WE BEGIN, but do not end, with the sensational incident where the Obama White House, under Trumpian pressure, produced for public inspection the President’s “long form” birth certificate.

I do not know how successful I will be in my attempts to navigate the journey, but I think it’s important to move from an immediate feeling of hurt or anger to a broader view of the very thing that moves behind this event and is so upsetting about it. This is what I will try to do.

__

Why can’t we roam this open country?
Oh, why can’t we be what we wanna be?
We want to be free.

–Bob Marley, 3 o’Clock Roadblock

ROADBLOCK

What a frenzy.

What a storm of feelings, thoughts, tweets, and emotions were exploded into view with that one event, where the President of the United States of America—a man of color—answered the insincere jeering of a single white citizen by producing his identity papers for inspection. As if our duly elected President was but a teen at a police checkpoint, wearing baggy pants and with his hands up against the hood. As if he were a young man standing on a corner looking Mexicano, immediately suspect and thus beholden to the law man to prove he was not up to criminal acts. What a shaking of the timbers of racial history were felt up and down the blogosphere in this one simple happening.

And rightly so. What a harsh reality we trade in; that it will take far more time than our grandparents’, parents’, or our own lifetimes to evolve past the sickly, sadistic, inhuman history we Americans share on matters of race. In matters of history—look to Mexico, or China, or Egypt—this country is in an infantile stage. And the things that were done to African Americans, and Indians (indigenous peoples from el Norte as well as from south of the “border”); to Chinese and Japanese and Chileans and so on…. these ghosts will not fade fast.

Donald Trump is one of those ghosts, his ailing caricature of a human form cavorting to and fro, swaying recklessly but cleverly. Almost as if animated by an actual soul, he bellows nearly-intelligible sounds, and the media flocks to absorb the spittle. His expression remains forever puckered like a lemon-shocked anus-mouth, his mind alight with tired stereotypes and bursts of fart-static. A clown who doesn’t have the decency to laugh at himself.

And Donald is so easy to hate, isn’t he? Because he is a hateful man. And because he enlists the powers of hate, hate long rooted in American soil. Hate that long ago drew blood and tossed ropes and smiled for the picture as the body cooled to a dusk-like temperature. Hate that raided Native American villages to murder sleeping children. Hate that buffed its boots before demanding that black men duck their eyes, and go drink from some other fountain. Hate that considers women, and Blacks and Cubans and Haitians and Iraqis and Afghanis and Mexican and Chinese and Vietnamese and Puerto Rican as less than human. Hate today that spends Joe Arpaio’s paycheck, props up his decaying frame, and parades his prisoners in pink. Hate yesterday that reneged on treaties, and swallowed up gold, and burned codices.

Donald Trump is animated by the very same hate that is used to divide so many people today, and strives to obscure the roots of our liberation as it obscures the hands that lock the cuffs on us. It is a disease of the mind and soul called White Supremacy. And in the land wherein this virus thrives, certain kinds of men, with their ballooned minds and feverish egos, get to demand certain concessions from other people: that you surrender your papers; that you not harbor anger in your eye or your tone lest it be beaten out of you; that law shall endorse such beatings; that you prone out on the ground with a gun in your back at a moment’s notice; that you swallow a bullet if the bully feels sexy while perched up there and straddled around your spine. It is a land where you apologize for a role you never asked for but is ascribed to you by thieves and liars; where They will always have the right to tell you to pull over and prove yourself, and where You will always comply and perhaps be allowed to live with just humiliation if you are lucky enough to walk away with your life.

And so the target of so much history, for a day, becomes Donald “I am the Patriarchy” Trump. And many hearts seethe for his being so cruel as to remind us of our history, and to imply that even when you gain The Most Powerful Office In The World, it means nothing next to the anger of a White Man. It was the same reminder Republican Senator Joe “YOU LIE” Wilson gave us when he shouted down the President of the United States in the middle of an address that was adorned with all the pomp and decorum as we see fit to afford our nation’s executive leader. That shout, that demand to show papers, that insistence that you duck your eyes, it hisses You can even become President, but you still are not White. Which means you are not really the President. Don’t go dreaming that somehow you are now more powerful than me, darkie.

And as an immediate and visceral (and predictable) reaction, what did so many of us people of color need to see the President do? We needed him to scoff at the implication that such assertions could be true. We needed him to refute that reality. To deny it exists. To stand up and stand proud. To destroy that reality with a new action.

Was coughing up the papers but then roasting Trump at a gala dinner in front of the Press enough? Was ordering the home invasion and murder of a wanted man of color in Pakistan enough to erase that reality? Perhaps for our empathy with Obama being humiliated, it was. Perhaps now the unpleasant memory of watching the national daddy figure bow to a carnival barker has been mitigated for most. Maybe now that feeling, as if we watched the POTUS hand over his lunch money to bullies, has been nullified, gunsmoke wafting about our heads like purifying incense smoke.

And I suppose it is best to take the man at his word: he saw the Birtherism (also known as “Racism”) wasn’t going to go away and wanted to squash it and force the GOP ravers into a corner by removing what he saw as their last leg in what was left of the Birther argument.

But I do not think it does the larger issue any service to forget it when the feelings fade, or to imagine it resolved because the President has shown his papers, is in the clear, and we are feeling tough again because, damn son—he’s got that killer instinct. Just as Rosa Parks’ challenge was not to one bus driver, but to an entire system of inequality, this matter is much broader and deeper than the pageantry that recently unfolded between two rich men on TV.

Yes, the dynamic where we identify culturally or ethnically in some way with President Obama (and as a man of color, I do) leads us to watch the disgusting Trump claim victory for making the President skip on command, and we fume with empathy. We gnash our teeth and swear our allegiance all over again to Barack, this poor besieged man who has to endure the barbs and slings of Age Old Racism. This intelligent, thoughtful scholar, statesman, gentleman, father and husband. This President who bears up nobly in conditions potentially humiliating, conditions asked of no other President has been before him. We spit on the ground and growl Trump’s name. We swear to show up in the voting booth for the Democrats…as if that in any measurable way addresses the larger issue of Them Who Shall Be Asked For Papers.

CONQUER AND DIVIDE

I should probably clearly state the obvious in case it is not as obvious as I’d hope: the American Black experience is deep, unique, and I highly respect it. I would never claim to see it in all its parts or stand within it. I am not pretending to have any stake or voice therein. At the same time, I have my own experiences as a Xicano, and there is some degree of overlap between the experiences of all people of color in this nation. This I know from years of activism and friendships and conversations with people of different ethnicities.

Also—quite important to suss out and account for—there are (exploitable) gaps between our experiences. It is in those gaps that divide and conquer wedges are introduced by the ruling class.

Strategically, it is in marginalized peoples’ great interest to discover these gaps ourselves so they cannot be exploited casually. It is in our great interest to find them, examine them, and prepare for the attacks that will be launched; attacks that would seek to exploit the latent weaknesses that could threaten our unity as people marginalized and exploited by the oppressive, racist hand of law. Black and Brown alike suffer behind the racist criminal justice system, for starters. Statistics for both Latinos as well as Blacks are disproportionately high for the actual number of crimes that run rampant through all communities, when compared. This is so because the law continues old power differentials and is implemented by human beings who have been conditioned by the same society .

And because law begins as idea, and only becomes strapped with force when enough people agree on that idea.

One of the ways that unfortunate ideas become commonly accepted is by the use of emotional triggers to mislead thought and obscure the true machinations of state or corporate power.

It is necessary to deny the apparent binaries here.

