Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

April 30, 2010

Arizona's Racial Cleansing Law: How Senators Voted


ARIZONA LAW: On Suspicion of Being Brown

Update: Rallies against SB 1070 in Tucson and Phoenix on May 1:
http://www.kswt.com/Global/story.asp?S=12409175
Huge crowds expected at Los Angeles protest over Arizona law on Saturday: http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_14997932

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
Here is how senators voted on the final version of Arizona Senate Bill 1070, Arizona's new racial cleansing law, which allows for racial profiling. It was created by Sen. Russell Pearce, Republican senator from Mesa, Arizona.
Why did it pass? Check out the votes. Navajo Senator Albert Hale did not vote. White supremacists rely on non-voting legislators and 'no shows' to get bills like this passed.
Northern Arizona is home to Navajo, Hopi, Havasupai, Hualapai, Paiute, Apache, Yavapai and other Native Americans. From northern Arizona, Senators Sylvia Allen, Jack Harper, Steve Pierce and Ron Gould voted 'Yes' to the racial cleansing law.
The law is also being called the 'Joe Arpaio self protection act,' put in place to protect the racist Maricopa County Sheriff from lawsuits because of racial profiling.
http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/sb1070.sfinal.1.asp
Y = Yes/N = No/NV = Not Voting/EXC = Excused/V = Vacant Member

SENATORS VOTES:
Paula Aboud N
Amanda Aguirre NV
Carolyn S. Allen N
Sylvia Allen Yes
Manuel V. "Manny" Alvarez N
Frank Antenori Yes
David Braswell Yes
Ed Bunch Yes
Meg Burton Cahill N
Ken Cheuvront N
Jorge Luis Garcia N
Ron Gould Yes
Chuck Gray Yes
Linda Gray Yes
Albert Hale NV
Jack W. Harper Yes
John Huppenthal Yes
Leah Landrum Taylor N
Barbara Leff Yes
Linda Lopez N
Debbie McCune Davis N
Al Melvin Yes
Richard Miranda N
John Nelson Yes
Russell Pearce Yes
Steve Pierce Yes
Rebecca Rios N
Jay Tibshraeny Yes
Thayer Verschoor Yes
Robert "Bob" Burns Yes
AYES: 17 NAYS: 11 NOT VOTING: 2 EXCUSED: 0 VACANT: 0
E-mail addresses of Senators:
http://www.azleg.gov/MemberRoster.asp?Body=S

BILL SPONSORS SB1070: PEARCE R P; GRAY C P; GRAY L P; ANTENORI P; BARNES P; GOWAN P; HENDRIX P; KAVANAGH P; SEEL P; ALLEN S C ; BURNS C; GORMAN C; HARPER C; HUPPENTHAL C; LEFF C; MELVIN C; NELSON C; PIERCE S C; TIBSHRAENY C VERSCHOOR C; WARING C; ASH C; BIGGS C ;BURGES C; COURT C; CRUMP C; LESKO C; MASON C; MCLAIN C; MONTENEGRO C; MURPHY C; NICHOLS C; REAGAN C; STEVENS C; WEIERS J C; WEIERS JP C and YARBROUGH C
ARIZONA IMPRISONS PEOPLE OF COLOR FOR PROFIT
The new law will mean more profits for private prison contractors. Arizona State Legislators are in collusion with the private prison profiteers GEO (formerly Wackenhut) and CCA. These corporations are already profiteering from imprisoning people of color in Arizona private prisons. For white supremacist legislators, imprisoning people of color means jobs for Arizona. CCA (Corrections Corporation of America) is Pinal County's largest non-governmental employer.
Read more:
Mexican President issues travel warning following new Arizona law, warning harassment for travelers:
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2010/0427/Mexico-issues-travel-warning-over-Arizona-immigration-law
Roberto Rodriguez: This is what Apartheid Looks Like
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2010/04/rodriguez-arizona-this-is-what.html
PHOENIX: Community indictment of Arizona Governor
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2010/04/community-indictment-against-ariz-gov.html
USA TODAY: Boycotts of Arizona based on new immigration law:
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2010-04-27-arizonaboycott27_ST_N.htm
UK GUARDIAN: Arizona's new immigration law encourages police abuse, says Mexican president:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/27/arizona-immigration-law
Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR): Groups Condemn Arizona Bill, Warn of Dangers of ICE-Police Collaboration in Suit Challenging Government Secrecy in ICE Program
http://act.commondreams.org/go/387?akid=42.15535.W76kQz&t=32
Arizona Law: On Suspicion of Being Brown
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2010/04/arizona-law-on-suspicion-of-being-brown.html
Breaking News: Pima Co. sheriff rebels against new immigration law
TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) - Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik tells KGUN9 News that SB 1070, Arizona's crackdown on illegal immigration, is a "racist law," and says he has no intention of complying with it. In doing so, Dupnik becomes the first major local law enforcement official to officially rebel against the bill since Governor Jan Brewer signed it into law on Friday.

