It's Time to Boycott Arizona

[Corkey]

I won't be boycotting them.Things got so bad,specially near the borders that something had to be done.Gov.Brewer did what she thought was necessary in order to gain attention to this serious immigration problem,because it is a huge problem in this county.God knows that Mr.Obama isn't doing much to solve it,well,he might if it gets him another 4 years in office.Actually,that may be what he's planning now.Oh,to have the latino vote,good call Mr.Obama.

We as Americans have to go by the law,what is so wrong with wanting people to go by the law?.Yes,there will be a few racist assholes out there,but you can't say the every law officer in Arizona now is a racist cop because he or she is pulling over those they suspect are in this country illegally,they are just doing their jobs,right?,right.

I have Mexican blood running through my veins.I have black hair and brown eyes and skin.If I get pulled over in Arizona someday because of that,trust me,I will have my camera rolling and I will be taking names and badge numbers.The lawyers will love me.But I have this gut instinct that they'll be having fun regardless if that day ever comes.

But I do understand why the good state of Arizona was 'forced' into this law.

This is just how I feel and I know not everyone will feel the same way,so be it.

Problem is the Gov, usurped the federal mandate. That is against the 14th amendment. She broke federal law in signing Az's racist law.
The rest of your post has been answered by others.

[key]

God knows that Mr.Obama isn't .........,good call Mr.Obama.

.

While "Mr. Obama" is a "Mister", he is actually much more than just a "Mr."

"Mr. Obama" is actually "President Obama" It is a title that only 43 other humans on earth have held. It is a pretty big damn title that has been and continues to be earned and should be respected.

By calling President Obama "Mr. Obama" it feels to me as a show of your disdain and disrespect for him, the man and for the office and title that he holds.

Just had to say something.

Carry on.

[Diva]

Say what You will about Texas.....but there are plans for the Austin City Council ~ I know, it's just Austin ~ to Boycott Arizona at their next meeting in a couple of weeks.

Austin will take any business with Arizona elsewhere.

Evidently, there are several other cities around the nation who are doing the same thing.

[Jess]

I may have missed it but I have yet to see any offer here of what exactly to boycott.

Here's a start:

http://padresunidos.org/node/515

Boycotting something that just has the name Arizona in it seems to be what a lot of folks are doing, hence the earlier comment about Arizona Tea.

Hope this helps... please note U-Haul is based in AZ. Heh. There goes the ole dyke first date thang.

[key]

Thanks Jess for that link.

I find it helpful to make a list of Arizona based companies I might possibly use without even realizing it.

Go Daddy

PetSmart

US Airways

Mesa Airlines

Freedom Airlines

Dial Corporation (read your labels they are everywhere)

Checker Auto Parts, Schucks Auto Supply, Kragen Auto Parts, Murray's Discount Auto Stores (All part of CSK Auto based in Phoenix)

Best Western

and finally and most sadly...

Cold Stone Creamery

And it is also helpful and reinforcing to me to go ahead and call or email them to let them know you are taking your business elsewhere.

[dreadgeek]

I won't be boycotting them.Things got so bad,specially near the borders that something had to be done.Gov.Brewer did what she thought was necessary in order to gain attention to this serious immigration problem,because it is a huge problem in this county.God knows that Mr.Obama isn't doing much to solve it,well,he might if it gets him another 4 years in office.Actually,that may be what he's planning now.Oh,to have the latino vote,good call Mr.Obama.

We as Americans have to go by the law,what is so wrong with wanting people to go by the law?.Yes,there will be a few racist assholes out there,but you can't say the every law officer in Arizona now is a racist cop because he or she is pulling over those they suspect are in this country illegally,they are just doing their jobs,right?,right.

I have Mexican blood running through my veins.I have black hair and brown eyes and skin.If I get pulled over in Arizona someday because of that,trust me,I will have my camera rolling and I will be taking names and badge numbers.The lawyers will love me.But I have this gut instinct that they'll be having fun regardless if that day ever comes.

But I do understand why the good state of Arizona was 'forced' into this law.

This is just how I feel and I know not everyone will feel the same way,so be it.

I'm far less sanguine about this law than you are. I'm far less sanguine about racial profiling than you are. I'll tell you why.

When I was 15 I was getting ready to do my paper route. My routine was this:

Fold the papers, load them in a bag, bring the bags to the front porch and then go to the backyard and get my bike, bring that around to the front porch, load the bags on the bike, put my shoulder bags on and then leave. This had been my routine for three or four years at this point. One cold December morning, a couple of weeks before Christmas, I was just finishing up that very last bit when one of Sacramento's Finest drove by and stopped at the stop sign (we lived on a corner lot). He saw a black kid in a neighborhood that was 99% white (there were three black families within about a square mile) and pops his light on me. He then gets out of his vehicle, tells me to approach the car slowly. I get to the edge of the lawn and notice he has his gun out and trained on me. He asked me "what are you doing in this neighborhood". I told him I lived here. He then said, "right. What are you doing out so early." I told him I was getting ready to deliver my papers. Now, this is important. I have bags on my shoulders with reflective material that spelled out 'Sacramento Bee'. There's a bike, with similar bags on the rack. He then asked if I had any idea. I said I was 15. He said "I didn't ask your age, I asked for your ID". I told him I had a bus pass, a student ID and a library card, all of which were upstairs. He asked if I had a key. I said I did. He asked to see it. I VERY SLOWLY pulled it out of my pocket. He then asked, "Does it fit THAT door?" At this point, I got pissed (which just shows how smart I wasn't at 15) and said "yes, officer. Perhaps we should wake my dad up and we can see if his key fits the door." I then dropped the name of one of my dad's friends who was a superior court judge and said perhaps we should drive to his house and see if his key fit his door.

At that point, I think this officer saw his career flash before his eyes and told me that he was just being cautious because there had been a string of robberies along our street. The thing is, my parents were head of the neighborhood watch! There hadn't been a burglary within 6 blocks of us in over two years! This man harassed me for one reason and one reason only, I was black in a white neighborhood. Now, it turned out okay but it did so because in the pinch of the moment, I had some serious juice I could borrow from the prominence of my parents in the community. One can easily imagine a whole lot of iterations of that scenario that don't turn out that well.

I have a modest proposal that I like to bring up in discussions of immigration because, given this nation's history I think it is *entirely* reasonable for people of color to be *highly* suspect of racial profiling and not at all out of touch for us to think that no small part of the immigration hysteria is about the color of the skin of the people. Here's my proposal.

For the next generation (20-25 years) no immigration, of anyone, from anywhere, for any reason *except* for people seeking political asylum. That means no H1Bs, no actors, baseball or football players, no one, period. Now, if you are really and truly worried about illegal immigration, then you should think this proposal sounds like a pretty good--if somewhat draconian--idea. It takes race out of the question and allows us to deal *solely* with the question of how to best allow immigrants in. If, however, you think "well, no, we needn't do that", then I submit to you that it may be worthwhile to consider that perhaps some of the energy driving the anti-immigration hysteria has less to do with people being here illegally and more to do with *brown people* being here illegally.

I suspect that if, instead of Juan and Rosa coming from south of the border, it were Seamus and Catherine, coming from England there would be far less outcry even IF the latter were coming in the same numbers.

Btw. I want to be clear, I'm not saying that YOU are racist, please don't have that reaction. I AM saying that I think that beneath the surface (and not that submerged at that) of the general weltanschung that 'they' are 'coming in droves' and want to 'change our culture' is a fear of brown people. One must admit that fear of brown people is as American as the apple pie, Chrevolet and invading nations filled with non-white people with names we have trouble pronouncing. Even the most cursory and superficial glance over American history shows that.

[Rook]

A few artists are already starting in the Protest, and those that aren't well informed are Looking into it directly..

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100430/ap_on_en_mu/cb_puerto_rico_ricky_martin

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100430/ap_on_en_mu/us_shakira_immigration_enforcement

Btw...
About that Cold Stone Creamery?
:overreaction:

[Apocalipstic]

I do worry that this boycott will ultimately most hurt those people it is in support of. So much of Arizona's income is tourism and if it is boycotted then what about the taxi drivers, cooks, laundry people, hotel workers, bartenders,restaurant owners and workers, convention workers and all the people who make things happen?

Even more of them will lose their jobs.

This Governor was not elected by the people, she was next in line after the existing Governor was "promoted" to a Cabinet position by President Obama.

So there she is making draconian laws because, you know, God told her to. People all over the country boycott Arizona and who is hurt? The Governor?
No, not the Governor, the workers are hurt, as usual. The workers who did not elect her.

So not only will people (even kids) have to carry their "papers", but many more jobs will be lost in an area already heavily hit by the recession.

So yes the new laws are terrible, but is boycott the answer?

[apretty]

i think a boycott is only PART of the answer. but i am ALL for a boycott, as are my local and like-minded friends.


I do worry that this boycott will ultimately most hurt those people it is in support of. So much of Arizona's income is tourism and if it is boycotted then what about the taxi drivers, cooks, laundry people, hotel workers, bartenders,restaurant owners and workers, convention workers and all the people who make things happen?

Even more of them will lose their jobs.

This Governor was not elected by the people, she was next in line after the existing Governor was "promoted" to a Cabinet position by President Obama.

So there she is making draconian laws because, you know, God told her to. People all over the country boycott Arizona and who is hurt? The Governor?
No, not the Governor, the workers are hurt, as usual. The workers who did not elect her.

So not only will people (even kids) have to carry their "papers", but many more jobs will be lost in an area already heavily hit by the recession.

So yes the new laws are terrible, but is boycott the answer?

[Apocalipstic]

i think a boycott is only PART of the answer. but i am ALL for a boycott, as are my local and like-minded friends.

I wondered how people who actually live in AZ felt about this.

I hope this will go away as unconstitutional quickly.

I wonder if there is a plan to help the people who will lose their jobs becasue of the boycott? The regular people who do laundry, clean rooms, cook food. There needs to be, because they will bear the brunt.

[Apocalipstic]

It seem to be a Catch 22.

Either way, the workers will be the ones who pay.

Not that idiot Governor.

*rant*

[key]

I do worry that this boycott will ultimately most hurt those people it is in support of. So much of Arizona's income is tourism and if it is boycotted then what about the taxi drivers, cooks, laundry people, hotel workers, bartenders,restaurant owners and workers, convention workers and all the people who make things happen?


So not only will people (even kids) have to carry their "papers", but many more jobs will be lost in an area already heavily hit by the recession.

So yes the new laws are terrible, but is boycott the answer?

Boycotting a state for a law still does not address the problem. This reminds me of the breed laws against pit bulls to address (a perceived) rise in dog attacks (actually balloons kill more people in America and there is no panic to ban balloons).

This law, and this boycott is still not addressing the real problem. Just like the Health Care Bill did not address the real problem (the big corporate money in medicine). The problem we, as a country are having, is a race to the bottom line, to pay the absolute lowest wage possible to workers in America. "They say" that Mexicans take jobs that Americans don't want to do, that is not accurate. Mexicans take jobs that Americans won't do for a non-living wage. Pay someone 12-15 bucks and hour, and your fields will be filled with American workers, especially during the harvest season. High school and college students would snap those jobs us so fast...

We Americans need to demand living wages for all workers in America. And we need to boycott all companies who do not pay a living wage. It is a viscous cycle, people making less than living wages can't afford to shop anywhere that pays living wages, so their precious few dollars go to fatten the wallets of the pariah corporate fascists driving wages as low as they can go. and on and on it goes.

Poor people need to stop fighting amongst themselves black, white, brown or otherwise, and ban together to change this broken capitalist system. Tea Partiers and Tree Huggers Unite! Look beyond your own personal struggles and see that, as Ben Franklin said (paraphrased), we must all work together or we shall all perish separately.

Stand UP against Pariah Capitalists with no loyalty to this country, only to their bottom line.

[Apocalipstic]

Boycotting a state for a law still does not address the problem. This reminds me of the breed laws against pit bulls to address (a perceived) rise in dog attacks (actually balloons kill more people in America and there is no panic to ban balloons).

This law, and this boycott is still not addressing the real problem. Just like the Health Care Bill did not address the real problem (the big corporate money in medicine). The problem we, as a country are having, is a race to the bottom line, to pay the absolute lowest wage possible to workers in America. "They say" that Mexicans take jobs that Americans don't want to do, that is not accurate. Mexicans take jobs that Americans won't do for a non-living wage. Pay someone 12-15 bucks and hour, and your fields will be filled with American workers, especially during the harvest season. High school and college students would snap those jobs us so fast...

We Americans need to demand living wages for all workers in America. And we need to boycott all companies who do not pay a living wage. It is a viscous cycle, people making less than living wages can't afford to shop anywhere that pays living wages, so their precious few dollars go to fatten the wallets of the pariah corporate fascists driving wages as low as they can go. and on and on it goes.

Poor people need to stop fighting amongst themselves black, white, brown or otherwise, and ban together to change this broken capitalist system. Tea Partiers and Tree Huggers Unite! Look beyond your own personal struggles and see that, as Ben Franklin said (paraphrased), we must all work together or we shall all perish separately.

Stand UP against Pariah Capitalists with no loyalty to this country, only to their bottom line.

I agree.

Until we all expect a living wage for everyone and healthcare for everyone nothing is going to change.

This country was built on the backs of salves and people who had no other choice than to work for below a "living wage".

ps. I do want to be clear that I am for finding a way to make immigrants feel welcome and a part of the "American" dream.

[BornBronson]

Speaking of idiots,who are these entertainers coming on CNN,HLN fueling the fires between the races.Seems to me there are two issues being fought here.One is a law passing to protect an American border and the other about protecting 'brown' people.That law in Arizona will benefit both Americans and illegals,regardless if you come over from Russia,China,or Mexico.If you have your "green card",that means you have certain rights like an American.Without them,you're pretty much left to the wolves,and believe me,we have plenty of them just waiting to take advantage of people without their papers in this country.There's nothing more evil to me then pitting Americans against each other,specially for political gain..that's just plain evil y'all.

[Rook]

The Chef/Cook that gets stopped in his/her chevette by an AZ cop under Suspicion of illegal status, regardless if they are citizens will probably think "Racist fucker" because of this Law....
Same for Laundry lady, housekeeper, and the occasional Latino Doctor, Lawyer, Contractor in their Beemer {Lord knows Latinos can't even afford a Lexus, unless doing sneaky stuff, like POC}
Mind you, if ....IF their salary is affected, based on federal minimum wage laws, they can and should legally challenge it.

The protest, IMO, is just a small way to let these "small potatoes" workers know we're supporting them, and voicing our opposition, vocally & visibly demanding change that should be heard & seen, on pain of financial strain that yes indeed the local government will feel on next elections{lack of donations/votes/support}.

There's a lot of things that need to be fixed first, true, but at the moment? We might wanna pay attention to an issue that can be solved sooner than the others..Kinda like a Finals exam, deal with the easy questions first, get them out of the way, then tackle the hard ones...

[I'm still depressed about cold stone creamery...but, I got ben & jerry's as consolation]
:blink:

[apretty]

shakira speaks out, talks with phoenix mayor (who is against the racist law):

TBBRdg68jF4

[apretty]

did everyone see this? jon stewart calls arizona, 'the meth lab of democracy'

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/27/stewart-hammers-arizona-f_n_553157.html

[dreadgeek]

Speaking of idiots,who are these entertainers coming on CNN,HLN fueling the fires between the races.Seems to me there are two issues being fought here.One is a law passing to protect an American border and the other about protecting 'brown' people.That law in Arizona will benefit both Americans and illegals,regardless if you come over from Russia,China,or Mexico.If you have your "green card",that means you have certain rights like an American.Without them,you're pretty much left to the wolves,and believe me,we have plenty of them just waiting to take advantage of people without their papers in this country.There's nothing more evil to me then pitting Americans against each other,specially for political gain..that's just plain evil y'all.

Can you explain to me, because perhaps I'm dense, how this law will protect brown people? It seems to me that this law targets brown people. Let me try to explain why:

The law, as written, says that police officers can (and are required to) stop anyone they have a 'reasonable suspicion' is in the country illegally. Please note that this is *different* than saying that if in the course of, say, a routine traffic the officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person might be in the country illegally (driver's license seems fake, something along those lines). It is saying 'if you see someone who *looks like* they are here illegally'.

The reason I bring this up, Born, is because--well, let me put it to you like this. I am more or less cinnamon-colored and have shoulder-length dreadlocks. My wife is, pale, red-haired, hazel-eyed. When this law was passed and we were discussing it, I asked her (because I knew that at some point I'd need the information) how many times she had been asked if she was from Ireland or Scotland. She said no one had ever asked her that. She'd been asked if she was of Irish descent but not if she was from Ireland (those ARE different questions). Now, I can't count the number of times people have asked me if I was from Jamaica or, more generically, where I am from. Now, if I had an accent, perhaps that would be understandable but any accent I have is a West Coast accent (I think I have that midwestern newscaster accent, but that's a different story). So what's the difference? While it's empirically true that 'American' isn't a race, most people treat 'American' as a synonym for 'white' on a day-to-day, ad hoc basis. So even though my wife could just as easily be from Ireland, looking like she does, and I could, perhaps, be from Jamaica looking like I do, she is never asked if she is from a foreign country while I am. The difference? She has white skin and I have brown skin. That's it.

So let's return to this law: how is it that this is NOT an open invitation to racial profiling and how is it that this law HELPS brown people, precisely?

[apretty]

more local news, this is the guy (russell pearce, R-Mesa) who actually drafted the bill and he wants the police to ask about your citizenship on your own property. (i thought you'd need a search warrant to be on someone's property, but guess not)

http://www.kpho.com/video/23315330/index.html

[apretty]

additionally, the guy who drafted this bill (and wants to cease funding for any school offering chicano studies), russell pearce, has ties to well-known NEO-NAZIS.

http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/profiling-arizona-legislator-russell

[dreadgeek]

I thought it would be helpful, since Americans seem to have a rather ahistorical view of ourselves, to take a little trip down history lane vis a vis America and race and immigration. Supporters of the Arizona law keep pretending that there just *couldn't* be any hint of racial bias or any danger of the law being applied in a racially biased way as if America had a clean slate on race. We don't. So, let me put on my Mr. Peabody costume for the moment and we'll just hop in the way-back machine:

Mid-16th century to Mid-18th century: Europeans begin arriving to the Western Hemisphere in earnest. They find indigenous populations living here who they immediately set to killing and stealing their land. (As an aside, one can only imagine that the indigenous populations living in the interior of the country might have had some rather strong words for the East Coast populations along the lines of: "ya know, if y'all had just driven them back into the sea the minute they got here, we'd have all been appreciative of that".

Mid-18th century to the early 19th century: European settlement of the Western hemisphere carries on apace. At the same time, Europeans and Middle Eastern empires descend upon Western Africa and start grabbing the inhabitants there who, it must be noted, were completely out of EVERYONE'S way, and begin transporting them across the Atlantic as slaves. Yes, it is true that slavery existed in Africa. Yes, it is also true that tribal chieftains would sell off people they had conquered or who were problematic to slavers. However, this is one of those 'is it the supply side or the demand side' problems and we needn't spend too much time here because, for our purposes, it does not matter. What is germane here is that Africans were taken from Africa and brought to the Americas as property--livestock if you will. In the meantime, what started as a trickle becomes full-blown expansion and a genocide begins.

Early to Mid-19th century: Expansion of Americas continues. Slavery continues. Trans-Atlantic slave trade ends in 1809 (for comparison by this point England is *paying* other nations to either ban slavery or ban the slave trade or both). Mid-century, North America is completely and utterly under the control of the descendants of Europeans. The indigenous population is coming to the horrifying conclusion that they have lost and that their civilization is coming to a quick end. The US Supreme court decides Dred Scott stating that blacks in America have no rights that whites are bound by law or custom to respect. A war is fought over slavery. The 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution are ratified. One might think that universal brotherhood now rules in America. One would be wrong.

Mid-19th to Early 20th century: The transcontinental railroad is built, with large numbers of Chinese immigrants who die in truly astounding numbers. In the meantime, the indigenous population has dwindled to less than a tenth of their original estimated numbers (largely, it should be said, because of smallpox). In the Deep South, blacks come under the rule of Jim Crow laws. At the same time there is an influx of Polish, Irish, Italian and East European Jews into America. Each one is greeted by some strain of "we don't want you here you dirty <insert slur here>".

Early to Mid-20th century: The indigenous population is now a mere shadow of what it was. The black population is largely concentrated in the South (60%+) and are citizens in as much as they are subject to American law but the law, as it were, is not applicable to *them* equally. In other words, they are not equally protected by the law. WW I breaks out. Interestingly, Germans aren't rounded up in large numbers, even though America is at war (for a year) with the Germans. WW II breaks out, America enters the war in 1941 and Japanese citizens are rounded up. Again, interestingly, German and Italian Americans are not rounded up *unless* they commit an act that is actually treasonous. Japanese citizens are rounded up without having done anything at all. The war ends, the military is desegregated, then baseball is desegregated, large numbers of blacks who left the South stay gone settling in places like Oakland (Kaiser shipyards) or Detroit (the auto industry). Brown v. Board is passed and whites in the South lose their minds. Bricks are thrown at children going to school--it should be noted here that the brick throwers were white and the throwees (call them targets) were black *children*.

Mid to late 20th Century: Various civil rights laws are passed. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act into law and then makes the most prescient statement in American political history "with this, we just lost the South for a generation". The Republican party adopts that 'Southern Strategy' on the strength of the writing of Kevin Phillips (who, to his credit, has spent most of his post-Watergate years trying to make up for the monster he helped unleash on America). Large numbers of immigrants from Mexico and Central America arrive.

Late 20th century to Early 21st: The millennium begins with, quite literally, a bang as 19 enterprising young men from Saudi Arabia hijack planes and fly them into buildings. Suddenly being Middle Eastern in America is far *less* comfortable than it was (and it wasn't precisely peaches and cream before). In the meantime, more immigration comes in from south of the border and an anti-immigration movement is born. America gets two black secretaries of state in a row and then, to a lot of people's surprise, a black president.

(continued next post)

[dreadgeek]

So, let's look at what we have.

From the 16th century until the middle of the 20th century it would be fairly generous grading to give America a D- on the whole. I mean, objectively, the record doesn't even *begin* to look decent until the Civil War and then it only really looks decent in comparison to what came before it. It isn't until the first quarter of the 20th century that the majority, European descended population, decides that it is willing to play nice with OTHER European descended populations and even that grudgingly. It isn't until the middle of the 20th century that the European descended majority decides that it's willing to contemplate something that resembles fair play for it's non-white citizens and even *then* there's still lots of racist language and 'jokes' that are tossed around.

So, by the time most of us here left our mother's wombs, we could reasonably say that, perhaps, America had improved its grade (but not it's GPA) to a high C or low-B. It's only in the last 20 years that one could fairly say that America has moved into a solid B with moments of A-minus. That actually doesn't bode well for America's overall GPA.

Let's call the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries Fs. Let's call the 19th and the first part of the 20th century a D-. Let's call everything after 1950 but before 1990 a C-. We'll call the last 20 years a B. So the GPA is probably around a 2.5 or so.

Now, given all of that--and I doubt there is anyone here who could seriously dispute the overall shape of what I have laid out historically since it's all a matter of record--how likely is it, given the history of this country, that there is NO racism involved in this law? I'd say not bloody likely. How likely is it that race is not a significant driver of this law? I'd say vanishingly improbable.

