BLACK-BROWN TENSIONS IN LA

DAVEY D, FNV NEWSLETTER - For those of you reading this who live outside of Los Angeles you should note the that folks are on edge cause of increasing racial tension between blacks and Mexicans. Over the past month there have been a few brawls at local high schools which were widely reported on the news down here.

Now the tensions have been inflamed by a letter that has been circulating around the city claiming that in retaliation for some beef between black and latino gangs, 500 black kids wearing white t-shirts would be targeted and killed by Mexican gangs on Cinco de Mayo which is today. For the most part, the letter appears to be a hoax. Folks who work closely with the gangs down here have not heard of any craziness jumping off, but because the letter has been so widely circulated, it has led to some town hall meetings and increased police presence on all the high school campuses down here. A lot of parents are refusing to let their kids come to school...read on

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(The above video is from an NBC News report which opened up the show, so it's big news in LA)

Phil Jackson caused a pretty big controversy by saying that he agrees with Arizona's new draconian immigration law and it's hitting the news pretty hard right before they begin their playoff series against Steve Nash and the Phoenix Suns. I can't tell you how sad it is to see Phil act like a pompous jackass and diss the entire Phoenix Suns organization. He's entitled to his opinion on the issue of course, but not only does he support the law, he seems to be channeling Kris Kobach in the process.

ABC7 reports:

Immigration activists plan to picket outside Monday's Lakers-Phoenix NBA playoff game at Staples Center because Lakers coach Phil Jackson declined to criticize Arizona's recently adopted illegal immigration law.

"Am I crazy, or am I the only one that heard when the legislators said that `we just took United States immigration law and adapted it to our state?"' Jackson said during his pregame news conference May 4.

Jackson made his comments in response to a question from ESPN.com columnist J.A. Adande about his thoughts on Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver having his team wear its "Los Suns" jerseys for their May 5 game partly in response to the law and partly because of the Cinco de Mayo celebration. Jackson then asked Adande if his interpretation of the law was correct. Adande said Arizona "usurped the federal law."

Jackson disagreed, saying "it's not usurping, they just copied it, is what they said they did, the legislators. Then they give it some teeth to be able to enforce it."

Protests are planned on Monday at the Staples Center.

It was unclear if that was a factor in his comments, which prompted the Mexican-American Political Association and Southern California Immigration Coalition to decide to picket Monday's game 1 of the Western Conference Finals against the Suns.

"We are not happy with the position that Phil Jackson took," Nativo Lopez, the national president of the Mexican-American Political Association said. "We want to call on Jackson and the Lakers to put on their Los Lakers jerseys, especially considering the tremendous support that the Lakers have enjoyed from the communities specifically targeted by the misguided and racist Arizona law."

The groups also "want to welcome Los Suns of Arizona and thank them for the symbolic support," Lopez said.

C&L readers know how I feel about sports. It's a getaway for myself and a lot of us, but this has become a real moral issue, and remaining silent or ignoring it is not an option for me. If owners of teams can pump millions of dollars into extreme right-wing policies and candidates -- which is happening in Arizona right now -- then we can speak out against them.

Up to this point, I've focused largely on Bud Selig and the MLB and I helped form a broad activist coalition that sent out a letter demanding Selig join with the MLBPA (Players Union) and denounce the law and pull the 2011 All Star Game from Arizona, along with pushing protests of Arizona Diamondbacks games because of their ownership's involvement in Arizona Republican politics.

I've also praised the Suns and Steve Nash for showing real courage to lead the way against SB 1070 and stayed away from the Lakers. Phil brought me in.

If you're in LA and can get to Staples, please do.

UPDATE: The Zen Master was being a super hypocrite in this ESPN piece because in the middle of the article he says that "teams" shouldn't be involved in political stuff and then he gets involved in political stuff and defends Kobach's Arizona law to justify his support for SB1070. If he wanted no part of this debate he could have said that he's just worried about beating the Suns, but he didn't.

"I don't think teams should get involved in the political stuff," Jackson said. "I think this one is still kind of coming out to balance as to how it is going to favorably looked upon by ... the public.

"If I heard right, the American people are really for stronger immigration laws, if I'm not mistaken. Where we stand as basketball teams, we should let that kind of play out and let the political end of that go where it's going to go."

Here's a great takedown of Kris Kochach's lie that all Arizona is doing is enforcing laws already on the books.

Subsequently, even U.S. citizens could be held until someone from Immigration and Customs Enforcement is called to sort them out. Keep in mind that a cop can stop someone and begin the process during the "enforcement of any other law or ordinance of a county, city or town or this state." That's so broad as to include weed abatement and barking dogs.(I should mention that none of this claptrap is "mirrored" in federal law, nor are the provisions dealing with day laborers and traffic, nor -- more importantly -- is allowing a state the privilege of writing its own immigration statutes.)