This is not just a black/white issue. Take it from Chuck D. And for all of us who care, there is a way to channel the need to see justice done in the wake of this ugly moment. There are other peoples and communities who would greatly benefit from our consideration in the current context. People who would suffer in continued indignities and abuse were we to avoid using that lens in a broader sense. Other communities that are having their own dignity denied, with not just social pressure demanding they suborn themselves and produce papers for how they look (not white), but laws. Laws and actions, I’m sorry to say, that are supported very much by President Obama. Laws being snuck under the radar that increase the reach of the surveillance state. as well as that feed into the growing prison and detention industry in the U.S. Like the actions of the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

I will be more specific on these both in a moment. But I wanted to prepare the soil of your imagination for this turn of thought. I invite you to explore these ideas:

• The President, seemingly the unwilling subject of this degrading and dehumanizing shape of act before our eyes—being forced to show papers in the course of his day, with no reason but for the fact that he is not a pale man called Smith—supports that very idea being implemented for others who Appear Foreign, and is directly involved with making this a reality across America.

• If it bothers me that he, as one person (and a very powerful one on the continuum considered) is subject to this, how can I engage the larger fight where millions are subjected to this? Millions of very vulnerable people. Not graduates of Ivy League schools; not powerful politicians with millions of dollars at their disposal, and millions of people clamoring to back them up.

2. This is not a struggle between Barack H. Obama and Donald Whatever Trump. Nor one between their persons or personalities. Sure, let us consider their power and from where their power derives, and what they use it for. Let us give context to the scene and the players. But we really don’t need to make either of them a demon or a hero for us to successfully engage this important fight. In fact, doing so will dilute our powers of observation and thought.

3. The battle is not between the Evil, Rich, Racist Ole GOP and the Beleaguered, Liberal, Bullied, Righteous Democrats. If I may presume to know and say so, the battle at the heart of this outrage and hurt here, is for principles. For human dignity, and human rights. The battle is for integrity. The battle is against racist hate shaped into popular opinion and finally, given the force of the masses’ will—be it in the shape of social pressure, law, violence, or all three.

Going forward, we must recognize the possible faultline that divides certain viewpoints rooted in the Black American experience from certain viewpoints in the Mexican American community, as well as in the Pro-Migrant community. Especially when exploited by the powers that be. We must dwell in our connectedness. It’s not hard. I know I don’t just care for Mexicanos. I care for all people who suffer behind the racist machinations afoot in the nation today.

4. It’s not citizens vs. immigrants. Human rights, dignity, fairness: these are not things we should let legal terms determine. These are things we want human beings to have. Don’t let the squirming exploiters and vampires at the top whisper to us the nightmarish myth of scarcity. Things only seem scarce when a small group of people need to capitalize on many people’s energies and resources, and this profit-making pyramid shape enforces an artificial scarcity.

When we feel we cannot even take care of “our own,” it’s easy to let a feeling of solidarity slip away. It makes me sad when I see people of color who should understand and join in the struggle that Mexicanos and other immigrants face today, but who veer away from that struggle imagining that immigrants represent a threat to their own community. This is the voice of White Supremacy, and it’s a bullhorn turned on all day and night in this land, so I understand. But when in all important ways our struggle is the same, “our own” can be an expansive thing—and these larger numbers will render us more powerful to fight those exploiters at the top, already unfairly given advantage.

Many of today’s most important issues deal with power differentials between the very rich, and the rest of us. Immigration is one of the most important area for us to mind. Many issues come together here. Drug war. Commerce, and the Economy. Lines of ownership; lines that signify an US and THEM, borders that we end up believing need small army units and millions of dollars of technology in guns, drones, and surveillance equipment to maintain their reality; their solidity.

In the issue of immigration and corporate abuse of borders and employees is revealed the secret of how towns and communities become economically destroyed by corporate powers being above the law, and exploiting the worker. In the selling of the idea that the only people affected are Criminal Illegal Alien Invader Types, the elite continue to exploit our vulnerable brothers and sisters.

In Immigration politics, we see the manipulative hand of Economics, and the fallout of Capitalism and Neoliberalism. Domestically as well as Internationally. Within this struggle are handholds to engage the struggle for working class rights, women’s rights, family rights, culture, reproduction, human rights, our national ethics.

As more and more strife becomes about resources and mobility, more conquer and divide tactics will be put to work in this area of Immigration.

We must remember first and foremost (and again at the end), that the forces that benefit from our being divided will seek to exploit all these key areas. A simple lens adjustment would make that impossible. We must come to realize how many of us share this same struggle; fighting that power that reared it’s ugly naked head recently under the glow of sunlight bouncing off skyscraper windows, and hissed at the President with breath as old and rancid as years of gallows sweat.

TO PUT IT ANOTHER WAY

There are so many discussions about the Arc of Obama in the eye of popular opinion as of yet. We’ve all had an intense experience of some sort from election day until now, though our specific experiences may vary, and our current feelings vary just as much. Some have offered arguable reasons for becoming disenchanted with his administration. I will avoid the political laundry list, some or all of with which you may or may not agree with. That’s not the conversation(s) I am here for. I don’t want to get sidetracked. I don’t want to exploit or even risk the potential differences and faultlines in our unity just for a moment. And when I say “our unity,” I mean working class people. I mean the 99% of income earners in the nation. I mean many many Black, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Mexican, Guatemalan, Dominican, Chinese, Korean or otherwise golden brown beautiful red black people. I mean white people. Here, I talk to all those people marginalized in some way by the powers and status quo that men like Donald Trump act in the service of.

I propose that what we have in common here is the idea of how wrong it is to deny the full dignity and rights to the Other in the name of safety and legal procedure. I suggest that this fight and furious sense of injustice cannot and should not end with the humiliating press conference, nor with the empowering roast of Trump at a dinner you and I had no means nor invitation to attend.

PROMISES, PROMISES

Candidate and President Barack Obama made some very specific promises to crowds of Latinos, in speeches to NCLR and to the immigrant community. He decried the ICE raids that tore parents away from their children, he called the system broken. In passioned speech, he told desperate immigrant families that he had their back. That he understood their pain. That he was determined to make a difference for them. He said he was an ally to Latinos and to Immigrants and that we could count on him.

He then turns around and continues the raids, but in other shapes. He deports more people than George W. Bush does, insuring that many, many children are torn from their parents, after all. He does this in the name of Papers, not in the name of human rights or dignity.

President Obama and Janet Napolitano brag to the Republicans that they are deporting record numbers of undocumented immigrants. He turns his back on his own disabled aunt when the cold eye of ICE falls upon her. He sends troops to the US’ Southern border, when the economic refugees flee conditions in Mexico that have been greatly caused by NAFTA policies (A Democratic accomplishment under Bill Clinton). Those people risking rape, murder, starvation, and poverty to cross the border to find a chance at life don’t need bullets in their heads, they need help accessing resources so they don’t need to flee their homes and families.

Obama’s Department of Homeland Security offers a program called “Secure Communities” (S-Comm) that ties in the FBI and ICE to local police so that anyone apprehended by local police has all their info shared with these other agencies, even if a person is not convicted of anything. We’ve seen how successful Arizona’s SB 1070 has been in disrupting society, and at driving a wedge between local police and many communities where people fear either being detained or simply being hassled based on ethnic signifiers. Many police have protested the implementation of S-Comm, understanding right away how it would harm their relationship with the immediate community and lend a hand to the proliferation of many crimes that would exploit this wedge. A few cities attempted to opt out of S-Comm, but voila! The cloak came off and Obama’s DHS suddenly informed these cities that the program was not, after all, voluntary. Whoops.

