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  #11  
Old 04-29-2010, 02:22 PM
Sean
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Re: Arizona - WTF?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Strangelet View Post
agreed. By the same people who brought you paranoid fear that FEMA was in the late stages of Operation Obama Gulag comes "THE MIGHTY RULE OF LAW!!!!" Hypocrisy so unabashed these guys might as well forgo taking off their latex gogo boots and bondage collars before going to sunday church.
I loved Roland Martin's take on it a few days ago:

COOPER: Roland, let me just play devil’s advocate here. What’s wrong with the State of Arizona saying you know what, a presidential candidate should produce a birth certificate and we have the right to demand that?

ROLAND MARTIN: Because they’re stupid! They’re stupid! Ok, these are the same people Anderson, who always talk about state’s rights. So basically what they’re saying is to the State of Hawaii, “We don’t trust you.”

And so I would turn it on this head, how would state officials in Arizona feel if another state rejected their birth certificates? See it’s not just so simple as well, just present a birth certificate.


And the Daily Show a few days ago skewered Arizona as "the meth lab of Democracy" in their opening segment.

Quote:
Originally Posted by chems1919 View Post
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20100428/ts_csm/297622

California is going to try to boycott any business they do with Arizona. Hopefully more states will do the same.
Good to see! Thanks for the link! I know I won't be going to visit Arizona until they kill these stupid bills.
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Last edited by Sean; 04-29-2010 at 03:06 PM.
  #12  
Old 05-05-2010, 12:21 PM
Sean
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Re: Arizona - WTF?
And as an encore performance to the recent immigration bill, Arizona's Department of Education has begun "ordering school districts to bar teachers who speak accented or ungrammatical English from classes containing English Language Learners", and has passed a bill to ban ethnic studies courses.

I'm speechless.
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  #13  
Old 05-05-2010, 03:21 PM
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Re: Arizona - WTF?
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  #14  
Old 05-05-2010, 03:25 PM
Deckard
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Re: Arizona - WTF?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sean View Post
And as an encore performance to the recent immigration bill, Arizona's Department of Education has begun "ordering school districts to bar teachers who speak accented or ungrammatical English from classes containing English Language Learners", and has passed a bill to ban ethnic studies courses.

I'm speechless.
Me too.

And a little afraid.
  #15  
Old 05-05-2010, 04:55 PM
Sean
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Re: Arizona - WTF?
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Originally Posted by Deckard View Post
Me too.

And a little afraid.
What makes it REALLY scary is that 52% of Arizona residents apparently think the immigration bill is a good idea, even though over 80% acknowledge that "its very or somewhat likely that the new law will lead to police officers detaining people of certain racial or ethnic groups more frequently than other racial or ethnic groups."
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  #16  
Old 05-12-2010, 11:57 AM
Sean
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Re: Arizona - WTF?
It's official. Arizona's Governor has just signed a new bill banning ethnic studies programs in Tucson.

"Brewer approved a bill late Tuesday, promoted by the state's schools boss, Tom Horne, who has said that the program run by the Tucson school district promotes a 'destructive ethnic chauvinism.'

Tucson school officials have insisted the program only aims to provide students with courses about the role of minorities in historical events such as the Vietnam war or literature courses featuring Latino authors.

The bill signed by Brewer on Tuesday prohibits any classes which promote the overthrow of the United States government, promote resentment toward a race or class of people, or are tailored for pupils from a particular racial group."