And yet, we're supposed to treat this law as if it happened in a nation that has no history of bigotry against either immigrants or non-white people? You might recall that in part one I accused Americans of thinking ahistorically, I think you can now see what I mean.

Cheers
Aj

[Apocalipstic]

While I agree that people who want to emmigrate to the USA are often victimized by the very people they trust to bring them here, I do not agree that they should be kept out.

No one travels to the US in a shipping container from SE Asia beacsue they have a good life at home. No one leaves their home and family in Honduras to WALK to the US becasue they just feel like it.

The USA was set up by immigrants and has always been horrible to it's most recent immigrans.

[dreadgeek]

While I agree that people who want to emmigrate to the USA are often victimized by the very people they trust to bring them here, I do not agree that they should be kept out.

No one travels to the US in a shipping container from SE Asia beacsue they have a good life at home. No one leaves their home and family in Honduras to WALK to the US becasue they just feel like it.

The USA was set up by immigrants and has always been horrible to it's most recent immigrans.

Since you say this, I want to clarify a comment I made earlier. While, quite honestly, I think that the United States should seriously consider a 20 year ban on all immigration except for political asylum my *reasons* for it should be stated explicitly.

I believe that no small amount of this hysteria is about race. I am fairly convinced--although I might be wrong--that if it were Seamus and Mary from Gloucester coming over instead of Juan and Maria, there wouldn't be nearly as much noise even if the former were coming in the same numbers. Because of that and because of America's history, I think that we should be willing to bend over backwards to demonstrate that it's *not* about race. Now, that's not fair--it's absolutely true but as my grandmother used to say, there's much in life that is neither right, pretty or fair.

It's like being non-white and a woman in my field. My buddy Ogre (not his real name, obviously) gets loud or bangs his hand against his desk because an end-user isn't listening to him, he's just a big emphatic guy with a booming voice. If I do the same thing, I'm an angry black woman. If a man raises his voice, he's passionate. If a woman raises her voice, she's shrill. So in corporate America, as a black woman, I have learned to bend over backward to comport myself in such a way that only someone who *wants* to see me as "angry black woman" can see me that way. It's not fair but it beats the hell out of being passed over for promotion or being first to be laid off.

America has a regrettable history on race and, as such, we as a nation have to bend over backward. So by banning ALL immigration for 20 years, it takes race out of the question. I would think that those who are most exercised about what they see as a tide of immigrants coming over the border would leap at the opportunity to ban all immigration and NOT be called out for racism. Strangely, though, in the last 15 years of proposing this kind of thing to people on the other side of the immigration issue to me, I've had maybe one or two bites. That's not necessarily indication of racism but it does cause one to question why.
Cheers
Aj

[dreadgeek]

Thanks Jess for that link.

I find it helpful to make a list of Arizona based companies I might possibly use without even realizing it.

Go Daddy

PetSmart

US Airways

Mesa Airlines

Freedom Airlines

Dial Corporation (read your labels they are everywhere)

Checker Auto Parts, Schucks Auto Supply, Kragen Auto Parts, Murray's Discount Auto Stores (All part of CSK Auto based in Phoenix)

Best Western

and finally and most sadly...

Cold Stone Creamery

And it is also helpful and reinforcing to me to go ahead and call or email them to let them know you are taking your business elsewhere.

Actually the one that gets me most is PetSmart. Our dog has a sensitive stomach and so we have to feed him a special diet. What's we've found is for his wet food, Blue Buffalo Herring and Sweet Potato works well (yes, we know how dyke-y we are) and the only place we've found that carries it is PetSmart. Petco doesn't. That's going to be inconvenient, everything else we can live with. Pretty much anything I'm likely to buy for my car, I can do in the auto section of Fred Meyers and everything else I take it to my mechanic ('cuz computers, I do. Science, I do. Give me a bunsen burner, some chemicals, a microscope or telescope, I'm your girl. There is NO way I'm working on my car myself. I presume precision German engineering is just a polite way of saying "no, this isn't a 64 1/2 Mustang that you can go mucking about in so keep your non-grubby mitts out of the engine compartment!") and I'd hate to take it to the Audi dealer and have the mechanic say "Ummm, you DO realize that you broke your car, right?"


cheers
Aj

[apretty]

warning: pet-moment to follow.

...Our dog has a sensitive stomach and so we have to feed him a special diet. What's we've found is for his wet food, Blue Buffalo Herring and Sweet Potato works well (yes, we know how dyke-y we are) ...
Aj

( today i was told that the beasts have run out of their special low fat, duck jerky-strips, again (so that i can buy them while i'm out today).

once i compared the for-*human*-consumption, frozen chicken breast to the cost of the low-fat jerky treats and the treats cost TWICE as much as the "human" food.

i want a dyke-y award!! /derail. )

[Dean Thoreau]

Very good point! There are undocumented workers from all over.

I don't know about Arizona, but in my state they don't pull over anyone for looking Canadian though.


I am sure if I were an illegal in korea they would pull me over on my rickshaw pretty quickly tho!
Sometimes it is just geography.....land borders on the USA are mexico and canada....the border areas more likeley to have...illegal immigrants....
water borders i.e. flordia which is close to cuba, haiti, dominican republic, more likely to see infulux of illegals from...

We have laws, we have immigration laws,,,they need to be followed by all,,not just a few.
Dont like the law work to change it,,,not ignore it!

[MsDemeanor]

Aj, I loved your concise history of this country. I do, however, have one small issue. It's going to take me at least the rest of the day to wipe from my mind the picture it has formed of you in a Mr. Peabody costume.

[Apocalipstic]

Since you say this, I want to clarify a comment I made earlier. While, quite honestly, I think that the United States should seriously consider a 20 year ban on all immigration except for political asylum my *reasons* for it should be stated explicitly.

I believe that no small amount of this hysteria is about race. I am fairly convinced--although I might be wrong--that if it were Seamus and Mary from Gloucester coming over instead of Juan and Maria, there wouldn't be nearly as much noise even if the former were coming in the same numbers. Because of that and because of America's history, I think that we should be willing to bend over backwards to demonstrate that it's *not* about race. Now, that's not fair--it's absolutely true but as my grandmother used to say, there's much in life that is neither right, pretty or fair.

It's like being non-white and a woman in my field. My buddy Ogre (not his real name, obviously) gets loud or bangs his hand against his desk because an end-user isn't listening to him, he's just a big emphatic guy with a booming voice. If I do the same thing, I'm an angry black woman. If a man raises his voice, he's passionate. If a woman raises her voice, she's shrill. So in corporate America, as a black woman, I have learned to bend over backward to comport myself in such a way that only someone who *wants* to see me as "angry black woman" can see me that way. It's not fair but it beats the hell out of being passed over for promotion or being first to be laid off.

America has a regrettable history on race and, as such, we as a nation have to bend over backward. So by banning ALL immigration for 20 years, it takes race out of the question. I would think that those who are most exercised about what they see as a tide of immigrants coming over the border would leap at the opportunity to ban all immigration and NOT be called out for racism. Strangely, though, in the last 15 years of proposing this kind of thing to people on the other side of the immigration issue to me, I've had maybe one or two bites. That's not necessarily indication of racism but it does cause one to question why.
Cheers
Aj

While I agree with you 100% that this is indeed about race, I do not agree that we should stop all immigration to make that point.

I have a difficult time telling anyone they can't come here because it is the direct fault of the USA that they would even want to come here. I don't agree with geopolitical boundaries...if that makes sense.

It is a small detail I know.

I just wish there were another way to prove how racist this all is.


I am sure if I were an illegal in korea they would pull me over on my rickshaw pretty quickly tho!
Sometimes it is just geography.....land borders on the USA are mexico and canada....the border areas more likeley to have...illegal immigrants....
water borders i.e. flordia which is close to cuba, haiti, dominican republic, more likely to see infulux of illegals from...

We have laws, we have immigration laws,,,they need to be followed by all,,not just a few.
Dont like the law work to change it,,,not ignore it!

Do we want to be like Korea? is that what you are saying? Becasue I do not want to be anything like especially North Korea.

I don't agree that we should have these immigration laws, and yes, I would very much like to see the laws we have changed. :)

Until then, I think we need to look to the constitution for guidance, just beacsue something is a law does not mean it is constitutional and should remain a law.

If we are going by that rationale....let's look at how many states have anti gay related laws, for example Sodomy laws.

[dreadgeek]

I am sure if I were an illegal in korea they would pull me over on my rickshaw pretty quickly tho!
Sometimes it is just geography.....land borders on the USA are mexico and canada....the border areas more likeley to have...illegal immigrants....
water borders i.e. flordia which is close to cuba, haiti, dominican republic, more likely to see infulux of illegals from...

We have laws, we have immigration laws,,,they need to be followed by all,,not just a few.
Dont like the law work to change it,,,not ignore it!

Dean:

I'm curious. How would they know you're an illegal? How would an American illegal alien in Korea look differently than an American soldier off duty and off-post in Korea? It seems to me (and I might be wrong although I can't recall my sister talking about being randomly stopped and one of my colleagues actually was over in Seoul as recently as two years ago courtesy the US Army) that you would look like a soldier on leave. Now, I'm talking about South Korea which is, (more or less--recently more than less), a democracy. You are certainly correct that in North Korea you would be pulled over very quickly. Of course, in North Korea if you didn't praise the Great Leader on cue you would also be 'detained'. Which Korea are you suggesting we emulate, South Korea (which didn't have an election that could be called free and fair until the 1990's) or North Korea?

Secondly, I'm curious if you think that a *KOREAN* citizen (and here I’m talking about South Korea) would expect to be pulled over because they *might* be Japanese or Han Chinese? I am willing to bet that if a SK police officer, pulled over a Korean citizen, and asked for her papers because she *might* be Japanese, there would be words exchanged. It might go hard on that officer (there is no love lost between the Koreans and the Japanese).

I think you are missing a very salient point here:

someone who is of Hispanic descent, whose family is descended from the Mestizo who were in the region long before your ancestors thought about coming here, is going to be phenotypically indistinguishable from someone who just came over the border last week. The issue is that *citizens*--not people in the US undocumented but citizens--whose genes have never been more than 200 miles north or south of the Mexico/US border in the last 8,000 years are going to be caught up in this. THEY will be stopped.

Now, perhaps because it is vanishingly improbable to ever be *you* or someone you are genetically related to you are sanguine about this. But if *I* were from a family whose bloodline has trod the soil in Arizona since around the end of the last ice age were stopped and asked to prove that I was a citizen of these United States, I would take issue with that. I would probably want to say something along the lines of "really? You have got to be kidding me! I'm a citizen as was my mother before me as was her mother before her. Hell the last one of my ancestors who *wasn't* a citizen woke up one day and found out that she no longer lived in Mexico but was now in a country called the United States and she didn't move an inch! My ancestors didn't cross the border, the border crossed my ancestors!"

But perhaps, that's just me. Perhaps I have a certain sympathy for this because of an experience I had when I was younger.

[apretty]

We have laws, we have immigration laws,,,they need to be followed by all,,not just a few.
Dont like the law work to change it,,,not ignore it!

the law is unjust, i don't plan on blindly following ANY kind of law that's based in racism and bigotry.

further, i'm not showing my papers to anyone to prove i belong here. fuck that, as a US-american citizen i'm protected from that kind of policing.

and do they even USE rickshaws in korea?

[dreadgeek]

I am sure if I were an illegal in korea they would pull me over on my rickshaw pretty quickly tho!
Sometimes it is just geography.....land borders on the USA are mexico and canada....the border areas more likeley to have...illegal immigrants....
water borders i.e. flordia which is close to cuba, haiti, dominican republic, more likely to see infulux of illegals from...

We have laws, we have immigration laws,,,they need to be followed by all,,not just a few.
Dont like the law work to change it,,,not ignore it!

Wouldn't it make MORE sense to go after the employers? I mean most people who come here do so for the work. It seems to me that this is almost *all* a demand-side problem. Would you support, for instance, a law that said that if you are an employer and you hire someone without proper documentation that you WILL lose your business? If not, why not? Because if that happened then the flow of people coming here would dry up real fast.

It seems to me that nations have choices how to handle immigration.

We can be a nation that welcomes people and makes a space for immigrants. In that case, we're going to have some folks who try to get in by hook or by crook and we should have some means of dealing with that (I say go after the employers, thus removing the incentive).

We can be a nation that makes it *dangerous* to try to get into the country except by an official point of entry (and given the topography of the area, that isn't as difficult as it might seem).

We can be a nation that makes it *uncomfortable* to be an immigrant here, in which case most sane people will stay where they are unless it's really, really, horrific.

Now, I'm all for strategy number one. It seems that the country is interested in experimenting with strategy number 3 and parts of strategy number 2 (on an ad hoc, vigilante basis). Now, if we're going to go with strategy number 2 then let's go all the way. I have some very interesting ideas about how to make certain that no one EVER tries to cross the border by land ever again. Of course, even as I've thought about those ideas I have also thought that that bites both ways. I might have cause to want to get out of the United States if it were to become sufficiently hostile to non-white people. (Not out of the realm of possibility by any stretch) And I wouldn't want to have to run the gauntlet of what I think would be a near airtight border.

[dreadgeek]

Aj, I loved your concise history of this country. I do, however, have one small issue. It's going to take me at least the rest of the day to wipe from my mind the picture it has formed of you in a Mr. Peabody costume.

Now I just need someone to be my "boy Sherman' and I'm all set! June is already making me a Mr. Peabody mask. :)

[Dean Thoreau]

apoco...my
example of korea was simply in reference to how easily i would be spoted in korea as a foreigner.................... I am 6'2" and weigh 320 pounds...and i have blue eyes!!!

Not everything is predicated on race....
I am sorry due to geography a larger number of illegal hispanic immagrants reside in arizona then in Schenectedy NY. I do beleive it has more to dow ith georgraphy than with race

Additionally,
Likme I said there are immigration laws, do I want the borders sealed up,,no..however, leaving one country in poverty to enter another one in slavery is not good for anyone.
especially the humans involved. it hurts the individual it hurts the country left and the country entered.

I do not know what the solution is, I do know however if the Immigration service spent more time, enforcing the working documents laws, and less time playing masked crusaders at the borders...there would be less problems.

THE USA is a "super power" well was,,,personally I think people immigrating here are foolish, what does the USA produce domestically that is so important to human survival?
Majority of the food comes from outside the USa
the CORN BELT furnishes the USA with high processed high caloric non nutritious muck and tons of Beef for our burgers....and usa farmers are starving while con-agra makes more $$ then we have good ol USA Tobacco and good ol USA Alcoholic beverages.....most everything else is imported

today for breakfast i had: a banana from peru, blueberries from chile, an apple from..somewhere....a tomato from israel spring mix salad greens from mexico, salmon from the carribean farms, drank my fiji water, and will get all cozy in my egyptian cotton sheets, while i watch my tv made in china, work on my laptop that was made in japan, and drink a small sip of ice wine from canada.

Right now a bunch of yahoos are upset that illegal immigrants are ruining the finances of "real americans" truth is if it were not for the illegal americans taking jobs that the "real americans" did not want until the financial crises.....country would have gone to hell in a handbasket a whole lot sooner.

solution:
change the laws
open the borders in both directions....get an agreement with countries for a open exchange program....and have a ball.
Let everyone become legal,,let everyone become an american citizen,,eve4ryone pays taxes....non american citizens and citizens alike..of course this will require a national identification system,,,and all the liberals and conservatives and libertarians alike will be screaming about privacy issues...

cant satisfy everyone ever.....

peace

[dreadgeek]

the law is unjust, i don't plan on blindly following ANY kind of law that's based in racism and bigotry.

further, i'm not showing my papers to anyone to prove i belong here. fuck that, as a US-american citizen i'm protected from that kind of policing.

and do they even USE rickshaws in korea?

Great question and, as it turns out, they don't (except as, perhaps, tourist traps). But ya know, they're Asians it's all "most honorable so-and-so..." and "Confucius say..." and coolies and...and....and...what's the word I'm looking for here....umm, stereophonic, no...stereo-headphones, no...stereotypes! That's it! Stereotypes! (Not you)

Rickshaws were a Japanese invention which was imported to China in the late 19th century. As far as I was able to find out in my cursory hunting around, they were never popular in Korea, certainly never an integral part of the culture, and after WWII I would imagine that they wouldn't be popular *at all* given that they were from Japan.

By the way, the word comes from Jinrikisha which is Japanese for 'human-powered vehicle'.

[Apocalipstic]

I have to ask.

Korea, sometimes North, has been used as an example so many times in this thread.

Why Korea?

I am not getting it.

Can someone explain why ever we would want to be like Korea, the Soviet Union or East Germany (the DDR)???

I am not trying to be dense, I try to be well read and keep up with politics, diplomacy and history, but somehow in all that I seemed to have missed why we keep using these countries of examples for the US to follow.

Norway, Finland, heck...Canada even, I get. North Korea, I do not get.

I have this weird MASH meets James Bond meets Fiddler on the Roof meets Stalag 17 meets Southpark thing going on in my head now. :blink:

[Apocalipstic]

Great question and, as it turns out, they don't (except as, perhaps, tourist traps). But ya know, they're Asians it's all "most honorable so-and-so..." and "Confucius say..." and coolies and...and....and...what's the word I'm looking for here....umm, stereophonic, no...stereo-headphones, no...stereotypes! That's it! Stereotypes! (Not you)

Rickshaws were a Japanese invention which was imported to China in the late 19th century. As far as I was able to find out in my cursory hunting around, they were never popular in Korea, certainly never an integral part of the culture, and after WWII I would imagine that they wouldn't be popular *at all* given that they were from Japan.

By the way, the word comes from Jinrikisha which is Japanese for 'human-powered vehicle'.


They have the bike version in London. You know, around China Town.

[dreadgeek]

apoco...my
example of korea was simply in reference to how easily i would be spoted in korea as a foreigner.................... I am 6'2" and weigh 320 pounds...and i have blue eyes!!!

That still doesn't address the core issue, Dean. How do you tell an American citizen whose ancestors were in what is now Arizona when your ancestors were still eking out a living in Northern Europe and dodging the European lion from someone who crossed the border last week? Because, quite honestly, without doing genetic testing I wouldn't be able to do it to be perfectly honest. I certainly couldn't do it by sight. (And even genetic testing would only be mostly reliable because there's so much cross fertilization across the border and the border hasn't been there long enough for the two populations to have diverged significantly. 150 years in human genetics is hardly any time at all!)

Cheers
Aj

[Apocalipstic]

I have this weird mental picture of Social Studies class when some of us older ones were in high school where maybe some of us learned the names of the countries then went home and watched James Bond and this is how we think life outside the USA is?

[Apocalipstic]

apoco...my
example of korea was simply in reference to how easily i would be spoted in korea as a foreigner.................... I am 6'2" and weigh 320 pounds...and i have blue eyes!!!

Not everything is predicated on race....
I am sorry due to geography a larger number of illegal hispanic immagrants reside in arizona then in Schenectedy NY. I do beleive it has more to dow ith georgraphy than with race

Additionally,
Likme I said there are immigration laws, do I want the borders sealed up,,no..however, leaving one country in poverty to enter another one in slavery is not good for anyone.
especially the humans involved. it hurts the individual it hurts the country left and the country entered.

I do not know what the solution is, I do know however if the Immigration service spent more time, enforcing the working documents laws, and less time playing masked crusaders at the borders...there would be less problems.

THE USA is a "super power" well was,,,personally I think people immigrating here are foolish, what does the USA produce domestically that is so important to human survival?
Majority of the food comes from outside the USa
the CORN BELT furnishes the USA with high processed high caloric non nutritious muck and tons of Beef for our burgers....and usa farmers are starving while con-agra makes more $$ then we have good ol USA Tobacco and good ol USA Alcoholic beverages.....most everything else is imported

today for breakfast i had: a banana from peru, blueberries from chile, an apple from..somewhere....a tomato from israel spring mix salad greens from mexico, salmon from the carribean farms, drank my fiji water, and will get all cozy in my egyptian cotton sheets, while i watch my tv made in china, work on my laptop that was made in japan, and drink a small sip of ice wine from canada.

Right now a bunch of yahoos are upset that illegal immigrants are ruining the finances of "real americans" truth is if it were not for the illegal americans taking jobs that the "real americans" did not want until the financial crises.....country would have gone to hell in a handbasket a whole lot sooner.

solution:
change the laws
open the borders in both directions....get an agreement with countries for a open exchange program....and have a ball.
Let everyone become legal,,let everyone become an american citizen,,eve4ryone pays taxes....non american citizens and citizens alike..of course this will require a national identification system,,,and all the liberals and conservatives and libertarians alike will be screaming about privacy issues...

cant satisfy everyone ever.....

peace


OK OK, now it is making sense, but just you, not the other mentions of Korea and East Germany and places where people with accents ask for "papers".

Totally agree we can't satisfy everyone.

Totally agree if someone wants to be here make them a citizen! and no, I don't mean terrorists.

Thank you :)

[Apocalipstic]

That still doesn't address the core issue, Dean. How do you tell an American citizen whose ancestors were in what is now Arizona when your ancestors were still eking out a living in Northern Europe and dodging the European lion from someone who crossed the border last week? Because, quite honestly, without doing genetic testing I wouldn't be able to do it to be perfectly honest. I certainly couldn't do it by sight. (And even genetic testing would only be mostly reliable because there's so much cross fertilization across the border and the border hasn't been there long enough for the two populations to have diverged significantly. 150 years in human genetics is hardly any time at all!)

Cheers
Aj

Back to Nazi Germany of we start doing genetic testing.

[NJFemmie]

I keep seeing "taking jobs Americans do not want".
If there were no "illegal" immigrants to take these jobs - do you think wages would finally be livable?

I'm curious to see the answers.

[dreadgeek]

Not everything is predicated on race....
I am sorry due to geography a larger number of illegal hispanic immagrants reside in arizona then in Schenectedy NY. I do beleive it has more to dow ith georgraphy than with race


Here's the thing, Dean. Given this country's history (see my earlier post) why on Earth should ANY person of color in this nation believe that this *isn't* about race? I'll tell you this; if I were a Japanese American whose parents or grandparents were born in an internment camp, I'd have one eye on the exits. If I were a Japanese American who had *been* in an internment camp, I'd *definitely* be eying the exits! Because I would start thinking, "seems to me I've heard these notes before..." Now, it may turn out that the notes just *sound* like that same old song from back in the day but are actually totally different music once the song really gets going. The problem is, if it IS that golden oldie by the time you figure it out, it's too late.

Perhaps this isn't about race (that's within the realm of possibility) but given our history it is not unreasonable for non-white people to suspect that it *is* about race. Nothing at all unreasonable about that.

Here's the thing. This law seems innocuous, right? The other directive that has come down from the Arizona Department of Education that stipulates:

The Arizona Department of Education recently began telling school districts that teachers whose spoken English it deems to be heavily accented or ungrammatical must be removed from classes for students still learning English.

Full article link (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703572504575213883276427528.html)

Also seems innocuous enough. Both can make a lot of sense to people if they want it to. Here's the thing, there's a set of historical laws, laws from another country to be certain but of historical import never-the-less, that taken on their face ALSO seemed innocuous. Taken in isolation, no particular provision of the Nuremberg Laws or any of the other laws that were passed *seem* so horrible. The thing is to a student of history these things look more and more disturbing taken as a package.

