LISTEN TO MACKENZIE BARIS & NAVID NASR
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Mackenzie Baris (left) and Rosa Lozano (right) attempting to unfurl banner. (Image courtesy of Washington Post)
The Arizona Diamondbacks are slated to host the 2011 All-Star Game, but a growing number of individuals and groups are calling on Major League Baseball and Commissioner Bud Selig to move the game due to Arizona’s passage of the anti-immigrant legislation known as SB 1070. Sunday, August 15th, the Washington Nationals’ ace pitcher Stephen Strasburg took the mound against the Diamondbacks, but he was pulled before the start of the sixth inning after activists disrupted the game. Nationals’ manager Jim Riggleman told the Washington Post, “Once that stuff was going on, I decided I’m not going to throw him back out there.”
Mackenzie Baris and Navid Nasr were two of the individuals involved in the well-coordinated action which is part of a series of disruptions of Diamondback games. As she ran onto the field, Baris was tackled by a security guard before she was able to completely unfurl a banner which read, “Boycott Racism. Stop SB 1070. Move the Game.” As Baris was being tackled, Navid Nasr helped unfurl a banner in the stands which read, “Bud Selig, Move All Star Game. No SB 1070.”
Nasr explained the need for the action: “I think it bares saying that actually under Obama, per year we’re having more deportations than we ever had under Bush. That needs to be said… 400,000 deportations is what we’re on pace for this year. That’s way more than any single year under Bush and people need to keep that in mind.”
This act of civil disobedience led to Baris’s second arrest this year over protesting SB 1070. She said, “I think that it really says something that I’m going to jail twice in one year because of laws like SB 1070; because we have a president and a Department of Homeland Security that continue to deport people in mass numbers, that are going to be beefing up border security rather than implementing comprehensive immigration reform. So I have a feeling this isn’t going to be the last time that there are people having to commit civil disobedience before we’re victorious in this movement for immigrant rights.”