Arizona's SB 1070 is racist to the core
Posted on Monday, August 02, 2010 at 12:29 AM
Larger Text
Print
E-mail
115 Comments
RSS 
Recent Posts
- Violent attacks on gays in New York up 70 percent in 2013
- Will New York Senator Chuck Schumer ditch gay couples for an immigration deal?
- If nobody's happy, it's working – the abortion debate and Irish politics of stalemate
- Conservative news entertainment complex claim Barack Obama leader of Al Qaeda
- Why Irish grudges are passed on - a long tradition of never forgetting
Archives
Say it with me: Arizona's SB 1070 is racist to the core. Arizona's SB 1070 is about police rounding up people based on their race, despite all the howls of protests of the bill's supporters to the contrary.
That is what it is about. It identifies undesirables based on their ethnicity, nationality and status.
But just try telling that to the Governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer. The mood she (and the GOP) are in these days, she'd probably deport the Statue of Liberty back to France if she had the opportunity.
In angling for her big moment in the national spotlight Brewer has instead turned the floodlights on millions of the most retiring people in our nation: the vulnerable undocumented who live in the shadows whilst all the while living hard productive lives and helping to power our economy.
It's not a fair fight. Brewer's brought out a bulldozer to pluck a daisy.
The bill's defenders shout why should Arizona’s taxpayers feed, house and educate the citizens of other countries? But this ignores just how hard those foreign born citizens are working to feed, house and educate themselves.
And the overheated charges of rampant criminality take a beating from the state's actual crime statistics, particularly when you're forced to admit the biggest crime of the year there involved a break out of three caucasian convicts.
Maybe Arizona's police force would spend their precious time better by keeping murderers behind bars rather than being forced to become untrained immigration agents?
And have you actually seen the comments written by so many of the state's own citizens in their online forums? To hear most of them tell it the undocumented have come to America to 'take our jobs, kill our citizens and rape our women.'
Dehumanizing much?
At a Republican County forum recently, in tune with the tenor of the times, primary candidate for Congress Pat Bertroche suggested that we microchip 'illegals.'
Bertroche said, referring to undocumented immigrants who are detained and deported, 'I actually support microchipping them. I can microchip my dog so I can find it. Why can't I microchip an illegal?'
And worst of all it’s no secret that the anti-immigrant movement in the United States has long and deep connections to white nationalist individuals and organizations.
White supremacist political parties have made (and have advertised) a donation they made to the fund Brewer set in to prepare for the defense of SB 1070.
Stormfront.org, the biggest white nationalist web forum online, has also called for donations to the SB 1070 defense fund. 'Money where you mouth is time,' they state.
Jan, you might want to take a look at your most ardent supporters. Why? Because money talks, and here's what it's saying - SB 1070 is racist to the core.
115 comments
hollabackgurl | Aug 03, 2010, 02:42 PM EDT
I mean the obstructionist GOP vote in Congress, who don't have a single idea that's different from George W. Bush's.
Report abuse
IrishAndProud | Aug 03, 2010, 01:39 PM EDT
uh, hollabackgurl...we don't have a Republican Congress. we have a DEMOCRAT Congress. One with an 11% approval rating, last I looked.
Report abuse
1wildwankr | Aug 03, 2010, 12:24 PM EDT
this is the kind of ignorance,that i expected from a.p..not from an irish web site.i live in texas.i see illeagals everyday.i know for afact that many of them here have multable S.S. cards,receive food stamps and welfare checks. then offer to sell the food stamps at half price.the bigest differance between illeagal and leagal immigration is these people have no desire to be americans.
Report abuse
McNabb1966 | Aug 03, 2010, 11:54 AM EDT
@DennisQ...You wasted a lot of words to get back to the same old discredited argument from the Left: Our opponents are "racist." You can dress it up with all the flowery nonsense you can muster, it all boils down to the same thing. Have you got anything else? Nice attempt at misdirection by introducing the French national anthem to the discussion. Is that your attempt at appearing intellectual? And yes, opponents of open borders definitely appreciate "decent, hard working people who come to America to find work"...as long as they respect the laws of this country and go through the process LEGALLY. Why is that such a difficult concept to grasp by the Left?
