Blue Triangle

I didn’t look.
Like you I didn’t look;
I turned my head,
Averted my eyes,
Plugged my ears,
Stilled my tongue,
Believing if I waited
Someone else would see
Someone else would hear
Someone else would speak
Because it all happened
To someone else
I never understood
I would be
Someone else someday
Because I didn’t
Look like you.


Posted by Madelyn Kelstein Campbell on Facebook: "On July 29, Arizona law S.B. 1070 is scheduled to go into effect, empowering local law enforcement agencies to ask people whom they think might be illegal immigrants for their papers (if they have been stopped for any other infraction). Being required to carry one's papers aroun...d is an early and common tactic used by totalitarian regimes to intimidate people and keep them in line.
This is not to say that the vast majority of people who supported this law did so out of malevolence, but make no mistake, this is not benign. This is not about the illegal immigrants. This is about legally intimidating people who look different (after all, who looks like an illegal immigrant? Will they be going after everyone who looks Canadian? Or Irish?).
When the Nazis first went into Denmark and announced that the Jews would all have to wear yellow Stars of David on their clothing, the story goes that the King of Denmark rode out the next morning wearing a yellow Star of David. The rest of the population then followed his example. Everyone stood in solidarity with their Jewish brothers and sisters. The Nazis had other markers, as well. They required foreign forced laborers to wear blue triangles. In that spirit, I invite you to Wear Your Papers on July 29th. You simply need to affix a blue inverted triangle to your clothing and stand in solidarity with your brothers and sisters in Arizona.
This isn't about immigration. It is about how we treat the people who are here. Let's take a stand."