A lot of people in the USA these days are going broke. It hardly matters if you have a G.E.D. or a Master’s degree. Unemployment is creeping through the populace like a billion-fingered thief. The number of people on food stamps in the USA today is unprecedented, and what’s left of our national safety net after Clinton and Bush took their turns hacking it apart is a threadbare mess with holes in it the size an entire city block can fit through without sucking in its belly.

More people were living in poverty in 2010, according to the census, than in all the time the census has been collecting data. People are dying from untreated dental problems, laws are appearing left and right that penalize the homeless and the poor, prisons are profiting, a dull rage is building, and the bottom line is a lot of people—far too many—are poor and getting poorer.

The kicker is that it won’t be getting better any time soon. The unemployment rate is predicted to continue to grow, well into 2014.

All of this is very bad news, indeed.

THE LAND OF HAND TO MOUTH

It’s an unhappy scene, poverty. And we’re not talking about the presence or absence of one or two niceties. The low, low place that living hand to mouth can bring you is much more complex and all-encompassing than not being able to afford one or two top shelf amenities that might make life a bit more enjoyable when you’re out there grinding away.

For most of my life I’ve been like most of the world, I guess—getting by without a whole lot of money. Sometimes it’s been real bad. Sometimes it’s been average. And sometimes, for a minute, life’s been pretty comfortable. The truth is, though, that those comfortable times have been pretty short lived. And even then, my standard of comparison is one you’d find in a person who grew up in a poor family.

What do I mean by “poor”? I mean at our worst we were homeless and cooking food in a campfire, or living in a house with buckets for toilets. And at our best, we were trying hard to fit into the suburban middle class, but still accepting bags of hand me downs from other families. By poor, I mean the regular presence of bargain brands; I mean the type of life where you grow up always thinking about how much things cost, and how you don’t have enough to do A, B, or C; and mostly, I mean the type of deeply-seeded awareness where poverty is a way of your thinking and acting. I’m not proud of this, and I don’t think it necessarily makes a person deep or interesting. It’s just how I grew up.

Even through all of that, there was the sense that you could escape it. Maybe. One day. Going to bed hungry means you and your little brother would meet up and sneak food from the fridge after everyone else was asleep. But even on nights you couldn’t quell the hunger that was so much deeper than stomach pangs, you imagined that if you were talented enough and motivated enough, you would be plucked out of such fates and arrive in the Land of Where You Have Always Belonged; that there was a golden cot with your name on it, just waiting for you to show your mettle. After all, woven deeply into the American consciousness are a few narratives. One of them is the Rags to Riches myth; essentially the Conservative notion of Bootstrap. The myth that we live in a land of abundant opportunity, and in which no matter what your meager beginnings, if you stick it out, there is gold enough to go around.

I guess we all buy into that in this place. But recent times have put a harsh dent into those kinds of ideas.

THE VERY AVERAGE AND SUDDENLY ELUSIVE LIFE

For a short time in Manhattan, when I was 30 and working in publishing, I was bringing home a very, very average paycheck, but it was a salary. It was not minimum wage. It was not Freelance. It was pretty okay. What helped a lot was that I was living with a woman who was also making a modest salary. Those days of combining our paychecks were the most comfortable of my life. I actually had money every check that I could do something with. Go out, buy clothes, buy gifts, save…live. Absent, finally, was the constant fear and shame and worry and self-loathing that can potentially accompany a lower income lifestyle in such a nation as the USA.

Again, mind you—in the scheme of things, our income was pretty average. A cousin of mine (our families went quite different directions) was making more all by herself and living on the Upper East Side of Manhattan before she was out of her 20s. Yet, that kind of “pretty average” to a lot of people out there is the Good Life. And the number of those people is growing every day.

That’s an important part of what I’m writing here. That must always be considered: the context of our culture. After all, poverty is a relative standard. Relative to what others have, to what is required to do or acquire certain things; relative to how others see poverty; relative to what means there are to live and survive without having lots of currency. And in a nation like the USA—where (increasingly) the rhetoric and value system is one that demonizes the poor; worships the affluent and the always-in-style; and penalizes with a severity that increases directly inversely proportionate to the wealth one commands—it is very hard to be poor.

For the past few years it’s been hard for a lot of people. I’ve been one of them. It’s been hard not only because, well, it’s hard to live in the emotional and practical reality of poverty, but because the idea that you can lift yourself out of it is in danger of extinction. That notion that if you get a degree, or work hard (or both); that if you are talented and ambitious, then it’s only a matter of time before you are  living comfortably—is suffering some heavy blows. When you are a child, you vow to “make it,” and you hold on because you know anything is possible. And then you get into your 20s, or 30s, you rack up some serious student loan debt—if you are lucky enough to go to college—and you work toward that dream.

Time stretches on….and on….and on….and nothing gets better. And what if things get worse?

I’m taking the time to write this post because I think it’s important to keep track of the experience I’ve been having. Not because I think it makes me very special to have been here. It’s just the opposite. It’s an important story because so many of us are living it right now. And the truth is, it’s an uncomfortable piece of writing that’s taken a handful of sittings over the course of a week. It’s a story I’d rather put behind me (but of course!), full of experiences I’d rather forget. (Wouldn’t we all!) It’s a reality you don’t want to sit in a second longer than you are forced to. But we need to be aware of where our fellow human beings are, and what they are feeling. Even if we are lucky enough to be living a different fate. Because our individual moments of good fortune do nothing to affect the fate of millions, or create big enough shifts to change systemic wrongs.

And when you are beset by these wrongs…well, you barely admit to yourself, let alone anyone else. When you’re in the thick of it, you don’t stop too long to marvel at the misery of it. That’s not sensible. You do what you have to do. From moment to moment, and from day to day. That’s what we do, right? That’s all there is to do. You try not to become so weary that you think of giving up as more comfortable than continuing to fight. But mostly, you keep your eyes focused on the next step, and you don’t give yourself time to wallow. You’d become mired.

I feel like I’m at a place where I can take a breath. After a long, thin, period, I’ve found a way to bring income home again. I dare to hope things might change, finally. And yet, I hesitate to tell this tale; to spin out all the moments and feelings and thoughts, and the reality of poverty. Why? Why is that?

THE WORST KEPT SECRET

Because you want to keep poverty a secret. as glaring and obvious is the global wreckage and domestic corrosion of economic inequality and violence, we still want to keep it quiet when it affects us. Which is, of course, very convenient to those who benefit the most from the (global) fallout. When what needs to happen is a great anger arise from the realities of injustice and imbalance so many are living, instead we hush up.

And we hush up for myriad reasons. Men are told that women will write us off if we don’t have cash at the ready. And many will. But that is not limited to women. Sure, there are engrained ideas about what MEN and WOMEN need to bring to the party to be viable mates. And many buy into those. But not all.

No, I think the factors are bigger than that in a capitalist system. Here, poverty feels like a rot. You can see and smell it from down the block. In a capitalist system, we perceive poverty as if infectious. Poverty pulses with a neediness that threatens to absorb your own power. When you are not poor, you will very probably feel confronted by it. Threatened by it. Powerless in the face of it. Without thinking, you back away. And in backing away, further isolate people who are extremely isolated already. All around them is a bustling, shouting, barking, neon cash machine that spins some people in big circles and drives them around like a roller-coaster, while for others, the machine does nothing but pollute the air and water and food supply; keep them up all night; and steal their friends, peace of mind, and children.

So, as much as possible, you  keep your troubles to yourself when you are suffering with lack. They are your troubles, after all! You eat bitter, as the Chinese say. No need to advertise your struggle. You tell yourself you are building character. Or…whatever you have to tell yourself to keep going.

Artists, entrepreneurs, and the self-promoting learn in many places that success! breeds! success! and it’s best not to disclose anything but the good news about your product and your company or your practice. Feed that positive buzz. I have spent a lot of time as a freelance artist, and this was one I grappled with. Social media circles make the conflict clear. These are both your friends and clients (and potential clients). I needed to tell the truth of my situation, but at almost every turn, I was pressured to keep quiet about it. Not by people saying hush…but by my own feelings, and the realities of living in this culture, and the realities of being a self-employed artist. Why would people bring their projects to me if I am going broke? They will look at one artist who is not broke and then, they will look at me, and then, they will think what capitalism has taught them to think: He clearly is no good at what he is doing. They will invest poverty (or wealth) with a moral value. As we all do. There will be no time to consider other factors that might be in play. They will simply walk their business over to the happy, bustling joint. And thus, the problem compounds.

In one of the more revealing moments I had with an artist friend who constantly preached authenticity and never editing who you were as an artist and person when you present yourself to the audience, I was told that this was the reason they never spoke about their own looming and constant money worries: It just wasn’t smart as a business consideration. Which makes sense! A practical sense. I can’t blame them for that, in the end. I personally couldn’t keep so quiet about things so pressing in my life, but then again, I’m a different sort of artist. I happen to be better at telling or showing you what I see and how I feel, than I am at running a storefront.

But that’s how strongly we are indoctrinated with this social rule. We are taught that be you woman or man, businessperson or otherwise, you just don’t let it be known too much when you are struggling with money. It doesn’t make you look able, strong, or cool. It makes you look like a failure (nevermind that at least 15% of the nation is “failing” as well!) You will make others uncomfortable. There’s that sense of jinx or magical vibes to the admonition: By concentrating and admitting the desperateness of the situation, you will perpetuate the momentum of your bad luck, and so shhhhh Fake it Til Ya Make It!

And again, in a nation like the USA, the fault lines and division are very clear. And not much room for gray.

The isolation this pushes you into is painful. When you are down and out, the last thing you need is isolation. You need community. You need help. You need a shoulder, an ear, another human to remind you that you are not contagious, or catastrophic. And that your problems don’t make you a bad person, but that they are part of a larger network of faultlines. And that you are not alone.

A GROWING LACK OF POWER

The notion that you don’t have enough, that you cannot do this or that—whether it is wash the clothes, buy the children new shoes, replace a candle, replace clothes, replace the batteries in a TV remote, or come along when friends go out to the bar or the bowling alley—is a disempowering one. And all in all, that is what being poor equals. A lack of power. A lack of power needed to affect your own destiny.

Sure, the lack is not absolute. You are a human being, even in the USA! You can still wield power. You can fight against the imbalance and the obstacles. You can be ingenious, and motivated, and entrepreneurial. You don’t have to let the baby stick paperclips or her fingers into electric outlets, you can whittle plugs from wood, if you can’t afford to buy them. You can wash clothes by hand with dish detergent. You can substitute water for milk in a recipe, or grow as much of your own food as  you can manage. And you do do many of these things.

What’s harder to do is stop the triggered thoughts that rise in your mind every where you look in your home. Each unpainted patch, each glued cup, every taped up wire or dark lamp whispers to your unconscious mind: broken…no good…expired. And the thoughts accumulate, and become a clamor.

wish i had a…. i can’t fix it…. useless…. this doesn’t work…. used up… insufficient… dying… corroded… waste

CAUGHT IN A GROWING WEB OF ENTROPY

The thorny patch of emotions grows thicker. The feelings and thoughts that are a result of this life situation grow entangled with each other, and in time, you can no longer tell where they end and you begin. You actually forget that they are attached to circumstance; that misery is not, necessarily, life. You forget that these thoughts are not you. Because they do not stay contained, these seedlings of hardship. Insecurity caused by finances bleeds over to the rest of your self-image and emotional experience of life. You are insecure about your cash, and so you are insecure about your ability to keep up your house, or keep the refrigerator full; insecure about your ability to parent your children properly, or about your appearance, or about your ability to respond to any given event that might not be foreseen. This insecurity becomes part of your wardrobe, your eye contact, your body posture, your walk.

An insecurity that persists long enough becomes dread. And dread, anxiety, depression, shame, hopelessness, and anger are lively spirits in the land of Hand To Mouth.

These feelings are often touched on when people write about poverty, or unemployment. Rarely is the aura of entropy discussed. And to be poor means to be run through with the energy of entropy. All around you, everything is fading, failing, breaking, and turning to dust. Entropy is a fact of life, and this is the case always…but when you have disposable cash, you buy off that reality. You replace batteries. You buy a new toothbrush when the old one becomes smushed and worn out. When you break a tooth, you get a crown. You buy new lightbulbs when you need them, instead of juggling lights from room to room. You don’t wrap food in Rite-Aid bags to store them in the fridge, you use plastic wrap so you can see the food. You don’t keep using the same nasty old sponge in the sink; you buy a new one! Your shoes are clean and sharp and stylish, not worn out and floppy and faded. Your clothes, too. When you have regular income, and enough to pay more than rent, every day you put forth energy in the form of physical effort as well as currency and you rejuvenate your environment and you refresh your ability to operate and be mobile and effective in the material world.

But without that money, you see things breaking down right and left. You squeeze remote controls that don’t work. Pull doorknobs that don’t properly turn. Reappearing: a singing toy that sings too low, slow and draggy before stopping altogether. The ever present hand of entropy colors your overall perception of life and self.

Many of these things—utilities shut off, toys that can’t be used anymore, non-working lights—will lead to a discussion with your children that may be painful to you. A conversation that costs yet more energy because of how much effort it takes to repeat it over and over. A conversation that exacts an energetic toll because of how it breaks your heart each time. Maybe you lie to them about what the situation is at one time or another during the day because you don’t want them to also obsess about money or attribute everything painful in life to poverty. On one hand, you are glad that they will not take things for granted and understand that there is a cost to the comforts of life, but you don’t want them to be one like you: A child of lack who grew up with that all-pervading reality. Cheap brands. Knock-offs. Humiliation in school. Bag lunches. Inability to stay quiet on what something cost. Tendency to brag about how much your shoes cost. We can recognize each other, children of poverty. We know the signs. The desperation, the overvaluation of luxury, the ambition to never Be There Again. The ease with which we discuss money, crassly. The anxiety, the inability to save. Mostly, you don’t want your children to grow into adults who are invested with a powerless self-image.

