole” programs and Cloward-Piven subsidies, who deserve derision. It was well-known in Costa Rica among the muchachos that Maduro was emptying the prisons and sending the worst of the worst to the US, where they were welcomed with open arms and monthly checks.

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          1. It’s also the people who came in, though. Sorry. These are not braceros. I do get what you’re saying. But what we’re finding out is that they came in responding to Obama’s want ads promising welfare for all and also “get revenge because they stole from you.”
            I come from a country of immigrants, I do at a visceral level get people leaving to better themselves.
            THIS IS NOT WHAT CAME IN THE LAST TEN YEARS. Oh, a few here and there, and those don’t bother me. The ones unfurling the flags of their country at the border, the ones coming in to claim homes and money and/or practice crimes, the ones who neither respect nor want our culture?
            No sympathy, sorry. Not even a little bit.
            I don’t care where they go, but they can’t stay here.
            Their biggest offense? Making it harder for those like myself who came here to BE American.
            The Braceros and such, the offense isn’t theirs. Those who come to work are being used to drive down minimum age or (H1Bs for doctors and such) to take up jobs whose conditions have gotten so abusive that nationals don’t want them. (Yes, I did say doctors. You and I know enough whose employers are abusive)

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      2. “Maybe citizens won’t be underpaid, but they’ll do the work.”

        BINGO. It’s a business decision. And a decision to not work within the legal rules agreed on (or imposed.)

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        1. And to be fair, they also decide NOT to automate, which would bring labor costs within reach of “cr*p produced in China.” Another side of the coin

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          1. Am working my way through Thomas Sowell’s Ethnic America. He noted within the Black community there were (and likely still are) two groups within America’s African-American population: people whose ancestors came from the West Indies, and everybody else. The West Indian slaves were treated worse than American ones in many ways…but they were allowed to grow their own food. Which meant they knew general farming techniques and developed useful traits like initiative.

            So when they could make it to the US, they could largely make their own decisions and tended to go for things like education and developing businesses. The American freed slaves, otoh, had carefully not been trained to think for themselves so they would be dependent on their masters’ directions. And when they were freed, many of them had almost no training or experience in making any sort of decision.

            It really does seem as though the Democratic Party never changes.

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            1. I know quite a few successful African Americans. As in, they just came over from Africa in the current generation.

              Or to speak more specifically, these are the folk who had the initiative and the drive to figure out how to come to America legally, and are highly successful in their fields.

              Furthermore, I know quite a few successful African-Americans whose families have been here for generations, and the key is this: They understand that drive and initiative are things that lead to success.

              A pox upon those who decided to teach that drive, initiative, and successful life skills are racially-based, not culturally-based, and that American culture is to be derided. I blame them. I blame them a LOT.

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      3. “Americans won’t do the work!” — not the 14-hour days for 4 bucks an hour under the table, at least.

        “Bu- but we have to remain competitive!” — with all the other lowlifes treating illegal aliens like dirt and paying crap wages.

        And it’s still better than conditions ‘back home’. Why don’t the ‘Progressives!’ protest about that?

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        1. This is why, whenever I see someone whinging about “but muh crops/lawn service/housecleaning/cooking staff/etc!” I invariably point out that the folks didn’t like losing their slaves in the 1860s, either, and that nothing has really changed on that front. Because what ELSE can you call a modern underclass who, by virtue of entering the country illegally, is pretty much unprotected by the law or society, and being taken advantage of by others who, while breaking the law themselves, are nonetheless not afraid of any penalties (because there haven’t BEEN any enforced worth noting)? The way I view it, it’s slavery in spirit if not in technical definition. Especially when you factor in the cartels who have made a big business out of smuggling people across the border…and then trafficking them on the other side to “recoup” their losses. (We’ve seen this scam before, throughout history, yes. And I would bet good money that many of those folks somehow never manage to pay back the “amount” they cost the coyotes–because that amount will always be whatever the cartels say it is, until such time as the individual is no longer of any use to them. At which point…well, I expect very few ever actually survive to see the end of their enslavement, to be frank.) And the businesses who merrily hire illegals to “stay competitive” are contributing to this misery–which is why I think there need to be some very HARSH penalties applied to this law-breaking, and soon. (I’m not gonna hold my breath.)

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          1. Yup. We’ve heard that crap before. “Who’ll pick da cotton if ya free da slaves?”

            Come ta think, it was the Democrats saying it then, too. 175 years and they haven’t changed a bit. Except maybe to get even nastier.

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    2. Just look at the long procession of terms that have been used, and then condemned as Eeevul and RRRAAACISSST!!, for identifying people with very dark skin. I mean besides that one. Every few years the existing term is summarily declared verbum non grata and another word is anointed as Proper Newspeak. Using the old term is RRRAAACISSST!!, and always was.

