Political Interlude

I promise I'll post some real photos and graduation updates, but right now it's 3 AM and I'm writing to a 16-year-old who penned a guest article for Lemondrop (yeah, those jerks who commissioned me sort-of then didn't follow up). Check it out. (Referring to the title she chose, Palin's comment could never be construed as slander on any level. Please.)

My response in the comments:

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Elizabeth, I sympathize with your position--while I am a supporter of the bill, I suffered plenty of discrimination at the hands of my peers due to my own political beliefs, so I want to talk to you as an equal--you're obviously articulate and I don't want to talk down to you, but I may say some things you don't like.

I was a conservative at a tiny liberal art conservatory in Baltimore, MD of all places--almost unheard of, and it showed in the speakers and events they chose to have, in the open criticism of my opinions. (I actually just graduated less than a week ago!)

Your school's administration reserves the right to do whatever they wish regarding their activities and trips. It's too bad that they chose to involve politics in girl's basketball where I don't really think it is relevant, but I entirely agree that the school has the right to make that decision and deserves no criticism for exercising that right as they saw fit.

However, I suggest you read the bill if you haven't--it's only fifteen or so pages long. http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/sb1070s.pdf

The most important thing to note is that the bill clearly indicates that no person would be asked for "papers" (which actually means a driver's license or something similar, not some trumped-up recall to the Third Reich, speaking of skewed information to serve a political agenda, Elizabeth) without reasonable/probable cause. This refers something as simple as being pulled over--law enforcement is not being asked to seize latinos in the streets.

I know there is a lot of uproar about the possibility of racial profiling. Let me set up a scenario. Having lived in Baltimore, I got plenty of emails from Campus Safety regarding attacks and muggings in the neighborhood. I am not exaggerating--literally every single one of those emails described a black man between 18 and 30 in a black hoodie. If you didn't know, Baltimore is populated mostly by black residents, and how many of those must fit that description! Does that mean the police went out and collared every person that fit that description? Hardly.

It is just a matter of fact that illegal immigration is a very serious problem for the residents of Arizona, and it's a matter of fact that the closest neighboring country is Mexico, which borders AZ. Therefore, it's a logical conclusion to draw that the bulk of illegal immigrants will be Mexican or perhaps Central American latinos.

What I'm trying to say is that this isn't strictly about race, this is about looking for the proper suspect. If I got mugged by the black twenty-something in Baltimore, they wouldn't go looking for a white man or Asian man or latino man, would they?

It's another misconception that this law was passed regarding the economy alone. It's easy to find information that plenty of illegal immigrants pay taxes despite a lack of citizenship (it is actually their healthcare payments where they fall the most delinquent). Apart from the fact that they have entered this country ILLEGALLY, disregarding FEDERAL (and now state) law, there have been an appalling amount of drug-related and sexual crime perpetrated by illegal immigrants, often linked to gang activity. http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51424

This article, written in 2006, reports that there are approximately 240,000 sex offenders who are illegal immigrants. And that was in 2006! Four years ago!

This is a safety issue. This is a health issue. Sexual assault is one of the most horrifying ways to violate a person, US resident or no. This is more serious than any party line. Just consider the ramifications of the law being broken, rather than the one that was just passed.

(Good luck on your other games!)

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(Abby, I will respond to your e-mail! I've just been so preoccupied with finishing up MICA and getting settled at home!)

Hope you're all well!

-A.