Category Archives: Human Rights

The Good, The Bad, and The Silly

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The Good:

The Feds turn up the heat on Sheriff Joe Arpaio. As article author Seth Freed Wessler points out, Arpaio has been exercising much of the power of terror and deportation based on a federal rule, so it’s a bit hypocritical of the government to just now push the issue. But at least they are actively going after the man who prides himself on making life hell for thousands of people on a daily basis.

Judge Walker’s decision on Prop 8 might not even be allowed to be appealed, since Schwarzenegger and other California government officials aren’t interested in appealing. It’s possible that this case won’t go to the US Supreme Court, which is maybe bad news in that a nationwide decision wouldn’t be made, but maybe good news in that the conservative slant of the court might make a terrible nationwide decision. If appeals aren’t allowed, then gay marriage is legal in California and those who don’t like it don’t have much recourse.

The Bad:

Obama and his Press Secretary think those of us who have high expectations for the administration are whiners and should STFU already. Look, I know a lot of good things have happened in the last year and a half and that is genuinely exciting, but I also know a lot of things haven’t been done or even attempted (Obama could stay DADT with an executive order while waiting for Congress and the DOD to dick around on long-term policy, for example). I know that some Bush-era legacies remain or are even being strengthened (like the extension of powers of the executive branch, which Obama as candidate promised to overturn, or selling off my right to my body in order to pass health insurance reform). Sure, you have to play politics in Washington, but that doesn’t mean you have to play games with people’s rights. What’s the phrase? Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining.

This is what happens when you make it a matter of national policy to consider immigrants an expendable nuisance rather than human beings: people use that as a cover to treat people as expendable on their own time.

The Silly:

Britain prepares for the Olympics with some real gems of advice on intercultural understanding. My favorites: “Do not be alarmed if South Africans announce that they were held up by robots.” and “When meeting Mexicans it is best not to discuss poverty, illegal aliens, earthquakes or their 1845-6 war with America.” (Via.)

Gay Sex and the City. ‘Nuff said. (Via.) (Okay actually not enough said, please note that this is an explicitly political project and I don’t mean to take away from that by placing it in The Silly; it’s a fun project, though, so here it goes.)

Leave your own links in the comments!

The Good, The Bad, and The Silly

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The Good:

Prop 8 was overturned! The California law defining marriage as between a man and a woman only was ruled unconstitutional on August 4. Appeals are expected, and this may go all the way to the Supreme Court, which could be iffy, given its current make-up, but for now, hurrah! Here’s a good refresher on what Prop 8 is and why it matters for the nation, not just California.

On the other hand, it might not be so bad if the appeal goes to the Supreme Court, since Elena Kagan was just confirmed by Congress. She will take Justice Stevens’ place this fall. She’s a bit of an unknown quantity, and a career lawyer who played it safe on a lot of issues she could’ve taken some important stands on, but fingers crossed she follows history and leans more left the longer she sits on the bench.

Obama signed a law repealing a mandatory sentencing period for crack cocaine possession. This helps a lot in closing the gap between crack and powder cocaine, a gap that has seen far more blacks than whites go to prison.

The Bad:

Target, known as an LGBT friendly place to work, is under a lot of scrutiny for giving a lot of money to a vehemently anti-gay candidate in Minnesota.

Here’s an insightful article on the dangerous fundamentalism of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a liberal favorite for her survivor’s tale and anti-Islam stance.

Renee Martin looks at the viral video of Antoine Dodson and asks why no one cares about the sister he saved, Kelly Dodson, and why people are laughing at his delivery rather than listening to what he has to say.

The Silly:

Ever read an article on ebooks? Then this is the drinking game for you! Warning: extreme accuracy and hilarity follow.

And that’s it for this week! I’m off to sit by a lake with my parents, so if you haven’t commented before, your comment might languish in moderation til I can get to it on Tuesday, but don’t let that stop you. Have a great weekend!

