Really America, I thought we were beyond this...Part 2

What's up everybody, I hope all two of you enjoyed my last blog. I went back and read my othre blogs. Other than the one about Proposition 8, I thought all the other ones were pretty funny and silly. I also understand that both of you may have thought that I made up the story in my last blog. I would like to assure you that I'm not that creative, the story is completely true. I only changed the name of my assistant principal. So I guess today I want to get back into another thing that makes me angry, sorry bro. Today we are going to talk about people who are angry about illegal immigration. This has been on my mind since a friend of mine began posting comments on her Facebook page. A huge discussion grew from that, which resulted in hurt feelings and strained relationships.

So this friend I have is also a teacher. She has been having a discussion with a couple of friends about the immigration "reform" law that was passed in Arizona. In short, this law gives police officers the authority to ask any citizen tat it suspects of being an illegal immigrant for documentation to prove that they are a legal citizen of the United States of America. Not only that, but any city that is suspected of not enforcing these rules can be sued. From what I hear, documentation is either a US Passport, US Birth Certificate, or immigration papers that show you are a legalized citizen. I actually tried to verify the requirements to prove citizenship but couldn't find any, so if anyone could point me to information about that, it would be much appreciated. As a result of the conversation, a thought popped into my head. I'm wondering how does a person tell the difference between an illegal immigrant from Canada and an American citizen of Caucasian or European American decent. I mean it's hard enough to tell Irish Americans from Welsh Americans apart. But to require police to tell the difference without advanced training in linguistics and behavorioral patterns of Canadians in contrast with the American citizens from towns and cities near the Canadian border is ridiculous. Talk about a losing battle. And this is only one example, we haven't even discussed any of the 50 or so countries in Europe. Eventually, what's going to happen is that all people of European decent will be profiled in an attempt to keep their cities and towns from being sued. If I were of European decent, I would be outraged that this is actually law. Simply because of the color of your skin, you are going to start being asked if you're a citizen. Not only that, if you don't have your documentation handy, you will be incarcerated for three days. If you still cannot get your documentation while you are in jail in those three days, you will be deported. So good luck to all of you in Arizona, you're gonna need it.

So I guess that what I was saying isn't exactly true because we all know that the only illegal immigrants we have in the United States are Hispanic or Latino, right? I mean, even my students are saying things like, "it's hard to tel a Canadian illegal immigrant from an American citizen." Then I look at my hand and aske them to define an American citizen. ***for those who don't know, I'm Black*** He said us. I then looked and said it's pretty easy to tell a Canadian immigrant from myself or Raphael, who is an American citizen also. So I guess that what we have here are two different issues.

The first issue is our definition of an American citizen. I would argue that just as it is hard to distinguish a Hispanic or Latino American from an illegal immigrant from Latin America, South America, or the Caribbean Islands; it is equally as hard to distinguish a European or Canadian American from an illegal immigrant from any of these regions. The problem is that most Americans identify only Americans of European decent as being American, along with the occasional Black or African American. There's not that many people who see Latino, Hispanic, Asian, Pacific Islander, African or Middle Eastern as being American citizens or naturalized citizens. The mindset is that these aforementioned ethnicities are seen as being illegal immigrants. This is where the real profiling comes into play. I doubt that anyone in Arizona that is White will worry about being asked to show documentation. If I were a European illegal immigrant, I'd flock to Arizona. Why? Because I would look like everyone else, and this bill is obviously targeted toward Hispanic and Latino cultures. This is the reason everyone is shouting out about securing our borders. In Arizona, the only border this border is between Mexico and Arizona.

The second issue deals with how this is being done. Again, we have a situation where the law is being manipulated to target and discriminate against a culture of people. Now, it might be said to be "consistent" with the Federal laws, however, I'm sure the enforcement will not be equal under the laws. I'm willing to bet that the only people who appear to be engaging of "suspicious" behavior will be those who are Latino or Hispanic. I would also like to know what are suspicious behaviors that the law enforcement professionals will be looking for. That would be interesting to see put in a newspaper article or a blog.

