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BlackCommentator, July, 2010

The backdrop for July 29th has certainly been set with the premature firing of Shirley Sherrod from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. An ambush initiated by blogger Andrew Breitbart, who aired a doctored video tape of Sherrod, was fueled by the rest of the right-wing media. These are the same people who have been ratcheting up anti-immigration sentiments across the nation and who celebrated the passage of SB 1070 in Arizona. July 29, 2010 - that is when the legislation to profile suspected undocumented immigrants will go into effect. It is also the day when thousands of activists and concerned citizens from all over the country will converge on Phoenix to protest the law as racist and unconstitutional. The protests will be held regardless of whether or not the law takes effect.

There are already seven suits pending in U.S. District Court challenging the law as unconstitutional. There will be a showdown for sure on that day. The long-range question to be answered is, how will we address an issue that is largely about brown people by a government that is mainly white? Will there be a rush to a remedy such as what happened in the Sherrod case, in which head man, Tom Vilsack, forced a hasty resignation by a valued employee from the side of a dusty road? Can we ever have a sane but passionate discussion about race relations in this country?

Some will say the Arizona law is not about race; it is about the law. Or they will say it is about economics and those who are sucking dollars from the U.S. economy. I submit both of these are bogus arguments. I always look to how these same people have left corporate America to their lawlessness with minimal opposition. The Wall Street capitalists took the country to the brink of economic destruction with all props from the Bush Administration and there was barely a squeak from the now fist-throwin’, spit- blowin’ gallery. Their racist venom toward Obama is the same venom that had Sherrod paying the price for the historic racism in the Department of Agriculture that has left black farmers in a lurch.

It is a deliberate redirection of where our attention needs to be. SB1070 may have gotten a lot of attention but it will not solve the problem of undocumented immigration. The public discourse is lopsided because mainstream media has not offered a balanced discussion on this complex issue. The first contradiction is that there is rarely an informed Latina or Chicana that is part of the debate. White experts know best how to resolve the issues of brown people, an attitude African Americans know all too well.

We will be talking about Arizona in the coming days, maybe weeks. Meanwhile, there will be countless jabs by racists who have been activated by the current climate of hate that has been building since the election of President Obama. If we aren’t vigilant, a series of racist policies, procedures and laws will follow the attitudes of a growing legion of whites who feel they are losing control, losing ground, losing privileges, losing rights, losing jobs or just plain losing. Progressives, whether they are in the media or organizing in the streets, must begin framing the race issue in a way that builds toward a genuine race analysis in this country.

There will be many battles in the war for racial equality; immigration is but one of them. This is not about scoring points or who can get the most people unjustly fired. It is about creating a society that is just and humane. Fair- minded people of all colors have a responsibility to - as Bob Marley urged - to “get up…stand up for your rights.” But we cannot trounce on the human rights of others. We must uphold the rights of all peoples in this country if we all are to enjoy “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”