From [ColorLines] Monday’s Supreme Court ruling to uphold the “show me your papers” provision in the case of Arizona v. the United States leaves Latinos and people of color in the state — and any other state where a similar law might spring up — open to racial profiling as law enforcement officers have been given the go-ahead to stop and question anyone. In Arizona, where the infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio runs internment-style detention camps and where he forced a woman to give birth in shackles, activists say the human rights crisis in the state has been serious long before the fight over SB 1070 began.

What SB 1070 did do, they say, was encourage people to reach the next level in their human rights struggle. While people of color in Arizona face dehumanizing language, laws, and moneyed anti-immigrant groups, they remain strong in confronting injustice head on and rejecting the dehumanizing, racist law. The Alto Arizona campaign just released this video highlighting strong voices that challenge every single one of us to join them in standing up and calling on President Obama to intervene by cutting off SB 1070’s access to ICE.

“For now racial profiling is law in Arizona,” said Carlos Garcia, an organizer with the Phoenix-based immigrant rights group Puente Arizona. “Slavery and segregation were too once legal. Legal does not mean moral or ethical.”[MORE]  

Garcia’s remark is so important because it does away with an excuse that we’ve all likely heard, usually used by someone in attempt to better explain or excuse the behavior of governments or bystanders during horrible chapters in history that have harmed women, people of color, queer people, gender non-conforming people and people with disabilities: “Maybe they didn’t know any better back then.” It’s a tired, old excuse that prevents us from being critical or applying our standards of how human beings should be treated no matter what year it is.