SB1070 Update: What he said

by David Safier

Ruben Navarrette Jr. has an excellent column this morning which states elegantly what I've been trying to say more clumsily — that SB1070 is a discriminatory bill fueled by a combination of hatred and fear of Mexican immigrants.

Navarette has read the bill carefully, unlike the "Just read the bill" simplifiers on the pro-SB1070 side, and he also understands the human motivations behind the bill.

My favorite line in the column talks about the group that says, "Don't worry, Hispanics who are here legally won't be harassed."

This simply would never happen, [this] group assures me with the absolute confidence of those who have nothing to lose if their assumptions are wrong.

That's perfect. It's easy to discount the harm that might happen to others. "Nothing to worry about, guys! C'mon, lighten up. Don't be so thin skinned." Then if the worst happens, you can shake your head, chuckle and say, "Who woulda thunk it?"

Here are some excerpts, though the entire column deserves a read:

[H]ere is the reality: There is a segment of the U.S. population that would like to turn back the demographic clock to a Beaver Cleaver era when a headline declaring "Whites to be U.S. minority by 2050" was inconceivable. Yet according to Census Bureau estimates, the U.S. Latino population is expected to triple in the next 40 years.

Not if Arizona has anything to say about it. No sir. Why? Because "it is about time what we take our state and country back from the Mexicans."

This isn't to say that the new law is inherently racist , or that everyone who supports it is racist. But one would have to be naive to run off in the opposite direction and label the measure, or the passions fueling it, race-neutral – as if intimidating, offending, inconveniencing and scaring off as many Latinos as possible was an unintended consequence instead of the prime objective.

[snip]

Here are the facts: (1) Arizona lawmakers have boxed police officers in with a law that requires them – under threat of litigation – to check the citizenship of anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally once they make contact due to an alleged infraction; (2) the list of "infractions" is broad enough to include everything from trespassing to vagrancy to soliciting work to attending a party where the music is too loud; and (3) police officers are going to do everything they can to fulfill their obligations under the law.

And, as human beings, those officers will find it difficult not to give in to their prejudices. Take it from the experts. Among the critics of the Arizona law I heard from is a Latino police sergeant in a major U.S. city who, after more than 25 years on the job, knows how this game is going to play out.

"You're right," he wrote, "in the real world of policing as a peace officer on the street, any tool will be used to gain an advantage during any contact. It's our nature to be proactive."

Which is why the rest of us have to be just as proactive in pointing out what an indefensible law this is – especially to those who are determined to defend it.