The Good, The Bad, and The Silly

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Hello dearest fellow travelers. Here’s something new! I thought I’d start a feature that rounds up some of the best and worst of the political/cultural news I run across each week, so you can get even further inside my brain without getting too Malkovich about it. And since usually the good and bad news is still news and therefore always kind of a downer, how about a silly element on the end of it? Something lighthearted, cheerful, adorable, or otherwise Unserious. If you’re already reading blogs with a political or cultural slant, probably you’re running into similar features, and maybe you won’t find much new here. But maybe you will, and then you will feel enlightened. Also, you can put links to other interesting articles in the comments and this blog will become a veritable font of information.

So here we go — the inaugural The Good, The Bad, and The Silly!

The Good

“Papers, Please” portion of AZ law SB1070 put on hold by federal judge — it’s a start

Erin Andrews urges Congress to pass a stricter anti-stalking law, one that would include high-tech types of stalking and emotional threats

The Bad

As is so often the case, human rights are traded for money — prisons are set to profit big time off SB1070

As the Kalamazoo area reels from an oil spill, Democrats decide a majority in both houses and the White House, plus an oil spill disaster in the Gulf that has the country fuming, isn’t enough to actually push through tough energy reform (Via)

Also, check out this site and be sure to place it over your city. It’s truly disturbing. http://www.ifitwasmyhome.com/

The Silly

A mother makes fantastical dreamscapes starring her baby (Via)

What have you run across?

Storytelling as Action

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I don’t have much time today to expound on this, but here’s a fascinating excerpt from the book Telling Stories: Indigenous history and memory in Australia and New Zealand, edited by Bain Attwood and Fiona Magowan (Allen & Unwin, 2001). In the entry “The saga of Captain Cook: Remembrance and morality,” Deborah Bird Rose relates the story of Captain Cook as told by Hobbles Danaiyarri, who is an Aborigine living in Yarralin in the Northern Territory of Australia. His story is told in a mix of past and present tenses, and relates the injustices his people suffered at the hands of Captain Cook and other Europeans. After reprinting Danaiyarri’s remembrance, Rose explains how history and morality are tied up in Aboriginal thinking, explaining that this remembrance is a saga as opposed to a Dreaming myth:

…the saga is set in a time frame that is conceptualised as part of the present (ordinary time), whereas Dreaming myths are set in a time frame conceptualised both as the past and as a concurrent present. The latter are source of moral principles, and moral action is judged by reference to these principles, which are deemed to be permanent rather than subject to change and negotiation. Captain Cook’s law, by contrast, is seen as immoral, and this presents Danaiyarri and others with a problem: how to account for immoral action that is reproduced through time and thus appears to endure, just as Dreaming law endures. I contend that Yarralin people’s logic requires that the Captain Cook saga be kept in ordinary time — that it not be allowed to become part of the Dreaming past. (p. 70)

Moral action is seen to endure, and actions that do not fit the moral frame of reference cannot be part of the same timeline as moral actions. So these immoral actions are framed in the present, in ordinary time, as a current problem, even if they happened hundreds of years ago. By viewing morality and history as intertwined in this way, wrongs can be addressed in the present day, even if a linear timeframe would see those wrongs as too far in the past to warrant redressing. The very act of telling these stories is a move for social justice, keeping history literally alive in the general consciousness and demanding recognition and action. As Rose concludes, “far from being the consolation of the powerless, remembrance is an active force for social change” (p. 79).

What a powerful way of viewing history, storytelling, and collective action! What do you think? What stories should we be telling in “ordinary time”?

Go Blackhawks! Now Change that Mascot!

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Congrats, Blackhawks! Now get rid of that mascot. Not a single other team in the NHL is named after Native Americans. There are plenty in other major sports leagues, but in hockey, none. There is not a single other NHL team that takes an entire group of people and packages them into a mute mascot.