The crazy and stupid people are gaining too much political power if they can pass moronic bills like this, and if they're running campaigns viewed as legitimate despite running ads like the one highlighted in the "Best political ad my eyes have had the pleasure of seeing" thread. I hope the sane, intelligent people turn out to shut this crap down.
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  #17  
Old 05-13-2010, 10:48 AM
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Re: Arizona - WTF?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sean View Post
What makes it REALLY scary is that 52% of Arizona residents apparently think the immigration bill is a good idea, even though over 80% acknowledge that "its very or somewhat likely that the new law will lead to police officers detaining people of certain racial or ethnic groups more frequently than other racial or ethnic groups."
Maybe the reason why you think it's so "scary" is because you don't live in Arizona, so you can't really understand what's going on there. I'm not claiming to be an expert or anything but I have lived in Tuscon a few years and have travelled to Mexico five times in the last two years, spending nearly three months there. It's easy for liberals (no offense, but it's only liberals I've seen do this) to paint this as an excuse for racism and little else, and while I admit the bill is undoubtably going to lead to some racial profiling, it's not like Arizona as is a state that hates Mexican people. Hell, half the police I saw while I was there were Latinos. The reason this bill was passed is pretty much a direct result of what's going on in Mexico. You really can't overestimate the amount of power the drug lords have there or the extent of the drug violence that goes on. They are not exactly acting discretely there. It's pretty well-known that most of the Mexican politicians are working with them - unlike America, they barely even try to cover that up. The police in particular are pretty much all corrupt. It's not their fault - either you run protection or your family gets killed...easy choice. I was in Merida, Yucatan for a month when the governor had basically declared "war" on the drug dealers, filling the streets with heavily (like, ridiculously heavily) armed police vehicles ready to lay waste to an entire city block if need be (completely unnecessary, but still a striking image). The drug dealers' reponse? They threatened to kidnap 50 people from a graduation party I was at - sure enough it was over by 9 PM (when they typically go until the sun rises). They threatened to kidnap people from nightclubs, and soon there was almost NO nightlife in the city whatsoever. 90% of these were just empty threats, but some people, mostly college students, were kidnapped, held for ransom, then brutally murdered. Hell, just look up the news coming out of Juarez, where innocent people are literally killed every day thanks to stupid, drug-related violence.
Okay so that's Mexico, but some of that spills over into border states, especially Arizona. It's not as severe, but last I heard they were averaging one kidnapping per day, with public threats occuring somewhat frequently. It's not the legal US Citizens that are doing this. A lot of people think that the illegals in border states were mostly poor dudes trying to make a better life - a drain on our tax system but not really a threat. The truth is there is a lot of drug-related violence there which is overwhelmingly linked to the illegals. I'm not an expert on this bill but I've known for years that border states needed to do SOMETHING about this. That's why the (slight) majority is in favor of this. There's no way this would pass in a place like Ohio. Whether or not the bill is a good one, I don't really know, but yeah if I knew someone who was kidnapped and murdered I'd support anything that would at least try to curb the problem. The liberal point of view seems to be "so immigrants will be out on a family dinner, the police will investigate them because they look foreign, lock them up because they won't have a passport, and try to deport them". There is no way this is going to create a new wave of racial profiling from officers who enjoy hasseling innocent foreign people. It's just a step to try to curb something that is a REAL problem in the South, something that sadly doesn't get a fraction of the news coverage this new bill has.
  #18  
Old 05-13-2010, 11:28 AM
Sean
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Re: Arizona - WTF?
Quote:
Originally Posted by 34958hq439-qjw9v5jq298v5j View Post
Maybe the reason why you think it's so "scary" is because you don't live in Arizona, so you can't really understand what's going on there.
I live in Los Angeles, so I have a pretty good idea. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for controlling immigration to keep things legal, but I don't believe we should be doing it through bills that literally take us in an undeniably bold step towards fascist policy - and I don't throw around terms like "fascist" lightly at all. The reason I think it's "scary" is that we as American citizens should never embrace policies that place undue burden on a single group for no other reason than their ethnic origin. It won't be white people getting asked to show their papers every time they get pulled over for a traffic violation. Simply being of Mexican heritage is what will inevitably be the single biggest factor in determining if they must carry multiple forms of id with them at all times to avoid being arrested - and having multiple forms of id with us at all times is something that Americans don't legally have to do.

Quote:
Originally Posted by 34958hq439-qjw9v5jq298v5j View Post
I'm not claiming to be an expert or anything but I have lived in Tuscon a few years and have travelled to Mexico five times in the last two years, spending nearly three months there. It's easy for liberals (no offense, but it's only liberals I've seen do this) to paint this as an excuse for racism and little else, and while I admit the bill is undoubtably going to lead to some racial profiling, it's not like Arizona as is a state that hates Mexican people. Hell, half the police I saw while I was there were Latinos.
Well, I'm not a liberal, and I'm saying it. I say it because I refuse to look at this bill in isolation. I look at it coupled with Arizona's resistence to recognizing Martin Luther King Day, the details of this legislation, their recent decision to not allow teachers with accents to continue teaching, and this past Tuesday's new bill banning ethnic studies classes in Arizona schools. These are all examples of a very disturbing trend in Arizona that I'm absolutely floored by.


