Wade Rathke: Chief Organizer Blog » arizona

Arizona is the 21st Century Mississippi

dine — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 16:22:48 +0000

New Orleans I really love Arizona. It’s beautiful country with an amazing history and people. So was, Mississippi fifty odd years ago, but sometimes the fusion of time, land, and change produces hybrid aberrations that shake society to the core. We need to stop pretending that there’s not something serious wrong in the political and social structure of Arizona. The evidence is too overwhelming.

A friend from British Columbia made the point on my Facebook wall over the weekend and Gail Collins, the New York Times columnist, said the same thing in today’s paper about gun control. Gun should not be popping out of pockets at public events in Arizona because of a wrongheaded laissez faire carryall policy. Arizona does not have the political ability to change that, which means Congress needs to do so.

Same thing with automatic weapons. Collins normally spices her column with humor but today she was deadly serious. If automatic weapons had been banned, Congresswoman Giffords would have still been shot and perhaps one other, but we would not be dealing with 6 dead and another dozen wounded from a Glock 9mm and reading about a 9-year old girl born on 9/11 and now dead, the heroism of a husband dying as if in a warzone while covering his wife’s body with his own, and a woman who heroically helped wrestle away the 2^nd 30-shot gun clip, allowing for the shooter’s capture. Arizona can’t stop this anymore than Mississippi would integrate itself. They need help.

The Pima County Sheriff spoke the truth about Arizona being ground zero for haters, baiters, and wildness now, and the reasons matter, but they are not material, especially when we still have Sheriff Joe and his anti-immigrant mischief in Maricopa County up the road, because the situation cries for intervention.

Certainly we need to see a dialing down of the rhetoric from all sides in our political discourse, but even at a whisper hate can grow unabated even in desert soil. We need start understanding Arizona differently. This is a cancer on the national soul and the body politic, and as a citizenry and a community, we have intervene and create a different climate.

Now! Ahora!

Making Banks Pay to Maintain Foreclosed Properties

dine — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 15:42:24 +0000

John Tanner of SEIU Local 721

New Orleans One disclosure after another leads the news disclosing the bad behavior of banks, servicers, and others in the foreclosure racket, but often to the victim it seems like little more than water hitting the rocks whose impact none of us will survive to see. In recent weeks close reading of major papers would have detailed the larding on of fees by servicers that stand as barriers to modifications, the home break-ins and property destruction and seizures authorized by banks and carried out by thugs, and the “widespread fraud” revealed in filings against Bank of America by Arizona and Nevada law enforcement authorities, all piled on top of questionable record keeping, auto-signatures, and almost zero effort to self-supervise an effective loan modification program.

When I walked recently in block after block of the western neighborhoods of Phoenix with Arizona Advocates & Actions (www.advocatesandactions.org) and looked at the damage abandoned properties owned now by banks are doing steadily and surely to fine, working family neighborhoods, I wondered why cities are not doing more in face of such dramatic consequences. The common city excuse is lack of resources in the wake of the recession, but it also is a lack of will and wisdom in dealing with the community killing banks and their irresponsible practices.

Los Angeles has taken a step in the right direction thanks to a successful campaign led by ACCE (the Alliances of Californians for Community Empowerment, formerly California ACORN) and SEIU Local 721, which represents Los Angeles city workers who have “skin in the game” both as workers and residents, and other political and community allies. They prodded the City Council to pass an ordinance which establishes clear accountability to the banks and tough penalties for inaction. They created a “foreclosure registry” requiring lenders to maintain foreclosed properties or be fined $1,000 per day, up to $100,000 a year. Lenders will have 30 days to straight up the properties before fines are imposed. SEIU Local 721 set up a website allowing citizens to easily report problems (“Hoodwinked LA” Web page), and given the revenue stream it is in the interest of the City to actually keep their feet on the bank’s neck to get them to fix up or pay up. If ACORN were still alive this would be a campaign being waged in 50 cities now as communities with the same problem moved to replicate the model won in Los Angeles, but even without an ACORN to pull the trigger, word of this kind of victory needs to get out and about.

