You get the impression sometimes there really are two Americas: one where the values of liberty, religious and ethnic diversity, the rule of law and a sense of fair play still reign supreme, and one where bigotry, homophobia, xenophobia, rigid religious dogmatism and “safety” rules the day. It’s why you get places like Arizona where the government is hard at work trying to boot out every single illegal immigrant from the state. You’re probably already aware they’ve passed a draconian and fascist law that basically makes it mandatory for police to arrest anyone they suspect of being there illegally (as in anyone with brown colored skin). What you may not be aware of is they’ve also decided that speaking with a heavy accent is also unacceptable:
The Arizona Department of Education recently began telling school districts that teachers whose spoken English it deems to be heavily accented or ungrammatical must be removed from classes for students still learning English.
The very notion of America potentially becoming a bilingual nation has scared the living crap out of a whole bunch of really racist old white people who fear that “Jose” is going to take all their jobs while apparently also being on welfare (don’t try and understand how racist people manage to believe in this idiotic paradox; it’ll hurt your brain). Never mind the fact illegals account for roughly 20 billion dollars of revenue for the state, or that Mexican workers usually do the tasks everyone else refuses to do. I guess it turns out the safety and comfort of old white people is more important than honoring the very principles etched so poetically on the Statue of Liberty, which should now read as follows:
Give me your Caucasian, your rich,
Your huddled masses yearning to be mistreated for not speaking English ,
Turn back the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed back to their country of birth,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door (presumably to find any Mexican hiding in the dark)!”
Arizona, you fucking suck.