Quote:
Originally Posted by 34958hq439-qjw9v5jq298v5j View Post
The reason this bill was passed is pretty much a direct result of what's going on in Mexico. You really can't overestimate the amount of power the drug lords have there or the extent of the drug violence that goes on. They are not exactly acting discretely there. It's pretty well-known that most of the Mexican politicians are working with them - unlike America, they barely even try to cover that up. The police in particular are pretty much all corrupt. It's not their fault - either you run protection or your family gets killed...easy choice. I was in Merida, Yucatan for a month when the governor had basically declared "war" on the drug dealers, filling the streets with heavily (like, ridiculously heavily) armed police vehicles ready to lay waste to an entire city block if need be (completely unnecessary, but still a striking image). The drug dealers' reponse? They threatened to kidnap 50 people from a graduation party I was at - sure enough it was over by 9 PM (when they typically go until the sun rises). They threatened to kidnap people from nightclubs, and soon there was almost NO nightlife in the city whatsoever. 90% of these were just empty threats, but some people, mostly college students, were kidnapped, held for ransom, then brutally murdered. Hell, just look up the news coming out of Juarez, where innocent people are literally killed every day thanks to stupid, drug-related violence.
We're in complete agreement about the heinous nature of the drug wars in Mexico. A good friend of mine had a house down there that he sold last year because 4 severed heads were left on the sidewalk down the street from it. It's absolutely a serious problem.

Quote:
Originally Posted by 34958hq439-qjw9v5jq298v5j View Post
Okay so that's Mexico, but some of that spills over into border states, especially Arizona. It's not as severe, but last I heard they were averaging one kidnapping per day, with public threats occuring somewhat frequently. It's not the legal US Citizens that are doing this. A lot of people think that the illegals in border states were mostly poor dudes trying to make a better life - a drain on our tax system but not really a threat. The truth is there is a lot of drug-related violence there which is overwhelmingly linked to the illegals. I'm not an expert on this bill but I've known for years that border states needed to do SOMETHING about this. That's why the (slight) majority is in favor of this. There's no way this would pass in a place like Ohio. Whether or not the bill is a good one, I don't really know, but yeah if I knew someone who was kidnapped and murdered I'd support anything that would at least try to curb the problem. The liberal point of view seems to be "so immigrants will be out on a family dinner, the police will investigate them because they look foreign, lock them up because they won't have a passport, and try to deport them". There is no way this is going to create a new wave of racial profiling from officers who enjoy hasseling innocent foreign people. It's just a step to try to curb something that is a REAL problem in the South, something that sadly doesn't get a fraction of the news coverage this new bill has.
You say "Whether or not the bill is a good one, I don't really know". Well, knowing whether or not it's a good bill is crucial to forming an opinion on it. The biggest two key problems in it for me are that:

1) it stipulates that law enforcement personnel are required to demand proof of citizenship "where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States", and yet it doesn't define what constitutes "reasonable suspicion". And when asked what an illegal immigrant "looks like", even Arizona's governor that signed the bill into law answered "I don't know". So who will be targetted under this kind of loose wording? Mexicans, whether here legally or not.

And 2) couple the above point with the fact that the bill also says "a person who is a legal resident of this state may bring an action in superior court to challenge any official or agency...that adopts or implements a policy or practice that limits or restricts the enforcement of federal immigration laws to less than the full extent permitted by federal law". So simply put, if a white person walking down the street sees a cop pull over someone of Mexican descent and NOT ask for their papers, they can sue that cop. Basically, this stipulation will place added pressure on police to racially profile.

So again, I have no problem with immigration reform, and common-sense approaches to administering laws that are already in place regarding illegal immigration, but I do not support in any way a policy that victimizes an entire ethnic group for no other reason than their ethnicity. I honestly feel like we're headed towards repeating one of the most shameful chapters in American history, when we had Japanese internment camps during World War 2.
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Last edited by Sean; 05-13-2010 at 11:33 AM.
  #19  
Old 05-13-2010, 12:13 PM
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Re: Arizona - WTF?
I'd be curious to see what actually gets done over there. I never really thought Arizona was a racist state. If you were racist, you wouldn't want to live there. I don't really know the details of the other things you mentioned but I dunno, I always thought MLK day was kind of a silly holiday too (and I don't believe I am a racist). The accent thing is very disturbing but I'll wait for more details - yeah this sounds pretty bad but I can understand. In college I had several professors whose accents were so thick that many students ended up doing pretty badly because they couldn't understand a word they were saying. I wonder if this "law" is going to affect people with "normal" Mexican accents or only the really thick ones. This sounds like a law that ultimately will not have any teeth. The backlash from 'enforcing' this would be huge.