Immigrant communities understand that they are being targeted when they are just trying to feed their kids and make a living, often exploited by workplaces that know they live without protection from law or society. But to console the rest who don’t know this, Obama’s White House claims it is only deporting serious criminals. The most cursory examination of reality shows this to be a complete falsehood.

One easy example of this is shown quite blatantly by how the White House is going after activist, friend, and law school student Prerna Lal. Prerna is a positive role model, an engaged, passionate person and organizer. Hardly a serious criminal. (Please sign the petition to help Prerna fight deportation. Her crime? The creation and success of DreamActivist.org. Prerna was simply too successful in organizing students behind the DREAM Act, which—unlike these sly and disingenuous actions by the Department of Homeland Security—does exist in the service of human rights. We don’t need to be frozen in the sixties to aid those fighting for communities before it becomes common sense to do so. We can look Prerna’s way.

The stats tell the same story. The Obama administration is not deporting scores of dangerous criminals but people who have an old offense, or minor offenses, or who get caught up in the widening and growing web of “immigration enforcement,” or who are simply students and children of immigrants and dared to make a valedictorian speech at their school, or reach out to help other people in the same plight. Sometimes they are simply driving home from work, and get pulled over by an old, white, sheriff who might as well be Donald Trump. They get asked for their birth certificate because their name sounds…un-American.

COME TOGETHER

It’s so easy for us to stay firm in our personal experience and all the ways it feeds our own heart. One of the major premises in this article (or ramble depending on how you look at it) is that we proceed deeper and deeper into times when it will be important to not let ourselves be divided in the wrong ways. The Earth, mother of all, is increasingly poisoned and robbed…and those plunderers conspire to keep us misinformed about her condition. As she sickens in different ways; as our reckless, imbalanced, capitalist society veers drunkenly to and fro; as the divides grow starker and the ultra rich more intoxicated by desperation, the powers that be will work harder and harder to keep us at each other’s throats; to offer us others who we can throw to the curb in order to keep our own apparently threatened freedom.

We can feel empathy, kinship, or even an affection for the person named Barack Obama; for the challenges he faces navigating a system so strongly interwoven with racist currents, yet simultaneously see how today’s policies enacted by the creepily-named Department of Homeland Security exist to grow the racist prison syste<[/a>, and aid racist behaviors and values through the normalization of certain laws.

Final notes: Thanks to friend (and immigration lawyer) Dave Bennion for help with resources.

Crossposted at Shakesville

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

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

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

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

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

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

Past episodes of News With Nezua are archived here.

A LETTER TO THE EDITOR about immigration, in the online New York Times:

To the Editor:

I am sick and tired of being called a racist. America looks at me and sees a middle-class white man who wants something done about illegal immigration and assumes that it must be about race.

What I am actually concerned about is the socioeconomic effects of the high-density immigration. I am concerned with the complete disregard to the concept of assimilation and the complete lack of respect being shown toward what my friends and family have fought and died to protect.

Laws are fair only if all people, despite race, color or creed, are held to them. The fact that the majority of the people who are in our country illegally are of color means nothing to me.

This is not a race issue. It is a legal issue, a financial issue, a respect issue and an issue of pride. Please look beyond my white skin, stop assuming that I’m racist, and see that this is an issue about immigration, not race.

James Stewart
Mount Vernon, Wash., May 22, 2010

I’ll never stop being puzzled by people who preemptively defend against being racist. James says he is sick and tired of being called a racist, which is a perfect moment to gain sympathy with an anecdote or two of how he has suffered such a terrible experience. But the writer offers no concrete example. We learn immediately that what he is sick and tired of, in actuality, are the odd machinations of his own mind. “Being called a racist” for James Stewart of Mount Vernon, Washington comes down to an idea in his own head that “America” “looks at him” and his feelings on immigration and then “America” assumes James has a race problem. Wow! No wonder he is unsettled.

James, if you are not an orangutan, how often do you work that into conversations? Just curious. Maybe it would go something like this:

“Listen, Zookeeper. I think a larger meal allotment would benefit these animals. And I’m not an Orangutan, in case you were wondering about my bias. Nor am I a Chimpanzee! I am just a concerned citizen who can’t stop thinking about the socioenvironmental impact of these animals in our zoo.”

That would be normal.

James, why do you assume you are a racist to others? What is it about your thinking that tips you off?

What I am actually concerned about is the socioeconomic effects of the high-density immigration.

Sweet word cluster. Clearly you are not an Orangutan.

I am concerned with the complete disregard to the concept of assimilation and the complete lack of respect being shown toward what my friends and family have fought and died to protect.

Hmm. So is it really “socioeconomic” effects you oppose? Here you are bravely defending ‘concepts’ but to me, it sounds like your problem is cultural. You and your buddies feel disrespected by new neighbors who don’t have a Pacific Northwest accent? I mean, in what way can you ascertain disrespect for a concept? Have you listened in on their weekly Concept-Busting meetings?

Despite the loud noises coming from various quadrants, in the end, it seems the economic impact of immigrants is not so dramatic; positive in some places, and negative in others. In other words, immigrants are just like everyone else. And yet, you are not railing against anyone else. Was that a clue that tipped you off?

James, do you feel your views on immigration are somewhat racist in nature because your idea of the nation (“friends and family have fought and died” to dominate) begins with white people dying and killing for land that was not theirs? After all, how do you think the tribes that have been bisected by the artificial border feel about “respect” and “assimilation”? Do their “friends and families” not matter quite as much? This is not ancient history I’m flippantly bringing up. This is a current struggle in the borderlands.

Your thoughts on these peoples’ struggle?

Laws are fair only if all people, despite race, color or creed, are held to them. The fact that the majority of the people who are in our country illegally are of color means nothing to me.

Oh, right. The sanctity of LAW. Well. Laws that are brought about by force, and that are intended to normalize the aggressor’s rule and values can’t really be said to be “fair” to anyone but the aggressor! Let’s be realistic. I don’t really think you are after “fairness,” more so that you want to have your pretty lawn and be left alone on it. Understandable! (I’d add a pool to really top it off nicely.) I am sure it is inviting to run up under that umbrella of protection wielded by the aggressor and call it justice, but really it’s just a dry patch for you and yours. That’s not “fair,” that’s force. You’re an outraged squatter, no biggie. (PS: the fact that you are not of color means nothing to me.)

This is not a race issue. It is a legal issue, a financial issue, a respect issue and an issue of pride.

It’s a race issue for you, and the notion of “law” but a tool in your trickbag. You believe that the “majority of people who are in our country illegally are of color” and you want to use the law to benefit your race; you want to use legalisms to bolster your hold on finance, you consider opposition to that agenda ‘disrespect,’ and you lose your sense of pride when it is stymied. Quite simple.

Please look beyond my white skin, stop assuming that I’m racist, and see that this is an issue about immigration, not race.

Funny, James, I can’t see your skin! And you can’t see inside my head. Or inside “America’s” head. All the rest of us have are your words. They show us enough, I think.

Detail from Page 71 of the Codex Borgia

RECENTLY, I wrote about Arizona tipping its hand as to what its cultural and legal agenda is about—and it ain’t making sure people have VISAs or green cards. It’s about minimizing if not wholly eradicating the power and presence and legacy of the people and culture of Mexico—a legacy and culture that are integral elements of Arizona. Arizona’s flurry of laws over time (not just the  last month) spell this agenda out pretty clearly.