Because no matter what you do, or how you decide to think of it, every way you turn, poverty is not just a lack of power, but a growing lack of power. And it is hard to fight because the power needed to counter poverty is basically an energy exchange in which the rate keeps you at a loss. That is, the time and energy you invest in whittling those socket plugs is going to cost you more than the investment you would have made simply by dropping 1.99 into a cashier’s hand. The wear on your body and peace of mind are not negligible as you scramble to bridge another gap, or pop a finger in a dam, or hold two ends together, or in some other way interject your body into an equation that is constantly crumbling.

A CHAIN REACTION OF LOSS

Poverty is alive, as if a virus. It grows exponentially. Poverty is a chain reaction of loss. There are so many ways to illustrate this. Here’s an obvious one: You don’t have money for a dental checkup, or cleaning. Your dental problems get worse. One day, when chewing, a filling falls out. The last thing you can afford is a trip to the dentist’s, so you do your best to brush that tooth a little more carefully. But of course, decay begins. And spreads. What would have been an easy filling when caught in time, soon turns into a black hole in your tooth that eats away more tooth the longer you don’t get it filled. You avoid it until a pain festers there, and grows more every day until it wracks your brain constantly, and soon you can’t sleep. Now, you either do a root canal with crown ($2000, roughly), or you have the tooth pulled (about $120). The tooth gets pulled, of course. You probably borrowed or hocked something to get even that $120, so there’s a little more debt and stress. And there goes the Kool Aid Smile you’ve been famous for since you were a child. There goes your self image. You smile less, embarrassed of the gaps in your smile. This affects how you interact with others. Which affects all those dealings and their outcome in some way. This little hole that crept into your tooth, too, creeps into your life. And grows.

Your glasses are broken. You don’t replace them. You can’t! You tape them together. You avoid wearing them. You can’t see. You stop talking to people who pass by on the street because you cannot see them without your glasses. Or your wear your contacts for far too long and cause irritation and infection to your eyes. You run out of saline too fast, so you store two contact lenses on one side of the holder, decreasing the effectiveness of the sterilizing solution. Sometimes you can’t afford saline/sterilizer at all, and you won’t wear the geeked out glasses with the tape on one side so you stroll down the street, nearly blind, keeping your eyes to the ground. Not smiling too wide, either! Remember.

Like bubbles of mercury on the ground—like that clamor of thoughts that your home life sends to you every day—these conditions begin to cluster and add to one another.

You wear things as many times as you can before they smell to cut down on costs of washing the clothes. You no longer buy the brands that are the most environmentally sound, or non-toxic. You do your best, but inevitably, your shampoos and soaps and deodorants simply become what you can afford. So your conscious will and personality and desires are less and less motivating your actions and you are becoming One Who Survives. Gone are the days of the shampoo in the cool bottle that smells so heavenly you feel better just putting in your hair. Gone is that little good feeling that you walked around with for hours simply for using something that made you feel good. Gone are the sharp razors; hello store brand. Gone is the full fridge, gone are the desserts.

And, unbidden—even if not in your own home—the day becomes, yet, a thread of thoughts and instances in which you Don’t Have Enough. Those thoughts drag behind them bags weighted with shame; with fear; with worry and insecurity; with anger. Being full of those feelings all the time erodes your health. (Which costs more money.) And being full of those thoughts and feelings take up your time, too. Those take energy. This week, two tall cups of coffee are needed each morning, instead of the one!

And what about something as simple and reliable as coffee in the morning? Even coffee is a luxury, despite your addiction. It’s actually very expensive. Of course you buy the cheap stuff. And in a rare pinch, maybe you use grounds twice. Maybe you cover up your cup when it grows cold and put it in the fridge for tomorrow. Maybe you run out of sugar and just drink it black, no sugar. Maybe you do all those things. The days when you could saunter over to the bakery and buy an Americano with two extra shots for a $3.00 coffee seems very distant. And extravagant as hell!

All these subtractions and detours build on themselves. You feel out of breath with the hustle, because when you are poor, the hustle never ends. The need to be creative and enterprising never ends. The need to Make Do never ends. The feelings that you are a loser are ever-present. You know it’s a losing game, and you know it’s a crooked one. But who wants to lose, even at a crooked game?

PERVERSE PENALTIES…AND ANGER

It’s no wonder you end up feeling so exhausted. Perversely, a life of poverty is a life in which you need to run even faster. Because being low on cash marks you. It marks you like a tiny rodent scrambling under the hot desert sun, and the birds of prey sure do come. Late fees, disconnection fees, early cancellation fees, overdraft fees, bounced checks, low balance fees, higher interest rates, poorer terms for the poor…there is a network of vampiric thorns in place designed to trip up, puncture, and suck the life from those who cannot afford to stay sufficiently solvent. You know it. You are very aware of it. You grew resentful. You grow afraid of what the next penalty will be. It’s only a matter of time. You grow afraid, even, of the mail. You avoid it. You don’t empty the mailbox for a week straight. What do you care? There will only be more news about how much you owe. A recipe of penalty. Another mouthful of dread.

There is always this pushing upon you. This force pushing down upon  you. It is entropy. Resisting it is painful, and gets harder the less money you have. Somehow, you believe in yourself. It’s a rough patch. the whole nation is suffering. And then you think Well…most of us. There are those who are not.

Some may handle poverty better than I describe it here. Poverty will not feel the same in different cultures, perhaps. And there is a difference between living on a meager income, and being both broke and unemployed. So there is a continuum, no doubt. I am not pretending to know the minds of millions of people, and ultimately, I speak only from my own experience.

In my experience, it is inevitable that living in these conditions long enough, an anger will grow in you. An anger that in this whole dumb lottery of power and chance, you drew the bad card. Not because you deserve it, but because that’s the luck of the damn draw. The well-coiffed sons of privilege laughing as they duck to get into their Porsches or slide into their Senatorial seats are not inherently more worthy souls, or righteous beings. No matter what the movies and advertisements try to tell us. At best, they got lucky by birth or other circumstance. At worst, they were blessed by an institutional corruption that favors them. In any case, why should they get top notch dental care, a car at 16, and a full, nutritious menu every day of the week? Why should they never know a night in jail? Why should they get bailed out of every scrape and set back on the path of good fortune, while you end up running yourself ragged and broke over ten bucks? Why should there be such different worlds, and some born to hardship from the start? What makes them so special as to be given such carefree lives? Why shouldn’t your worries also be theirs?

The anger pervades, pollutes, poisons you. Poisons your heart. You push it away and try to talk yourself back to the generous soul that you know yourself to be. You are careful not to cultivate self-pity. You read your books that help breathe spirituality back into your life. You meditate. You focus on the good. But…you still live in the U.S.A. And you’re not 22 anymore, where it’s easy to frame things romantically. You “should” have it all figured out by now. You “should” be comfortable. You “should” have an IRA and savings, and a new-ish car, and be spending money. You should have some security for tomorrow.

And despite your best efforts, the bitterness grows. The Mr. Hyde within grows. He is, in fact, fed by hunger. And before long, you have a hard time feeling good for other peoples’ good fortune. You live in a vicious competitive environment, and you are losing out. Each tip or wobble of the personal coffers signifies your own moral worth and competence as a human being. It’s no wonder your emotions run high; it’s no wonder you feel worn out. And you feel disappointed in yourself, as well. Even for having such thoughts and feelings. You know you are kinder than your emotions are revealing. But maybe you are not. And you wonder. It’s very easy to call yourself kind when you have a full belly. Let the resources run dry for too long and you may find yourself to be quite another sort of person. Either way, you can’t help it. You feel cornered by circumstance and you snarl like an animal with its leg in a trap. You need out, that’s all. You can’t think and you just need a goddamn break, already.

Sometimes the only break you will get comes in the form of escape. Liquor is a handy one. After all, liquor can be the poor man’s friend, deity, and medicine all in one. A reliable tonic for when you can’t afford to treat physical ailments, or when your mind grows weary from racing, fretting, or fearing. Just wash the worry away at the end of a day. Get back to a simple, relaxed state where you don’t care about money, and where you feel no pain. Of course, you are lucky if you can afford the bottom shelf stuff. It’s about $10. It bites a little harder and is a bit rougher on the body than the good stuff. But you get used to it pretty fast.

I AM VITAL, STRONG, AND REEK OF POTENTIAL. I AM THE CAPTAIN OF TIME.

The flip side to that feeling of entropy that surrounds you when you don’t have money to throw around at even the essentials, is a feeling of power and vitality and possibility when you have reliable and disposable income. Yup, when you have a pocketful of plastic or cash, and a good amount more in the bank, the horizon lays out before you like she’s your starry-eyed bride. You can be part of society at any juncture you desire. You might glide over here and buy a new shirt. (They’ll let you handle them because you look well-dressed already.) You might stop at the corner and scoop up some Shwarma. You might have a laugh with the flower vendor as you choose an arrangement with which to surprise a friend—all on the spur of the moment. You might see a movie. You might buy a slice. Who knows what you’ll decide to do! At any node in this culture you can plug in. You have that power. You can collect. You can browse. You can nibble. You can gift. You can fund. You can donate. You can bargain. You can walk away. You don’t need to rush. Time moves slower for you when you are solvent.

It’s true! When you are always lacking cash, you end up stressed out. About deadlines, schedules, closing times, bank holidays, end of the month, first of the month, bus schedules. You are very aware of time. And it is not your friend. Penalties await. Last chances await. Bounced checks await. Overdrafted accounts await. Shutoff notices await. And you better stay sharp on all of it.

When money is not a worry, it’s as if the whole world slows down. It literally feels that way—that the world is turning slower. You don’t need to try and drink the milk before it goes bad…or to make it last longer than natural. Because buying a new container is not an issue. You don’t need to run like mad for the bus stop. You can call a cab. You don’t need to beg a friend for a ride to the electric company before five p.m. because you’ve already paid your bill! In fact, you paid it as soon as it arrived instead of racing against a shut-off notice. You don’t need to rush for much of anything. You can wander and muse. Because your life is not a constant battle to stay alive. Because having money means having leisure time.

And just as with cash you feel empowered, belonging, and able to tap into the society machine at will; when you are broke you feel like an outcast. You don’t belong. You are a criminal. A potential drain. At no point in the chain of societal nodes can you take command. At no point can you enter. At no point can you negotiate anything, unless it is by the good graces of another. You best not loiter. You will be okay if your clothes are new, and the lighter skinned you are, generally. But if you are walking in a circle at the mall, but not holding a Subway sandwich bag or a Pizza Hut cup, and are wearing ragged clothes, and especially if you are brown—then you are an arrest or police harassment waiting to happen.

TWISTED OUT OF SHAPE

Do you note the narrow focus of this writing? How it all becomes about your own self, your own mind, your own body, your own future? Even reading through it feels like being stuffed into a hole all alone with your rancid mind. And that’s what these situations do to a person. That’s part of that isolation. And the survival instinct, which is running on overdrive. There’s nothing more selfish than the instinct to survive, after all. And living in that place for too long can make you grabby, and make you mean. And it can make you ugly. These fears and feelings distort a person. I’ve seen it up close in the faces of people in my life; people stressed out about gas every day, or about their kids’ clothes. People who are living with all the feelings and stressors that I’ve written about here. People who are kind and beautiful souls, but after years of living this way, those qualities become harder to see…because poverty can twist you out of shape like that.

It needn’t be that way, of course. There are  many shapes a culture can take. And a wiser society would be built more compassionately. A wiser nation would not view poverty or unemployment as a personal failure, but as a societal one. A kinder nation would have, as a reflex, a more communal spirit in which we looked out for each other. In the USA it is very hard to be poor and/or unemployed. How do you get your food if you do not buy it from the store? In some cases, people have tried gardening as a solution, and the city turns around and outlaws yard gardens. A city often will outlaw panhandling, or giving food away, or paying other peoples’ parking tickets. Our culture is not arranged in a way that people can easily help each other, or provide for themselves outside of the rigid, narrow, selfish, and tyrannical capitalist path. There is a sick and ugly network of mechanisms in place in this country to both shame you for being poor, as well as to keep you from escaping your situation. This is why going broke in a place like the USA can lead an otherwise rational and balanced soul to such desperation.

A HUNGRY MAN IS AN ANGRY MAN

Poverty engenders a feeling of powerlessness in you beyond what some might imagine. It’s like that insecurity I wrote about earlier. That feeling of powerlessness doesn’t stay contained to one area. It grows in you when you are not earning enough money, or can’t find employment and can easily metastasize into you feeling and acting generally powerless, and thinking of yourself as powerless. You don’t even see it happening. And one day you look at your thinking or actions and say “How did this happen? I am not this person. I don’t think of myself as ineffectual and unable to change things!” But it sneaks up on you, living in that mental and physical aura and environment every day.

And all the emotions that poverty breeds do this; carry over into areas where they are destructive and possibly consuming. And you forget what it is like to view things differently. And you feel there is no salvation for you. You can easily begin to burn inside with the injustice that is all around you, the injustice that is reaching into your home and snatching teeth from your head; the injustice that is mocking your manhood, and degrading your personhood, and is causing your children pain. And it doesn’t take too much of this, or too long of this, to bring you to the point where you feel you are ready to blow. Because being poor doesn’t mean you are stupid. And it doesn’t mean you can’t see what’s going on. And what’s going on is that everything is failing, divided unfairly, and for you and yours is pain—while for others, its pure pleasure.

It’s important to remember that when we are talking about a “divide,” we are not talking about how one person has a BMW with leather interior and the next person has a beat up 1990 Chevy. The divide is much more meaningful and dangerous than that. We are talking about a divide in overall peace of mind. A divide in the feelings of self-worth that some have and some lack. A divide between ideas like “I belong here and there is hope and good times ahead for me” versus “I am tolled and harrassed at every turn and I can’t rest and there is no way out for me.” A divide between “I want this society and system to work out and I’ll do what I can to perpetuate its success” and “It will be best for everyone if this thing topples and all those who benefit from its standing scream on the way down.” We should not underestimate the volatile nature of a public—or even one person—who feels s/he has nothing left to lose; that the deck is stacked beyond righting; that nobody is listening, and nothing will change. In fact, the roots of enmity against the United States from abroad, I would venture, is in large part caused by this dynamic. Many who suffer outside our borders and live in squalor and in pain see so many Americans living obliviously in great comfort and know it to be unfair, and further, know the situation to be exploitive. I do not see the terrorism this breeds as so very different than other violent domestic reactions to economic violence. I’ve lived for a while now at what felt like the edge of everything. It’s a maddening place.

