Legalizing Racism

In case you're not already outraged by the heinous bill passed in Arizona earlier this week, here's a recap:

AZ state legislature passed a bill that makes it a state crime to be an "illegal immigrant" in Arizona and gives the police the power and responsibility to question anyone who looks "reasonably suspicious" and ask to see their documentation papers. Translation : brown people might be illegal, so it's okay to pull them over and demand proof that they're not. But don't worry, it's not just because someone's brown that they might be "illegal," as California Republican Representative Brian Bilbray explains: "They will look at the kind of dress you wear, there is a different type of attire, there is a different type of -- right down to the shoes, right down to the clothes." Whew, am I relieved! It won't just be racial, but class-based and culture-based profiling too!

Cartoon from Campus Progress

Two not-white friends of mine have experienced racial profiling by the police IN THE PAST WEEK here in NC. It disgusts and terrifies me that as a white person, I will never be pulled over or stopped on the street just because of my color, but my partner might, because she's (gasp!) brown. This is a slippery-slope bill that, if signed into law, will legalize racial and class-based profiling, violate the civil rights of millions, and breed race- and color-based hatred.

President Obama finally weighed in on the bill today, taking a stance against it. While ironically attending a naturalization ceremony for several "illegal" US SOLDIERS, Obama said that the law would "threaten to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans." Yup.

In an email I got from Traction (an awesome progressive young folks' group in Durham) today, a friend writes:

Tal vez pensamos, "O, eso a mi no me afecta." Tal vez no nos damos cuenta que SI nos afecta, porque cuando le niegan los derechos humanos a un pequen~o grupo de gente solo poorque lucen diferentes, es solo el principio. Si no actuamos, despues nos tocara a nosotros.

[Maybe we think, "Oh, that doesn't affect me." Maybe we don't realize that it DOES affect us, because when human rights are denied to a small group of people just because they look different, that's only the beginning. If we don't act now, it will be our turn next.]

These words really rang true to me, and prompted me to action. If we allow police to demand papers from brown people with "illegal immigrant shoes" today, what will we allow tomorrow? Requiring a proof-of-straightness test before adopting a child? "Suspicious" and "Non-suspicious" lines at the airport?

At this point, the AZ bill has been passed by the state legislature and is on the desk of the governor, who can either sign it, veto it, or let it pass into law unsigned. I emailed her today to urge her to veto this racist, rights-denying bill. It's not too late to add your voice to the opposition here: http://presente.org/ref/ad/31/campaigns/arizona

UPDATE 4:40 PM: Arizona Governor Jan Brewer says she will sign the bill into law. Guess we can look forward to hearing from the ACLU soon.

WTF Friday

Pennsylvania state Representative Babette Josephs accused her primary challenger, Gregg Kravitz of faking bisexuality to gain votes. She said “I outed him as a straight person.”

Who knew that being queer was a political plus these days?

Primaries 2010: Early Voting and Senate Endorsement

I had the pleasure this past weekend of voting in my hometown, I mean physically IN town, for the very first time. I've had to vote absentee since I turned 18 and went to college, so actually getting to walk into a polling place and use the touch screens to vote in the Democratic primaries was exciting. Getting the sticker for once was great, too.

I was really happy at the number of people who were voting early in my small hometown. It was the first Saturday of NC One-Stop Voting, and while there was no waiting, there were about 7 people voting when I was, and 4 more were coming in as I left. The woman signing people in said there had been a steady flow all day. Not bad for a county of 37,000.

The candidate I was most excited to vote for, by far, was Elaine Marshall for U.S. Senate. She's currently running in the Democratic primary to replace Richard Burr, who FireDogLake calls "the most endangered sitting Senate Republican" and who is, in my opinion, a terrible representative of NC's interests. He is pro-big business, anti-health reform, anti-choice, anti-immigrant...the list goes on.

