Yesterday I wrote of some of the subtext underlying the AZ bill, the Brewer role in the GOP plot to lop off millions of voters across this land.  In AZ hundreds of thousands have been wrongly purged from the voter roles, most of them brown-skinned.  Today I address some of the more obvious issues, which nonetheless bear repeating. First, let it be said, that I vigorously oppose the new Arizona immigration law.  Should it spread to other states, and to the nation at-large, it would further a human rights outrage.  This is so because it targets people by domestic law enforcement without probable cause.  Most of all, asking American citizens, legal immigrants and, yes, even undocumented persons, to produce their “papers,” hearkens back to the days of Nazi Germany or the heyday of the USSR. We do not want to go there.  Combined with the 2010 Census questions honing in on Hispanic country of origin, with specificity not afforded any other ethnicity, the AZ law must seem threatening to Hispanic peoples.  The hostile climate will ill serve all Americans.

Most Americans believe some immigration reform is necessary.  That is not inherently racist.  It is how we conduct ourselves, for what reason, and what we seek to achieve that define who (and what) we are inside. How we behave and rationalize what we do forms a figurative charcoal sketch of our national character.  In one state, at least, citizens-at-large (on average–actually 73-75%) are flunking the character test.  I do not say all Arizonans do so.  Far too many fail, however.  They will tell you how horrible it is there (It isn’t).  They will tell you that the death of a single rancher justifies the overarching hysteria in recent weeks.  They, even many Obama supporters, will blame President Obama, who’s only been in office a little over a year, for the problems arising over three decades of neglect, as literally tunnels were built in a vast lattice-work at our southern border, even as almost everyone else has at some time been frisked/patted down in random airline searches.  They will say this new AZ immigration law is better than nothing, when in fact it is far worse.

Again, I do not believe that everyone who cares about immigration reform is a racist.  On the other hand, there are too many racists among those clamoring for Jan Brewer’s draconian  “legal” assault on people of color. Additionally, small minds always fearing the unknown also no-doubt factor into part of the extreme backlash against brown people.

I love the raw physical beauty of Arizona, one of my four favorite places to be.  If you have never seen Arizona when it’s all green for just a couple of weeks in spring, you have missed one of the most spectacular scenic trips you can imagine. I have traveled to Arizona over the past couple of decades.  I do not suppose myself an expert on things Arizona.  So my perspective is admittedly different from those living there.  I have family members there, whom I both love and want to be safe.  I believe that they are, at least as much as are residents of any other place.  I have driven around much of the state, with the exception of the Yuma region.  We have traveled the state by rental car, as passengers in family members’ and friends’ vehicles, and by bus. We have visited the usual tourist places and small stops and venues, both city and rural.  About two years ago, I stayed at a small B and B about 30 miles from the border in Tubac, a very small community of artists and retirees.  I did not fear, at least not any more than anywhere else.  Contrary to small-town mythology, you do have to lock your doors in small communities too.  While there, we also visited my former neighbors (from here in Virginia), who had moved to Tubac. Two couples I knew here in the Burg chose to live not far from the AZ border.  They do not fear (did not, in the case of one of the couples, dear friends, who have now passed away).  

We (my husband and I, along with my sister and brother in-law) traveled the arid back roads between Tubac and Nogales, AZ as my brother-in-law tried to visit the legendary “Hummingbird Man.”  It was a poignant and treasured visit, not that far from the border.  Ultimately we ended up near Nogales, AZ, which is right on the border with Nogales, Mexico.  Neither on back roads nor windy dirt roads did we fear.  Nor did we when we previously stayed in Green Valley, also with friends, on another visit. That time we drove up in the mountains, where the only thing I feared was our hosts’ very large car on narrow mountainous roads!  I know what fear is.  I do have fears of my own.  I do understand that there can be crime-related violence anywhere.  We learned that in Blacksburg.  But the day-to-day fear that has been ramped up in AZ is not rational. And those who allow fear to usurp their better “angels” should try harder to resist the manipulations of xenophobes.  Fear is no justification for the harm this new bill is causing and will cause.

Today’s border controversy doesn’t have to be so.  But there it is.  If there were the will, our borders could be secured, which makes more sense than, say, waging wars in distant countries and having 700 military bases around the world.  That would not solve the essential problem, though it would at least make sense.  However we choose to enforce our borders, with technology, personnel, communications etc, the “wall” makes a hideous symbolic first glimpse of a great nation.

The fundamental question, though, is why should/does all of this matter to the rest of America?  It matters because people of any color should never be “suspects” on the face of it.

Whatever it is, Jan Brewer is the archetype of the purportedly “good” governor, in her warped mind, sent by God to beat back Arizona’s minorities, with hyper aggressive, way-beyond-profiling bigotry.  She claims the new AZ bill isn’t profiling, though that would be bad enough.  She’s right.  This is far more than racial profiling, which is the enforcement of the law more against racial minorities. It’s worse when:

• Any person of color, indeed anyone whatsoever, can be swept up without probable cause and turned over to immigration, even deported if the person cannot prove they are US citizens. As I asked yesterday, can you prove your citizenship right now, this minute.  Could the Man with the Tan (Boehner) were he not a US Congressperson?

•It’s an inhumane nightmare, for those who are undocumented, but who populate low-wage jobs at the behest of companies who brought them here, whether directly or indirectly through “coyotes.”  

• Those detained can be separated from their families, not even allowed to communicate where they are.  

• Immigration law, or other federal matters, get “Balkanized.”

• Police departments are ordered to spend their time not solving crimes.  