Recently I wrote to a list-serv what these moves conjure up in my mind…a deranged soul clawing at their own face, trying to tear away the mask that obscures their purity…all the while not seeing that they are destroying themselves in the process. Arizona separated from Mexican culture and people is…nothing but a hot spread of sand treaded by delusional white power-grabbers. A haunted land, indeed.

While there are, indeed, a few ways to look at this latest move, none of them are pretty.

Firstly, we really have to pause to appreciate the snug fit of the White Lens that clouds out the big picture so vehemently and with an assumed air of righteousness that is born of nothing more than a slurry-slush of ignorance, violence, and fear. We simply MUST giggle a bit at the notion of white lawmakers being outraged that Latinos dare to think “the white man is oppressing them” and then, to prove how wrong we are…those white lawmakers summarily outlaw us from telling our histories.

+/-»

Wow! That’ll teach you to think you’re being singled out as a group and oppressed!

Tom Horne is happy!

If such a contradiction escapes their reasoning, their is no intellectual meat to be had in that stew.

Montenegro—who admits the target is Chicano Studies specifically—and others, are putting the legal torch to the spinning of time-honored stories. This is what conquerors do when they fear the people maintaining their own legacy, their own gods, their own allegiances, and patching up, decorating, and honoring the fabric that has kept them together and which threatens to dull the blade of the new reign. Yup, even in a land of Free Speech™.

There are few extant Aztec codices created before the conquest and these are largely ritual texts. Post-conquest codices, like Codex Mendoza or Codex Ríos, were painted by Aztec tlacuilos (codex creators), but under the control of Spanish authorities. The possibility of Spanish influence poses potential problems for those studying the post-conquest codices. Itzcoatl had the oldest hieroglyphics destroyed for political-religious reasons and Bishop Zumarraga of Mexico (1528–48) had all available texts burned for missionary reasons.^[29]

Joe Arpaio, a big respecter of other races and classes of people

But I guess this current attempt to quash the teachings of those descended from the indigenous of the continent is easy to understand.

The heavy and incessant indoctrination of White Ethnic Studies is, truth be told, still not very strong. Even while taught in every school in the nation while simultaneously reinforced on our televisions and movie screens, the illusion of white and European supremacy over all things indigenous or otherwise Brown™ is a fragile one and must be protected from even the challenge of one single schoolroom; is under dire threat from the possession of even one book that argues to the contrary.

Montenegro (R-Ariz) feels that banning Mexican American studies is righteous, because “[p]arents send their children, students, to public schools to learn reading, writing and arithmetic skills, not to be taught to, you know, hate or have resentment toward other races, not to be taught that they are victims or educated to be victims.”

Which of course is what Arizona authorities like Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Governor Jan Brewer are all about! Not resenting or hating other races or classes of people.

Dios mio. The depth of their delusion is impressive.

Jan Brewer Signs SB 1070

But do parents send their children to school to be taught to view foreign invaders and greed-inspired killers from another continent (Europeans of yesteryear) as benign “settlers”? Do all parents of all color and background pay taxes so that the public school can teach us lies about our own backgrounds and beginnings? Or separate our history from how it affects today’s reality?

Montenegro would say yes. Montenegro would say just as Dubya is a hero and savior of America, so was the greedy President James Polk. And yet we pay taxes so our kids can learn those “truths.”

Montenegro would prefer that people of color are the ones with self-loathing in our bellies. Anything that avoids the old white folks feeling any discomfort in their own!

Montenegro and Brewer, no doubt, would prefer us not to learn about and apply the lessons from our nation’s living through the Chinese Exclusion Act; the raping and killing of indigenous families justified by divine white right; the endless exploitation of Mexican labor, the dehumanization and continued oppression of our black brothers and sisters, or how the legal burning of books that tell our tales in Arizona today are but an extension of the Spanish conquistadores torching the idols and codices of the Maya. Most of all, those connections to today must be severed.

Above all, oppressors need you to have no memory, no books, no lessons, no language—no power.

Make no mistake—those who aren’t in the position to know different—this tripe offered by Montegnegro to justify this law is not about what is said in Chicano Studies classes. It’s not about anyone being told to “kill the white man” as Montenegro ridiculously asserts. (What is this, 1969?) We need no new law to prevent lessons about professors advocating murder. I’m pretttttty sure the standing laws cover that!

These claims on what is going on behind sneaky Chican@ doors are but projections of white fear. And it’s that white fear that is powering these moves; moves to prevent us from being self-educated, to stop us from being Uppity. These moves are about us daring to think we can rearrange or even simply augment the many lied-up lessons that are ubiquitous in US nationalistic messaging.

I mean, one thing we can be sure of is that Arizona’s new law is not about avoiding positive depictions or messaging about violent overthrow (as they claim). After all, our very first lessons on US patriotism revere terrorism! They celebrate a violence completely unrelated to Mexicans. What else was the Boston Tea Party? What message is sent there but that violent overthrow of the standing government is, or at least can be, righteous!

Yup. This is taught and nobody flinches. Those merry bands of brothers are “patriots,” like the violent “patriots” of today: Joe Stack. Oathkeepers. Tim McVeigh. Those white boys all learned their lessons well. And even the MSM of today vibes with them, understanding that the True Enemy is always darker in hue, despite the acts or ideology eschewed.

People of color have to sit in school for years upon years and hear a carefully arranged platter of propaganda that is designed to disempower us, confuse us, derail our strength, confuse our arc, and once we are grown, befuddle our children. This is today’s schooling, this is today’s White Ethnic Studies that dominate the land and the mind. People of color have to sit through countless movies where our people are painted as fools, criminals, the rot of society, the dregs of US culture, the despoilers, the thieves, the ruiners, the background to all your shining glorious heroic and imaginative deeds. This is today’s widespread White Ethnic Studies assault upon our minds and hearts and souls.

Rituals and Roles. Bodies and Souls. Possession or Negation, your choice. Their goal.

But Arizona, in its anti-brown panic, fumbles again.

Nobody need teach anyone to be “a victim.” That’s not what we do! Poor confused minds.

No. All that needs be told is the truth. After all, reality tends to have a radical bias. And all that needs be told about yesterday (as well as today) is the truth of goldthirst. The truth of divinely-rationalized mass murder. The holocaust of the indigenous. Legal papers that pretend to justify unwarranted invasion. Lessons about theft. Lessons about imperialism. Instances—like today—of attempted culture-murder. After all, Montenegro, you hardly prove such charges false! You actually reinforce those lessons and make our point for us.

Further, we do not need your school to tell our tales. Look at me. I never took a single Chicano Studies class. No, what I know has been passed down in my family or gleaned by me from reading books and knowing other Xican@s. This is what we do, you do know that? And here I am today, still telling our stories.

And we have been telling our stories from before the first stone was set in Tenochtitlán. We will tell them long after you are dead and gone, Montenegro. Brewer. Arpaio. You age and in your age, you fear.

We, on the other hand are only growing in number and political power. And we are hardly simply dishwashers, gardeners, and meatpackers. We are poets. We are teachers. We are artists. We are journalists. We are taxpayers. We are drivers. We are software designers. We are tech entrepreneurs. We are musicians. We are actors. We are legislators.

And have many, many young ones. And more each day. You can fear…but that is an imposition you insist on. We are not here to fear or cause fear. Only to say, no, you won’t shove us backward on this last tiny piece of dirt. No, you won’t make us eat your sugared, high-priced dirt. To say, yes, you can try. And you will try, you’ll try.

But like piñata confetti, or the sand on temple stone, we rise.

We rise.

WE RISE.