So today, you can be stopped for 'breathing while Hispanic'. Tomorrow you can lose your job for "teaching with an accent". The day after that the 14th Amendment is repealed (yes, there are people talking about repealing or amending the 14th so that it no longer covers everyone born in this country). Then a week later you can lose your job as a teacher for 'teaching while Hispanic'. And sometime down the road, you can be arrested for BEING Hispanic.

Is that where we are heading? Only time and history will tell. The thing is, if a time traveler went back to Berlin circa 1934 with a copy of Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" and, perhaps, Goldhagen's "Hitler's Willing Executioners" and tried to warn people, I'm willing to bet that you would barely be able to find 1 German in 1000 (including German Jews) who would have thought that the books were anything more than elaborate fictions done in very poor taste.

Again, I'm not saying America circa 2010 is Germany circa 1933. I AM saying that there is cause for concern. These things rarely happen all at once. They take a path. That path is well worn and the trail is clear for anyone willing to read history without fear but with concern. Step one is always find a scapegoat. Step two is begin to isolate that group from the population--first by laws and sanction, only later comes the physical isolation.

Cheers
Aj

[dreadgeek]

I keep seeing "taking jobs Americans do not want".
If there were no "illegal" immigrants to take these jobs - do you think wages would finally be livable?

I'm curious to see the answers.

Almost certainly yes.

[Corkey]

I keep seeing "taking jobs Americans do not want".
If there were no "illegal" immigrants to take these jobs - do you think wages would finally be livable?

I'm curious to see the answers.

One word....YES!

[Apocalipstic]

I keep seeing "taking jobs Americans do not want".
If there were no "illegal" immigrants to take these jobs - do you think wages would finally be livable?

I'm curious to see the answers.

No, I do not.

Capitalism is based on someone working for below a livable wage.

[MsDemeanor]

Not everything is predicated on race....
I am sorry due to geography a larger number of illegal hispanic immagrants reside in arizona then in Schenectedy NY. I do beleive it has more to do with georgraphy than with race

If it's about geography, then they've moved Maryland since the last time I looked at a map. Ohio, too.

State Delegate Pat McDonough, a Republican from Maryland, wants his state to pass a version of Arizona's law for the same reason, ABC2 News in Baltimore reports (http://www.abc2news.com/news/local/story/Delegate-Wants-Immigration-Fight-in-MD/rozgMKvpgEKqzM-3a1y32w.cspx).
"When people come across that border, they're not going to go to Arizona anymore. They're coming here," McDonough said. linkyloo (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20003648-503544.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CBSNewsCourtWatch+%28CBS+News %3A+Court+Watch%29)

"that border"? Seriously?

[Apocalipstic]

Almost certainly yes.

One word....YES!


Maybe I am not seeing this right beacsue I usualy agree with you both.

Would you explain how this would work?

Are you saying if we made all the people who are here and not citizens into citizens then no one would work for less than a livable wage?

Ir that of we allowed no immigration and kicked out everyone who does not have papers then we would all make a livable wage?

How would this work?

Would we still be Capitalist then?

[MsDemeanor]

Define "livable wage", please. It's certainly not minimum wage.

[Heart]

And then there is the banning of ethnic studies... make no mistake - this is about race.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/30/arizona-ethnic-studies-cl_n_558731.html

[MsDemeanor]

Arizona's next motto "All White, All Republican".

[Apocalipstic]

Define "livable wage", please. It's certainly not minimum wage.

For me it is enough to keep a family of four housed, clothed and fed with full insurance and benefits, federal and state taxes, and 5% to save. :)

Way over minimum wage.

[Apocalipstic]

Arizona's next motto "All White, All Republican".

Except for the people who will lose their jobs becasue of the boycott and not be able to afford to leave.

These will likely be people who make minumum wage.

[MsDemeanor]

Except for the people who will lose their jobs becasue of the boycott and not be able to afford to leave.

These will likely be people who make minumum wage.
True. That's the frustrating part of the boycott, it hurts so many people. Legislators who actually had the best interest of their constituents at heart would see how badly this is going to hurt everyone and be working this weekend on new language to reverse the bill. The AZ legislators have instead taken all of the feedback as an excuse to crank out even more racist bills. Hence my thought for the next motto. Keep in mind that I tend to think of a motto as something that an entity strives or envisions itself to be.

[dreadgeek]

Maybe I am not seeing this right beacsue I usualy agree with you both.

Would you explain how this would work?

Are you saying if we made all the people who are here and not citizens into citizens then no one would work for less than a livable wage?

Ir that of we allowed no immigration and kicked out everyone who does not have papers then we would all make a livable wage?

How would this work?

Would we still be Capitalist then?

Actually, here's how I see this playing out;

For those jobs that are *not* portable--i.e. those requiring physical presence--the presence of labor willing to work at below-market-rate wages AND who are vulnerable to exploitation because they are afraid of approaching the legal system puts downward pressure on wages in those fields. So if we made it unprofitable for companies to hire undocumented workers (and that would be my preferred approach, get at the problem from the demand side, not the supply side) then that would do two things.

1) It would put upward pressure on the job market. The work would still need to be done, someone would have to do it, so now there would either be a guest-worker program (which we could stipulate *requires* employers to play by Federal and state labor laws) or employers would hire US citizens to do the job.

2) It would eliminate the incentive to get into the US by hook or by crook. Right now, if you are from a border area where there is little to no work and you can, by going north a couple of hundred miles, find work where you would make, in a week, more than you could have made in a month back home you have a pretty powerful incentive to get into the country up north. There would *still* be migration but now there would be no real good reason to route around the immigration process since there's no work here.

(The idea that people come to the United States to live fat and happy upon the endless bounty that is our paltry social safety net is risible.)

The reason why employers *pay* a below-market wage (and here I mean livable) is because they can get away with it. I'm going to use a tale of two lesbians jobs to illustrate my point.

I work for a mid-sized software company. My wife works for a mid-sized cell phone company catering to older people (a competitor of Jitterbug). We are paid fairly well, our benefits are very good and we have a great deal of flexibility--it is nothing for me to say, for instance, that I'm going to finish up the afternoon at home, leave at lunch and then telecommute. When we have a snowpocalypse (where we get snow then ice then snow and then more ice) Portland shuts down. With my company, we just telecommute until the roads clear. My wife has to go in. My wife is seriously underpaid and has to operate under a truly odious set of rules violation of any of which could get one fired very quickly. There ARE things that could get us walked out the door, but handing Tylenol to a co-worker with a headache isn't one of them! Now, we both answer the phone for a living. The difference is that my job requires a pretty diverse and intense skill-set while my wife's job requires the ability to have a good phone manner, the ability to write grammatical sentences and sort of generalized customer service skills.

By any objective measure my wife and her co-workers are abused at work. They are treated, at best, like unruly children and her bosses behave in a way that almost says "we DARE you to quit". They know that they can pull someone off the street and train them to their standards and have them on the phones in a week. My employer dare NOT treat us that way. It is in their best interests to keep us happy. Why? Because on any one of our product groups it takes *at least* six months before you're up to speed and a year before you are truly crossing the threshold of self-reliance (meaning that you can solve most of your user-issues on your own except for the weird stuff). It takes two years before you can reasonably say that you can handle all but the weirdest problems on your own. So if we all walked out the door, they would be seriously hurt for at least six months and more likely two or more years. Since support contracts on *ONE* product alone (the product I support) accounts for 40% of company revenue (those aren't new sales, that's just companies buying support on software they already own) they have a serious incentive NOT to make us miserable lest we leave.

So the tighter the pool of labor is, the better it is for workers. The tighter the pool of jobs, the worse it is for workers.

(cont)

[Apocalipstic]

True. That's the frustrating part of the boycott, it hurts so many people. Legislators who actually had the best interest of their constituents at heart would see how badly this is going to hurt everyone and be working this weekend on new language to reverse the bill. The AZ legislators have instead taken all of the feedback as an excuse to crank out even more racist bills. Hence my thought for the next motto. Keep in mind that I tend to think of a motto as something that an entity strives or envisions itself to be.

Yeah, I agree.

It's crazy. This Governor was not elected by the people and says God is telling her to do these things.

Maybe the Legislators don't quite know what to do with that, except try to save their political careers.

[Apocalipstic]

Actually, here's how I see this playing out;

For those jobs that are *not* portable--i.e. those requiring physical presence--the presence of labor willing to work at below-market-rate wages AND who are vulnerable to exploitation because they are afraid of approaching the legal system puts downward pressure on wages in those fields. So if we made it unprofitable for companies to hire undocumented workers (and that would be my preferred approach, get at the problem from the demand side, not the supply side) then that would do two things.

1) It would put upward pressure on the job market. The work would still need to be done, someone would have to do it, so now there would either be a guest-worker program (which we could stipulate *requires* employers to play by Federal and state labor laws) or employers would hire US citizens to do the job.

2) It would eliminate the incentive to get into the US by hook or by crook. Right now, if you are from a border area where there is little to no work and you can, by going north a couple of hundred miles, find work where you would make, in a week, more than you could have made in a month back home you have a pretty powerful incentive to get into the country up north. There would *still* be migration but now there would be no real good reason to route around the immigration process since there's no work here.

(The idea that people come to the United States to live fat and happy upon the endless bounty that is our paltry social safety net is risible.)

The reason why employers *pay* a below-market wage (and here I mean livable) is because they can get away with it. I'm going to use a tale of two lesbians jobs to illustrate my point.

I work for a mid-sized software company. My wife works for a mid-sized cell phone company catering to older people (a competitor of Jitterbug). We are paid fairly well, our benefits are very good and we have a great deal of flexibility--it is nothing for me to say, for instance, that I'm going to finish up the afternoon at home, leave at lunch and then telecommute. When we have a snowpocalypse (where we get snow then ice then snow and then more ice) Portland shuts down. With my company, we just telecommute until the roads clear. My wife has to go in. My wife is seriously underpaid and has to operate under a truly odious set of rules violation of any of which could get one fired very quickly. There ARE things that could get us walked out the door, but handing Tylenol to a co-worker with a headache isn't one of them! Now, we both answer the phone for a living. The difference is that my job requires a pretty diverse and intense skill-set while my wife's job requires the ability to have a good phone manner, the ability to write grammatical sentences and sort of generalized customer service skills.

By any objective measure my wife and her co-workers are abused at work. They are treated, at best, like unruly children and her bosses behave in a way that almost says "we DARE you to quit". They know that they can pull someone off the street and train them to their standards and have them on the phones in a week. My employer dare NOT treat us that way. It is in their best interests to keep us happy. Why? Because on any one of our product groups it takes *at least* six months before you're up to speed and a year before you are truly crossing the threshold of self-reliance (meaning that you can solve most of your user-issues on your own except for the weird stuff). It takes two years before you can reasonably say that you can handle all but the weirdest problems on your own. So if we all walked out the door, they would be seriously hurt for at least six months and more likely two or more years. Since support contracts on *ONE* product alone (the product I support) accounts for 40% of company revenue (those aren't new sales, that's just companies buying support on software they already own) they have a serious incentive NOT to make us miserable lest we leave.

So the tighter the pool of labor is, the better it is for workers. The tighter the pool of jobs, the worse it is for workers.

(cont)

OK, I knew you had a plan! and so far I like it!

[dreadgeek]

I learned about this dynamic during the 90's when I got into the computer industry. By 1996 or 1997, things in Silicon Valley were so tilted in favor of labor that we were getting paid *mad* money. Folks were getting jobs as system admins who were barely qualified to do technical support. We had our pick of jobs. I turned down two jobs that paid pretty decent--one was at a law firm I had consulted at in between jobs. They offered me a full-time position as their IT director and told me what they were willing to pay. I *literally* laughed at them and told them that there was no way I would take that responsibility on for anything less than 75K and only that because I had only worked in the field 4 years at that point. I walked out of that office, went a few blocks down the street to a start-up did one interview and had a job offer on my cell phone before I had got back home. The other job was at a large manufacturer of telecommunications equipment. They were ready to pay my moving costs, increase my pay to within spitting distance of six figures but I turned it down because I hate L.A. I had my choice of jobs, what did I need Qualcomm for? I didn't because it was 1998.

Then the bubble burst. That happened right after I moved to Portland. When I moved up here, the start-up moved me up here, was paying me a very, very handsome salary AND had given me 5,000 shares pre-IPO stock. We were going to be TiVo before TiVo was released. Then we didn't get our last round of funding. I went from making 70K in 2000 to 13K in 2001. I ended up working in a call center in 2003 making money I hadn't made since before I got into high tech. Had my skill set gone out of fashion? No. I kept my Linux skills as sharp as ever so I would be ready to plug-and-play into any job that came along. It was simply that, in Oregon, my skills weren't worth that much until 2005 when I got the job I hold now.

I bring this up not to boast but to simply illustrate the difference between a labor market that favors employers (where wages are depressed and employees are treated like crap) and a labor market that favors employees (where wages rise, or at least hold steady, and employees are treated as having some value). I do not blame undocumented immigrants for depressing wages any more than I blame people in India for creating a slight downward pressure on wages in my industry (or in the industry--biomedical research--that I'm moving into). I blame *employers*.

So what I'm saying is that if we make it unprofitable for employers to do two things, which I'll detail in a minute, then employees will do better.

1) I think that US tax law should be changed in the following way. If you want to be considered an American corporation, then at least 75% of your work force MUST be in the United States with those jobs held by US nationals. Your headquarters MUST be in the United States as well. You are free to move your headquarters off-shore, you are free to hire mostly non-US citizens abroad. However, if you do so you are now a *foreign* corporation. You will be taxed as a *foreign* corporation and your products are now *imports* and will be levied as such. That way, the government isn't telling anyone how to run their corporation. There's just clear consequences for moving your operations offshore--one of which is that you are no longer an American corporation.

2) The aforementioned rules re: hiring undocumented workers. What I would like to see are fines that draconian. I mean you hire a *single* undocumented worker you will lose your profits for the year. Each incident after the first costs you another year's profits. Make it *hurt*. Put fear into the hearts of employers. They won't hire undocumented workers.

Both will have a positive, upward force on wages.

Cheers
Aj

[key]

I work for a mid-sized software company. My wife works for a mid-sized cell phone company catering to older people (a competitor of Jitterbug). We are paid fairly well, our benefits are very good and we have a great deal of flexibility--it is nothing for me to say, for instance, that I'm going to finish up the afternoon at home, leave at lunch and then telecommute. When we have a snowpocalypse (where we get snow then ice then snow and then more ice) Portland shuts down. With my company, we just telecommute until the roads clear. My wife has to go in. My wife is seriously underpaid and has to operate under a truly odious set of rules violation of any of which could get one fired very quickly. There ARE things that could get us walked out the door, but handing Tylenol to a co-worker with a headache isn't one of them! Now, we both answer the phone for a living. The difference is that my job requires a pretty diverse and intense skill-set while my wife's job requires the ability to have a good phone manner, the ability to write grammatical sentences and sort of generalized customer service skills.

By any objective measure my wife and her co-workers are abused at work. They are treated, at best, like unruly children and her bosses behave in a way that almost says "we DARE you to quit". They know that they can pull someone off the street and train them to their standards and have them on the phones in a week. My employer dare NOT treat us that way. It is in their best interests to keep us happy. Why? Because on any one of our product groups it takes *at least* six months before you're up to speed and a year before you are truly crossing the threshold of self-reliance (meaning that you can solve most of your user-issues on your own except for the weird stuff). It takes two years before you can reasonably say that you can handle all but the weirdest problems on your own. So if we all walked out the door, they would be seriously hurt for at least six months and more likely two or more years. Since support contracts on *ONE* product alone (the product I support) accounts for 40% of company revenue (those aren't new sales, that's just companies buying support on software they already own) they have a serious incentive NOT to make us miserable lest we leave.

So the tighter the pool of labor is, the better it is for workers. The tighter the pool of jobs, the worse it is for workers.

(cont)

Did any else hear the "This American Life" Episode that was the story of GM's Partnership with Toyota back in the 80's. Fascinating, and oh so enlightening. I suggest you search for it if this episode is still available.

Long story short, and leaving out many points made in the story, the Toyota workers in Japan were allowed at any time to pull a yellow cord and stop the entire production line. It could be for anything, from a loose bolt to a major part failure. When the worker pulled the cord, the manager of the plant would rush over to find out what was wrong, taking in every word that the worker said - even writing down suggestions for new tools or other innovations that might fix not only this one problem but future problems.

The result: Quality

GM on the other hand was a production machine and the people there were simply another tool, not there for their minds. There was no yellow cord to pull. In fact any stop of the production line would result in a yelling at from the boss, and possibly losing your job.

The result: Quantity.

Lots and lots of cars ended up sitting in the lot at the end of the production line because they could not even be driven onto the truck for delivery to the dealer.

I once asked a friend visiting from Japan what she thought was the biggest difference between American Society and Japanese Society and her answer was: Everyone in America tries to be an individual, everyone in Japan wants to be part of society.

I think America has a lot to learn from other cultures. In our defense we are a very young country and hopefully we will grow to be a decent adult country. One that cares about being part of society. One that sees the weakest and most vulnerable among us as people to protect and care for rather than to step over or walk around on our way to our individual goals.

[Waldo]

Interested in showing your solidarity? http://stickerobot.com/human/

[betenoire]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/desmond-tutu/arizona----the-wrong-answ_b_557955.html

[friskyfemme]

No. I am not saying this bill is a conspiracy. The arrangement of using non federal institutions to house 'undocumented persons' has been in play in AZ since at least 2000 when I worked for the Sheriff's department in a northern county. It does offset the costs for jails. What I am saying is that the benefit of these revenues obviously can help the budget on an escalated level.
Therefore, SB1070 could have favor by some radical politicians responsible for increasing the state funds. The federal funds, of course, come from the national taxpayers. I don't know if other states have this arrangement for housing undocumented persons. I am pretty sure they do.

[MsDemeanor]

I've been listening to a number of conservative officials and pundits discuss the need for this legislation, and they all focus on the drug smuggling being done on the ranches along the border and always mention the rancher who was killed.

I don't categorize people moving back and forth across the border with drugs and guns as undocumented individuals; they're gun runners and drug smugglers. It seems to me that this law is aimed squarely not at the smugglers but rather at the people who have crossed the border to stay in this country for weeks/months/years and are by and large seeking out work that pays better than what they can find in Mexico or Central America.

So tell me, please, because no one on TV will ask this question. How will demanding papers from people in non-border regions of AZ reduce the problem of drugs and guns being smuggled back and forth over the border?

[Jess]

Unfortunately, immigration reform and ALL of its implications is just another toy in the hands of politicians who are using it to better position their party for elections. The extreme right wing will play upon the fears of their pool of voters, and the Dems facing Nov elections will espouse how "something needs to be done and how they will make a difference", surely they mean right AFTER voted in.

I think we will see more folks like Crist leave their party because neither party reflects the values of that party anymore. I think we will start seeing more Independents ( YAY ) fighting for the real issues and dismissing the super-parties.

Unfortunately, what we will not see is the President keep his promise to Hispanic voters (who helped vote him into office), to work on reform laws in his first 90 days.

"Obama takes immigration reform off agenda" link to associated press article:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_IMMIGRATION_POLITICS?SITE=NVLAS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT



It seems to me that we ( collectively) paint a picture of our "oppressor" as Republicans ( whom we see as a bunch of bigoted old white privileged rich folks. We paint an image of Democrats as liberal hosts of freedom and equality who given the opportunity to affect positive change will leap at that chance. Neither of these images are true.

http://somosrepublicans.com/2010/04/obama%E2%80%99s-continued-immigration-inaction/

It gets increasingly difficult to see our country divided along the lines of race, when I think it is being divided at the hands of people in power playing the "common man" against one another. Both parties will do whatever necessary to hold steadfast to their party position. Or at least, the appearance of it.


Yes. This bill is THE single most actively racist piece of legislature I have seen in my lifetime. Yes, it is unconstitutional without a doubt. I said earlier in this thread that without action taken on the Federal level, we would see more states taking similar action and it looks like some now are.

We as a nation are being played like pawns at the hands of both parties and tear one another apart in our polarizing on this subject and many other currently being played out in the press.


Until our politicians find " US" more important than their party, we will continue to be mis-represented. Until we stop voting for them, we will continue to allow it.

[key]

Define "livable wage", please. It's certainly not minimum wage.

What is so heartbreaking is this definition was giving - and agreed upon - in 1912. Another version came 20 years later or so from FDR when he said "A necessitous man is not a free man" - Meaning if one cannot afford the basics in life, you are a slave to a broken system. "The basics" are defined below by Theodore Roosevelt (who had to leave the Republican Party to get out from the shackles of the corporatocracy if his day - sound familiar?)

Teddy Roosevelt 1912:

We stand for a living wage. Wages are subnormal if they fail to provide a living for those who devote their time and energy to industrial occupations. The monetary equivalent of a living wage varies according to local conditions, but must include enough to secure the elements of a normal standard of living--a standard high enough to make morality possible, to provide for education and recreation, to care for immature members of the family, to maintain the family during periods of sickness, and to permit of reasonable saving for old age.

Key 2010:

Let me break it down.

A living wage must:

secure the elements of a normal standard of living. Wages must be enough to provide enough food, water, shelter, clothing, heat, cooling, transportation, and communication. These are the basics of modern living.

a standard high enough to make morality possible. So no one has to lie cheat or steal to have all of the above necessities of modern life.

to provide for education and recreation. To be able to relax (not working two, three, four jobs) and to be able to better your and your family's station through higher education.

to care for immature members of the family Childcare, tutors, education, special needs.

to maintain the family during periods of sickness To provide health coverage during illness and recovery. to be able to not have to work when you are sick.

and to permit of reasonable saving for old age. To be able to afford to retire.

And let me be clear, I submit that these measures should be met with one (1, a single) wage earner, not mom and pop each working two or three jobs. The reason why the Republicans do not want this. (seriously, there are some crappy Dems, but 100% of the Reps are crappy - on the side of corporations over actual human beings)

Is because when there is a thriving, educated middle class they start getting "uppity", they start demanding things like....Equal Rights, Democracy, like not fighting in rich men's wars, like stopping genocides, like doing the right thing for the planet. Republicans (and some Democrats) prefer that there be no thriving middle class to question their authority.

[Toughy]

No. I am not saying this bill is a conspiracy. The arrangement of using non federal institutions to house 'undocumented persons' has been in play in AZ since at least 2000 when I worked for the Sheriff's department in a northern county. It does offset the costs for jails. What I am saying is that the benefit of these revenues obviously can help the budget on an escalated level.
Therefore, SB1070 could have favor by some radical politicians responsible for increasing the state funds. The federal funds, of course, come from the national taxpayers. I don't know if other states have this arrangement for housing undocumented persons. I am pretty sure they do.

Pima County (tucson and the largest border with mexico) Sheriff Dupnik says he doesn't put undocumented folks in his jail. He calls ICE to come get them. I believe I said before that he detains and turns over to ICE more undocumented folks than anyone else in the US......and that is under current law (without this new racist law). Under this new law he will HAVE to put them in his jail.

Yes he (and the other jurisdictions) will get some money back from the Feds. That money will be used to pay the cost of putting that undocumented person in his jail. However, that is not a revenue generating stream of money. It is money already allocated and won't help AZ's state budget one bit. It won't go to the general food for use on roads, schools, libraries, fire police, etc.