Report abuse
jflanagan | Aug 03, 2010, 09:45 AM EDT
hollabackgurl: So what charities to volunteer with and give donations with all your compassion? Probable less than even that tightwad Joe Biden!
Report abuse
jflanagan | Aug 03, 2010, 09:44 AM EDT
hollabackgur: I serve as a volunteer for the Salvation Army and an Irish charity in the county where I reside. In one year, my wife and I give twice as much as that great charitable lefty, Joe Biden and his wife gave in ten years while having less than half their income in one year. I am a Democrat Party Committeeman and help my fellow citizens in my district as best I can. If you people have compassion for these illegal aliens you should put pressure on their governments to stop treating them like personal slaves, placing onerous self serving restrictions on new businesses and costing them thousands of dollars in bribes to start up a business in their home country. That is why they have to sneak in here (besides the drug smugglers and thugs) to make half a living for their families. If Vincente Fox wasn't so afraid of sharing some of his billions of riches, Calderon wasn't so protective of his corrupt allies, then these people could have a chance for a good life in their own country and not have to risk their lives sneaking into other countries. I have compassion and want to do something for them. You want to ignore what is going on and let our fellow citizens suffer while you are safe in your non-border residence. Do something real for them, don't just whine about how good people aren't pushovers for the corrupt governments Latin America.
Report abuse
hollabackgurl | Aug 03, 2010, 09:08 AM EDT
Our Republican Congress — large enough to block any action on jobs — cares a lot about taxes on the richest 1 percent of the population, but very little about the plight of Americans who can’t find work.
Report abuse
grimchieftain | Aug 03, 2010, 06:53 AM EDT
Strip away the political bile from both sides of the issue and you're left with this: If you're here legally, you have nothing to worry about and if you're here illegally, you are a lawbreaker. If the Federal government won't enforce their own laws, Arizona has no choice but to take it upon themselves to protect their borders.
Report abuse
DennisQ | Aug 03, 2010, 03:54 AM EDT
Right wing patriotism is so extreme that they ought to expect some pushback, especially when they presume that White anglo values are American values. Since economic hard times lead to political swings to the right, we're seeing a lot more racism than we usually see. It's wrong of right wingers to act surprised at being accused of racism - much right wing ideology is in fact indistinguishable from racism. For example, the jingoistic French national anthem La Marseillaise calls for watering the fields with the "impure" blood of the invader. The word invader is fairly loaded because of the connotation of evil intent, esp. rape and other forms of subversion - such as drug smuggling. The right wing image of the so-called "illegal" immigrant is distorted to the point of being cartoonish. As Cahir points out, the decent, hard working people who come to America to find work are unrecognizable in the right wing imaginations. There's no question that the stereotypes on which right wingers rely are racist to the core. Signficantly, the right wingers who howl at this characterization haven't denied it in any substantive way. To hear them speak, they are the very soul of rationality!
Aux armes citoyens
Formez vos bataillons
Marchons, marchons
Qu'un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons
Aux armes citoyens
Formez vos bataillons
Marchons, marchons
Qu'un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons
Report abuse
Monsoonman | Aug 03, 2010, 12:25 AM EDT
Irish and Proud...I take full responsibility for Seans wandering in the comic book character weeds. I got him started when I wrote about Elmer Fudd a while back and I think it had a profound effect on him...
Report abuse
IrishAndProud | Aug 02, 2010, 11:52 PM EDT
Sean, I've obviously ticked you off...but please try to come up with an analogy that's not quite so bizarre. That one was WEIRD.
Report abuse
seanomelbourne | Aug 02, 2010, 11:39 PM EDT
Your just a sad man IaP all talk and no substance. Your soup is so thin even mickey mouse wearing a white hood could see through it.
Report abuse
kmkellyc | Aug 02, 2010, 11:20 PM EDT
the BILL is almost a carbon copy of the federal law---do u live in AZ? they arre being invaded by drug thugs-70 miles inside the border--the federal gov't should enforce the law-not wage war on a state---it is amazing how stupid liberal my irish roots are.
Report abuse
Mike7571 | Aug 02, 2010, 11:00 PM EDT
Hispanic IS NOT A RACE!!
Report abuse
Report abuse