It’s Not Just About Joe Arpaio

There’s a lot of anger and shock at Trump’s pardon of the bigoted Joe Arpaio. All my liberal friends on Facebook sure are pissed. But they need to admit that none of this started with Trump or Arpaio.

Back in 1996, I was pissed, too. That’s when Bill Clinton signed his own immigration act, which included section 287(g), a license to hunt and racially profile brown people for immigration purposes. Back then, many of us in the immigrant rights movement knew what was to come. Everyone else was just playing politics and ignoring the inevitable. And the Joe Arpaios of the world got exactly what they wanted.

Much like Republicans tell us now that laws like Texas’ SB4 are for the purposes of “safety,” Bill Clinton did the same. That 287(g) was about going after “criminals.” And Obama’s expansion of Dubya Bush’s Secure Communities didn’t help, either. Millions of deportations, hundreds of thousands in profiteering private prisons, families separated, racial profiling gone rampant, economies destabilized, apologists for anti-immigrant Democratic candidates, etc, and the politics of this issue have become pretty screwy.

So, I read all this anger and ask, “Where have you been?”

If you’re not willing to stop the root causes, even though us brown people warned you about them 20 years ago, then what are you angry about? If you’re up in arms about Trump and Arpaio, but are apologists for those who gave them the power to hunt and profile, what is the intent of your anger?

Well, if it’s winning elections and going back to the same old Democratic way of addressing immigration, then, good luck with that. We see right through it. And for someone who has voted in every single Democratic Primary since turning of voting age, it’s pretty much killed my love of politics, not to mention my involvement in it.

No doubt, Joe Arpaio is evil. But Donald Trump is just the jet fuel that is being added to a dumpster fire that has existed since the first immigration laws were written–when the United States decided that there had to be an Us versus Them mentality in 1790. “Them” being the original inhabitants of the land, then, those kidnapped and brought over for profit, then, anyone else who wanted to come over that didn’t fit the profile of the original undocumented people.

There’s a lot of hate in the United States and all the “love” memes and frames on Facebook are not going to change it. And surely, liberal, sanctimonious whitesplaining to Latino voters that they need to vote isn’t going to create political victories. As if the 70% of white people who put Trump in office don’t deserve any blame. Since 1996, we’ve seen what Democrats can do with 287(g) and immigration enforcement, too. It wasn’t just Arpaio.

Taking a stand against racist policies, showing unapologetic support for those being attacked and targeted, and proposing policies that benefit people (rather than target them) are what excite people to go to the polls, among other progressive policies. And calling out members of your own political party when they take the politically expedient route to appease the worst among us is a good start, too.

And if your only response to this post is, “Do you want Trump to win?”, well, perhaps you’re not trying hard enough to beat him and the people who continually support bigoted immigration policies.