This was a pretty darn good essay, I thought.
A Critical Resistance Boycott
Arizona and the Big Picture
By ROBERTO RODRIGUEZ
The first rule of any boycott is to keep your eyes on the prize; translated, this means never lose sight of the problem, the objectives, the solutions and the bigger picture.
Arizona is speeding towards an apartheid state. Some of this rush has to do with repressive laws [[including the legalization of racial profiling and the elimination of ethnic studies) passed by the Republican-dominated legislature and recently signed by the governor. Truthfully, however, this move pre-exists the recent legislation and much of the repression against the Mexican community here is also historical in nature and it is actually nationwide.
On the surface, it is about migration issues. Yet if we probe a little deeper, it’s about power and the future demographic [[voter rolls) makeup of the state. Translated: The Browning of Arizona. Probe some more and you will see that much of the hate has little to do with peoples’ legal status. That’s where English-Only and the new anti-ethnic studies law comes in. It is not simply about our physical presence [[red-brown), but about our culture – which is thousands of years old and Indigenous to this continent. In this sense, it is beyond physical removal and even beyond thought-control; this is about our souls.
Mexicans-Central Americans in this country are the primary targets. Also generally targeted are peoples who have been in the United States for many generations [[Mexican Americans), along with other Indigenous red-brown peoples from South America and the Caribbean. Tragically, in the end, as state and federal governments defend themselves against racial profiling charges, they will move toward a checkpoint society in which officials will demand documentation of everyone in the country, of all ages and at all times.
Some of the people in power in Arizona who are directly responsible for this move towards apartheid are: Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio – responsible for refining racial profiling [of Indigenous peoples] into an art form; Rep. Russell Pierce – the architect of most of the anti-immigrant bills; State School Superintendent Tom Horne – the force behind the anti-ethnic studies bills and an avowed opponent of Raza Studies; and the unelected Gov. Jan Brewer – who has signed many of the draconian laws in question. These are but the latest in a long line of culprits.
Across the country, about a dozen states are poised to follow in Arizona’s footsteps and each of these states have their Arpaio-Pierce-Horne-Brewer equivalents. Yet indeed, at the root of this crisis is the federal government’s failure to address the issue of immigration – not on the basis of fear, hate and the politics of blame, but rather, as part of a global economic and labor crisis.
The crazies in the state legislature have been emboldened to create their own immigration and foreign policies because a half-dozen presidents and Congress since 1986 [[the last comprehensive reform effort) have failed to address these issues. They actually have addressed them, but strictly from a military/law enforcement point of view. A comprehensive immigration reform law could theoretically nullify these anti-immigrant state laws, but there’s no guarantee that the result will actually be better. At best, it might simply return us to uniform national repressive laws and practices such as the ones that result in the funneling of thousands upon thousands of human beings into the Arizona/Sonora desert, which have resulted in the recovery of some 5,000 bodies since the 1990s… or that create the kangaroo court known as Operation Streamline, now in 5 cities nationwide [[In these courtrooms, some 70 migrants are processed daily in one hour). Uniform laws and practices would obviate the need for state boycotts, but then what would be boycotted - the federal government? ...
See the entire article at http://www.counterpunch.com/rodriguez05252010.html
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