AND SO IT FALLS ON US here at UMX—as well as at other blogs and independent news sites—to spread the word; to remember the name and smile of Brisenia Flores; to make clear that this killing is no isolated event perpetrated by a couple “crazies,” but is woven tightly to the anti-Mexican/anti-immigrant/anti-Latin@ sentiment that festers in so many layers of popular US culture.

From the fearful, punitive talk about immigrants espoused by Republican and Democratic politicians alike, to the video games that posit Mexicans as criminal invaders, to the movies that only present Latinos as gangbangers or cocaine kingpins or street thieves or knife wielding degenerates, to the movements in states like Arizona to wipe out Chican@ culture and history and aim to have us living in fear, to the judicial brutality and disproportionate police punishments meted out to the brownskinned, signals are continually broadcast to the public at large that mark us as less than human and offer us as viable targets for derision, fear, and violence.

Uncovering that—clearly—is far too big a story for any station today to break.

This episode of News With Nezua throws a pointed jeer at the contortions these mainstream news sites must adopt in order to justify turning away from this particular story and stories like this.

This episode of News With Nezua is brought to you by Center for New Community.

Apologies to my deaf friends; I will do my best to find time very soon to make another edit and manually add subtitles, at which point I’ll substitute a link for this apology. YouTube version here.

Past episodes of News With Nezua are archived here.

This episode of News With Nezua is brought to you by Center for New Community. YouTube version here. Past episodes are archived here.

This episode of News With Nezua is brought to you by Center for New Community. YouTube version here. Past episodes are archived here.

For the past year, News With Nezua videos have been sponsored by La Frontera Times, and many past episodes can be found there, as well as here on UMX. A YouTube version has always been posted as well, but this may soon be discontinued as Vimeo now creates a mobile-ready format, such as in the video above.
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HERE’S A FUN ONE that yanks back the curtain and gives you a glimpse of some “making of” moments. From bulbs blowing to flies buzzing to flubbed or forgotten lines, you can see that things don’t run as smooth as the final cut pretends.

It’s a good time, also, to let you know that for the time being, LFT’s sponsorship of these videos has come to a gracious close. Perhaps temporarily, perhaps permanently. There is no bad blood between myself and LFT or Alfredo—in fact, it has been a fantastic and rewarding relationship, and this switchup in direction is only due to administrative matters at LFT that I am not at liberty to disclose. But the willingness to continue the relationship remains strong, and perhaps in a few months, they may pick up the show again.

Even if not, life brings changes and we learn that the road to our own success lies not in resisting those changes, but in adapting and understanding how our path has moved to different ground because we require it in some way.

I will be taking a break from my grinding video production schedule in honor of this change for one week, two weeks at most. When I come back, the next couple videos will be sponsored by another organization, which will be noted at that point.

Big love and big thanks to all of you, who provide a reason to keep making thes, who show up and dig my work. The feedback I’ve got on these posts—in the comment threads, as well as privately—has been amazingly rewarding, giving me glimpses into how my videos have concrete effects on other people and in the world. So making these has been a double satisfaction. In one because I have to say what I say (and I get to share it), and in another because that matters to other people sometimes.

See you soon! Stay safe, stay strong, stay weird and wild, baby. Peace.

News With Nezua vids first appear Monday mornings at La Frontera Times. Wednesdays they show up at UMX. YouTube version here.

News With Nezua vids first appear Monday mornings at La Frontera Times. Wednesdays they show up at UMX. YouTube version here.

News With Nezua vids first appear Monday mornings at La Frontera Times. Wednesdays they show up at UMX. (Truncated) YouTube version here.

News With Nezua vids first appear Monday mornings at La Frontera Times. Wednesdays they show up at UMX, as well as in a dim setting at The XOLAGRAFIK Theater. YouTube version here.

And how would the most upset of these people feel were they to experience for even one day the true threat of being under the glare of anti-immigrant hostility and anti-Latino hate in the USA today?

News With Nezua vids first appear Monday mornings at La Frontera Times. Wednesdays they show up at UMX, as well as in a dim setting at The XOLAGRAFIK Theater. YouTube (truncated) version here.