NATION OF IMMIGRANTS, MEET LAND OF OPPORTUNITY. It is a combination that has sometimes resulted in some amazing happenings. Behold the United States of America, itself! Although to tell the true story of “America,” we’d have to talk about a whole lot of exploitation of brown people, wouldn’t we?
I SAT IN ON a White House debriefing conference call on Friday, and took notes. I’ll write on that soon, and talk about my own thoughts, hopes, and fears on the issue. For now, here’s a New America Media op ed on why the time for immigration is now.
CLOSING OUT OUR WEEKEND OF TRIBUTE to Michael Jackson, here’s one of possibly the best songs about friendship, or love, or both—that exists. A lot of that is performance. It’s written for a rat, but what’s new? The footage is great, too. An old grainy version of MJ as a kid, feels like a painting in motion.
WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME you saw people all over the world gathering in crowds from Pakistan to Beijing to Chile to LA to cry and light candles? When was the last time you saw crowds from Harlem to London to San Francisco spontaneously come together to dance with joy?
I KEEP TELLING MYSELF it’s over. That twisting stab of loss…that feeling that something beautiful has left forever. I repeat to myself that all energy just changes shape and trades places…that the joy and movement and sound and love and connection will live on.
THE WEINER FAMILY makes its monies from selling hate to the masses; hate pointed and aimed at immigrants, queers, Obama, liberals, and a host of others. It’s a savage and soulless way to make a living—especially when at the same time you are raking in cash from the same people you abuse thus.
Beat me, hate me
You can never break me
Will me, thrill me
You can never kill me
All I wanna say is that they don’t really care about us
MICHAEL JACKSON IS DEAD. For a second I want to talk about what he meant in my life. And how I see him. There will be plenty of time for endless conversations and accusations and equivocations and decimations of his person. I only want to mark the moment for myself.
ONCE UPON A TIME, Barack Obama told the nation that we could not afford to approach immigration piecemeal and that his administration would tackle the issue in 2009. The surety of this sentiment has since trickled down into distillations fraught with equivocation. This week’s Wire looks at the growing polarization between advocates and foes of immigration reform.
SOMETHING MUST CHANGE. When US citizens already suffering from a terrible loss are attacked by other citizens en masse, and for nothing more than having Spanish names, it makes me feel like the past has reared up; days of Civil Rights era struggle, days of anti-Greaser hate, days of Los Vatos Locos and the dangerous fabled Pachuco. La Lucha Sigue.
A DEPARTMENT LIKE ICE has no conscience, of course. Just directives (like “make 400,000 arrests this year”) and a great concern for its public image. If that’s the case, however, I can’t imagine why they’d think chilling out on train platforms and plucking young Latinas out of the crowd would go over well.
THAT SOUND YOU HEAR is the moan of the Newspaper industry as readers abandon the pulpy, stinking ship in droves. This is, in part, why the blogosphere has taken off and some troublemaker like myself can gain such a platform. (Well, that and my secret salsa!)
I USE THESE DAYS OF INTENSITY and increased scrutiny and intensified curiosity as a time to draw closer to those en la lucha whom I know are tried and trusted. What might my own thoughts mean combined with your intuitions? It gets interesting.
WELCOME TO ANOTHER SORDID CHAPTER in the Sherrif Joe Arpaio Freak Show. I know my regulars are all too aware of this sad, aging, dinocreptastic remnant of an era screeching into our past and not gracefully and with guns—but if you are not, here is a treat for you, a YouTube vid dealing with his latest daring act of wackery.
WHEN A GOVERNMENT build walls to stave off fears, it is, ironically, reinforcing that same emotion of fear. When hostile and punitive legislation is enacted, fear of the Other is mixed with aggression. When a fearful and aggressively rigid mindset is applied to social fluctuations that require flexibility and change, the result is a drastic increase of that negative energy.
House of Nezua
the XOLAGRAFIK theater!