If I were a citizen of Arizona, I would be upset. There are many far reaching implications from this bill that I don't think many people talk about.

• First, it opens your town up for inevitable lawsuits. Either cities are going to be sued for harassment of it's citizens or cities are going to be sued for not upholding the law. The result is going to be that if anyone in the city does not have their birth certificate with them, they will be arrested. If they arrest enough people, either the citizens will move out of Arizona, or they will sue for harassment. Or on the flip side, the cities aren't going to enforce the law, which will allow them to get sued.
  
• Second, if they actually uphold the law, the economy will falter. This will occur when people actually start being thrown in jail for not having identification. People will not be able to show up for work because they will either be detained or deported. I guarantee that trucks will stop driving through Arizona if the law starts to be enforced. People will move from Arizona in order to find a place where they will not have the possibility to be harassed every time they go to a restaurant, the store, gas stations, to pick up their kids.
• Third, eventually they will not be able to house all of the detainees who do not have proper documentation. Arizona will run out of jail space, or they will have to spend more money building jails.
• Lastly, what do you do when a mother has her birth certificate, but she doesn't have the birth certificates of her children. Do you arrest and detain the children? What if their house burns down and everything was destroyed, do you deport the children if they can't produce documentation in three days? Where do you deport people who are US citizens, but can't produce documentation while being incarcerated? Just some questions I have.

So here's my advice. Repeal the law. I understand that many people feel that illegal immigration is wrong. Don't believe me, ask the American Indian tribes how they feel about the issue. I'm sure they've got a little bit of historical insight on the subject. I bet in retrospect, the American Indian tribes would have poisoned the corn on that first thanksgiving, knowing what they know now...I'm just kidding, I'm sure they're exstatic at how things have turned out. In all seriousness though, there are better and more effective ways to deal with this issue. We can't react out of frustration because that never ends well. If the law isn't repealed, I would just start filing lawsuits, because this law is really unenforceble due to to the breadth and scope the nature of illegal immigration. The shear number of lawsuits and the cost for defense will financially hurt Arizona, especially it being in the middle of a recession. So figure it out law professors, it can't be that hard. This isn't be being angry or militant, I'm just thinking out loud.

Something new...

So my brother is like the only person I know that reads my blog. He told me that all I talk about is political stuff and I seem angry all the time. So I'm gonna try to do something apolitical...is that a word? If it's not, at least it's spelled correctly. Anyways, I work at a middle school and a high school teaching a subject that everyone thinks is important, but everyone thinks is easy to teach. Sometimes I make to the front office while there are parents there. This week we are having people sign their elementary students up to shadow a student so that they can see what the school is like, and what teachers are like and what not. Today, a mom dropped off her 5th grade girls. The conversation went like this; the names have been changed to protect my job.

Mr. Williams walked into the middle school office to ask for a stamp. Mom of two
elementary school daughters walks into the office. Mr. Williams' back is to the mom.

Mom: I'm looking for Miss Gates.

Miss Gates: Oh I'm Miss Gates, how can I help you?

Mom: I need to sign my daughters up for that shadowing thing.

Mr. Williams ears perk up as he realizes that something absurd is about to follow.

Miss Gates: Oh no problem, what are your daughters names?

Mom: Alize and Cristal.
And Scene

I'm not sure what possess parents to name your kids after alcohol, but I'm pretty sure that everyone else looks at you with two assumptions. Assumption #1, you're not very intelligent or original. In plain people's speak, you're low-class. I'm sorry if I offend people with this one, but you brought it on yourselves. Out of all the things that you have control over when bringing a baby into the world, names are pretty much it. You can't control whether your kid will be smart, funny, athletic, charismatic, disabled, healthy, or tall. But you can control what people call your child, at least until your child is 18 and they decide the name you chose doesn't fit in with their persona. I get that Alize and Cristal may seem exotic, but people don't think of exotic places when they hear these names. People think of dark bars, shady old creepers, and Ben Roethlisberger, all things you should run away from. People do not think of high society, white parties, and yachting. Assumption 2#, that these are the beverages that you were drinking immediately before and/or during conception of your children. Fair or unfair, it's probably closer to the truth. A person can't say that they planned on having a kid and always dreamed of naming their kids after alcohol. If that was your plan, then I say you failed a long, long time ago. Regardless of whether or not you planned on having a baby, you should realize that naming your child should take a little more research than walking down the liquor aisle at your local grocery store. And if it does, you should at least have the fortitude to make it past the C's.