      And we have always been at war with Eastasia.

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      1. Chuckle Chuckle

        And one “new-and-improved” term became laughable because of serious “misuse”.

        When you get British Blacks called “African American”, you get plenty of “WTH” responses.

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          1. And neither suffers idiots at all, much less gladly. And they are not people you want to piss off. (I remember the term “M-F’ing big little brown brothers”) :twisted:

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  6. I was looking at my investments and noticed that a company with $2.8 billion market capitalization is now considered a ‘Micro Cap’ stock. Not what the term ‘Micro’ suggests to me.

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  7. Well, sure. A lot of this is just normal linguistic drift. Ever since the acceptance of the idea of the “nation state” starting more or less with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, “nation” has been eliding into “country”. The Treaty of Versailles didn’t help much there either. But we still see “nation” in its original meaning in “Choctaw Nation” as you point out, or in “Righteous Among the Nations” (meaning “peoples” not “countries”), or in “prison house of nations” (Lenin describing Imperial Russia, not that it’s changed much).

    For similar linguistic drift, look up the etymology of “Pharaoh”, meaning “great house”, which was a different word from “king” but slowly grew to replace it, like how we say “the White House” when we mean “the administration” and in 500 years talked about history like “Wydous Trump succeeded Wydous Biden”.

    What to watch out for, though, is when it’s deliberate. Some of that is just the cycle of euphemisms, but there are definitely instances of insidious planting of thought-stopping cliches in place of perfectly reasonable terms.

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    1. The definitions used for nation and country that Charlie uses in the post above are probably from the same sources the USAF SNCO Academy used back in the late 1990s.

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  8. Leaving aside the business with Israel, about which I am woefully ill informed thanks to decades of media lying from all sides…

    …I will agree that language is certainly used to foist ridiculous lies on us all the time. It is harder to reject the lies if you are constantly wading through a sea of words co-opted to mean something else.

    A couple of classics spring to mind. “Social distancing” from the Covid madness, and my old favorite, “assault weapon.”

    I’m not sure who coined social distancing as a concept, but I still see those goddamn footprints on the floor in the odd store. The whole thing was a myth of course, but the name seems nice and cooperative. It’s a sales job. Who could argue with “social distancing to flatten the curve?”

    Assault weapon of course was invented by Mr. Josh Sugarmann of the Violence Policy Center. His stated purpose (he actually said this) was to make unremarkable sporting rifles into horrifying weapons of war in the eyes of the public. To strike fear into the hearts of the rubes. Hilariously he took the name from Adolph Hitler who declared the new maschinenpistole model 44 would be named “Sturmgewehr 44” meaning “assault rifle” because it sounded cooler.

    Once you accept the naming convention, the argument against the lie becomes a lot more difficult. I mean, what kind of evil monster comes out in support of assault weapons?

    That’s why when an argument starts about “Assault Weapons” it is best to begin by asking if the speaker believes in the Tooth Fairy as well. You can’t win the argument, so you may as well have some fun mocking their ignorance and gullibility.

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    1. My favorite ridiculousness from the whole “social distancing – stand on the circles” thing was getting into an elevator that had a 3′ x 4′ (maybe 5′) footprint, and seeing two of those “6 feet apart” stickers, one in each back corner.

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    2. I’m a very firm believer in assault as a way to save lives and prevent injury to innocents.

      Was talking with a coworker from a different job about 10 years ago, and he brought up the old chestnut about how “if you’re being mugged [or insert other violent crime here], a gun will just escalate the situation.” To which I replied, “Good. If I’m ever in that kind of situation, I WANT to escalate, and do it fast and hard. Because that’s the best way to get the a-hole to STOP.”

      Sometimes it’s useful to ask them to define their terms before you get started. “What is an assault weapon, really? How do you know?” “What does that *mean*?”

      Usually, they can’t, and every once in a great while it’ll cause somebody to think about whether they actually know what they think they know. (Not at all likely to work on the type of person who starts off wanting to make assertions and argue about it, but you might get somebody who just hasn’t thought much about it and is willing to try; miracles can happen.)

      I have had it work once or twice on people who were predisposed to trust that I’m thinking clearly and know what I’m talking about…but I’ve also had to re-remind the same people over and over again, as the propaganda is ubiquitous and I am not.

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      2. I haven’t had to argue that point for the most part, but I have an advantage because I’m female. You just bring up the concept about a secondary crime scene also being known as “where they find your body”, because when you’re female, you don’t get mugged, you get took.

        (While I am female, I am also on the tall & sturdy side, and get mistaken for taller than I am. I have been realizing that my slight disproportionate physical form—most of me is scaled to six feet, while my hips threw in a vote of 5’2″—means that I read as six feet tall instead of several inches shorter. I don’t get picked as “easy victim” in public and I don’t go places where I’d be more likely to get assaulted.)