As for this bill, you got me, I really don't have much of an opinion on it yet, I'm just saying I'm not surprised that Arizona is taking action given what's going on there. To be honest, every bill that I have followed almost never has the types of effects that are speculated. The one bill that really affected my life (the Unlawful Internet Gambling Act) was supposed to take away my source of income for good, but in the end it did almost nothing besides make depositing and withdrawling money online harder. My initial impression was that it was bad because it invites racial profiling, but honestly I don't know if there's a better idea for curbing the problem.

Many people are assuming "reasonable suspicion" means "anyone who is brown". I find it kind of shit that the governor who passed this won't even really say what we're all thinking. Again I would have to see how it's being enforced. Maybe this law will say that we can ID people because they're Mexican and throw them in jail because they didn't have their passport in the same way IRS law says they can force a person to show reciepts for everything they own and prove they have no 'hidden income' or they can give them stiff penalties. Scary, but almost never happens. Actually, if the police who 'enforce' this are smart and non-biased, I don't think it would really effect the innocents too much, and may give them the ability to bust some bad people they couldn't before. You know how Al Capone went down for tax evasion...

The second part looks real fuzzy, and again I'd have to get a real-world example of something that actually happened before I can really pass judgement on that. Maybe you're disillusioned with America and I'm too optimistic, but I can't see that scenario you came up with ever actually occuring.

Calling this a step towards a "shameful chapter" really sounds like an overreaction to me. It's like you feel as though this bill gives racist cops the ability to jail any Mexican for no reason. You can claim the bill looks fascist and indeed parts of it do, but if it's anywhere near what people are fearing there is no chance it stands as written. The law hasn't even been enforced yet and already they're talking about MLB moving the All-Star game because the Latinos (which are like 40% of the league now) would refuse to play. As I recall, the Patriot Act gave the government some really, really scary powers too, but I can't think of any abuses or anyone who was even affected at all by it.
  #20  
Old 06-08-2010, 11:51 AM
Sean
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Re: Arizona - WTF?
Okay Arizona, explain to me how this latest story isn't motivated by bigotry:

Altered mural fuels racial debate in Prescott

A group of artists has been asked to lighten the faces of children depicted in a giant public mural at a Prescott school.

The project's leader says he was ordered to lighten the skin tone after complaints about the children's ethnicity. But the school's principal says the request was only to fix shading and had nothing to do with political pressure.

The "Go on Green" mural, which covers two walls outside Miller Valley Elementary School, was designed to advertise a campaign for environmentally friendly transportation. It features portraits of four children, with a Hispanic boy as the dominant figure.

R.E. Wall, director of Prescott's Downtown Mural Project, said he and other artists were subjected to slurs from motorists as they worked on the painting at one of the town's most prominent intersections.

"We consistently, for two months, had people shouting racial slander from their cars," Wall said. "We had children painting with us, and here come these yells of (epithet for Blacks) and (epithet for Hispanics)."

Wall said school Principal Jeff Lane pressed him to make the children's faces appear happier and brighter.

"It is being lightened because of the controversy," Wall said, adding that "they want it to look like the children are coming into light."

Lane said that he received only three complaints about the mural and that his request for a touch-up had nothing to do with political pressure. "We asked them to fix the shading on the children's faces," he said. "We were looking at it from an artistic view. Nothing at all to do with race."

City Councilman Steve Blair spearheaded a public campaign on his talk show at Prescott radio station KYCA-AM (1490) to remove the mural.

In a broadcast last month, according to the Daily Courier in Prescott, Blair mistakenly complained that the most prominent child in the painting is African-American, saying: "To depict the biggest picture on the building as a Black person, I would have to ask the question: Why?"

Blair could not be reached for comment Thursday. In audio archives of his radio show, Blair discusses the mural. He insists the controversy isn't about racism but says the mural is intended to create racial controversy where none existed before.

"Personally, I think it's pathetic," he says. "You have changed the ambience of that building to excite some kind of diversity power struggle that doesn't exist in Prescott, Arizona. And I'm ashamed of that."

Faces in the mural were drawn from photographs of children enrolled at Miller Valley, a K-5 school with 380 students and the highest ethnic mix of any school in Prescott. Wall said thousands of town residents volunteered or donated to the project, the fourth in a series of community murals painted by a group of artists known as the "Mural Mice."

The public art, funded by a $5,000 state grant through the Prescott Alternative Transportation Center, was selected by school students and faculty.

"The parents and children love it," Lane said.
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