In Los Angeles these community-labor partners are clearly going to keep stoking up the fire under the banks. Long time organizing veterans like Amy Schur with over 20 years at ACORN and Peter Kuhns, another veteran of ACORN organizing who has spent his entire organizing career in Los Angeles, will no doubt keep adding fuel to the fire. In a picture the other day of civil disobedience at one of the banks, I could see John Tanner, long time SEIU International organizer and now the head of SEIU 721 for Los Angeles city and county workers among others, towering over the crowd and listed among those arrested.

They’ve done their part, now the rest of us need to get busy!

Widespread Fraud at Bank of America

dine — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 23:56:30 +0000

Orange Beach, Alabama Better late than never, the Attorney Generals of Nevada and Arizona sued Bank of America for “widespread fraud” on the bait and switch of promising that a loan modification is in progress and then foreclosing and selling the house out from under the homeowner at the same time. The Times and the Wall Street Journal describe the complaints as harshly worded, but working in the Phoenix area with Arizona Advocates & Actions, my experience is that they understate the severity of the theft and deceit by a long shot.

Frances Gomez’s home still says it all for me, and is a continuing indictment of Bank of America’s horrible bad faith, because her case was a situation where Bank of America was caught red handed in exactly this kind of fraud. She had been approved for a modification and then in the same week Bank of America foreclosed and sold the house. We raised holy hell and Bank of America publicly admitted that they had made a mistake. They had foreclosed on her because they had overlooked her income figures. Bank of America representatives – the local lawyer they retained for this mess assured Ms. Gomez and me they were buying the house back and that they wanted to remedy the situation rapidly. It all sounded great, but that was now six (6) months ago, and Frances Gomez is perhaps farther today from moving back into her home of 30 years than she was then.

The negotiation process has been Kafkaesque or in more American terms a classic situation of Bank of America and its lawyer never seeming to know who is on first and what is on second. Months after we had gone back and forth, the lawyer would act like he was surprised that Frances was not back in her house, even though no terms or modification had been agreed and worse the only solid offer they made was to reinstate the original terms of her loan, meaning that she could start paying again on a $300,000+ note for a house that had been appraised at $125000 to $150000 and sold at foreclosure for about $165000. That’s not a modification at all, but simply the same problem that led to the problem in the first place, and the modification that they had been working on at the point of foreclosure was completely forgotten, while the attorney pled, perhaps sincerely at some level, total ignorance.

Subsequently pushing for a real modification, and trying to make sure that Bank of America was not trying to pretend that Frances had reoccupied her old home and thereby try to argue that she was incurring more arrearage even as she tried to strike some kind of deal to come back home, everything stretched painfully along as Bank of America continued to once again pretend that they could not figure out Frances’ income. Frances is self-employed as a stylist and hairdresser at her own salon with long time customers. Surely before the recession and her husband’s death, the salon had been larger with 3 or 4 the number of workers, but she had never been out of work or bereft of income. The problem is that in the “new” world, Bank of America doesn’t have “stated income” loans which make it very difficult for the self-employed. Frances keeps submitting her bank statements and monthly cash flow on her business, and Bank of America and its lawyers keep pretending that they do not understand her income and that she is being unresponsive. I don’t want to give the impression that the situation is going back and forth like this, because really the situation is going nowhere. Bank of America clearly just hopes that this “fraud” goes away.

Meanwhile the house deteriorates. Frances drives by and cries. Bank of America does nothing to maintain the house. Vandals have been about. The pool is moving almost beyond repair.

In the Wall Street Journal spokesfolks for Bank of America claim that they are open to revisions in the “dual track process,” meaning the process that has a modification moving forward at the same time that a foreclosure is also moving ahead. This is the situation that sank Frances Gomez and her 30-year family home in Phoenix.

Of course Bank of America is lying. They could stop the dual track process in a minute and with a memo. They prefer the shuck and stall process which in silence finally strips away the home and hope of people like my friend, Frances.

