Serenity… refocus – seek joy – thrive

I used the wrong analogy in a previous post.  Influenced, I would say, by the extensive – and difficult to overcome – training most Americans receive from birth,  when I sat down to write about the “show me your papers” law recently passed in Arizona I proceeded to lazily stumble onto the same well-worn track of Eternal American Innocence that we, as a country, rush down whenever something like this happens.

This innocence does not exist. As horrific as it is, and as many images and associations it brings up, the comparison of this law to 1930’s/40’s Germany is a cop-out. We don’t need to reach across oceans, time, and cultures to find parallels for the egregious actions being taken now in Arizona and contemplated in other states. We have many parallels much, much closer to home.  Most of which we, as a nation, would prefer to ignore.

The Arizona Republic

Since the murder of Cochise County rancher Robert Krentz by a suspected illegal immigrant in March, politicians and the national press have fanned a perception that the border is inundated with bloodshed and that it’s escalating.

In a speech on the Senate floor last week, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., declared that the failure to secure that border between Arizona and Mexico "has led to violence – the worst I have ever seen.”

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Assistant Police Chief Roy Bermudez shakes his head and smiles when he hears politicians and pundits declaring that Mexican cartel violence is overrunning his Arizona border town.

"We have not, thank God, witnessed any spillover violence from Mexico," Bermudez says emphatically. "You can look at the crime stats. I think Nogales, Arizona, is one of the safest places to live in all of America."

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Clarence Dupnik, the sheriff of Pima County, said there always has been crime associated with smuggling in southern Arizona, but today’s rhetoric does not seem to jibe with reality.

"This is a media-created event," Dupnik said. "I hear politicians on TV saying the border has gotten worse. Well, the fact of the matter is that the border has never been more secure."

Fox News (via)

the Arizona Legislature passed a bill Thursday that would ban ethnic studies programs in the state that critics say currently advocate separatism and racial preferences.

The bill, which passed 32-26 in the state House, had been approved by the Senate a day earlier. It now goes to Gov. Jan Brewer for her signature.

The new bill would make it illegal for a school district to teach any courses that promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, promote resentment of a particular race or class of people, are designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group or “advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.”  (via)

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Frederic Mitchell at Jack and Jill Politics

The WSJ is reporting that the Arizona Department of Education is also pressuring principals to remove teachers who speak English with an accent to students who are learning English.

Arizona’s enforcement of fluency standards is based on an interpretation of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. That law states that for a school to receive federal funds, students learning English must be instructed by teachers fluent in the language. Defining fluency is left to each state, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Education said.

“The teacher obviously must be fluent in every aspect of the English language,” said Adela Santa Cruz, director of the Arizona education-department office charged with enforcing standards in classes for students with limited English.

 

You’ll notice that no one is providing ANY type of empirical evidence supporting the utter ignorance that believes accents or pronunciation has anything to do with learning ability.

But this is even worse:

That poses a dilemma for Ms. Agneessens, the principal. In kindergarten, three of four classes are for English-language learners. Two of those three classes are taught by immigrants whose English didn’t pass muster.

Ms. Agneessens said she was trying to find a way to retain those two teachers by shifting them into classrooms not designated for English-language learners, even if that meant teaching a different grade. Both teachers declined to comment for this article.

Recently, she informed one experienced kindergarten teacher that she would have to be reassigned to a mainstream class in a higher grade in the fall, if she wished to remain at the school.

“We both cried,” she said.

Astonishing as the authors and supporters of these policies may find it, there is just no way that this can work as easily as it did before, for a few reasons:

1. Sunlight. People, to this day, still think that the reason Black and other of color folks don’t live in certain areas, or at least not in any numbers, is because “they don’t want to”, or “it’s too cold there”, and so on, as opposed to the fact that they were chased/forced/threatened out – and there was no media to report it, or anyone to care if they did. What is going on in Arizona, though, cannot be done in darkness.

2. Power. Latinos of today have far more political power than African Americans of yesteryear even thought of. They are a large and growing constituency, with buying power and voting power, who most sensible politicians do not want to cross.

3. The Civil Rights Movement. Though the Republican party itself is a sort of backlash against the Civil Rights movement and its still incomplete results, most people – and particularly most businesses – do not like to be seen as being on the wrong side of a discriminatory policy because of the gains made by those individuals at that point in time.

4. Arizona was successfully boycotted before – not surprisingly, again over issues with race, when they refused to declare a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

Because of these things, among others, Arizona’s message is being heard, loud and clear, and not just by the usual suspects…

Frederic Mitchell again:

Arizona: Don’t come here if you’re not white.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 2nd, 2010 at 1:07 pm and is filed under Arizona - the sundown state, first draft, Latin@s, stupid people, telling our stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.