So check it, the one thing that you can control as a parent is what your child will probably be called for the rest of their lives. Give them a name that will give them the greatest opportunity to be successful in a range of occupations. You've gotta plan for the future. Because the only opportunities that you are giving your children is a future in dancing, and that's not the exposure you want for them. So take it or leave it, but I'm just thinking out loud.

P.S. There was a third girl who was in like second or third grade. What do you name the third daughter, if your first two are Alize and Cristal? Here's what we got so far:

1. Corona
2. Stella Artois
3. Margarita
4. Frangelico
5. Skyy
   

Really America, I thought we were beyond this...

One thing that tics me off is how uneducated people are about the facts. People in our country, for the most part, believe most of what they hear...wholeheartedly, without any personal investigation or questioning. For example, we here in California had a constitutional amendment that changed wording to include language that recognized marriage as being "between a man and a woman." Now I'm not exactly sure what it was changed from, but I'm pretty sure it said two persons or two people, hence the "need" for a change. Now, all religious sentiment aside, what the passing of the amendment did was take away the rights of millions of people in our state, which is fundamentally wrong. I have two arguments for this (I know some of you are thinking, "only two" but it's about quality, not quantity):

• First, if people are saying that marriage is a "religious" institution, then all marriages granted by the State of California should be rendered null and void. Due to separation of church and state, the state of California cannot issue something that is religious in nature. This means that everyone with a California "Marriage" License is not married, all children born to couples with marriage licenses are now born out of wedlock, all men who are paying alimony (and women paying palimony) do not have to pay anymore (in fact, all monetary awards should be paid back since the contract was invalid), and all Christians who have a state marriage license (not a church marriage license) have been living in sin for however long they've been married.
• Second, if it is not a "religious" institution, then we can't use religion as a means to keep people from having the same state and federal rights as everyone else. If we believe that "all men are created equal" includes men and women of different ethnicities, cultures, religions, creeds, and so on, then we fundamentally believe that the state institution of marriage has constitutional bounds to everyone, including same sex couples. I'm not saying you have to be in favor of same sex relationships, but you have to give people the right to do what the constitution protects for all Americans. If you are Christian, you know that your belief has to be a choice, your own free will. The Bible emphasizes FAITH in God and Jesus, being the Son of God, who died on the cross for your sins, is what "saves" you from an eternity of damnation. I met someone who told me, "But it [not being homosexual] is the right way to live and we need to make sure that people live their lives the right [Christian] way." My response to this was that if you are making it a requirement to live a Christian lifestyle, then you are damning millions of people to hell. Follow me for a minute; if you require people to live a Christian lifestyle, then you are taking away their free choice, which is the foundation upon what faith is based on. If you take away their free choice, they are not living the Christian lifestyle through faith; they are doing it because it's required. This, in all actuality, makes it so that faith is removed from the equation. "And without faith it impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and the he rewards those who earnestly seek Him." If people are being required by the law of man to live this way, then can they earnestly seek God through faith?

So what is a major reason that people voted to take away the rights of a whole culture of Americans, thus violating their civil rights? I say fear. People are so scared of things that are foreign to them. I guess it's the closest thing to a reflex we have. It's funny how these fears change as generations progress. Let's go back a mere 50 years ago, I mean we could go back further, but I don't want to wake up my history teacher friends for verification. So 50 years ago Black people did not have the same rights as everyone else. I think the main fear was that people didn't understand black culture and didn't know what would happen. You saw a huge negative attitude toward interracial dating and "fraternization" with people of Black American and African American decent. People were afraid of their children showing characteristics of a culture they didn't understand. Eventually, through acculturation led in the music and sports industry, it became understood and generally accepted by mainstream cultures. We can trace the same attitude toward any culture that is Fox News or CNN.

