It’s not racism when it’s sanctioned by the state
The thing that bothers me about a lot of the reporting that’s been done around the hateful, racist Arizona legislation essentially allowing racial profiling of “illegals” is that no one in the mainstream media is actually coming out and calling it as such. “Controversial law signed by Governor Jan Brewer” is about the worst even supposedly leftist outlets like The Huffington Post can offer. Why can’t we just say what it is: hateful, racist, morally unconscionable, draconian, probably illegal?
Smarter people than me have already written volumes about this bill, and it should be a no-brainer as to why this is a sad day for Arizona and the rest of the country and Latin America. This law sends a message to Latino/as everywhere that they are not welcome here, even if they are citizens, even though they were here first, even though Gov. Jan Brewer and all the Tea Partiers and the rest of the old white men who run this country are themselves direct descendants of “illegal” immigrants. The panic about immigration and the drug cartels in northern Mexico is a gigantic farce and it is irresponsible to claim that our national security is threatened by brown-skinned men who traffic marijuana and cocaine and guns across the border to be sold to white-skinned people in the suburbs. Pretty disgusting.
La Prensa Libre has more, and at least The New Republic will call Tea Partiers crazy and mean.
May Day is a day of action to stand in solidarity with those who have immigrated to the United States and to call for an overhaul of the system, from the ideological ground up.
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