I think it was about two years ago when I heard of a man in a city nearby (Portland?) who went on a violent rampage that was explained by his losing his job, and by the pressures of the economy. At the time, I responded in a way that I see now as disappointingly smug, and not just a little nâïve: I wrote that he obviously had other issues if losing his job caused him to become violent in such a jarring way. Now, that may be true. But on the other hand, as I hope this writing has helped illustrate, in my opinion and experience, prolonged poverty and unemployment are big enough factors in and of themselves to destabilize a person. You don’t really need much more than that to send you off the edge. And the fact that despite my upbringing, I could have been oblivious to that simply because I had regular income at the time is just as worrisome as the idea that the conditions that pushed that man toward destruction are common today, and only growing more ubiquitous.

Take a society; blend ignorance of the comfortable with desperation of the poor, and you have a dangerous mix. And in times like this, ignorance thrives. I’ve not even touched on other important factors related to this recession/depression. For example, the fact that if you’re not white, you are being hit even harder by this economic downturn. Or what it feels like to have a name that you know will decrease your chances of getting an interview just by the nature of your ethnicity, all while hearing increasingly more scapegoating by other destitute people who are blaming their troubles on people with names or skin like you. In a time when those of us struggling ought be united in our plight, wizened demons of racism and division rear their ugly heads and keep us squabbling and at each others’ throats.

NO MORE WAR ON THE POOR

A photo of the Wall Street protests going on right now.

It is very much in the interest of society that we not let economic inequality continue as it has. The momentum of today’s class war on the poor has accelerated to a dangerous fervor. This war, and all the forms it takes, is, of course, an accepted part of the American Dream; it’s values seeded deeply in all of our ideas of what wealth means and what poverty means. It is a long-running war. But any student of history knows that the pitch of a war can pivot on the smallest happening. Winter might strike early. The crops might rot. The supply lines might be interrupted. The troops might get dysentery. The villagers might have more to fight for than a worn out cadre of mercenary soldiers. An unforeseen geographical or meteorological aberration can upset everything. And then, the tide shifts with barely a moment’s notice, and woe to those caught unprepared.

Warren Buffet has a sense of this, and that is why he is one of the rich people in this nation who has spoken up about the inequality. That is why he has recently advocated for people in his income bracket to pay a fair share in taxes. I doubt very much that this statement is purely motivated by altruism. Not to be ungenerous to him; I still very much appreciate and credit him for saying what is true and obvious, and what is easier to forget when you are very comfortable. I do think he comes from a good place, too.

But I have no doubt that he sees the writing on the wall. It’s there for anyone who cares to look around today. The proles will put up with a whole lot. A whole hell of a lot. But they have limits, make no mistake. If you leave people with no way out of Hell, they will tunnel. Even if all they have are their own fingers. Put everything beautiful on one side of a wall, and they will tunnel. Lock up all the resources in one building and reinforce the walls with steel that reached fifty feet underground—but don’t forget that you have to pay someone to make the key to lock it, pay someone to empty the garbages, and pay someone to come read your meter. Those people will not be in your income bracket. And the tricks of division will not work forever, or on all people. Warren Buffet has made a simple calculation and would rather pay some more taxes than fear his janitor, his maid, his mailman, his lawnboy, his locksmith, his pizza delivery person, and every other blue collar or unemployed person in his path.

The real people who are scared are the power elite. Of course, they’re trying to make you scared and us scared. But I can tell you, having been a reporter for the New York Times, that on the inside they’re very, very frightened. They do not want movements like this to grow, and they understand on some level — whether it’s subconscious or, in other cases, even overt — that the criminal class in this country has seized power.”

—Journalist Chris Hedges

But he should fear them. And all those who would run an endless array of tricks to keep the poor from escaping their lot should fear us. And all those who would enact laws to further game this crooked system should fear us. And the politicians who collude with their wealthy benefactors should fear us. And all those who would make the mistake of thinking the poor are their own private milk sack to be forever squashed and kneaded should fear us. And all those who would stay quiet and inactive in the face of this class war, believing they can drop enough coin into security systems and gates and guard dogs to keep us at bay will come to regret such errors of judgment.

They keep us as far away as they can, don’t they?  They do it with high rents, and loitering laws, and unwritten dress codes, and police, and expensive price tags on meals that cost a week’s pay for most of us. It’s easy for them to keep squeezing the yoke around the necks of people who never can answer back; people who are too busy trying to make rent to be effective activists or in some other way address the injustice that is crushing them. It presents no moral quandary to kill people slowly and by degrees when they are an abstract concept to you. And the poor remain abstract to rich because the media refuses to tell the truth of things, as the media exists as fairy-tales for the rich. And they don’t want to bother their beautiful minds with such icky details. The news blackout of the recent protests at Wall Street insure they won’t have to.

But what if the poor and exploited were to begin showing up everywhere? What if there were no place an Uppercrustian could go without seeing signs of our anger? What if we began leaving our mark…and with it, a strong phrase adopted as our calling card? Something like No More War on the Poor? What if the 1-Percenters began seeing this phrase everywhere they turned? What if it were spraypainted on every Mercedes? What if this phrase were spray-painted on the pretty black asphalt driveways of every congress member’s driveway? What if cards with No More War on the Poor scrawled on them turned up in the dry-cleaning of every Senator? What if that dry-cleaning had poison ivy in it, too? Or bleach? What if their Mercedes began coming back with scratches down the side instead of a wax job? What if their landscaper watered their prize rose bushes with weedkiller instead of water? What if  they could never pinpoint where the ongoing action was coming from…because it was coming from everywhere?

Nobody in the world, nobody in history has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.”

—Assata Shakur

It would be a voice they could not escape. There would not need to be any organization or central group. It would be a project that millions could undertake. People wouldn’t need to devote ten hours a week in a week already jam packed with duties and exhaustion. A note here, an action there. Wait for opportunity to show itself and then speak in that voice that speaks for us all. And what if a million people were spreading this message? What if ten million were? What if the newspapers had no choice, eventually, but to begin covering the strange flurry of messaging that was showing up on napkins in restaurants, and car doors, and driveways, and in flower deliveries and grocery bags? What if the right people began seeing the many, many disaffected and suffering humans they previously never had to stare at? What if they began feeling cornered and surrounded? What if we remembered that we do surround them?

Perhaps bit by bit, changes would happen. Think of it as a haunting. Or think of it as advertising! Advertising works, you know. If there is no way to turn away from the Coca Cola ad, you will eventually come to memorize it. And whether you like it or not, it will work on you. What if the rich and the crooked were to be haunted by the anger of millions? There would be no formal advocacy group or official that politicians or billionaires could bury under or buy off with good PR, or kickback. There would be no weaseling away from action. Action is all that would alleviate the million-pronged assault. Better conditions for people. Change angry, hungry people who need a way to vent against the injustice into people happy with life because justice is alive and well and affecting them for the better.

It would be one thing if the poorest of us could leave it all up to those who benefit from ignoring their plight. But that would make no sense. Collective anger needs to give voice to the conscience that too many powerful people lack today. Perhaps this particular imagining of a nationwide project—a faceless but inescapable voice—is not the answer. I don’t claim to have an answer. But I know one needs to be found. I know today’s so-called solutions are getting us nowhere. After all, this is not really about an acute crisis, but a long-term pattern and a systemic imbalance. And this systemic imbalance will remain, even after the last of the protestors on Wall Street have gone home.

There is a power differential in play in our nation that is killing most of us. And we need to take some of that power back. It is not only possible for us to do that, it is the only way out.

YESTERDAY’S SICK WARMONGERING SCION OF AMERICA, George W. Bush, once appeared on television and sternly scolded the People for taking television too seriously.

That is, this pampered rich boy who had every thing stolen for him in his life, swaggered up on his pulpit and berated the entire nation, warning us not to have too many emotions and thoughts due to all the televised news about death in Iraq; about suicide bombings in Iraq; about the Empire spasms that lashed out taking lives, maiming babies, weeping spent uranium. “The explosions on your TV.”

And I think that little irony there says it all about today’s media, about today’s “News” channels. We are supposed to take them seriously, even as they tell us not to do so. An inverted knot of suppressed and sublimated emotion and mangled thought process is how they’d have us. A busted open container they can pour poison into. But before that, like a vampire, suck up the energies and spirit of so many, and from all sides of the political spectrum. Inside this beast’s festering jaws are clenched a fabricated world brightly and wretchedly illuminated as if by 100,000 limbs set alight by white phosphorus.

Inside that box, the Iraq disaster is done with. Inside that box, it makes sense to keep bleeding billions into the Afghanistan sands. Inside that box, no important questions matter. Inside that box, your own heart and mind can’t fit. What would (does) our world look like outside of that box?

Today’s Right wing is not worth listening to any more than it makes sense to stick your arm into a spinning garbage disposal. What of those those who watch these hell-hearted plasticmen and seethe? Or mock them on a blog? Or debunk TV arguments every day of the year? A massive amount of energy and time is spent doing this. It’s sort of weird. Who do they watch for? Not for me. Some will claim it is a service. Do they do it for you? They deplete their own energies, and accomplish what? What is accomplished each day by doing this?

In truth, I’m sure it is a service for a few. Is it the most valuable service? Perhaps not. What of pooling all that time, pooling any monies, and creating a new station. Or perhaps a new network via radios. Yes, radio. This tool that many more people can use, and even carry mobile. A tool that many of lesser means can broadcast with, no less.

And to do what? Simply reporting the state of the world as it truly is. Sowing the airwaves with hope, with positivity, with history lessons. With plans, with campaigns, with community. Completely tuning out the false narrative as you would tune out  a sick individual on a corner, ranting about death, devils, and disaster. Would you follow that person around, reinterpreting all their madness for the crowd? Would you shout side by side and call it a service?

This motion is not so much popular, though. The shape of thought that would completely swerve away and build something new in the place of something unsightly, unsafe, or unsound. Is that a revolutionary act? It is, by definition. Reform seeks to take something broken and reshape it. Redundancy says do it over and over even when it does nothing much. Revolution says that Thing is not worth reshaping, nor is it worth your energies and time. Revolutionary thought says you have the power and means and ability to make something new, in place of the old. But today’s Left is not revolutionary, of course.

Lately I hear a lot about how while so many are misguidedly blaming ALL muslims for 9/11, it was only a small cadre of radical extremist muslims who attacked us on 9/11.

Is that true?

Do you even know–as a person–who attacked us on 9/11? I don’t. How am I to know? How are we to know? I still have the newspaper where some foggy screen caps of a Fake Osama Bin Laden were shown supposedly crowing about the WTC attacks. For a tape that would be the hardest evidence in USA possession of who made the biggest hit on our country in its entire history, it faded out of existence very fast, eh? But then, I already said it’s fake.

Do you know it was the Taliban? Really? Why? Because your TV told you? Because the lying, corrupt government told you? That same government that was making deals with the Taliban in August of 2001? The same government that has been trying to sink its derricks into Central Asian oil fields for years? Why? Because they claimed 19 passports floated out of the completely exploded plane down onto the street and somehow stuck out in all that clutter, debris, ash, and litter?

What evidence do we have that the WTC were taken down by the people our government claims? What evidence personally? What trials brought to light the guilty? What process made this clear? What oracle pronounced this truth? The very same TV that our own government’s head of state told us not to take seriously? What forces forbade you to question this? The Right, and yes, the Left, too. From Bill Maher to DailyKos—earnest questions about this catastrophe that changed everything in our nation, from law to war to monies spent in congress, to school lessons—were verboten. Despite the shabbiest case ever built against any major crime. And those who insisted we examine it were demonized by those same Liberal forces, as we are today. Just as it has been the Liberals overwhelmingly leading the charge to sneer at those of us who still believe in protest, rallies, and boycotts.

That is your (Professional) Left.

Obviously, in 2010, what is ancient is again new. The empire is well into its recycling phase. We see conquer and divide. Hucksters and snake oil salesmen. Blatant class war. PSYOPS and a host of control mechanisms to provide a manufactured reality that keeps the People scattered, confused, scared, angry, and mostly, full of fake information. We were attacked and traumatized a decade ago, lied to about it by those who are supposed to protect us and be of us, and this rending of the truth helped destroy us as a confident and sane people.

We tried again to hope and believe in truth when Obama was elected, but as much as some “progressives” still cling to their ideology and party, it’s clear on a gut level that we were had and that the strongest forces in our nation today are those of war, greed, and deception.

And now, nobody believes in much of anything anymore as a result. And we are fast unraveling. Truth means nothing and TV pays it not even the tribute of a gesture. Racism is part of everyday speech, political campaigns, and dialogue. Hate groups are hand in hand with government. White supremacists roam the border and carry badges and guns, too. Laws that let police be even more racist in their operations than before are being launched left and right.

Even those who fight every day to maintain belief know, in their belly, that the game is rotten to the core. This is driving us mad, it is wrecking national sanity. Or causing people to simply turn away.

It’s not just because Obama is black that the nation is flipping out. It’s also because all the illusions of national identity and ideology that we were given as children have fallen apart. Now naked power rules, and shows itself in gross class war and cooked up news shows, court rulings, and police actions that make clear who will be okay tomorrow, and who will not. Those of us with little money or position understand we will soon be living in mildewed tents on the outskirts, while those with money or power will continue to enjoy tax breaks, ballrooms, and well-buttered toast smothered with imported jams.

Dreams of justice and fairness have been toppled.

Once that sinks in fully, things will become very ugly indeed. But many of us are in denial, in shock, or yet to see the final foundation buckling. Still listening to the siren song of TV.