The real question is: Will the federal money actually pay for 100% of AZ dollars spent on stopping, arresting, investigating, feeding, clothes, medical, transportation to and from courts, court costs, and other misc costs incurred by enforcement of the new state law?

The thing that still baffles me is Republicans are supposed to want LESS government, yet they keep creating more government on the state level with less tax revenue to pay for the more government they are creating.

---------
By the way they amended the new law. Something about making it more clear this is not profiling. Cops have to have another reason to pull you over than being brown while driving. They also included something about local/town/city ordinances. You know those pesky little racist laws that towns pass......no parking cars in your yard, no litter or debris in your yard or on your porch, no drinking alcohol in your front yard.....well local cops can say 'paper please' if they decide to knock on your door to enforce those laws. (And we all know mexicans are the ones who do those above things...snort).

That governor woman thinks the changes are good and will make the law more defensible when challenged in state and fed courts.

[Toughy]

you know I got to thinking about this more.........

I wonder if the feds will pay a dime for someone jailed under a state law? At what point does that person cease to be a state prisoner and becomes a fed prisoner temporarily housed in a city/county jail.?

[Corkey]

you know I got to thinking about this more.........

I wonder if the feds will pay a dime for someone jailed under a state law? At what point does that person cease to be a state prisoner and becomes a fed prisoner temporarily housed in a city/county jail.?

At what point do they become political prisoners?

[SuperFemme]

you know I got to thinking about this more.........

I wonder if the feds will pay a dime for someone jailed under a state law? At what point does that person cease to be a state prisoner and becomes a fed prisoner temporarily housed in a city/county jail.?

I think that the person will have to serve a sentence in State custody and then will be released to Immigration for deportation. That is why they made it a crime.

I know here in CA you serve the time for a crime if you are undocumented and THEN they turn you over to Immigration.

eta: I don't see Federal monies coming to the state of AZ for the incarceration of persons housed for breaking a state crime. When the Feds rent jail space for holding people in Federal custody, then monies change hands. Not so much for State custody incarcerations.

[SuperFemme]

I've been listening to a number of conservative officials and pundits discuss the need for this legislation, and they all focus on the drug smuggling being done on the ranches along the border and always mention the rancher who was killed.

I don't categorize people moving back and forth across the border with drugs and guns as undocumented individuals; they're gun runners and drug smugglers. It seems to me that this law is aimed squarely not at the smugglers but rather at the people who have crossed the border to stay in this country for weeks/months/years and are by and large seeking out work that pays better than what they can find in Mexico or Central America.

So tell me, please, because no one on TV will ask this question. How will demanding papers from people in non-border regions of AZ reduce the problem of drugs and guns being smuggled back and forth over the border?

I cannot tell you how it will reduce the problem of guns and drugs being smuggled back and forth. I CAN assure you that the price of a good set of forged papers just went up exponentially though.

[SuperFemme]

Please sign up and attend this event:

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/event.php?eid=121559341189362

[apretty]

The thing that still baffles me is Republicans are supposed to want LESS government, yet they keep creating more government on the state level with less tax revenue to pay for the more government they are creating.



yes yes yes!

this invites government right into our lives! so, i have to wonder if it was government that the republicans were 'fearing' all along--or POCs..? --doesn't sound like government is *so bad* if it's WHITE.

boo.

[suebee]

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-sjc1/hs402.snc3/24407_398844037992_601797992_4019136_7850638_n.jpg

[theoddz]

This article on msnbc.com today presents an alternate view of the situation in Arizona. It's worth a read, I think.

What really grabbed my eye was the last sentence in the article, which reads, "Gonzales favors an approach backed by many other law-enforcement and immigration specialists: the federal government, he says, must step in to make the border more secure and to amend the system so more Mexicans can enter the country legally—without the "help" of criminal cartels."

I think that may be a better solution, rather than what, to me, seems to be what this new law in AZ does....violate our national Constitution.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/237196

~Theo~ :bouquet:

[Corkey]

Yea, but it isn't just our neighbors to the south, they are just in the scope of this racist law.

[Apocalipstic]

Yes, I would like for people to be able to get to the US legally, as it were, though I have a problem with geopolitical borders, but I find it difficult to believe that this new legistation is to make immigration easier.

[Soon]

Not Just Arizona: From Utah To Maryland, States Eye Harsh Immigration Laws (http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/05/not_just_arizona_from_utah_to_maryland_states_eye. php)

[MsDemeanor]

Gee, go figure....the hysteria around a murder that pushed this whole thing may be based on bad information

The killing of a Southern Arizona rancher that sparked an outcry to secure the border was not random, and investigators are focusing on a suspect in the United States, the Arizona Daily Star has learned.

linkyloo (http://azstarnet.com/news/local/border/article_35ef6e3a-5632-5e58-abe7-e7697ee2f0d5.html)

[The_Lady_Snow]

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150159373730459&id=140254320968

[The_Lady_Snow]

"
So it's arrest 'em if they're brown first, and sort 'em out later. False arrest and imprisonment be damned."


http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2010/03/joe_arpaio_on_false_mcdonalds.php

[Diva]

"
So it's arrest 'em if they're brown first, and sort 'em out later. False arrest and imprisonment be damned."


http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2010/03/joe_arpaio_on_false_mcdonalds.php



So it's happening exactly as was predicted. Arresting ~ and holding ~ innocent folks based on how they look.

This STINKS. That poor woman.

[The_Lady_Snow]

So it's happening exactly as was predicted. Arresting ~ and holding ~ innocent folks based on how they look.

This STINKS. That poor woman.





Right?

I wanted to scoop her up and hug her she looks terrified..

:soapbox:

[The_Lady_Snow]

http://www.bravoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/1.jpg




http://thebravoreport.com/

[Corkey]

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ball_dont_lie/post/Suns-will-wear-Los-Suns-unis-to-honor-Phoenix-?urn=nba,238682

[suebee]

http://www.bravoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/1.jpg




http://thebravoreport.com/

Mine would say: "I'm Canadian. Pull me over. EH???? ":mountie:

[suebee]

There's a new post being shared on facebook:

JUST SO I UNDERSTAND THIS...YOU PASS THE NORTH KOREAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET 12 YRS HARD LABOR, YOU PASS THE AFGHAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET SHOT. YOU PASS THE AMERICAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET A JOB, DRIVER'S LICENSE, ALLOWANCE FOR A PLACE TO LIVE, HEALTH CARE, EDUCATION, BILLIONS OF DOLLARS SPENT SO YOU CAN READ A DOCUMENT. WE CARRY PASSPORTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES OR FACE JAIL TIME. REPOST IF YOU AGREE

Yikes!

[Soon]

There's a new post being shared on facebook:

JUST SO I UNDERSTAND THIS...YOU PASS THE NORTH KOREAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET 12 YRS HARD LABOR, YOU PASS THE AFGHAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET SHOT. YOU PASS THE AMERICAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET A JOB, DRIVER'S LICENSE, ALLOWANCE FOR A PLACE TO LIVE, HEALTH CARE, EDUCATION, BILLIONS OF DOLLARS SPENT SO YOU CAN READ A DOCUMENT. WE CARRY PASSPORTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES OR FACE JAIL TIME. REPOST IF YOU AGREE

Yikes!

This was actually posted somewhere on this site a while back --no joke.

[Apocalipstic]

There's a new post being shared on facebook:

JUST SO I UNDERSTAND THIS...YOU PASS THE NORTH KOREAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET 12 YRS HARD LABOR, YOU PASS THE AFGHAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET SHOT. YOU PASS THE AMERICAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET A JOB, DRIVER'S LICENSE, ALLOWANCE FOR A PLACE TO LIVE, HEALTH CARE, EDUCATION, BILLIONS OF DOLLARS SPENT SO YOU CAN READ A DOCUMENT. WE CARRY PASSPORTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES OR FACE JAIL TIME. REPOST IF YOU AGREE

Yikes!

I have been arguing with it every time I see it.

Again people wanting us to be like North Korea????

Someone said that if at 911 people had been asked for "papers" it would not have happened. Those people were from Saudi Arabia, and had FAKE papers.

*bangs head against wall*

Why do people especially queer people want the USA to be anything like NORTH KOREA?????? Afghanistan? Seriously?

Seriously? I do not get it.

[apretty]

There's a new post being shared on facebook:

JUST SO I UNDERSTAND THIS...YOU PASS THE NORTH KOREAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET 12 YRS HARD LABOR, YOU PASS THE AFGHAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET SHOT. YOU PASS THE AMERICAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET A JOB, DRIVER'S LICENSE, ALLOWANCE FOR A PLACE TO LIVE, HEALTH CARE, EDUCATION, BILLIONS OF DOLLARS SPENT SO YOU CAN READ A DOCUMENT. WE CARRY PASSPORTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES OR FACE JAIL TIME. REPOST IF YOU AGREE

Yikes!

sorry, but there's all kinds of hatred posted places on the internet--why re-post it here?

[apretty]

sorry, but there's all kinds of hatred posted places on the internet--why re-post it here?

to be clear, i just didn't understand if there was some meaning to re-posting a racist blathering or if it was just to say, 'hey look at this'. no disrespect meant, i just didn't get it.

[MsMerrick]

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ball_dont_lie/post/Suns-will-wear-Los-Suns-unis-to-honor-Phoenix-?urn=nba,238682

I did hear about this ..Nice !
Maybe this is going to be a defining "thing" , a .. point in which people seriously go .. wtf ?

[dreadgeek]

I have been arguing with it every time I see it.

Again people wanting us to be like North Korea????

Someone said that if at 911 people had been asked for "papers" it would not have happened. Those people were from Saudi Arabia, and had FAKE papers.

*bangs head against wall*

Why do people especially queer people want the USA to be anything like NORTH KOREA?????? Afghanistan? Seriously?

Seriously? I do not get it.

Honestly I think it's a lot of folks who take living in America for granted. They don't realize just how amazingly good they have it here. One irony of this, for me, is that when war next breaks out on the Korean peninsula and we are fighting there (we have a treaty obligation to be there, we *can't* leave) they will paint North Korea as a nation no one should want to emulate (which it isn't). If confronted by their statement expressing admiration for the border security that North Korea has, they will then deny that they would EVER say such a thing!

What's more, the person who wrote this and every single person who sends this meme forward like it was a good thing is not even wrong about the Afghanistan border. They demonstrate their near complete ignorance of the Afghan border--when you have a moment, take a look at a good topological map of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The most powerful, technologically advanced, and nightmarishly lethal war machine ever devised by the mind of man can't secure it. Think about that for just a moment. Our Air Force can pick any section of the sky, anywhere on this planet and say "we want complete and total control of that area in a week" and within a week we will have *absolute* air superiority over it. There is no body of water larger than a lake that the Navy cannot control pretty much at will. We have satellites that are *extremely* sensitive and yet, the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is owned by no one--not the Pakistani army, not the American army, not the tribes living in the area. It's a free-for-all there.

I bring that up not to puff out my chest at the power of the American military but to illustrate a point: yes, if you cross the border into Afghanistan you very well might be shot. There are any of a number of ways to die crossing that border but it doesn't matter if you tried to ninja your way across that border or drove across in a convoy, your risks are about the same because it is lawless at that border. There's a real honest-to-goodness shooting war going on that and anyone who crosses into a war zone is taking their lives in their hands! The fact that people would use, on the one hand, the last Stalinist dictatorship on the planet (and Kim Jong-Il is a Stalinist more than a Maoist) and on the other an active war zone as examples of perfect border security shows that they haven't thought very much about what it is like to actually LIVE in those nations nor what it means to be a citizen of a liberal democracy like America.

At the risk of a Godwin's law violation, Hitler made the trains run on time. Could we have perfect border security? Almost certainly yes. We would also no longer resemble America and would more closely resemble either pre-1991 Russia or pre-Unification East Germany. Could we have near perfect internal security? Almost certainly. At that point we would BE pre-Unification East Germany or pre-1991 Russia.

Those folks who think that North Korea has such great border security forget that not praising the Dear Leader on queue or with insufficient enthusiasm or slightly out of time with everyone else will *also* land one in prison. They seem to want to trade their freedom (which they take utterly for granted) for security (even though the actual threat to them, personally, is relatively small) and, as such, they deserve neither.

Something I would like to see us American liberals do is revive a sense of what it means to BE an American. What our ideals are, why we hold them, and what the alternatives are. Yes, our history is spotty in a lot of areas and downright tragically horrific in others. And yes, all of the men who laid down the foundation of modern Western liberal democracy were white, many of them were slaveholders, most of them were sexists, and quite a number of them were xenophobic racists and cultural imperialists at that. I admit all of that. And yet, and yet...if you read the ideas, many of them are very good, sound ideas. I think that some of us who call ourselves liberal (as I do) or progressive (as others might) have thrown out the baby with the bathwater. In our rush to point out their failings, we have decided that the *ideas* expressed aren't worth teaching and therefore, aren't worth carrying forward. Where we stand now, where on the one hand, people post things admiring the North Koreans for their brutal and Orwellian police state while on the other hand shouting USA! USA! and calling it patriotism, is in part a reflection of the fact that we do not know what it means to be a citizen of a liberal democracy.

I am trying to re-learn what it means because I am a grandparent now. It will be my job, as matriarch of my family, to pass on what it means to be a decent citizen to my grandchildren. One thing I know I will pass on is that being an American citizen is far more deep, far more worthwhile, and altogether more demanding than chanting USA! USA! and asserting, against quite a large amount of empirical evidence, that America is the greatest and best at everything.

[Corkey]

I did hear about this ..Nice !
Maybe this is going to be a defining "thing" , a .. point in which people seriously go .. wtf ?

One can only hope and keep up the pressure.

[Mitmo01]

kick ass article about Robert Rodriguez's new movie " Machete" it looks awesome

http://gawker.com/5532034/robert-rodriguezs-cinco-de-mayo-f-you-to-arizona

[The_Lady_Snow]

http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2010/05/neo-nazi_jt_ready_handled_with.php

[SuperFemme]

8Y1AbjZIrpk

I hope they DO make it into a movie. Sans LaLohan,.

[Mitmo01]

looks like we have the same taste in movies lol and yes maam it is coming out soon hopefully

[Jess]

A couple of interesting reads.


Petition to Obama admin:

http://www.change.org/petitions/view/legalize_arizona

Article from ethnic collaboration site:

http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=375140b01cd3301e755d0 5c662791070

[FR]

-just a thanks for a good thread-serious topic
--some other companies to boycott i hear are: fox animation studios,TGI fridays,Ramada,taco time and club jenna-guess i'll have to get my porn somewhere else....

[Diva]

When the Phoenix Suns played the San Antonio Spurs last night, they had a slight change in their uniforms......

They changed it to "Los Suns" to protest the new law. I LOVE it!

[Jess]

So, more folks we have seen as the "good guys" may not be so "good" after all.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/miranda-rights-issue-puts-rachel-maddow-and-glenn-beck-in-agreement/

It is truly frightening that creating and/or even proposing legislature that it so blatantly unconstitutional is almost becoming a trend.

If Rachel Maddow can agree with Glenn Beck ( on anything, lol) these times, they are a changing.

It's so very hard to trust a "person" who does such good work and then turns around and undoes his credibility with something as heinous as this recent proposal.

Lieberman on DADT :

http://www.mediaite.com/online/miranda-rights-issue-puts-rachel-maddow-and-glenn-beck-in-agreement/

Lieberman on stripping citizenship:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/05/how_liebermans_citizen-strippi.html

I hope this is not seen as a derail. I think it terribly important for us to begin looking at our politicians through very clear glasses. I fear the federal governments lack of action regarding the AZ case is simply fueling the fires for any "anti-American" legislature.

Praying Lieberman's proposal isn't another thing that just slips by because it is inconvenient timing for elections and party posturing.

[Apocalipstic]

Honestly I think it's a lot of folks who take living in America for granted. They don't realize just how amazingly good they have it here. One irony of this, for me, is that when war next breaks out on the Korean peninsula and we are fighting there (we have a treaty obligation to be there, we *can't* leave) they will paint North Korea as a nation no one should want to emulate (which it isn't). If confronted by their statement expressing admiration for the border security that North Korea has, they will then deny that they would EVER say such a thing!

What's more, the person who wrote this and every single person who sends this meme forward like it was a good thing is not even wrong about the Afghanistan border. They demonstrate their near complete ignorance of the Afghan border--when you have a moment, take a look at a good topological map of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The most powerful, technologically advanced, and nightmarishly lethal war machine ever devised by the mind of man can't secure it. Think about that for just a moment. Our Air Force can pick any section of the sky, anywhere on this planet and say "we want complete and total control of that area in a week" and within a week we will have *absolute* air superiority over it. There is no body of water larger than a lake that the Navy cannot control pretty much at will. We have satellites that are *extremely* sensitive and yet, the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is owned by no one--not the Pakistani army, not the American army, not the tribes living in the area. It's a free-for-all there.

I bring that up not to puff out my chest at the power of the American military but to illustrate a point: yes, if you cross the border into Afghanistan you very well might be shot. There are any of a number of ways to die crossing that border but it doesn't matter if you tried to ninja your way across that border or drove across in a convoy, your risks are about the same because it is lawless at that border. There's a real honest-to-goodness shooting war going on that and anyone who crosses into a war zone is taking their lives in their hands! The fact that people would use, on the one hand, the last Stalinist dictatorship on the planet (and Kim Jong-Il is a Stalinist more than a Maoist) and on the other an active war zone as examples of perfect border security shows that they haven't thought very much about what it is like to actually LIVE in those nations nor what it means to be a citizen of a liberal democracy like America.

At the risk of a Godwin's law violation, Hitler made the trains run on time. Could we have perfect border security? Almost certainly yes. We would also no longer resemble America and would more closely resemble either pre-1991 Russia or pre-Unification East Germany. Could we have near perfect internal security? Almost certainly. At that point we would BE pre-Unification East Germany or pre-1991 Russia.

Those folks who think that North Korea has such great border security forget that not praising the Dear Leader on queue or with insufficient enthusiasm or slightly out of time with everyone else will *also* land one in prison. They seem to want to trade their freedom (which they take utterly for granted) for security (even though the actual threat to them, personally, is relatively small) and, as such, they deserve neither.

Something I would like to see us American liberals do is revive a sense of what it means to BE an American. What our ideals are, why we hold them, and what the alternatives are. Yes, our history is spotty in a lot of areas and downright tragically horrific in others. And yes, all of the men who laid down the foundation of modern Western liberal democracy were white, many of them were slaveholders, most of them were sexists, and quite a number of them were xenophobic racists and cultural imperialists at that. I admit all of that. And yet, and yet...if you read the ideas, many of them are very good, sound ideas. I think that some of us who call ourselves liberal (as I do) or progressive (as others might) have thrown out the baby with the bathwater. In our rush to point out their failings, we have decided that the *ideas* expressed aren't worth teaching and therefore, aren't worth carrying forward. Where we stand now, where on the one hand, people post things admiring the North Koreans for their brutal and Orwellian police state while on the other hand shouting USA! USA! and calling it patriotism, is in part a reflection of the fact that we do not know what it means to be a citizen of a liberal democracy.

I am trying to re-learn what it means because I am a grandparent now. It will be my job, as matriarch of my family, to pass on what it means to be a decent citizen to my grandchildren. One thing I know I will pass on is that being an American citizen is far more deep, far more worthwhile, and altogether more demanding than chanting USA! USA! and asserting, against quite a large amount of empirical evidence, that America is the greatest and best at everything.


Yes, I think it is so important for us to think about what it means to be a citizen of the United States of America. Why this country was formed and how hypocritical it is that we want to keep other people out.

I do not want us to ever be like North Korea, the USSR, the DDR or Nazi Germany.

I want us to work together to be the land of the FREE. But our rights seem to be eroding before our eyes.

I would rather be at more risk than have the Patriot Act and have everyone "brown" have to carry around papers. At that point, I agree, we have become we say we are trying to avoid.

[Apocalipstic]

So, more folks we have seen as the "good guys" may not be so "good" after all.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/miranda-rights-issue-puts-rachel-maddow-and-glenn-beck-in-agreement/

It is truly frightening that creating and/or even proposing legislature that it so blatantly unconstitutional is almost becoming a trend.

If Rachel Maddow can agree with Glenn Beck ( on anything, lol) these times, they are a changing.

It's so very hard to trust a "person" who does such good work and then turns around and undoes his credibility with something as heinous as this recent proposal.

Lieberman on DADT :

http://www.mediaite.com/online/miranda-rights-issue-puts-rachel-maddow-and-glenn-beck-in-agreement/

Lieberman on stripping citizenship:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/05/how_liebermans_citizen-strippi.html

I hope this is not seen as a derail. I think it terribly important for us to begin looking at our politicians through very clear glasses. I fear the federal governments lack of action regarding the AZ case is simply fueling the fires for any "anti-American" legislature.

Praying Lieberman's proposal isn't another thing that just slips by because it is inconvenient timing for elections and party posturing.

Everyone needs to be read their Miranda Rights.

PERIOD.

And stripping people we think MIGHT be terrorists? The line between terrorist and patriot is a fine one.

[MsDemeanor]

Everyone needs to be read their Miranda Rights.

PERIOD.

And stripping people we think MIGHT be terrorists? The line between terrorist and patriot is a fine one.
There's also the hypocrisy of good old Chuck Grassley, who does not want terrorists mirandized and also believes that it violates the 2nd Amendment if folks on the FBI watch list are banned from buying weapons. Gotta protect the 2nd, but fuck the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 14th.

Maybe we need a new thread.

Oh, FYI, the Los Suns uniforms are not new; the team has worn them before. They were worn for the occasion yesterday, but they were not created for the occasion yesterday. I noticed that about 98% of the mentions that I've seen didn't bother pointing this out.

[The_Lady_Snow]

There's also the hypocrisy of good old Chuck Grassley, who does not want terrorists mirandized and also believes that it violates the 2nd Amendment if folks on the FBI watch list are banned from buying weapons. Gotta protect the 2nd, but fuck the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 14th.

Maybe we need a new thread.

Oh, FYI, the Los Suns uniforms are not new; the team has worn them before. They were worn for the occasion yesterday, but they were not created for the occasion yesterday. I noticed that about 98% of the mentions that I've seen didn't bother pointing this out.

I thought someone posted the article where it mentioned that the uniforms were used on Latino Day.

[MsDemeanor]

I thought someone posted the article where it mentioned that the uniforms were used on Latino Day.
You're right, someone did. I had noticed that most articles and news reports were implying that the jerseys were a new idea, and wanted to clear that up :)

[Diva]

While I may be moderately disillusioned, I still think it was a good call to wear the Los Suns jerseys......new or not.

[SuperFemme]

While I may be moderately disillusioned, I still think it was a good call to wear the Los Suns jerseys......new or not.



The point IS that they wore the uniforms with a purpose last night. The date of design is to ME irrelevant. It was the purpose that made it important.

[MsDemeanor]

While I may be moderately disillusioned, I still think it was a good call to wear the Los Suns jerseys......new or not.



The point IS that they wore the uniforms with a purpose last night. The date of design is to ME irrelevant. It was the purpose that made it important.

