Below are two people who attempted to clarify that nobody is vilifying every person who lives in AZ, nor is anybody saying that every person who lives in AZ is a big mean racial profiler who is sucking on Jan Brewers dirty toes.

That should clear everything up. I even cut Aj's post down to smaller and bolded the part I was talking about specifically so you didn't have to read her entire post - I know how much you hate to do that. :)

No one said all voters are ignorant. You seriously are not making sense to me. I am off to work. I will catch up with the reading later.

I bet all them people know the names of The "Cougar Town" cast.

:|

Laughs, like I said I'm not playing your game. I don't answer to you or anyone else for that matter. If you want to be fair minded then you'd go read yourself.

And to the posting of those 2 little posts where the bend over backwards supposedly happened. I believe you were the one that said everyone in the state of Arizona was getting what was coming to them, I could be wrong and if so I do apologize. You can bend over backwards all day long saying something but the however that quickly follows immediately negates the bending over backward part.

I have an errand to run, ya'll have fun!

Actually, I said that people who do not vote get what they deserve, meaning they get the government that they deserve.

Insert apology here.

:)

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:


Strange talk coming from someone who's posts are equally long and who's arguments are all over the map. Not being willing to read the information so easily provided to you is a classic example of willful ignorance. You have an opinion that appears to not be based on facts or reason, you're sticking to it, you're not willing to engage, and you're not willing to consider facts and information being presented.

Um, post 944?

And there are REALLY people who live in rural areas with NO mode of transportation, no income to take a bus into a city, no income to buy a paper, no income to buy a cheap radio as you say and NO income to barely keep their family afloat and out of starvation. Do you think people who are living on the streets, pulling food out of garbage cans to feed themselves and their kids are going to be focused on what is going on in Arizona or any other state for that matter. They are trying to survive!!. If you think there are NOT those types of situations in the US then you are ignorant to their plight as well!

Or perhaps post 932?

People seem to forget that during these economic hard times that some people cannot afford television, radios, newspapers, INTERNET ACCESS, COMPUTERS, or treks into a nearby larger city where one may learn of political activism and what is going on in their own back yard.

Moderation Reminder

We've had a few posts reported of late. It seems people are reporting and then also trying to engage the offending party here in the thread; that ties our hands a little.

All that aside... Please, please, please try to communicate in a respectful way. Taking cheap shots at other members is not productive, and it's hurtful. We can all do better than that.

If you have legitimate questions or comments about this reminder, please contact me via PM.

Thanks.

And now for something completely different:

[quote=DomnNC;238618]

Good for you that you were able to keep your computer and internet access while unemployed, some people can't, for some people that's the first thing that goes because it's NOT a necessity in order to live or to put food on their table, or keep a roof over their kids heads. They can check out classifieds thru their local paper or word of mouth if need be. [ /quote]

The same local paper they can't afford and thus do not have when said paper has information about, oh, a bill that invites to racial profiling.

Quote:

Lastly, you don't know me so don't presume to accuse me of anything, goal post moving indeed. I'm just speaking up about people who seem to think they are so much better than others because they have an education and choose to be more politically aware than others. I don't go for blanket statements or putting a group of people down because they don't choose to participate in something. Not everyone is an activist and that's OK. You seem to think that those who don't choose to be an activist are less than you or anyone else who chooses to be so. If you don't think that way then perhaps you should read back over some of your postings because it sure does come off that way.

Fascinating. I say that you are goal post moving--something I think can be demonstrated and you accuse me of knowing you. Yet, you believe you can get in my head and tell me what I think about people who are not activists? Well, not even wrong on that score. I have said not a word about being activists. I have said quite a bit about being informed and voting neither of which I would consider activism--I would consider those citizenship. I don't think everyone has to be an activist. I have been an activist and I have had my periods where I was burnt out and didn't do activism.

However, through that time I have tried to be a citizen. We get the government and, by extension, the political structure we deserve. This isn't Iraq under Saddam Hussein nor is it Saudi Arabia under the House of Saud. Until demonstrated otherwise, this is a democratic republic and if it is screwed up then that is because we have allowed it to become so. This country does not belong to Wall Street. It doesn't belong to hedge fund managers. It belongs to ALL of the American people.