Were there someone or some ones capable of organizing even a fraction of us—they’d need lots of money, and yet not to be beholden to the ideology of the Right—we might have a chance against our enemies. Our enemies are greed and disinformation. And a state out of control. It is those same illusions given us as children. It is the inertia that shoves us cliffward. It is the voice of the Television. It is today’s Liberal brain, brain like a slave, stooped over with the load of delusion, but weary and with no place to go to get away from it. The Left is a zombie holding a flag, with all its sly use of the Right’s most drastic weapons, with its reinforcing at key moments, what harms the People, with no real plan or courage to enact something better, something revolutionary. At every juncture where the Left might make a real stand and make a difference, it suddenly caves in. Just when the People might again hope or benefit. But it must. Because, you see, even the “left” politicians on the national stage know the deal. They hold no hope for justice or truth, either. But LIBERAL is their brand and they are stuck with it.

The GOP? The GOP is but the blood-flecked ID expanding like a rogue universe of wicked cells, the diseased and disintegrating lobe of the human condition. The freaked out, frantic, midnight acid-head mind that whips and coils like a half-smashed snake in the sand.

I’m not better than anyone else in all of this. I soothe myself with TV, too. I dive deeply into illusion. I simply happen to turn to it for storytelling, for movies. Otherwise, I’ll be out in nature. Give me the sun, the wind, the water, and the touch of someone close to me. And give me stories. Stories of clear-eyed humans, of paths lined with golden wheat that sways in the sun, trod by brave souls undertaking important journeys. Give me stories of unpolluted hearts, and simple, wise, and humble humans. Give me stories of the past, of over there, of a day faraway. A day when this looming tower of babbling bullshit has finally collapsed and lain itself upon the ground to bake and bleach under an aging sun, before long to be but a skeleton for tomorrow’s mountains.

THE ARIZONA BOYCOTT situation is an interesting one. I’d warn against thinking this is gonna fade away. There is a reason that progressive alliances, black leadership and organizations and others are referencing civil rights struggles. There is a reason today that aspiring conservative politicians like Rand Paul and pundits like Glenn Beck are openly arguing against the Civil Rights Era’s gains. This is one of those moments in time.

This is much bigger than one law in Arizona, and these times require our energy and hands, should we have them to lend.

Around the nation, the signs are encouraging. The boycott against SB 1070 grows stronger every day. So stay strong, gente. Many people refused to ride the bus that would not permit Rosa Parks  to sit where she wanted. They did it in solidarity, not because they needed a jog; not because they wanted the inconvenience; not because they did not want a ride! Many others rallied around Rosa Parks—and all others throughout time who stood against injustice—because they knew the sacrifice was worth fighting for what is right.

The Diamondbacks games continues to function as a bullhorn for the boycott:

Politics and sports came together Monday evening when several hundred demonstrators used the opener of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ three-game series against the Arizona Diamondbacks to protest that state’s new immigration bill.

Holding placards that read, among other things, “Arizona Shame on You” and chanting “Boycott Arizona!” demonstrators marched up Elysian Park Avenue toward Stadium Way and assembled on the four corners outside the entrance to the stadium, walking back and forth across the streets. …

“We’re not going to stop them from attending the game,” said John Morales, one of the organizers of the protest. “They’ve already bought their tickets. We’re trying to make a connection between sports and politics…. The Diamondback team is not just from Arizona; the ownership has contributed to the Republican Party that has spearheaded the legislation.”

The Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada may soon come on board:

Several cities around the country are already boycotting Arizona in response to the law. Now, the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, or PLAN, wants city councils in Reno and Las Vegas to do the same. “We want to send a message to Arizona that this type of police state tactic is not welcome in our country,” said PLAN’s Communications Director Launce Rake. “Let’s not do business with Arizona businesses and let’s definitely not send any government people there to conventions.”

Pablo Alvarado, President of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network joined thousands of protestors and concerned humans in Phoenix on Saturday to protest SB 1070. He talks about how there will soon be a way to keep supporting companies who are oppose SB 1070, and leave the others in the cold:

Alvarado said the National Day Laborer Organizing Network — who organized the rally and march along with Puente Arizona, a human rights organization spear-heading the anti-SB 1070 movement — is working on a method for companies that oppose the immigration law to be identified by shoppers who participate in the boycott.

“We are creating a ‘human rights zone,’ and all of those [sympathetic] businesses are going to be hit in the next few weeks,” Alvarado said. “And those businesses are going to have a sticker that says … ‘This is a human rights zone, come and sponsor this business.’”

Kanye West, Zach de la Rocha, Cypress Hill, and other musicians are on board with the boycott:

“Fans of our music, our stories, our films and our words can be pulled over and harassed every day because they are brown or black, or for the way they speak, or for the music that they listen to,” said de la Rocha, who has been outspoken about the law since2 the bill was first introduced earlier this year. “We are asking artists the world over to stand with us, and now allow our collective economic power to be used to aid and abet civil and human rights violations that will be caused by Arizona’s odious law.”

The Los Angeles Unified School District and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors may soon join the Los Angeles City Council in boycotting Arizona:

On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Unified School District and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors will consider adding their opposition to the law. The school district is considering a resolution condemning the law and exploring ways of curtailing support for Arizona and companies based there.

The resolution, proposed by board President Monica Garcia and members Nury Martinez and Yolie Flores, would call for LAUSD civics and history classes to include a discussion of the Arizona law “in the context of unity, diversity and equal protection for all.” …

Last month, the Los Angeles City Council approved an economic boycott of Arizona.

Minnesota Native Americans and others gathered this past weekend to support the boycott:

May 29, Forth Snelling, Minnesota. Minnesotans of many ethnicities gathered to support the Arizona Boycott in protest of new immigration law (SB170) and to prevent introduction of similar laws here.

Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc., America’s oldest African American college fraternity, has decided to move their national convention from Phoenix, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada in solidarity with the boycott against Arizona, and in opposition to the recent passage of SB 1070. The decision is “an expensive one,” according to The Root:

The decision to boycott Arizona is not without a cost for Alpha Phi Alpha. Breaking contracts with Phoenix area hotels, catering, and meeting rooms means the fraternity is now in litigation with contractors. And while Mason can’t give an exact amount on how much the boycott will cost the fraternity, he estimates that Alpha is looking at over $300,000 in penalties. That doesn’t include over 3,000 Alphas who will have to change their flight and hotel reservations as soon as possible.

“I’m ecstatic that our dear fraternity took a hard-line stance with a state known for attempting to block our Brother Martin Luther King Jr.’s national holiday,” said Terry Calhoun, a financial planner and Alpha Phi Alpha member from Illinois. Calhoun purchased his discount airline tickets to Phoenix months ago, and will now be paying extra for the trip to Las Vegas. But he’s fine with it.

“I would be willing to go to a campfire to hold the national convention as opposed to going to the oppressive state of Arizona,” Calhoun said.

Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey and chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, is urging major league baseball players to boycott the 2011 All-Star game, which is scheduled to take place in Phoenix, to protest SB 1070:

In every century and generation, immigrants have contributed to the progress, prosperity and vitality of this nation. This law undermines that shared history by promoting discrimination against one group of people. As someone who has and continues to fight for comprehensive immigration reform, I believe the Arizona law is a call to action for reform of our nation’s broken immigration system. However, while I understand the frustration about the failures of our current system, states should not be permitted to enact their own discriminatory immigration laws while the federal government works to reform our laws. The Arizona law is an embarrassment to our country and a call to action to our communities to stand up against injustice.

For these reasons, I ask that you consider boycotting the All-Star Game in Arizona until SB1070 is repealed or the League decides to move the game to an alternate location.

Of course, as FOX news and others love to broadcast whenever possible, a MSNBC/TELEMUNDO poll taken at one point showed that a majority of whites support SB 1070, even while a majority of Latinos did not. (Do you think this is accurate, or being used by media branches to divide us? If it is a real divide, do you wonder why this might be? Why racial profiling consequences intensifying does not affect whites’ peace of mind?) And you can easily find many op-eds, articles, pundits and even politicians who run the gamut from baffled as to why the boycott even exists and keeps growing, to enraged that it does. There are people doing their best, even, to organize spending sprees in Arizona! They seem to love the idea of SB 1070 that much. As if they personally need there to be increased scrutiny and policing and Your-Papers-Please checkpoints in the nation.

The faultlines between whites and non-whites in perceptions, feelings, realities of jail, social repercussions of state violence—it all becomes clear, now. Of course that faultline has been there all along, though we’ve all become zoned out, used to dealing, adapted in our own ways. Either blinded by comfort and privilege, or just dealing with the imbalances wherever they exist. Or some mix of both?

Either way, something has happened in America. Something inexorable, no doubt. We are living in important times, just as every other person on Earth did. And here we live through an unveiling. Of our own natures. How we deal with that will define us, no doubt. In my wildest dreams I hope we all come together. I don’t see that we are there yet, as a People. Those in power are mostly holding on tighter. Which means status quo, more suffering, worse division, more racism, more prisons, more death, more poor people, more disease, more environmental disaster, more war. Those are all kindred to increased racial profiling, greater numbers of people in prison, more divided families, greater police powers, greater state power, further persecution of people of color as well as vulnerable families, men, women, and children.

This is much bigger than one law in Arizona.

But the big battle is the little battle, too. Which is why when I see factions of people or people baffled at the boycott, or in support of SB 1070; when I see them clamp down harder on views that support the corrupt status quo, I see there is a lot of fighting left to do.

Last week, Ohio radio station WTVN-AM (owned by Clear Channel, the station quick to act against errant curse words or bared breasts) actually had a nifty little contest in support of SB 1070:

610 WTVN would like to send you where Americans are proud and illegals are scared, sunny Phoenix, Arizona! You’ll spend a weekend chasing aliens and spending cash in the desert, just make sure you’ve got your green card! Win round trip airfare to Phoenix, hotel accommodations, and a few pesos in spending cash – just register below!”

This weird (not-racist) contest was a reaction to Columbus mayor Michael Coleman’s decision to join the boycott and ban city employees from visiting Arizona in any official capacity (they are of course free to go on their own time and dollar if they like). You’ll note that article has Mister Coleman’s somber and poignant and personal thoughts on the Civil Rights struggle that affected his family. His great-great-great Grandmother was a slave, and she lived to 105. And he was infused with her memory and her experience when he made the decision he did.

And what was Clear Channel’s little radio station Dj’s response to this? To give away a weekend trip “chasing aliens”; where “illegals are scared” and as the winner of the contest, you are free to sun and hunt, and spend cash.

This is much bigger than one law in Arizona.

NCLR’s Janet Murguia reacted to the station’s contest:

“The passage of SB 1070 has provoked a lot of reprehensible anti-Latino and anti-immigrant rhetoric but a radio station bankrolling someone to ‘hunt’ human beings for sport represents a new low,” stated Janet Murguía, NCLR President and CEO.  “The owners and directors of WTVN might think that this is all in good fun but what is happening to Latinos – citizen, legal, and undocumented alike – in Arizona is no joke.  We are asking for an immediate and unequivocal apology from the station and its parent company.”

Noting that the station’s contest has triggered considerable outrage in Latino communities in Ohio, Arizona, and nationwide, Murguia concluded, “It is important to keep in mind that the American people own the airwaves over which WTVN broadcasts.  As such, we will ask FCC Commissioners to ensure that threats against American citizens — such as the one encouraged and promoted by WTVN  – are not taken lightly and dealt with in an appropriate manner as soon as possible.”

(By the way, if you feel that contest was an unacceptable use of OUR airwaves, voice your feelings about that contest directly:)

WTVN Mailing Address:
2323 W. Fifth Ave.
Suite 200
Columbus, OH 43204

Telephone:
Main Office: 614-486-6101
Main Fax: 614-487-2559

Mike Elliott:
Executive Producer – Program Director

mikeelliott@wtvn.com

So we fight on.

You cannot help but look over to the White House every now and then to see if the Bipartisan Bubble that shields the DOJ and the Oval Office from further Fierce Urgency of Nows being afflicted upon them has weakened, or lifted. But whether it’s lukewarm statements on flotillas, hazy afternoon beer summits, or impassioned (but later rescinded or ignored) bankster-scoldings or denunciations of ICE and in favor  of swift immigration reform, the Obama administration has made clear its shape and method. This is no fire in the belly leadership. This is a loud sound, stall-em-off, change the subject, do-just-enough-to-quell-the-outcry, make no fast or dramatic moves administration.

That means we really do have to push our “representatives” hard. Even harder. And keep waking up the nation. More writing, more talking. More calls. More art, more videos. More letters. More boycott actions, more people, more towns. We must make the chronically comfortable feel that the situation for others is exactly as uncomfortable, untenable, and unlivable as the rest of us know it to be already.

Keep on, and we can make change. Think back to all those who sacrificed to bring us where we are today. True, there have always been sneery, bloated defenders of the status quo like Glenn Beck, but social change that changes the lives of many for the better began not with millionaire puppets with vapo-rub under the eyes and book tours under the arm, but with regular people. Every day people. Who made a stand. That’s what we can do. We don’t have the Beck bullhorn or the Rupert riches, but we are many more, and we stand on the shoulders of many regular people who discovered they could be giants, given the right cause.

This is the right cause. This is much bigger than just one law in Arizona.

SOME POSTS begin as a reaction. A reaction to ugly events involving hate crime, or discrimination, or persecutory legislation, or some other spur that launches anger, protectiveness, or an instinct to fight. These are necessary when they arise organically. And so is outrage in the social body.

I remember as a child being so amazed that so many (everyone, insisted my immature mind) took everything in stride. I mention this now and then: the sensation I had that the world was upside down and burning and everyone in the world (i.e., school, stores, etc) was happy go lucky and not talking about it. (I am sure this had something to do with the conversations and teachings in my early home and community.)

So, I grew to feel out of touch with society’s reactions and evaluations of life as presented in larger settings, TV, newspapers, general social dialogue. And I suppose that is part of the age. These are normal conflicts we have to evaluate at a certain age.

