Arizona’s new immigration law has sparked fervent demonstrations and activist work of all kinds. Many cite the law as a blatant example of racial profiling, scapegoating, and hatred. Yesterday, Arizona federal judge Susan Bolton attempted to affirm the Obama administration’s position against the bill, but failed to meet the demand for an injunction that would have stopped SB1070 all together. Today, SB1070 officially goes into effect, but without many of the provisions that gave the law ‘real teeth‘.

Music artists have joined the ever- growing backlash against Arizona’s new anti-immigration law. The boycotts began two weeks ago, when Rage Against the Machine threw a benefit concert that raised $300,000 for organizations fighting the bill. More and more artists are joining what is being called the Soundstrike, including Kanye West, Cypress Hill, Tenacious D, Massive Attack, Norteno superstars Los Tigres del Norte, salsa-ska band Ozomatli, Nine Inch Nails, Maroon 5, Ben Harper, State Radio, Anti-Flag, and many more. Though some argue that the bands’ efforts will only hurt businesses in Arizona and disappoint fans, the nature of the boycott reflects the anger felt by those fighting against SB1070, a law they see as legalizing racial profiling and fueling an already thriving culture of hatred. In the video below, Zach de la Rocha speaks about the Soundstrike movement:

A number of other activist and artistic efforts have emerged in the fight against SB1070. On July 28th, a group known as Stop the Hate scaled down a construction crane in Phoenix to display a large banner calling for an injunction against the implementation of the law. In a statement released by the group, the activists point to the true nature of the law:

“We say ‘stop hate’ because SB 1070 is not immigration policy. Like the experience of the Irish, Italian, Chinese or others, SB 1070 is simply scapegoating and targeting of the most vulnerable among us in these uncertain times; times that should call us to stand together as a people. Within days of SB 1070 passing, we witnessed vicious hate crimes against Latinos in the Southwest. We know that hateful laws legitimize hateful acts and that tolerating their passage signals a dangerous direction for the country.”

Ernesto Yerena, a 23 year- old activist leader and artist, creates simple posters reminiscent of anti- war and civil rights graphics of the 1960s. Yerena grew up close to the border, and eventually found a way to blend his passion for art with his passionate resistance of the anti- immigration movement. See more of his work here.

Yesterday’s small victory is only the beginning in a long fight that will likely end up in the Supreme Court. As the fight continues, musicians, artists, and other activists will surely continue express their anger with Arizona and it’s leaders. Legislators and citizens are left with the responsibility to demand that this unjust law be stopped.

Anti-Racism World Cup 2010
July 16-18

Donegal Celtic FC
Suffolk Road
Belfast Northern Ireland BT17

“For the last three years teams have traveled from across the world to play against teams from various ethnic minority groups and from local communities in Belfast and across Ireland.

Last years tournament involved over 500 local people and 100 international guests and was a showcase for Anti-Racism against a backdrop of an upsurge of racist attacks in Belfast.

This year we intend to bring more teams to Belfast, including for the first time a Palestinian youth team, and we intend to make the tournament the largest anti-racist event in Ireland in 2010.”

[Text and graphic from ARWC website. Thanks to Andy Hudson in northern England. Cross-posted to the blog of Goal 2010!, a World Cup soccer and social media project. ]

Complement to an earlier post on a panel on sports, politics and race at the US Social Forum in Detroit, below is a link to the audio of the event.

KPFA | Hard Knock Radio

Featuring Author Dave Zirin, hard knock contributor and artist Favianna Rodriguez, South African Trevor Ngwane, an activist and organizer, and Mike James, co founder of Athletes United For Peace. The panel is moderated by  Davey D.

Listen

[Graphic from HKR website. NB: catch it while you can – KPFA notes that the audio archive will only be available until July 12, 2010. Cross-posted to the blog of Goal 2010!, a soccer and social media project. Thanks to HP for the tip. ]

carriage trade
62 Walker Street
New York, NY 10013
212.343.2944

Through July 18:
Mistaken Identity

Dan Graham
Innocence Project
Carol Irving
John Schabel
Karen Yama
The Yes Men

“While the genre of portraiture tends to feature clearly defined subjects, the portrait show Mistaken Identity focuses instead on the uncertainties of facial recognition and how misperception might affect behavior in everyday experience. Linking the concept of belief to what we can “know” about an individual’s face, the exhibition explores identification as a process influenced by the particular circumstances of any given encounter.

Commonly associated with detective stories and courtroom dramas, the need of proof of an individual’s identity also has a utilitarian aspect, as our memories for faces plays a significant role in the most mundane of exchanges. In the somewhat rare case of people with prosopagnosia (face blindness), friends and family are indistinguishable from strangers, so that the “context” of an individual (hair, clothing, the sound of a voice) often provides the only clues to their identity. For an eyewitness or victim of a crime, these same associations can prove misleading, as they may falsely trigger a link to an innocent person who has chance connections to a perpetrator’s appearance.

