“We’re not little anymore!”
Commentary:
By Herman Baca
President, Committee on Chicano Rights
Arizona lawmakers under the auspice of dealing with the so-called immigration issue have approved SB 1070, a law that directs police to determine the immigration status of persons of Mexican ancestry based solely on “reasonable suspicion.” If signed by Republican Governor Jan Brewer the law for any person of Mexican ancestry will:
· Make it illegal to be present in Arizona whether undocumented, legal or U.S. born;
· Legally mandate “de jure racial segregation”;
· Create a police state to rival the practices of racist states such as Mississippi in the segregated South of the last century, and a police system of oppression that Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin would have been proud of;
· Re-institute the “Jim Crow” system that legalized separation of the white and black races from 1876 to 1965 in the ante belle South, a system outlawed after the Afro-American civil rights movement of the late 1960’s’;
· Lay the foundation for a South African type “apartheid” system in the U.S. Southwest.
Unbelievable those responsible (by their silence) for re-instituting both the “Jim Crow” and “apartheid” systems are the Democratic Party controlled Congress and the U.S. first Afro-American President, Barack Obama!
The American Heritage Dictionary defines:
· Jim Crow- The systematic practice of discriminating against and suppressing Black people. 1. Upholding or practicing discrimination against and suppression of Black people: 2. Reserved or set aside for a racial or ethnic group that is to be discriminated against;
· Apartheid– 1. An official policy of racial segregation practiced in the Republic of South Africa, involving political, legal, and economic discrimination against nonwhites. 2. Any policy or practice of separating or segregating groups. 3. The condition of being separated from others; segregation.
So the question now that President Obama, the Democratic Party controlled Congress, along with Nazis in CA, politicians, radio/TV hate entertainers, Minuteman, KKK, and white supremacist have legalized denying to all persons of Mexican ancestry:
· Equal protection and due process under the law;
· Rights supposedly guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.
What are we as a people going to do to oppose and stop the Arizona law?
In our opinion, Arizona has to be dealt with like one would deal with a schoolyard bully, punch him in the mouth.
Unlike the 1950’s and 60’s our population in 2010 is no longer small. Presently in the U.S there are close to 50 million Chicanos, Latinos and Mexicanos, and growing. We need to:
1. Call for an ECONOMIC BOYCOTT of Arizona by our community (the nations fastest growing ethnic group), the millions of citizens of Mexico, and all people of good will,
2. Utilize every legal, political, and social options, including civil disobedience to oppose and stop the proposed apartheid system for persons of Mexican ancestry in Arizona,
3. Communicate to President Obama and the Democratic Party (who our people voted in overwhelming numbers) that our vote will no longer be taken for granted by the Democratic Party, or any other political party come the November 2010 elections.
Lastly, our community needs to understand the reasons and causes in the on going public “illegal” immigration debate:
· The “immigration problem” is systemic and historical (since the end of the U.S./Mexico War) and like the Afro-American slave system (early 1600 to middle 1800) was created because of this country’s economic historical addiction (along with oil, drugs, and pornography) for FREE and CHEAP labor;
· The issue is international, social, economic and political, and not a law enforcement or military matter as defined by white supremacists and vested interests that seek to maintain the status quo;
· The existing immigration system is a labor issue and exist because Mexican workers are in a right less condition… this is the pervasive reasons for the Arizona law and other similar proposed law enforcement/military proposals;
· Fear of the changing demographics that will make persons of Mexican ancestry the largest ethnic population in the Southwest (Arizona, New Mexico, California, Colorado, etc.) and largest so-called minority in the U.S.
However for our generation the issue remains how do we organize ourselves to stop the Arizona law, and similar proposals to end the historical exploitation of Mexican labor and the violations of our people’s human, civil and constitutional rights?
In closing, we need to heed the words of the great abolitionist Fredrick Douglas who stated, “Find out just what any people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue til they have resisted with either words or blows or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they suppress.”