In too many cases we simply have to accept untruths or mechanisms that confuse the mind. We read the real thinkers in college, and then we pretend it was just for a course. We accept that when X is really going on, the TV will frame it as Y. We accept that advertisements, essentially, lie. We learn to restrain, perform, operate in society. We are taught not to be ourselves, as it does not pay. We are sent on job interviews to offer a well-groomed doppelganger which may have little basis on truth, but have more  to do with how you can appear a valuable commodity to a corporate mechanism. The media helps sell wars that feed the fatally wealthy, and focuses on celebrity nose jobs while the public is robbed blind on the backside by the bankers.

You know how this goes, top to bottom. Same as it ever was.

But did it jam at you in your adolescence? Did the first sweeping vista of disappointment make you weep? Did that initial understanding of how little we expected of ourselves make you angry? Did it nearly topple your mind to gaze out at the wasteland of hypocrisy? Did the wrongness matter? Did it touch your inspired soul, your feeling soul, your uncallused soul and provoke a reaction?

There was too much pretend-truth and too much noise and too many lies in the world, and too much apathy. When I was young, it chewed at me. It would not let me be. I could not imagine why there were not armies of citizens banding together to fix every ailment facing the People.

I was a little naive.

But to me, this is adolescence in US society as I’ve seen it, in more than a couple cities and states. Children, those vast stores of human possibility, reach the end of the playground grass. They must grapple with letting the reality of our sickened culture overwhelm the childheart with one, long, coal-tinged static-studded sigh.

We at least make a decision about how we as people fit in and engage when truth is a disrespected and nearly non-existent entity in a thriving system, when greed and fear are leveraged and fed, when misdirection and manipulation drives the media in most cases.

And with this body and mind…with this amazing system meant to rebel against untruth and to wade toward joy, we must force non-sense and illogic and ignorance into our own tubes. You are required to Get Over It and Learn How to Manage. It makes us ill.

Get on a few stomach drugs, some head drugs, have the doc say its cool, grind out the salary. Protest virtually. Do what you can and have time for which is mostly go mad or be distracted.

The American Dream?

Too cynical?

As I grew up, those times when someone was inflamed about injustice and saying “HELL NO, THIS IS NOT RIGHT AND WE WILL NOT ACCEPT THIS!” I felt my spirit respond in kind. The scales, as they say, fall off of my eyes. I could feel that truth ringing sharply right behind my breastbone, a massive silver bullhorn calling to me. And I loved them for that. For taking that on. I thanked the universe for whatever it was that compelled that person to speak, at that very moment, from a place that was truthful and outraged at whatever entity or action was trying to establish itself in our world.

That voice belongs to nobody, it belongs to all of us. We access it when it is time, when the moment calls for it. There will always be that moment in this very flawed world!

There is another voice, too. One that rises in the absence of reaction, maybe. One that needs a bit of stillness to emerge. One that listens, and hears those things being said, and lets them melt into the moment. And finds where they don’t quite nourish. Finds where they fail to adhere to a true shape. And seeks not to batter, deflect, crush, or challenge…but only to question. Only to probe and discover what may be overlooked.

If you listen to the dialogue on immigration, you hear so many voices rising up from fear. From fear of being diluted, to fear of being killed. You hear fears given voice every decade or less or more. You hear so much about—and from “both” “sides”—Securing the Border. Building the Danged Fence. Securing Our Borders. The Insecure Border. Lasers Every 500 Feet and Surveillance on The Border. More Troops to the Border. Nothing Can Happen Until We First Secure the Border.

We might rebut with the rational. With statistics about how crime generally (and now) goes down as immigration goes up. Or how there is no increase of violence that Leaps Over the Border. Take El Paso, Texas for one obvious example. El Paso, across the border from the very violent Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. El Paso is immediately accessible to non-supervised entry. El Paso is known as one of the safest cities in the USA.

Or I may sketch less specific and talk about how until we take on Mexico’s problems as our own; until we be fair to their economy and their chances of opportunity and stop acting like some rich cat on the Upper East Side calling the cops on a lone hungry figure in the street; until we see our economies intertwined, amassing violence and troops on the border is a super-destructive non-effective stopgap to the cold wind rushing into so many fearful minds.

But in the general, when I hear this shaming, persecutory, prison-preaching talk, what occurs to me underneath those thoughts or before them, is that these people talking about immigration in the public lens are very insecure. And that they may need to secure their own borders. To feel out their own perimeters, find where the air gets thin, and the feet scramble for purchase. Peer into their shadows to dispel the figures they imagine.

And I think until that happens, we can and will have no real progress.

After all, how can  you approach an issue that is so important and affecting so many people, and involves so many areas (Economics, Environment, Migration, Culture, Race, History and so on) if you have not yet first secured your mind? And your heart? If you do not do those things, you cannot honestly evaluate these dynamics.

To one of these politicians obsessed with force and armies and walls…I ask you: How will it feel (in you, personally, in your body and belly and throat and mind) to imagine millions of workers in today’s workforce being celebrated for helping to run this mighty engine? To see millions of unauthorized workers simply swept into the bosom of our workforce and economy? Legitimized?

Does your lip curl?

I’m not talking about reparations, just a shift in lens and consequent behavior, regard, and legislation.

I’m not talking about some abstract past workforce, or one that creates goods the rest of us never actually handle or purchase or use. I’m talking about the workforce out there right now. Many today, this moment. Many more will report tomorrow, on Monday. Those ones, those humans who are working. (Yes, for a moment I’m simply going to talk about workers.) The ones who accept not being paid when the boss feels like sticking them. The humans with no benefits, and who work long hours and for substandard pay. The ones who are on edge lately and ready to drop everything and run if ICE shows up.  Those ones. I ask you how would it feel, Mr. Politician, Mrs. Politician, for you to ponder their being given protections that insure they work a happy and safe workday and enjoy a fair paycheck? And instead of being vilified were suddenly welcomed and celebrated as part of the large, always changing, colorful, and strong American community? No shame, no criminal record, no more pummeling around people trying to hang on with one hand. Can you even possibly house that imagination in your body without any serious instinctive gag reflex?

Or do you feel a need—before connecting empathetically to another human who may be in slightly different circumstances for the moment—to first punish and shame them for not signing in at the door? Do watch them slink to the magical Back of the magical Line? To admit complicity. And error. And wrongness? All while ignoring the rest of the chain of consequence, which of course leads back to our own nation and government and even our own home.

Does this punitive projection soothe you?

With this litany of demands that unauthorized/undocumented immigrants admit wrong, be charged with a crime, pay thousands, take a walk of shame, and so on, it does occur to me that some people are certainly trying to secure something. But it’s not a border.

And I ask you, the People: Can those politicians evaluate what might be an honest and fair approach to these fluctuations in our population and workforce if they harbor gross ideas about Mexicans? Or if they see borders as a way to legitimately express socially-unacceptable race-based or white nationalist-related ideas? Obviously not.

If we want to pretend life is very simple, we might point only to the GOP. But many on the “Left” are certainly chomping at the bit to punish immigrants (aka Mexicans.) If you’ve read the concept paper drawn up for the possible forthcoming immigration bill, it involves much more ICE, much more money for them, more surveillance technology, body armor, and so on and so on and so on. Fact is, the forces that desire a police state are using the public’s general apathy toward immigrants and Mexicans to institute measures that would never, ever fly coast to coast, were the perceived target to be Regular Americans. That’s on top of scapegoating Mexicans, which is always in American Style.

Would that these mentally and spiritually and emotionally lacking political and punditry players would disqualify themselves from the dialogue, but that’s not how things work. However, if your mind is self-deceiving in this way, you cannot hope to fairly render an opinion about issues so large concerning so many. Period.

Political gamers, humanity is in dire shape.

This challenge comes to us in many forms right now. Wars over petroleum. Poisoned oceans with petroleum. Police state pre-pubescent and gangly. Class divisions becoming untenable. Economy severely unstable. Political dialogue false. Media turning to sheer propaganda stations. Banks taken over our economy. Corporations taken over the courts and both wreaking massive havoc on our national security.

It is an age old reaction to blame the powerless when we panic. We are better than this. California already apologized in the 1930s for panicking and shipping Mexicans to Mexico—many who had never been there in their lives! The focus now on Mexicans does not feel so different to me.

Our society is, in the next few decades, going to undergo some drastic changes. We must secure our own hearts and minds and be ready to deal with these changes in a way that is reasoned, loving, progressive, broadminded, flexible, and kind. We must first secure our own consciousness in a grounded, positive place before we can pretend to represent millions of human beings.

"Little Haiti," Miami, Florida. ©theunapologeticmexican.org

THE REPORTING OPPORTUNITY AND IMMIGRATION CONFERENCE I attended May 7-9 was quite an amazing experience. There was so much information and energy and ideas and new reality crammed into such a small time and space that there is no doubt I will be mulling it over and brewing on it and coming to a full understanding of it all over the next week, at least. Within a week or two, I’ll release a special NWN video where I hope to express cinematically what I will communicate here now with images and fotos.

Without a doubt, I am extremely grateful for the chance to have attended the May 7-9 French American Foundation’s Covering Immigration: An International Media Dialogue in Miami, Florida.

I am grateful to the French-American Foundation, to the Knight Foundation, to New America Media, to La Opiñión, to Sandy Close, Claudia Nuñez, and to all the journalists and scholars who shared their wealth of expertise and experience with all of us. I am also grateful to the Miami Workers Center and the African Heritage Cultural Center in “Little Haiti” for being so welcoming to the lot of us, dropping into their midst as if tourists starving for information about their lives. I am grateful to all the service workers at the EPIC hotel (especially my own housekeeper, Helen) for being so helpful and professional at their jobs. Finally, I am happy to have made some new friends at the conference—intelligent, energetic, good-hearted, and ambitious human beings.

As usual—and this really shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone familiar with my work at this point in the game—the influence and mechanisms of race and class stood out to me and were worth noting. As I was representing both New Media and Ethnic Media (as it is called in the US…for now) I consider those elements part of my work, important parts of my observations. (Or essential parts of my milieu, I might word it, after so much company with so many very French-speaking people.)

The view from my hotel balcony

3…2…1…boom.

As you can imagine, Nezua did once again drop down some…controversial statements into the midst of the well-catered and arranged event. (Mmmmm! So well catered.) Not intending to, only speaking from my heart, and again—it ought to be clear by now to anyone with any familiarity with my subject matter that this is to be expected if you are going to ask me to observe and report on any event. Just as I did when flown to the last (as named) YearlyKos Convention in 2007. Just as I did in my doc on the DNC08 convention, the trip I took sponsored by Kenneth Cole Productions in 2008. In the case of the YearlyKos event, as this time, there were a few moments perhaps, of misunderstanding. Maybe there were a few people taking it personally as well as wondering why on earth I might head out on such a course…as if I am disappointing the Hand That Feeds.

It’s powerful, touchy stuff to talk about race and class. I also am convinced these are the conversations we absolutely need to have in this society. The pretense that these differences are not everywhere and that they do not affect everything and can be cordoned off for special conversations that don’t intrude or provoke is a dangerous one to maintain.

This doesn’t mean bringing up such topics is easy. As usual, it can be a terrifying and nearly nauseating task to take on. Because the messaging we absorb all our lives is one that screams never to bring these up in such ways. And pushing back on that inner indoctrination is not effortless.

I want to be careful not to make too big a deal out of the few arguably negative reactions that inevitably follow in these cases. Because while those seem to hit the belly harder than the positive, the truth is those are far fewer. In this case, numerous people came to me—I should note they were overwhelmingly (though not in every instance) people of color themselves—and showed me great support and thanks for bringing up the topics I did. In fact, overall, I’d say the reactions were 90% positive and unwavering in their stance on the matter.

"The Brown Contingent" is what the very fabulous Mona (Eltahawy) named us here in the hall. As such we decided it was best if we photographed ourselves stacking and otherwise doing brownish things. This moment was after my presentation and they found me, or we found each other, and talked more on the things I discussed. They were very supportive and it meant a lot.

There is no feeling quite like taking that risk, taking that leap, feeling shameful and as if in danger for doing so (a result of flouting the indoctrination and social pressure that guards against these conversations happening)—and then being immediately surrounded by people who understand exactly what you mean and give you love for taking that risk. If that were not always the case when I do these things? I imagine I couldn’t keep doing them, wouldn’t keep taking those risks. Because the nervous system usually takes a big hit when “cracking the bubble” as Sandy worded such dialogues on Sunday.

Stylish French Cat, Mona Eltahawy, Damaso Reyes, and Mizanur Rahman. This is, unfortunately, one of the worse pictures (focus-wise) I've taken in a while. Yet, the joy cannot be obscured.

Sandy Close wrote to me, in an email after the conference:

Nezua,
You added a great deal to the conference through your honesty and humility.
Thank you.

Sandy Close, Executive Director of New America Media

This brought tears to my eyes. Because in such events and speaking opportunities, I am trying my best to present these issues without aggression, but instead with a calm and centered front, and a more receptive energy. Which is a very difficult line to walk at times. For me. It is no easy feat to move surely and strongly on unsure ground, and yet remain unguarded and ready to respond with sensitivity to any lashback.

But if I can do that? It means I am growing in my craft as well as in my own skin. And that means I can be more effective in the world doing the things I do.

Of course there will also always be those who hear words on race and class as not only an affront to, but practically violent toward polite society. And if you think about it, they are right. Even when you speak those words calmly. Because polite society is another way of saying status quo. And today’s status quo is one that crushes people of color on the regular. And thus, it deserves a sort of violence. Not necessarily physical, but ideological. At least initially, to break the inertia and confidence of its arc.

So we cannot get hung up on supportive energy from all, or if everyone likes what we say. Though these affirmations from like-minded community help center my mind and push back on the inevitable doubt that tries to insert itself when you attempt to upset a standing order, destructive or otherwise.

But there is a creation happening in the midst of that destruction, as well. One of the most rewarding results of invoking these conversations, I’ve found is that it can spur further revelation or sharing of thoughts that might otherwise remain cloaked in caution. Such as after my presentation amidst the Q&A and back and forth. What a great feeling, to see that perhaps you have helped start or enable a conversation wherein people feel comfortable discussing something so important to them…and thus to the larger society and its method of informing itself in all quadrants about all quadrants.

