[An Introduction to my Presentation at Kirwan Institute]

I am Joaquín. When I was eight years old, I changed my name to Jack. I didn’t intend it as a political statement, of course. I just wanted to fit in with everyone else.

With everyone else in the suburbs of Maryland, that is. That’s where my second family lived at the time the court proceedings were finalized for my legal adoption. My father, a politically-minded poet in his late 20s by then, was gone. Gone to the West Coast; gone to the South. Gone to the jungles of Chiapas, machete and pen in hand. He was meeting with ancestors and kin; photographing and writing about the Mayan Indians.

And gone from our lives. He and my mother (she’d say) had been Too Young to work things out. No doubt that was true. My mother was a Jewish girl from New York, and my father a Chicano vato from El Paso. They met on the campus of UCLA in the summer of 1968. I’d not begin to understand until much later the size of the cultural gulf that surely stood between them, as well.

At eight, I imagined I’d become anew. Cast away those things attached to my old life. It was a new time, a new life. I had a new name. And I could be a new self. I’d learn one day that changing who you are is not as simple as changing your name. But for the moment, I thought with these changes to birth certificate and social security card and school attendance sheet, I might finally fit in.

The feeling that I didn’t fit in had grown in me for a few reasons. One was my name. A name that on the East Coast in 1978, was an anomaly. A name that defies the rules of the English alphabet, and so, one that many people will mispronounce. My teachers were some of them. It was a name my peers would either fail to remember, or would in many cases ridicule. In class after class of Brians and Joshuas; of Lauras and Jennifers; of Matts and Tonyas, you learn something from being the one with the weird name. You begin to infer. You understand that you are apart from the others in more than just one way. With every souvenir license plate keychain in every gift shop that ignores your name; with every approach of  roll call from a new teacher and every introduction to a new person bringing dread to your belly, you are reminded you are Other.

By itself, who knows how much it would matter to have a name rare among your peers. And if it were a difference not attached to the many others that would not vanish from my eyeline over time, I imagine not much. Were this the only example of how I tried to conform to the dominant culture’s desire to eradicate my culture and history—and self—it would hardly matter. Here, it serves well as a symbol. And isn’t that what a name is for?

A name can tell us who we are. It can tell us where we come from, who came before us, and our place in today’s society. It can even offer glimpses into the future. A name will not always contain so many secrets, but mine did. And it had been left for me to discover this. I didn’t know it then—when I rejected it in favor of the plainest, shortest, easiest-to-pronounce and least-Spanish name I could think of—but it was as if I had been left a pendant with a treasure map to my own history and legacy inscribed upon it. I would some day grow to be very grateful to reach into my dusty pocket and find that map.

My father chose the name Joaquín from a poem written shortly before my birth; a poem important to the Mexican American community. The dramatic narrative foretold a confusion I was already experiencing as a boy, and portended a strength I’d need later.

I look at myself
And see part of me
Who rejects my father and my mother
And dissolves into the melting pot
To disappear in shame.

The name my father gave me tied me to my culture in the strongest possible way—by both naming me after Corky Gonzales’ quintessential Chicano as well as describing a path I was already walking. Come the day I turned to re-read the book my father gave me as a teen, I’d find my own past; my own troubled reflection, there in its passages. And I’d understand a bit more of those things that hence had only flitted about on the periphery of my vision.

Maybe I tried to vanish into the American Dream. Repurpose my outline. Maybe I wanted to become just like you; just like him; just like the boy in the poster, the one on the screen, the hero. I wanted to be the Fair one, the Right one, the Good one…the white one. I did not want to be the Mexican one. The one whom the world around me insisted was, instead, the Dark one, the Little one, the Bad one. The Criminal. The Servant. The Thief.

Culture is powerful. Media is powerful. For much of my life, the relationship was one-way. The current of news, opinion, metaphor, imagery, and storytelling was aimed at me. There was simply no way to wield that mechanism. The thick tongue of the dominant culture sang its songs into my mind and I sang along.

I thought that without a Spanish accent, divested of a Spanish name, and with lighter skin than my father, I could walk away from both my blood and what the world seemed to think of my blood. I was wrong. This cannot be done. You are who you are. Your family is your family. Your blood remains your blood. And whether you call it corazón or something else, your heart remains your own heart.

But I was right to understand that there were and are strong currents in place. Undertow that buoys a few, drowns many, and directs the rest into a preferenced route. We call the flow of information, evaluation, entertainment, iconography, story, and slant that is our collective conversation and counsel “the mainstream.” And depending on your relationship to it, you may be able to swim to your desired destination without much struggle. Or you may find yourself grasping for purchase and gasping for air.

At 18, I took my name back, and perhaps that was the first concrete step toward making my own path; toward standing strong against the tide that batters us daily. I’ve not looked back since then.