I don't feel that there's a need to be disillusioned or think that this becomes less relevant. It was significant, it huge that the team did this, and it was huge that the commissioner approved. All I was doing was presenting the facts. Having as much information as possible should be important (if for no other reason than to avoid the sudden humiliation of announcing to a group of folks that the Suns made these great uniforms to protest only to have some NBA fan call "bullshit" to your face). :readfineprint:

[SuperFemme]

I don't feel that there's a need to be disillusioned or think that this becomes less relevant. It was significant, it huge that the team did this, and it was huge that the commissioner approved. All I was doing was presenting the facts. Having as much information as possible should be important (if for no other reason than to avoid the sudden humiliation of announcing to a group of folks that the Suns made these great uniforms to protest only to have some NBA fan call "bullshit" to your face). :readfineprint:

Hey. Good point. I'm all about having all the facts. :seesaw:

[Corkey]

I don't feel that there's a need to be disillusioned or think that this becomes less relevant. It was significant, it huge that the team did this, and it was huge that the commissioner approved. All I was doing was presenting the facts. Having as much information as possible should be important (if for no other reason than to avoid the sudden humiliation of announcing to a group of folks that the Suns made these great uniforms to protest only to have some NBA fan call "bullshit" to your face). :readfineprint:

Um I posted the link in question and I don't believe any of the words you used were expressed by myself. Yes I have seen those uniforms before.

[Soon]

http://gringomask.com/

[MsDemeanor]

Um I posted the link in question and I don't believe any of the words you used were expressed by myself. Yes I have seen those uniforms before.
I'm really confused, as nothing that I posted referenced you or your words. I clearly stated that most of the media reports that I had seen neglected to mention that these uniforms already existed. If your offended or something, please don't be; it really wasn't about you.

[FR]

http://presente.org/sticker/az?ak_uid=72.35028.3zfWY8

--link to free sticker or more with donation and good site

[The_Lady_Snow]

http://presente.org/sticker/az?ak_uid=72.35028.3zfWY8

--link to free sticker or more with donation and good site


http://presente.org/siteimages/Presente_LicensePlateAZ_300px.jpg

[Diva]

This is a good thread......but I am frustrated for the good people in AZ.....

Just the good ones...not the creepy ones......

[Apocalipstic]

There's also the hypocrisy of good old Chuck Grassley, who does not want terrorists mirandized and also believes that it violates the 2nd Amendment if folks on the FBI watch list are banned from buying weapons. Gotta protect the 2nd, but fuck the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 14th.

Maybe we need a new thread.



he really is not being very consistent is he?

if you are on the FBI list you should not be read your rights, but you should be able to get a gun. makes no sense.

UGH

[Corkey]

I'm really confused, as nothing that I posted referenced you or your words. I clearly stated that most of the media reports that I had seen neglected to mention that these uniforms already existed. If your offended or something, please don't be; it really wasn't about you.

Not offended, clarity.

[MsDemeanor]

This thread derail is so much of a derail that it's a "the train is in the next county somewhere hanging from a tree" derail, but this is the only thread I'm posting in lately and I simply had to share.

linklyloo (http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html)

[firie]

Wanted to post this following email from a social work professor in Arizona. I was given a green light to share it in good company and thought the accounting here of what is happening was important to share, as this is not what is being shown on any of my local news channels.

Anyway, here is the email:
Greetings everyone,
I hope all of you are healthy, happy and productive in whatever ways you have chosen. It would be a treat to hear from any of you who find time enough to send an email. Of course, I haven't been communicating with you either, but am now moved to do so by the urgency of what is happening here in Arizona . I believe the word is out nation-wide that our state legislature produced the most racist piece of legislation since those brought down by the civil rights movement. SB 1070 allows local police and sheriffs in AZ to apprehend anyone they have reason to suspect is in the US without documentation. In AZ that is anybody who "looks Mexican" or if they are feeling particularly motivated, anyone whose skin is not obviously white! Never mind that this is land taken from Mexico with assurance that the Mexican families living here were made full US citizens, that the majority of Latinos living here are citizens, that our Latino population has much deeper roots here than Anglos, that Mexican families live on both sides of the border, that our Native American population--with the deepest roots here--also get swept up in this "ethnic cleansing" effort. Truly, it is hard to believe what I see happening around me!

In addition to the engagement of local law enforcement officers in this madness, both the Border Patrol and ICE are acting with impunity. Two weeks ago ICE brought in an additional 200 agents to conduct a sweep of an area on Tucson . They blocked off streets in the Latino section of the city and raided the commercial shuttle companies that transport people between Tucson and Phoenix , and between Tucson and Nogales . The majority of their passengers are Latino since families are spread among these three cities. Owners and drivers were arrested as "smugglers" basically, because they transport people without regard to their legal status. (Of course, they have no legal right to ask their customers status!) This part of the ICE action got positive media coverage as a significant arrest of smugglers. What the media did not say was that the ICE agents also invaded some apartment buildings, going door to door, banging on the doors and shouting at occupants to open up. What else was not reported was that these ICE agents were MASKED AND FULLY ARMED WITH AUTOMATIC WEAPONS. Clearly, it was an effort aimed at terrorizing the Latino community, and believe me, it was successful! This is only one event that may give you a sense of the fact that we are living in a militarized zone down here.

I'm telling you this, because I know you to be thoughtful, concerned citizens, and people nationwide need to know what is happening. In fact, you may have realized that something of the same nature is happening, hopefully in a smaller way, in your own communities. Down in Nogales , Mexico , where we are trying to help people who have been deported from the US , we are meeting people who have been picked up and deported from all parts of the country. For example, last week I was talking with a man deported from Pensacola , Florida . He was preparing to cross our desert and some way get back home because "My wife and 3 kids--my only family--are in Pensacola ." (All his family members are US citizens.) We hear this over and over again, every day, from people deported from every state.

Please, talk to your friends and neighbors about what is happening in our country. It would be great if you would express concern in letters to your government representatives and letters to the editor of your local papers. Please urge the federal government to overturn SB 1070 in AZ as it did the racist laws in the South during the civil rights movement.

Ok folks, I'm sorry to load this on you, but I needed to write it! I hope you understand that you are the recipients because I know what good folks you are. Again, I want you to know I still think about all of you often and am grateful for our connection. However, for the moment---til we get SB 1070 repealed, I have to urge everyone to BOYCOTT ARIZONA !

[MsMerrick]

This thread derail is so much of a derail that it's a "the train is in the next county somewhere hanging from a tree" derail, but this is the only thread I'm posting in lately and I simply had to share.

linklyloo (http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html)

My Alot is cuter than you're Alot... ( yes on purpose.. )

[MsDemeanor]

My Alot is cuter than you're Alot... ( yes on purpose.. )
I like you Alot :)

[SuperFemme]

This thread derail is so much of a derail that it's a "the train is in the next county somewhere hanging from a tree" derail, but this is the only thread I'm posting in lately and I simply had to share.

linklyloo (http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html)

Yeah. So thanks alot!

[Diva]

This thread derail is so much of a derail that it's a "the train is in the next county somewhere hanging from a tree" derail, but this is the only thread I'm posting in lately and I simply had to share.

linklyloo (http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html)


Austin should have Alot Ranches......You know....to keep it weird alot......

:cowboy:

[MsMerrick]

I like you Alot :)

Irregardless, I dig you ...

[BornBronson]

Well,after reading a few more of these posts,I am still not convinced why I should boycott Arizona.I believe that all immigrants should be welcome here in America,after all,this is a land built on people from many countries.You can't deny that we are living in a dangerous world.America has rules and laws,I support that.When I was born I was documented and given a birth certificate and a social security number.I also had just enough native American blood in me to be issued a card stating that I am a bona fide member of a federally recognized tribe.All those documents have helped me in some way or another,but most importantly it has proven my citizenship,and that I can be 'tracked' so to speak,and frankly I'm fine with that.I'm a good productive person in this society that doesn't commit crimes for a living.I'm simply saying here that by supporting Arizona's new law that if I was given 'papers' to live in this country,why shouldn't others from different countries be expected to?.We now know that this bill was drawn up by a racist,that alone will probably get it struck down by the supreme court.But I don't see it as being a racist law.If the law is killed,I hope something similar is written up so that it won't be seen as a law that profiles people..but that could be a real challenge.

Someone reported my posts as being racist,I am sorry you felt that way.My opinion is here because it should be counted,like yours.If my opinion is different than yours,then lets agree to disagree.But don't call me something that is untrue..or try to get me banned for typing my thoughts on this serious subject.When you do that I feel like you're trying to censor me.

I'm here trying to figure it all out myself.If we work together we might get something done to protect our borders.

Peace y'all,not war.

[Queerasfck]

If we work together we might get something done to protect our borders.

Peace y'all,not war.

What are we protecting our borders from exactly?

[MsDemeanor]

Bronson, if you were stopped by a cop every time you drove your car and asked to produce papers, or a cop came to your door twice a week under the premise of you having some minor lawn violation and asked you to produce papers, or a cop wandered over in the middle of a romantic dinner and asked you to produce papers, would you still be "fine with that"? If you walked down the block to grab a soda from the local store and forgot your papers and ended up in jail or fined because you forgot your papers, would you still be "fine with that"? I'm just trying to gauge where you stand on pesky little things like civil liberties and such.

[MsDemeanor]

What are we protecting our borders from exactly?
From people who want to mow our lawns and wash our dishes and harvest our food and clean our hotel rooms, perhaps?

If we work together we might get something done to protect our borders.
It's not 'borders", it's "border". Just one. Just the one to the south. No one's pitching a fit about closing the border to the north, or building ten foot sea walls along the coasts. There's only one border that they seem to be concerned about.

[Mister Bent]

From people who want to mow our lawns and wash our dishes and harvest our food and clean our hotel rooms, perhaps?


It's not 'borders", it's "border". Just one. Just the one to the south. No one's pitching a fit about closing the border to the north, or building ten foot sea walls along the coasts. There's only one border that they seem to be concerned about.


Right, that's the same border that allowed in that guy who planted the car bomb in Times Square.

He was just super miffed he couldn't get a job mowing lawns.

What's that border? Can we protect that one?

NE1?

[apretty]

I'm here trying to figure it all out myself.If we work together we might get something done to protect our borders.


i could give a shit about the border, how do we protect the mexicans?

[BornBronson]

Bronson, if you were stopped by a cop every time you drove your car and asked to produce papers, or a cop came to your door twice a week under the premise of you having some minor lawn violation and asked you to produce papers, or a cop wandered over in the middle of a romantic dinner and asked you to produce papers, would you still be "fine with that"? If you walked down the block to grab a soda from the local store and forgot your papers and ended up in jail or fined because you forgot your papers, would you still be "fine with that"? I'm just trying to gauge where you stand on pesky little things like civil liberties and such.


I wouldn't like it,but I know my civil rights and do get very loud in public if my rights are violated in anyway or form in America..my mamma taught me to be like that.


Serious question for you MsDemeanor,my posts are talking about protecting American borders.What do you suppose we do about illegals coming across into America and not getting themselves documented?.That's not too much to ask in my opinion.I mean,when I travel over to other countries I need to carry my 'papers' and show them on demand.When that happens,I don't feel like my civil liberties have been taken away.

Do you suppose we do nothing,like maybe if we ignore all the drug killings,and rapes,kidnappings taking place it will just fix itself..go away perhaps.No,I feel we need to do something about it.

Passing this law was a good start.

My eyes are tired,I am going to bed now y'all.

[MsDemeanor]

Right, that's the same border that allowed in that guy who planted the car bomb in Times Square.

Um, he was a US citizen.

[Mister Bent]

Um, he was a US citizen.

Kind of the point, no?

[MsDemeanor]

I wouldn't like it,but I know my civil rights and do get very loud in public if my rights are violated in anyway or form in America..my mamma taught me to be like that.

Yeah, that'll get you tossed in to jail, too.

Serious question for you MsDemeanor,my posts are talking about protecting American borders.What do you suppose we do about illegals coming across into America and not getting themselves documented?.

Your posts aren't about protecting borders (and as I said, it's border, just the one), they're about people and papers. How does demanding papers from a US citizen with Hispanic features in Flagstaff protect our southern border? We're still wondering what you feel that we're protecting our border from.

What we do about the people already here is complex. Perhaps we could start by prosecuting the employers who give them jobs? There's a firm that handles mail-in rebates for companies, you know, send in three proofs of purchase for a five dollar check sort of thing. For years and years and years, I addressed those envelopes to Young America, MN. A few years ago the address changed - to El Paso, TX. Gee, I wonder who they hire now.

Industries in country it has been dependent upon these laborers for too many years to just tell them to all leave. And "getting themselves documented" isn't an easy process, especially since the government currently doesn't have a way for them to do that.

That's not too much to ask in my opinion.I mean,when I travel over to other countries I need to carry my 'papers' and show them on demand.When that happens,I don't feel like my civil liberties have been taken away.

This isn't showing your passport to the desk clerk at a hotel in Paris or the porter at a train station in Milan, this is showing a stack of immigration documents to every cop at the 7-11.

Do you suppose we do nothing,like maybe if we ignore all the drug killings,and rapes,kidnappings taking place it will just fix itself..go away perhaps.No,I feel we need to do something about it.

Wait, wait, wait, are we discussing people who come to this country and stay so that they can have jobs, or are we talking about drug runners and gun smugglers? Two different things. We could probably cut down quite a bit on the gun smuggling if we could get rid of all the damn gun shops along the border and enforce federal wait periods at gun shows, and we could cut down quite a bit on the smuggled drugs if we'd just drop the puritanical bullshit and legalize them.

Passing this law was a good start.

My eyes are tired,I am going to bed now y'all.

My responses in red.

[apretty]

Someone reported my posts as being racist

that's probably the understatement of the century.

[apretty]

please click the link to read the article (it's good stuff!!)...

http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/2010/05/08/20100508arizona-immigration-law-barrio-cafe-chef.html

Barrio Cafe chef speaks her mind about Arizona's new immigration law

by Michael Kiefer - May. 8, 2010 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

Silvana Salcido Esparza is nationally known for the food she serves at Barrio Cafe in Phoenix. She was a 2010 finalist for best Southwestern chef in the coveted James Beard Foundation Awards, the Oscars of food.

But last week, she was pushing a Mexican ice-cream cart by the state Capitol during a protest against Senate Bill 1070, the new immigration law that requires police to ask for proof of citizenship if they suspect someone is in the country illegally...

[dreadgeek]

I wouldn't like it,but I know my civil rights and do get very loud in public if my rights are violated in anyway or form in America..my mamma taught me to be like that.


Bronson:

Have you ever had a gun pulled on you by a police officer for being in the wrong neighborhood? I have. Have you ever had a cop get behind you on a surface street and then follow you for five miles even though you were obeying every traffic law and the only thing that might have gotten his notice is that you are brown-skinned with dreadlocks and driving a luxury car? I have. If you have been tailed, were you afraid--I don't mean in the "oh crap, he's going to give me a ticket" sense but in the "oh shit, let me get on the phone so at least if he pulls me over and this goes badly, there's a recording of the incident".


Serious question for you MsDemeanor,my posts are talking about protecting American borders.What do you suppose we do about illegals coming across into America and not getting themselves documented?.That's not too much to ask in my opinion.I mean,when I travel over to other countries I need to carry my 'papers' and show them on demand.When that happens,I don't feel like my civil liberties have been taken away.

You are a VISITOR in that country. We're talking about American citizens being detained and asked to show their papers. I'm sorry to tell you this, Bronson, but my wife--who is white, hazel eyed with red-hair--being stopped by the police is a completely different experience than me being stopped by the police. She is going to be treated as "Ma'am" while I'll be treated as "criminal until proven otherwise". That's just the reality of life in America for brown-skinned people. While you may be sanguine about some American citizen being stopped because she happens to share a phenotypic trait with someone from Mexico, that doesn't mean that we *should* be sanguine about that.


Do you suppose we do nothing,like maybe if we ignore all the drug killings,and rapes,kidnappings taking place it will just fix itself..go away perhaps.No,I feel we need to do something about it.

Straw man argument. Unless I was mistaken, murder, rape and kidnapping are *already* against the law in Arizona and if they are not, Federal law prohibits all of those and supercedes Arizona law. No one is saying that those crimes should not be prosecuted, but that's not what this law is about. It is about targeting a group of people who all share a particular phenotype.

I'm curious if you can answer this question for me. How is that an officer of the law is supposed to be able to tell, by looking at someone, whether or not his person's family was in Arizona for longer than whites knew that this continent existed (there's been human habitation in Arizona since *at least* 9000 BCE) and someone who is from ten miles south of the Arizona-Mexico border and who just got here last Wednesday? That's the concern. The population of the border area--the *indigenous* population--will look very similar because there's not enough of a gap for the two gene pools to have diverged. Given this reality, how do you propose the police in Arizona discern the American citizens (the descendants of the people who came across the land bridge 13K years ago, settled in Arizona around 9K years ago and have stayed put) and those who are descended from the same stock but kept going south into what became Mexico?

Cheers
Aj

[dreadgeek]

I wouldn't like it,but I know my civil rights and do get very loud in public if my rights are violated in anyway or form in America..my mamma taught me to be like that.




The fact that you 'get loud' if your civil rights are violated tells me that, despite your Native American card you are not treated--on a day-to-day basis--as anything other than white in this society. Why do I know that? Let's compare three circumstances---your hypothetical having your civil rights violated, my *actually* having my civil rights violated and a prominent non-white person having HIS civil rights violated.

So you would 'get very loud' in public.

Now, I was standing on the lawn of my parents house, getting ready to do my paper route--as wholesome a bit of Americana as you can imagine in the early 80's--when a cop pulled his weapon on me and demanded to see my identification to establish "what I was doing in this neighborhood". We'd lived in that neighborhood for 14 years at that point. It was the only *other* house I'd lived in. The only reason it didn't go really hard on me (I didn't have an ID on me because I was 15 and my ID consisted of a bus pass, a library card and a student ID card--all upstairs) was that I was able to name drop a superior court judges' name because of the prominence of my family in Sacramento.

Henry Louis Gates was *in his own home*, was insulted by a police officer demanding that he provide some proof that this was his own home and he got arrested!

Now, one of these incidents is not like the other. One of these incidents isn't the same. What do you think the difference could be? When I have to talk to the police I don't 'get loud'. No matter *how* scared I am, I stay calm, my tone of voice is measured, reassuring the officer that I am not getting angry no matter how pissed off I am, I keep my hands in plain view and restrain my tendency to gesticulate when I talk. Why? Because any other behavior is a fantastic way of, if I’m lucky, spending the night in jail and if I'm not lucky being late--as in the late Adrienne Davis.

Now, this might come as a surprise to you but the experience of Hispanics with the police is closer to my or Skip Gates experience than it is to yours or my wife's experience.

[dreadgeek]

http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/seattle-detective-shandy-cobane-apologizes-for-racial-epithet-beating/19469856?ncid=webmaildl1

The video shows a group of officers standing around three men who are lying on the ground. Seattle Police Detective Shandy Cobane shouts, "I'm going to beat the [expletive] Mexican [expletive] out of you homey! You feel me?"


Pretty much the video and article speak for themselves. This was in Seattle--liberal, rainy, Seattle 1000 miles from the border. Please note that the person who was beat wasn't armed, he wasn't even handcuffed and he wasn't arrested.

[dreadgeek]

Do you suppose we do nothing,like maybe if we ignore all the drug killings,and rapes,kidnappings taking place it will just fix itself..go away perhaps.No,I feel we need to do something about it.

Passing this law was a good start.

My eyes are tired,I am going to bed now y'all.

Oh, perfect border security is easy enough. Once we achieved it we wouldn't be recognizable as the same nation, but achieving perfect border security is simple.

Step 1) Build a large wall along the border.

Step 2) Put a mine field on both sides of the wall.

Step 3) Every 200 yards or so, put a weapons system based on the Phalanx ship-defense system (rotary cannon, auto-firing) using an FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared) targeting system tuned to shoot at anything with a heat signature larger than, say, a coyote. To be 'humane' have warning signs in several languages 1000 feet from the wall warning that anything trespassing into this are will be shot by an automatic system. Lights and sirens here might help.

Step 4) Have routine, 24 hour, aerial surveillance using either predator drones or satellites (probably the former, the physics of doing the latter in a very low orbit (which is what you would want for this kind of application) ). The drones could be armed or unarmed, take your pick.

There you go, perfect border security and defense in depth. Anything that makes it through all the layers is an army.

We can already control the ports of entry so that's not the problem. You take the ports of entry down to a very small number (no more than half a dozen) and there you have it. You have achieved a level of border security that would be the envy of the East German Stasi. Congrats!

Now, who or what you'll blame when there are still murders, still theft, still drug trafficking in Arizona after we have achieved perfect border security I don't know.

[apretty]

more from phoenix:

link: http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2010-05-06/news/sheriff-joe-arpaio-s-reign-of-terror-becomes-state-policy-thanks-to-state-senator-russell-pearce-and-governor-jan-brewer/

excerpt from: Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Reign of Terror Becomes State Policy, Thanks to State Senator Russell Pearce and Governor Jan Brewer


...We know precisely what the impact of Senate Bill 1070 will be upon the streets of Arizona because of a little-noticed settlement in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona.

In 2001, Flagstaff attorney Lee Brooke Phillips and the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona sued the state, charging that the Department of Public Safety — the highway patrol — engaged in rampant racial profiling.

John Lamberth, a Temple University professor with expertise in racial-profiling research, produced data in 2000 that showed African Americans made up fewer than 3 percent of traffic offenders but 43 percent of all stops by the DPS.

Based upon this study, the court ordered the highway patrol to turn over all data on traffic stops in northern Arizona for a one-year period.

What happened next made seasoned observers blink.

Instead of turning over records, records were destroyed.

"Look, the judge ordered the state to turn over a year's worth of records, and the state's prosecutor's office refused to turn them over," noted Phillips in an interview at the time with an advocacy group. "We learned they weren't turning them over because half of them have been destroyed."

Arnold vs. Department of Public Safety reached a historic settlement in 2006 with a federal court's approval.

The settlement, among other provisions, required the DPS to collect information on all traffic stops between July 1, 2006, and June 30, 2007.

Of the 200,000 traffic stops made on Arizona's interstates during this period, 13,271 ended with a vehicle search.

According to the study: "On average, Native Americans stopped by DPS officers were 3.25 times more likely to be searched than whites stopped by DPS officers. African Americans and Hispanics were 2.5 times more likely than whites to be searched by the DPS...


more from the same article:

"Higher search rates for minorities were not justified by higher rates of transporting contraband. In fact, on average, whites were more likely to be carrying contraband than Native Americans, Middle Easterners, Hispanics, and Asians on all major Arizona highways. African Americans were at least twice as likely as whites to be searched on all six interstate segments, despite the fact that the rate of contraband seizures for African Americans and whites was similar."

[apretty]

"sheriff joe" does the arrests and roundups of people he deems "illegal"--It would seem that he's insanely fucked up, and 'rounding up' people from a place of utter racism and hatred:

from phoenix new times:

Last year, Arpaio informed the GQ magazine that Mexicans are contagious.

"All these people that come over, they come with disease. There's no control. No health checks or anything. They check fruits and vegetables. How come they don't check people? No one talks about that!

"They're all dirty."

please know that there's a huge difference between 'phoenix' politics and the 'state' politics of racists like jan brewer, russell pearce (the guy with nazi affiliations), and sheriff joe arpaio--i still think boycotting is going to prove effective; i'm hoping that the all-star game is MOVED!

all-star game/arizona, la times:

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/08/sports/la-sp-baseball-down-line-20100509

[suebee]

Someone needs to do something about those damn canadians bringing their damn poutine over the damn border all the time.