As the current NC Secretary of State and former state senator, Elaine Marshall has a reputation for being fair, energetic, and down-to-earth. She has continued to run a strong campaign even after the national Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chose to endorse another candidate, Cal Cunningham, and after losing her husband late last year. She is committed to advocating for the just treatment of all Americans, and is strongly pro-woman and pro-civil rights, leading her to land an endorsement from one of my favorite bloggers and activists, Pam Spaulding at Pam's House Blend. It's exciting to see a North Carolina "purple state" candidate declare her opposition to the Defense of Marriage act and support of the Employee Non-Discrimination Act on her website. Further proof that we're moving in a good direction for civil rights for everyone.

I am adding my name to the long list of people who support Elaine Marshall. Please check out her website and get to know her. And most importantly, please vote! In NC, look here for a One-Stop Voting site, where you can register and vote all at once. Early voting continues through Saturday, May 1st and the primary is on May 4th!

Census 2010. Do it now!

Mmmmkay, folks. Who hasn't mailed their census back? Really? C'mon.

I have to confess, I LOVE the Census. I think it's an amazing undertaking, and the idea of getting even just a little bit of info on everyone in this entire country has always been intriguing to me. I remember during Census 2000, I still lived at home with my parents and I hounded them constantly about how important the Census was. I watched with glee when they finally filled it out - even a section just about ME! I counted!

Now, obviously, like all American endeavors, the Census is not perfect. This year's race section is particularly confusing and offensive. What to do if you are a Latin@ who identifies as neither "Black" nor "White" but just Latin@? The use of the word "Negro" and "American Indian" are certainly not welcome by most people. I'm glad to see so many Asian nationalities listed and honored for their unique cultures, but then what do people of an African nationality do? "African" as a generalized term is not even offered.

Even so, the Census is important, and they're trying to improve. This year, for the first time, folks like me living with an "unmarried partner" (read: gaymos in stable relationships co-habitatin') were acknowledged. It felt really good to watch my partner check those boxes for us. (Me! I counted!) I can't wait to see the numbers on how many of us there are making happy homes together. That's our Census envelope in the photo above. We sealed it with a sticker from CREDO Mobile and the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force that asks the Census Bureau to start allowing people to identify as LGBTQ/Ally and demands that we "Queer the Census!"

As you've hopefully already heard, the Census is an important tool in our democracy because it:
#1 Determines Federal funding amounts for your area for transportation, housing, and the rest of what the government does.
#2 Determines how many representatives your state gets in Congress.
#3 Gives an accurate picture of what the US looks like. For example, are "minorities" really in the minority? Perhaps not...

It's #3 that scares the crap out of right wing tea partiers like Glenn Beck (see Colbert explain below), and they're calling for "real patriots" to refuse to fill out the Census. But, here's the catch - see #2, above. Tea partiers not getting counted in the Census = tea partiers not being counted for congressional redistricting. Fine! But for this to work, the rest of us have to participate.

You have three more days to get counted! Mail in that form by Friday or a Census Taker might come a-knockin. And I'm sure you'll agree, we have other things we could spend those tax dollars on.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
United States Census 2010
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Fox News

Denied

And squash goes my dream of Justice Clinton. The White House is now saying that Obama "thinks Secretary Clinton is doing an excellent job as Secretary of State and wants her to remain in that position." That's what she said.

So no robes yet. Maybe when Ginsburg (unfortunately) retires?

Anyway, thanks for the 15 minutes of excitement.

I love predictions, especially when they involve my favorite Clinton

What time is it? Time for another Supreme Court nomination / confirmation smackdown!

During the 2008 presidential election, one of the many many issues at stake that didn't get enough attention was the Supreme Court. It was common knowledge that the new president would get to nominate at least 1, and maybe as many as 3, lifetime justices. Justice Sonia Sotomayor's presence on the Court is Reason Number 759 that I'm glad Obama won.

Now that Justice John Paul Stevens has officially announced his retirement, the speculating has begun on Obama's next nomination.

Not to brag overly much, but after Obama clinched the Dem nomination for president and before he chose Biden as a running mate, a co-worker and I totally predicted that Hillary would not be the VP choice, but would be an Obama Supreme. I then proceeded to think about how only Hill could make those robes look sexy. Now the Senate has finally caught up. Senator Orrin Hatch said today that he heard Hillary Clinton's name circulating as a possible nominee.

Look at this hot young Yale Law student!