Because as the hate crimes perpetrated against Latinos rose higher and higher; as the Right Wing created a culture of fear against the US’ Southern border and all below; as conservative pundits repeatedly reinforced revulsion of the Spanish language and those who speak it or are otherwise touched by it; as the mainstream culture’s historically derisive lens on Mexico and Mexicanos became more intense and hostile in many places, preaching hatred to a virulent degree, I knew I had to grab a hold of that firehose of energy, and help filter and redirect the flow of news, opinion, metaphor, imagery, and storytelling. The world was being made more dangerous for my people, and for me.

This is the terrain from which grows all the content and action launched from my blog The Unapologetic Mexican today. These are the issues that can be found informing the articles I write, the videos I make, the art I produce. The themes of values in culture, symbolism in media, messaging in news copy or slant; racism; human rights; identity; ethnicity; language, power; history; community; self. The day I began my blog was hardly a first step to empowerment and self-awareness. It was an important one, though, making possible many subsequent steps.

When I present at the  Transforming Race Conference in March, I will speak about these themes and in what way I’ve been able to engage them, to make change; about the four years I have been keeping this blog, and all the ways in which it aided me in reclaiming a feeling of pride, and a greater understanding of how I can support and inform and empower the communities to which I belong.

New Media is nothing by itself; it is a hammer without the dream of the carpenter; a garden hose on a hot, arid, dusty day. All alone, New Media is but form awaiting function. But given you can access it to a reasonable degree, you can stop being a passive imbiber of the media and all its messaging. You don’t have to shout at the screen, you can speak your reply or alternate view from the screen, too. You need not rest at bemoaning the media’s slant because you have a greater ability to replace it. And you can add your strength to a purpose enjoined by many, and together, affect our common society.

This new format we call “blog” is not like a pad of paper; not like a radio station, not like a community bulletin board, not like a classroom, nor a movie theater, nor a newspaper, nor a meeting room. It is all these things and more.

My father said “in my day it was mimeographs and in yours it is la bloga.” He was speaking of  the activism begun in El Chicano Movimiento, the era from which the poem Yo Soy Joaquín sprung forth.  It is no longer 1967, it is now 2010. The shape of la lucha transforms, but the struggle remains at hand:

Like a sleeping giant it slowly
Rears its head
To the sound of
Tramping feet
Clamoring voices
Mariachi strains
Fiery tequila explosions
The smell of chile verde and
Soft brown eyes of expectation for a
Better life.

And in all the fertile farmlands,
the barren plains,
the mountain villages,
smoke-smeared cities,
we start to MOVE.

La raza!
Méjicano!
Español!
Latino!
Chicano!

Or whatever I call myself,
I look the same
I feel the same
I cry
And
Sing the same.

I am the masses of my people and
I refuse to be absorbed.

In the four years I’ve written my blog, I’ve educated myself and others. I’ve enjoined the national conversation, and been invited on panels of web influencers, and into progressive fellowships. I’ve found friends with the same interests, and together we’ve organized sites and groups to work together on issues that concern our communities. I’ve written and co-written pieces that have made it into print. I’ve had my blog used in college courses, and my videos in high school classes by teachers who found my writing online.  I’ve had librarians request copies. I’ve launched a weekly web show that is sponsored and that exists to support and empower and inform the Latino/a community. I’ve been employed as a columnist on immigration, and flown to various states to speak on these issues, and to accept awards for groups I’ve helped found. And all this, in place of fuming in the living room, hiding behind a phony name, or otherwise letting the fickle currents of the day sweep you wherever they may.

We are the new media. We are the new voice resounding with the old truths. We are the culture changing. And throughout all these changes, we are still right here and moving forward.

________________

Also posted at the Race Talk blog; written at the request of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity’s Media Relations Manager to help promote the Kirwan Institute’s Transforming Race Conference, at which I’ll be presenting in March.

Note: I wrote this as a prelude to the presentation. Not a mirror of it. This part of the story is very much about identity, about my personal journey…and that’s part of the story of this blog, and relevant to an Institute on the Study of Ethnicity. But I don’t want my presentation, itself, to be so much about the empowerment of one person. I don’t think that’s such an important or original story to tell. Or enough people are telling it already, we could say. Of course it’s an important story to me! We all want to thrive, we all want to better ourselves and our situations. But my presentation Unexpected Pathways to Empowerment will be focused more on how New Media can enable our community–any community–to become more empowered, and how many of us can tap into that and help it to happen. To me, today, that’s an important distinction to make. And connecting people to work for causes that aren’t part of the individualist recipe for success (and thus benefit a greater amount of people) is more important (especially these days) than any one person becoming well-read or well-known.