If there's a crime or ordinance being broken nearby where you are, and a cop stops you to question you about it, it opens the door for this process to begin. Even if you are a U.S. citizen, you will be presumed to be an alien "unlawfully present" unless you have one of the above stated IDs -- assuming a cop has "reasonable suspicion" to think you're undocumented.

Kobach and his pawns in the state legislature later changed the law, which originally stated that a cop cannot "solely consider race, color or national origin." They've since taken the "solely" out, and they claim this means there will be no racial profiling.

This is highly disingenuous to say the least, when the "intent" of the law is to make "attrition through enforcement" the policy of the state. As the nativist Center for Immigration Studies has defined this loaded term, it means making life so difficult for illegal immigrants that they will self-deport. Since the vast majority of Arizona's estimated 500,000 unauthorized aliens are from Mexico or Central America, it is reasonable to conclude that Latinos in Arizona will bear the brunt of police scrutiny. So when someone slaps the "ethnic cleansing" label on the law, a label Nowicki is uncomfortable with, they are essentially correct... read on.

Roger Ebert is getting a little taste of some very nasty tea...from tea partiers IRATE at the nerve of Roger Ebert for an offhand tweet he made in response to the California teens disciplined for wearing American flag t-shirts at a Cinco de Mayo school event.

Ebert tweeted:

Kids who wear American Flag t-shirts on 5 May should have to share a lunchroom table with those who wear a hammer and sickle on 4 July.

Well, you know that co-opting the favorite symbol of the tea party crowd wasn't going to set well, especially when you imply the perhaps there is a lack of empathy going on.

There are a few points of etiquette most of us learn early:

1. Always send thank-you cards.
2. Don't talk with your mouth full.
3. Don't mock those who have battled cancer and won.

Those crazy tea partiers? They forgot lesson number three.

It seems they've worked themselves into a tizzy over Roger Ebert's comments on Twitter in response to the case in California where five kids were sent home early from school for wearing American flag garb on Cinco de Mayo.[..]

CNN.com reported response tweets from the Tea Party Tweeters like: “I mean honestly. How many pieces need to fall off @ebertchicago before he gets the hint to shut the (expletive) up” and “You know, @ebertchicago, I’m not as expert on flag etiquette as you. Tell me, which do I fly when you die of cancer?”

Hoo boy. You stay classy now. Ebert, bless his heart, has battled far more formidable foes than your nasty little tea bagger, so he's been giving as good as he's gotten on Twitter (follow him here: @ebertchicago). He also blogged about it in more than 140 characters on his blog:

The impression is spreading that I have drawn an equation between the American flag and the hammer and the sickle. I'm currently serving for target practice on some right-wing websites, and a group of Tweeters are having jolly fun portraying me as an America hater and worse.[..]

[My post] was tweeted at the height of the discussion over five white California kids who wore matching t-shirts to school on Cinco de Mayo, and were sent home by their school. This inspired predictable outrage in the usual circles.

Tweeted from lonestarag05: Its the USA not Mexico. They are allowed to be proud of their country. I wonder sometimes why you even stay here.

Many others informed me that Americans have the right to be proud of our flag, and wear it on T-shirts. Of course they do. That isn't the question. It's not what my Tweet said. What I suggested, in its 108 letters, is that we could all use a little empathy. I wish I had worded it better.

Let's begin with a fact few Americans know: Celebrating Cinco de Mayo is an American custom. The first such celebration was held in California in 1863, and they have continued without interruption. In Mexico itself it is not observed, except in the state of Puebla--the site of Mexico's underdog victory over the French on May 5, 1862.

Cinco de Mayo's purpose is to celebrate Mexican-American culture in the United States. We are a nation of immigrants, and have many such observances, for example St. Patrick's Day parades, which began in Boston in 1737 and not in Ireland until 1931. Or Pulaski Day, officially established in Illinois in 1977, and not observed in Poland. The first Chinese New Year's parade was held in San Francisco in the 1860s, and such parades began only later in China. In Chicago this August we will have the 81st annual Bud Billiken Parade, one of the largest parades in America, celebrating the African-American heritage.[..]

The question is obviously not whether Americans, or anyone else, has the right to wear our flag on their t-shirts. But empathetic people realize much depends on context. If, on Cinco de Mayo, you turn up at your school with a large Mexican-American student population wearing such shirts, are you (1) joining in the spirit of the holiday, or (2) looking for trouble?

I suggest you intend to insult your fellow students. Not because they do not respect THEIR flag, but because you do not respect their heritage. That there are five of you in matching shirts demonstrates you want to be deliberately provocative.

Give 'em hell, Roger.

The Blacks and Hispanics have been warring in the jails for sometime now. In honor of Cinco de Mayo, the word is that the Mexican gangs are going to try and kill as many blacks as possible. The police said that they have no hard evidence of a real plot, but will put out extra security on the streets. Some African-American families are keeping their children home from school...more to follow.

Lets pray that's only a rumor.