{"id":2517,"date":"2011-08-29T14:38:14","date_gmt":"2011-08-29T19:38:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.progressivefox.com\/?p=2517"},"modified":"2018-08-16T15:51:35","modified_gmt":"2018-08-16T20:51:35","slug":"kendall-republicans-welcome-racial-profiling-as-new-family-value","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.progressivefox.com\/?p=2517","title":{"rendered":"Kendall Republicans Welcome Racial Profiling as New Family Value"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Kendall County Republican Central Committee invited one of the\u00a0most\u00a0divisive people in America to be the keynote speaker at their annual family picnic.\u00a0I guess the six or seven Republican presidential hopefuls are skipping Kendall County, and Sarah Palin was not available, so they turned to the other\u00a0media hound, Joe Arpaio.<\/p>\n

What is scary is that Joe Arpaio, who put Arizona taxpayers on the hook for his illegal racial profiling, and\u00a0is also being investigated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, drew several hundred Republicans to a fundraiser.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I read this Beacon News article <\/a>and decided Sunday afternoon was an appropriate time to pen my response.\u00a0 On this Sunday, I am certain that many Republicans who\u00a0pledge to the\u00a0Christian faith were in church pews, but where\u00a0were they on Saturday when Joe Arpaio was in town?\u00a0 Were they at the protest outside or did they venture inside the GOP fundraiser?<\/p>\n

Being raised on the mission field in West Africa I learned a Sunday School song\u00a0that has this verse, “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world.\u00a0 Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Every child who attends Sunday School probably knows this song and many of us adults\u00a0could hum along.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I guess I am scratching my head because I don’t understand how the Republicans who sing, “Red and yellow, black and white,” on Sunday can go to a fundraiser on Saturday that features a keynote speaker who openly pushes a message of hate, intolerance and division.\u00a0 Furthermore, this is a lawman who is being investigated for breaking the law; specifically, racial profiling the citizens of Maricopa County, Arizona.\u00a0 Maybe some Sunday School teacher needs to re-write the song to include brown people and that would fix everything.<\/p>\n

Maybe there is a God who recognizes borders and a God who does not recognize borders.\u00a0 Growing up I guess I was exposed to the God who does not recognize borders, and many of the good Christians in Kendall County worship a God that recognizes borders.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And I have not heard a peep from the other wing of the Republican Party, the business community that exploits undocumented workers for cheap labor here in the United States.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I guess both wings of the Republican Party that attend the “family” picnic now embrace\u00a0racial profiling; and at a minimum, it is fair to say that the Republicans are no longer the party of Abraham Lincoln, they are the party of the racial profilers.<\/p>\n

So who in Kendall County is standing up for equality and justice?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Corey Johnson, with Laborers Local 149, has been one of the strongest local voices of reason on the topic and was recently quoted in the Oswego Patch<\/a>.\u00a0 Here is a snip of what Johnson told the Patch.<\/p>\n

Johnson said the Republican committee has made a mistake in inviting Arpaio to talk during the picnic. The local laborers union boasts several Hispanic members. He said these members have asked Johnson and the union leadership to speak out against the choice of speaker whom these members say has long discriminated against Hispanic residents in Arizona.<\/p>\n

“These members are the same ones who go to our churches. They are the same ones whose kids go to our schools. They are the same ones who pay taxes in our community,” Johnson said. “Yet the local Republicans bring in a guy who is truly offensive to them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As a former resident of Kendall County, I often miss the country and rolling corn fields.\u00a0\u00a0However,\u00a0the Arpaio event made me realize how much I appreciate living\u00a0in my diverse neighborhood\u00a0on the East side of\u00a0Aurora.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Kendall County Republican Central Committee invited one of the\u00a0most\u00a0divisive people in America to be the keynote speaker at their annual family picnic.\u00a0I guess the six or seven Republican presidential hopefuls are skipping Kendall County, and Sarah Palin was not available, so they turned to the other\u00a0media hound, Joe Arpaio. What is scary is that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[78],"tags":[657,2869,54,59,656,398,655],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.progressivefox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2517"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.progressivefox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.progressivefox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.progressivefox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.progressivefox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2517"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"http:\/\/www.progressivefox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7145,"href":"http:\/\/www.progressivefox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2517\/revisions\/7145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.progressivefox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.progressivefox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.progressivefox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}