Though, apparently, you don’t need to be Xican@ to access a larger picture on these issues:

Short of an all-out fascist state, the flow of Latinos into the country will not ebb. And frankly, I’m not sure what we expected, given decades of imperialism and interference throughout Central and South America. We crushed regional social movements and turned vast areas into low-wage zones for global capital, a bi-partisan production of our ruling parties. Turn the region into an economic basket-case, create conditions that fuel the drug trade (while supplying countless consumers north of the border), and you better fucking believe that people are going to migrate, “legality” be damned.

But then, our invasions of their native turf are not seen as a problem. As with so much else, we tend to rail against the ends while overlooking or justifying the means. [...]

In a sense, we’re all migrants renting our daily lives from private power. To them, we’re no more citizens than those crossing the southern border. I don’t know what Arizona thinks it’s protecting, but it sure as hell isn’t democracy. You needn’t wander the desert to see that.

—Keep Moving, dennisperrin.blogspot.com

Montenegro, Brewer, Pearce, Arpaio: You have burned no book, you have stopped no truth today. You have only written a note in the margin that says “We grasp, we gasp, we fear, we fail.”

Truth, as in the past, shall tomorrow still prevail.

Axé.

—

update friday 1:27 pm PST: notes on montenegro added.

SURPRISE, a cop is caught beating a Mexicano who lies on the ground while shouting slurs at him.

Obviously, the cop is racist. Worse, he is a fifteen year veteran on the force. This is not the first time he has done this. Were it not for the ubiquity of video in the hands of everyday citizens, these incidents would still be happening without witnesses or being reported.

The anchor on the television clip at FOX doesn’t play the police officer’s entire statement, so I don’t know if he apologizes to the innocent victim of his hateful brutality directly. Which is weird, but then again, not. I hear him express regret at bringing dishonor to the force, embarrassing his colleagues, and acting not in a “professional manner” before he finally gets around to apologizing to the Latino Community because he says he knows his “words cut deep.”

What??? Your words? Ay. Save your tears, dude. Sheesh. You and Glenn Beck.

The anchors say Officer Racista was responding to a tip called in where a man claimed four Mexicans with a machete robbed him. I say anonymous tipsters work hand in hand with William Gheen and FAIR and CIS and NumbersUSA and Stormfront and random teenagers in Long Island and Arizona and New York and California and Patchogue and Russell Pearce and Joe Arpaio and random gurgling cesspits of latent police racism—maybe without knowing it, all tapped into the same dank vein, the same gross vibe, all wanting to eradicate my people and our legacy on this continent, all handmaidens in the long war on the indigenous.

I note it here so I have a post to link to later when I speak (once again) about how the law in this land, and the prison system in this land are arms that work together with many other factors to bring sanctioned destruction on gente.

Mala at VivirLatino offers an important political reminder that many of us constantly have to remind DC folk:

The point is that laws like SB1070 and the current Comprehensive Immigration Reform framework put out there by Senator biometric Chuck Schumer works from the default position that immigrants, painted broadly as Latinos, painted broadly as Mexicans are criminals. It works from the framework that we need to prove ourselves worthy of humane treatment via speaking proper English, paying fines disguised as taxes, getting to the back of the line. Resistance to this, asking for legalization and/or basic human rights is seen as ungrateful and as an unwillingness to play the political game we asked to swallow in the name of political efficiency.

I am happy to see the boycotts and the civil disobedience in response to SB1070 just as I am happy to stand on a corner of my hood with my hija just talking to my vecinos about what this means for ALL of us. Pero I am bothered by the treatment of what happened to this man in Seattle, the disrespect towards the lives of our hermanos andhijas, and the accolades paid to Democrats for moving forward on a CIR plan that takes its lead from Arpaio. I am bothered that too many being credited with leading the movement talk about all of these things as if they are separate. As if one monster isn’t feeding the others and are all being led by the same master.

Kai Wright at Racewire agrees, and points out who bankrolls that monster as well as where the slime trail leads:

The officer’s obnoxious language can easily overshadow a deeper concern the video betrays: a casual and capricious use of police violence when confronting “gang” suspects. The fact that the offending officers are from a special gang unit is significant; the presumably elite special forces that federal dollars have supported in police departments around the country have long been criticized as acting with too little oversight as they militarize communities of color. As I’ve written previously, incidents like these exist along a spectrum of police violence that ends with the high-profile suspect-shootings that draw national outrage.

It’s horrible. And it’s the reality on the ground. Every day and for years. Any bets on the verdict of any investigation launched to determine his guilt?

Rituals and roles. Bodies and Souls.

the feedback loop of positive resistance and support

This is what needs to be understood by anyone warning me off of linking to (admittedly reactionary) trailers like Machete. Or the tone of my writing. This is what needs to be understood by online typists who muse that the Arizona Boycott will “surely backfire.” Cuéntame, in our interview a couple months ago, even asked me (among many other questions) if I thought I was making things worse with my strong stances! O, Cuéntame. I hardly knew ye. (But welcome to Facebook.) Only if you consider years of email responses from raza (and others) thanking me for stirring their fires and helping keep them going “making things worse.” Look, people. Indian-killing sentiment and brutality ain’t new! I call it the Long War for a reason. And guess what? It won’t get better by those being targeted and hunted stooping even lower and being even quieter. It will end when you stop asking those standing up to shhhhhh and start opening your mouth and standing with us. And loudly.

This is why black and brown and gold and red unite in so many cases to push back on white supremacy and racist currents and actions in our society. I welcome as many gente to join us as want to. We already understand what is at stake, and how long it has been at stake. We understand this danger. We all know it always awaits. We all  know the law forgives the violence in this direction. We know the TV stations don’t care much about violence in this direction. We know how it all ties together, in law, legislation, and media saturation. We know we are stronger standing together.

"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/2010/05/05/news-with-nezua-thanking-arizona/ http://theunapologeticmexican.org/elmachete/2010/05/05/news-with-nezua-thanking-arizona/#comments Wed, 05 May 2010 15:51:34 +0000 nezua http://theunapologeticmexican.org/elmachete/?p=7221

News With Nezua vids first appear Monday mornings at La Frontera Times. Wednesdays they show up at UMX, as well as in a dim setting at The XOLAGRAFIK Theater. At YouTube Here: Part One, and Part Two.

THE FRIENDS I KEEP NOWADAYS are involved in the struggle.

Meaning, they are engaged in standing, speaking, or working for social justice. It’s not as pretentious as it sounds. After all, they are Xicano writers, or Boricua thinkers, or queer lawyers, or Black entrepreneurs or Asian auteurs, or Gender-Breaker System Shakers, or disabled poets, or feminists or Feminists, or some overlap of all these things! So all it means to say they are involved in social justice in some way is that they love themselves and are self actualizing, and support others who travel a similar road.

They are sane; they do not listen to paid contortionist leeches like Glenn Beck who take a phrase like “Social Justice” and try to make it into something strange. They know what it means. (Most, if not all, don’t even listen to the Rupert Mindfuchs Station. They love themselves that much.) They are kind and wise beings; while faulted, they never imagine they have the right to take, stomp, or siphon simply because they have the opportunity, or because a law happens to allow it. They are broadminded and intelligent; they get that imbalance is a dangerous scenario to nurture, and that helping ourselves does not have to hurt others, nor should it.

I don’t really want to waste time with people, otherwise. It’s just a drain, and a battle in the wrong place to get hung up on an individual who is not “there” with you.

