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Artist News Top Stories
US artists rage against Arizona’s new immigration laws
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 4 June 2010
As the Rage boys get ready to rock Finsbury Park in London this weekend in celebration of their successful raging against the ‘X-Factor’ machine last December, back home they’re doing some proper political raging, taking on the whole state of Arizona.
Rage Against The Machine are leading a political campaign called The Sound Strike, and are encouraging bands to officially boycott Arizona in response to new immigration rules which were voted through by the state’s government back in April and which will come into effect at the end of next month.
Amongst other things the new laws give police more powers to stop anyone they suspect as not being a US national and to demand to see paperwork that proves their right to stay or such like. Critics say the new rules will result in a new era of racial profiling and in non-Whites being harassed by law enforcement officials.
Writing about the new rules – which have been criticised by numerous political and civil rights groups, and by President Obama – RATM’s Zach de la Rocha writes: “Some of us grew up dealing with racial profiling, but this law takes it to a whole new low. Fans of our music, our stories, our films and our words can be pulled over and harassed every day because they are brown or black, or for the way they speak, or for the music they listen to. We are not going to play in Arizona. We are going to boycott Arizona. If other states follow the direction of the Arizona government, we could be headed towards a pre-civil rights era reality”.
Other artists who have pledged to not perform in Arizona until the new laws are repealed or dramatically amended are Cypress Hill, Conor Oberst, Kanye West, Joe Satriani, Serj Tankian, Ozomatli, Massive Attack, Spank Rock, Sonic Youth and Tenacious D.
More info at www.thesoundstrike.net
