Arizona Criminalizes Indigenous Knowledge

Abstract

S p R I n g 2 0 1 3 W I C A Z O S A R E V I E W The ethnic studies conflict in Arizona is a throwback to another era; from its inception, it has been inquisitorial in nature, yet the mainstream media has not adequately reported on its profound implications. The reason might be because the 2010 antiethnic studies HB 2281 legislation is antiIndigenous at its core. To be sure, the other major struggle in Arizona, the 2010 antiimmigrant SB 1070 state measure, which has a repugnant racial profiling component at its core, is also antiIndigenous. The racial profile in question is not Hispanic (which is a misnomer); the profile, per the migra, is and has always been AmerIndigenous. This is the most underreported aspect of these struggles. They are characterized as antiimmigrant or antiMexican measures. They are that, but at their core, both struggles can in effect be traced back to fifteenthand sixteenthcentury thinking. This is not hyperbole; the battles in Arizona have been about who belongs (SB 1070) and what is legitimate and permissible knowledge in the classroom (HB 2281). Both topics are related: SB 1070 attacks the body; HB 2281 attacks the mind. Both attack the spirit. While SB 1070 appears to be a new attack against brownskinned peoples, it is actually but a new phase, the localization of a federal policy that has always been based on racial profiling. What is relatively new is the attack on the thinking of these same communities. That goes back to the era of the Inquisition on this continent, in which church arizona Criminalizes Indigenous Knowledge