Arizona State Senate President Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, has an unwavering commitment to white supremacy.
This has manifested in the past when Sen. Pearce has accused immigrants of destroying Arizona’s communities, even though research has shown the opposite to be true.
Fabricating narratives that deceptively demonize immigrants is a favorite pastime for the senator. Yet, whenever people expose his bigotry, he expels foolish interpretations of the Constitution and falsely asserts himself to have ultimate moral authority.
Such fallacies are notable when Pearce appeared on the Dec. 28, 2010, edition of the show “John King, USA.” Pearce revealed his most recent plan to strengthen white power by criminalizing brown women and instilling fear in them about their reproductive systems.
During the interview, he makes the absurd notion that migrant women are using American “incentives” for personal gain. Pearce then concludes that we must punish these women by denying their babies citizenship.
This assertion assumes that migration to the United States is an easy action and an uncomplicated decision.
Pearce’s simplified analysis ignores several facts, including the violence and danger women face during migration, as detailed in Kathleen Staudt’s book, “Human Rights Along the U.S.-Mexico Border: Gendered Violence and Insecurity.”
The assertion Pearce makes also disregards our country’s historical progress for people of color and women in a blatant attempt to take us back to an era of Jim Crow terror.
After the Civil War, Congress passed the 13th Amendment, which outlaws slavery and involuntary servitude, and the 14th Amendment, which states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
When asked about the latter amendment, Pearce makes the deluded claim that it has been “hijacked” of its lone intent: giving African-Americans citizenship.
The imaginary hijacking the Senator is referencing is the 1898 United States v. Wong Kim Ark Supreme Court decision, which ruled that all children born in the United States are citizens regardless of their parents’ national origin.
“Involuntary servitude” was used in the 13th Amendment to prohibit any possibility for Mexican peonage and Chinese coolie labor.
Because of the 1873 Slaughter-House Cases, which focused on expanding the rights of white businessmen and not African-Americans, the scope of this amendment was improperly limited.
The Slaughter-House Cases also laid the groundwork for the infamous majority ruling that upheld the doctrine of separate but equal in 1896 with Plessy v. Ferguson.
It was not until 1954 that the Court’s Plessy v. Ferguson ruling was overturned in Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka.
According to journal articles by Matthew C. Whitaker, ASU professor of history, Phoenix was the first school district to desegregate its public schools in 1953, playing a key role in the Brown ruling that separate is inherently unequal.
Thus, listening to Pearce base his logic in Supreme Court decisions that legitimized racial segregation and institutionalized sexism is downright enraging.
Women were denied the protections of the 14th Amendment in Minor v. Happersett, another case influenced by the Slaughter-House Cases precedent.
People from all communities must band together and demand that Arizona stops straying down the path of oppression. We have led the way toward justice before. Let us do it again.
Athena can be reached at asalman3@asu.edu