I had a friend, I don't think we're much of friends anymore...mostly my choice, who said the reason they supported Proposition 8 was because she did not want homosexuality taught in schools. Before we get into the obvious response, let's continue with the conversation. She said that even though her teacher friend had already informed her homosexuality was taught in schools, she still voted on legislation to keep homosexuality from being taught in school.. Now, I sat there and listened to her make this nonsensical argument to me and couldn't believe what she was saying. First of all, if your reasoning was to keep homosexuality from being taught in schools, then you should make a proposition that deals with curriculum, or talk to the CDE (California Department of Education), or talk to your superintendent. You don't change the constitution and support discrimination in order to keep homosexuality from being taught in schools. Second of all, if homsexuality is already taught in schools, it seems a little BASS ACKWARDS to pass a propostion to keep something that's already happening from happening.

So now we have a culture of people who are homosexual that are being denied the same rights as I was given as a result of my ancestors and their friends fighting and giving up their lives and futures for. Friends of all races, nationalities, creeds, religions, sexual orientation, and ethnicities. Am I saying that what Black and African Americans have gone through since slavery is the same as what same sex couples are going through nowadays? In a word, NO! I am not saying that. All I am doing is stating that the denial of "inalienable" rights is still prevalent in today's America as it was back in Benjamin Franklin's America, if not more so. It has just become more sophisticated, subversive, and devious. Sorry if I've offended people, but I'm just thinking out loud.

People who cannot spell

What's up everybody, I guess I'm going to start blogging a little bit more frequently, I hope you don't mind it. Why should you mind, it's not like any of you read this anyway...which begs the question why am I writing? I don't know, but today I want to vent about people who cannot spell. I actually started this yesterday, but due to some physical complications I didn't finish it. The complication was that my body wanted to sleep and instead of fighting with it, I let it win this time. To continue, I find it hard to believe that everyone in this day and age does not have a computer that will put a red line under every misspelled word. Since this is the case, about 73.283994029% of Americans must be color blind to red on white. I find it hard to believe that with technology where it is, that so many people still misspell words. Everything has a spell check (and if it doesn't, learn how to spell or type everything into MS Word or Pages or something), so either we are the laziest group of people in the world (because we won't move the little pointer to the symbol that checks our spelling and grammar), or we are the stupidest group of people in the world (because we can't spell and we can't figure out what the thing that says "ABC✓" means). Someone please tell me why it is impossible for people to put an apostrophe, one of these thingies ', for a possessive noun or when omitting letters from words or numbers. And how come we no longer know the difference between your and you're and use the previous for both instances. I don't think it's coincidence that we are last amongst the world's educated and why we import people to perform jobs, or outsource the jobs to people, for customer service. I know we all want to say it's for cheaper labor, but you have to admit that command of the English language, more specifically the American dialect, is necessary. Looking at the writing of a majority of our citizens, especially our young people, we are not even close to the level of others who are learning our dialect as a second or third language.

Does technology make all things better...

This blog comes to you as a result of the movie clash of the titans. I was having a conversation with a guy I know named Smartie Artie. Now Smartie and I had a conversation about whether or not the new 3-d technology is worth it. I say no because it hurts my head. I find that my brain wants to focus on something off in the distance, but I can't because it's shot blurry. So my brain works hard at trying to focus something unfocussable (is that a word). His argument was that it will take a while for directors to figure out how to do it so that's why it's cool. Also, just the fact that it's new technology automatically makes the experience better. So with Easter just passed, let me ask this question: Do peeps enhance the spirit of Easter, simply because it utilizes 'new' technology as opposed to chocolate bunnies and painted boiled eggs? I don't think so, nor do I think the new 3-d technology makes a crappy movie less crappier. I do however think that attractive women make a crappy movie more tolerable. So in short, if you like looking at attractive people fight an epic mythological story, go see this movie. If you like a little bit of a plot, watch Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief...or don't, but this is just me thinking out loud.