For six months we pled with the Arizona Attorney General’s office to do something about this. We argued that it would even help Attorney General Goddard in his election campaign for Governor if he stepped up for foreclosure victims. We are delighted that it is finally happening, but this is the 11^th hour for Goddard with his term expiring in about two weeks.

This is how “widespread fraud” works and how it is allowed to continue bumping from one failed program to another from one scandal to another and still taking homes from people, destroying neighborhoods, and pulling down whole cities around the greed that echoes from Charlotte to Wall Street to San Francisco to Chicago and the other headquarters of the perpetrators leaving the victims to live with the ruins.

Brewer, Bankers, and Union Busters – Election Day!

dine — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 14:12:29 +0000

Grizzly Mom voted!

New Orleans Yesterday was the first day of our future and from all reports it was much, much scarier than Halloween might have ever hoped to be. Look at the cases in point.

In the federal hearing on immigration madness in Arizona, Governor Brewer took time out of her campaign schedule (ok, that’s a lie; the hearing WAS her campaign schedule after all!) to rubberneck at the federal judges parsing the hate from the law in SB 1070. From NDLON tweets at the trial and the story, it seemed many of the questions went to the issue of exactly why the state should be doing the federal government’s job. With the Republican Tea Party explosion, how many pieces of anti-immigrant can we now expect? Certainly, the hope for reform needs a total retooling to mount a push back from our base in progressive cities and states to offset the madness.

Our friend, Joe McCartin, labor history professor at Georgetown, was quoted liberally in the New York Times, on the coming attacks against labor unions with Republican Tea Party ascendancy, but all that did was put a little sugar in the coffee, because it was a bitter drink to swallow. Card check has been dead, but

they intend to bury it to no one’s surprise. Prevailing wages for construction workers is on the chopping block, but the Republicans may not have gotten the word on how much that has been eviscerated in many communities already. They must be just positioning to take early credit for some of what they have already done. The only good news is that there may be a stalemate, but given the decline in labor strength, a stalemate is another nail in our coffin, unless we finally shift directions and change strategy.

There is a great scene and line in the new movie, Social Network, where then Harvard President and always arrogant Larry Summers, turns to an aide, while meeting with the whining crew roaring elitists, and says, “punch me in the face, now!” This is how I felt this morning reading the Times story on the bailout bankers positioning themselves after their economy collapsing performances of recent years and their disaster tour on foreclosures. These guys are coming back to power. They are exulting at the prospects of defunding regulation under the Frank bill, SEC, and other regulatory agencies. They are buying each other t-shirts to wear under their silk ties that say: “F**k you – We Have Learned NOTHING!”

It’s one thing to go to the polls holding your nose. It’s another when you have to make sure you have a bag packed by the time you come back from voting, so you are ready to roll and run at any moment!

Calling Costa Rica for Bank of America Loans

dine — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 20:22:24 +0000

Phoenix Sitting in the Phoenix office of Advocates and Actions (www.advocatesandactions.org), I had trouble believing Isabelle and Teresa when they told me that when they talked to servicers for Bank of America loans they were talking to B of A representatives in Costa Rica. This was the same Bank of America that received $45 Billion dollars in U.S. government funds as part of the bailout hardly in 2009 after all. This was in fact the same Bank of America that had, well, how do I say it, AMERICA in its name.

Part of the back story goes back to Countrywide, which was bought by Bank of America. Part of the Countrywide operation evolved into something called ReconTrust, separate corporation from Bank of America, but clearly identified on its website as a “wholly owned subsidiary” of Bank of America, located in Simi Valley, California outside of Los Angeles, not far from Countrywide’s old haunts in Calabasas.

In fact in the FAQ on the ReconTrust website, they are clear about the relationship:

What is your affiliation with Bank of America?

ReconTrust is a proud member of the Bank of America family of companies, a diversified financial services provider serving consumers and institutions with regard to a host of banking and lending needs. We are regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).

