The Mayor Vs. Sheriff Joe

There's been quite a bit of coverage about how the phoenix mayor has been vocal about the sheriff's recent actions. (Channel 15/ABC, Arpaio at odds with Phoenix Mayor Gordon, War of words heats up between Arpaio, Gordon to name a few).

While we might be swayed to see the mayor as a good guy, let us not forget that he moved to make the changes to the phoenix pd policy on asking about immigration status. Let us also not forget that, in the face of every survivor of police brutality, and every family member of a victim of police murder, he denied that we have a problem with police violence in this city.

Please see my previous comments on these subjects: Mayor Gordon Criticizes Anti-Immigrant Racists and Phoenix Mayor Supports Change In Phx PD Immigration Policy.

Mayor Gordon Criticizes Anti-Immigrant Racists

Well, it is a bit of surprise that Phoenix mayor gordon came out against the extremism of the immigration debate. KTAR's January 7 coverage of the mayor's comments was surprising because of the mayor's recent move to change the phoenix police policy of not asking about immigrations status (which i commented on here). According to KTAR, Gordon referenced the ties to white supremacists that many anti-immigrant folks have. Additionally, he criticized them for making themselves judges of who should be in the country.

He has been aware of the hate among these crowds, as his earlier comments show, which somehow was used to justify changing the police policy. This is what i wrote on that:

"As mayor, I have seen our situation escalate to a perilous point. Rhetoric is replacing reason. There's too much hate. It's ugly, it's dangerous, and good people continue to suffer."

So... whose hate is it? Who is it ugly and dangerous for? Maybe he has a different perspective, but it sounds like the racist haters coming out to protest the protests at Pruitt's are representing this hate, ugliness, and danger, although he doesn't specifically mention these folks. But if this is the case, how is the appropriate response to change the police policy? It's like reinstating slavery for the reason that white people are burning crosses because they're not allowed to keep slaves. How is that for reason?

Coming out against the hate doesn't make him my new hero by any means. He still said some error-filled statements about police and racism (the only bad/real racism is that which is not institutionalized is the mindset) as discussed in High Number of Police Shootings in Phoenix. It is interesting that he's one of few officials willing to criticize the racists on this level. It really makes me curious about the police issue though.