Aliens

“Alien” is the latest code word for some people to turn selected groups of people into “others”. It has a satisfying ring _ based on themes from B movies _ of intelligences that are evil and cannot think the way “we” do and who will eventually destroy “us.” So far, however, it has not been banned in polite circles, like similar derogatory labels nor eviscerated by academic study.

Many humans and their families, tribes, and population groups have always traveled. A lot. Some driven by ecologic disaster, some by population pressure, some _ honestly _ just for the hell of it adventure( like Alexander the Great.) The folks being “invaded” would variously welcome or resist. 

In the US there were aliens arriving from the beginning. To the native American all settlers were aliens. To the Protestants the real aliens were Catholics. To the southerners, of course, slaves. And pockets of Asian, Pennsylvania Dutch, Southern Europeans…

So “aliens” _ illegal or otherwise _are nothing new. The cry was always that if allowed to gain power they would destroy our way of life or racial purity. It’s just that now in these more genteel times, the dehumanizing connotations the word has accumulated allow it to be deployed in encoded but just as vicious attacks on anyone we don’t like much. 

To me, all these attackers are more “alien” than the folks against whom they direct their venom.