Arizona Governor & Sup. of Public Instruction the New Face of Racism: Banning Chicano/Mexican American Ethnic Studies.

If you weren't clear about how racist Republicans were in this country, and proud of it, Arizona has decided to stand front and center by banning Chicano/Mexican American studies exclusively.

This CNN Anderson Cooper interview pretty much sums up the true intentions of conservative white supremacy in Arizona and America right now. The same arguments used to do away with affirmative action are now used to deny ethnic studies in our public schools. After all, it's crazy to think there's discrimination in America. With the election of our first black president, we should be celebrating our post racial future. Horne's use of Martin Luther King Jr.'s words "we should be judged by the content of our character and not the color of our skin" is out of context and typically used by the right as a way to deny racism exists.

Sup. Horne's insistence the Chicano/Mexican American studies programs is divisive is xenophobic enough to get him elected as the states next attorney general.




LA Times:

A bill that aims to ban ethnic studies in Arizona schools was signed into law Tuesday by Gov. Jan Brewer, cheering critics who called such classes divisive and alarming others who said it's yet another law targeting Latinos in the state.

HB 2281 bans schools from teaching classes that are designed for students of a particular ethnic group, promote resentment or advocate ethnic solidarity over treating pupils as individuals. The bill also bans classes that promote the overthrow of the U.S. government. The bill was written to target the Chicano, or Mexican American, studies program in the Tucson school system, said state Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Horne … (who) has been trying to end the program for years, saying it divides students by race and promotes resentment.

Washington Post:

According to the Associated Press, Horne has wanted to limit the program since he learned several years ago that Hispanic civil right activist Dolores Herta told Tucson high school students that “Republicans hate Latinos.”

In the Mexican-American Studies program, an American history course explores the role of Hispanics in the Vietnam War, and a literature course emphasizes Latino authors. The kids learn, for example, that Arizona was once part of Mexico, and that in the 1960s Chicano radicals called for reclaiming the land.

Subversive stuff, that.