Rev. Al Sharpton Schools This Week Panel and Obama Official on Arizona Law
On ABC’s This Week, Jake Tapper moderated one of the best roundtables I’ve seen on any show, especially the segment on Arizona’s new “Show me your papers” law. Most of nonsense that has been advanced to defend or mitigate it got thrown against the wall, and Reverend Al Sharpton stood out on the panel by scraping it all off.
The most egregious example of this has been promoted to the status of truism by people on both sides. The notion that this law is just Arizona’s cry for help from an inactive federal government has become politically useful to almost everyone. Prior to the roundtable, even DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano got into the act.
While she correctly pointed out that the law does invite racial profiling, and that data supports the fact that the illegal immigration problem in Arizona has been improving, she concludes by saying, “It’s really a cry of frustration from Arizona…It’s a frustration, ultimately, that will only be solved with comprehensive immigration reform.”
A cry of frustration? No, this is more like a punching repeatedly in the face of frustration. The intent may be to keep from alienating the large numbers of people for whom this law resonates, while guiding the debate in a more productive policy direction. The effect is to excuse, or at least mitigate, Arizona’s actions.
The roundtable opens with a clip of Arizona Governor Jan Brewer taking this idea several steps further, claiming that her state had no other choice. Sharpton quickly points out that a choice that violates the civil rights of US citizens is no choice at all.
Former Bush adviser Matthew Dowd then jumps in to call Arizona a “sideshow” in the larger immigration debate, which is consistent with the 70% support for the law that George Will cites later in the segment. At last count, the percentage of non-Hispanic white people in this country was 66%, 80% if you throw in Hispanic whites. This law is no big deal to people who literally have no skin in the game.
Will also draws the idiotic analogy between the Arizona law, and being asked to show ID when entering a federal building. Sharpton points out that federal buildings don’t single out brown people for screening. Will is smart enough to know better. This is a popular tactic by the right, to point out all of the things you need papers for, missing the point that in the rest of America, you don’t need papers just to walk down the street.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
