Jon Justice Update: When the Victim Gets Rolled Again
Blogging While Black/Latin@, Fighting The Good Fight, Wingnutteria August 8th, 2008
You know you live in America when the victim of a virtual hate crime gets the punishment….and the perpetrator gets off scot free.
Apparently, the racist and misogynist antics of Phoenix right-wing shock jock Jon Justice isn’t enough to get him fired from his job at “The Truth”….but the actions of his targeted victim, Latina public defender Isabel Garcia, might be enough to cost her hers.
The update from ProfBW over at WOC PhD:
While Jon Justice continues to enjoy full privileges as a radio host after posting mock sexual assault videos in which he made racist comments about Latinas and immigrants while assaulting a piñata with public defender Isabel Garcia’s face pasted to it (see my original post for more), his efforts to have Garcia dismissed from her job as a public defender in Arizona have gone forward. Garcia is currently under investigation by the AZ state bar for participating in a protest against a book signing for a book that supports active discrimination against immigrants and subversion of their rights. “Justice” and others, have misrepresented the events to say that Garcia’s “toting of a severed piñata head of a police officer” constitutes violation of the bar’s code of conduct. Garcia was actually picking up the head after protesters split the piñata open in traditional form. She and others actively protested the incitement of anti-immigrant sentiment and abuse of immigrants and the Latin@ community in AZ which they felt were being exacerbated by the event and the author. Should the review board decide that Garcia is guilty of violating codes of conduct, she could lose her license to practice law in the state of Arizona and would also lose her job as a public defender.
The “police officer”, as I previously stated, happened to be Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arapio, who was in town pushing his latest anti-immigration book.
The message that a decision against Garcia sends, while Jon Justice continues to be on the air, is ultimately detrimental to everyone. What it says about the rights of brown people in Arizona and brown women in particular is clear: racism and sexism are not only irrelevant in Arizona they are supported by the state. No one benefits from living in a state where this is how outsiders and insiders alike view the legal apparatus. John Justice can simulate sexual assault on two separate occasions while making derogatory comments about Latinas, immigrants, and Chican@ culture, post them on his workplace website, and defend his actions through his workplace - radio show and workplace owned blog without consequence. Garcia loses her license and her job for participating in a protest and picking up the remains of a piñata.
The conflict has already encouraged hate groups to target woc bloggers defending Garcia as well as to circulate her picture on their sites. (you can do a google image search for evidence as I am not linking to them.) This targeting makes it clear that John’s [sic] behavior encouraged listeners to lash out against both Garcia herself and women of color in general and that is part of the social definition of hate speech.
ProfBW give out some addresses where you can send some real messages in Ms. Garcia’s behalf…I’ll just link you to her for the details.
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