In Paul Kramer’s TED talk, he explains the dangers of how the “insider vs. outsider” mindset we have adopted about immigrants influences our discussions of immigration. He starts by talking about handing out flyers as a graduate student protesting legislation that would threaten the rights of immigrants. While their flyers had good intentions behind it, Kramer explains that they were a problem. He goes on to explain that the arguments that they were using, such as, “they work hard, they pay taxes, they’re law abiding” are arguments that we hear every day, and it makes sense that these would be the kinds of claims that defenders of immigration would use. However, he claims that in the long-term, these arguments can be counterproductive, as it is “always an uphill battle to defend yourself on your opponent’s terrain”. By playing into the narrative that immigrants are “outsiders”, Kramer claims that they are playing into the anti-immigrant game.

He explains first the historical contexts that have led up to this moment, and how these ideas have become so divisive. He explains that throughout history, the three harmful questions that have been the focus of immigration debates are whether immigrants are “useful tools”, whether or not immigrants are “others”, and whether or not they are “parasites”. The phrasing and ideas behind these questions spark debate that is harmful in the end and does not serve to achieve anything productive. However, at the end, he proposes three questions we need to start asking instead. If we focus on workers’ rights, responsibility and equality, we can look at society as a whole, and not create an in-group/out-group bias that exist in the earlier questions.

I thought this talk was very important and prevalent today, and explains how we can change the conversation surrounding immigration into something that is more productive on both sides of the spectrum.

Here is the link to anyone who’s interested: https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_a_kramer_our_immigration_conversation_is_broken_here_s_how_to_have_a_better_one/details