Latinas are Watching in Arizona

[EFerrari]

Women are Watching blog

5.23.12

Arizona is simply overflowing with ideas about keeping Latinos in check. First, it was SB 1070 — a broad and strict anti-undocumented immigration measure that caused Latinos all over the United States to stand up in protest. Then Arizona banned ethnic studies classes in public schools, which eventually gave the Tucson school board the green light to ban their Mexican-American studies programs. And now? Now we learn that Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has signed House Bill 2800, a bill banning state funding for Planned Parenthood health centers in the state, called the Whole Woman’s Health Priorities Act. The result? Arizona will significantly reduce access to affordable health care for Latinas living in the Grand Canyon State.

Latinos make up 30 percent of Arizona’s population — a total of 1.9 million people. Twenty-eight percent of them are uninsured. While Gov. Jan Brewer argues that House Bill 2800 is necessary to make sure that no taxpayer money is funding abortions, elected officials, more than anyone else, should know that taxpayer money is very strictly monitored and cannot legally fund abortions. The only result of this bill will be that hundreds of Latinos will lose access to the basic health care that they need. The people most affected by this bill are the people that need affordable health care the most.

While I was in Texas last month fighting for the Women’s Health Program (the battle in Texas still continues), I met many promotores — community health educators — who were extremely concerned about the 130,000 low-income women who would lose access to affordable health care because of Gov. Rick Perry’s attacks against Planned Parenthood. I met Angela*, a middle-aged promotora who tried very hard not to cry as she told me of the women she encounters every day when she goes out to the colonias, the rural parts of town. She told me of a particular woman she managed to get to a Planned Parenthood health center after visiting her at home a few times. The woman hadn’t been to a doctor in 10 years, but with Angela’s help and guidance, she finally felt comfortable getting a checkup. A week after the results came in from the woman’s exam, she found out that she had full-blown cervical cancer. Angela did not tell me the rest of the story. She didn’t have to.

Elected officials in Arizona have followed in Texas’ misguided footsteps. They have vowed to put women’s health and lives at risk just to make a political point. What is even more disturbing to me is that Mitt Romney, if elected president, would construct an America very similar to — if not worse than — today’s Arizona and Texas. It would be an unhealthy America, and one that is not friendly to women or Latinos.

[msongs]

1. watching is necessary. are they voting as well? nt

[EFerrari]

4. That's a good question. Maybe I'll check out the stats for Tucson later tonight. n/t

[Pterodactyl]

8. Not all of them can legally vote.

[Confusious]

2. Let's see,

the state passes a law saying you can't have the classes, and that gives a "green light" for the city to "get rid" of the classes.

REALLY? Did the writer NOT see the logical fallacy of that statement? What would happen if they didn't? MILLIONS in state funding for schools, lost. I suppose the kids should just suck it up and take an even more substandard eduction to prove a point.

Ps. Tucson was the only place that had those classes.

again, REALLY?

pps.. one other thing, none off those books was banned. They were moved to storage because there was no class for them anymore, and they are all available in the libraries of the schools.

http://www.tusd1.org/contents/news/press1112/01-17-12.html

[EFerrari]

3. Omfg, that's exactly what the teabagger nazi school superintendent said.

You know what you call a book that cannot be taught in a classroom? BANNED.

And, fyi, MAS grads had a higher graduation rate than the rest of the district -- a district already under federal supervision for violations of the Civil Rights Act, aka, segregation.


ETA: Here's one quote from this fascist Huppenthal who compared The Pedagogy of the Oppressed to Mein Kampf on Amy's show. lol

JOHN HUPPENTHAL: . . .And so, what we are saying is, you have to go through a curriculum development process that has to be subject to the community, community review, community discussion. In no way, shape or form are we banning any kind of books or any kind of viewpoint from the classroom. But we are saying that if all you’re teaching these students is one viewpoint, one dimension, we can readily see that it’s not an accurate history, it’s not an education at all. It’s not teaching these kids to think critically, but instead it’s an indoctrination. And that’s what we could see replete through the thousands of pages. So we’re asking them to go through a healthy curriculum development process, subject to comprehensive community review and discussion, and to make sure that they are following good educational practices in general.

snip

JOHN HUPPENTHAL: There’s—those books were not—there’s no—nothing about my order that requires that those books be banned at all. You know, I’ve read those books myself to familiarize myself with the issues at hand. But what we have concerns about are how those books are being used. You could use Mein Kampf in the classroom, but you’d have to be really careful, because you—if you found a teacher who wasn’t using it to explore the issues in Mein Kampf critically, but you were—they were using it as a Bible, boy, that would be intolerable.

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/18/debating_tucson_school_districts_book_ban

Sure, John. You didn't ban anything but no one can teach those books. What an ignorant pig.

[Confusious]

5. Logic fallacies

Your comparison is bullshit.

You know who else liked to make comparisons like that? Hitler. You're the same as Hitler.

So if I can't use, I don't know, a "Harlequin Romance" in a class, it's banned? WOW, news to me.

If there's no class for the book, it can't be used can it? Your redefinition of "banned" is sophistry.

Any other logic fallacies you'd like to hit Hitler?

[EFerrari]

6. There is no need to make a comparison. it's a match.

Congratulations.

[Confusious]

7. If you say so Hitler nt