Why, you.......:annoyed:

[Nat]

My best friend used to work for an old man of Mexican descent. He was in fact born here in Texas. During his life, he has been rounded up THREE times, put on a bus and dropped off in Mexico, despite being a full citizen born in this country. He told her it seemed to happen about once every 20 years. He didn't see things as improving as much as he saw things as cyclical.

In other news, these stickers are being offered for free by clicking here (http://presente.org/sticker/az/?im=mo)

http://presente.org/siteimages/Presente_LicensePlateAZ_300px.jpg

[Mister Bent]

In other news, these stickers are being offered for free by clicking here (http://presente.org/sticker/az/?im=mo)

http://presente.org/siteimages/Presente_LicensePlateAZ_300px.jpg

Ordered 5, thanks!

[SuperFemme]

I am kind of bothered by the casual attitude by some in this thread regarding "getting documented".

As if there was any sort of fluid and simple process to getting citizenship here in the US. The process seems to be a series of insurmountable requests including but not limited to "being of good moral character".

See here http://www.visaus.com/citizen.html for more info.

[Toughy]

I can just see this...........

mi familia.........taking a vacation from New Mexico to California.........damng they be brown..........we travel through NM..........even through the border patrol check point at White Sand...........into AZ..........with NO hesitation, nada nothing to think we are different from who we are..

I dunno pick a number of miles into AZ on I40 or I10.......seems we are on I10 through southern AZ.....

We stop to eat........go in the cafe........order food..........eat ....life is good with my brown and white kinfolk....until..............we walk out...............and because we are in the great Sheriff Joe Airapo land.........some fat bellied gringo asshat with a badge decides that mi familia walking out of that resturant on I10 meets what he thinks is an illegal immigrant and..........the only papers any of us have is our New Mexico driver's license............well.........lets see............

we all go to jail despite having papers.............all of us....because Sheriff Joe can't figure out if my papers are correct and cant figure out if mi familia's papers are correct.............

all of us are born in this country.............parts of us have been in this country before any of the invaders came.......

yeah right SB1070 a good idea............

[SuperFemme]

This VIDEO (http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=8c141d30bb686110VgnVCM1000004718190aRCR D&vgnextchannel=8e336bc60bde6110VgnVCM1000004718190a RCRD) from USCIS.gov kills me.

[Toughy]

and lets just not talk about the fact that my nephew is a state cop..............which means he has a loaded weapon on him at all times...

he is part of the mi familia taken to jail because our papers don't suit the guy asking for them............

can't you just see........those damn ********

GUN GUN GUN

and my nephew is dead with gun still in holster, not to mention how many others of mi familia will be injured or dead in a parking lot at a truck stop cafe in south central AZ..............

Oh yeah...........this bill is a good idea...........

[SuperFemme]

Toughy, you post brings one thought to my mind: If one must possess *Moral Turpitude* to attain citizenship in the US of A, then why are the politicians and law enforcement members of our populus NOT checked off on *Moral Turpitude*?

BTW, mi familia also contains a cousin who is a Judge in Belen, NM. This cousin would be stopped and asked to produce papers toot sweet in AZ land.

Frightening. Abso-fucking-lutely Frightening.

[The_Lady_Snow]

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2010/05/11/20100511phoenix-convention-center-boycott.html#ixzz0ndT5Y1eg

[Andrew, Jr.]

It's sad that sports now has become more political oriented.

[The_Lady_Snow]

It's sad that sports now has become more political oriented.



Here is the thing Andrew...

Sports should be paying attention to what is going on in Arizona, so should entertainers, and any other person with some form of power with the press..

They just passed a law that profiles a specific type of people... Guess what?

Brown people play sports.... So, they should be like oh hell not I am not giving that state any of my $'s when they so obviously take the time to pull me over and tag me as undocumented due to my brown skin.

[dreadgeek]

It's sad that sports now has become more political oriented.


Andrew:

Sports has always had *some* politics involved in it. Hitler wanted the Olympics in Berlin to show how wonderful Germany was. Mohammed Ali raised his fist in protest at the Olympics to protest the Vietnam War and racism in America. The United States pulled out of the 1980 Olympics because of Russia's invasion of Afghanistan. Russia pulled out of the 1984 Olympics in retaliation. Jackie Robsinson taking the major league field for the first time was not just an athletic event but a profoundly *political* one.
After 9/11 every sports team in the country, it seemed, tried to fall over one another being more patriotic than thou.

What's more, as Lady Snow points out, there are more than a few brown people who play for these teams. I am actually quite pleased that MLB is trying to come up with a response to this law. It would be an insult to players who might be caught up in this law (or their families) and to the fans if they just pretended that the Arizona law didn't exist.

[dreadgeek]

Jackie Robsinson taking the major league field for the first time was not just an athletic event but a profoundly *political* one.


I normally don't quote my own posts but this occurred to me. MLB should be proud of itself. Their standing up to be counted in opposition to the Arizona law is as profound a political statement as when MLB integrated. It was a proud day for baseball when Jackie Robinson took the field for the first time and it's a proud day for baseball when they took the risk of standing against the Arizona law. Given the political heat they can and will get for this, it was a brave thing.

[The_Lady_Snow]

It's sad that sports now has become more political oriented.



I gotta add

ALOT of kids look up to sports figures.. I would imagine all them kids in Arizona are kinda walking around all puffy chested with pride that their sports hero is NOT backing up this law and well that is a hella better example than say..

El Tigre

L T

or any other shit that goes on:cards:

[The_Lady_Snow]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100512/ap_on_re_us/us_arizona_ethnic_studies

[Nat]

Wow WTF - ugh ugh ugh

as if.

:(

[apretty]

"federation for american immigration reform" -founders and board members are linked to white supremacists, financially and otherwise.

6chiuYoQOhM

[The_Lady_Snow]

Los Angeles To Boycott Arizona Over Immigration Law

by The Associated Press




http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126782537

[SuperFemme]

Los Angeles To Boycott Arizona Over Immigration Law

by The Associated Press




http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126782537


That is an interesting boycott, and shows why it is hard to make an impact by doing so. I mean, if Los Angeles wants to boycott and is behind it...then that might mean Los Angeles has to cut off it's own nose so to speak. It doesn't seem that they are willing to do so.

[AtLast]

"federation for american immigration reform" -founders and board members are linked to white supremacists, financially and otherwise.

6chiuYoQOhM

Watching Maddow's interview withy FAIR's head (very arrogant asshole) bigot was great. This organization is really scary and needs to be exposed for exactly what it is!

[Nat]

Arizona gov. signs bill targeting ethnic studies

(from The_Lady_Snow's link - for people who aren't clicky, because it's really egregious and not to be missed)
(bolding added)

PHOENIX – Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has signed a bill targeting a school district's ethnic studies program, hours after a report by United Nations human rights experts condemned the measure.

State schools chief Tom Horne, who has pushed the bill for years, said he believes the Tucson school district's Mexican-American studies program teaches Latino students that they are oppressed by white people.

Public schools should not be encouraging students to resent a particular race, he said.

"It's just like the old South, and it's long past time that we prohibited it," Horne said.

Brewer's signature on the bill Tuesday comes less than a month after she signed the nation's toughest crackdown on illegal immigration — a move that ignited international backlash amid charges the measure would encourage racial profiling of Hispanics. The governor has said profiling will not be tolerated.

The measure signed Tuesday prohibits classes that advocate ethnic solidarity, that are designed primarily for students of a particular race or that promote resentment toward a certain ethnic group.

The Tucson Unified School District program offers specialized courses in African-American, Mexican-American and Native-American studies that focus on history and literature and include information about the influence of a particular ethnic group.

For example, in the Mexican-American Studies program, an American history course explores the role of Hispanics in the Vietnam War, and a literature course emphasizes Latino authors.

Horne, a Republican running for attorney general, said the program promotes "ethnic chauvinism" and racial resentment toward whites while segregating students by race. He's been trying to restrict it ever since he learned that Hispanic civil rights activist Dolores Huerta told students in 2006 that "Republicans hate Latinos."

District officials said the program doesn't promote resentment, and they believe it would comply with the new law.

The measure doesn't prohibit classes that teach about the history of a particular ethnic group, as long as the course is open to all students and doesn't promote ethnic solidarity or resentment.

About 1,500 students at six high schools are enrolled in the Tucson district's program. Elementary and middle school students also are exposed to the ethnic studies curriculum. The district is 56 percent Hispanic, with nearly 31,000 Latino students.

Sean Arce, director of the district's Mexican-American Studies program, said last month that students perform better in school if they see in the curriculum people who look like them.

"It's a highly engaging program that we have, and it's unfortunate that the state Legislature would go so far as to censor these classes," he said.

Six UN human rights experts released a statement earlier Tuesday saying all people have the right to learn about their own cultural and linguistic heritage, they said.

Brewer spokesman Paul Senseman didn't directly address the UN criticism, but said Brewer supports the bill's goal.

"The governor believes ... public school students should be taught to treat and value each other as individuals and not be taught to resent or hate other races or classes of people," Senseman said.

Arce could not immediately be reached after Brewer signed the bill late Tuesday.

[MsDemeanor]

I wonder if they'll review all of the US History classes for content. Back when I went to school they pretty much seemed to be designed for white people. That's a no-no under this law.

[apretty]

the driving force behind the ban on ethnic studies (cuz i like to put a face on the hatred)

http://sonoranalliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/tom%20horne.jpg

[SuperFemme]

http://img.perezhilton.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/wenn5194612jb__oPt.jpg



Wow! We really have to applaud them!
Cypress Hill has cancelled (http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/story/cypress-hill-scrap-arizona-gig-to-protest-immigration-law_1142144) an upcoming concert in Arizona as way to protest the RIDICULOUS and unconstitutional immigration law that allows officials to detain anyone they think might be an illegal immigrant.
The group says in a statement:
"This decision was made in an effort to show support and solidarity with those, undocumented and otherwise, being directly affected by this unconstitutional law. Cypress Hill recognizes those living in the struggle for their basic civil rights."
Amazing! We're glad they chose to take a stand!
Thoughts??

Read More: Celebrity gossip juicy celebrity rumors Hollywood gossip blog from Perez Hilton (http://perezhilton.com/page/11/#ixzz0nlrW0cgJ) http://perezhilton.com/page/11/#ixzz0nlrW0cgJ
Celebrity Juice, Not from Concentrate

[The_Lady_Snow]

http://img.perezhilton.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/wenn5194612jb__oPt.jpg



Wow! We really have to applaud them!
Cypress Hill has cancelled (http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/story/cypress-hill-scrap-arizona-gig-to-protest-immigration-law_1142144) an upcoming concert in Arizona as way to protest the RIDICULOUS and unconstitutional immigration law that allows officials to detain anyone they think might be an illegal immigrant.
The group says in a statement:
"This decision was made in an effort to show support and solidarity with those, undocumented and otherwise, being directly affected by this unconstitutional law. Cypress Hill recognizes those living in the struggle for their basic civil rights."
Amazing! We're glad they chose to take a stand!
Thoughts??

Read More: Celebrity gossip juicy celebrity rumors Hollywood gossip blog from Perez Hilton (http://perezhilton.com/page/11/#ixzz0nlrW0cgJ) http://perezhilton.com/page/11/#ixzz0nlrW0cgJ
Celebrity Juice, Not from Concentrate



WOOF!!!:barmartini:

[suebee]

I heard on the news today that there are several other states (I think they said six, but it could be more) who are considering enacting legislation like Arizona's. They include Texas, South Carolina and Ohio. Oh boy, this is going to be a mess. Obviously the ulterior motive is to force the federal government to enact immigration legislation, but this is going to be one unholy mess.

[SuperFemme]

Most Americans approve of Arizona's law on illegal immigrants


By Margaret Talev, McClatchy Newspapers Margaret Talev, Mcclatchy Newspapers – Wed May 12, 5:12 pm ET

WASHINGTON — A strong majority of Americans support Arizona's controversial new immigration law and would back similar laws in their own states, a new McClatchy-Ipsos poll found.

Sixty-one percent of Americans — and 64 percent of registered voters — said they favored the law in a survey of 1,016 adults conducted May 6-9 .
Strikingly, nearly half of Democrats like the law, under which local law enforcement officers are tasked with verifying people's immigration status if they suspect them of being in the country illegally. While the Democratic Party generally is regarded as more sympathetic to illegal immigrants' plights, 46 percent of Democrats said they favored the law for Arizona and 49 percent said they'd favor the law's passage in their own states.
More than 8 in 10 Republicans and 54 percent of independents favor the law.

In addition, about 69 percent of Americans said they wouldn't mind if police officers stopped them to ask for proof of their citizenship or legal rights to be in the country; about 29 percent would mind, considering it a violation of their rights; and about 3 percent were unsure.

A separate Pew Research Center poll on the Arizona law released Wednesday found similar sentiments.

In the McClatchy-Ipsos poll, almost two-thirds of Americans said illegal immigration was a real problem that hurt the country; they were evenly split as to whether the jobs illegal immigrants take are ones that Americans don't want.

The McClatchy-Ipsos poll had an error margin of plus or minus 3.07 percentage points for all those surveyed and 3.26 percentage points for registered voters.

These results speak to the political land mines that immigration policy presents for President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats. Obama has called the Arizona law misguided. The Justice Department is considering a lawsuit to block it, concerned about the implications for civil rights and for police, who might be diverted from basic public safety-tasks or find it harder to talk to potential witnesses in criminal investigations.
The poll results also illustrate the uphill battle that immigrant-rights activists face in pushing Congress to pass legislation that would pair tougher border enforcement — which is universally popular — with a path to citizenship for immigrants who are here now illegally.

While many Democratic politicians, including Obama, favor such so-called comprehensive legislation, they lack the bipartisan support needed to make it law.

Heading into this year's congressional elections, they also face an electorate that's sensitive to losing jobs or diverting services to undocumented laborers, because of the economic crisis.

The nonpartisan Pew survey found that 73 percent of Americans approve of requiring people to verify their legal status and two-thirds support police detaining people who can't. Pew's survey of 994 adults also was conducted May 6-9
.
The Pew survey identified an age gap: Just 45 percent of people younger than 30 approve of the Arizona law, while three-fourths of Americans 65 and older approve.

The Pew poll had an error margin of plus or minus 4 percentage points for the overall sample.

[AtLast]

I'd like to hear what other's see as constructive things I can do in response to this legislated bigotry as an individual. I attended the SF rally, written things to Senators, but what else???

LOL... have a great image of filling up my RV van with B-FP members and heading to AZ to kick up some shit!! Snow can ride shot-gun... maybe have to trade off with Superfemme. Toughy would be good at forming our proclamation.... We could meet-up with EZ & a pretty for a stategy session....

[SuperFemme]

I'd like to hear what other's see as constructive things I can do in response to this legislated bigotry as an individual. I attended the SF rally, written things to Senators, but what else???

LOL... have a great image of filling up my RV van with B-FP members and heading to AZ to kick up some shit!! Snow can ride shot-gun... maybe have to trade off with Superfemme. Toughy would be good at forming our proclamation.... We could meet-up with EZ & a pretty for a stategy session....

Ha. Great idea. I'm in.

[The_Lady_Snow]

Yo tengo varias pistolas.....:chainsaw:

[apretty]

I'd like to hear what other's see as constructive things I can do in response to this legislated bigotry as an individual. I attended the SF rally, written things to Senators, but what else???

LOL... have a great image of filling up my RV van with B-FP members and heading to AZ to kick up some shit!! Snow can ride shot-gun... maybe have to trade off with Superfemme. Toughy would be good at forming our proclamation.... We could meet-up with EZ & a pretty for a stategy session....

PARTY! --i mean.. what a great way to be politically and socially active. :D

[SuperFemme]

That's not a gun, it's a chainsaw. Here, have one of these:

http://www.verydodgy.com/pics/other/1070765422111.jpg

[Toughy]

I'd like to hear what other's see as constructive things I can do in response to this legislated bigotry as an individual. I attended the SF rally, written things to Senators, but what else???

LOL... have a great image of filling up my RV van with B-FP members and heading to AZ to kick up some shit!! Snow can ride shot-gun... maybe have to trade off with Superfemme. Toughy would be good at forming our proclamation.... We could meet-up with EZ & a pretty for a stategy session....

Road Trip!!!!!!!!!!

I think Snowy and SuperFemme should write the proclamation in both Spanish and English.............I wanna ride shotgun in my boots, 10 gallon hat and string tie...........I got me some issues I need to work out......PTSD can be my friend sometimes ......laughin....

[The_Lady_Snow]

We will bring.......... the Patron and limes!!

the supplies for signs!!:eyebat::freak:

[apretty]

great because ez's one and only mission this weekend is to 'stock the bar' --i don't know, i think he just wants to get a stainless shaker.

oh and we've got a hot tub with butt-jets (i try to just sit on one cheek-side so as to avoid a high-colonic)!!

-onward christian soldiers!

[The_Lady_Snow]

great because ez's one and only mission this weekend is to 'stock the bar' --i don't know, i think he just wants to get a stainless shaker.

oh and we've got a hot tub with butt-jets (i try to just sit on one cheek-side so as to avoid a high-colonic)!!

-onward christian soldiers!

Who doesn't like a stocked bar and a stainless shaker.....?

:vigil::skateboard:

[apretty]

...and butt jets.

[The_Lady_Snow]

...and butt jets.


You see, I was tempted... I did good, not going there, now.....:rollcat:

I am there....:rollcat:

[AtLast]

Road Trip!!!!!!!!!!

I think Snowy and SuperFemme should write the proclamation in both Spanish and English.............I wanna ride shotgun in my boots, 10 gallon hat and string tie...........I got me some issues I need to work out......PTSD can be my friend sometimes ......laughin....

We will bring.......... the Patron and limes!!

the supplies for signs!!:eyebat::freak:

great because ez's one and only mission this weekend is to 'stock the bar' --i don't know, i think he just wants to get a stainless shaker.

oh and we've got a hot tub with butt-jets (i try to just sit on one cheek-side so as to avoid a high-colonic)!!

-onward christian soldiers!

Who doesn't like a stocked bar and a stainless shaker.....?

:vigil::skateboard:

KEWL!!! We're gonna stir up shit! And yes, a stocked bar and hot-tub sounds great! Hummm, could be some interesting strategy arising....

Hell yes, Snow & Super should do the proclamation, you are right, T. I will wear my new western boots... have to break them in. OK, you are shot-gun... a string tie and 10 gallon hat??? Oh, what the hell....

Ya' think we can get in to see the Gov? Ha!!!

[Queerasfck]

Awesome! When are you all going to get here???? I'll be waiting by the tikki bar............

it's an open bar here!

[Diva]

Road Trip!!!!!!!!!!

I think Snowy and SuperFemme should write the proclamation in both Spanish and English.............I wanna ride shotgun in my boots, 10 gallon hat and string tie...........I got me some issues I need to work out......PTSD can be my friend sometimes ......laughin....


Don't forget Chinese and French for the illegal immigrants from China and Canada, too...
:|

[Diva]

Not that I'm supportive of the GOP, but AZ just lost the chance to host the 2012 Republican convention to Tampa.

Read that on Yahoo News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20100513/ts_ynews/ynews_ts2041_1).

[MsDemeanor]

Not that I'm supportive of the GOP, but AZ just lost the chance to host the 2012 Republican convention to Tampa.

Read that on Yahoo News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20100513/ts_ynews/ynews_ts2041_1).



The repugs had three choices:

1) Salt Lake City - pain in the ass to buy alcohol
2) Phoenix - hotbed of controversy (plus, in August, just damn hot)
3) Tampa Bay - lap dance capital of the world linkyloo (http://www.wtsp.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=125815&catid=8)

Gee, color the choice obvious......

[AtLast]

The repugs had three choices:

1) Salt Lake City - pain in the ass to buy alcohol
2) Phoenix - hotbed of controversy (plus, in August, just damn hot)
3) Tampa Bay - lap dance capital of the world linkyloo (http://www.wtsp.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=125815&catid=8)

Gee, color the choice obvious......

:thumbsup:
Oh.... ROTFL!!!


Why is it that one can usually follow the pee-pee tail in politics?? I swear, much of the time, I am reminded of adolescent boys (mine, especially back then- at 6, no one could see it, at 16- the whole world was invited to take a gander) with this stuff!

[AtLast]

Don't know if this has been cited here (parts have, I think)- I was deeply troubled watching this- best to see video as there is a lot in the guy's voice, tone, inflection, etc. that is telling- more than in just reading the transcript.

Ex-Bush Admin Attorney Advises Arizona Offices on Detecting Immigrants


A video has been published on the internet showing a former Bush administration attorney training police officers in Arizona on how to detect undocumented immigrants. The training is conducted by Kris Kobach, a Kansas-based attorney who helped draft Arizona’s law that orders police officers to stop and interrogate anyone they suspect is undocumented. Kobach is a former Justice Department attorney who helped John Ashcroft create a program that required all visiting citizens from twenty-five mostly Arab countries to be fingerprinted and monitored. Kris Kobach now works for the Immigration Reform Law Institute. During the training, he listed twenty ways police officers can detect undocumented immigrants.

Kris Kobach: “Indications from the dress or appearance of an individual that he has been—has recently—that he’s an illegal alien and perhaps that he has just entered without inspection, based on the totality circumstances. Number nineteen, related indications that the vehicle and/or its occupants have been on a very long trip. And number twenty, the individual avoids making eye contact with the officer, and this, of course, can give rise to reasonable suspicion, not only in the immigration context, but in other law enforcement contexts, as well.”


http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/13/headlines

[apretty]

2 days ago i was a passenger in the car with ez--he got pulled over, and along with ez's license, registration and proof of insurance the cop looked over at me and asked to see my ID.

i said no, he asked if i had ID, i said yes and asked, 'why do you want to see it?' and the cop said, 'i just want to look at it' so i said 'no'. i wasn't doing anything wrong, i was even wearing my seatbelt...

after 20 minutes of detaining us (and honestly, i'm getting increasingly nervous), he comes back and gives ez two fix-it tickets and never mentions my ID again--we're allowed to leave.

i was 'existing' while appearing brown. i discussed this with my local friend (who's femme and latina) because we often have *opposite* experiences because she often passes as white. she thinks that i didn't seem as 'suspicious' once i spoke and she's probably right--had i spoken with an accent, maybe he would have pressed the issue, or maybe he would have arrested me, i don't know.

[AtLast]

2 days ago i was a passenger in the car with ez--he got pulled over, and along with ez's license, registration and proof of insurance the cop looked over at me and asked to see my ID.

i said no, he asked if i had ID, i said yes and asked, 'why do you want to see it?' and the cop said, 'i just want to look at it' so i said 'no'. i wasn't doing anything wrong, i was even wearing my seatbelt...

after 20 minutes of detaining us (and honestly, i'm getting increasingly nervous), he comes back and gives ez two fix-it tickets and never mentions my ID again--we're allowed to leave.

i was 'existing' while appearing brown. i discussed this with my local friend (who's femme and latina) because we often have *opposite* experiences because she often passes as white. she thinks that i didn't seem as 'suspicious' once i spoke and she's probably right--had i spoken with an accent, maybe he would have pressed the issue, or maybe he would have arrested me, i don't know.

I think your local friend is right! 20 minites? For what?? Do cops usually ask other people in a car to show ID? I haven't been stopped in ages... can't remember. Or, its a senior moment... again!