Yet pitifully few of the American people vote and thus bail out on the civic life of their nation. Is unemployment high in your area? Does it appear that it's not getting any better? That is, in no small part, because of decisions made by state, local and national governments. Are there homeless people sleeping under bridges? Why? Because, again, decisions made--largely in the area of budget priority--that create the conditions where people cannot afford housing and there are no services that can keep them off the streets. If people don't vote or if they vote in an uninformed fashion then they are as responsible for the condition of the country as every member of Congress, every mayor, every state representative, every governor, every President. If that is not true, then this isn't any kind of free society. As long as we can vote people out of office and they are compelled to relinquish power when we do so, then we have the government we deserve. If we have a government we cannot influence at all then whatever this is, it is not a democratic republic and we must then ask ourselves a different set of questions.

I like to believe that this country is still subject to the rule of law and the will of the voters enough that we can still save our country from, well, us. I would prefer people be informed voters and also give a damn enough about their country and the world they are leaving for their children to be informed about it--and by informed I mean something more substantive than the latest antics of the Kardashians or who is on American Idol.

Quote:

To be honest, I don't read much of what you say because you interlace so many other things with what you are trying to say, blurring the lines, writing a book and can't seem to get to the point of the matter without losing the audience. Brevity can be your friend.

I want to make it clear here that you made this personal and I'm going to let this slide. I didn't ask for your critique although I always find writing critiques helpful. But you made this personal, not I. You'll probably keep making it personal but to the best of my ability I won't.

You have a point, I understand the point you are making but disagree with it. I don't think citizenship is activism and I think that citizenship involves trying to be informed about what is going on in your city, state, and nation. I think it has consequences whether one does or not. I think that the state of the polity reflects something about the people--if the people run the polity. Look around you, how good of a job do you think We the People have done in the last, oh, quarter century?

Cheers
Aj

One other point (I'll try to be brief) and then I'm off to take a bath and soak with a book before diving into homework.

I think that some of what is going on here is that some of the people of color are letting slip our very justifiable frustration, fear and anger. it's bloody 2010. The kind of law that is SB 1070, the kind of regulations that are represented by the no teaching ethnic studies in Arizona, are supposed to be relics of the past. This argument is supposed to have been settled. Not in the sense that there was no racism and no institutional racism. But there is the force of a culture that was born with racism in its ideological DNA and there is racism as the *LAW*. I will probably always worry--with good reason--about driving while black. But it isn't *legal* for a cop to pull me over because I'm black. If there's nothing wrong with my car, if I can prove that I was pulled over unjustly, I can make my complaint and perhaps, depending, I might get somewhere with it. But when it is the law, there is no complaint coming.

Corkey, Snow any other POC here I'm not trying to speak for you but I think that is some of the frustration that comes out. I know that for me, there were other issues I thought we should be working on now and here it is looks like we are seeing the beginnings of Jim Crow Part II. Like I said, I was under no illusion that this was paradise but at least this kind of crap was not passed into law. I thought we were done with legalized, state-mandated, racism.

Maybe I'm wrong if I am, Corkey, Snowy et. al. let me know but when I heard the statements "this is what they deserve in Arizona" I'm hearing frustration and a sense of "no, this doesn't get to happen with no negative consequences. A price has to be paid for racism this blatant."

Cheers
Aj

My frustration comes from the blatant underlined comments that are excused after they are called upon. My frustration comes from asking repeatedly to not have the term illegal thrown out there as well. My frustration comes from the ridiculous excuses for not being up to date when it comes to what is going on in your state. My frustration comes from the colorful adjectives that are chosen to describe my people. ( I bet I would get my ass reamed for using cr%$#@r if refering to a white person)

These arguments get old, but I hang on hoping that when we come in and points the obvious truths out and how they are *affecting* us it is dismissed with accusations of pile ons and *popular cliques*.

I would like for once, maybe once when a white person comes and says something that is not ok, that they listen, and not use that whole deflection of

"but that is not what I said"

"stop picking on me"

"stop pointing me out the light the light it burnsssssssssss"

I would like that A LOT!

Do I think it will happen?

Gosh damn it I hope so.

So when I say Arizona is a racist state, I can, I have family there, I could share some stories (why though they fall on deaf ears) now, do I think every single person is?

No, but the ones who aren't and stay silent and use colorfol racial descriptors well then it's no different than standing by, letting a kid get hit by a car. Why should you help, not your kid, not your car, so *shrug*

I will adamantly admit that Arizona is a racist state. I do not live here by choice and would happily move if I could and it really stinks to be "stuck" here. I have a lot of poop in my pants over it.