Of course it is no utopia, even in activist/advocate circles. We all have our interests, and they do not perfectly align. But again, with the wise lens of interconnectedness, we work together to understand how each our particular “causes” are bound up in the same struggle. Because they are.

I am not blind to reality. I understand members of each community have members who do not recognize this. There are always class issues that can divide any community. There are members of the Latino/Mexican/Puerto Rican/Cuban, etc communities who have homophobic issues without realizing they harm the many queer Latinos with such attitudes. There are still members of the Feminist community who are oblivious to the staggering amount of issues women immigrants face. There are members of the Black community that support SB 1070, without realizing how siding with lawmen like Arpaio or politicians like Russell Pearce who are bringing laws made possible by extremist groups like FAIR puts them on the side of their very own persecutors and killers. And thought I know all won’t agree, I would hope that most Asians are already aware of today’s Yellow Peril-like glare, and that Jews shiver to watch authorities randomly requesting people’s papers—

Because we need to recognize these overlaps in social angst and persecution. And not only in retrospect!

I, too, tire of the poem about who “They” first came for…because the poem serves nowadays as a sweet Facebook status or Twitch of wisdom and then we move on. I tire of it because the point of that poem was to warn the human race of our own tendencies to side with the oppressors, even when by all means, we are of the same cloth and in the same loom.

It is an old, and beautiful piece of writing. It sprang from another time, and sadly it applies today. But let’s step out of distant sorrowful gazes; let’s leave the library and the history class for a moment.

Now Is the Time!

Because Now is the time to stand up. Now is the time to say “I’m not waiting for Them to come for me. I’m educated. I’m fluent in English. I’m a citizen. I’m middle class. And I believe in what is Right, not in What is Currently Legal. I believe that what I do is a part of What the USA Is.”

Now is the time to get your hands dirty and fight. The most vicious elements of bigotry and racism are not takin’ it easy. They are ramping up and have infiltrated politics and media and prowl the streets at night, as well. Your heart is needed, brother. Your strength is needed, sister. Arm yourself with knowledge, and enlist that wild, thriving heart.

And don’t fall for the ILLEGULL-SCREECHERS venomous and self-righteous screeds.

A LEGAL lens is not the Equivalent nor the Determinant of Truth

Law does not equal truth. Law is but a clumsy attempt that the human being wields in order to reach into the murky and layered realities of our huddled mass of culture and times and fish out Truth. And justice. And thus, this high-power but sometimes clumsy crane arm must always be closely scrutinized, because that steel contains no nerve endings. And if our aim is off, it reaches into people’s lives, grabs them by the hair and plunges them to the bottom of a lake where they will be suffocated and perhaps never emerge from the clutch of human passion gone wrong.

So to screech THEY’RE ILLEEEGAL really just makes you look like…a pod person. Like a YouTube commenter. And a bigot, in truth. An unsophisticated one, is all.

But some of the most effective bigots are not unsophisticated. They know not to use all capitals. They know not to screech “ILLEEEEGUL.”

They know how to affect the veneer of the respectable. But they are still acting in the name of bigotry.

I grew up poor. We made our way to American Mediocrity and with our own VCR and new car by the time I left the house at 15. But before that, for a while, we had less than nothing; we had the road. We had a bucket for a toilet and three stumps for front steps. I don’t give fuckall about veneer. It means nothing to me. I hardly see it. I know what a spendy and fancy coat bestows on the wearer. And I know you can snatch that coat off and the same miserable, stinking, stick-figure will be there underneath it. I judge not by the coat, but the stride and the shape inside.

A Wallet Sized Snapshot is No Substitute for A Big Picture

So I was saddened to read this post supporting SB 1070 on the Huffington Enquirer by an African American named Clarence Jones, hailing from—of all places—the Martin Luther King, Jr. Institute at Stanford University.

The article brandishes an impressive thread count, and the buttons are handcrafted by the most worthy of workers; the history of the cut and the fashion is well documented and highly regarded. But the figure within clamors with ignorant angles, stumbles in the darkness inside. The coat is simply too large for its occupant.

While claiming a grasp on the “big picture,” the writer seems ignorant to what the big picture is, instead offering us phrases that eerily echo some of the most vile anti-immigrant voices out there before finishing up.

As an African-American who lived through and before the Civil Rights Movement, I’m no fan of assessing people based on their skin color. But holding a struggling State’s feet to the fire on tactics is missing the point . Why are protests not being directed to our national government and the government of Mexico? Why aren’t these groups demanding that our porous border with Mexico be closed, once and for all? It’s not impossible. We have the most sophisticated surveillance and monitoring technology in history, the most formidable military in the world, yet we are unable to stop the daily intrusion of illegal immigrants from Mexico into the United States? This is a failure of policy, not one of capability.

The author is African American, has lived through the Civil Rights era and is “no fan” of racial profiling. Which is good. Because Facebook’s rules won’t even let a group that stands for Racial Profiling have a fan page. No dilemma for him.

But not fanning a Racist Facebook Group’s page doth not a humane or thorough thinker make. Standing under the banner of one of social justice’s greatest icons and leaders—MLK jr—Jones is baffled as to why we are not using our “formidable military” and surveillance technology to “stop the daily intrusion of illegal immigrants.” And thinks this is “the big picture.”

Here is a quote from a Utah Minuteman site that today linked to my site as a “Race Monger” blog:

The Utah Minuteman Project, is a grassroots effort of likeminded citizens and legal residents of Utah whose goal is to defend Utah and America from the scourge of illegal aliens from around the world who have invaded us, plundered our public treasuries, killed our citizens, stolen our jobs, and aggrandized their demands against the common weal.  Similar to patriotic movements across the Nation, the UMP is dedicated to securing our borders, recovering our sovereignty, and re-establishing the Rule of Law in Utah and Washington D.C.  Just as important as these imperatives, our efforts are intended to educate the ignorant and motivate the apathetic to understand who we are as a people and what binds us together as Americans.  Truly, if we do not know for what we stand, we cannot know for what we struggle.

With an editor’s quick touch, the Utah Minutemen could be sophisticated bigots. They are not quite there. But really, their words and sentiment seem not too distant from Mister Jones’ overall message.

Even while congressmen get themselves arrested in acts of civil disobedience, and Anti-Immigrant politicians like Tom Tancredo submit that this law requires racial profiling and is wrong…Scholar and writer at the Martin Luther King Jr institute, Clarence Jones maintains that targeting SB 1070 is wrong.

I wonder what MLK would say.

Why Target Arizona?

Why target Arizona? It’s simple!

Or it would become simple if you did research into who is helping to get these laws brought to the table, who the lawmakers are, what groups are supporting them. The ties to Neo-Nazis and white supremacists, the eugenics movement and their thinking, and white nationalists are well-documented by now.

Are these the people you feel aligned with, Mister Jones? Do no bells go off simply knowing about these many ties and affiliations? Or…are those sorts of details a part of the picture not big enough for you?

Arizona is a petri dish for these types of laws. They begin there, and spread. Seven other states are now considering laws like SB 1070. These efforts are aided by the extremist nativist anti-immigrant group FAIR.

That is why we target SB 1070. Now, while there is time.

Do you stand with these efforts? Or with those of FAIR? Perhaps—Mister Jones—you should donate to FAIR? Because I’m sure all the efforts expended to turn our nation into one that does their bidding and resonates with their own neo-nazi flavored philosophies have drained their coffers.

The writer continues with his “big picture”:

Any version of amnesty for illegal immigrants and efforts to organize a boycott of Arizona will detract from the number one priority affecting substantial segment of the American people: unemployment.

