Racist Arizona

I know that no government accurately represents it's constituents, representative governments only succeed in representing themselves. So I'm in no way suggesting that all of the residents of Arizona are racist, but the government is being taken over by Lou Dobbs' army of "anti-illegal-immigrant" crazies. The trouble with modern racism is that it's so darned unpopular, you have to talk to the klan to get some actual racial epitaphs these days. If you ask these politically correct supporters of the Arizona Anti-Immigration Law SB 1070, they will stress that they are only against "the illegal ones". But a deeper look shows a truly complex issue on both legal and moral grounds.

Of course not all illegal immigrants are from Mexico, or central or South america, some are overstaying their visas from European countries, and every other country in the world. The Arizona law requires police to ask any person who looks like they might be illegally in the country for proof of citizenship, so that could be anyone of any color. The law literally requires the police to stop everybody in Arizona and ask them for their papers, EVERYONE. But ask the white residents of Arizona if they have been stopped and asked for their papers, they have not. Why is Washington State not adopting a similar law to keep those pesky Canadians out of our country?

I know it's not a popular argument to suggest that much of our richest territories of the southwest were wrongfully acquired from the independent nation of Mexico, maybe this is because it's true. But it's no more popular to suggest that no land in the Americas we're legally or morally available to the descendants of another hemisphere, only through genocide could it be occupied. If those who were so passionate about immigration issues would follow their ideologies to their ultimate conclusions they would be packing up and heading for their ancestral homelands.

Most Americans fail to see the complexity of the race issue within Mexico, they only see "Mexicans". Mexico has a similar history in relation with it's indigenous populations except for the fact that it still has a significant proportion of indigenous to non-indigenous peoples. We think Mexican=Brown but there are significant portions of the country that pride themselves on their white skin. You might think they could have some interesting conversations with the members of the klu klux klan, but oh yes, the language barrier. Racisms' first and longest lasting target in North America has been it's indigenous people and there are still many Americans who feel that old hatred for their red brothers.

Just as the racism of yesterday is no longer en vogue, the racist campaign maligning native Americans can no longer find a champion to carry the cause. But wait, look closely at those "Mexicans" coming over the border, they're not the light skinned ones. Those are indigenous and mestizo people (or people of Euro-Amero blood lines), they're indians, Native Americans, why should they not have the right to traverse the land that is their cultural inheritance? The concessions we've made (or agreed to make but fail to follow through) to those tribes from the territories now within the boundaries of the US government, are concessions to sovereign peoples, don't the other tribes of Indigenous Americans deserve some concessions considering the devastating effect our Nation has had on their lives?

Throughout history there have been many people who pray to a Lord Jesus while simultaneously holding a hatred for Jewish people and their ways, not realizing that Jesus was not a Christian but a Jew. Obviously Jesus's spirit has long transcended the boundaries of religion and it seems silly to call him a Christian or a Jew, but if he is to teach us something it should be about transcending these cultural boundaries to see in each other our spiritual equal, our true selves. Jesus was a dark skinned man with two thousand years of airbrushed skin tone adjustments to make his white fans more comfortable. Many Christians are anxiously awaiting this Lord Jesus to make his big come back, and who knows, maybe he will. His spirit is trying to come back again and again in every color, but racism chases him away.