Whether or not it turns out to be true, this was a great quote from the article:

'Hatch wouldn't say whether he'd support Clinton. But he did say "I like Hillary Rodham Clinton" and said he thinks she's done a good job for Democrats. Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, retorted: "I think she's done a good job for the country, not just for Democrats."'

That's right, Leahy.

Mourning Miners and Mountains

Cross-posted at The Art of the Zen Blog. Thanks, Vicki!

The news this week of the deadliest coal mining accident in two decades, which left 25 (maybe 31) dead in Raleigh County West Virginia, has upset me more than any other news story in a long time. In fact, I started writing this post on Tuesday, but haven't been able to finish it until now because I was so angry and outraged that I had to take a break to re-center.

Disasters like this one, that stem directly from human enterprises gone awry, provoke in me a kind of sickness and anger that’s totally different from what I feel in a natural disaster. This tragedy was preventable, and I mean that on at least two distinct levels. The accident itself was preventable, and should never have happened, because inspectors had cited this mine hundreds of times for safety violations and recommended that changes be made. Time will tell whether and what price Massey Energy pays for their corporate greed-fueled negligence.

But, bigger than that isolated incident, the whole situation, in which Appalachian workers are underground stripping out coal year after year risking their lives in a landmine of flammable gas, is preventable as well. Coal power and coal companies are destructive to the Appalachian environment, removing mountaintops and destroying entire ecosystems with one blast of dynamite that rips open a mountain for the coal inside. Appalachian Voices, a Boone, NC organization calls mountaintop removal mining "one of the greatest environmental and human rights catastrophes in American history."

What's wrong with this picture?

It's pretty obvious why blowing a mountain sky-high is an environmental catastrophe (in the northwest corner of Raleigh County WV, there is a 50 square mile area where all but ONE mountain have been destroyed). As a mountain-raised woman, the Appalachian mountains are at the center of my family's history and of my own spiritual source, and the attacks on this sacred space make me nauseous. But the human rights side of this issue cannot be ignored. The coal industry is inherently destructive to the communities where they work, keeping workers poor, isolated, and powerless. They leave residents no other choice than to be tied to the coal company for their livelihood, and when they've stripped one area of coal, they move on, often displacing entire mountain communities for the sake of what lies beneath. Appalachian coal mining communities are some of the most desperately poor in our nation, but the coal companies that run them have some of the largest lobbying staffs on Capitol Hill (here's just one). It’s disgusting.

What’s even more disgusting is that we’re all part of the system as well. If you get your energy from Duke Energy or Progress Energy (like most of NC), you’re using Appalachian coal from Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky, and directly using the products of dangerous mines and mountaintop removal mining. For a wake-up call on how you, yes YOU are feeding this system, enter your zip code here and see your connection.

Right now, I'm at a loss for what exactly to do to challenge the deeply disturbing system of environmental and community destruction that's ravaging my homeland. It's a grim situation, made all the more real by the folks who lost their lives this week.

According to the Action page at ilovemountains.org, the EPA has just passed some water quality standards that will challenge some mountaintop removal practices. There's a climate bill that just maybe might make its imperfect way through Congress this year. We've got to voice our outrage at unjust practices and urge Congress, the EPA, and other agencies to take action. Closer to home, for a few bucks a month, you can vote with your dollars and purchase NC GreenPower blocks and buy energy that doesn't come from coal sources. And, as Kilowatt Ours producer Jeff Barrie shows, talking to others about the horrors of our energy situation is always a good starting point.

Below are some other good starting points. Let me know what you're thinking about all of this, and what you think should be done to move forward as a region and a nation on these issues.

coalriverwind.org

kilowattours.org

appvoices.org

ilovemountains.org

ncgreenpower.org

Welcome!

Hello Everyone,

Welcome to my new blog. Actually, welcome to my old blog, which has never had more than one post, and is now experiencing a spring rebirth!

This page is a way for me to talk to y'all about the news, which I follow rabidly, and my opinions, which I wish others would hear more and challenge more. My partner and blog coach, Vicki, has been encouraging me to blog about political issues and action for a long time, and I've been feeling lately as if I've become a little stagnant in my action-taking, so...here I am!

Thanks for reading!

Cara