[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by I'mOneToo

I'll be back after I marinate on my thoughts about how so many of you have suggested that my family and friends in arizona should suffer dire economic consequences (in other words, that my friends and family deserve to die?) because "their state" has adopted racist policies.

Actually no one has said or implied anything remotely like the idea that anyone should die. I will, however, reiterate that laws have consequences.

When anyone says "boycott a state" they are recommending bankrupting all of the residents.

No, they are recommending putting pressure on the state of Arizona to change the law. The whole idea of a strike or a boycott isn't to ruin businesses, it is to put pressure on them. Right now, Arizona has a law that is explicitly racist and is an open invitation to racial profiling. It is meant to make a particular population feel unsafe and unwelcome and like second-class citizens. It is meant to intimidate citizens. That law must be repealed.

Bankrupt people starve to death. It's hard to move an entire family to make a political statement -- just as it is difficult for everyone HERE to move TO arizona to make a political statement.

No one is suggesting that people move to 'make a political statement'. I do believe it would behoove Hispanics living in Arizona to find the exits but that is not about making a political statement, that is about making sure that they are safe. Whites living in Arizona have no reason to move. Let them stay. As I said last night, an exodus is a boycott by another name. I think that Hispanics should leave the state of Arizona and move somewhere they will be welcome.

hmm... but why *aren't* we ALL moving *TO* arizona to register to vote as arizonans to change things?

Why should ANY person of color put themselves in harm's way? If it were *just* this law, maybe you would have a point but it isn't *just* this law. There's the 'no teaching ethnic studies in school' regulation with its attendant 'no teaching if you have a 'thick' accent' provision. There's the billboards showing a Hispanic family as "the biggest threat facing our nation". And then there's this gem; on 3 Oct 2009 an interracial couple was walking through a park and a man came up to them and asked the black man what he was doing with a white woman. They walked on, he got into a car, followed them and shot them. She died, he lived. In 2009. Over interracial dating. In Arizona.

How can anyone EXCEPT a privileged individual expect *others* to make sacrifices to make america better, instead of taking the bull by the horns ourselves? the ONLY pro-active measures are votes, according to this thread. So... if you're not a registered arizona voter, GET THERE AND REGISTER.

Except that sword cuts both ways. It is always people of color who have to exercise infinite patience. At each step in the last century, black people were told we had to wait. ONE day, but not today, we could go to any school. ONE day, but not too soon, we could live in any neighborhood. ONE day, but wait for it to come, we will be able to marry anyone we love. And on and on and on. Even today, if someone says something offensive it is always and forever people of color who are supposed to be patient, forbearing and understanding.

Votes have consequences or they should have. Arizona, a state in a democratic republic, elected people who passed a law that in 2010 makes a segment of the population second-class citizens. The state, by its democratic behavior, made a choice and yes it absolutely sucks that people who made another choice will feel pain because of it. They don't deserve it. But neither does the Hispanic mother deserve to have to fear being pulled over by a cop when she was just running down to get a few items at the grocery store and so doesn't have her birth cert on her. For that matter, neither does the Hispanic father who may have to hold it together while he is humiliated by some cop who asks him questions along the "so how long have you been in this country" line. You have not truly tasted of life's bittersweet tragedy until you have had to watch your father hold it in while his very dignity is assaulted in front of his family. They don't deserve it either.

I'm not talking about people in the country without proper documents or people who have overstayed their visa. I'm talking about people whose bloodlines have lived on the same patch of land since not long after the last ice age ended. They are citizens. I'm talking about people born here. They, too, are citizens. After the Civil Rights movement, I and many others thought, it would appear incorrectly, that we had at long last settled the issue in this country of whether you could make laws designed to make a group of people second-class citizens based upon race. Since Arizona has chosen to take a step backward, I think two things should happen until the state comes to its senses:

1) Every Hispanic person who *can* leave the state should give very serious consideration to finding a new zip code.

2) People should not vacation in Arizona, organizations should not have their conventions in Arizona.

The people who *own* the businesses in Arizona want to continue doing so. If they begin to feel the pressure, they *will* pressure their government to repeal the bill. That's how strikes and boycotts work. That's why they are used.

There was an article that came out a couple of days about about how next door in Nevada they are considering their own version of SB1070.

http://www.nevadaappeal.com/article/...ntProfile=1058 - "2 Nevada lawmakers to push for immigration law"

sooooo..... BOYCOTT ARIZONA and while you're at it, BOYCOTT NEVADA ... and BOYCOTT THE OTHER 20 STATES CONSIDERING SIMILAR MEASURES TO SB1070

Any state that passes a similar law should have to fear the exact same set of consequences. Perhaps that would give them a moment of pause.

in case everyone is unaware, the latest racist policies of arizona are driven by a rigged corporate game. I'll be back with details of that, too. early in the thread, someone named dean robert hit it on the head.

They may be driven by that and I think that a number of us are aware of it. However, that does not change, substantially, the effects on the ground. Racist laws should have consequences for states that pass them and NOT just the sole consequence that the ethnic minority targeted by them gets to live in fear.

Cheers
Aj