by Pa Rock
Arizona Voter
Today the city council of Los Angeles, the City of Angels, lived up to its name by voting to support the economic boycott of Arizona, a move that will cost this racist sand trap millions of dollars. Everyday, if fact, the list of places boycotting Arizona grows, and planned events are cancelled at local hotels and other venues. The economic boycott of Arizona isn't just working, it's raging!
Also today the Republican National Committee surprised no one by announcing that their 2012 national convention would be held in Tampa, Florida. Phoenix had been on the short list, but Republicans didn't really want to become any more closely tied to our state's overt bigotry than they already are.
So, in the event no one else steps up to say "thank you" to the national Republican Party for supporting the economic boycott of Arizona, know that Pa Rock and thousands of other good Arizonans appreciate your participation in this most just cause!
Our governor, Jan Brewer, is perplexed. She can't fathom why people would be angry with her and her state over a little thing like racial profiling. Jan sputters that signing SB 1070 made Arizona a "safer" place. Yes, Jan, it might be a little safer for white Republicans whose real intent is, and has been for years, to keep Hispanics from voting or being an active participant in democracy.
But it is definitely not a safer place for anyone of color. Now our brown friends and neighbors must worry more about over-zealous police misusing their substantial powers. Now they must worry more about armed and angry goobers who have guns but didn't have to pass any type of training or get a permit. Now they must worry more than ever about basic survival in an atmosphere of distrust and hatred that has been fostered by their own state government.
Today our clueless governor signed another race-based bill. Our state superintendent of education, a Republican politician by the name of Tom Horne, has been on a rampage against an ethnic studies class that is offered to all students in Tucson. Apparently Mr. Horne got tweaked when he heard that legendary activist Delores Huerta told the Tucson's ethnic studies class that Republicans hate Latinos. Color me shocked! Where on earth would Delores get an idea like that?
Now, with the governor's signature, ethnic studies will no longer be available to students in Arizona. If minority students need role models, let them focus of Jan Brewer, Tom Horne, Russell Pearce, Joe Arpaio, John McCain, J.D. Hayworth, and J.T. Ready. They were good enough for Bubba and his cousins, so they ought to be good enough for them Mexican kids, too!
Jan Brewer is running for governor of Arizona. Mis amigos, remember that! Tom Horne is running for state attorney general. Mis amigos, remember that! Register! Vote! Haul your neighbors to the polls so that they too can vote!
Jan, you're in a hole. A smart person would stop digging!
1 comment:
Ethnic studies tend to teach history from a perspective other than the norm.
The norm is European based and focuses mainly on the accomplishment of English speaking white persons; as these were folk in power.
Black studies and Hispanic studies include courses that flesh out history in terms of the contributions and accomplishments of Black and Hispanic persons to civilization.
Likewise Women's Studies review the role of women in society as a gender based, rather than ethnic based.
Apparently Secretary Horne, Governor Brewer, and those who voted for Arizona's H.B. 2281 think that ethnic based studies only benefit pupils whose ethnicity is being studied.
They insist that a normative "White" standard is perceived as being all one needs to know in Arizona.
They are artful dodgers, insisting that those wanting to broaden the scope of historic and cultural studies are evil racists.
Yet a persistent requirement of Arizona law attempts to root out anything but a strict adherence to English without regard for the impact this will have on the wellbeing of non-white and or non-English speaking students.
This sad experiment was conducted before in Arizona. Children, native American children, were sent to reservation schools and taught only in English. Are the painful lessons of those children to be endured by a new generation of students whose family are not primarily English speakers?
The value to society forfeited by not embracing the rich cultural heritage of Arizona's native Americans, in past times, will now accrue to the deficit of today's Arizonans as they fail to heed the lessons to be taught by Spanish speakers.
The only loss from which there is no recovery is opportunity lost, which this statute codifies to the detriment of society.
In the 1950's Thurgood Marshall developed the evidence for the collection of cases we now call Brown v. Board of Education.
Marshall gathered evidence of the psychological harm to Black children as a result of discrimination in their education.
Marshall went on to "Brandeis" his brief before the Supreme Court by using the statistical data to buttress his argument that racial discrimination constituted a Constitutional Tort.
Does not the requirement that schools be desegregated apply to the curricula as well as the school house doors?
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