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        1. Same here–I’m nearly six feet tall, and while I was skinny as a teen (underweight, according to my doctors, if not my parents’ food bills, heh) I was still a farm girl. As well as broad-shouldered and with a truly fantastic case of resting bitch face :D

          It definitely helps code me as “not an easy victim.” It ensured that I certainly saw less harassment than many of my sister missionaries in Eastern Europe (had an elder–a male missionary–once ask me why I ‘walked like a gangster’ and although I hadn’t realized consciously that I did I could explain to him precisely WHY I did. I only got groped twice the entire time I was there (both times in passing) and when a train conductor decided to try and harass me and my (very small and blonde) companion (probably for nothing more than bribes, to be fair to him), the minute I stood up and towered over him by a good six inches he hastily retreated.

          But yeah. You don’t EVER let someone force you to a secondary location. You’re dead if they do. :/ I always figured that if I was in a situation where someone was attempting that on me, I’d fight until they either let me go because too much trouble, or off me then and there (in which case, well, probably a lot faster and less nasty than at another, more private location)

          And, like you, I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone bring up the whole “Oh, but a gun would just make things worse!” argument with me, come to think of it. Probably because most of them aren’t dumb enough to say that to a woman–even a big woman, lol.

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          1. 5’1”, project an attitude of “Please leave me alone. Or else.” Amazing what good posture, looking around, and walking briskly does to discourage casual “muggable?” interest. Ditto overseas. Staying away from places where trouble hangs out is also helpful. Dressing to blend in helps as well – tans, blues, English or similar walking shoes, very battered travel hat. I try not to look worth bothering.

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            1. 5’1”, project an attitude of “Please leave me alone. Or else.”

              Nobody fights polecats, because winning is the second-worst possible outcome.

              You are a sensei. Your style is skung-fu.

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  9. We appear to have an awful lot of duckspeakers in government and the media these days. Not that they’re double plus good, or for that matter any good at all, at it.

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  11. I mean what’s the point of even trying to communicate with the left if we can’t even agree on the definition of a woman? And it’s not like they’re going to stop abusing the language. It’s rather disheartening.

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    1. Phantom has the right idea; simply mock them for their ignorance. And look sorrowful while doing it; the “Oh, you poor boy (girl, whatever). Do you actually believe that? Oh, my.”

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  12. The Balfour Declaration didn‘t imply the existence of a separate Jewish state, but the facts on the ground thirty years later made it inevitable.

    The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem has to rank as one of the most successful and evil gangsters in an era that produced Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, and Mad Dog Coll. He systematically murdered every moderate Arab leader in the Palestine Mandate, and a good many Arabs whose only offence was to do business with Jews and sell them land. (Hitler admired him; Himmler can be seen with him in a famous photograph.) The Mufti’s organization made it impossible for Jews and Arabs to share the country peacefully, so it became necessary to partition the Mandate to keep the two peoples from killing each other.

    Being a nation does not logically imply having a country, but too often in this world, a nation needs a country in order to survive.

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    1. Which was, in fact, 30 years later. I really am a hard-core ZIonist. I just don’t want to dismiss the achievement of ben-Gurion in getting them a state.

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  13. “We’re in this together.” A covidian phrase that strains the definitions of “we,” “in,” “this,” and “together” all at once.

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  14. The editors of the Associated Press Stylebook are responsible for much of the warped language you hear in modern news reporting and commentary. “Abortion care”, “gender-affirming treatments”, “undocumented,” and many similar linguistic atrocities are copied straight from the Stylebook. It gives every reporter or editor an instant cop-out if you question their language. “We have to follow the Stylebook!” No, you don’t. Just because AP is being stupid doesn’t mean you have to be stupider.

    The worst of these is they way they treat the word “immigrant”. To the AP, an “immigrant” is anyone who came to this country from another country. The Stylebook does not allow distinctions between legal immigrants and illegal aliens. Which means they literally cannot describe Trump’s immigration philosophy (yes to legal immigrants who would be assets to this country, hard no to all illegals) without lying. And they know that, and they like it that way, because they can embellish the lie and imply that the reason “Trump hates immigrants” (he doesn’t) is because he’s viciously racist (he isn’t).

    It’s no wonder that the left hates anyone to the right of Lenin, when their brains are marinated in this crap.

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  15. palestine is roman newspeak renaming judea to syria palaestina after the by that time extinct philistines.

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  16. shlomi laszlo had the comment I wanted to make, right here at the end. I tip my hat to you sir! Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!

    So instead, I’ll cite Elon Musk as a very successful African American, and an example of a wanted and legal immigrant.

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