OK.... we gotta do that road trip and posse-up with apretty and ez!! And Chester needs to meet his father. Oh, that could be a snarly experince! Yanno... Frenchies could do a number on cop ankles....

[AtLast]

Awesome! When are you all going to get here???? I'll be waiting by the tikki bar............

it's an open bar here!

Way kewl! Hope you have as much patience with one more French Bulldog with attitude that you do with Chester!

Oh geez..... T just know Super & Snow will have me blushing the whole way!! But I can count on T to explain things to me.... right?

[Soon]

l80J-3dF-nU&feature=player_embedded

[The_Lady_Snow]

:new:


Mayor of Columbus, Ohio, bans travel to Arizona in response to state's new immigration law


http://www.fox8.com/news/sns-ap-oh--arizonaboycott-ohio,0,6582569.story

[SuperFemme]

Who’s Boycotting Arizona?

By Casey Purcella

Rudolfo Anaya, New Mexico’s most celebrated writer, gave the Alibi this statement: "The recent anti-immigrants Arizona law is an assault on our basic civil rights. It is most hideous because it targets people of color. It should be protested by everyone. If there ever was a time for civil disobedience, it is now."

Here is an incomplete list—incomplete due to the rate at which it’s growing—of groups that are taking a stand against Arizona’s new laws through a boycott or other displays of condemnation.

Municipal Organizations
• Oakland, Calif.’s city council decided early this month that it would have nothing to do with Arizona; it voted unanimously to ban the city government from sending employees to the Grand Canyon State on official business, prevent the city from signing new contracts with Arizona-based businesses and require city employees to review current contracts between itself and Arizona.

• San Francisco's mayor is set to approve a resolution boycotting businesses headquartered in Arizona. The resolution also requests that sports leagues refrain from holding tournaments and championship games in the city. In addition, city employees are discouraged from conducting official business in Arizona.

• The City Council in San Jose, Calif. scheduled a vote on June 8 to decide whether it will join several of its Californian peers in boycotting their neighbor. The boycott would restrict travel by government employees to Arizona as well as contracts with businesses headquartered in the state.

• Los Angeles joined many nearby cities in approving a boycott of Arizona this month, banning city government from doing business with companies in Arizona and preventing the government from entering into new agreements with companies from the state.

• By a 5-0 vote early this month, West Hollywood became the most glamorous city to approve an Arizona boycott. The resolution forbids government employees from traveling to the state on official business and lets the government impose other sanctions until the law is repealed.

• San Diego's City Council voted to condemn Arizona's new immigration law.

• Boulder, Colo.'s city manager announced that city employees would not be traveling to Arizona for any official business. The city is planning a vote on a more extensive boycott.

• The Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Metro Denver announced that it is supporting a boycott of any entity in support of Arizona's immigration bill.

• The Austin, Texas City Council unanimously approved a resolution ending government travel to Arizona. It also requires the city manager to review current and future contracts with businesses based in Arizona, or businesses with significant investments in the state, and then present the council with plans to replace them.

• St. Paul, Minn. city employees will no longer travel to Arizona on official business, a result of a declaration by the ciy's mayor that bans city-funded travel to the state.

• The city council of Boston adopted a resolution calling for the city to end relations with Arizona-based businesses, making it one of the first east coast cities to legalize a boycott of the state. The resolution condemns the bill for giving city and state law enforcement officers the power to enforce laws that are supposed to be enforced by federal law enforcement, adding that the law allows Arizona's police officers to engage in profiling. The resolution states that Boston government must review all associations with Arizona and, “to the extent reasonable,” eliminate contracts with the state.

• The El Paso county commissioners passed a boycott resolution by a 3-2 vote limiting county relations with Arizona businesses. The resolution also asks residents of the county to do the same.

• Las Cruces Mayor Ken Miyagishima was preparing to introduce a resolution condemning Arizona's immigration bill but changed his mind after reading the replacement bill, which is supposed to alleviate concerns that the bill will enable racial profiling.

• Pressure to reverse the law is coming from inside the state of Arizona as well. The Tucson City Council voted to sue the state early this month, alleging that the new immigration law will harm the city's economy, which Tucson's mayor said is largely driven by Mexican tourism. The mayor also said that he hopes the resolution will exempt the city from boycotts affecting the state.

• Flagstaff also decided not to take Arizona's new immigration bill lying down; its City Council unanimously voted to take action against the state to prevent the new law from going into effect. The resolution calls the bill “an unfunded mandate ... to carry out federal immigration enforcement responsibilities,” and predicts that illegal immigrants or those with a family member in the United States illegally will not report crimes, therefore preventing the city's police from enforcing the law.

National Organizations

• The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, an organization which aims to promote rights for those in the United States, announced a boycott of Arizona, pledging to hold no conferences in the state as well as promising to pressure its 200 member organizations to do the same.

• The League of United Latin American Citizens said that a broad list of Latino organizations have banded together to coordinate a boycott of Arizona and support legal challenges to the state's new immigration law. A press release announcing the campaign, which the league has named “Unite Arizona,” states that the boycott will focus on companies who support politicians who voted for the immigration bill. In addition, none of the groups in the campaign will hold conventions in the state.

• The National Council of La Raza declared a boycott of Arizona, stating that it will not hold any events in Arizona and asking its members and affiliates to do the same. It also said it will “widely disseminate the adverse consequences of this legislation” and asked other American institutions to consider not doing business with Arizona or Arizona-based companies. An extensive list of organizations signed the statement as well; a full list can be found at nclr.org/section/boycott_intolerance_petition.

• The Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) announced that Phoenix was no longer being considered as a site for its 2012 conference. In a press release, it stated that the new law “virtually guarantees harassment of its conference attendees.” The convention would have brought 3,000 people to the state for four days.

• The Seattle-based Glass Art Society decided not to hold its 2011 convention in Tucson, Ariz., depriving the city of 2,500 potential visitors that would have stayed for three days.

• The International Communications Association, National Association of Black Accountants and National Urban League all canceled their planned 2012 conventions in Phoenix, according to the Arizona Republic.

• The American Educational Research Association voted at its annual meeting in Denver to stop holding meetings in Arizona while the new immigration law is still in effect.

• The historically black Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity moved its 104th annual convention, which was scheduled to take place in Phoenix from July 21 to 25, to Las Vegas, Nev., citing safety concerns for some of its members. The fraternity estimated that moving the convention would deprive the state of up to 10,000 visitors.

• The Republican National Committee passed over Phoenix and instead chose Tampa, Fla. as the location for its 2012 national convention. While officially this decision had nothing to do with Arizona's new immigration law, one can't help but speculate that Arizona missed out as Republicans try to avoid any setbacks and negative press as they prepare for this year's elections.

Schools

• Two Mexican universities, the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the Autonomous University of San Luis Potosí, canceled their exchange programs with the University of Arizona, according to the Arizona Republic. However, Arizona's other universities remain unaffected, and so far none of the other 29 Mexican universities with exchange agreements with UA have canceled their agreements.

• Denver's public school employees are forbidden from taking district-sponsored trips to Arizona.

• In a unanimous vote, the San Diego Unified School District Board condemned Arizona's controversial immigration law.

• The Huffington Post reported that Arizona's universities have been hit by the backlash to Arizona's new immigration law. University of Arizona President Robert Shelton said that some students have told the university that they will be leaving to attend school elsewhere. In addition, Arizona State University revealed that several of its applicants have called to decline admission.

Sports Teams

•The girls basketball team at Highland Park High School in Illinois was set to travel to Arizona for a basketball tournament in December 2010 until the school's district decided to cancel the trip, saying that it could not sent its students to a place where their liberties might be compromised. While officially the school says that this decision was based purely on safety concerns, some are suspicious the decision is actually a political statement, pointing out that the district superintendent told a Chicago newspaper that the district could not justify sending students to a place not “aligned with our beliefs and values.”

• Arizona's National Basketball Association team, the Phoenix Suns, wore their alternate “Los Suns” jerseys on Cinco de Mayo to “honor our Latino community and the diversity of our league, the state of Arizona, and our nation,” according to the team's owner.

http://alibi.com/index.php?scn=feature&di=&story=32264

[Diva]

I was curious about what businesses had their corporate HQ in AZ.......here is a partial listing:

~Best Western
~Coldstone Creamery
~Discount Tire
~Dial Corp. (which includes~Coast, Purex, Renuzit, Right Guard, Boraxo, Twenty Mule Team)
~Fender Musical Instruments
~Fredericks of Hollywood
~Go Daddy
~Kona Grill
~Mesa Airlines
~PetSmart
~Ping Golf
~U-Haul
~US Air

Other businesses that have significant operations in AZ (but not HQ'd there):

Alaka Air
Albertson's
AmEx
Bank of America
Boeing
General Dynamics
Home Depot
Honeywell
J. P. MOrgan Chase
Intel
Kroger
Marriott International
Motorola
Pulte Homes
Safeway
Southwest Air
Target
Wal~Mart
Walgreen's
Wells Fargo


Interesting...............

[Diva]

They might as well have taken out their pistol and shot themselves in the foot.....
YouTube- Racist Anti-Immigration Arizona Law Backfires

[SuperFemme]

OMFG. Seriously? Seriously?

Crops need to be harvested? But he doesn't want a Mexican washing his car, mowing his lawn and he doesn't need to eat at fast food restaurants? Come here, work the job, pay taxes, don't have babies here or be a "burden" on the taxpayers and then get the fuck out and go home when the state of AZ is done with you?

Seriously?

[Soon]

qSppVDbEZkg&feature=player_embedded

via JoeMyGod: Dr. Sandra Soto is the Assistant Professor for Women's Studies at the University of Arizona, where she used this week's graduation ceremony to denounce her state's racist immigration law. It's a bit surprising/depressing that so many students would boo her. (Although she did get some decent applause at the end.) The Freepers are thrilled by the students' reaction.

[sweetcali]

OMFG. Seriously? Seriously?

Crops need to be harvested? But he doesn't want a Mexican washing his car, mowing his lawn and he doesn't need to eat at fast food restaurants? Come here, work the job, pay taxes, don't have babies here or be a "burden" on the taxpayers and then get the fuck out and go home when the state of AZ is done with you?

Seriously?

It has taken me awhile to respond in this thread due to life not giving me enough stamina. LOL I lived in Monterey County for over 20yrs. The Salinas Valley salad capital of the world. I would see these workers out in those fields before sunrise and after sunset. I did outreach work for a while and I have seen the conditions these field workers live in. I have seen the terror in their eyes when some white person they didn't know approached them.

I have seen the delight in many a person's eyes as they eat their fresh salad on the table in front of them. I have heard jokes about "those" people that picked that very salad they were eating. I have listened to many a white boy complain about not being able to get a job; yet you never saw a white boy go apply to work in those fields. I never saw a white boy standing on the corner at the 7-11 or home depot looking for work; yet they would complain about not getting a job and make fun of the very people willing to work in deplorable conditions just to make a few pennies to feed their families.

I think it is time that some of these people get off their high horses, take off their rose colored glasses and take a serious look at how asinine their laws really are; whilst eating their fresh salad at their $1000 a plate fund raiser to create a racist law.

There ego's need to be put in check. They need to get off that all might white cloud they are sitting on.

Oh and I wonder if they enjoyed that nice little mint placed upon their $500 dollar a night hotel room.

The whole law makes me ill and it also makes me wonder how terrified some of these people are. I wonder if those great law makers realize the danger and fear of their own lives they just put these people in.

I wonder how many of them chased an illegal farm worker through the fields just to give them the information on where to go to get medical care, etc.

The whole thought process behind this law makes me ill.

sweetcali

[The_Lady_Snow]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100531/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_peru_girl_immigration

[AtLast]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100531/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_peru_girl_immigration

Whoa! Quite an interesting tid-bit, here!

Also reminds me of how many stories from the mouths of kids from various Latino families I keep hearing while listening to NPR (mostly). Makes out of the mouths of babes even more pertinent. The fear, the process of a little kid internalizing and speaking their truth in recognizing that they are the target of such hatred is heartbreaking beyond belief.

[AtLast]

qSppVDbEZkg&feature=player_embedded

via JoeMyGod: Dr. Sandra Soto is the Assistant Professor for Women's Studies at the University of Arizona, where she used this week's graduation ceremony to denounce her state's racist immigration law. It's a bit surprising/depressing that so many students would boo her. (Although she did get some decent applause at the end.) The Freepers are thrilled by the students' reaction.

Hey, many in AZ (including the Gov) do not want cultural and ethnic studies taught in the schools! This law isn't just about immigration, it's about right-wing nut cake bigots fearing the demise of white people!!! It was drafted in part by an organization (F.A.I.R) that has one of the world's leading proponents of racial inferiority studies of non-white populations (as in things like POC just not being as smart as white people based upon biology). As in the types of people that agree with racial and ethnic cleansing!!

We need to wake up. This stuff is not harmless talk. And it isn't just taking hold in AZ. Look at Texas and people there wanting to re-write history to align with WASP culture! It isn't just Limbaugh and mega-wacko Beck on the airwaves spreading right wing BS. More and more of these jerks are running for elected office and winning! What is going on in AZ and TX presently is a serious threat to every disenfranchised population in the US and to democracy. Movements like this always take hold more deeply during difficult financial times when the majority of the population is more worried about a job, keeping a home (owning or renting), putting food on the table.

I hate to be an alamist, but alamed is exactly what I feel 2010 is a critical mid-term election year. If you have even a small amount of time to get involved with political organizations that fight this kind of crap- please do so!

[Diva]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100531/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_peru_girl_immigration

Yes...I saw this earlier today.....and wondered what might happen to this girl's parents, based on the fact that she had "outed" them to MRS. Obama......I mean how easy could/would it be for her to 'report back'......or for them to find those parents.

It was certainly brought home to Mrs. Obama......AND the rest of us!

I hope all works out well for the Peruvian family.....and I hope the other daughter is brought to the US...........soon.

[Linus]

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/jun/03/glenn-beck/glenn-beck-says-president-obama-out-step-nation-ar/

Although he only quotes one poll, what is sad is that the rest are 50% or higher in favour of this law. That's pretty sad, IMO. :(

[UofMfan]

Arizona Elementary School Will Whiten The Faces Of Its Own Students On A Mural Because Some Racists Yelled At It

Jason Linkins
jason@huffingtonpost.com | HuffPost Reporting

Via Ken Layne at Wonkette, this is just the worst story in the world:

An Arizona elementary school mural featuring the faces of kids who attend the school has been the subject of constant daytime drive-by racist screaming, from adults, as well as a radio talk-show campaign (by an actual city councilman, who has an AM talk-radio show) to remove the black student's face, and now the school principal has ordered the faces of the Latino and Black students to be changed to Caucasian skin.

F'ing hell. Read the rest of the details here. And here's Richard Lawson's reaction, at Gawker.

What can I say about this? We are talking about a bunch of mentally deranged adults, who have terrorized an elementary school, for daring to paint a mural featuring the faces of black and Latino children -- actual black and Latino children who live in Arizona. And we're also talking about a group of adults who have decided to send a stirring message to their students and the world: when a bunch of mentally deranged adults -- and we are not talking about people who are particularly threatening, this is a bunch of utterly gutless mopes, yelling racial slurs from their cars, egged on by some pinhead city councilman cowering behind a radio microphone -- threaten a bunch of children, the best thing to do is to accede to their psychotic, racist "demands."

Seriously, educators of Prescott, Arizona, when some creep demands you whiten the faces of your own students on a mural, the correct response is to say, "No, we will not be doing anything of the sort."

This story really should be blasted, far and wide. You cable news producers need to get this story in the mix with a quickness. And let me be clear to you all: there are no "two sides to this story." This is not something you need to have a panel discussion about. CNN, I don't want to see you plumbing the depths of your counterintuition on your website, or lending credence to the notion that the gutless mopes in their cars, shrieking racial slurs at the images of children have an interesting point of view that we should "hear out" because of the need to be "balanced." This is your moment to decry, condemn, and brutalize these evil people.

Blast them to hell, or go jump in the Gulf of Mexico.

[Soon]

I read about that yesterday, U.

It's almost too horrific to believe.

I don't understand these people and the fact that the school (!) conceded to ugly racism makes me ill.

[DapperButch]

I read about that yesterday, U.

It's almost too horrific to believe.

I don't understand these people and the fact that the school (!) conceded to ugly racism makes me ill.


Yes, adorable posted a link in the racism, race relations thread, if anyone wants to read it. page 14, post #272

Disgusting and unbelievable.

[UofMfan]

I read about that yesterday, U.

It's almost too horrific to believe.

I don't understand these people and the fact that the school (!) conceded to ugly racism makes me ill.


Right?! I mean, the crazies I am used to, but the fact that the school conceded is mind blowing.

This is not the country that I learned to love. I am so sad seeing what is going on, and not just in AZ, but nationwide.

[DapperButch]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/04/arizona-elementary-school-mural_n_601436.html

[UofMfan]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/04/arizona-elementary-school-mural_n_601436.html

Or you could have seen that this is what I posted.

[Mister Bent]

I'm thinking we could solve two problems currently plaguing our nation.

Let's send the Arizona racists to the gulf to plug/sop up the BP oil spill. Just cram a few dozen down that hole in the pipe, use some others to soak up oil, like white bread in gravy, and maybe we could wipe down some oil fouled pelicans with still others.

Who do I need to write?

[DapperButch]

Or you could have seen that this is what I posted.


My mistake. Snark much?

Geezus.

[UofMfan]

I'm thinking we could solve two problems currently plaguing our nation.

Let's send the Arizona racists to the gulf to plug/sop up the BP oil spill. Just cram a few dozen down that hole in the pipe, use some others to soak up oil, like white bread in gravy, and maybe we could wipe down some oil fouled pelicans with still others.

Who do I need to write?

You first need to write the Governor of AZ and tell her to lead by example, then, after we all celebrate, you can write Rush and the rest of the conservative whacks and ask them to follow suit.

[UofMfan]

My mistake. Snark much?

Geezus.

No, no snark, just a statement.

[Toughy]

Or you could have seen that this is what I posted.

actually Dapper's link gave me more information........there were links in the article that didn't show up on your post....

[Random]

The further whiting of america.. Because no other peoples have made ANY impact on this country...

It makes me fucking sick.. really.. like I need to toss my cookies..

WHAT THE FUCK DOES IT MATTER WHAT COLOR ANYONE IS??????

You respect someones culture, you try to understand that you might have been raised differently and have different responces to the world...

But really.. Every race... EVERY Race have the same type of people in it..

You take a cross cutting from any culture, any color spectrum and you are going to have the exact same personality spectrum..


*rant*

When I was a young teenager just starting to think about dating boys.. My brothers gathered round me and told me why I couldn't date boys of certain races..

Now, only one of these boys that I called brother was my biological brother..
the other four were his best friends...

Each of these boys told me why I couldn't date a boy of their race..

You know what? The reason was all the same..

Beat me and get me pregnant...

They just prefexed it with race...

I remember looking at them and thinking.. Ya'll are crazy.. you just don't want me to date... /end rant*

I'm really starting to think that this world has a soul sickness..

[Soon]

Has this story broken into MSM in the USA? CNN or any of the major network news?

This story needs to be all over the place. It needs attention and exposure. I want to see the people interviewed who made the school *whitening* decision.

So angry.

[UofMfan]

Random, it is pretty sickening. Racism is alive and well in North America. It just seems to me that there is a new wave of it and the scary part is that this time around they are actually proud of it and taking it to the streets and it is deep in government.

HSIN, I haven't seen it anywhere else but HuffPo and the Marion Observer. This is one of the problems, mainstream media is not covering this mostly because those who own it are in on it. My opinion.

[Soon]

I don't know, U, it seems SO outrageous to me that even the MSM would want a stab at it despite owners/bias etc.

Maybe Maddow will pick the story up...I'd love to see THAT interview.

[UofMfan]

I don't know, U, it seems SO outrageous to me that even the MSM would want a stab at it despite owners/bias etc.

Maybe Maddow will pick the story up...I'd love to see THAT interview.

I think Maddow is a little busy with the Gulf Oil Spill. Perhaps Mr. Bent Over can write her?

I would love to see it too. I don't get MSNBC here but I follow it online. Maybe they have the story bury somewhere in there, I will take a look around.

[Soon]

Prescott, Ariz., elementary school to 'whiten' image of child in mural (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20100604/ts_ynews/ynews_ts2425)

An artist's decision to prominently feature a non-white child on an elementary-school mural in Prescott, Ariz., sparked so much controversy that school administrators asked him to "lighten" the child's face after a city councilman launched a campaign against the mural, according to the Arizona Republic.

The Prescott episode isn't likely to help Arizona's growing reputation as a battleground of racial and ethnic confrontation, as the state faces a widespread boycott campaign over its harsh new immigration law.

The mural, which was funded by a state grant, features the faces of four actual students at the school and is intended to promote biking and other environmentally sustainable modes of transportation. The most prominent face on it belongs to a Latino student.

Steve Blair didn't like that. Blair, local city councilman and talk-radio host, inveighed against the mural on his show last month, according to the New York Daily News:

"I am not a racist individual," Blair said on a radio show last month, "but I will tell you depicting a black guy in the middle of that mural, based upon who's President of the United States today and based upon the history of this community, when I grew up we had four black families — who I have been very good friends with for years — to depict the biggest picture on that building as a black person, I would have to ask the question, 'Why?' "

Good question, to which there are two answers: 1) The boy in question is of Latino heritage (but it's hard to tell them all apart sometimes, right?), and 2) because the boy in question is of Latino heritage. It is suspicious, though, seeing as how only 42 percent of Arizonans aren't white.

R.E. Wall, a Prescott artist who worked on the mural along with several other members of the city's Downtown Mural Project, told the Republic that local residents driving by the mural as they were painting it — sometimes with children helping — shouted ethnic slurs. Wall claimed the school's principal asked him to make the child's skin tone lighter in response to the pushback. The principal acknowledged receiving three complaints about the child's race but insisted that the lightening was an "artistic" decision.

The important thing to remember here is that Steve Blair is not a racist individual and that he has been very good friends with Prescott's four black families for years. Blair didn't immediately return a phone call from Yahoo! News.

— John Cook is a senior national reporter/blogger for Yahoo! News.

[Soon]

Local artist attacked over skin color in mural in Arizona (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37512025)

http://www.whec.com/whecimages/prescott-mural.jpg

[UofMfan]

Arizona Elementary School Will Whiten The Faces Of Its Own Students On A Mural Because Some Racists Yelled At It [UPDATE]

Jason Linkins HuffPost Reporting

UPDATE: Good news. The gutless, carbound racists lost, and the mural is being restored to its "original theme." Jeff Lane, the principal of Miller Valley Elementary School, and Kevin Kapp, the school superintendent, showed up at a protest today to apologize for giving in to whims of mentally deranged adults, spewing racial epithets at a painting:

I am not a racist individual, but I will tell you depicting a black guy in the middle of that mural, based upon who's President of the United States today and based upon the history of this community, when I grew up we had four black families - who I have been very good friends with for years - to depict the biggest picture on that building as a black person, I would have to ask the question, 'Why?'

Yes. WHY DID SOMEONE PUT A BLACK PERSON ON A PAINTING? You "have" to "ask" the "question!"