Read this great post on why Native American mascots aren’t harmless traditions: http://nativeappropriations.blogspot.com/2010/06/thanks-for-severed-head-youve-proved-my.html#more

One of the best parts of it points out that these mascots and their attendant imagery as bloodthirsty savages has a devastating effect on the psyche of Native American youth across the country. I know the majority population of the States tends to think of Native Americans as wiped out a century ago, but they are alive and well. If ever there were a time to actually think of the children instead of doing useless hand-wringing, this is a good one.

My dad went to University of Illinois, and I know he has a lot of fond memories of attending Illini games, wearing the Chief insignia on his shirts, doing the Illini chant. But those are memories anyone can have with their college sports team; K College students got pretty excited about a giant hornet. You don’t need to appropriate an entire group of people, their history, their culture, their stereotyped image, and make them into a symbol of how fierce, tough, and primitively warrior-like your sports team is. Use an eagle or something.

So Blackhawks, congratulations on your historic win. How about you make more history and change your mascot? Heck, you could even change your name to the Hawks; it’s what everyone calls you anyway. It’s not like you’ll lose your winning reputation — your name will always be more intimidating than the Pittsburgh Penguins.

ETA: I had a conversation with my coworker Branden about this post, and he pointed out how important Black Hawk is to the history of Illinois. I tried to clarify:

“The thing is (which maybe I need to be clearer about) is that there are a lot of things that are important to one group’s history, but that doesn’t mean that that group should be allowed to claim those things for everyone’s history. For example, the Confederate flag is important to a lot of white southerners as a symbol of independence and regional pride. It’s also a symbol of brutal violence, humiliation, and slavery to a lot of black southerners. Claiming the Confederate flag for Georgia, for example, on the state courthouse or whatever, is claiming it for all Georgians, and basically saying, ‘The independence/pride part is more important than the violence/humiliation/slavery part.’ Which is just wrong.

“Black Hawk is an important symbol to some, but to others is part of a long line of mascots that remind Native Americans that they are just symbols of savagery for major league sports teams. You can balance the legacy of Black Hawk with the pride of a sports team without doing that.”

Branden replied: “I wonder what the Sauk tribe thinks about it — I don’t know. They’d be the ones I’d primarily want to hear from. And if they find it offensive, then shoot, call the team the Hawks, like you said. They already have a badass Hawk logo they can use.”

And then he provided this awesome link: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_r8tWGVHrjGI/SHPrp67Fv8I/AAAAAAAAE1I/DwFl7Nff5SY/s320/chicagologo.png

Film Club: Rabbit-Proof Fence

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Damn, another movie that made me cry. Ask my family and they’ll tell you how rare that is — I’m the only one out of all five of us who is more likely, while watching sentimental schlock and genuinely moving fare alike, to roll my eyes than to have tears in them. Make no mistake, the director of Rabbit-Proof Fence fully intended to make me cry, and tugged my heartstrings all sorts of ways to make sure I did. But the story itself, plus three forlorn children onscreen, was enough to have me welling up at the end.

Rabbit-Proof Fence is an adaptation of Doris Pilkington Garimara’s book about her mother, Molly Craig. When Molly was 14, she, her sister and her cousin were forcibly removed from their home in Jigalong, in western Australia, and placed in the “re-education facility” Moore River Native Settlement. Under the White Australia plan of government, “protectors” of Aborigines were assigned to each state and territory in the country. They were supposedly meant to make sure Aborigines’ rights were looked out for, but in reality, they said who could and could not marry, where they were allowed to live, and whether they could keep their own children. It was established policy by 1931, when this movie is set, that mixed-race Aboriginal children were stolen from their families and placed in boarding schools that trained them for a life of working in white women’s houses (for the girls) or in white men’s fields (for the boys). The reasoning, like similar policies in the United States with Native Americans, was that it was best to assimilate the native population into the colonizing society, for their own benefit. Clearly it was better to be white, so whites were doing a public service by erasing Aborigines’ cultural heritage, never mind that grossly erroneous premise or the deep and lasting trauma to the parents and children.

