If you think the worst thing about election night’s sweeping and historical Republican victory around the nation was the taking of the U.S. House of Representatives or all of the new governors in gubernatorial mansions across the nation think again. The GOP rise, which reflects a stronger undercurrent of racial sentiments than what has been proposed has a few more tricks up its sleeve – all of which seem to display anti-ethnic dispositions.
On Tueday, Nov. 2, Arizona voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 107, entitled the Arizona Civil Rights Initiative. It comes from the House of Representatives HCR 2019, as a proposed Constitutional Amendment that will amend the Arizona Constitution to ban affirmative action programs that give preferential treatment to (or discriminate against) any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education or public contracting.
Yes, Affirmative Action is no longer the law of the land in Arizona. Now, under the guise of providing an equal opportunity environment for all, girls, women and people of color who are under-represented in all levels of society, are likely to be lost in the battle will likely fall even farther behind the status quo.
Prop. 107 will eliminate many of the current programs that support academic progress and improved student achievement. The measure itself was the brain child of wealthy out-of-state republicans who see Arizona as a fertile test ground as it has proffered to be for discriminatory immigration laws that are currently under the examination of Federal courts. Affirmative action policy served an important purpose — making up for missing opportunities in education and the workplace that still exist in America.
The new tide that has followed the GOP is more than directed against non-white American citizens and anything that is different. Now we can expect a host of such laws, brought by the GOP across the nation, all of which will target African American, Latino and Muslim populations.
Another development on Nov. 2: in Oklahoma State Question 755, which amends the Oklahoma constitution to forbid courts in Oklahoma from considering sharia law or international law in reaching their decisions, passed making the state the first state in the U.S. to ban Islamic sharia law. I would not be surprised if they try to repeal the voting Rights Act next. –torrance stephens, ph.d.