The case of imposters provides yet another example of a loss of identity through context, but here the subject willingly foregoes recognition in favor of subterfuge. When exposed, the temporary forfeiture of an identity is often met with a great deal of hostility. Those fooled by the deception are now faced with the uncertainty of their convictions. This need for authentication in connection with facial identification runs deep, as it underlines the survival mechanisms that guide our perceptions of whom and what we can trust.

Approaching portraiture as a means to explore the complex relationship between perception and circumstance, the work in the exhibition Mistaken Identity presents a range of possibilities concerning the construction of belief in the process of fixing an individual’s identity.”

The Innocence Project is affiliated with Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University

[Text from gallery website.]

[Meanwhile, halfway across the globe:]

US Social Forum 2010

Thursday, June 23
Presentation: World Cup, Sports and Social Justice
Cobo Hall
Detroit, Michigan USA

* Dave Zirin – Author “A People’s History of Sports in the U.S.” The Edge of Sports
* Favianna Rodriguez – Presente.org‘s “Move the Game”
* LIVE from South Africa via Skype – Trevor Ngwane, Organizer for the Anti-Privatisation Forum and the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee
* moderator: Davey D

“The World Cup will is now playing live and a billion people are watching. Join us to learn about sports as a dynamic site of resistance, popular expression and community transformation.

Massive workers’ strikes, brutal sweeps of the homeless, more than 20 assassinations of whistle blowers: one version of the World Cup is now playing live on TV and more than a billion people are watching.

While the U.S. Left has largely dismissed sports as a distraction from serious organizing and the pursuit of social justice, across the globe sports are seen as a crucial site of both struggle and transformation – as a vehicle for popular expression and resistance.

In recent weeks, activists across the U.S. have been rallying wherever the Arizona Diamondbacks play to protest the racist immigration law SB 1070, demanding that Major League Baseball “move the game” – the 2011 All Star Game slated to be played in Phoenix. In an unprecedented and highly-publicized move, the NBA’s Phoenix Suns wore “Los Suns” jerseys to draw attention to the unjust legislation.

Less well-known are the community coalitions across the country that work every day to challenge public financing of corporate-owned stadiums, replace racist team mascots, and foster non-sexist practices by school districts and personnel. Sports also provide organizers with huge opportunities to build bridges “beyond the choir” and impact the dominant messages of the day.

Patrick Bond from the Center Civil Society in Durban has said: “Anytime you have [a] billion people watching, that’s called leverage.”

Join us for this inspiring session on the intersections of sports, social justice and community transformation.”

[Cross-posted to the blog of Goal 2010!, a soccer and social media project. Thanks to HP on site in Detroit for the tip!]

[With thanks to A.P. for the tip.]

Love Football | Hate Poverty: Ranking the World Cup 2010 teams based on social justice indicators

Who Should I Cheer For?

[Cross-posted to the blog of Goal 2010!, a soccer and social media project. Graphic: screen grab of comparison of  Group H teams Portugal and its former colony Brazil.]

Arizona’s racial profiling law, also know as SB 1070, is raising deep questions about American ideals of equality and fairness by making racism and racial profiling the law of the land in Arizona.

Sweet Honey In The Rock, the critically acclaimed and socially conscious a capella group is bringing out a song for Arizona: Are We A Nation?

The Center for Community Change is offering a free download of the new song here.

DC area folks,

This month attend “Sowing Seeds Here and Now: A Chesapeake Urban Farming Summit” on June 18th.

Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC) 10300 Baltimore Ave College Park, MD 20705

Click here to learn more about all of the exciting and extensive list of workshops, seminars, speakers, etc. which range from learning about the drastic links between food and health to how to plan an urban farm and the connection between food, farming, and environmental justice.

“The goal of our one-day hands-on learning and strategizing event is to catalyze and support urban farming throughout our greater metropolitan DC area.”

The purpose of this piece is to visualize the vast network of altruistic human organizations in every country, city, and community around the world, all working in parallel together. Despite their enormous diversity of size, focus, and geographic location, these organizations are all united around a core set of values in which compassion and stewardship are made highest priorities. The hundreds of millions of individuals who are creating and running these organizations bring a nourishing richness of passion, imagination, and integrity to this process. In that way I think of this piece as being like a compass, pointing toward a true source of hope and inspiration for our times.

Link.

Baltimore’s Contemporary Museum is presenting a major, multi-venue survey of work by Bradley McCallum and Jacqueline Tarry, called Bearing Witness.  Through July 31st.

A husband and wife collaborative, artists McCallum and Tarry have produced an incredible body of work that possesses a potent combination of seductive, exquisitely crafted images and incisive content. Their art challenges audiences to reflect deeply on teen homelessness, gun violence in inner cities, homicide, the legacy of the civil rights movement and their own circumstance as an interracial couple. These works take the form of large-scale public projects, interactive sculpture, painting, photography, and video. Over the course of their careers, they have produced powerful civic-based projects with lasting impact in the communities they engage. This exhibition reveals their substantial contribution to the history and representation of race relations and the enduring influence that their community-based practice has had over the years.