MANY WORDS HAVE DESERVEDLY BEEN SPOKEN and written to mark the passing of historian, thinker and activist Howard Zinn. The passing of Luis Leal, who died in his sleep at 102 years old on January 10 in Santa Barbara, Califas, has not been punctuated by the same volume of tribute, but no less a warm one rises from many in the Chican@ community. After all, “Don” Luis Leal was a man who contributed to much awareness, self-empowerment and truth in nuestra comunidad.

Specifically, Luis Leal legitimized the area of Chicano Studies with his teachings and his research and passion. (Almost the opposite of what some in Texas are trying to do with their suggested edits to schoolbooks.) This has imbued an immeasurable amount of self-respect and worth and knowledge that is now accessible to gente.

On the same day Charles Lindbergh completed his historic crossing of the Atlantic Ocean—May 21, 1927—Luis Leal stepped off the train at Union Station in Chicago. As with Lindbergh, this Mexican native would become known as a pioneer in his field. Professor Leal helped develop the study of Latin American literature and is considered one of the founders of the field of Chicano/Chicana (Mexican American) literary studies.

His extensive works include books, bibliographies, anthologies, and hundreds of journal and newspaper articles and essays, published for both U.S. and Latin American audiences. Much of Leal’s works put Mexican, Chicano, and Latino literature and writers in historical context. They reflect his view that research is part of a dialogue on how to advance community or social issues. Affectionately called Don Luis, Leal also helped develop scholarship by working with students who wrote the first dissertations on world-renown Mexican and Chicano writers.

—Luis Leal: 1907—: Scholar, Literary Critic Biograph

Attached is a poem called Águila y Sol (Eagle and Sun) written by another icon in the community, Francisco X. Alarcón. Francisco wrote this for Luis Leal, and he sent it along the other day to a list of Chicano academics, artists, and activists from whom my father is soliciting works with which to prepare (with the help of Francisco Lomelí) a tribute for the departed Señor Leal. A “poema imposible” as jefito put it, to have for the memorial in Santa Barbara next week (Feb 1).

Salúd, Don Luis! You helped us learn about ourselves and uncover history; history important to our people. You helped us feel the effort was worthy, and helped many others to see the same about our many contributions and legacies. Your energy and love para la gente live on in the shape of so many more streams of energy and awareness. Gracias.

JUAN FELIPE HERRERA, celebrated and prolific Chicano poet, has been awarded the PEN/Beyond Margins award for his latest work, Half of the World in Light (available for purchase here).

Poet Juan Felipe Herrera has received nationwide attention for his recent collection of poems, which was published by the University of Arizona Press.

Herrera won an International Latino Book Award and a National Book Critics Circle Award.

Praised by the New York Times as “wildly inventive,” he earned a spot on the 2008 New York Times Notable Book list.

And, now, Herreras has been named the winner of the 2009 PEN/Beyond Margins Award for his collection, “Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems,” which was published last year by the UA Press.

—UA News

The Common Elements of Oppressions

by Suzanne Pharr

It is virtually impossible to view one oppression, such as sexism or homophobia, in isolation because they are all connected: sexism, racism, homophobia, classism, ableism, anti-Semitism, ageism. They are linked by a common origin-economic power and control-and by common methods of limiting, controlling and destroying lives. There is no hierarchy of oppressions. Each is terrible and destructive. To eliminate one oppression successfully, a movement has to include work to eliminate them all or else success will always be limited and incomplete.

To understand the connection among the oppressions, we must examine their common elements. The first is a defined norm, a standard of rightness and often righteousness wherein all others are judged in relation to it. This norm must be backed up with institutional power, economic power, and both institutional and individual violence. It is the combination of these three elements that makes complete power and control possible. In the United States, that norm is male, white, heterosexual, Christian, temporarily able-bodied, youthful, and has access to wealth and resources. It is important to remember that an established norm does not necessarily represent a majority in terms of numbers; it represents those who have ability to exert power and control over others.

It is also important to remember that this group has to have institutional power. For instance, I often hear people say that they know people of color in this country who are racist. This is confusing racism with bigotry or prejudice or hatred. People of color simply do not have institutional power to back up their hatred or bigotry or prejudice and therefore cannot be deemed racist. In the same way, women do not have the power to institutionalize their prejudices against men, so there is no such thing as “reverse sexism.” How do we know this? We simply have to take a look at the representation of women and people of color in our institutions. Take, for example, the U.S. Congress. What percentage of its members are people of color or women? Or look at the criminal justice system which carries out the laws the white males who predominate in Congress create: how many in that system are people of color? And then when we look at the percentage of each race that is incarcerated, that is affected by these laws, we see that a disproportionate number are people of color. We see the same lack of representation in financial institutions, in the leadership of churches and synagogues, in the military.

