Also, Seriously, Arizona? SERIOUSLY?
This belonged in that last post lamenting depressing crap like the oil spill and the vanishing of the bees. Surely you’ve heard by now about the disgusting, despicable, outrageous (and really, it deserves about every such adjective you can come up with) racist anti-immigrant law recently passed in Arizona. I really need to return my focus to work now and keep it there for the next week, so no full-fledged commentary from me (not that I could add anything new or insightful anyway), but these are some links I recommend (with a couple extracts included), if you’ve missed them thus far:
Ezra Klein, “The predictable tragedies of Arizona’s anti-immigrant law”:
And everyone needs to read this e-mail from Kris Kobach, one of the bill’s drafters. In it, he recommends an amendment to the legislation allowing police officers to initiate a citizenship search based on any county or municipal ordinance. “This will allow police to use violations of property codes (ie, cars on blocks in the yard) or rental codes (too many occupants of a rental accommodation) to initiate queries as well,” explained Kobach.
So quite explicitly, Kobach is editing the bill to make it easier for police to dream up legal pretexts to hassle brown people about their citizenship.
RaceWire, “SB 1070’s Impact on Kids: Broken Families and America’s Soul”
Rachel Maddow, “Racist Roots of Arizona Law”
Angry Black Bitch, “On Arizona’s New Law”:
The only race card on the table is this mandate of unequal treatment under law that is the new Arizona law.
The race card that says people of color, people with accents, people who wear “different” clothing or people who are conversing in a foreign language get to experience one kind of American while the rest of y’all get to experience the other kind of America where your ass isn’t asked to prove your legal status when you’re pulled over for failing to yield.
RaceWire, “AZ Tweaks SB 1070, Now Minimally Less Racist, Still Just As Dangerous”
Ezra Klein, “The Might-Speak-Spanish Exception”
Stephanie Ernst
Marji
Kelly G.
Deb
Mary Martin
Personally, I see a lot of similarities between this bill and the (unfortunately) failed California Healthy Pets Act. And the arguments people are using against it are equally similar to the FUD spread by breeders.
I think this article explains the new AZ bill very well.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/29/opinion/29kobach.html
Specifically:
• Since 1940, it has been a federal crime for aliens to fail to keep registration documents with them. The Arizona law simply adds a state penalty to what was already a federal crime
• The law prohibits racial profiling. Section 2 [of the new law] provides that a law enforcement official “may not solely consider race, color or national origin” in making any stops or determining immigration status.
• Reasonable suspicion does not give police the power to arbitrarily check anyone’s papers. Federal legal precedents define and list the factors that contribute to “reasonable suspicion”.
It does not require any super genius insight to realize how racist this law is when in fact the lawmaker who authored it has a history of pal-ing around with white supremacists.
This is a disgusting law and Public Enemy were correct when they sang “By The Time I Get To Arizona”..back in the 90s.
The politicians who supported this law are of the same mindset of the politicians who drew up the laws against Jews in Nazi Germany.