Thread: Activists want All-Star game moved from Arizona

Published: July 12, 2010
Updated: 3:35 p.m.
Activists want All-Star game moved from Arizona
BY CINDY CARCAMO
203 comments


ANAHEIM – Rarely do San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers fans see eye-to-eye on baseball. It was different Monday, when a few stood side-by-side to demand Major League Baseball move next year's All-Star game out of Arizona.

"We may be unable to disagree on what is the best Major League Baseball Team, clearly the Giants... but we can all agree that there's no place for SB1070 in the United States," said Roberto Lovato, co-founder of Presente.org. "There's no place for exposing fans, children, players, coaches and other to the type of discrimination and racial profiling that has been documented in Arizona."

Lovato wore a Giants jersey as he addressed the media and passersby at a Monday morning press conference in front of the Anaheim Marriott Hotel. Surrounded by about two dozen activists holding signs, he announced that the group had gathered 110,000 petitions to move the All-Star game away from Phoenix next year.

They had planned on personally delivering the boxes full of petitions to Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig but were turned away by Marriott Hotel officials who asked them to leave and refused to take the petitions to Selig, who was believed to be in the building.

"We want Bud Selig to be on the right side of history and do the right thing – to stand on the side of American values and justice,'' said Lovato, whose group aims to improve the lives of Latinos in the United States.

Selig has pretty much stayed silent on the issue.

"Apparently all the people around and in minority communities think we're doing OK. That's the issue, and that's the answer," he told the Associated Press in May. "I told the clubs today: 'Be proud of what we've done.' They are. We should. And that's our answer. We control our own fate, and we've done very well."

Monday's call was made a day before the MLB All-Star game is played at Angel Stadium, just a couple of miles east of the hotel.

Representatives from various immigration rights movements, including the Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights of Los Angeles, Clergy & Laity United for Economic Justice, Orange County Dream Team, and Orange County Labor Federation also announced their demands.

The petitions are part of a national campaign called MoveTheGame.org that has coordinated several rallies across the country to protest Arizona's recent passage of the anti-illegal immigration law SB1070.

Polls show, however that most Americans support the new anti-illegal immigration law in Arizona, which some other states are now looking into replicating.

Monday's press conference is the latest local reaction to the Arizona law, which has prompted boycotts as well "buycotts" toward Arizona from local activists.

The state law makes it a crime to lack immigration papers in Arizona and requires police to ask for documentation of legal status if there is "reasonable suspicion" the person they stopped is in the country illegally. The law only takes place when someone is stopped on suspicion of violating another law. The law was also later amended to discourage racial profiling.

SB1070 is expected to go into effect at the end of July but may be delayed by multiple pending court challenges.

The law has led to allegations that it would lead to racial profiling against Latinos and destroy the trust law enforcement has worked years in trying to foster with the Latino community in that region.

Anti-illegal immigration activists say the new law is the only way the state can defend itself after becoming the nation's busiest corridor for illegal immigration and smuggling.

Still, groups like those at Monday's press conference said the law could lead to racial profiling by law enforcement who are left up to interpreting the law and what it means to have "reasonable suspicion" that a person is in the country illegally.

Enrique Morones, formerly in charge of the San Diego Padres marketing and diversity initiative, said he was disappointed in Selig's silence.

"If Bud Selig were commissioner when Jackie Robinson broke the color line, we never would have heard of Jackie Robinson," he said.

Morones, founder of Border Angels in San Diego, said he's not opposed to border security but instead a law that he called discriminatory.

"Baseball is a national past time. Is racial profiling a national past time? We will never forget that you stood by silently while many were being persecuted," Morones said of Selig... "If you can change baseball, you can change America."

The attempt to move the All-Star game away from Arizona launched in May as a joint campaign led by Presente.org and MoveOn.org

http://www.ocregister.com/news/law-2572 ... -game.html

all these jokers who play the race card truly do not know what the bill says or doesnt say. they are just like eric holder