The movie has a clear agenda, but for once I didn’t mind. The girls missed their family deeply, they couldn’t trust any whites they encountered because they would probably report the girls to the authorities and send them back to the settlement, and they walked 1500 miles to be reunited with the life and loved ones they knew. The movie didn’t have to try very hard to show that this was a really bad policy and a horrible affront to human rights — in fact, the movie tried a little too hard to show that the protector, A. O. Neville, truly believed that he was helping the Aborigines and couldn’t understand why they would possibly run away from the settlement. I mean, I guess that perspective is important, to show people that there was a majority of voting opinion that held this belief, because otherwise you’d just assume it was made-up, that it’s too obvious that you shouldn’t separate families based on racial prejudice. Because that is pretty damn obvious, but it wasn’t obvious enough to enough people until the 1970s, when the last children were ripped from their homes with official sanction before the government ended the program.

The most upsetting part about the movie was the very end. The last scene shows 2 of the 3 girls reunited with their mother and grandmother, the music swells, and we all feel relieved that they made it home. But then the voiceover comes up and says that Molly was sent back to Moore River with her own two children nine years later. She escaped with one of her two daughters and once again walked 1500 miles to get home, but that daughter was stolen from her and it was many years before she met the daughter she’d had to leave behind at Moore River. So Molly lost one of her children forever and reunited with her other child only after over 20 years of separation. This is why it’s called the Stolen Generations, plural; family after family was ripped apart in the name of racial purity and superiority.

Molly was torn from her mother, and then her children were torn from her. She was time and again denied her own family, her own choices, her own life. Despite this, she worked alongside her husband and became a mainstay in the desert community she knew and loved; in other words, she carved out her own life in spite of her country telling her she shouldn’t. I admire her immensely for that, and also her daughter for writing down her story and getting it published. Now, because of the movie, it’s a story that millions of people know, and that part of Australian history has been added back into the public consciousness. There are Stolen Generations deniers and former prime minister John Howard refused to apologize to Aborigines for the government’s actions, yes, but they know. People know. And that is the first step to action, right?

History is Not Inevitable — and That Matters for Today

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History is not inevitable. Perhaps this is something they go over with history majors (although I will say I never encountered the idea in the several history courses I took in college), but for me and I think for the general populace, it’s an unusual idea. After all, events unfolded the way they did and now we are here, so how could it have been otherwise? It’s like a kind of Q.E.D. — it happened, therefore it is proven; it happened, therefore it must have been meant to happen. I know that this shows up in several religious schools of thought, like determinism in Christianity, and also in general ideas about fate. But it’s a poor approach to history.

This way of thinking sees history as static, and usually consisting of political, military, and economic events rather than a synthesis of these with social, religious, artistic, and scientific events and movements. But history is a living, breathing thing that we are creating right now. If we view ourselves as not only part of the history we know but also the part of the history future generations will learn about, it becomes easier to see past historical events as not inevitable or fated, but part of a series of individual and communal decisions made in constantly shifting circumstances. That’s not to say that I can quite wrap my linear-focused brain around the Australian Aboriginal concept of Dreamtime (in which you are here now but also in the past and the future, all at once) or the physics concept of nonlinear time. All that fluid space and time is nifty but makes me dizzy. But I can grasp the interlocking moments, motivations, and actions that make up our history, as opposed to the clear-cut line from Cause A to Effect B.

