If we learn anything from the language of “…the killing was personal,” “not a number,” and entering “each murdered world one world at a time,” we are ethically bound to translate and comprehend that each physical battery, arrest, and imprisonment—whether of an undocumented immigrant, a documented immigrant, or a U.S. citizen—is personal, not a number, and must be entered, understood, and engaged one unique human life at a time.
We’ll return this week to Woody Guthrie’s “Deportee,” this time performed by Ani DiFranco and Ry Cooder. The song has been covered extensively over the years.
Notes and Sources
Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, (Basic, 2010), xiv-xv.
The 2024 documentary, Bad Faith, is available on several platforms. Much of its content, from 1980 through 2018, is grounded in the research provided by Anne Nelson’s Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right (Bloomsbury, 2019)—highly recommended. The film exposes the myth of the Founders’ desires for a Christian nation and the origins of White Christian Nationalism, and completes before the 2024 election.
Rabbi Gellman’s remarks begin at about 9:00. It is worth listening to his voice.
As with note 2, Anne Nelson’s 2019 Shadow Network provides a detailed accounting of the emergence and evolution of the CNP and its network from the late 1970s forward. The 2024 documentary Bad Faith, though necessarily less detailed, provides audio-video footage of many of the principal players.
Share this post