Anyway, Steve Blair lost too, and I am delighted.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/04/arizona-elementary-school-mural_n_601436.html

[Diva]

I believe there must be SOME connection between AZ's SB 2010 (are those the numbers?) and BP's oil spill.........

I'm pretty sure of it.

[AtLast]

I believe there must be SOME connection between AZ's SB 2010 (are those the numbers?) and BP's oil spill.........

I'm pretty sure of it.




How about oil rig worker jobs are high paying and mostly held by skilled, white males.... yanno. The ones that don't seem to want the low pay, crop picking ones that mega-bucks argricultural corporations offer migrant workers. Just the legal, ones, of course... they never bring undocumented workers over the borders in the back of trucks like they were cattle.

But! BP did hire unskilled workers, mostly Latino to clean LA beaches during Obama's prior visit to LA. Only on a temporary basis, however, they were there only while the President was, haven't been back. Rumor has it that they were not even LA residents just like the private security companies BP hired to keep the press off the beaches and await from the marshes. Yanno, the public beaches in which during a time of emergency, the state of LA would have full control over...

Freaking BP couldn't even pay local unemployed residents to do their scams with! As if there are not a ton of people there right now unable to fish! Oh, then there is the millions BP has put into ads to tell people how much they are going to do in the clean-up….

How's that? Kind of a stretch, but the only things I could come up with...

[UofMfan]

Here you go HSIN:

Arizona school sorry for wanting lighter kids' faces on mural
maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com

http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/06/07/4474237-arizona-school-sorry-for-wanting-lighter-kids-faces-on-mural

By the way, Maddows FB page has some interesting comments on this story, including this one:

Christopher John Cuthbertson
"Stick to the gulf issue Maddow, not nonsense like this !"

[dreadgeek]

Arizona Elementary School Will Whiten The Faces Of Its Own Students On A Mural Because Some Racists Yelled At It [UPDATE]

Jason Linkins HuffPost Reporting

UPDATE: Good news. The gutless, carbound racists lost, and the mural is being restored to its "original theme." Jeff Lane, the principal of Miller Valley Elementary School, and Kevin Kapp, the school superintendent, showed up at a protest today to apologize for giving in to whims of mentally deranged adults, spewing racial epithets at a painting:

I am not a racist individual, but I will tell you depicting a black guy in the middle of that mural, based upon who's President of the United States today and based upon the history of this community, when I grew up we had four black families - who I have been very good friends with for years - to depict the biggest picture on that building as a black person, I would have to ask the question, 'Why?'

Yes. WHY DID SOMEONE PUT A BLACK PERSON ON A PAINTING? You "have" to "ask" the "question!"

Anyway, Steve Blair lost too, and I am delighted.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/04/arizona-elementary-school-mural_n_601436.html

Isn't it always the case that when some twit is advocating some racist or racially charged perspective that they ALWAYS have one or two convenient 'black friends' who, if the speaker is pressed, always agrees with the racist sentiment or doesn't think it is racist? I think this guy's definition of 'friend', at least vis a vis black people, is "I don't call them names, I acknowledge their existence at the grocery store, and I didn't move or call the police the moment they moved in to the neighborhood".

The thing I want to know is how bad does it have to get before people stop saying that ANY opposition to racist laws, actions or people is 'playing the race card'? It seems that 'playing the race card' applies to any such opposition for 20 or 30 years after the incident. So right now, we are FINALLY far enough removed from the civil rights movement that it is no longer playing the race card.

"Making trouble" = "being uppity" = "creating racial tension" = "playing the race card"

[AtLast]

Isn't it always the case that when some twit is advocating some racist or racially charged perspective that they ALWAYS have one or two convenient 'black friends' who, if the speaker is pressed, always agrees with the racist sentiment or doesn't think it is racist? I think this guy's definition of 'friend', at least vis a vis black people, is "I don't call them names, I acknowledge their existence at the grocery store, and I didn't move or call the police the moment they moved in to the neighborhood".

The thing I want to know is how bad does it have to get before people stop saying that ANY opposition to racist laws, actions or people is 'playing the race card'? It seems that 'playing the race card' applies to any such opposition for 20 or 30 years after the incident. So right now, we are FINALLY far enough removed from the civil rights movement that it is no longer playing the race card. "Making trouble" = "being uppity" = "creating racial tension" = "playing the race card"

Yes, how long? And it makes me crazy to hear ... I have friends that are ____________ (fill in the blank). La-De-Fucking Da!!

So very much is being lost because of the acting-out of having our first African American president. It is not lost on me that Obama continues to refuse to do anything in which whites can say ... see, he's just another angry black man... The stuff around his not displaying emotion about the Gulf spill is indicative of this. He ran the entire campaign with this on his mind....

[AtLast]

Random, it is pretty sickening. Racism is alive and well in North America. It just seems to me that there is a new wave of it and the scary part is that this time around they are actually proud of it and taking it to the streets and it is deep in government.

HSIN, I haven't seen it anywhere else but HuffPo and the Marion Observer. This is one of the problems, mainstream media is not covering this mostly because those who own it are in on it. My opinion.

U, you have hit it for me... it is the pride in racism that seems different to me.

I knew that with the financial crisis and recession, we would see an upsurg in bold racist statements, actions, etc. along with obama being elected. But, whoa...

[dreadgeek]

[/COLOR][/B]

Yes, how long? And it makes me crazy to hear ... I have friends that are ____________ (fill in the blank). La-De-Fucking Da!!

So very much is being lost because of the acting-out of having our first African American president. It is not lost on me that Obama continues to refuse to do anything in which whites can say ... see, he's just another angry black man... The stuff around his not displaying emotion about the Gulf spill is indicative of this. He ran the entire campaign with this on his mind....

Susan:

If my Spock-like demeanor is ever frustrating to you, just remember the above paragraph. My entire professional and much of my personal life has been built-on and predicated upon having very close control of (and awareness of so I *CAN* control) my emotions. My career would come to a sudden and crashing halt if I developed a reputation as the 'angry, black lesbian'. If I let my emotions out to play in casual company I wouldn't be where I am today and I wouldn't be where I'm headed tomorrow. I know that.

In fact, when I am in a long-term relationship with a white woman (as I am now) one thing I will let her know, fairly early on, is that there is a shell that I wear that is almost always on in public. It's not conscious and has its own momentum at this point. It's so ingrained, in fact...well, let me tell you a short anecdote.

In my first job in the computer industry, back in 1994, I ended up at IGC Networks (PeaceNet, EcoNet, LaborNet, WomensNet). As a non-profit on the side of the angels, I was NOT the only black woman at the organization--although I was the only black woman working in tech. One day Deborah, Tracy and I (the three black women) were sitting in what passed as our lunch room. Deborah was telling us one of her stories and because it was just us there, we all let our language slip into the vernacular. This guy George came into the lunchroom and, in mid-sentence Deborah code-switched and dropped back into very precise diction and grammar. We followed her without missing a beat and still laughed at the joke. George, because he was a very hip, liberal guy who had really done some anti-racism work, recognized what had happened and said something about it, being very apologetic that he had interrupted. Deborah looked at him and said "It's cool, George. We know you're down. But this isn't something we can help, it just happens. There's a voice for when it's just black folks and there's a voice for when white folks come in the room. The only reason any of us work here is because switching between the two is second nature."

I get Obama. He can't afford to have his emotions show for the same reason that Condi Rice can't, or Colin Powell, or Eric Holder or myself--in fact, Oprah is the only black person of that kind of stature who *can* let her emotions out and then, only *certain* emotions. If you want to know how important this is, you need look no further than one Alan Keyes. He says all the right conservative things, he shows up at all the right conservative people, he has disowned his lesbian daughter to burnish his conservative cred but he's too emotional in public. All the difference in the world.

Cheers
Aj

[AtLast]

Susan:

If my Spock-like demeanor is ever frustrating to you, just remember the above paragraph. My entire professional and much of my personal life has been built-on and predicated upon having very close control of (and awareness of so I *CAN* control) my emotions. My career would come to a sudden and crashing halt if I developed a reputation as the 'angry, black lesbian'. If I let my emotions out to play in casual company I wouldn't be where I am today and I wouldn't be where I'm headed tomorrow. I know that.

In fact, when I am in a long-term relationship with a white woman (as I am now) one thing I will let her know, fairly early on, is that there is a shell that I wear that is almost always on in public. It's not conscious and has its own momentum at this point. It's so ingrained, in fact...well, let me tell you a short anecdote.

In my first job in the computer industry, back in 1994, I ended up at IGC Networks (PeaceNet, EcoNet, LaborNet, WomensNet). As a non-profit on the side of the angels, I was NOT the only black woman at the organization--although I was the only black woman working in tech. One day Deborah, Tracy and I (the three black women) were sitting in what passed as our lunch room. Deborah was telling us one of her stories and because it was just us there, we all let our language slip into the vernacular. This guy George came into the lunchroom and, in mid-sentence Deborah code-switched and dropped back into very precise diction and grammar. We followed her without missing a beat and still laughed at the joke. George, because he was a very hip, liberal guy who had really done some anti-racism work, recognized what had happened and said something about it, being very apologetic that he had interrupted. Deborah looked at him and said "It's cool, George. We know you're down. But this isn't something we can help, it just happens. There's a voice for when it's just black folks and there's a voice for when white folks come in the room. The only reason any of us work here is because switching between the two is second nature."

I get Obama. He can't afford to have his emotions show for the same reason that Condi Rice can't, or Colin Powell, or Eric Holder or myself--in fact, Oprah is the only black person of that kind of stature who *can* let her emotions out and then, only *certain* emotions. If you want to know how important this is, you need look no further than one Alan Keyes. He says all the right conservative things, he shows up at all the right conservative people, he has disowned his lesbian daughter to burnish his conservative cred but he's too emotional in public. All the difference in the world.

Cheers
Aj



Oh, I get what you are saying, Aj. I just feel sad that anyone has to do so much personal holding back due to race. It happens with ethnicity, too, which I believe robs people of identity. Then, again.... that's racism!

Also, there is just the stereotypes of race and ethnicity around anger and emotional venting, overall and the hierarchy of what is better than.

Oh, yes, I bet you deal with the angry black lesbian stuff all of the time, especially in academia. I remember being very nervous with dissertatation committee members viewing me as having a Latin temperament within their ivory towers. And they simply held power me.

[Rook]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/10/texas.border.patrol.shooting/index.html?on.cnn=1


hmmm...

:canoworms::candle:

[Nat]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/10/texas.border.patrol.shooting/index.html?on.cnn=1


hmmm...

:canoworms::candle:

:( that's so horrendously terrible. :(

[The_Lady_Snow]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/10/texas.border.patrol.shooting/index.html?on.cnn=1


hmmm...

:canoworms::candle:


This just breaks my heart...

[AtLast]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/10/texas.border.patrol.shooting/index.html?on.cnn=1


hmmm...

:canoworms::candle:

Argh! I believe this is the second incident like this recently. WTF?

A can of worms that needs to be opened- our border patrol shooting children?

[Soon]

Arizona's Next Immigration Target: Children of Illegals (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1996064,00.html?xid=huffpo-direct)


Buoyed by recent public opinion polls suggesting they're on the right track with illegal immigration, Arizona Republicans will likely introduce legislation this fall that would deny birth certificates to children born in Arizona — and thus American citizens according to the U.S. Constitution — to parents who are not legal U.S. citizens. The law largely is the brainchild of state senator Russell Pearce, a Republican whose suburban district, Mesa, is considered the conservative bastion of the Phoenix political scene. He is a leading architect of the Arizona law that sparked outrage throughout the country: Senate Bill 1070, which allows law-enforcement officers to ask about someone's immigration status during a traffic stop, detainment or arrest if reasonable suspicion exists — things like poor English skills, acting nervous or avoiding eye contact during a traffic stop.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1996064,00.html?xid=huffpo-direct#ixzz0qqes37tY

[Soon]

Pfgfp_6ZX7s&feature=player_embedded

[AtLast]

Arizona's Next Immigration Target: Children of Illegals (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1996064,00.html?xid=huffpo-direct)


Buoyed by recent public opinion polls suggesting they're on the right track with illegal immigration, Arizona Republicans will likely introduce legislation this fall that would deny birth certificates to children born in Arizona — and thus American citizens according to the U.S. Constitution — to parents who are not legal U.S. citizens. The law largely is the brainchild of state senator Russell Pearce, a Republican whose suburban district, Mesa, is considered the conservative bastion of the Phoenix political scene. He is a leading architect of the Arizona law that sparked outrage throughout the country: Senate Bill 1070, which allows law-enforcement officers to ask about someone's immigration status during a traffic stop, detainment or arrest if reasonable suspicion exists — things like poor English skills, acting nervous or avoiding eye contact during a traffic stop.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1996064,00.html?xid=huffpo-direct#ixzz0qqes37tY

WTF? You bet this is against the US Constitution!

Frankly, if this were to be passed, I think it is grounds for charges of treason against Arizona. And that would be the point I'll be making to my congressional representatives as a US citizen! So much of this is not only grounded in anti-Mexican sentiments, but so much a part of the birther mentality about Obama.

This is so nuts!! Where is the nation-wide outrage? Oh, that's right, a hell of a lot of people are just trying to manage financially during the biggest recession since the Great Depression (many trying to re-train, which takes bucks to do) and we are watching The Gulf region change for all time which will end up with more economic hardship for every citizen in the US. When things are tough economically for people, these kinds of anti-immigration sentiments are rampant, historically. Fighting anything but trying to survive gets very difficult and is a prime target for weakness and pushing through this kind of lunatic and bigoted legislation.

You know, I honestly believe that a mass demonstration in AZ from people across the nation fed up with this stuff - enough for a half million porta-potties to be needed is what has to happen! There is great power in porta-potty demonstrations!! Tend to wake people up! Numbers matter!!

Porta-Potty Revolution NOW!!!

[UofMfan]

Arizona's Next Immigration Target: Children of Illegals (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1996064,00.html?xid=huffpo-direct)


Buoyed by recent public opinion polls suggesting they're on the right track with illegal immigration, Arizona Republicans will likely introduce legislation this fall that would deny birth certificates to children born in Arizona — and thus American citizens according to the U.S. Constitution — to parents who are not legal U.S. citizens. The law largely is the brainchild of state senator Russell Pearce, a Republican whose suburban district, Mesa, is considered the conservative bastion of the Phoenix political scene. He is a leading architect of the Arizona law that sparked outrage throughout the country: Senate Bill 1070, which allows law-enforcement officers to ask about someone's immigration status during a traffic stop, detainment or arrest if reasonable suspicion exists — things like poor English skills, acting nervous or avoiding eye contact during a traffic stop.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1996064,00.html?xid=huffpo-direct#ixzz0qqes37tY

This stuff makes me ill.

[MsDemeanor]

WTF? You bet this is against the US Constitution!
!
But, but, but, don't you know.....the only Amendment that matters is #2. The tea farty folks and other conservatives raging on about "Constitution this" and "Constitution that" are really only interested in #2. Oh, and #1, but #1 only really applies to them and anyone who agrees with them.

Oh, #1 and #2...now I get it. It's a potty joke!!!!!

[AtLast]

But, but, but, don't you know.....the only Amendment that matters is #2. The tea farty folks and other conservatives raging on about "Constitution this" and "Constitution that" are really only interested in #2. Oh, and #1, but #1 only really applies to them and anyone who agrees with them.

Oh, #1 and #2...now I get it. It's a potty joke!!!!!

ROLF!

They are a bunch, that is for sure!

I just had to do the porta-potty thing because of how the numbers needed for events are calculated. Yanno.... that would be a big crowd with a half million porta potties calculated at hourly usage needed! Would be in the millions!!! Think of a demonstration that large!!!

Hummm... damn my son for being in the waste (solid, liquid, recycling, you name it)business....

[Linus]

As I thought about this new event and was reading this (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/asma-uddin/seeing-the-other-as-ameri_b_606657.html), I couldn't help but be struck by the irony of today. My company's lawyers filed for my H1-B petition, the precursor towards a green card and potential citizenship. To me, I feel like I'm do not deserve this compared to all those families, kids, friends, etc., who came here truly in search of freedom. Freedom from fear of being attacked by cartels, of potential no hope, and a variety of other things that depress the hopes of individuals.

As I read the Huffington Post article I linked I found the following comment:

I've got a solution to all this. Let's just close up shop. Close down the borders and do not let anyone immigrate here. Yes you could get a temporary work or school visa, but when it's up, it's up, go home. We have enough people here already. We already have a huge mess with this side and that side to everything. Why add more fuel to the fire. No more middle east immigrants. No more Mexican immigrants. No more European immigrants. No more African immigrants. Not even a Canadian. Close it down and take care of people who are here already.

To me, this will do nothing more than strangle the growth of the US. The vast diversity that exists in this country (although the honking of NYC could abate a little) is what makes it great in many ways. The ability to take on challenges and forge through them are what makes Americans unique in many ways.

It is, to me, short-sighted to blame the ills of a city, state or nation on a single factor. There is too much intertwining going on in the world today. Children born in the US should be, by all rights, American citizens (as per Amendment 14, clause #1).

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. (italics mine)

If one denies these children their rights, then how far can the state/gov't go to deny other individual rights?

[MsDemeanor]

I've heard rumor that MN Rep Michele Bachmann is an anchor baby. Can we send her back first?

[UofMfan]

As I thought about this new event and was reading this (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/asma-uddin/seeing-the-other-as-ameri_b_606657.html), I couldn't help but be struck by the irony of today. My company's lawyers filed for my H1-B petition, the precursor towards a green card and potential citizenship. To me, I feel like I'm do not deserve this compared to all those families, kids, friends, etc., who came here truly in search of freedom. Freedom from fear of being attacked by cartels, of potential no hope, and a variety of other things that depress the hopes of individuals.

As I read the Huffington Post article I linked I found the following comment:



To me, this will do nothing more than strangle the growth of the US. The vast diversity that exists in this country (although the honking of NYC could abate a little) is what makes it great in many ways. The ability to take on challenges and forge through them are what makes Americans unique in many ways.

It is, to me, short-sighted to blame the ills of a city, state or nation on a single factor. There is too much intertwining going on in the world today. Children born in the US should be, by all rights, American citizens (as per Amendment 14, clause #1).

(italics mine)

If one denies these children their rights, then how far can the state/gov't go to deny other individual rights?

If the Federal Government doesn't take on this, then it will just be one more thing to be disappointed about Obama and his administration.

We have a saying here, it goes something like: Too much (insert ice cream truck music) not enough ice cream. That is how I see the Obama years so far.

I've heard rumor that MN Rep Michele Bachmann is an anchor baby. Can we send her back first?

We could only be so lucky, lol to send her back!

[AtLast]

I've heard rumor that MN Rep Michele Bachmann is an anchor baby. Can we send her back first?

Oh, how I would love this to be true! Did some research online.... came up with nothing about this other than her speeches, etc. about anchor babies. Then, again, after an overview of all of her insanity as a politician (and person), I could only take on about 6 articles..... that was enough. Really hard to hear her at the moment of her whacko statements, but to read them all in one sitting is just too much!


We could only be so lucky, lol to send her back!
[/QUOTE]

Well, we are jesting here, and I so get it, but, get really upset with anti-anchor baby stuff that I don't want anyone in the US sent anywhere via this trash. But, I sure can think of a few places I would love to send this woman!

But, you all have a point!!

You ever think about her as a GOP Presidential or VP candidate... or better yet.... Liz Cheny! I really think she might be a GOP candidate in 2012... ARGH....


You were just joshing, huh?

[Soon]

wMuuMZH4gWw&feature=player_embedded

Steve King Suggests Illegal Immigrants Can Be Spotted By Their Shoes Or A "Sixth Sense"

[dreadgeek]

If the Federal Government doesn't take on this, then it will just be one more thing to be disappointed about Obama and his administration.

We have a saying here, it goes something like: Too much (insert ice cream truck music) not enough ice cream. That is how I see the Obama years so far.



We could only be so lucky, lol to send her back!


Actually, if such a law were to pass then it would go to the Federal courts which would either strike it down or pass it up to the Supreme Court. This would be, largely, out of the hands of the Obama administration (or any administration). That process would start, quite automatically, once a law passed and someone was harmed by it.

Now, I don't think that any such law will see the light of day. The Constitution is *very* explicit on this matter and while most people don't realize *why* the 14th Amendment exists, there are those of us who are beneficiaries of that amendment who recognize precisely why it exists.

(For those who don't, at the end of the Civil War, the status of black Americans was up for grabs. Up until that point, we were not considered citizens in a full legal sense. The 14th Amendment was passed to get around what the Southern states *wanted* to happen which was that black citizens would not be considered citizens of the United States. So the 14th was passed to make it clear that American citizenship automatically adheres to anyone born here. Forgive me for being so blunt but I do not trust the majority enough to see that Amendment repealed or even substantially changed. )

I understand the strategy the Republicans are trying. In the short run (2010 - 2012) it *might* pay off although I think it's a long-odds gamble. Past 2016 they will rue the day they decided that stoking racial resentment was the path to electoral glory.

Cheers
Aj

[dreadgeek]

Linus:

You bring up a really good point--the *real* problems America are facing aren't really related to immigration. Compared to the effects of letting our education system falter and turning our backs on science, they are trivial. Compared to allowing American corporations to move their headquarters off-shore to avoid paying corporate taxes or moving jobs overseas, immigration just fades into the background. Compared to a trillion dollar defense budget all the social services *combined* do not even begin to compete for the amount of weight they have on the economy.

But improving the education system is a long-term project and will require more money with the payoff being intangible, so we don't want to do that. Passing laws that reward good business behavior and punish bad business behavior are difficult so we don't want to do that heavy lifting either. Cutting back our defense spending by, say, half gores way too many sacred cows. Immigrants are easy. They are nice slow-moving target and have the added virtue of large numbers of immigrants looking substantially different than the majority so blaming them is the path we've chosen in this country. Why do the hard thing that will require courage, sacrifice and will when there's a ready-made scapegoat right at hand?

Yes, it's cynical but that doesn't mean it's wrong.

Cheers
Aj


As I thought about this new event and was reading this (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/asma-uddin/seeing-the-other-as-ameri_b_606657.html), I couldn't help but be struck by the irony of today. My company's lawyers filed for my H1-B petition, the precursor towards a green card and potential citizenship. To me, I feel like I'm do not deserve this compared to all those families, kids, friends, etc., who came here truly in search of freedom. Freedom from fear of being attacked by cartels, of potential no hope, and a variety of other things that depress the hopes of individuals.

As I read the Huffington Post article I linked I found the following comment:



To me, this will do nothing more than strangle the growth of the US. The vast diversity that exists in this country (although the honking of NYC could abate a little) is what makes it great in many ways. The ability to take on challenges and forge through them are what makes Americans unique in many ways.

It is, to me, short-sighted to blame the ills of a city, state or nation on a single factor. There is too much intertwining going on in the world today. Children born in the US should be, by all rights, American citizens (as per Amendment 14, clause #1).

(italics mine)

If one denies these children their rights, then how far can the state/gov't go to deny other individual rights?

[The_Lady_Snow]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100618/ap_on_re_us/us_immigration_law_clinton

[Linus]

And out comes the more obvious racist nature of the Arizona law (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/25/jan-brewer-drug-smuggling_n_626258.html). This law isn't about legal versus not "legal" immigrants. It's about the colour of the state of Arizona. With an aging white boomer population that has more conservative leanings, I'd imagine this holds well with many of them.