In our schools, the primary literature and history taught are about the exploits of white men, shown through the white man’s eyes. Black history, for instance, is still relegated to one month, whereas “American history” is taught all year round. Another major institution, the media, remains controlled and dominated by white men and their images of themselves.

In order for these institutions to be controlled by a single group of people, there must be economic power. Earlier I discussed the necessity to maintain racism and sexism so that people of color and women will continue to provide a large pool of unpaid or low-paid labor. Once economic control is in the hands of the few, all others can be controlled through limiting access to resources, limiting mobility, limiting employment options. People are pitted against one another through perpetuation of the myth of scarcity which suggests that our resources are limited and blames the poor for using up too much of what little there is to go around. It is this myth that is called forth, for instance, when those in power talk about immigration through our southern borders (immigrants who also happen to be people of color). The warning is clear: if you let these people in, they will take your jobs, ruin your schools which are already in economic struggle, destroy the few neighborhoods that are good for people to live in. People are pitted against one another along race and class lines. Meanwhile, those who have economic power continue to make obscenely excessive profits, often by taking their companies out of the country into economically depressed countries occupied by people of color where work can be bought for miniscule wages and profits are enormous. It is not the poor or working-class population that is consuming and/or destroying the world’s resources; it is those who make enormous profits from the exploitation of those resources, the top 10 percent of the population.

That economic power ensures control of institutions. Let’s go back to the example of the Congress. How much does it cost to run a campaign to be elected to the House or Senate? One does not find poor people there, for in order to spend the hundreds of thousands of dollars that campaigns cost, one has to be either personally rich or well connected to those who are rich. And the latter means being in the debt, one way or another, of the rich. Hence, when a congressperson speaks or votes, who does he (occasionally she) speak for? Those without access to wealth and resources or those who pay the campaign bills? Or look at the criminal justice system. It is not by chance that crimes against property are dealt with more seriously than crimes against persons. Or that police response to calls from well-to-do neighborhoods is more efficient than to poor neighborhoods. Schools in poor neighborhoods in most instances lack good facilities and resources; and a media that is controlled by advertising does not present an impartial, truthseeking vision of the world. Both schools and the media present what is in the best interest of the prevailing norm.

The maintenance of societal and individual power and control requires the use of violence and the threat of violence. Institutional violence is sanctioned through the criminal justice system and the threat of the military-for quelling individual or group uprisings. One of the places we can most readily see the interplay of institutional and individual violence is in the white man’s dealings with the Native American population. Since the white man first “discovered this country, which was occupied by large societies of Indians who maintained their own culture, religion, politics, education, economy and justice, the prevailing norm has been to lay claim to land and resources for those who have the power to establish control by might and thus ensure their superior economic position. This “might” brings with it a sense of superiority and often of divine right. The Native Americans were driven from their land and eventually placed (some would say incarcerated) on reservations. By defending their lands and their lives, they became the “enemy.” Consequently, we now have a popular culture whose teaching of history represents the Native American as a cruel savage and through hundreds of films shows the white man as civilized and good in pursuing his destiny and the Native American as bad in protecting his life and culture. Institutional racism is so complete that now great numbers of Native Americans, having lost their land and having had their culture assaulted, live in poverty and in isolation from the benefits of mainstream culture. And on the personal level, racism is so overt that television stations still run cowboy-and-Indian movies, and parents buy their children cowboy-and-Indian outfits so that they can act out genocide in their play.

For gay men and lesbians this interplay of institutional and personal violence comes through both written and unwritten laws. In the 25 states that still have sodomy laws, there is an increase in tolerance for violence against lesbians and gay men, whether it is police harassment or the lack of police protection when gay and lesbian people are assaulted. The fact that courts in many states deny custody to gay and lesbian parents, that schools, either through written or unwritten policy, do not hire openly gay and lesbian teachers creates a climate in which it is permissible to act out physical violence toward lesbian and gay people.

And as I discussed in an earlier chapter, for all groups it is not just the physical violence that controls us but the ever constant threat of violence. For women, it is not just the rape or battering or the threat of these abuses but also that one’s life is limited by the knowledge that one quite likely will not be honored in court. The violence is constantly nurtured by institutions that do not respect those different from the norm. Thus, the threat of violence exists at every level.

