and any other ethnic studies, and what's potentially next in this racist,
xenophobic phenomenon. How about loyalty oaths for teachers, etc.?
Watch. -Ed
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/outlawing_latinos_heritage_20100513/
Outlawing Latinos' Heritage
By Eugene Robinson
The Washington Post: May 14, 2010
At least we don't have to pretend anymore. Arizona's passing of that
mean-spirited new immigration law wasn't about high-minded principle or the
need to maintain public order. Apparently, it was all about putting Latinos
in their place.
It's hard to reach any other conclusion following the state's latest swipe
at Latinos. On Tuesday, Gov. Jan Brewer signed a measure making it illegal
for any course in the public schools to "advocate ethnic solidarity."
Arizona's top education official, Tom Horne, fought for the new law as a
weapon against a program in Tucson that teaches Mexican-American students
about their history and culture.
Horne claims the Tucson classes teach "ethnic chauvinism." He has complained
that young Mexican-Americans are falsely being led to believe that they
belong to an oppressed minority. The way to dispel that notion, it seems, is
to pass oppressive new legislation aimed squarely at Mexican-Americans.
That'll teach the kids a lesson, all right: We have power. You don't.
Arizona is already facing criticism and boycotts over its "breathing while
Latino" law, which in essence requires police to identify and jail
undocumented immigrants. Now the state adds insult to that injury.
The education bill begins with a bizarre piece of nonsense, making it
illegal for public or charter schools to offer courses that "promote the
overthrow of the United States government." Then it shifts from weird to
offensive, prohibiting classes that "promote resentment toward a race or
class of people," that "are designed primarily for pupils of a particular
ethnic group" and that "advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment
of pupils as individuals." When you try to parse those words, the effect is
chilling.
Is it permissible, under the new law, to teach basic history? More than half
the students in the Tucson Unified School District are Latino, the great
majority of them Mexican-American. The land that is now Arizona once
belonged to Mexico. Might teaching that fact "promote resentment" among
students of Mexican descent? What about a class that taught students how
activists fought to end discrimination against Latinos in Arizona and other
Western states? Would that illegally encourage students to resent the way
their parents and grandparents were treated?
The legislation has an answer: Mexican-American students, it seems, should
not be taught to be proud of their heritage.
This angry anti-Latino spasm in Arizona is only partly about illegal
immigration, which has fallen substantially in the past few years. It's
really about fear and denial.
About 30 percent of the state's population is Latino, and that number
continues to rise. This demographic shift has induced culture shock among
some Arizonans who see the old Anglo power structure losing control. It is
evidently threatening, to some people, that Mexican-Americans would see
themselves as a group with common interests and grievances-and even more
threatening that they might see themselves as distant heirs to the men and
women who lived in Arizona long before the first Anglos arrived.
To counter the threat, solidarity among Mexican-Americans has to be
delegitimized. The group itself has to be atomized-has to be taught to see
itself as a population of unaffiliated individuals. The social, cultural and
historical ties that have united people across the border since long before
there was a border must be denied.
Every minority group's struggle for acceptance is distinctive, but I can't
avoid hearing echoes of the Jim Crow era in the South. Whites went to great
lengths to try to keep "agitators" from awakening African-Americans' sense
of pride and injustice. They failed, just as the new Arizona law will fail.
It's important to distinguish between Arizona officials' legitimate concerns
and their illegitimate ones. The state does have a real problem with illegal
immigration, and the federal government has ignored its responsibility to
enact comprehensive reform that would make the border more secure. But
Arizona is lashing out with measures that will not just punish the
undocumented, but also negatively impact Mexican-American citizens whose
local roots are generations deep.
The new education law is gratuitous and absurd. Arizona can't be picked up
and moved to the Midwest; it's next to Mexico. There have always been
families and traditions that straddle the two societies, and there always
will be. Mexican-Americans are inevitably going to feel proud of who they
are and where they came from-even if acknowledging and encouraging such
pride in the classroom are against the law.
You know kids. They'll just learn it in the street.
Eugene Robinson's e-mail address is eugenerobinson(at)washpost.com.