I know I learn and feel inspired from those talks. Such as when Professor Kwong (for example) spoke of how “objective” lens shuts out many ideas, like his writing about Chinatown in ANY way that isn’t about the Chinese New Year. How he has an extremely difficult time getting any articles published if they present Chinese American culture or Chinese Americans in a way that the dominant culture (my phrase, not his) doesn’t desire to reinforce. And then Demaso jumped in and spoke about how a newsroom will miss stories and angles if “we all look the same.” And how today’s emerging Ethnic Media or the appearance of changes that facilitated the rise of Ethnic Media present a challenge to journalism. And an important one.

I think those are powerful things to be saying and discussing in such a setting as we were in. They are a boon to the future of journalism and social cohesion—not racial division as some might think. After all, as I said in my presentation, as I see it “Ethnic Media” arose because various communities felt we were not represented in the fake objectivity of the dominant culture’s media. If the larger view and conversation expands to represent all of us, that draws us back together, doesn’t it?

I like mine pulpy

I know by some reactions, as well as the fact that many whom were there will be reading my reporting on this to see both how they are portrayed and how I saw things overall that I need to clearly state a couple things.

1. I am not a traditional journalist.

Roles like mine are something new. Organically made possible and necessary by cultural realities and technological advances that won’t go away. You cannot align this image over the old blueprint. Attempting to do so will yield a distorted result.

I do not need to be warned about getting emotional or remaining Objective™ or being too “passionate.” What I do relies on my feelings and third eye and heart and all those other things that are not to be found in the AP Stylebook. I am a new media journalist. Or a writer/activist/artist/reporter who began as a counselor and filmmaker and melds it all together. Find a word or phrase that works. The exact title doesn’t matter to me right now. What I do know is that I have a function and I know my path by feeling it out intuitively. While I was trained minimally by MTV in NYC as prep for my year-long gig repping Oregon, I did not go to J-School. I don’t need to for what I do. I do need to honestly report what I see, not try to hoodwink anyone, do my very best to be right on any numbers or facts that I can. But also to employ other senses…ones I think as a human society (in the USA) we are long taught are ephemeral, unimportant, unreliable, and dangerous. I happen to feel that this overall judgment on the less tangible senses of the human creature is extremely dangerous to our existence. At least if it is the only approach it sure is.

So. That’s what I do. Please frame all I offer you in that light. Don’t try to evaluate it by an old filter. Through that mesh, what I do will seem all wrong. As if you drank a cup of orange juice but were expecting to feel milk run over your tongue.

2. It’s not about you.

This one I offer to those who feel hurt by anything I say on race and class and culture. It’s not about you! In fact, I only ran into one person whose energy I found rather disturbing, as he raised his voice talking about how it was appalling and wrong to “smear” FAIR and CIS; that younger reporters are fine, but they should be “trained” (do you see a leash in your mind?); that we ought take sympathy on Arizona for passing SB 1070 and not boycott, and so on. He was an older gentleman and I understand that he comes from a completely different world, or uses a wholly different lens that I do. I disagree entirely with him. But feel no need to demonize him. I feel he simply doesn’t understand certain currents or angles or viewpoints that are alien to his experience.

My larger point is that my comments on systemic patterns that happen to be symbolized and manifested at any given moment by concrete happenings are still not about individuals. Or their hearts. Or their intentions. Or their goodness. I know it can be possible to mix critique of systems up with criticism of a person. We are all capable of making that mistake from time to time.

I just think we need to talk about these things. I must trust each human can deal with hurt feelings in the end. I know I’ve had to. It’s up to me to grow past that. That’s life, eh? Just as I would have to respond to those who have said at various times that “being called racist is the most damaging thing that can happen to a writer/journalist/pol/person” with “No, the damages of racism upon communities and souls and bodies….that is the most damaging thing. Please don’t redirect the camera in that way…that angle misses the big picture.”

Rolling into Miami!

Before you go shipping that nitro…

I am aware that I am potentially annoying you by talking all around the event at this point, while not yet having talked about it but bear with me if you will—even though my regular readers are probably saying “Why is he re-explaining all this? We know his take on it, we won’t misinterpret! Enough disclaimers!” But there will be people reading this post who are not used to the way we discuss these things. And in this case, I’d do all I can do avoid misunderstandings.

Outside the Hotel

Here’s another surprise for ya: I agreed to not post my video on the event until I showed it to the organizers. This is something I never do. I figure if you have me appear to speak and know what my work is about (and if you don’t, then you really should have researched), then it is my right to tell truthfully what I saw.

But I did agree to having the video pre-approved anyway. I was approached before I left by two very cool gents and had no real issue with agreeing to that. Honestly, I think I am partially at fault for perhaps inspiring some anxiety about how I was going to present my findings. But I would make clear that by saying repeatedly on Saturday “Just wait til you see the footage,” it was only my way of pushing back on the couple voices that insisted my views were off/inappropriate. It wasn’t “Oh wait til I drop this bomb on you,” it was simply me saying “I cannot argue this point here and now. I’d much rather express what I experienced with cinema. It will simply make things clearer to you.” But I think perhaps the “just wait til you see the footage, then you’ll get it” was misread as something more threatening. Again, given the view that some have that being called racist is something terribly damaging, I can understand anxiety around this. But the truth is, I received different responses in some cases than some others did. This only reinforces the things I am saying. So my point was, “you won’t understand the full truth of what I am clumsily saying here until you can view for yourself those responses.”

Dinner on Friday

The Two Gents said no, they didn’t think I would mischaracterize people’s comments; they trusted the “professionalism of my approach.” And I sure appreciate that.

Because yes, I know these journalists are all professionals with careers and I am not out to harm any person. I know aside from my repeating “Just wait, then, until you see the video,” I—as THE BLOGGER—am simply not predictable, am not bound to conventions in place, am my own editor, and so it is easy for people to feel threatened by what I might write or create.

But while I certainly am a small fish in the scheme of things, I take the power that my words and film might have seriously. I do feel a certain responsibility. I do not believe in hurricaning through lives and saying anything you want in the service of a personal mission…actions involving messaging and communications and film (as they have the potential to impact society exponentially) must be weighed carefully.

Also, the practical reality is even if you are telling truths the world needs, a career or opportunities can be destroyed (mine) or at least greatly harmed if powerful or well-monied people who have reached out a hand to you feel they were burned.

These are tricky things to weigh. But in the end of course I always value my responsibility to the human race to be truthful about what I see and feel. Because my eyes, heart, and belly and mind were given to me by the highest authority. And nobody here on earth supersedes that imperative. And if my career in some way needs to take a hit in that service, okay. I am calm about that. [Update: Some wording strikes me reading back and I know why, and I know why it is not so hard for me to prioritize telling my own truth...it's because my blog is not my career. It is what I do because I must! My career is art.)

However, I'm not worried about the approval. Because as I said...this is not about individuals. And to make my points I need single out nobody. And surely they are not interested in censoring my discussing race and class and cultural divides entirely! And certainly not when it comes to immigration! These things are definitely all interwoven.

And if they don't want me to discuss even that much, well. I'll peel that orange when I come to it.

©theunapologeticmexican.org

Gaze of the Other

One thing that strikes me in these situations when you drop into a setting to connect with the reality of those who live there, is the differences in class and positioning in the world. Maybe that is because you approach attempting to connect. This is what makes me videotape the lavish buffets that always appear at conventions and such (or often do.) That’s what made me feel more at home with the (latina and latino) NYU janitors and cleaning ladies than almost all of my peers there. I simply cannot be unaware of different racial, cultural, or socioeconomic signifiers and positions.

The Stylish French Cat (on left in the “brown contingent” photo) spoke to me about his similar sensation when sitting in Starbucks with his interviewees. There was “something off” about that particular setting and situation and contrast to him.

Another tall, well-spoken intelligent seeming white cat (forgive me, bro, I forgot your name) spoke to me in the lobby of the hotel on our way to dinner, as well. He mentioned my words the day before on our walking into these settings in such a way—a way where class privilege and signifiers shriek out of a gap. “It’s not the ideal situation,” he admitted.

First Course at Gabbiolo

What to do? I certainly am not saying reporters should get blisters in the sun and arrive with dusty hair and hungry! Nor that these conventions that are purposely comfortable in order to buffet the human spirit a bit from the weariness of the travel we make (many from out of the country) and the long, busy days should be held at motels or in tents, or anything. I know I sure wasn’t lamenting, refusing, or feeling shame over the five course meal at Gabbiolo’s, complete with fantastic wine and dessert! In fact, I’m still salivating over it.

I am simply pointing out that the disparity in watcher and watched distorts the information gathered. And this mostly becomes dangerous when that is not acknowledged in the reportage itself, in some way. And thus the danger of false “objectivity” which never says “Here I am, with my particular lens, at this particular time, and thus am seeing this particular angle.” The Objective™ voice pretends to be the godvoice, to be neutral and not situated on any particular piece of land or from any particular era and thus lacking a viewpoint that can be evaluated and separated from the text itself.

Stylish French Cat’s example was “Africa Experts” who were there one time, “or who have a neighbor who was in Africa once.” The Objective Façade (damn, I am hitting all the French words today, yeah!) brings a bias, erases the serial number, and calls it Truth.

Ethnic Media in Europe and the United States

The conference documents themselves stated that the US is “further ahead” in terms of “Ethnic Media.” It is taken more seriously, more widely supported, and  is more legitimized. The Europeans themselves are aware of this. On the other hand, one or two seemed to yet grapple with the very voice/tone/angle/”passion” that has led this to be so! At moments, it may be a hard bridge to gap, in such a short time. The one between the US and the UK, or France, for example. But I think we did pretty well, anyway. I can only imagine how, for example, my voice—already considered confrontational in the USA!—comes across to them, if Ethnic Media is much less part of the conversation where they normally operate. So in that sense, I appreciate that we did as well as we did.

I really enjoyed the French people I spoke to. There’s always been something about their way of avoiding as many hard divisions that we have in the US that really appeals to me. Their newspaper front pages are, apparently, often a melange (ooh, “melange”!) of departments all weighing in on one topic. (Possibly where Huffpost got their “Big News Page” idea for various hot topics.) Rather than walled off, isolated columns appearing in the same area. In my very limited experience of their literature (translated to English), the “French” way of writing and thinking on page often wanders and free associates and takes you through an experience, through the thoughts until you have become filled with the idea and story that the author wished to impart to you. As opposed to a tightly structured, tightly-contoured, and arranged series of parts. Is this making sense? I am interested in minds that see this type of movement and mezcla as viable. It feels like freedom to me.

One of the things I am attempting to do by drawing out all the nuance is avoid implying or giving the impression to anyone that this trip and this experience were not useful. Nor that the money was not wisely spent, nor that other journalists should not attend if they are lucky enough to have the opportunity. Exactly the opposite. I feel these types of discussions galvanize thought and spur progress. And I have no hesitancy in saying I felt damn honored to be amongst all these professionals.

I only offer my experience so that if desired, the organizers can think on it and use it to make the next one even better…at least to include the awareness of this dynamic, or more discussion in such directions. But again, I did not operate under any such seemingly altruistic agenda. I simply spoke what I saw and felt.

Karla Gomez-Escamilla of Univision exchanges looks with me as we are given an unexpected post-discussion/ pre-dinner speech about not letting our 'passion' or what we heard in the field get in the way or overshadow our journalism on these topics.

Objectivity: the Man Behind the Curtain

“You don’t know how he’s gonna hit you,” said Mona (she’s the one flashing the peace sign in group shot above), about the so-called “Objectivity Lens” of much Mainstream Media. He’s a man behind a curtain. Won’t show his face. “That’s why I left that world,” she said. I’m tired of that type of objectivity. “I want to tell you how I feel and how I see things,” she laughed, loudly, with what I perceived as a damn enchanting British accent.

And I encouraged her to please do so, please keep on. Mona is a spirit-filled, wise, powerful voice and she’s shaking things up, informing the world, and shattering Muslim stereotypes left and right, every time she speaks on her community.

Stylish French Cat said The Objective Lens is a way of keeping YOU OUT. “No! This is objective! No room for you!” he laughed, dramatically holding both his hands up.

Professor Kwong mentioned how the typical gatekeepers would only allow articles from him that prop up their own visions of Chinese culture. He said the “Objective” model is one that functions to exclude. And that the objectivity model is a misleading one.

Mizanur said “I don’t mind even FOX news having an agenda. I don’t have a problem with expansion of the menu. More choices, to me, is good.”

Karla Gomez-Escamilla of Univision (I repronounce the way she says it from time to time in the back of my mind…oonee-vis-YON!) and I met at the first breakfast and hit it off right away. Over the next two days, we spoke a lot about these things, and as she is a working TV reporter, I’ll keep all her words off the record. But we spoke of all the currents in play, and speaking for myself, I’m glad she was there. There were moments her presence—and what I knew to be her background and opinions and experience—were a touchstone of safety and comfort. Even without words. After all, at this event I was—and even called as much over and over—”The Blogger.” The potential for me to have been isolated, given not only that aspect, but also in what I kept talking about, was high. Again, I have a lotta love for all the friends I met who made sure to surround me with support, both days.

Chicken Plus!

In my presentation, I spoke of the MSM as being ethnic media in its own right! Just not the brown contigent of Ethnic Media. A different ethnicity. It is the lens that pretends it is no lens. It is the invisibled lens. You’ve heard me speak about this in years past as The White Lens.

I spoke of my ideas on Ethnic Medias’ strengths—prefaced by the warning that I can only speak for what I know of Ethnic Media. Not all “ethnic media.” Also adding that race and ethnicity and culture matters are obviously unique to each country and that country’s history. I said that communities of color have longer memories when it comes to history. Here in the US, we factor in slavery, the Chinese Exclusion Act, Wounded Knee, General Sheridan, the US invasion into Mexico, the CIA interference in Latin America, or the railroads and how they came about when we speak of the echoes that still play out in oppressions and laws and politics today. Etc.

