Yesterday, I was annoyed, but today....., I got damn mad at my country. Let me preface this by saying, that I love this country for everything it stands for, could stand for and everything it stands to gain around the proverbial bend. But today, I get off the couch to clean out my chip infested fingernails and fight. Fight for the rights of people I don’t even know and for the future of their children. Fight for the right to walk down the street, ride in a car or go to the store without being harassed because I look different, look foreign born or look like I don’t belong. Today, I’m fighting for my Hispanic brothers and sisters in Arizona and damn mad about the people who have subjected them to that proposed scary turn in our history if this blatant racial profiling against Hispanics in Arizona becomes law.
I have never had to suffer the indignities of the civil rights movement and can only understand vicariously, but I am uniquely qualified as a human being to understand how such indignities could affect a whole race of people who loved this country the same as I but were treated like piranhas because of how they looked. I don’t have any doubt that Hispanics of today love this country just as much as the people of the Civil Rights movement of the 60‘s. They too love it enough to die for it, to fight for it and love it enough to stand up and shout to the highest capitals against the indignity of the proposed law before their government in Arizona. But I also know that American law in the past has acted out of fear of the unknown above rational thought and protest and that that fear has had systematically dire consequences.
The horrific chapter of Jim Crow laws of our past possibly becoming Arizonian laws of our future is unacceptable. It is wrong to dress racism up as a pigs ear and call it a silk purse. It is wrong to allow this country to go back to what it was for blacks in the past because of fear, all in the name of safety. To allow this beard for racism to become a reality against Hispanic Americans is an abomination to all that we stand for and should stand for around that proverbial bend. This America and Arizonians specifically have to say enough to the trampling of peoples rights in the name of safety. Find another way for people to be safe in their homes besides discriminating against any segment of the population because of the color of their skin or the accent in their speech. Find another way to help the people of Arizona to feel safe along their continuously dangerous borders.
The Hispanic community across this land should be outraged and cleaning off their desk to fixate on the fight for their rights as members of our society if this law passes in Arizona. My desk has just been cleared and am at the juncture where one says I have to put up or shut up. Today, I put up and step up for my Hispanic brothers and sister in Arizona and say no, hell no, to this turn of events that I and many Americans are witnessing today. There is no middle ground for this type of travesty to occur after America wrote a new chapter in its history by first signing into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964 then electing the first African American president in 2008. Everyone who has ever been affected, either vicariously or directly by injustice should be stepping on the pile of work just cast to the floor and stepping up to the line in this fight. Sorry Mom, but today, I’m throwing the first punch.