KOYANISQAATSI: The greatest event in the history of mankind has occurred recently, and has been largely missed by both the media and academia. Beyond the headlines and every day crises of international events, a deeper shift in human affairs has occurred: Humanity no longer exists in the natural world, we are no longer connected to it.
THANKSGIVING is probably the most popular and earliest-given justification for invasion, murder, imperialism, occupation, and “othering” that we know of in this country. Even now in Iraq we hear fables fashioned on the same colonizer’s framework and it sickens. But Thanksgiving is Iraq, with its steaming platter of corpses. Iraq is Thanksgiving.
A HATE CRIME is made possible by many actors, not just one ugly mind and hand. You have the actual perpetrator of the act, the immediate culture that encourages and approves of this behavior, the legislation that provides a moral/legal underpinning for certain views, and those who craft the legislation. All will soon be held accountable.
A CRUCIAL COMPONENT to undoing misogyny and sexism is revealing to men that we are sold an illusion. The “man” they would have us be is an unnatural and dangerous one. It is a fanged, bereaved, lie. It is the shifting shape of oppression with a wolfskin slung over its eyes. It is a shroud.
TOO MANY in the USA cannot help but be poisoned by our toxic MSM and its festering monologue. It is a media that cares not for humans, but instead for profits and fitting in with the power flow. Let’s be reasonable: almost 100,000 hungry children wandering and lost cannot be helped by laser-equipped fences and fancy phrases.
AS HISTORY IN THE USA pointedly picks favorites, leaving some of us out of the books and movies and stories and truths, it is very important for raza to continue to tell our own stories through art, poetry, song, and performance. This is one of the reasons that arte is so integral to nuestra cultura.
IF WE WANT TO UNITE, it cannot be by overlooking differences that stab at people and stick in their throats and veins and bellies. This unity must come about by connecting ourselves through struggle; by working together to fight the iniquities that pit most of us against each other, and all so that one or two types of persons can ascend, unfettered, to the top of the heap.
ALEXIS PAULINE GUMBS: I understand why looking at that family and imagining them in the White House makes us imagine we might finally be at home. But I have to resist that feeling. If I pretend that home is something that the state can give me in the form of a good-looking “first family” without stopping its economic, invasive, nativist violence, then I deny us all the home in the making that I believe in today and every day.
CARMEN D: In 2004, President George Bush garnered 44% of the Latino vote and pundits everywhere declared that “Hispanics” were conservative, and might provide a growing base of support for the Republican party going forward. It was a reasonable hypothesis, I guess…
ELLE, PHD: I expected to cry if Barack Obama won the election—everyone who knows me expected me to cry. I even had friends who called and said, “Are you crying yet?” Admittedly, I dashed away a few tears, but I didn’t really cry. The joy I felt was overshadowed by worry. And why am I letting it get to me?
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