I said that Ethnic Media, in many cases, would know right away there is something problematic about dropping off a van of mostly white—or simply outsiders—into a community of color and then prompting that community to reveal the divisions they have between them and other communities of color. Ouch. Which was our assignment, in essence. To fish out the positive interactions they have with new immigrant communities, as well as the conflicts. [UPDATE: I tried to leave this out, but doing so leaves a question mark as to the strength of my reaction. The first day we were given our papers explaining the assignment there was only the directive that we should discover the conflicts. That completely weirded me out, and I was glad to see when they handed out updated papers the next day, the assignment was much more even-handed, and was changed to the version I posted above: to find out the positive "as well as" the negative. So if anything, those planning this adjust and self-examine quickly, and clearly are aware enough to be on guard for those kinds of biases. I felt better after the edit, but still found the entire scene odd. I also brought up to the group that I noticed this edit, and was happy to see the change.]

There was some pushback to the things I said to the group. I know I didn’t word everything as perfect as I would have liked. I know, too, though, that the process of interacting with free speech and getting to the bottom of these things will be imperfect and at times messy. And yes, we must be careful not to be essentialist or to overgeneralize.

The Big Cheese. (And Mizanur.)

I feel it is far more perilous to pretend these dynamics are unimportant.

What should also be made clear is that I was not informed of this practicum part of the experience until after I had agreed to speak on a panel! I had no idea the trip would involve my going out and into a community for a couple/few hours and interviewing people. If it was in the documents they sent me, I missed that part (very possible). Regardless, that part came as a total surprise. As it was, though, Miami was Part TWo of a two part (International) symposium, the first of which was in Paris. (Damn! Missed that one!) So everyone but me, pretty much, knew we’d have the reporting component.

I also loved the field trip and am very glad it was, indeed, a part of the trip.

Sandy Close of New America Media said on the penultimate day of the symposium “I always learn the most when I am uncomfortable.”

And that’s why I’d never want anyone to draw the conclusion on this event that it was not supremely educational and worthwhile, despite ripples in the smoothly-ironed fabric of our planned dialogues. Because part of what happened—conflict and all—was part of what needs to happen and is happening everywhere.

As Mizanur said to me, this is the way news is trending, like it or not.

Maybe that is because the Objective Model was never objective to begin with and has in fact been a detriment to justice and democracy.

We were warned to apply sunscreen liberally. Here are some folks putting some on before we took our field trip.

You deconstruct…but do you create?

The gentleman who was speaking up hard for anti-immigrant extremist groups FAIR and CIS also said that writers like myself, bloggers like myself (he did not mention me by name, but to tell you the truth, many things he said might have been interpreted as almost direct responses to some of my writing and videos) who “go off into their own tribal enclaves” are dangerous. He sounded very worried, to be honest.

I am not dangerous to him. At least that is not my intention, nor do I put any energy into harming him or wishing him ill.

Again, though, if we go back to the Polite Society idea, you can see how voices like mine (voices not “trained” and reined in to the standing order and conventions) might be perceived as dangerous.

But I am not here to simply deconstruct or challenge or as some say about us “ethnic media” types, to complain. I see this type of writing more as…sweeping sand and clutter and debris away from the floor so you can see where the weak spots are. So you can travel safer, faster, and truer. I am certainly not saying I see all, or have all the answers. Which is why Ethnic Media is very often associated with community, with the need to connect with each other and support our communities, and from which political action is basically inseparable. This consciousness and tradition is passed down in our communities from generation to generation.

When I dropped into the African Heritage Cultural Center on Saturday, I had little urge to either cleverly or directly inquire to them—as someone from outside their community with only an hour or so to spare to build up any rapport—regarding the conflicts between US-born African Americans and Haitian immigrants or Cubans. I am not saying that these conflicts do not exist!

What you don't see is that the moment after I surprised him with a lens in his face, we grinned at each other and shook hands without uttering a word.

But I am saying…why? Why go in there and try to get at that? In this short time? What is the interest there, first? And I have to say, I steered away from that for the most part. I am glad the organizers were sensitive to this, to the fact that the conversation or day might go otherwise. And they did remind us that those questions were only suggestions before they sent us out on our trips.

Though I did, a few times, attempt the questions, anyway. And what I found—it’s what I expected to find, even though I may have been assuming too much by extrapolating from how the activist/community-oriented Ethnic Media blogger-types I am familiar with are—these people wanted, instead, to speak of how their solidarity crossed over divisions in communities of color. They talked to me about how we are all in this together. About how we are not settling for the conditions in which communities of color find themselves, and are fighting it. About how nobody is illegal, and if someone is, then its everyone but the indigenous. They were mostly black, Haitian, Latino, and they radiated and demonstrated such love and acceptance of each other and positive energy that I was swept up and was reminded of my days at Centro Cultural de la Raza where as a young chico, I first remember feeling that community love.

Love and Community

That’s what it’s about.

I’m not saying there are not tensions that need to be explored! Especially when they erupt into harm or violence on one or more of a group of people. But like at least one of my interviewees, I feel that tension we are chasing is very often exacerbated or initiated by Arpaio types. By Brewer types. By Hayworth N McCain types. And that the focus ought to be on them, and the big border lovers who do NOT see us all as together here, and on those with far more power in the system who would ferret others out by their accent, or their otherliness. Or put the glare not on the poor housing and impoverished conditions they live in quite as much as on those who operate in this world and make so many rundown areas possible by their own massive and disproportionate siphoning of wealth.

I know at least one person at the conference felt that this focus was a weakness of Ethnic Media. Okay. I won’t argue that. I disagree entirely. But I have nothing to gain by arguing it if you don’t get that.

More importantly, the focus is better served being on positivity. A constant broadcast of fear, scarcity ideology, terror, and division resonates in the collective heart. The focus ought to be, sometimes if not almost always, on the ties that connect, on the common causes, on the strength and bridges built between commonly marginalized communities. On the love and power there that not even the most objective person could deny feeling, even as but a stranger invited into the bosom of another community’s presence.

________________________________

This was my rundown of all the cultural and social elements of the event and setting. Soon I’ll post again on the info and insight that I gained through sitting in the presentations and hearing the findings and teachings of scholars and journalists. Both these worlds coming together reveal more, I feel, than only one or the other.

]]> http://theunapologeticmexican.org/elmachete/2010/05/10/miami-debriefing-the-intersections-of-race-class-journalism-activism-croissants-and-reality/feed/ 6 http://theunapologeticmexican.org/elmachete/2009/11/20/storm-and-luz-sombra-y-sky/ http://theunapologeticmexican.org/elmachete/2009/11/20/storm-and-luz-sombra-y-sky/#comments Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:13:34 +0000 nezua http://theunapologeticmexican.org/elmachete/?p=6068

THE POLITICAL WORLD IS A WHIRL OF CHAOS. And change. And resistance to currents of change. It smells like thunderstorm.

When I was a young teen living in upstate new york and surrounded by wilderness on my parent’s land (we were caretakers of the property, of many properties, always moving, never owning), I would walk through the fields of overgrown grass, parting the slender stalks, moving toward storms that rolled through the valley. Slowly and with quickened pulse, I’d wade forward into thickening electricity, despite any warnings dully rising in my mind (Never walk into the fields during a lightning storm!)

Feeling spectacularly small and alive under the churning violet, blackening sky-soup. Platinum and cast-iron etched moments…I can see and smell and hear them still: trees moaning and bending as the wind blows harder. Layers of sodden clouds leaking, and then fully unleashing distress onto our cornfields. Rain smacking down on my forehead…I’d squint but not turn back. Swollen streams bordered the cornfields, full with the water now. Glinting platinum corners flaring into the sky.

Moving toward this chaotic beauty, I felt I was walking to meet with God. Mother nature uncloaked and untamed for a dangerous and delightful moment: roused, angry, splitting sky and spitting throaty growls that shook the earth all about me.

These moments fraught with danger tore away my typical caul of youthful indifference—itself a guarded spiritual defense against the ennui and hostility and pettiness of the everyday society I found all around me. Nature is risen. Watching lightning spear and splinter the dusk. And neither of us is pretending tonight…let us shatter this pretense that settles around us like plaster-cast sunny-weather dream state.

These dangerous storms I was warned against felt like magic in the middle of the day. Yes, like a threat. But also like a New Cleansing opportunity. Like reality.

—

Erika said it a couple weeks ago. Talking about that chaos “when the classroom bells break.” And why did we love that as children? Because we weren’t excited by what was going on, breathing too much dust, sensing the futility and inanity in so many of our schooltime activities. The non-reality and ineffectiveness and irrelevance of so much of what was going on, and what we knew would go on from period to period to period from September until June. Parents tell themselves it is all so useful. And children know how to behave and do what they are told. Perhaps not to all, but to many of us the unspoken, not-needed to be spoken was that the years predicted of our schooling ahead was a sentence, a spell of years from which there would be no escape. And class room bells breaking were like little summer mornings dropped down like depth charges into the solidity of an oppressive schedule.

In terms of the political and volatile world today, I actually am excited by what’s happening. I’m not happy about the danger and the threat, of course—not happy about the harm that will directly come about, that is playing out. But I am happy to see the gross wrongs that so many have accepted as bedrock reality now being exposed and challenged in a large, or vocal way. We have the chance finally for some real conversations on higher, more visible layers of society than where they normally flourish.

There are a few things in place in the world (that will undoubtedly be with us as long as we have a world) that have angered me since I was young. But…beyond “angered.” Certain realities that play out in people and in relationships and in the world. When I began to see, as a young teen, that there was inequality and exploitation and greed and emptiness and mostly bullshit&hypocrisy ALL about me…it was very confusing. I didn’t understand why people wanted a world that way. It was Wrong. Why did it go on? Why did nobody care enough to stop these things? Why did I want to grow “up” and “into” this world where adults tried to tell me That This is Just The Way Things Are ????

Did you have a time like this? Where you told it was a phase of your adolescence? Was it? Is it?

I suppose one could look back now and say I was in an Existential Adolescent Phase. We label things and think we are done with them, though. I shrink back from that tendency, always have. I can call a gun a “feroxa” and it can still kill someone. I can call a “seed” a “protein sheath/husk protecting the genetic material within” but it can still grow when I shove it in soil. No matter what we label my thoughts at that time, in this language, in the framing of our culture—I was seeing something real. I was seeing injustice, and I was seeing the excusing of that injustice, and I was seeing hypocrisy. And it hurt my heart.

Honestly, I had given up on many things. Sometimes giving up on something (however you define this) is a very healthy thing.

But now…this BlackPrez dynamic has shifted things about. Obviously, Obama is in a very hard place. Simply for Presidenting While Black, his life is in danger. Imagine if he tried to be half as radical as his fearful opposers pretend? They’d have to recall half the troops just to guard him.

But aside from the systemic resistance to his changing anything, he is of course not very radical-minded. It’sjust not part of his (apparent) makeup. Obama is a huge cultural shift and it’s important and no way do I regret my vote. But I have to admit that while he physically represents a massive change, that does not mean he can enact lots of radical changes. Just what he has done is a lot. Even simply Presidenting While Black is shaking the foundations of this nation, and threats against him have risen like 400% and the USSS agents are being told to work longer, and that no more men are available to protect the POTUS from what I’ve read online. So in all reality, what more could he do? I mean, yes. He could do it anyway. He’d go down a hero. Instead of an icon used in the name of Imperialist war and a nation with massively institutionally entrenched racism. But that, too, is perhaps a bit harsh and cannot hope to contain all that he is, has done, and means to us. When the wind is whipping your eyes, it can be hard to make out the horizon.

This storm is unfolding as it will, and we are yet to see how it will end. The electricity feels threatening at times and it is. But here is a chance, now, finally to talk about the things we need to talk about. Which means the chance to make real change.

It is not just The Reality of Obama forcing these discussions. Such as the class divide always justified in this nation. Or the rich ruling class. The for-profit health racket. Racism. Wars of imperialism. The prison-industrial complex. It is all these things, and the feeling that they all approach to become an integrated part of the political dialogue. And this is due to so many things, just as a storm is a confluence of different temperatures and winds and factors which influence how hard or how long the rain falls. One part is the Reality of Obama, one part is how reporting and national dialogue is being taken back by the People, from institutions and unreliable liaisons and mouthpieces.

And it is the blatant non-representation we see that we have in these bought politicians. They continue to take money from all interests at their own danger, and at the peril of the nation’s wholeness. Because if the Left AND the Right feel you are bought and not representing the People…who is left to have your back? And vote for you? And believe in the system? Continue to take payola in place of doing your true work, and you bring on destruction of integrity, writ large. So as you go, so goes the nation. But these politicians are used to being able to get away with fakeness and hypocrisy and paid favors. Do they realize times have changed?

Now the conversations are no longer restricted to bitter rants on a street corner, or in huddles on the stairs of the college library or in loud, smoky parties or cloistered areas of the Nets, but on the main stage. And the proliferation of New Media does help in that it bridges these “small” conversations and the “big” ones in the MSM.

The major voices on the media will do its utmost to nurture and host those conversations honestly or doom us a possible step up in societal evolution. Yet I think there is no way around having them, and these conversations will separate the dying from the living, the lost from the struggling upward.

It makes me very interested in politics right now. Real conversations are coming to the fore, ones I’ve longed to have for over…25 years.

What will be left standing when the storm passes? Will the sun shine down upon our happy faces, or upon a quiet, razed countryside…peaceful, but empty?

I think this is up to us. But I wonder how many know we are making the decision every day….

AND OFFERS FULL AMNESTY TO ALL ILLEGAL US IMMIGRANTS! As well as to undocumented immigrants from all nations!

Juan Ignacio Pedroza, Migratory Regulations Official for México says that the government of México wants to have “an open arms policy;” all foreigners who want to contribute should be allowed to and are welcome. México simply wants them documented. No prosecutions, no jail, no problem. This move will offer them a path to citizenship.

