Protest Gone Wrong

          Another op-ed by my ever-opinionated roommate… 

          As many are aware, the recent immigration law passed in Arizona has sparked heated controversy within the state and throughout the country.  And while the content of these changes to existing laws that combat illegal immigration are open for debate on their appropriateness, the actions of protestors against SB1070 have been consistently uncivil and offensive.

            We have seen the more stringent controls on illegal immigration compared to the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII, the imposition of a Nazi police state, South African Apartheid, and the Jim Crow Laws (though they’ve been renamed “Juan Crow Laws” in this case). Perhaps next they will invoke the Trail of Tears. Or instead maybe the Great Purges of the Soviet Union. The Crusades anyone? Drawing these parallels is outright fear mongering of the worst kind, and does little for legitimating their cause. The Tea Parties that get such extensive attention by the mainstream media for their radicalism seem quite passive in comparison. I would say downright harmless in fact when you hold the two protests next to each other.

            Probably the most pervasive protesting in particular has been the invoking of Nazi Germany. Reasonable suspicion written into the new immigration law has now been turned to cruelly characterize law enforcers (who risk their lives each and every day for Arizona) as Gestapo coming and pounding on peoples’ doors asking for their immigration papers. The Governor of Arizona has been called a racist Nazi, meanwhile protestors have repeatedly invoked ‘Chicano pride,’ seeing no contradiction at all in their own ethnocentric rallying cries.

            Protestors have further upped their methods of characterizing Arizona as a Nazi police state. Now by wearing white armbands to show their solidarity to the oppressive forces they believe immigrants will come under. While they explain that this protest tool comes from the use of black armbands in Vietnam anti-war protests, it seems much more likely that they are attempting to draw parallels to Jews forced to wear armbands with the Star of David in Nazi Germany. In fact, it seems to make perfect sense that these protestors would try to put immigrants on the same footing as Holocaust victims to symbolize the oppression they believe they will ultimately share with Jews.  Besides the fact that such beliefs are utter nonsense, this use of armbands is grossly offensive to all Jews, and belittles all those who suffered and died under real genocidal oppression. Even if these protestors rationalize alternative reasons for this use of armbands, such arguments hold little weight under serious scrutiny. Ignorance is not an excuse, and they should all be ashamed of themselves for such insidious rhetoric and symbolism.