Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., the oldest black fraternity announced they would boycott Arizona for their 104th Anniversary Convention in Phoenix, Arizona.
Herman “Skip” Mason, the fraternity’s national general president said,“Late Thursday, April 29, our national Board of Directors voted unanimously to rescind the location of Phoenix, Arizona as our meeting location of the 104th Anniversary/90th General Convention in July, and to denounce the egregious immigration act signed recently by the governor of Arizona.”
The event was scheduled to take place from July 21 to 25, and will be moved to Las Vegas, Nevada. The convention, was expected to draw up to 10,000 visitors to Arizona.
The real flaw in the logic here is that some folks believe that the violence and illegal activity is due to undocumented workers. In reality, violent crime is down in Arizona but the media and the hard-liners in AZ make sure that if an undocumented worker is involved, it’s big news, but the facts are that violent crime has slowed in the last few years in AZ. The law passed isn’t going to stop the real problem which are drug runners and smugglers, It isn’t even going to slow them down.
There was a great article in the LA Times featuring an interview with an ex-Phoenix cop who had to deal with these issues. (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/immigration/la-me-0502-lopezcolumn-20100502%2C0%2C2732982.column)
And he said it very plainly after a white cop was killed: “I told people that it’s not whites or Hispanics who killed Marc,” he said back then. “It’s drug-dealing cop killers. The issue isn’t ethnicity — it’s crime and drugs.”
And this is the real problem with this law is that it doesn’t address the real issue, at all.