MAY DAY: PROTEST IN TUCSON
Contact: Derechos Humanos: 520.770.1373
TODOS SOMOS ARIZONA:
La Gran Marcha Por Los Derechos Humanos

The Tucson May 1st Coalition and la Coalicion de Derechos Humanos invite the communities of Arizona and of this country to join forces on this historic day as we bear witness to the most serious attacks to our civil and human rights - to our own humanity. We make a call for resistance in our collective fight for liberty and justice for all.

On May Day 2010, in Tucson, Arizona, our community that has consistently fought against the federal government's use of Arizona as the laboratory for initiatives, policies, and laws, that are anti-immigrant, anti-human, will embrace the mantra that has come from hundreds of calls from across the country, TODOS SOMOS ARIZONA.

This dramatic show of unity and support opens the opportunity to understand that SB1070 was not born overnight, but rather the direct and intended result of mid-90's border enforcement strategies, known as Operation Gatekeeper, Operation Hold the Line, Operation Rio Grande, and here in Arizona, Operation Safeguard. Building an unprecedented military-type enforcement infrastructure, these strategies have intentionally funneled most migrants through Arizona's southern border. By diverting more than half of all migrants that had traditionally crossed through California and Texas into a very conservative state where the federal and local governments own most of the border land (thereby avoiding the community fight-back that occurred along the border in Texas), the stage was set for the eventual passing of SB1070.

This "surge" in crossings caused division and chaos in the border towns, allowed for the influx of hate and other anti-immigrant groups, opened the political space to racist and intolerant voices, with mainstream media feeding the climate of fear, eventually resulting in the election of openly anti-immigrant politicians like Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio, County Attorney Andrew Thomas, and State legislator Russell Pearce. The Minutemen and other anti-immigrant groups proceeded to poison attitudes across the country, resulting in the spread of fear, racism, hate, ignorance and anti-human policies that other states have or are in process of replicating.

SB1070 is the most racist law in recent history, allowing for the legalization and institutionalization of racism, their version of "ethnic cleansing." We know that migration is not a law enforcement or national security issue, that we have encouraged migrants to come to our country to build it, that we have helped to destroy jobs in Mexico and elsewhere only to blame the very victims/survivors who migrate to work and provide for their families, that we have created and enriched smuggling organizations who we then use as the reason for the unprecedented buildup of policing and military-type enforcement along the border and in the interior of our country. With this law, the stage is set again for even more dramatic calls for more "security." Our laws and policies have brought only INSECURITY - deaths, division, intolerance and ignorance, environmental destruction, and abuse of Indigenous communities.

We call on for an end to SB 1070, an end to the enforcement strategies on the border and in our communities, and an end to criminalization of the immigrant. We call for a real dialogue based on truth, addressing the root causes of migration, and promoting justice for all. We call for a commitment of noncompliance of SB 1070, and ask for the commitment from all allies and people of conscience to boycott Arizona in all fashions. ¡Todos Somos Arizona!

Arpaio self protection act:
http://technorati.com/politics/article/sb1070-the-joe-arpaio-racial-profiling

4 comments:

Dine said...

I wrote this and altered the first line to fit this article. I submitted my commentary to the New Yorker magazines this week. This immigration bill Bill 1070 is backwards. It is an example of the fascism Noam Chomsky talked about in a speech at University of Wisconsin in April. 1 "No analogy is perfect, he said, but the echoes of fascism are reverberating today." Arizona's insane to let this happen. I grew up in Phoenix until 22 years old. I am Dine' filmmaker. In Arizona, many Indigenous peoples live there. Tohono O'odham Nation is located on the border between Arizona and Mexico. As the article states from the New Yorker, Arizona now is a police state. 2" Among other things, the law requires local police to demand papers from anyone officers have any reason to doubt is a citizen—anyone, in other words, who looks Mexican. If you’re brown-skinned, and don’t have your wallet, you’re going to jail. Failure to carry immigration documents is now a crime in Arizona." Other states like California, LA, the LAPD in the late 70's, 80's practiced to target any person who looked Latin or dark skinned: stop the car, pull over and check for i.d. for the only reason to hassle and I predict this still continues. I met Afro-Americans and Mexican people who expressed such incidents. Also this happened to me as well. It happens in Canada at the borders at the Peace Arch which is near Vancouver BC. made into law is racist. It is racial profiling. To fight it as a person of color, if stopped by the police, document and record the incident with the police with a portable video camera and audio equipment. The object is to obtain evidence of the interaction. The big question is: why even do this? Need to do something or be powerless. When I visit Arizona, if I am targeted, I will raise a huge to do or I shall make a video, write a drama or write a song about it to vent out my anger. Bill of Rights out the window. A video I made about racism is called The Graffiti. US nation is 1984, a sad, sick society we live in.

