By David C. Rubí, Ph.D.
President of the Arizona Hispanic Community Forum
As you are well aware, Hispanics and other minorities in Arizona are facing one of the biggest attacks our civil liberties in recent years. This attack threatens to reintroduce what amounts to Jim Crow laws, cause de facto segregation and open a channel so that the covert belief in racism can become an overt practice.
If current polls hold true, this threat will most likely be imposed by the voters of Arizona, the majority of whom have shown a propensity for voting for discriminatory laws, such as Prop 203 (2000, anti-bilingual education law that is still in effect), Prop. 106 (1988, the "official" English legislation that outlawed the use of other languages in state business; was later invalidated by the courts), and the rejection of Props. 301 and 302, which would have established an official state Martin Luther King Holiday (1990; it later passed in 1992 after a business boycott announced by African American organizations caused Arizonans to rethink their priorities).
At this point, if we are to believe the polls, Arizona's voters will implement Prop. 200, which is called the "Protect Arizona Now" (PAN) initiative. Ostensibly, this proposed law would prohibit undocumented persons from voting (already prohibited by law) and from having access to any public service (some of which are already prohibited to them, even though they pay taxes, too), which public services the proposition does not define (the only exemptions being those required by federal law). It proposes to do so by requiring everyone to show proof of citizenship when voting or accessing public services.
Of course, since this proposition has been seemingly aimed at "illegal aliens," --a pejorative term meant to demonize and dehumanize those people who are lured into the United States through non-official means with promises of much needed work-- and since most of these human beings are stereotyped as being dark-skinned, Hispano-Indians, the proposition is clearly meant to cause situtions that will intimidate and harass anyone who shares those particular physical features, regardless of whether they are citizens or official residents of the United States or not.
As this proposition is apparently designed to play off people's prejudices of what an American seemingly looks like, who will constantly be asked to prove their citizenship as they try to get some sort of government service? Blond-haired, blue-eyed individuals? Or those with dark hair and dark skin? Though the law will supposedly be applicable to everyone in theory, in reality, we know that busy civil servants will tend to follow their preconceived notions about what an American looks like, as what happened in the South during the bad old days of legal segregation. For example, theoretically, the so-called "grandfather clause" used for voting --in which to be eligible to vote, a person's grandfather had to have voted in an election before the Civil War, which exclude African Americans, because their grandfathers would have been slaves-- were supposed to be applied to everyone, in reality were applied only to African Americans.
The racist, segregationist, white-supremist agenda is so strong here, that recently, Virginia Abernethy, a self-styled "separationist", joined the pro-PAN forces as a national advisor (it seems they will want to take this out of Arizona as soon as possible). To anyone involved in fighting for the American Way of Life, which is life, liberty, happiness and liberty and justice for all, Ms. Abernethy's name should recognizable. She has been active in the Council of Conservative Citizens (the CCC), a group strongly linked to the Ku Klux Klan (the KKK). She advocates "population control" (whose population does she wish to control?) as well as segregationist and anti-immigrant policies. One has to wonder how many closet racists and segregationists this movement has attracted. (for more information on Ms. Abernethy, or you might try: [here] or [here
]Of course, Prop. 200 will have a chilling effect on minority voting as did the poll taxes and other Jim Crow laws of the Segregationist Era. And this is exactly what it is meant to do. This is the biggest assault on American civil and human rights since the the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. If it succeeds here in Arizona, we can expect it to succeed little-by-little everywhere else.
The reason the backers of Prop. 200 chose Arizona is because they are familiar with the racist voting pattern of the majority of Arizonans, as has been evidenced by the earlier ballot measures mentioned above, and the willingness of voters to send openly bigoted candidates to the state legislature. And, as noted, over 60% of Arizonans indicated that they would vote for Prop. 200 in the latest polls. So, how can it be defeated?
Defeating Prop. 200 will be difficult, but it can be beat! It will require people and organizations from outside of Arizona to put political and economic pressure on the voters of Arizona, just as was done when the African American community finally made voters see the light and honor a great American hero, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. For years, right-wing activists blocked the passage of MLK Day as a state holiday in Arizona. And it failed in the polls in 1990. But, after two years of intense pressure, in which Arizona was boycotted as a place to do business by outside interests, the state's voters finally changed their mind and approved MLK Day in 1992.
Nothing short of impacting the wallets will make those people predisposed to supporting Prop. 200 to see the light. Though it is an individuals right to hold and express racists views, it is not their right to impose their racism on others. We believe in the principle of "liberty and justice for all" not for some. This is the America we are fighting for when we stand against bigotry and racism.
The boycott is such an effective strategy, that even the pro-200 forces are calling for a boycott of businesses that do not support Prop. 200 (see theArizona Republic article linked here: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0916pan-bank16.html).
However, as the Spanish language newspaper La Voz notes, Arizona is risking being the subject of a national boycott if Prop. 200 passes. And a boycott against Prop. 200 and for civil rights would be far more effective than one for 200 and for racism. No normal business would want to be tainted with the label of "racism" and "segregationist" because those are truly un-American concepts and not logically tenable. (La Voz's article is in Spanish and although it is published by the same company that publishes the Arizona Republic, for some reason the management has not translated this article into English. You can read the article, or have it copied and translated, at:http://www.azcentral.com/lavoz/front/articles/0915boicots-CR.html).
I believe that as soon as possible, the major national civil and human rights organizations, along with Hispanic organizations such as the Hispanic Chamber of the Commerce, the GI Forum, the National Council of La Raza, MALDEF, the National Association of Latino Elected Officials and the rest should announce a boycott of Arizona as a place to do business travel, to start new business and should reduce current business to a minimum IF PROPOSITION 200 PASSES. Then, these organizations should get commitments from their business partners to do the same.
There has to be consequences for rejecting 200 years of American progress on human and civil rights. There has to be consequences for returning to Jim Crow and legalizing racism.