Does This Stuff Fan the Flames?

In the wake of the huffing over the Arizona immigration law, I posted this on our faculty blog.

To provide a local twist, Christine Neumann-Ortiz, director of Voces de la Frontera and subject of a hagiographic profile in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, calls the Arizona law a product of the forces of hatred and bigotry that will lead to a “return to Jim Crow segregation and violence."

Given that the federal law mimics state law and allowing that a national community has a right to regulate the presence of - and even to exclude - outsiders, this is over the top.

And it isn't it also at least just a tad irresponsible. Tell me how that is different from the worst that we hear from Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh? I am sure that Ms. Neumann-Ortiz doesn't seen herself in this way. I appreciate that political operatives must talk smack.

But her comments are the political equivalent of "shut up." It makes the issue something it is not as reflected in the Phoenix Suns' odd adoption of "Los Suns" jerseys. To turn the issue into whether one is for or against Hispanics (the Suns are for!) is just as silly as saying that anyone who is concerned about the potential abuse of the law is indifferent to the need to control illegal entry into the country (the Suns hate Arizona!).