ReconTrust is structured as a separate entity from our affiliated banking and mortgage companies – this is to ensure our regulators and investors that we are truly independent.

Because I was still Mr. Doubting Thomas, when I asked Isabelle across the room for the third time if she was “really, really sure” that we were talking to servicers and negotiators on loan modifications in Arizona to folks based in Costa Rica, she didn’t say a word, but harrumphed and started dialing the ReconTrust number on the speaker phone until there was a clear answer and a young woman’s voice on the other end of the line asking her for her loan number. As Isabelle gave a number, she asked the woman, “Where are you located?” and just as clearly the voice boomed across the room: “Costa Rica.”

Costa Rica is a lovely country with a fascinatingly diverse landscape and open and friendly people. But, with all due respect there is no way that our friends there are qualified and able to handle the difficult problems of loan modifications and servicing imperiled homeowners on the brink of foreclosures in Arizona.

It is not simply insensitive, it’s just wrong on every count.

How many rocks do we have to uncover to find the totally mess and mayhem that seems to be crawling beneath everything that Bank of America is doing in connection with mortgage loans? How can anyone in the Treasury Department, government, or anywhere else expect that a Bank that now has more mischief than money, will ever be able to do the right thing for its mortgage holders?

The government needs to take over the foreclosure modification program 100%.

Oh, and I’m talking about the government of the United States, not the government of Costa Rica! I wouldn’t want Bank of America and the Treasury Department to be any more confused than they already are.

Indicting Sheriff Arpaio

dine — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 21:05:48 +0000

Shreveport Meeting Friday night with immigration reform organizers after their long day of meetings in New Orleans on the 2^nd day of the “Turning the Tide” conference it was clear that spirits were good among the organizers, despite the fact that prospects for comprehensive reform seem to have sunk to new lows. These were hard cases. No one believed that the Democrats would keep control of Congress. Loss of the House of Representatives was seen as a foregone conclusion. Increasingly the gallows humor of immigration was going to become: “if it weren’t for bad changes, we won’t see any changes at all!”

There is a clearly a strategic split among the reformers that has existed in a dialectic for some time, but is increasingly sharpening in more stark relief between organizers who believe that the chance has to come from local projects and grassroots organizing and resistance versus the policy-lobbyist wonks with the greater resources still spinning the stories of a immaculate change conception with the Beltway. This division is spoken of in quiet tones behind the scenes but is constantly part of the debate. With more than 150 organizers in New Orleans the absence of some of the folks from the national campaign “table” was shocking to me, even if there presence had been no more than solidarity.

I hope I’m not grabbing at straws but the best news I heard in my conversations was the increasing confidence that the days of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s reign of terror in Maricopa County, Arizona are numbered. I heard rumors repeated from Justice Department sources, which has now sued Arpaio for federal violations in recent weeks, is that he will be indicted after the mid-term elections are over in November. He will be a martyr to the whack right, but given the line drawn in the sand for years by so many in Arizona; this will be a significant victory. I wish I could report more optimism from organizers on the chances of Attorney General Godard replacing Governor Jan “Brain Freeze” Brewer, but most just shrugged that there was no contest still. I don’t know.

Good energy and deepening conviction will have to be what we go on now, since the numbers and politics seem aligned increasingly against us.

Criminal Employers

jstuart — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 13:35:39 +0000

Phoenix Immigration reform advocates have increasingly lodged the criticism that the Obama Administration, the state of Arizona, and many other jurisdictions is criminalizing immigrants. Part of this lies in the simple Arpaio aberration of taking a civil infraction, which is how an immigration violation exists in law, and making it a criminal issue, largely in the court of public opinion.

As part of the Administration policy, criminalizing the employers has become more aggressive and effective in their weapons against immigrants. From today’s Times:

“Under a policy that went into effect in April 2009, the Obama administration is taking a much tougher stance on employers who hire illegal immigrants than any administration in decades. Enforcement agents have subjected businesses across the country to much greater scrutiny, using tactics that were almost nonexistent until two years ago. Federal officials said they expected to announce record numbers of investigations and fines by the end of the year. As of July 31, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, had announced investigations of 2,073 businesses so far this year, outpacing the 1,461 conducted in all of 2009.”