Ah. “Amnesty.” So this is perhaps a Conservative writer. I see. That explains some things.

Well, you are wrong, Mister Jones. And I feel sorry for you if  you think words like “Amnesty” help project a wider understanding of a Big Picture. It is a loaded term as you well know; it is a Right Wing talking point meant to infuse a disgust in people that they ought feel kindly about letting Mexican criminals off the hook for invading/overwhelming/outsmarting/outnumbering Real Americans.

And anyone who thinks Arizona is only after legal things, then I ask them to explain the culture-eradicating elements of their recent legal moves removing teachers with accents from teaching English, or Mexican American studies.

Hm? it’s about bein’ legal? Sure.

A ludicrous question or two:

Why don’t the pro-amnesty undocumented immigrant leaders join forces with the “anti-illegal immigration” leaders and bring the Government of Mexico to the table?

Because the human rights activists cannot “join forces” with people like FAIR, nor would they! That would be like a human being “joining forces” with a hungry crocodile. Yum! Your suggestion that people who would rally to the same causes that  MLK jr has—seeking justice and humanity for the downtrodden and vulnerable poor—should sit down and join forces with people who sometimes wear hoods or congregate with those who do shows you have no clue what you are talking about, and further, are despoiling the name and legacy of Martin Luther King, jr.

The annual cost of maintaining and providing services to illegal or “undocumented” citizens should be tabulated, assumed and paid by the Government of Mexico or credited against the annual cost of oil we import from them until such time as immigrants from their country become U.S. citizens.

Okay. Fair enough.

Before that, let’s return all the illegal social services contributions that were taken from many undocumented workers’ paychecks. I bet that lump sum would be no paltry pile, and could cover most if not all of that. So let’s keep going, and return any taxes that were taken at all from their pay, and while we’re at it, let’s return all the illegal goods that were produced by their “illegal” labor, and all the affiliate profits that were leveraged on the doings of those businesses by various agents.

Right after that, let’s tabulate the costs of NAFTA to Mexican campesinos and the Mexican corn market and larger economy. Let’s—while we’re at it—tabulate the costs of human lives, suffering, destruction of historical items and the looting of museums and buildings that the USA has wrought in Iraq. And let’s keep tabulating the damage our own nation is doing around the world. Let’s tabulate the costs of funding Mexico’s Mérida Initiative, which gives cash and police weaponry/surveillance gear to enable Felipe Calderón to bring about more torture and murder of its own citizens in his disastrous Drug War.

Or…is getting to the Big Picture done by only focusing on one small area that supports your argument?

I’ll come back to your cost argument in a moment. First I want to finish quoting you by dropping your last sentence in here.

Let’s face it: right or wrong, the Arizona legislation is treating the symptoms of an international disease that needs much stronger medicine.

And there, I am almost with you. Almost.

Yes, immigration needs to be taken up on a federal level. Though certainly not with the backward lens you propose! That is not taking up immigration; that is militarizing our nation. It rhymes, but will have very different consequences.

As far as blaming the non-movement of legislation for Arizona’s very special hostility toward Mexicans, you are wrong. And unsurprisingly by now, you are the one missing the big picture.

The Long War on the Indigenous

SB 1070 is not some new phenomenon cooked up by Arizona lawmakers just this year because Obama’s White House has not acted on Weeding Out the Illegals™! Arizona is acting out a long-running battle against inevitability. I touched on a bit of this the other day, but a more thorough and academic explanation can be found here:

“Looking Hispanic” has always been a misnomer; what it really means is those who are dark and short and who look the “most Indigenous.” Truthfully, here in Arpaio Country, that profiling that everyone fears is already here with us. And to dispel illusions, the darkest amongst us have always been subjected to racial profiling by the “migra” and by law enforcement agencies everywhere in the country. This is true whether we’ve been here for a few days or for thousands of years. And to dispel further illusions, this civilizational clash alluded to is national in scope; witness the many hundreds of anti-immigrant bills nationwide since 2006. Only its epicenter is here. [...]

SB 1070 brings us to a moral precipice. After World War II, a consensus developed here that it had been wrong to have incarcerated the Japanese in internment camps because such action was morally wrong. Virtually no one had the courage to assert this while it was happening. Law enforcement has that chance today, to refuse to obey SB 1070 that is both, morally repugnant and outside of the U.S. Constitution.

Regarding the larger civilizational struggle, the context is akin to when Europeans first came to this continent. The conquistadors came for gold, land and bodies (slaves). The friars, on the other hand, came for souls. Similarly, the migra and extremist legislators want bodies deported; the state school superintendent, Tom Horne, wants souls.

Bodies and Souls. I have long called it “The Long War.” Meaning the war on the indigenous and their resources by outsiders who have had a few generations of offspring by now, who have in turn absorbed enough of the new dogma to forget whom they owe for what, and who they are in the entire big picture. It rolls on, in many shapes. SB 1070 is the latest.

The Big Picture

Like you, Mister Jones, I want us to discuss, the Big Picture. Or, I should not be snide: unlike you. Because despite your open-minded subhed, you are not offering Big Picture fixins. Just more oppressor snackybits.

Here’s my final point. And it goes back to your tabulation masturbation; it goes back to who costs whom what.

I get that we are a nation long encouraged not to think for ourselves, and not to think with our heart or mind’s eye. We are a people long conditioned to powermongers who do all they can to shore up their power, weaken ours, and tell us how to think. And I get that we’ve been told to fear so so so much in the past ten years. Trust me. I feel it weigh at times on my spirit…then I remember who I am. I am an energy and consciousness allowed space and time on this earth for a short time; I am not beholden to adopt any other person’s idea, fear, or hope. I am free of that.

But it’s out there. And I get it. Fear the Arabs, fear the blacks, fear the mexicans, fear the poor, fear the crazy, fear the ugly. Fear anything that throws a shadow on your beautiful castle with it’s lush Green Zone and moat.

I also get that this immigration furor that has been cooked up is simply theater. And many players stand to benefit.

Big business, which wants (ideally) a million people working for a penny a day so those Goldman-Sachs types at the top can have a hundred wardrobes and twenty planes.

ICE, this new police/military/federal force that surely costs billions, needs justification to continue. Cities and towns now count the enforcement measures as ways of propping up their economies.

Racists and white nationalists see a way to reshape the populace by lies and violence.

Humbler goals are harbored by most of these undocumented people. Families want to stay together, want to be Americans, want a chance to live in success or at least not in misery. Workers want to earn 8 times more by simply moving to another area; just as Jersey residents might travel to NYC to work every day, and just like people fudge their own insurance to pretend to drive in one state while living in another.  Except in Mexico, it’s not about a slightly lower insurance rate. Families simply cannot survive. Parents abandon their kids simply to be able to work and send them money so the rest of the family can live.

To see what is going on, and then to sneer about law and call for the military? Wow. It sure is one way to respond, no doubt. No doubt. But if I were doing that, I’d not have the nerve to then attach Martin Luther King Jr’s name to anything I wrote. Honestly.

But back to my thread. There are a lot of actors in the game who make honest accounting of the issue difficult.

But this enforcement mania is theater.

If there were a way to remove all ten or eleven or twelve million undocumented people at once, and place them back in Canada, Ireland, France, Germany, Poland, Iraq, Afghanistan, Guatemala, Venezuela, China, Chile, Mexico and wherever else they come from—I’d say okay. Do it. Do it so you can see how the US way of life collapses entirely. Just falls to the ground. The difference would be cataclysmic, the results echoing out everywhere. You want to talk depression? Economic trouble? Class warfare? The rich or moderately well-off would need walls around their own yards, screw the border.

