Second Class Citizens

[npk]

Second Class Citizens


Imagine a country like this. Where this sort of thing happens. Just take a moment and imagine.

Imagine being stopped over and over, repeatedly by the police who tell you that they are merely doing their job on behalf of the state. Imagine being stopped as you walk home after a night with friends and being detained in a dark alley by a man with a gun and being asked to "show your papers." Imagine taking your child to his first day of school, and having him watch as a police officer tells you that you look like a person who doesn't belong in this country and humiliates you all the while smiling and telling you that he is again merely working on behalf of the state. Now imagine that you are a legal citizen born and raised in said country with all the rights and freedoms afforded to all other people. Your only crime was looking different than those around you.


You might imagine that this is some third world dictatorship, with roaming patrols of armed militias coming into villages in the middle of the night and rounding up thousands of innocent people on the orders of a political regime. But this story is one that is soon to play out in the state of Arizona, right here in the United States of America. A land founded on justice and liberty for all. Today however it seems that the land of the free is not so free anymore. For the land of the free now comes with a hefty price. For you see if you happen to look a certain way, like for example having a brown complexion, the cost of living among-st the free, is your dignity, and while you're at it you can also throw in your liberty. Suddenly America's promise of freedom and justice for all doesn't seem so note worthy. It doesn't seem to elicit the same dreams as it once did. Those words carved out on granite might as well have been slopped down on a bar napkin.

For the state of Arizona has taken it upon itself to single out a group of people based solely on their appearance. African Americans and other minorities have for years complained of police using racial profiles, or targeting certain groups of people based solely on their skin tone or ethnicity. And for years we have been told by the police and our federal government that these type of procedures would not be tolerated. On the rare occasion that they occurred, according to our government, the people responsible for such profiling would be investigated and appropriate action taken. Today however, that promise seems almost laughable. As one state has now signed into law a piece of legislation, that in affect, criminalizes skin tone. Or is it guilty by association. There will of of course be those not only on the right of the political spectrum, but those on the left, that will no doubt use the tired and very worn out argument that "If this bill helps protect one family. If this bill helps deport one illegal immigrant. Then this bill is worth it." You will notice that those using those same tired and worn out lines will be speaking from the safety of their white complexion and secure in their liberty.

But what this is really all about, is not what is to become of those here illegally, but more importantly what is to become of those here legally. Those who will get "lumped" by law enforcement into a group of suspicious people based solely on what they look like, not what they are doing. What about those people who are not only legal citizens, but were born in this country. What is their crime. A good friend once told me that when you hear the words "with good intentions." It always seems that "bad things inevitably follow."

on correction: typo

[AzJusticeFreedom]

1. Thank you.....

for stating the issue so well.

[EFerrari]

5. Bienvenida to DU AZJusticeFreedom.

:hi:

[The Magistrate]

2. Well Said, Sir

Painfully accurate.

[WeDidIt]

3. The right wing bigotry is palpable

This nation changed with one signature.

It has changed into a nightmare where the color of one's skin or the manner of one;s speech degrades a human being into a sub-human nightmare.

This is an evil the likes of which have not been seen on this planet in over sixty-five years.

[mbillard1979]

11. Hopefully this bill will be short lived

I can't see how this bill will be constitutional. You would think we as a country would learn something from our history and understand that this ind of discrimination doesn't work. This is a bad setback.

[EFerrari]

4. Precisely. Half of my family looks like me, vaguely European.

About half have curly black hair and brown eyes and skin, my cousins who were born here AND their beautiful children. I wouldn't want any of them to be subjected to this insult.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[The Magistrate]

7. Is That a Serious Proposal, Sir?

Deportation of some ten millions of people?

[jmm]

8. Illegal immigration is not responsible for racial profiling.

Racism is responsible for racial profiling.

[flvegan]

9. Welcome to "When a talking point becomes propaganda 101"

Like a skipping record.

[Dramarama]

10. But great grandfather

didn't travel 4000 miles across the ocean to see this country overrun by immigrants. He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland-Colbert

[malaise]

12. K & R n/t