It's Time to Boycott Arizona

[Apocalipstic]

It seem to be a Catch 22.

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

Not that idiot Governor.

*rant*

[key]

Originally Posted by 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?


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]

Originally Posted by key

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]

[apretty]

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

[apretty]

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

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/0..._n_553157.html

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by 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.

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-neiw...slator-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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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.

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

...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]

Originally Posted by apocalipstic

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]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

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.

Originally Posted by Dean Thoreau

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]

Originally Posted by Dean Thoreau

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.