• Police can be sued if they do not enforce the new law.

• When even US citizens (who don’t carry a passport or birth certificate at all times) can be swept up, arrested and shipped of to ICE.

Pollsters tell us that our nation’s youth are our hope for the reduction of prejudice and bigotry in this land.  In AZ at least, their numbers weren’t enough.  That means it’s up to the rest of this nation to have the backs of people of color.  This time, those with Hispanic family roots need us.  They are our family members (mothers, fathers, sisters brothers, children, grandchildren); friends; neighbors; coworkers and fellow church members.  They are us.  And, yes, even those we call undocumented are us. How we work out our border conflict and controversies defines who we are.  I fear that the figurative charcoal sketch of our national character I mentioned earlier in this blog isn’t even much of a work in progress (so far to go).  We could start by looking in the mirror.  Who do we think we are?  What do we want to see when we see ourselves through the artists’ vision?  Most of us are immigrants or descendants of immigrants.  I do hear hopeful chords struck by people speaking out around this country.  I hope the voices well up to a chorus of tolerance and constructive solutions to our border/immigration issues.  I will write about some more of the hopeful signs in Part 3, immigrant-related crime issues in Part 4, and a call to action in Part 5.

Click on the image to “embiggen,” see here for more.

I think Bill Maher speaks for most of us today when he says, “Every asshole who ever chanted ‘Drill Baby Drill’ should have to report to the Gulf Coast today for cleanup duty.”

Oh, and let me just add: f*** you Sarah Palin!

Finally, just remember, if “drill baby drill” (or should we call it “spill baby spill?”) afficionados like Bob McDonnell gets his way, the following photos could be coming to the Virginia coastline sometime in coming years. Let’s all tell him, “no thank you!”

UPDATE: According to Reuters, “White House says no offshore drilling will be allowed in new areas until review of oil spill off La. coast.”  Great, but how about offshore drilling in current areas using similar types of drilling equipment and techniques, such as failing to use acoustic valves as part of blowout preventers, as is done in other parts of the world?  Oh, and how about we make getting off of oil our #1 priority?  Until we do, disasters like this will happen again and again. Needless to say, that is completely unacceptable.

What you believe is behind the extremist AZ immigration “reform” bill is only the half of it. The more obvious reasons (ramped-up fear, xenophobia, ignorance, and chaotic current immigration law) are of grave concern.  But I will leave my discussion of those causes for tomorrow. For now, please suspend your disbelief for a moment as I tell you about some real reporting, the kind few American journalists do anymore, at least not in the corporate media. You see, Jan Brewer has been at the heart of a massive voter disenfranchisement effort.  Greg Palast reports that it also turns out that Brewer is the Katherine Harris of AZ. She did much damage as Sec of State.  Now she’s in charge altogether. Had Janet Napolitano been there she would have vetoed the bill. We know this because she did so, at least twice.  But the President named her to head DHS.  The rest is history.

(The vote suppression tale is below the fold.)

First a necessary aside: Although immigration reform is necessary, there is also the rather untidy fact that without the bill, police around the state of AZ, who encounter undocumented persons while solving crimes, do turn them over to the border patrol, whence persons must deal with ICE.

Let me pause here and ask a simple question: Can you immediately, as in right now, prove that you are a US citizen?  Are you in the habit of carrying your birth certificate and/or passport with you at all times?  If you immigrated to the US, the documentation is far more complex.  Do you have the bundle with you at all times? Do you have the pile of documents from international adoption on your person at all times that you and your child are in public?  If you do, it would be risky because you cannot afford to lose these documents. Should you lose them, your life could quickly become a living hell. The sheer audacity of this bill is staggering.  Only despotic regimes do this to their citizens. (Remember that when Jan Brewer thinks, in her delusions, that she should be president.)

No, what this bill is about isn’t just about immigration “reform,” but rather creating a climate of fear among brown-skinned people.  It’s designed to make even, and probably especially, US citizens with brown skin to be afraid to be in public, register to vote or actually exercise their right to vote.

Rewind to Jan Brewer.  Beginning in 2004, this governor, who claims God put her in this position (does this sound familiar?) unjustly dropped 100,000 voters from the voting rolls.  By 2005, according to research by reporter Greg Palast, one in every three Phoenix residents, mostly Hispanics, found themselves disenfranchised–unjustly dropped from the voter roles.  (Palast, by the way, has done some of the best reporting anywhere on the dirty election tricks of Republicans against Democratic voters.)  

Now, if someone registered illegally, the names must be turned over to the federal government.  Funny thing is that Jan Brewer did not turn over a single name.  That’s because she had none.  She was just dropping (mostly) Democrats from the voting rolls.  The name David Iglesias is familiar to most of you.  He was the federal prosecutor ordered to find “evidence” of voting fraud and prosecute people guilty of such.  Despite an extensive investigation, he could not find a single person to prosecute.   And so he was fired by GWB’s inJustice Dept.  Welcome to Jim Crow 21st Century.  

So here we are.  Many American are rightly outraged at what AZ has done.  But, as I said, many AZ residents don’t know the half of it.  I have told you the underlying half.  I will address the rest in Part 2 tomorrow.

And here’s a post script: Given Karl Rove’s alleged involvement in the vote suppression tactics I have discussed, it is rich that he now thinks Brewer’s bill is unfortunate.  “I wish they hadn’t passed it in a way,” he said. In a way, indeed.  It’s unfortunate because it may put the spotlight on him and what the GOP did.  Remember the name: David Iglesias. And, do not forget what Jan Brewer did.