1 Rothschild, Matthew. The Progressive (April 12, 2010).

2 Finnegan, William. The New Yorker, (April 24, 2010).

Dine said...

I wrote this and altered the first line to fit this article. Also, corrected an error. Please use this submission. I submitted my commentary to the New Yorker magazines this week. This immigration bill Bill 1070 is backwards. It is an example of the fascism Noam Chomsky talked about in a speech at University of Wisconsin in April. 1 "No analogy is perfect, he said, but the echoes of fascism are reverberating today." Arizona's insane to let this happen. I grew up in Phoenix until 22 years old. I am Dine' filmmaker. In Arizona, many Indigenous peoples live there. Tohono O'odham Nation is located on the border between Arizona and Mexico. As the article states from the New Yorker, Arizona now is a police state. 2" Among other things, the law requires local police to demand papers from anyone officers have any reason to doubt is a citizen—anyone, in other words, who looks Mexican. If you’re brown-skinned, and don’t have your wallet, you’re going to jail. Failure to carry immigration documents is now a crime in Arizona." Other states like California, LA, the LAPD in the late 70's, 80's practiced to target any person who looked Latin or dark skinned: stop the car, pull over and check for i.d. for the only reason to hassle and I predict this still continues. I met Afro-Americans and Mexican people who expressed such incidents. Also this happened to me as well. It happens in Canada at the borders at the Peace Arch which is near Vancouver BC. Bill 1070 made into law is racist. It is racial profiling. To fight it as a person of color, if stopped by the police, document and record the incident with the police with a portable video camera and audio equipment. The object is to obtain evidence of the interaction. The big question is: why even do this? Need to do something or be powerless. When I visit Arizona, if I am targeted, I will raise a huge to do or I shall make a video, write a drama or write a song about it to vent out my anger. Bill of Rights out the window. A video I made about racism is called The Graffiti. US nation is 1984, a sad, sick society we live in.

1 Rothschild, Matthew. The Progressive (April 12, 2010).

2 Finnegan, William. The New Yorker, (April 24, 2010).

Dine said...

I wanted to add to my point-of-view about the Immigration Law Bill 1070 in Arizona. I notice the mainstream news focuses upon the fact that people are of Hispanic heritage. Yes, it is a large part of the issue. However, it is not the core issue of Bill 1070. The mainstream media misses the point totally. The core is that it affects people of color and anyone who looks or acts suspicious to the police. Indigenous people are included. These people will be questioned about their identity, which will be a mistaken identity.  Perpetuate the stereotypes.  For example, some Indigenous people from Arizona who have dark skin like me or other Indigenous peoples---of course, some Indigenous peoples have a mixture of Spanish within their culture like the Yaqui, may possibly be mistaken for not being citizens of the US, when in fact they are. Also, to insinuate that a person with brown skin is a not citizen of the US when in fact, Indigenous people already have lived here long before the European colonists arrived is wrong.  It's like saying for example in Vancouver BC, that any woman who walks in the wrong neighborhood  of town is a prostitute right off,  which is what the mainstream public assumes or stereotypes about Indigenous women in Vancouver BC because the mainstream public is racist towards Indigenous women and peoples in Canada, which is a scene in The Graffiti video drama.  During WWII the Japanese were collected and put in camps because US and Canada thought the Japanese who were citizens of US were enemies and "dangerous."  What about Nazism and the Jewish people.  Those prejudices were wrong, too.  Did we learn from it?  Apparently not.  US and Canada hardly ever learns anything from their histories and lessons in the way they treat the people, Indigenous peoples of world and the environment of the land: the birds, animals, insects and all the living things.  Fascist.  I back up Noam Chomsky and what he expressed in a speech at the University of Wisconsin in April that the US will experience fascism in the future. This is the beginning of it or it is here.  Only way to be positive is: pray to Creator that people see/admit their mistakes, help people who have physical and mental issues to overcome, help people out with physical disasters that have happened in the world.  Document incidents with a video camera or audio equipment to obtain evidence in case a person is stopped.  To help each other. Pray for the world to be balanced as the Dine' expresses to "Walk in Beauty."

Dine said...

I am sorry but yesterday's opening lines for the note about AZ's Immigration Law Bill 1070 needs to corrected. I notice the mainstream news focuses upon the fact that people are of Hispanic heritage. Yes, it is a large part of the issue. However, the mainstream media misses the point totally again. Another part of the issue which is just as important is that the Bill 1070 affects people of color, anyone who looks or acts suspicious to the police. Indigenous people are included. These people will be questioned about their identity, which will be a mistaken identity.