In the story in the New York Times dining section the whole gamut of contradictions was on rare display. Our friends at the Interfaith Workers’ Justice, based in Chicago, were clear that restaurants should pay a fair wage. The Restaurant Association seemed to be warning that paying fairly and hiring legal would mean that prices would go up at your favorite chi-chi spot, though I’m betting prices are pretty stiff now. To no one’s surprise he Pew Research Center seems clear that the back of the house in a restaurant is an open door for employment for recent immigrants:

“Out of a total of about 12.7 million workers in the restaurant industry, an estimated 1.4 million — both legal and illegal immigrants — are foreign born, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. According to 2008 estimates from the Pew Hispanic Center, about 20 percent of the nearly 2.6 million chefs, head cooks and cooks are illegal immigrants. Among the 360,000 dishwashers, 28 percent are undocumented, according to the estimates.”

So, if 10-15% of the industry is undocumented, ICE is shooting fish in a barrel it would seem, but rather than continuing the old school system of raiding the fish and watching them swim, now ICE and the Obama Administration is shooting the fisherman – the employers – rather than the fish. And, there are recent examples of bagging some big ones:

“In June, the owner of two Maryland restaurants who pleaded guilty to hiring and harboring illegal immigrants was ordered to forfeit to the government more than $700,000 in assets — in addition to his motorcycle — and faces up to 10 years in prison. In November, a restaurateur in Mississippi who had pleaded guilty to hiring illegal immigrants was sentenced to a year in prison and a year of supervised release. Combined fines in the case, shared among several defendants, amount to $600,000.”

Many of the chefs and restaurateurs are making it easy for them by believing that they can slick this problem away by paying in cash. Whoa, Nellie! Not happenin captain! The hole got dug deeper and the net flung wider.

This new policy will scare some criminal employers into line, and for sure listening to their blushing whines about their practices doesn’t encourage much sympathy for them, but it won’t work, it’s simply too big.

If they want a new immigration policy and if we want immigration reform, ICE needs to read the industry and employers’ lament and go on and take the next logical step: criminalize the customers! Then hell will finally break loose in full helter-skelter. It’s the “going after the johns” strategy on prostitution by targeting the beneficiaries of the “criminal” activity. It’s just a matter of time at this rate before someone goes in and frog marches a bunch of high rollers at a fancy $100 a plate meal into some paddy wagons and listens to them squeal, so we finally have the public engaged in the issue and reform. Maybe then we will get somewhere.

In the meantime the pain of these policies spreads like a disease through the land.

The Rubble around SB1070 Injunction

jstuart — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:33:01 +0000

New Orleans The good news on the judge’s issuance of an injunction is that: boy, this was a close call and could have been soooo much worse! But, let’s be honest, we’re trying to pull “gold out of the garbage” as our ragpickers say. There’s still no reason for great joy and celebration because the opposition will be scheming at how to come closer next time, the appeals will be queued up a mile long, and we lost important issues here even while we are claiming a “win” on what is now routinely being called, the “most controversial” elements.

So local police will be enjoined from asking every conceivable person that they think might be illegal to show papers and stand to be arrested. The judge correctly saw through the governor’s baloney that local law enforcement offers were so well trained that they could avoid discrimination. Can you say the words, Sheriff Arpaio, and still repeat that sentence with a straight face, Governor? They can’t hold people for deportation by the feds based on SB1070, but we still have DHS Napolitano’s 287(g) for that mischief. Various civil penalties cannot be converted into crimes and everyone with a tan will not have to carry their paperwork to prove citizenship, but as today’s rallies in Phoenix “against the hate” make clear, these are symbolic victories when the anger at immigrants is being fanned to a vengeful and violent level of anger and potential attack.

