Arizona Goddamn

(Click HERE to listen to my January 13 interview on "Make It Plain" with Mark Thompson on Sirius/XM Radio)

Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said it all.  "We have become the mecca for racism and bigotry," Dupnik said of the political climate in his state of Arizona.  Of course the sheriff was referring to the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) in Tucson.  Jared Lee Loughner went on a shooting spree in front of a grocery store, wounding at least 18 people, including Giffords his intended target, and killing six, including U.S. District Court Judge John Roll and a 9-year-old girl born on 9-11.  "Mein Kampf" was reportedly listed as one of Loughner's favorite books.

According to Dupnik, the gunman did not act alone.  And he said what needed to be said about this senseless act of violence and the larger implications for Arizona and our nation as a whole.  "It's time to do a little soul searching about the rhetoric we hear on the radio, how our children are being raised," he added.

Contrast this with the empty words of Governor Jan Brewer.  Calling the shooting "this senseless and cruel violence," Brewer said she is "heartbroken," adding that "all of Arizona is shocked and deeply saddened by the horrific tragedy that transpired this morning in Tucson."  Now, I do not claim to know what is in Brewer's mind, nor do I question whether she might actually show genuine sadness for the victims.  That is not the point.  Rather, Governor Brewer is part of the problem in Arizona.  And when you contribute to a harsh political climate full of vitriol, hatred and scapegoating, your words ring hollow when you later condemn those violent acts that climate produced.

Arizona is ground zero for hatred and intolerance in America.  Brewer signed SB1070 into law, which allows for the racial profiling of Latinos and those suspected of being undocumented aliens.  It is a pure public policy expression of racial hatred and intolerance, and was drafted by an anti-immigrant hate group, with input from the private prison lobby.  In addition, Russell Pearce, the bill's cosponsor in the Arizona state senate, has ties to white supremacist groups.  Similar in spirit to SB1070 is Arizona's new ethnic studies ban, which the state legislature passed and Brewer signed into law.  The law prohibits the teaching of Mexican-American studies in the Tucson public schools and throughout the state--even as similar courses in Asian, black and Native American studied remain unaffected by the ban.  Schools will lose funding if they dare to teach Chicano studies in Arizona, and that's a crime unto itself.  

This codification of hate is made possible in a state such as Arizona, where a climate of anti-immigrant sentiment emboldens those who would take matters into their own hands.  Lax gun laws don't exactly help things, either.  Arizona allows almost everyone who passes a federal background check to buy a gun, and a new law allows people to carry concealed weapons without a permit.  Really?

Opportunistic and unscrupulous politicians such as Jan Brewer never have to raise a fist to contribute to a climate of violence.  They don't have to own or use a gun, or wish anyone harm.  Similarly, the Southern Dixiecrats who hoped to preserve segregation kept their hands clean, as did the White Citizens Councils, also known as the "white-collar Klan."  But through their rhetoric, these politicians gave a wink and a nod to those unbalanced, hate-filled members of the unwashed masses who have no qualms about using their gun to assassinate someone.  

On the national scene, the anti-Obama rhetoric of the Birther and Tea Party movements encourages death threats against the President, and the carrying of loaded weapons to Obama events.  Some political candidates such as Nevada Sharron Angle stir the pot when they call for "Second Amendment" remedies if they don't get what they want.  Meanwhile, some congressional lawmakers openly question the President's citizenship and legitimacy, dangerously crossing the line and going far beyond an honest disagreement over policies.

"There has never been one unkind, angry or cross word come between us," said Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) of his colleague Giffords.  Calling the assailant "either deranged or evil beyond words" and concluding that "someone has stepped out of bounds of humanity," Giffords added that Giffords is "a precious, decent human being and this tragedy is beyond my ability to articulate. ...She was just out there doing her job."  And yet, while Franks certainly must appreciate the security risks and threats of physical violence public figures face, he has participated in venomous attacks against President Obama.  Franks called President Obama an "enemy of humanity," and his stance on abortion "insane" and godless.  He once demanded that Obama release his birth certificate to prove his citizenship and eligibility to hold the office.  At a town hall meeting Rep. Franks said he was terrified of Obama, and came within three days of filing an Obama citizenship lawsuit.    

Giffords--a moderate who happens to be the first Jewish congresswoman from Arizona-- has been no stranger to threats.  Her office was vandalized, and she received death threats after voting for the health reform package.  On her Facebook page, Sarah Palin targeted 20 House Democrats, including Giffords, with a map featuring 20 gun sights.  Palin has been scrubbing those graphics from her website, the way you try to put toothpaste back in a tube.  Moreover, in June 2010, Gifford's Tea Party opponent Jesse Kelly hosted a campaign event to "Get on Target for Victory in November," "Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office" and "Shoot a fully automatic M15 with Jesse Kelly."  And Judge Roll was a target of death threats from the far right, receiving 200 threatening phone calls in one afternoon.