Understanding history as more complex than a straight series of inevitable events is crucial to understanding the ways we interact now — legally, socially, personally. For example, the colonization of New Zealand by the British is often seen as something that was bound to happen. The British had more efficient killing machines and more of them, they had thousands more people to populate the land, and they had the backing of an entire empire. But even if colonization were inevitable, the way it happened was drastically different from, say, the colonization of Australia. The British imported convicts to Australia and swept aside the Aborigines as if they were only a small obstacle to populating a continent, rather than the original inhabitants of that continent. In New Zealand, however, they found the Maori not only ready to fight for their land (as many Australian Aborigines were), but organized in a way the British could better understand, with recognizable leaders and specific land boundaries. So the British decided the Maori were more advanced than the Aborigines, and much more likely to respond well to being “civilized.”

Because the British saw the Maori as more civilized and basically more human than the Aborigines, they gave the Maori more consideration when taking their land, and that different historical approach has repercussions today. Unlike Australia, which was declared terra nullius (“empty land”) despite the very obvious presence of Aborigines, the British negotiated for land sales with the Maori of New Zealand. The Treaty of Waitangi was signed by the Pakeha Lieutenant-Governor and most Maori chiefs on February 6, 1840. The document was written in English and immediately translated so the Maori could know what they were signing, but the translation has some key differences from the English version. Notably, the treaty states that New Zealand is part of the British Crown, and only the Crown has the right to purchase land from Maori – or at least, one version states that. Another states that the Crown does not have this right of pre-emption. All versions were introduced with Lieutenant-Governor William Hobson stating, “We are one people.” As Philippa Mein Smith says in A Concise History of New Zealand,

Did ‘one people’ mean all the same, including one law, which in British thought meant civilising and assimilating Maori? Or did it endorse the idea of a new community of Maori and Pakeha, two ethnic groups henceforth defined in relation to each other? (p. 47)

Did the treaty mean Maori chiefs were giving up their sovereignty, or did it mean they were ruling alongside the British monarch and Pakeha governor?

These questions reverberated through the next century and a half, as first the Pakeha poured into New Zealand and bought up Maori land at ridiculously cheap prices (after the Crown bought them at even cheaper prices; an insulting way to get around that provision of the treaty) and later Maori asserted their land rights and citizenship rights. The Waitangi Tribunal in the latter half of the twentieth century resulted not only in recognition of Maori as an official language of the nation and the recognition of the importance of environmental considerations in indigenous rights, but in actual money settlements for breach of treaty (p. 231-236). Central to the arguments for money settlements and land renegotiations in the 1980s and 1990s were questions of not just what had taken place in 1840 but what kind of future both Pakeha and Maori were envisioning when they signed that treaty.

I find it fascinating that the New Zealand national government actually had a public discourse about what its intentions had been 150 years previous, and what effect those intentions and actions had on its citizens subsequently. The government recognized a breach of treaty and redressed that breach to the descendants of the wrong party. It’s all very proper Western legal action, but it’s also a bold step in acknowledging history as a living thing with no inevitable outcome and no fixed endpoint. Just because New Zealand is now a part of the British Commonwealth and overwhelmingly run by people of European descent doesn’t mean that that’s how it has to stay. Maori have regained some fishing and land rights, and they have also gained seats in parliament due to proportional representation measures, so they have more of a voice in the shaping of history going forward and not just looking back. Asians, instead of being legally shut out of the country and considered a threat to New Zealanders, are now being welcomed and encouraged to settle in New Zealand.

Certainly New Zealand has its share of bigots and racist policies, but I do find it heartening that a country that had a strong “White New Zealand” movement for decades (much like the “White Australia” movement that has unfortunately not died out as quickly it should) has made conscious efforts to not erase that history but to repudiate it and build a better one. Of course, it took the tireless efforts of thousands of ordinary citizens, activists, and politicians to bring about these changes, and I find that even more encouraging. The more people recognize history as living and evolving, the more we can build a just and peaceful history for ourselves and those who come after us.