There are other ways the defined norm manages to maintain its power and control other than through institutional power, economic power and violence. One way the defined norm is kept an essentially closed group is by a particular system known as lack of prior claim. At its simplest, this means that if you weren’t there when the original document (the Constitution, for instance) was written or when the organization was first created, then you have no right to inclusion. Since those who wrote the Constitution were white male property owners who did not believe in the complete humanity of either women or blacks, then these two groups have had to battle for inclusion. If women and people of color were not in business (because of the social and cultural restrictions on them) when the first male business organizations were formed, then they now have to fight for inclusion. The curious thing about lack of prior claim is that it is simply the circumstances of the moment that put the original people there in every case, yet when those who were initially excluded begin asking for or demanding inclusion, they are seen as disruptive people, as trouble-makers, as no doubt anti-American. We still recall the verbal and physical violence against women who participated in the Suffrage Movement and the black men and women who formed the Civil Rights Movement. For simply asking for one’s due, one was vilified and abused. This is an effective technique, making those struggling for their rights the ones in the wrong. Popular movements are invalidated and minimized, their participants cast as enemies of the people, and social change is obstructed by those holding power who cast themselves as defenders of tradition and order.

Those who seek their rights, who seek inclusion, who seek to control their own lives instead of having their lives controlled are the people who fall outside the norm. They are defined in relation to the norm and are found lacking. They are the Other. If they are not part of the norm, they are seen as abnormal, deviant, inferior, marginalized, not “right,” even if they as a group (such as women) are a majority of the population. They are not considered fully human. By those identified as the Norm, the Other is unknown, difficult to comprehend, whereas the Other always knows and understands those who hold power; one has to in order to survive. As in the television series “Upstairs, Downstairs,” the servants always knew the inner workings of the ruling families’ lives while the upstairs residents who had economic control knew little of the downstairs workers’ lives. In slavery, the slave had to know the complexity, the inner workings of the slaveowners’ lives in order to protect him/herself from them.

The Other’s existence, everyday life, achievements are kept unknown through invisibility. When we do not see the differently abled, the aged, gay men and lesbians, people of color on television, in movies, in educational books, etc., there is reinforcement of the idea that the Norm is the majority and others either do not exist or do not count. Or when there is false information, distortion of events, through selective presentation or the re-writing of history, we see only the negative aspects or failures of a particular group. For instance, it has been a major task of the Civil Rights Movement and the women’s movement to write Blacks and women back into history and to correct the distorted versions of their history that have been presented over centuries.

This distortion and lack of knowledge of the Other expresses itself in stereotyping, that subtle and effective way of limiting lives. It is through stereotyping that people are denied their individual characteristics and behavior and are dehumanized. The dehumanizing process is necessary to feed the oppressor’s sense of being justified and to alleviate the feeling of guilt. If one stereotypes all gay men as child molesters and gives them the daily humiliations of pejorative names, such as “faggot,” or cocksucker,” then a school administration can feel justified, even righteous, in not hiring them, and young heterosexual males can feel self-righteous when physically attacking them on the streets. In stereotyping, the actions of a few dictate the classification of the entire group while the norm is rarely stereotyped. Because of the belief that groups outside the norm think and behave in unified stereotypical ways, people who hold power will often ask a person of color, “What do your people think about this idea (or thing)?” When do we ever ask a white man, “What do the white men in this country (or organization) think about this?” They are expected to have and to express individual judgments and opinions.

Stereotyping contributes to another common element of oppressions: blaming the victim for the oppression. In order for oppression to be thoroughly successful, it is necessary to involve the victim in it. The victim lives in an environment of negative images (stereotypes) and messages, backed up by violence, victim-hating and blaming, all of which leads to low self-esteem and self-blame in the victim. The oppression thus becomes internalized. The goal of this environment is to lead the victim to be complicit with her/his victimization: to think that it is deserved and should not be resisted.

Some of the best work feminists have done is to change attitudes from blaming the victim to blaming the abuser, a very slow change that is still incomplete. It is no longer automatically the norm to blame victims of battering, rape and incest for having somehow been responsible for the harm done them; instead, people are more inclined to stop supporting male dominance by protecting the abuser. However, we have yet to examine thoroughly the blame we put on victims of racism, homophobia and anti-Semitism. People are condemned for being who they are, for their essence as humans. When we are clear of these oppressions, we will understand that the issue is not one’s racial, ethnic, religious or sexual identity-one should have the inalienable right to be who one is-but the problem is racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, and homophobia and the power they support and protect.

Blaming the victims for their oppression diverts attention from the true abuser or the cause of the victimization. For example, a commonly held belief is that people are poor because they are unwilling to work. The belief is supported by the stereotypes that poor people are lazy, abuse welfare, etc. What goes unnoted is the necessity for poverty in an economic system in which wealth is held and controlled by the few. If the poor are in poverty because they deserve it, then the rich need not feel any guilt or compunction about their concentrated wealth. In fact, they can feel deserving and superior.

Blaming the victim leads to the victim feeling complicit with the oppression, of deserving it. As one takes in the negative messages and stereotypes, there is a weakening of self-esteem, self pride and group pride. When the victim of the oppression is led to believe the negative views of the oppressor, this phenomenon is called internalized oppression. It takes the form of self-hatred which can express itself in depression, despair, and self-abuse. It is no surprise, therefore, that the incidence of suicide is high among gay men and lesbians, for they live in a world in which messages of hatred and disgust are unrelenting. Nor is it surprising that the differently abled come to think there is no hope for their independence or for them to receive basic human services, for they are taught that the problem is with them, not society. Any difference from the norm is seen as a deficiency, as bad.