Looking at all of this from a purely political vantage point, the shooting puts a crimp in the plans of Congressional Republicans.  Thriving on the politics of scapegoating, GOP lawmakers seek whipping boys to detract attention from their conservative policies of upward wealth redistribution.  They throw red meat to uneducated whites in their base by blaming Muslims, Mexican immigrants, gay marriage and black and Latino homeowners for America's woes.  Before the Giffords shooting, Republicans in Congress started to tar and feather public unions as the cause of our problems.  And attack dog Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) had plans to vilify President Obama, using the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to wage a witch hunt of investigations against the administrations.  Issa is a Lebanese-American, and his party routinely depicts the President as an Arab and Muslim terrorist.

There's an old saying that God don't like ugly.  Well, there's a lot of ugly coming out of Arizona.  The state is in a bad way.  In the middle of the desert, Arizona languishes in a sea of putrid waters.  And yet, Arizona is very American.

Arizona's ethnic studies ban whitewashes history

From theGrio:


When Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed the infamous anti-immigrant bill into law, it was clear that people in that state lost their minds. But apparently that was not enough. Now, the governor just signed a bill into law on Tuesday that bans ethnic studies programs in the schools. Really?

The new law prohibits classes 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." Schools that fail to comply will lose their state funding.

A group of six UN human rights experts denounced the law on the grounds that people have the right to learn about their own culture and language. Meanwhile, the Arizona Department of Education has also announced that it will no longer allow teachers with "heavy" or "ungrammatical" accents to teach English. As the last state in the Union to recognize the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, Arizona suffers from a poor track record on tolerance.

The real target of the Arizona law is the Tucson School District, which offers coursework focusing on African-American, Native-American and Mexican-American studies, and the contributions of these groups in history and literature. Tom Horne, the head of the Arizona schools and Republican candidate for attorney general, supports the ban. Horne condemned ethnic studies as "ethnic chauvinism" and "high treason."

Claiming that such programs encourage public school students to hate white people, Horne said "It's just like the old South, and it's long past time that we prohibited it." Horne is right that it is just like the old South, but he's getting it twisted. Rather, the anti-ethnic studies bill--along with the anti-immigrant bill--makes Arizona look like those racist Jim Crow states that resisted civil rights for blacks and the desegregation of the public schools in the 1950s and 1960s.

Back then, white Southern segregationists fought against the rights of African-Americans to vote, go where they pleased, and enjoy the same quality education as whites. It was a fear of a black planet, so to speak. Today, racist conservative whites are carrying on the tradition of their Jim Crow predecessors. They are afraid they are losing their "way of life" to darker-skinned people and Spanish-speaking immigrants, even though brown people were here first. With a population that is 40 percent minority, and with more Latino babies born than white babies, Arizona is set to become a majority-minority state by 2015. Texas, Hawaii, New Mexico and California already reached that threshold.

Similarly, in March the Texas Board of Education approved a curriculum change that essentially mandates a conservative, white-Christian bias in the teaching of social science. This has resulted in a wholesale removal of brown and black people from the textbooks. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and civil rights groups such as LULAC and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund were stricken from the books, although Justice Thurgood Marshall was allowed to remain. And conservatives unsuccessfully attempted to erase all references to hip-hop music from the history texts and replace it with country music. Conservatives defeated attempts by Hispanic board members to include more Latino figures in the curriculum, in that heavily Latino state. "They can just pretend this is a white America and Hispanics don't exist," said board member Mary Helen Berlanga. "They are going overboard, they are not experts, they are not historians," she added. "They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world."

Now, this is where ethnic studies really fits into the equation: A legacy of the civil rights movement, the ethnic studies movement came about in the 1960s and early 1970s at a time of empowerment for racial and ethnic minority groups. When Harvard students demanded black studies in 1968, faculty who were protectors of the status quo predicted the end of Harvard and of civilization. Ethnic studies serves a valuable purpose, which is to challenge the Eurocentric teaching of history, the social sciences and the humanities on college campuses. When youth know that their people were a part of American history, they will excel in their studies. And we all benefit when we learn about the heritage of all groups, and their contributions to the world. This is a matter of pride, not resentment.

As a high school exchange student in Japan, who later became an East Asian Studies major as an undergrad, I benefited from ethnic studies. While in college, I learned about the richness of Asian history and culture, and the Asian immigrant's contribution to the American experience. After graduating from college, I worked for a bank and an advertising agency in Tokyo, and later on did human rights work and studied international human rights law in the U.K. My exposure to the teachings of other cultures and societies allowed me to better appreciate the diversity of the U.S. It also made me an effective world citizen who can operate across cultures.

At a time when we should increase our diversity efforts and teach our children to live together and understand one another, Arizona is sending the wrong message. This is not, as Pat Buchanan once claimed, "a country built basically by white folks." By removing ethnic studies, Arizona spits in the face of the civil rights legacy, and tells people of color they don't count, that their culture doesn't matter.