Arizona’s Racism Hurts Little Girl in Maryland

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And this is just one public moment of heartbreak that shows why 1) states shouldn’t get to make their own laws on a national issue like immigration and 2) anyone making laws on immigration had better make sure those laws are humane, just, and carefully considered.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/worried-girl-asks-michelle-obama-if-her-mother-will-be-deported/

Arizona’s New Era of Racism: The Ethics of Traveling to Repressive Places

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The state of Arizona recently passed SB 1070, which is a terrifying piece of legislation that mandates racial profiling, rewards paranoia and hate, and puts Arizona back at least 50 years. This is no exaggeration. Take a look at that NYT article — this law REQUIRES police officers to demand identification papers from anyone they suspect might be in the country illegally; it makes it a misdemeanor to not carry immigration papers; and it lets any citizen sue local law enforcement if they think this law isn’t being enforced. First we have Driving While Black; now we have Living While Brown.

This is the only law of its kind in the United States, but don’t think that doesn’t mean other states aren’t running to catch up. And don’t think for a second it isn’t racist. Check out Rachel Maddow’s short but effective rundown of the authors of the bill — longstanding members of groups whose explicit purpose is to make sure America’s majority is white. Who are most of the undocumented immigrants in Arizona? Latinos. So a law aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration is aimed at cracking down on Latinos. And how do you determine which Latinos are US citizens, legal immigrants, tourists, etc. and which are crossing the border from Mexico without official approval? No really, how do you tell? Even Governor Jan Brewer, who signed the bill into law, couldn’t answer that question. “I do not know what an illegal immigrant looks like,” she said when asked. But the police are supposed to know and make arrests based on that unknowable qualification? Is this like porn — I know it when I see it? Nope, pretty sure it’s like mandatory racial profiling — all brown people are immediately suspect.

handmade sign at the May Day rally

no child should know what a SWAT truck looks like

My dad is always concerned that I consider the other side of the matter before taking a stand, which is good advice. So okay, people who support this bill are concerned about what, exactly? Sharing increasingly scarce resources with people who weren’t born here? Talk to your representatives about spreading the wealth a little more evenly. Losing your job to someone who braved brutal conditions, rape and murder on the trip from Mexico to the States? Even fairly conservative groups will agree that many undocumented immigrants do the work you don’t want to do, and in some cases their presence even raises wages. The increasing rate of crime in your state? Take a look at those who say they’re protecting the American way and then talk to me about rising crime rates. But mostly the support for this bill comes from many white Arizonans’ discomfort at the many brown faces they encounter on a daily basis. I hate to break it to you, but you weren’t exactly here first, and you were never really the majority.

I think the reasoning that most kindhearted but ignorant Americans hold is that it’s already illegal for these people to be here, so what’s the big deal if they get caught? Well, a whole lot of people who have every legal right to be here are going to be caught up in this giant net that’s been cast, simply based on the way they look. What if they run a red light, as anyone is liable to do, and they forgot their immigration papers at home? White Arizonans would be ticketed for running the red light and sent on their way. Latino Arizonans will be ticketed, handcuffed, and brought to the police station for holding and questioning while they’re run through the system to see if they’re allowed to be here. Everyday lives will be dramatically circumscribed, as every action is weighed against the possible consequences from a hostile law enforcement body. And that’s just legal immigrants and citizens.

Undocumented immigrants (“illegal immigrants” confers illegality on a person’s very being and thus dehumanizes them, and anyway is less accurate than “undocumented immigrants,” so I won’t use it) face grave consequences for simply being out on the street when a police officer happens along and decides to take a closer look at them. The category of “undocumented immigrants” encompasses a whole host of people, including people who were brought here by their parents when they were young and know no other home than the States, people who are escaping brutal regimes and couldn’t gain refugee status but are still terrified to return to their homeland, and women who are escaping the more commonplace but equally terrifying regimes of their brutal partners. “Undocumented immigrants” does not equal “job-stealing criminals.” It equals “people.” It equals “you or me in a different situation, in a different stroke of luck or fate.” The consequences for undocumented immigrants under this law is families being ripped apart, wretched treatment in detainment facilities, forced deportation, and uncertain and dangerous futures. That’s the big deal if they get caught.