Sometimes the internalized oppression is acted out as horizontal hostility. If one has learned self-hatred because of one’s membership in a “minority” group, then that disrespect and hatred can easily be extended to the entire group so that one does not see hope or promise for the whole. It is safer to express hostility toward other oppressed peoples than toward the oppressor. Hence, we see people destroying their own neighborhoods, displaying violence and crime toward their own people, or in groups showing distrust of their own kind while respecting the power of those who make up the norm. Sometimes the internalized oppression leads people to be reluctant to associate with others in their group. Instead, their identity is with those in power. Hence, a major part of every social change movement has been an effort to increase the pride and self-esteem of the oppressed group, to bond people together for the common good.

A major component of every oppression is isolation. Victims of oppressions are either isolated as individuals or as a “minority” group. Take, for example, those who experience rape or incest or battering. Prior to the women’s movement and the speak-outs that broke the silence on these issues, women who had experienced abuse were isolated from one another, thought they were alone in experiencing it, and thought, as society dictated, that they were to blame for the abuse. It was through women coming together in the anti-violence movement that we learned that indeed there was something larger going on, that violence was happening to millions of women; out of that coming together grew an analysis of male power and control that led to a movement to end violence against women. Another example: before the Civil Rights Movement, there were black citizens in the South who were isolated because of their lack of access to resources, in this case, to education and literacy. Because they could not read, they could not pass the tests that allowed them to vote. The Citizenship Schools that began on St. Johns Island, South Carolina, taught blacks to read the Constitution so that they could pass the test; in reading the Constitution, they learned that they too had rights. These schools spread across the South; people came together out of their isolation, and a Civil Rights Movement was born.

In order to break down the power and control exercised by the few, it is clear that people of all oppressed groups must come together to form a movement that speaks for everyone’s rights. People will gain their human rights, justice, and inclusion through group effort, not through isolated individual work. However, those who hold power oppose group organizing efforts and use many strategies to destroy such efforts: invalidation, minimization, intimidation, infiltration, etc.

Two of the more subtle ways that society blocks solidarity within groups from ever occurring are the tactics of assimilation and tokenism. There are extraordinary pressures for members of any “minority” group to assimilate, to drop one’s own culture and differences and become a mirror of the dominant culture. This process requires turning one’s back on one’s past and on one’s people. Assimilation supports the myth of the melting pot in which all immigrants were poured in, mixed a bit, and then emerged as part of the dominant culture: white, heterosexual, and Christian.

Assimilation is a first requirement of those who are chosen as tokens in the workplace of the dominant culture. “She’s a Jew but she doesn’t act like a Jew.” “He’s black but he’s just like us.” Tokenism is the method of limited access that gives false hope to those left behind and blames them for “not making it.” “If these two or three black women or disabled people can make it, then what is wrong with you that you can’t?” Tokenism is a form of co-optation. It takes the brightest and best of the most assimilated, rewards them with position and money (though rarely genuine leadership and power), and then uses them as a model of what is necessary to succeed, even though there are often no more openings for others who may follow their model.

The tokenized person receives pressure from both sides. From those in power there is the pressure to be separate from one’s group (race, for instance) while also acting as a representative of the entire group. “We tried hiring a person of color but it just didn’t work out.” (Therefore people of color can’t succeed here.) The tokenized person is expected to become a team player which means that identifying racist activity within the organization or working on behalf of one’s community is seen as disloyalty. The pressure from one’s community, on the other hand, is to fight for that community’s concerns, in other words, to help from the inside. Of course, it is virtually impossible to work from the inside because the tokenized person is isolated and lacks support. It is a “no win” situation, filled with frustration and alienation.

At the heart of this strategy, which gets played out at every level of society, is an individualized approach to success. The example of Horatio Alger and the notion of “pulling oneself up by the bootstraps” still lives. Daily news reports do not show successful organizing efforts; in fact, the media minimize even undeniably successful ones as was the case with the reporting of the 1988 Gay and Lesbian March on Washington. The media reported the march to have 200,000 in attendance when it was announced by Jesse Jackson from the stage that police and march organizers were reporting over 500,000 there. Instead of reporting group efforts, the media concentrates on “human interest” stories, following the lead of people such as Ronald Reagan who give accounts of individuals who beat the odds and succeed. They become “models” for others in their circumstances to follow. But what good are models when closed systems do not permit general success?

