The ‘Illegal’ Trap in nytimes.com

By LAWRENCE DOWNES

http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/28/the-illegal-trap/?smid=pl-share

This recent article on the term "illegal immigrant" got me thinking back to a discussion on Judith Butler in an MA class as well as my teaching of Huckleberry Finn in America.  Language is a reflection of thought; it is creative expression filled with nuances, cultural relevance, knowledge, power, and more.  Whether a word is harmful or positive (or the language of an entire book/film/essay/etc) the ideas will not go away when we censor them.  In fact, the ignorance to the points will breed further misunderstanding and sometimes hatred.  The N word is in Huckleberry Finn, so we must understand why and also look at how it has changed historically.  The term "illegal" is not demeaning when applied to a people if one is trying to fight FOR their legality.  However, the fight to rid a group of people from the word indeed shows their deep feelings of being forgotten both by their homelands and their host countries. 


A serious misunderstanding has taken place. Calling the foundational status of a term into question does not censor the use of the term. It seems to me that to call something into question, to call into question its foundational status, is the beginning of the reinvigoration of that term. What can such terms mean, given that there is no consensus on their meaning? How can they be mobilized, given that there is no way that they can be grounded or justified in any kind of permanent way. What is the task for politics when it invariably must use terms, must use the language of universality, for instance, precisely when the conventional usages of the term do not include the radical democratic uses of the term one has in mind for the term?
Butler, Judith (Conference.) "Left Conservatism, II." in: Theory & Event. Vol.2, Issue 2, 1998.