This post of mine is similar to our group commentary that we all commented on last weekend. But I was on facebook this morning, just cruising through my newsfeed, and I saw a classmate of mine had posted a status which said:
"Los Angeles just tried to make their Arizona boycott official. Unfortunately, Arizona supplies 25 percent of LA's energy. It's going to be really entertaining when the elected officials of LA have to justify boycotting something totally legal when a large portion of the people will subsequently lose their power.." and her post before that had said "Attention to some of the idiots living in Washington state: Boycotting Arizona isn't going to change anything. Why don't you people find something more important to do with your lives; maybe something productive and potentially beneficial to society." I read into her comments posted on her status, and it got into a pretty serious debate. Mostly because the poster was claiming that this bill was not in any way racist, was in complete accordance with the constitution blahlblahblah bullshit. She of course, had a TON of angry comments, and there was a lot of pointless back and forth. I'm not one to get involved on facebook debates, because honestly they go no where and people will always have their opinions. But if I were to reply it would say something like this:
Are you completely ignorant? How do you not see that the bill specifically will target minority populations.
Everyone else who posted comments to this status correctly point out that the bill IS racist in nature. No, it doesn't explicitly say "hey please stop everyone who looks hispanic and deport them" it gives the authority for government officials to arrest persons that seem to be suspicious. WHO DO YOU THINK THEY WILL ASSUME IS THE ILLEGAL ONE? A MEXICAN OR A WHITE PERSON. No one is going to assume a random white guy is an illegal immigrant, they're going to assume the minority, not the majority. And that my ignorant facebook friend, is racial profiling.
Granted, the people have to be committing an illegal activity, but that would mean that someone could end up being arrested for j-walking or loitering in public. But still, what if you just stepped outside for a minute, didn't grab your wallet, walked across the street and got arrested, even if you had valid proof of residency? Is that ethical? Is that worth all of the paperwork and wasting of the police officers time? Definitely not.
PS.
Seeing as Seattle just added to the boycott list and it (along with others) won't allow any official government-related trips to Arizona, impacting Arizona's own local economies I would say yeah there is a point to it.
You're saying that Arizona has it's own rights to make a bill, Washington and all the other parts of the US have the same right to boycott something they find degrading and unjust. Just like Arizona felt they needed to deal with their immigration problem, the rest of the country is doing the same.
Oh wait except for Rhode Island which is attempting to pass similar legislation.
In other news, in case people aren't aware on what I was referring to in the Seattle:
Keep it classy kids!
-Mercedes
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I definitely agree with your commentary. I, too, have seem some lengthy and irrational debates on Facebook. I can't help but lose a lot of respect for the people that are widely advertising their ignorant rantings. People of all races, backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses immigrate to America for a variety of reasons. Enabling a system that targets certain minority populations has obvious racial implications. Since when are we ignoring the social progress of the last 50 or so years?
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