Group organizing, even among progressive people, often gets replaced by an emphasis on individual solutions. Hence, instead of seeking ways to develop an economic system that emphasizes cooperation and shared wealth, people encourage entrepreneurship and small business enterprises. Union organizing is under siege in an effort to keep labor costs low and profits high. In the women’s movement, more women choose individual therapy rather than starting or joining consciousness raising groups. In the area of health, communities do major organizing, for example, to raise enormous funds to provide a liver transplant for an individual child but do not work together to change the medical system so that all who need them can get organ transplants. The emphasis upon individual solutions is counter to movement making, to broad social change. The emphasis upon individual achievement feeds right into blaming those who don’t succeed for their failure. It separates people rather than bringing them together to make change.

We must find ways to build coalition, to make broad social change for all of us. There are many more people who are considered the Other (though called, ironically, the minority) than those who are defined as the Norm. We must become allies in a movement that works against power and control by the few and for shared power and resources for the many. To do this work, we will have to build a program that provides an analysis of the oppressions, their connections, and together we must seek ways to change those systems that limit our lives.

Suzanne Pharr, Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism (Inverness, CA: Chardon Press, 1988) 52-64.

I SEEM TO HAVE A HABIT of getting overwhelmed by blogging and disappearing just as, or the day after, a link from a larger site brings in a huge influx of readers, at least for a day. I don’t think this is an entirely accidental habit of mine. Sometimes I feel it’s a good way to directly counter that impulse that gets you compulsively or needlessly checking stats and writing to a number, rather than to your heart and mind’s impulses. But I’m also busy right now with a few different things, so I’ve been away. I’m still busy, and to tell you the truth, I’m not sure what I could even blog right now. And I don’t mean specifically…I mean existentially. I’ll try to hit that tomorrow, because that was going to be my topic before I got busy.

For now, I’m going to post an excellent video cartoonified excerpt on American Empire from Howard Zinn’s book A People’s History of American Empire.

I’ve a lot I’d love to comment on, regarding this topic. Again, though, I’m very busy for a few. Back tomorrow with that post advising you to burn down your blog to good dance music, and an announcement of a new job I have. Blogging.

A HUMOROUS SNIPPET of Colbert for ya Sunday. This is Sherman Alexie, author of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, and you might not guess it from his overall friendly and loose demeanor, but he’s very quick witted. In fact, this short exchange has got to be one of my favorite yet on Colbert. (Okay, maybe it has a tiny bit to do with some of the jokes about Smallpox and related realities/facts rarely discussed in the MSM.) Stephen always jabs and parries and stutter-steps while most of his guests are busy arranging their facial expression or shouting out unfunny jokes to try and appear as if they are keeping up. Alexie gets off some fast shots and they are some smart comments! Colbert actually gets stumped a few times on a response, though of course always keeps his good sense of humor. You’ll see what I mean about the McCain Campaign metaphor at the end. Happy Sunday!

I LIKE THE WRITEUP OF THIS BOOK THE LATINO THREAT and I like, too, the existence of it, as it demonstrates that more and more sensible talk on immigration and Latinos and Hispanix and migrants and our history and our place here and our struggle here is making its way into the mainstream and about TIME

Leo R. Chavez, a cultural anthropology professor at UC Irvine, is patient and careful. No matter how racist and stupid and infuriating the fearmongers like the Minutemen vigilantes and assorted right-wing radio hosts and columnists are about the so-called Latino threat, Chavez meticulously reiterates or quotes their charges and then tidily corrects them, unfortunately not quite so energetically and amusingly as the doctor in Kurosawa’s “Red Beard,” who breaks the villains’ arms and then immediately mends them.

As Chavez proceeds through his study in “The Latino Threat,” he doesn’t free us to rage; he keeps us focused on the Styrofoam horse the anti-immigrants have glued together from spit and fearful imagination and wheeled into our fair Troy:

“In the final analysis, the discourse surrounding Latina fertility and reproduction is actually about more than reproduction. It is also about reinforcing a characterization of whites as the legitimate Americans who are being supplanted demographically by less-legitimate Latinos. For this reason, the empirical evidence examined here may be easily dismissed by those who prefer perpetuating a discourse that undermines Latino claims of citizenship.”

That is, he knows those who foment terror of the “threat” of brown babies are not likely to listen to facts when they have deep-rooted prejudices to express. Among the biggest threats undocumented immigrants pose is that their vulnerability and our scapegoating of them for taking jobs we won’t do allow American citizens to expose themselves as hypocrites.

Not only do we fear illegal immigrants and, of course, continue to hire them for wages and under conditions few citizens would accept, but we also demonize them and, no more decently, discount the real contributions of legal immigrants as well as of the multigenerational citizens who happen to have Spanish-sounding last names.

The whole article was good to read, and I look forward to checking the book out.

