The KKK took my Sheriff away.
Posted by: Donna
I couldn’t resist a nod to the Ramones for my post title.
I’m afraid of what looms in this upcoming election year, when the GOP has pretty much nothing to appeal to moderates and independents besides illegal immigration.
And they are flogging that issue, desperately. A few weeks ago Sheriff Joe chortled with Lou Dobbs over the “honor” of being compared to a Klansman. The Sheriff also appeared at a roast last Saturday, where he was feted by, among others, Minuteman leader Chris Simcox and a vicious rightie radio howler monkey named Terry Anderson. Russell Pearce still has a political career, and a somewhat thriving one at that, despite forwarding racist emails and embracing an avowed bigot like J.T. Ready. J.T. Ready is a Republican PC.
Now, Phil Gordon (Phoenix mayor) has announced that he no longer supports the don’t ask/don’t tell policy of immigration status of the Phoenix PD where arrestees are concerned. I’m told he did it under the suggestion of a panel that had been formed to advise him on immigration issues. Hispanic groups are worried about profiling and immigrant activists plan to increase their protests. In 2008, we may have a “Birthright Citizenship Alignment Act” on our ballots. This would essentially turn nurses in the maternity ward into immigration agents. (How many blond-haired, blue-eyed parents do you suppose will be required to produce proof of citizenship before the birth certificate is issued?) I’m sure it will fare as well as the spate of anti-immigration ballot measures did in 2006. Which is to say that 70% of voters will pass it.
About a week ago I caught a bit of the Jeff Farias show on the radio as I was driving home. A caller who identified herself as African-American was talking about how struck she was by how blase people in Arizona are about the virulent racism of the lunatic anti-immigrant fringe in their midst. She said she’d lived here 4 years, having come by way of New York, and then California. Jeff, who is from Boston agreed with her, and so do I. It’s not that there isn’t racism in the big coastal cities, there is by far. But people recognize it and call other people out for being racist. Sometimes it gets ugly. It hasn’t here, so far but the eagerness with which Arizonans will support hateful ballot initiatives disturbs me. This whole immigration thing is starting to feel like Apartheid Lite, or Jim Crow 2.0. But it’s pretty scary to think it’s going on right in my community and very few people seem to care.
Hope this post made sense to someone besides me.
Donna
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Yes, Donna, this is exactly how I feel.
I have posted about Russell Pearce at my campaign blog:
http://grayson-for-congress.blogspot.com/2007/12/ghetto-fabulous-russell-pearce-v-us.html
http://grayson-for-congress.blogspot.com/2007/11/studies-in-hysteria-russell-p.html
That caller is right. I have lived in Los Angeles, San Jose, Miami-Fort Lauderdale (where Hispanics are not only the majority, but also have higher incomes than Anglos and basically are the local power structure in business and government), and in my native New York. I still maintain an apartment in Brooklyn, where I grew up hearing many different languages. These are all pro-immigrant places where you don’t see the scary hate you do in Arizona. In Brooklyn we have “avenues of tolerance” where immigrants are welcome and have revitalized the community:
http://onlytheblogknowsbrooklyn.typepad.com/only_the_blog_knows_brook/2007/07/exploring-brook.html
http://onlytheblogknowsbrooklyn.typepad.com/only_the_blog_knows_brook/2007/11/exploring-brook.html
Arizona is very, very scary right now. You have to leave the state to realize how bad it is.
One scary facet of this is that prop 200 actually passed with very strong Latino support (47%) in 2004. http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004//pages/results/states/AZ/I/01/epolls.0.html
If we cannot convince Latinos to oppose this sort of thing what real chance do we have to defeat any of these anti-immigrant propositions?
The other problem that I see is that this struggle is not divided neatly between racist and nativists and the virtuous (us). There is a large group of people that are virulently anti-immigrant that are truly racists, but there is also a large group with legitimate frustrations. There are a lot of people that have been economically displaced by immigrant labor, just talk to anyone in the construction trade, especially in the trade unions. Immigrant labor has driven some people out of their fields and driven wages down. These people are feeling squeezed on many fronts: healthcare costs, childcare costs, education costs (college/University) and no job security. I think it is easy for many of these people to make immigrants the scapegoat. Frankly, we as a party do not give them much of an economic alternative by always being Republican light. This is not the fault of immigrants… I do not think anyone can blame them for seeking a better life.
I think that part of a winning strategy is stripping the racists from the people with real concerns. How do we lessen the burden on people adversely affected by our immigration policies?
In the end, we must isolate the racists and nativists and build a coalition of Latinos, liberals and mollify enough of the legitimately angry voters to build a majority. But it is really a useless exercise if we cannot even convince Latinos.
ADL, you are quite correct about it not being neatly divided. There’s nuthin’ neat about this issue. I do financial services and some of my clients live in South Phoenix. The older ones describe it as a thriving working class community a mere few decades ago. Like many urban communities, the relocation of industries and the importation of cheap labor have taken its toll. One striking thing is how many 3rd and 4th generation Arizona Hispanics express their loathing for the undocumented immigrants. But it’s understandable given how they must contend with being profiled by racist ignoramuses, despite their families’ probably having been here far longer than theirs. When it comes to the Dems, there’s not only the reluctance to take on the issue out of fear of appearing racist. There’s also a disturbing amount of “corporate koolaid” that’s been swallowed by party leaders on this issue. I hear all the buzzwords, “Jobs that Americans won’t do” “We have a labor shortage”. I’m definitely not a fan of the proposed guest worker programs, particularly when they have massive increases in H1B visas attached to them.
I don’t know what the solution is, but anything we do should be based on populism and anti-exploitation. Basically, if Big Business is in charge of it, it’s not gonna be good. We learned that with free trade agreements and they are what caused most of the illegal immigration problem we have now.
The “Jobs American won’t do” argument always cracks me up. Many of the jobs that we won’t do, I have done. If that is true how did we get all of those things done previously? The real difference seems to be Americans won’t do them for little pay, no on the job protection against injuries and exploitation (as meager as they are in the Arizona).
“Nazis” are enforcing the Rule of Law which the American government fails to enforce.
Hey, whatever gets you through the night, JT.