Commentary:
By Rodolfo Acuña
In the City of Los Angeles, Art Snyder represented the 14th Council District from 1971 to the mid-1980s. Chicanos considered the 14th a Chicano District, and they ran multiple candidates against him. Snyder seemed invincible, and in 1981 he ran with no opposition. In 1984, a recall election was mounted, based partially on the fact that the district had shifted toward being heavily Mexican American in population, redistricting gave Chicanos a good chance of taking the seat, and charges of corruption. Snyder successfully defeated the effort. Shortly after his victory he abruptly resigned.
While I did not agree with Snyder I followed his career closely. I considered the 14th a Chicano district, and I believed that the City Council had denied us representation through a crass manipulation of the redistricting process. However, in some strange way I enjoyed watching Snyder who was always entertaining, the prototype of the old Irish politicians of Tammany Hall or the Kennedys and Fitzgeralds of Boston. For all our criticism Snyder, he was not a racist and represented his constituents even though it often appeared he was playing “One Potato two potatoes three potatoes more!” The more was for him.
Synder, I believe, understood the plotting of the Chicano community to dump him, although he had considerable support within the barrios. He did not seem bitter at these efforts and reserved his wrath for his fellow city councilmen who wanted to dump him in order to score points with Chicanos and progressives. The other councilmen also wanted to keep the Mexicans in their districts satisfied since they were becoming more numerous. Snyder was expendable; he was not a member of the Democratic Party liberal cabal that ran the City.
In a September 3, 1972 Letter-to-the-Editor in the Los Angeles Times Snyder wrote about the new redistricting plan for the 14th: “I hate hypocrisy. I hate it.” He went on, “There is no greater hypocrisy than to speak the lie that the new council district configurations are drawn for the purpose of creating a Mexican American district. If the council does not intend to do so, then it should say that plainly, stating its reasons. If it intends to do so, then it should be done…But political expediency should not masquerade as virtue…”
Somehow these words have always stuck in my mind. I am continuously reminded of them in my support of the Arizona Mexican American community. Unlike the old machine politics exemplified by Snyder, Arizona politics are ugly and give “hypocrisy” a bad name. It is no longer “One Potato two potatoes three potatoes more!” but racist and mean.
Recent events underscore this gross abuse of government power in pursuit of the political and economic takeover of the state. I already written in previous blogs that state Attorney General Tom Horne encouraged and is helping finance a million dollar defamation lawsuit against Sean Arce, the fired coordinator of the Tucson Mexican American Studies program and José González, a teacher. Not satisfied in destroying their livelihood and blacklisting them, Horne wants to destroy them. Horne wants to put pressure on the plaintiffs to drop their federal lawsuit. In California this lawsuit would have been thrown out because it is frivolous. However, it is being tried in Arizona where anything and everything can happen.
If this were not bad enough, Horne is allegedly behind a campaign to deny supporters of the MAS program state employment. Currently the state is firing any teacher who has an arrest record even a misdemeanor. Horne’s henchmen have targeted students who were part of civil disobedience protests in 2010 and were arrested protesting Horne’s appearance in Tucson. I just learned that one of the student leaders recently lost her job. This is a real hardship, she is now a university student and is a major contributor to her family’s subsistence.
When I heard about this latest Horne gambit I was reminded of Snyder’s prophetic words. “I hate hypocrisy. I hate it!”
Horne, a failed lawyer, was elected state superintendent of instruction and then attorney general on anti-Mexican platforms. He vowed to exterminate the Tucson MAS program, hypocritically portraying himself as the reincarnation of Dr. Martin Luther King. Having ruined the lives of many Mexican American children, teachers and opponents, he is now intent on criminalizing those cited for misdemeanors for charges that do not rise above a trespass. Civil disobedience is as old as this country, part of the American tradition. I have been arrested seven times for protests, and not once has the state of California moved to revoke my teaching credential or to fire me.
What makes this hypocritical is that Horne that Horne has a skeleton in his closet. In 1973 he signed a consent order with the Securities and Exchange Commission in which he admitted to various violations by his firm of which he was president. “Horne was barred from doing any work as a broker dealer, investment adviser or from working with a registered investment company.” Legal experts say that these charges were not trivial.
This same Tom Horne is now out to ruin the lives of young people many of whom were sixteen at the time of their arrests. Well, “I hate hypocrisy. I hate it!” I yearn for the time of “One Potato two potatoes three potatoes more!” I knew that I at least had a shot at least three potatoes. I also yearn for the days when progressives would be outraged by injustices such as those happening in Tucson.
Depositions are about to begin in the case against HB 2281. You can donate by clicking on to http://saveethnicstudies.org . Run entirely by volunteers; however, depositions are expensive. Please donate at least $5 a month.
Depositions have started in the case against Sean Arce and José González. Four hours of depositions were taken of both Arce and Gonzalez. Our side deposed Ward this past week. Please donate: https://www.wepay.com/donations/144408