Washed away in the headlines are huge concerns about the future of day laborers, which the National Day Laborers’ Organizing Network has indicated could cripple the ability for day laborers to find work and lead to huge legal oppression everywhere in the country. This was a confusing piece of the injunction story. The judge enjoined the efforts of Arizona to essentially drive day laborers off of the sidewalks and any public areas where they could look for work, but allowed the language that was based on the old ACORN v. Phoenix suit to stand which allows day laborers to be harassed and arrested if they seem to be a traffic nuisance. NDLON has correctly worried that day laborers would now be walking a tightrope thin line in trying to both protect their livelihoods and at the same time avoid arrest and prosecution (and therefore also potential deportation depending on the charge and jurisdiction) because traffic safety would trump everything and everybody.

I’m not whining. We desperately needed to win this injunction, so all good there, but “happy” and “celebrate” are not two words that come easily in this moment when so little is solved, other rights are eroded, and the forces of hate and repression are still gathering mightily in cities and states throughout the country with no real relief in sight.

Few Modifications and No Truth from Bank of America & Buddies in Phoenix

jstuart — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 15:42:36 +0000

Phoenix Ten families squeezed into the living room with a couple of kids, some concerned girlfriends, sisters and friends, so talk about the foreclosures they were facing or worse. Chairs came from the kitchen and everywhere else. Most of these victims, because that’s the only term that seems to fit, had loans with Bank America nee Countrywide, but in the room were also Wells Fargo, CitiMortgage, and GMAC, a list of the Bush/Obama bailout babies.

The homeowner modification program has been marked more by press releases and constant revisions than actual modifications, and these families were perfect examples not only of the total disaster of the program, but the perfidy of every part of it. The mortgage modification program is the BP oil spill in the neighborhoods rather than in the Gulf of Mexico, and it has some of the exact same hallmarks.

The stories were shocking and disturbing.

Roberto Padilla’s situation with Bank of America was perhaps the most bizarre and unbelievable and, frankly, tragic. The lying narrative the banks and the conservatives have managed to imprint on foreclosure victims is so far from the truth that I was left scratching my head at how these things were even possible. Roberto has a very good job. For the last 5 years he has driven a water pumping truck which has lowered the water level in lakes to prevent dam breaks, removed water from New Orleans after Katrina, and mainly sucks up sewers in a multi-state area. At the onset of the recession in 2008 his hours were cut to 32 per week and his overtime stopped (now it is back to almost 30 hours per week!), so he thought he would get a modification and make it all balance out. He paid a company $4500 for advice and help in the process. Of course they told him to stop paying, because no modification is possible until a payment is missed. Roberto had done a good job in his house. He had redone the flooring, build a back porch and deck, and in all made about $14000 in improvements on top of the more than $25000 down payment he had made to buy the house. Everything seemed on course for a modification, but almost a year went by and nothing was happening. He fired the first outfit that was “helping” him because all they talked about was a “short sale,” and he was just trying to get a “mod.” He hired another guy to give him a hand for a $1000. Everything was in good shape. The paperwork went in. He was told that he qualified for a mod orally. Suddenly his house was sold out from under him! Back to Bank of America?!?

How could any of this happen? Bank of America claimed that his paperwork was not submitted 14 days before the auction, though we have not been able to find anything in writing or elsewhere about such a “rule.” They also claimed that they had sent him earlier packets to apply for a modification to his house via mail and hand delivery to the door. Impossible. Roberto’s wife is an in home worker and at the residence 24/7 with their young children. Simply didn’t happen. They then claimed that he had personally called and had requested that they stop the modification process. Unbelievable!!! He not only did not call, but as he told them repeatedly, why was he paying someone to file for the mod. He demanded that they produce a tape that proved he had called, but they refused.

Can this story get worse? Sure! Hang on with me a little longer. The Bank tried to give him 5 days to get out of the house. He went to court and negotiated 3 weeks, which is still ridiculous since a tenant gets 90 days. Bank America bought their own loan. Did they have plans for the house of any kind. No! In fact part of what breaks Roberto’s heart is that they made no effort to even secure his house after they grabbed it at auction. The seizure of his house only happened two weeks ago, but his house has already been completely vandalized. The back door is open. The kitchen cabinets have been pulled down and out. There is graffiti on the walls in every room.