This law is not “misguided,” as President Obama has called it. It is hateful and wrong.

May Day Rally at Daley Plaza 2010

May Day Workers' Rights and Immigration Reform Rally at Daley Plaza 2010

So what do we do about it? This roundup at Feministe has some suggestions. The May Day rally I attended in Daley Plaza certainly united people in a loud, strong voice against it. Even some law enforcement officials are outright refusing to obey the law. Write to your Congressperson and Senators; encourage them to work on strong immigration reform legislation in this next congressional session. Write to President Obama and tell him “okay job on health care, we’ll see if Wall Street reform works, now let’s get to immigration reform.”

And since this is a travel blog, as my friend Pam suggested, let’s consider the travel implications. It might seem a small thing, but I do believe every stand we take matters. Representative Grijalva has called for a convention boycott of his own state in protest of the law, and the city of San Francisco has already voiced its support. I’m just one traveler, but I can keep my money away from Arizona and its repressive ways. This isn’t even the only racist law they’ve instated recently — ethnic studies courses are now banned as treasonous, and the state Department of Education is removing teachers who speak with too thick a Spanish accent (even though a study shows that accented teachers might be better for their students). This is a state intent on enforcing a very narrow definition of “normal” and “acceptable,” and it is a state that needs to be stopped. Whatever we can do to turn back this tide of racism, xenophobia, and hatred, we must do. Of course, there are many people in Arizona and out of state who have worked tirelessly for years for human rights in Arizona, and there was a big push from a lot of groups prior to the signing of this law to stop it before it got to the governor’s desk. Unfortunately, their calls for reason and basic decency went unanswered in this case, but that doesn’t mean that’s the only answer they’ll ever get. Americans are scared, and scared people often do stupid things. We must help people see that fear is not the right way to live, or the right way to vote.

And that’s where travel boycotts come in. Pam asked me to consider the ethics of traveling to repressive places, and what I’ve come up with is this: There are varying degrees of repression in every single human-occupied place on this planet, so of course I can’t avoid them all, nor would it be right to do so. But I can refuse to support local economies with my money and my high praise if I find their laws reprehensible. This is a work in progress kind of rule, but I think it comes down to agency and power (as so much does). The residents of Burma, for example, have agency, as every human being does, but they have very little real power, because the ruling junta has it all. The brutal laws of Burma are terrible, but I might still visit there to aid locals (if they wanted me — not all foreigners are welcome, since Americans especially can cause more trouble than they’re worth there). A boycott of Burma might hurt the residents more than the state, and the residents haven’t yet been able to oust their repressive government in favor of another.

The residents of Arizona, on the other hand, have agency AND power. They have the power to nominate and elect legislators who will pass just laws and protect the interests of ALL residents, documented and undocumented alike. Instead, an unfortunate majority of Arizonans has elected cowards, racists, and calculating fearmongers to lead them, and so we get laws like SB 1070. I will not visit a state that elects such people. I will not give money to citizens who support such legislation. This is rough for the many, many Arizonans who work so tirelessly for equality and justice, but I think it is an important statement to make against those who work for the degradation of fellow humans. Arizonans have the power to change their government, their laws, and their way of life, and so I will hold them responsible for doing just that. I have a very good friend in Tucson, but I don’t think I can visit her until her fellow residents have worked out some of their problems. People are rightfully quoting the “First they came for…” poem, but as Problem Chylde says in a brilliant and impassioned post, “We no longer wait for them to come. First we fight.”

What do you think? What is the ethical approach to visiting repressive states? What is the right response as a traveler to unjust laws and fear-filled populations?

May Day Rally 2010

Rallying for change and hope

P.S. I know I’ve used the word “racist” a lot in this post, and I know that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Generally I agree with Jay Smooth when he says that you need to address the action rather than the sentiment behind it, but sometimes you have to call a racist a fucking racist.