IN ALL WAYS it pays every day to turn our backs on the corrupt, corporate, soulless and mediocre messaging being pushed down our throats and into our ears from almost all of the dominant culture’s offerings. Hypnotists and salesmen for the Murkan SleepDream are working fulltime behind the glossy televised scenes, and they can shift from disaster to pablum to syrupycheer quicker than you can move your hands to plug up your ears. And all this presentation and flagellation and pixelporn manipulation of media is devised to take a toll, is constructed unwhole, made to siphon the soul…to push an agenda of commerce or war or profit and control…very rarely is there a drop of water for the soulgarden, very rarely is there a ray of light shone solely for the wide open eyes del alma. More often all this sound and imagery and textual effort is to gain something from us, or to introduce confusion or negativity. 

Support artists, poets, and raza. Support la cultura, support media that feeds you, that seeks to uplift you and irritate your sense of satisfaction, that seeks to undo, to redo, to build anew. With each conscious footstep, create a new path through this half empty lot of sunshine, shattered glass and nascent vine.

And more specifically, if you are in NYC, get ready for mass love warfare waged by poetry guerrillas on your streets! It begins today!

En la semana del 27 de septiembre al 4 de octubre del presente 2008, se llevará a cabo el Quinto Encuentro “Poetas en Nueva York” donde se harán presentes cerca de 50 poetas y otros artistas. Los participantes de diferentes orígenes, en su mayoría son residentes en la ciudad, además de un grupo de poetas que vienen desde la isla Puerto Rico.

Respaldados por el lema: ‘Cultura con Todos’ esta jornada se iniciará –como ya es tradición- con la ‘Masa Alegre’, una caminada con música, cantos y lectura de poemas en las esquinas, por el sector de la ciudad donde se hace el primer evento de la jornada poética. El encuentro se lleva a cabo en español durante ocho días en locaciones de Queens, Brooklyn y Manhattan. En una de las fechas se convoca de forma abierta a “Poesía en todas las lenguas” donde participan poetas de diferentes países del mundo residentes en la ciudad con textos en sus idiomas nativos.

—Poetas se toman a Nueva York

Which (roughly) says that during the week of Sept. 27 – Oct. 4 the fifth meeting of Poets in Nueva York will be held, where roughly 50 poets and artists will gather, most NYC residents, and a group of poets who come from the island of Puerto Rico. Unified by the theme of “Cultura con Todos”  the day will begin, as is the tradition, with the “Masa Alegre”, a walk with music, songs, poems read aloud. The event is in Spanish and for eight days in Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan. 

Visit the page if you can read Spanish to any degree (no translation provided there) and much more is said about the event, who comes together for it, what it means, how it is a multi-lingual, multi-national, multi-ethnic stew, what organizations are involved and supported by this, and what it means in the context of the city, and over the time this event has been held.

Or as La Mala puts it, Poets are bringing a happy mob to Union Square!

Today a mob of poets will descend upon Union Square in NYC, sending their words through the streets of and using verses will bailout the souls of a money driven city. 

It sounds fantastic and I wish I could make it! Will you be there? Drop me a line ahead of time, we’ll do a collabo on bringing it back to the UMX masses!

And to all poets and artists who are attending, may the city resonate con tú espiritu y música y color toda semana!

 

Los Angeles Southwest College & The Latin American Student Association Present 
Hispanic Heritage Month

Mystery of the Mayas – 2012
&
The Mayan Calendar

From Yucatán, México

ALBERTO CÉSAR HAGAR-GONZÁLEZ

Archaeo-Astronomer Researcher and Author of The Sacred Codes of Hunaab-Ku

Saturday, September 13th • Southwest College, Little Theatre • Starting at 11 AM

Free Admission

For more information please contact Dean Miramontes at Academic Affairs at; 323-242-5512 or at miramor@lasc.edu

ALBERTO CÉSAR HAGAR-GONZÁLEZ

After 20 years of archeao-astronomical research, Alberto Hagar-González has deciphered “keys’ hidden for thousands of years in thegeometrical patterns of the Mayan pyramids and the steles and glyphs of Yucatan, Mexico. These ‘keys’ decode the messages that the ancient civilizations left for humanity in the sacred geometrical design and construction of their temples, and reveals fascinating esoteric teachings and prophecies relevant to our time. Alberto is a linguist and martial arts instructor and holds a degree in Science and Technology. He has authored several books, including 2012: The Serpent Prophecies, The Sacred Codes of Hunaab-Ku, and The Healing Keys of the Ancient Mayas.

Alberto has lectured internationally in more than 70 conferences and seminars, before audiences of more than 1,000 people, translated in up to four languages at once. Alberto was appointed by the government of the Yucatan as the official lecturer to internationally promote Chichen Itza as one of the New 7 Wonders of the world.