What the heck happened here. Lies on top of lies. A simple mod gone to hell. An family’s home where they had put in serious money and made improvements has gone from the pride of neighborhood to an eyesore. A family is now scratching for a place to live, while a community is now moving to a ghetto.

Bank America is not alone in this, but this is their legacy and their standard operating procedure.

Another Bank of America victim, Maria Carillo, in the meeting had gotten two letters the same day, one said she was eligible for the government modification assistance. The other letter mailed and received the same day, said she was denied. She asked rhetorically, “what was she supposed to do, pick the one she liked best?”

It went on and on like this for more than 2 hours. This night, there was no sobbing, but I felt like crying every time another horror was reported.

There will be more about all of this to come!

Profiling in Arizona? Hell Yes

jstuart — Mon, 31 May 2010 12:58:11 +0000

Phoenix SB 1070 is on the two month countdown to implementation barring action by the Justice Department or others to block its enforcement. The biggest rub has been the preemptive racial profiling of anyone by color or accent might seem to be an immigrant. Governor Brewer of Arizona has claimed that this is not the case largely “because she says so,” by maintaining that if you say the sky is green that does the job no matter how many times your eyes scream the lie.

My Rathke great grand parents and grandparents were German immigrants who had been farming in the Ukraine on a special program but refused conscription and ended up first in the Midwest and then in my grandfather’s case working as a foreman on the orange groves and ranches of Orange County, California, when there were still oranges, with the Mexican laborers. They were born there but came to live and work here. In this country we all have a story. As a second generation American, my chance of being profiled is nil.

On Thursday we were driving from Glendale back into Phoenix. Suddenly, a bubble light was signaling us over. The prototypical, large white cop was dressed in a flak jacket, which seemed odd for traffic duty in Glendale. A window next to me on the passenger side had been broken by vandals who failed to rob the car, but still left the spider web of dented and broken glass as the footprint of their effort. The cop wanted the license and registration of the Mexican-American driver of the vehicle. She gave over the registration and recited her license number from memory since she didn’t have it on her. Despite the fact that he didn’t ask, I offered and turned mine over, since the policeman was claiming that the only reason for stopping us was the window and the need to prove that the car was not stolen. The cop was uniformly friendly. He checked on his computer, and sent us on our way.

So, was this racial profiling? Hell, yes! Would I have been stopped if I were driving, as a red headed white guy? No. And, as my friend pointed out, what would have happened had I not been in the car? Would he have asked to search the car? The trunk? If he had noticed her purse on the back floor, would he have asked to verify if she really did not have her license and ID with her? Where could this have gone? Where might the story have ended?

On Friday evening I walked into a Circle K gas/food store with another friend, also Latina. She asked me to take a six pack of Corona up and pay for her while she looked for something else. The young voluble clerk, took the beer and my money, and then asked if he could see the ID of the woman who he had seen walk in with me. I said I don’t think she has any ID on her. For that matter neither did I, having just strolled out a couple of blocks to lend a hand. He starts spouting that Arizona law requires that everybody who comes in together has to show an ID to prove age. He seemed to feel absolutely no irony that he was lecturing me about an ID and had still not asked me to produce mine?!? I said, OK, I get it. I said, hold the beer, and I’ll be right back. We left, and I walked back 5 minutes later alone. He pulled our beer from behind the counter for me and reached out for my money. Still not asking me for an ID. So, I said, hey, buddy, I’m from Louisiana, what is this nonsense all about? He claimed they had been stung by the police a couple of days before with a young girl, and a co-worker had lost his job as the eyes were batting and had not asked for an ID. Well, yeah, but we were a long way from under aged, bub? He then claimed that Circle K had a policy formerly of asking for ID for anyone who looked under 30, but now were recommending a request for under 40. It was all so preposterous, that I just laughed since he seemed to be making it up as he went along.