© 2010, Washington Post Writers Group
***
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/05/14-8
Ecosystem in Peril After Gulf Oil Spill
by Matthew Cardinale
Inter Press Service: May 14, 2010
ATLANTA, Georgia - With engineers giving a best-case scenario of "weeks"
before the catastrophic oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is sealed, some
scientists are warning that the region's ecosystem could face major
long-term damage.
As many as 70,000 gallons of oil per day have been gushing into the waters
of the Gulf Coast since an oil rig operated by British Petroleum exploded on
Apr. 20. The well itself is located at a depth of about 5,000 feet,
presenting formidable obstacles to efforts to shut it down.
The spill is expected to ultimately eclipse the 11-million-gallon Exxon
Valdez spill in 1989, the worst oil spill in U.S. history. It is not known
how much oil could potentially pour into the Gulf before the leak is
plugged.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says water sampling collected
on May 1 and 2 along the Louisiana coast found chemicals associated with
oil. "However, these results still indicate that water quality does not pose
increased risk to aquatic life, such as fish and shellfish," the agency said
in a statement.
"As of May 4, 2010, water sampling results off the Gulf Coast still indicate
that water quality does not pose increased risk to aquatic life," the EPA
said.
However, Riki Ott, a toxicologist who wrote two books about the Exxon Valdez
spill, says she believes the scenario is far worse than officials are
presenting to the public.
"BP is trying to say we're winning because oil has not hit the shoreline.
That is far from the truth: we're losing. So much toxic oil is spilling
every day, they're hammering it with dispersants, another toxic chemical,"
she said.
BP says it has used about 400,000 gallons of dispersant, which breaks down
the oil, and has another 805,000 gallons on order.
"This dispersed oil is extremely toxic to young life forms," Ott told IPS.
"BP is saying that it's not that toxic, not that much of a problem. That is
extremely misleading because the only toxicity data [is based on an
experiment where] they douse adult shrimp and minnows in static beakers of
dispersant or oil for 48 or 96 hours, and count how many die or live."
"But young life forms are a lot more sensitive to toxic chemicals than
adults," she said. "What we have in the open Gulf is a continuous exposure.
The oil goes a mile down...It's in the whole water column."
She said that studies of dead herring after the Exxon Valdez spill found
that parasites that normally lived in the fish's stomach had migrated into
the muscle tissue to avoid toxic exposure, thus weakening its immune system
and causing reproductive problems.
Some "99.9 percent of herring eggs exposed to oil died", she explained.
Ott added that the continental shelf ecosystem and open ocean ecosystem are
linked very closely. "The shrimp that depend on wetlands and marshes for
nurseries, when they migrate offshore, they become food for red snapper and
grouper," she said.
"It's too much oil, too fast, not to have a pretty big impact on generations
of wildlife that's in the water column. Birds eating shellfish getting sick
and dying, marine mammals, land mammals getting sick and dying. You have
birds feeding oiled fish to their chicks, the chicks have stunted growth,"
Ott said.
Meanwhile, families who depend on the fishing industry are seeing their
livelihoods in jeopardy.
BP has been paying out up to 5,000 dollars in individual claims to fishermen
and others who suffered economic losses. Ultimately, some estimates put the
total figure for clean-up operations and damages at four billion dollars,
although it could be even higher depending on when the leak is stemmed.
The Barack Obama administration has said BP and the other firms with some
degree of liability should pick up the entire tab for the clean-up and
damages. He is seeking 118 million dollars of emergency funding to deal with
immediate costs related the spill, which BP would be expected to reimburse
the government.
Orissa Arend of New Orleans, Louisiana told IPS most locals are still eating
the fish, because 80 percent of it comes from areas not yet affected by the
spill. The other 20 percent used to come from fisheries which have stopped
producing for the time being.
New Orleanians are also concerned about the upcoming hurricane season.
"People are worried that next time there's a hurricane, instead of getting
flooded with just water, we'll get flooded with disgusting oil water," Arend
said.
Copyright © 2010 IPS-Inter Press Service
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