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sundries
And I'm upset at declarations of "all __________ feel ___________ about this law."
I am an American citizen who, because I don't drive, very often happens not to carry ID. This is not a political statement; it's just a fact. The passport doesn't fit neatly into everything, sometimes I forget to change it between jackets. I don't always have ID.
And, historically, legally, that's been okay. There is no national ID card in America. There is no legal requirement that I be able to identify my citizenship and residency status for any reason at any time. I cannot be stopped on the street for no other reason than how I look and be asked for my papers. If, in the course of some other event, cops ask me for ID, if I don't have it on me, yeah, that'll be a hassle, but it's not a crime in and of itself (reality is slightly more complicated than that, but I'm going with brevity and the assumption that I'm not committing a crime at the time of said hypothetical police interaction).
The Arizona law, to my reading, changes that in Arizona. To my reading of the political climate of Arizona and its particular issues, people can make all the noise they want about this law being directed at all illegal immigrants, I still read this as specifically targeting the Latino population for reasons that - while it may include some legitimate concerns about the very screwed up state of immigration, immigration laws and immigration enforcement in the US - absolutely, positively look like racism to me.
And, while I have not, nor do I intend to, refer to the people who have put this law into action as Nazi's, because that is hyperbole (and not useful hyperbole), I will saw unequivocably that one of the reasons the law makes me uncomfortable, beyond its racism, beyond the distraction it provides from deterring crime with clear-cut and immediate victims, is because I'm a Jewish person. Full stop. Other Jews may or may not feel that way. I do.
And guess what? I'm allowed to.
I am too fucking old to "agree to disagree" on some aspects of some issues. These include racism and civil rights. Does a person in Arizona have more meaningful commentary to offer on this law than I? You bet. Do Latino people? Also yes. Do people with personal immigration-related experiences? Yup. Here's the thing though, we all get our perspective. And I can't speak for anyone else. So I'd like people to stop speaking for me or telling me how I should speak.
You can think anything you damn well want about the law in Arizona. But the voicing of opinions has consequences - for me and for you. For everyone. And I won't socialize with people who think I'm less than human because of any of the various categories I fit in to.
That also means I'm not interested in socializing with people who think those sorts of things about others because of their categories. We're all a little bit racist and a whole lot ignorant; it's the human condition and I can live with it, especially when we're all trying to do better. But it's the a lot racist and the proud of ignorance thing I've got a problem with.
And don't call me stupid. Ever.
Meanwhile on Angel it's the return of Ann. That fundraiser thing was so ridiculous; weirdly it reminded me of the most useless White Collar episode ever, witht he mortgage fraud. It was that same sort of "ignore the actual boring thing driving this plot" problem.
Angel and his humans are so useless without each other. I loved the demon from the 1920s Angel has the fight drama going on with. Great character, great performance. I like Wesley around Gun. It makes Wesley seem like he's actually getting to be a boy, and it strikes me that that's unusual for him, like he had to be a serious little adult at nine. I mean, I did, and I wasn't a Watcher. ;)
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Where I get testy is when folks from, say Iowa, start expounding on how we need to send all them brown people back where they came from because they are ruining our country.
Huh. How thoughtful of you, Mr. Iowa, to come up with such a great plan, considering the lack of those icky brown people that likely live in YOUR state.
I have an opinion on immigration. Yep indeedy. And, for better or worse, it is formed in large part by living in Southern California.
There were kids at my high school who were only there the first semester, vanished the second semester and then came back again the following fall. Why? Because second semester coincided with harvesting season, so they were out in the fields picking the lettuce that likely ended up on my dinner table. Which, oh yeah, wanna see the price of produce shoot through the roof? Send all those icky brown people back where they came from.
I was fluent enough in Spanish in high school that my then-boyfriend's mother would call up just to have me translate instructions to her maid. Because she couldn't be bothered to either learn a few simple phrases or find out how fluent the under-the-table help was in English (more than she let on, actually).
So yeah, you sit back in your rocking chair over there in Iowa and rant on about Fear of a Brown Nation. But I guarantee it will affect me long long before it gets to you. So in that sense, damn skippy I am entitled to more meaningful commentary on the subject.
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It just served as a jumping-off point for where *I* get torqued about armchair immigration pundits
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The law is so mindbogglingly stupid. I keep thinking it's something Iowa would come up with, not Arizona. (ahem)
And all the other reports coming in get worse and worse about it. OTOH, I'm amazed/thrilled/shocked to see things like, San Francisco boycotting AZ, (at least) one of the trucking unions is boycotting the state, etc. Is there any precedent for a U.S. city boycotting a U.S. state? Whoa.
I keep waiting for the court injunction to stop it. There's many problematic aspects to it (such as allowing private citizens to sue government agencies for *not* enforcing it, also unprecedented).
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True story: I had a friend in high school who was Hispanic. Three, if not four generations here. Grandfather decorated WWII vet. And she STILL got hassled by the cops because of her last name.
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My first job moved me to West Hollywood.
Irvine ---> WeHo = MASSIVE CULTURE SHOCK
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Yeah, pretty amazing that they're only what 50 miles apart?
I'm looking to move to San Diego, myself.
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And, I mean, we're coming up on the 2-year anniversary of what was at the time the largest immigration raid in U.S. history. Immigration officials arrested about 1 out of every 6 people in Postville, IA in one day, leaving 50% of the schoolchildren with at least one parent in jail, followed by even more gross injustice.
(The plant that was raided also had about a gazillion other issues going on--not germane to the discussion here but I wanted to mention that as an FYI for anybody who wants to go digging into news articles about the case.)