As I hit the door to leave, he yelled back at me, “Welcome to Arizona!”

My point exactly, Madame Governor! This is now your state where racial profiling is the status quo and standard operating procedure.

Simply claiming at the school house door as Governors Ross Barnett of Mississippi and George Wallace of Alabama did in their day that you aren’t racist and you love darker people in your own way, is not enough to change the reality of every word and deed all around you.

Whether the deep South 50 years ago or the border states now, this has to change!

Marching to Arizona with the Troops

jstuart — Wed, 26 May 2010 14:24:55 +0000

New Orleans Time to pack for Arizona! It’s important to join the mobilization on May 29^th with the assembled forces to stand and protest against the implementation of SB 1070, the anti-immigrant, racial profiling bill that is terrorizing good people in Arizona.

I was surprised talking to a friend in Arizona yesterday when she told me that the President was sending troops to the border. I thought this might be a rumor. Wrong. Later it was all over the papers that Obama was dispatching 1500 National Guard ostensibly to deal with drug trafficking and crime along the border.

At the same time I watched Obama being interviewed before the Suns-Lakers game on a basketball court mostly about, well, basketball. He also said he “was personally” opposed to SB 1070 and was in support of the Suns having worn their Los Suns jerseys in solidarity against the haters on Cinco de Mayo. Charles Barkley and his buddies talked about Obama being the “omni-president” with his fingers on everything since he also had opinions on the 1^st draft pick choice for the Washington Wizards and the step up in Rondo’s game for the Celtics.

You can’t have it both ways. I can’t pretend that Obama is all over the basketball schedule and predictions, but is not mindful of the message he sends when he dispatches troops to the border posturing to beef up enforcement at the same time that tens of thousands are assembling to march in Phoenix this Saturday morning to demand justice.

There’s politics and then there is right and wrong.

The omni-President cannot be all things to all people.

The days on the calendar are steadily being crossed off to the point when enforcement of this grotesque travesty. We need the President to do the right thing then and refuse to cooperate with this cynical and racist legislation. When are we going to hear his real plans to act? Tick. Tock. Tick-tock!

Meanwhile it looks like all of us will be marching, but in this case the federales will be running for the border, while the rest of stand to be counted in the streets of Phoenix.

We need you with us there on the hot streets, Mr. President, and not sitting on a basketball court talking about draft picks.

Arizona Boycotts First $90 Million

jstuart — Wed, 12 May 2010 13:23:15 +0000

New York City The Mayor of Phoenix announced City Hall’s projection that based on the first 4 conventions having canceled and projections over the coming year, just in Phoenix they estimated the loss at $90 million. The Governor of Arizona whined that a boycott was a bad idea, blah, blah, blah, once again taking no responsibility for her actions, but she’s wrong.

The boycott is a good idea and frankly past due. Under the reign of terror in the community that has been ongoing under Sheriff Arpaio, many with darker skin have effectively been boycotting Phoenix and Maricopa County at least for more than a year. The newest statewide outrage in Arizona has merely gotten to the point where the line has been crossed so far that everyone with a tan is afraid to go to Arizona. Governor Schwarznegger from California even “joked” that with his accent he might be picked up in Arizona and deported to Austria. I’m not sure why he thought that was a joke: on his accent he would be gone and only be saved by the fact that he was white. Oh, and big, because part of this is purely and simply bullying!

Phoenix and Arizona both seem to have noticed that the economy is not in good shape in Arizona now and seem to have realized that having tourists avoid the state and conventioneers stay in Vegas or elsewhere is not a good idea. No duh. But, what will be the pricetag that forces change?

Let’s pick a billion to start with and start putting up thermometer charts in our offices to keep score at home. It’s going to have to be real money. Maybe Governor Brewer can give a ring to Governor Barbour in Mississippi and ask him what he thinks it cost Mississippi to be red circled as a human and civil rights disaster for almost a generation?

The cost: priceless!

The lesson though has to be taught.