According to the video, México has “changed its approach toward immigrants” to simplify the process of becoming a citizen: they are now viewing immigrants through an economic lens. And more people wanting to contribute is good for the economy. This officially makes the government of México in at least one way, ten times smarter than so many pundits and politicians right here in the US.

And it’s so warm! And sunny. Look at those relaxed expats on the benches. Makes you wonder. Will México be the next Florida for those seeking retirement?

This move on México’s part offers an attractive option to some, and also destroys the argument so often slurred out in comment threads by those tiresome racist trolls who implore you DO YOU KNOW WHAT MEXICO DOES TO THEIR ILLEGAL IMMIGRINTZ??? then proceeding to unleash a stream of visions of Victorian era blood tinged barbarism as if the demons in their minds actually live in México.

Ah…México sun…I need me some…

video found here

MY ABUELO AND ABUELA made their way in this América by working the fields for years. That is why I keep the UFW icon and link on my site. This is an important part of my family’s history. Even as a child, my own papi worked the fields with my grandparents for years until my nanita decided it was “time for Juanito to go to school.” (That’s him in the pic to the left.) And then they made that happen.

I don’t necessarily think that it is bad for children to work alongside their parents. Actually, I think that is very good. And missing from what I see in the culture out there. It’s a sad loss. But as long as parents can be teachers in other ways (and not relegate it all to strangers) I suppose not all is lost.

This story, reporting on the Adkin Blue Ribbon Packing Company, in South Haven, Michigan, and the fact that many children are doing the work of picking the blueberries that we delectably drop into our desserts kicks off the lede by framing the magnanimous actions of Walmart, who is cutting ties with Adkin. I’m sure this is seen as a great opportunity by Walmart, known to many as the “most anti-union company” out there, a way to boost their image. But what will it do to those families who need that money? Is that really the most righteous thing they can think of doing?

Truth is, I watch these kids picking berries, smart kids who know about pesticides; strong little girl that can carry two buckets at five years old or so, and think to myself they are going to be so much more prepared for life than the little girl who is learning to feel self esteem when handed a trophy and tiara for being “Little Miss Blueberry.” Truth is, I see that little girl stooped over carrying two buckets for measly pay, and then those shots of kids happily eating blueberry ice cream or getting crowned Little Miss Blueberry, and it all feels very wrong. It’s just too symbolic of a larger truth. And anyway, why don’t they go out in the fields and crown the little girl with buckets? SHE is Little Miss Blueberry as far as I’m concerned. And her crown is the sacrifice of what most of us think of as childhood.

Despite the benefits of working closely with your parents, it’s obviously true that it’s egregious and wrong that this is what people are forced to do to live decently in this country. People should not have to enlist all their children to help them earn a living, to barely get by, to get paid by the bucket and not much. We know how spendy those little crates of blueberries are at the store!

But it’s not as simple as punishing the company. That punishes the families, too. Soon, lest we perish as a nation, it is incumbent upon us to open our eyes and begin seeing a larger picture.

We need to realize that this is the price of Capitalism as we know it, today.

The amount of poverty and suffering required for the emergence of a Rockefeller, and the amount of depravity that the accumulation of a fortune of such magnitude entails, are left out of the picture, and it is not always possible to make the people in general see this.”

- Che Guevara

There is no free ride, there is no cheap food, the reason we get delicious berries out of season anywhere in the nation is similar to the reason Madoff got rich. A lot of “little people” get screwed for these conveniences, to make it possible for distributors and retailers to jack up the cost and rake in profit on the sweat of children’s backs. It ain’t just going on in Michigan. It’s going on all over the nation, as the report says. (If you’ve TV, watch the special tonight on Nightline.) And you know what? This is the story of how this nation even got its feet of the ground. Enslavement and exploitation of people just like this, just like today.

Who works these fields? Who built this land? Who builds it today? Who keeps your fruit and vegetables on the table? Who keeps the agricultural engine running? It ain’t Pat Buchanan and it ain’t Mister Perdue and it ain’t Lou Dobbs.

Whenever will we get smart about the world? Stop pretending that economic problems sneak across borders with brown skin? Start staging ICE raids in DC, where the real border thievery goes on? When will we stop playing these little games, selling fake dreams that profess a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, while leaving off the whole truth of all the people that sweat and bled and died nameless to carry that pot there?

MUCHAS GRACIAS to the (five ultra-cool) readers who came together with sticks and farm animals to help me fend off the invading Comcastadors! Also big thanks to the people who just emailed words of comfort.

Since we are back stylin online in the full nine and divested of our messy stress vest, let’s do a roundup just to get things back in motion.

But first real quick I’d like to say that I always love working this way. I do not, of course, mean getting anxious and having utilities turned off. And yes, of course I feel good to deal with the immediate problem.

But on top of that, I’m not joking when I wrote that text below on this page, near the tamale photo: “It’s the new US culture” about barter or back and forthing between friends, rather than relying on soulless systems that end up funneling money into exploitative third parties. (Touched on it here, too.) These liaisons keeping humans from power. Banks, National colluding impersonal credit systems, corporations, Agricultural system, Priests. All liaisons that have us believe we need them to even do certain things at all.

Versus situations like the Tanda. Where we just do it between us.

It won’t be the new US way. We already see what happens when the larger amount of us need things to be fairer to us and less fair to the massive corporate golems who skulk about our national and global affairs, yanking this and squashing that at will. A new way won’t usher itself in through law. We see who controls the legislative process.

But I love when I see us bringing it there just by doing. Community gardens, community credit, community barter. (More community “policing” and maybe we’d need to call those stun-gun wielding maniacs into our neighborhood and homes less. And by “policing” I mean looking out for kids around us, and for women getting beat up in their living situations and such.)

The people who helped me get through the moment here are people I also do things for in turn. Or would. Which is why I keep it in mind when, like Prerna wrote, good situations or orgs or people are getting started, or need a hand at the moment. Because it comes back to you.

So muchas gracias. I’m still going to need to try and raise some cash for the Netroots Nation trip, so I’ll make a graphic and pop that in under each post. But the immediate crisis is past.

Today is a writing day, so let me just highlight some news I found interesting and then get on my way…

[One link removed since this morning, as I added the wrong URL and can't find original.]

• Remember Brad Will? They are still trying to cover up his murder.

• Mobs and Right wing pundits who use the holocaust in conjunction with violence and violent energy leveled by the Corporate state and trying to shut down conversations crucial to the process of a health plan that would help the People? This is like the Anus of Fascism blinking at itself in a mirror and seeing God.

• I hope the White House doesn’t get TOO cozy with the Latino vote. Stuff like this will affect you, bro.

• Like so many cultures…when we come here, we begin to die...

• …unless we think of new ways forward. Vacillating, extended, shivering with dream…

• Workers at a steel plant in Mexico owned by ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steelmaker, went on strike today. And that’s what I love about Mexicanos. We know how to use the force of our people. Boycott and strike are long time Latin American traditions. Recognize.

• Obama visits Mexico to talk immigration and drug war. Nations are now bickering in border tongue. Mexico still lying about the ocean of human rights abuses that their military and police engage in. US breaking laws contained in NAFTA that would help Mexico do a little better financially. Walls and papers still the order of the day. They are gonna skirt around NAFTA a lil bit but how close are they allowed to get to the truth? When will we connect the last dot as a People and when we do, how do we act to protect ourselves under the rule of such massive and well funded thugs? The business interests that control US and MX law=>The law that then calls out armies and ICE squads to fence in, jail, or kill the People suffering under those business interests.

————

Peace out for now! Hope you’ve having a great day….

RIFFING on a few ideas—such as taking power back from massive institutions that exploit you, as well as community-building—I bring you this post about la Tanda.

I am going to type in the article in its entirety—from a bilingual magazine called De-Bug, Cultura Sin Fronteras (De-Bug, Culture Without Borders).

I met the cats who are behind this magazine at the NAM Expo in Atlanta recently, and we talked about bridging UMX and De-Bug, or doing projects together in some fashion. We’ve not talked more since then yet, but I’ll take this opportunity to point you to their mag, while sharing one of the (timely) essays with you.

MANAGING YOUR MONEY, OAXACAN STYLE
living in recession’s shadow

By Angel Luna

The battle to become financially stable is one of the hardest fights I have ever been in. I have tried to fight back the creditors in every way imaginable, from borrowing a few dollars from my posse to becoming a hustler, to collecting recyclables, and even getting to extra jobs on top of my day job. They say being in debt is the American way, but I found a way to get out of it by leaning on my Mexican community.

By this time, I had delinquency notices strewn across the carpet that I stepped on every morning when I woke up and every night when I went to sleep. That’s when I made the decision to ask elders from my Oaxacan community to help me solve my debt burden and joined a “tanda.”

The tanda is an ancient custom that was brought to Mexico by the Chinese in the late 1800s. A common practice in Latin America, the tanda is essentially a rotating credit association that is built on trust. It is a system for people to save money as well as a way to build relationships with each other. I told my mom that I wanted in, and she told me that this was a monthly commitment that I would be expected to pay.

The tanda is a loan without interest or hidden fees, and requires a minimum one-year commitment. To start a tanda you gather at least 12 people who are reliable and whom you can trust. Each person draws a number to determine which month they will receive the loan. On the first month, the first person gets the full pot of money from everyone, continues to pay in every month, and so on.

In my first year, I will receive 5,000. More importantly, I will be paying money to my community, instead of the bank.

Some of the members of my tanda have used their money to pay for their kids’ college tuition, invest in a small business, or finish building their dream house in Mexico.

Because the tanda is based on a tight-knit community network in which everyone knows each other, there is a circle of trust that doesn’t exist in other loan programs. The chances that someone will take off with all the money are very low. This would be met with the most serious of percussions: social ones.

Knowing that I will be able to pay off my credit cards and be one step closer to financial stability is a relief. But the fact that I was only able to pull this off by returning to a custom used by my Mexican mother and grandmother is the ultimate irony.

–

Tanda Tips:

1) To get your tanda started, you need a number of people (preferably an even number just to make your life easier, and usually at least twelve).

2) Determine how much is going to be in the pot and how much each member is going to pay monthly.

3) Get a facilitator from the group of people in la tanda. Their responsibility is to make sure that there are no discrepancies and that the tanda is on time for each participant. They need to make schedules to let everbody know where the tanda is at and who is next to receive the cash and to make sure everybody is on the same page.

4) Once you are on the tanda, you have to follow through in order to develop trust and to make sure you get invited to the next one. Make sure that you pay every month until it’s over.

ESPANOL:

MANEJANDO TU DINERO, AL ESTILO OAXACA
viviendo en la sombra de la crisis económica

Por Angel Luna

La batalla de aprender cómo establecerme económicamente es una de las luchas más duras en la que me he encontrado. He luchado en contra de los acreedores en todas las maneras posibles, desde pidiéndole préstamo a mi novia, convirtiéndome en estafador, collecionando reciclaje, y hasta eniendo dos trabajos adicionales aparte de me trabajo regular. Dicen que estando en deuda es parte de la vida americana, pero encontré una solución entre me comunidad mexicana.

A esas alturas, tenía cartas de delincuencia por todas partes de mi alfombra, y las pisaba cada mañana cuando despertaba y cada noche  que me iba a dormir. Eso es cuando tomé la decisión de pedirles a los mayores de mi comunidad de Oaxaca para que me ayudaran a resolver mi gran problema económico, y así fue como me hice parte de la tanda.

Una tanda es una costumbre muy vieja que fue traída a México por los chinos al fines de los 1800s. Hoy en día es una costumbre común, y esencialmente es una asociación de crédito que se alterna, y es basada en la confianza. Es un sistema para que la gente ahorre dinero y que también construya amistades con los demás. Le dije a mi madre que quería ser aprte de la tanda, y ella me dijo que este era un compromiso mensual y que al entrar yo tendría la obligación de pagar.

La tanda es un préstamo sin interés y sin pagos escondidos, y requiere el compromiso mínimo de un año. Para empezar una tanda, junta por lo menos 12 personas que son de confianza y con quien puedas contar de que complan con su obligación mensual. Cada persona toma un número para determinar cuál més van a recibir su préstamo. En el primer més, la primera persona recibe el dinero de parte de todos y continúa pagando cada més etcétera.

En mi primer año, recibiré $5,000. Más importante, estaré pagando dinero a mi propia comunidad en ves de al banco.

Algunos de los miembros de me tanda han usado el dinero para pagar la matrícula universitaria de sus hijos o para invertir en un negocio pequeño o para acabar de construir la casa de sus sueõs en México.

La tanda es basada en una comunidad pequeña de confianza en donde todos se conocen, así que hay un nivel de confianza y bienestar que no existe en otros programas de preéstamos. La probabilidad de que alguien se vaya a robar todo el dinero es muy baja, porque tal acción traerá consequenceias muy serias: el fin de las amistades sociales.

El saber de que pronto podré pagar todas mis tarjetas de crédito y estar a un paso más cerca a la estabilidad financiera es un alivio. Pero el saber de que pude hacer todo esto por regrasar a una costumbre vieja y mexicana usada por mi madre y abuela es la parte más irónica.

–

Consejos para comenzar una Tanda:

1) Para comenzar tú tanda tú necesitas un número x de gente (de preferencia un número par para hacer tú vida más facil y pues por lo menos doce).

2) Determina de cuanto va ser la tanda y cuanto dinero va a pagar cada miembro mensualmente.

3) Asegurate de que tengas una persona en la tanda que se encarge de facilitar la tanda. Su responsabilidad de esta persona es de asegurarse de que todos los participantes esten a el pendiente de la tanda. Ellos son los que se aseguran de que todo salga correcto y de que a el que le toca la tanda la reciba a tiempo y pues el hace el procedimiento mas fácil.

4) Una vez que estes en la tenada tu tienes que ir a el corriente con la tanda para que asi te confien más y hací te asegures un lugar en la próxima tanda. Asegurate de pagar cada més hasta que la tanda se termine.

Also, I discovered (after typing this all out) that De-Bug has a back issues page where you can download pdfs of past issues! Mexcellent. Please check them out. (For some reason, you won’t find the Spanish version for this issue on the page, so I don’t regret typing it out after all.)