Can you imagine the number of businesses that would collapse? Cease to exist? Neighborhoods empty and vacant and crime filled? How many Postvilles would play out across the country?

If you had some conceivable way of sweeping every undocumented person out of the nation, I’d say do it because the outcome would cripple America, all that labor and family and energy going back to where it could do good and be recognized for the good it does. And then we might learn.

But there is no way to do that. Nobody really wants to do that. No honest actor in all of this thinks we can do that or actually wants that to happen.

So…what do they want?

Those who work to persecute the undocumented today want to keep this ongoing terror theater going for a couple reasons.

Politicians want to manipulate the vulnerable and to keep as much labor as they need to keep the American Economy wheels turning. Turning with fear. Turning because those working the gears have no choice and are just holding on to get by. Which is a sort of slavery by other means. Serfdom by other names. It’s abuse and exploitation.

The anti-immigrant factions that attempt to turn the hostile lens of criminal law on their own counties simply don’t want to see Mescans in their damn ‘hood. That’s what SB 1070 is about. Get out of our nice, pristine, fake-ass neighborhood. But that’s as far as they want it to go. They, too, need all the wheels to keep turning. They don’t want factories and businesses and crops and restaurants and communities around the nation to fall apart.

So it’s terror theater and economical rewards and its an abuse of human beings and a spit in the face to our purported abilities to think and feel and act reasonably as a society.

By These Deeds We Shall Be Known

In fact, the way we approach or fail the Immigration issue today contains the key to all our current societal and cultural and moral dilemmas. It is what will determine how far forward we want to go in this era. What are humans in this land capable of? Are we still bound by greed? Are we still defenseless against our more primal inclinations? Racism. Equality. Feminism. Individual greed vs the collective good. Questions of property and what it is used for, what land means. How connected we want to be to the humanity that helps us set our tables, to mother earth, and those who feed us.

As I see it, we are being called to step up in a very particular way. It is a unique time. The conversations are all shifting, rapidly evolving, almost too fast for the belly to keep up with. How will we do? Will we rise to the occassion? Or meander along in mediocrity, still sowing great pain and propping up imbalance and bigotry justified by bad law and force?

Walls in the mind, walls in the desert. Rituals and roles. Bodies and souls. You can contain another’s with a show of force, but it will be at the cost of imprisoning your own.

THOSE WHO RUN MAINSTREAM BLOGS and by that I mean white blogs, and by that I mean blogs that mostly pretend justice can be found by traveling all the well-worn channels of conversation and operation and who do not challenge the standing vampiric order by reminding readers of the systemic racism that girds the US’ international actions, domestic reality, criminal law system, entire prison industry, immigration law, and media portrayal do not have the same comment moderation experience that others do. That I do. That Racialicious does, that Zuky does, that ManEegee does, that Blackamazon does, that many of my friends do. They surely deal with blowhard know-it-alls and all forms of annoying commenters, but there really is something different about the responses you get when you DARE to write as if mexicans are decent, good, intelligent, creative humans too (IMAGINE!), or that Blacks or Asians are equal to, and at times superior in ability, to whites. There is a special form of outrage and murderous intent that comes your way when you write about real history, and don’t mouth all the propaganda our nation sells to us. There is just something really vile and disgusting about the animosity that rises in reaction.

So we moderate our comments. Because we are not beholden to some weird idea that we deserve hate and to display it like some little gold star on our blogchest. I have never, ever had any compunction about that. I used to have to battle with commenters about even that point. They seem to have given up, maybe my blog has a reputation for not dealing with that stuff, maybe the color of page I chose repels hate, I don’t know. But there is a very simple precept that I operate on. I am here (or on YouTube, etc) to create an undiluted message; to present a strong presence and reality that will not be found in other media. Giving hate part of the stage would make no sense, when it has so much territory of its own already.

Again, none of my friends (people of color) out here feel any strange notion to leave those comments when they appear, like flies clustering to saliva-slicked candy. Let the white feminist blogs battle all day with misogynists who flock to their threads. But that becomes a battle and an endeavor all on its own…and that is not what I came out here to do. I didn’t one day in 2006 say “Hmm. I really wish I could take all this hate I feel coming at Mexicanos…and manifest it in the form of comments on a page that was associated with me. I think I’ll start a blog!”

No. It was more like “There is too much anti-Mex racism and hate flying around in the air, on the street, in my neighborhood, and in the media and it is unchallenged and it needs to be CHALLENGED and COUNTERED and I need to be doing that.”

So I laugh when people leave whiny comments about my moderating their hateful screeds. They actually criticize me for not letting them center their vitriol! As if just by the direction the hate is traveling in, it is righteous. I’m thinking now of my YouTube video I made in February about SB 1070. I allow through a fair amount of the nasty comments when I feel like batting them around. But many I do not. Many are simply poisonous. And as I replied to one person who thought sneering in hate at me was the way to make their comments be made visible, “I understand. It hurts to find even one tiny place online where you are not free to spew nasty shit about immigrants or people of color. I bet you wish you could just run around rampant on my page, sucking up all the oxygen and centering your own hostility.”

And I’m fucking with him. But the truth is, they really are baffled! I know that. It really just seems surreal to them—in a culture, national culture, media culture—to find any spot where The Understood Hierarchy is not in place. White on top, color all underneath and subservient to any opinion and feeling and abuse white feels like dishing. We get normalized to anything that is around us, we get habituated, as is the term in the field. It’s that sense of NORMAL that destroys people of color in this nation. Our lives, our minds, our bodies, our families, our legacies, our opportunities.

When people—white people in this example—protest at reaching but not being able to grasp this power normally so accessible to them, you can hear the tones of frustration and fear. Those used to napping in the satin bedding of undeserved privilege don’t WANNA wake up and mow the lawn. They don’t HAFTA. It’s not FAIRRRRRRRRRRRR

Just ask Mitt Romney, who hires help to carve out a pretty, illegal lawn for him.

When Glenn Beck, the foofy crybaby millionaire vampire, moans about the “death of white culture”? This is what he means. The death of his ability to dish abuse on non-whites and have it be NORMAL. Arizona doesn’t quite understand either (or the legislators with power I ought to say, because I’m betting most of Arizona is brown people who don’t agree with these landowners and lawmakers). Right now they are all “Hunh?? Wha’ ‘appened?? All we did was institute the Rightful Hierarchy!”

It’s a changing nation. I mean what the hell did they expect? For all the slaves that were dragged here never to fall in love and have children with each other? Or that when the slaveowners raped their slaves (or even had love affairs with them) that the descendants would never have skin that reflected the dominant genes of one of their parents? That the Indians in the hot lands would stay down there? That the Chinese would dig the mines and then go home? That the Indians here in the north would teach the invaders how to farm and then fade away? That the Chileans and Japanese and El Salvadorans and Argentinians and Mexicans and Blacks who powered the economic and agricultural and garment industries would never procreate? Or that Melanin and epicanthic features can be wished into oblivion?

Of course the nation is browning! This land—not too long ago, some need reminding—was entirely populated by non-whites. Aside from the European (French and Spanish and British) forces that showed up wanting gold or goldlike opportunity, that is who lived here and that is who was brought here in droves. Or, for example, in the case of Mexicans, that is the workforce that the nation advertised for and solicited!

Some people—mostly the older generations at this point—dwell in illusion about this plain fact, and losing your illusions HURTS. Having the White Lens peeled off by the caustic hands of reality HURTS.

Here is the sad part:

Those people flocking online to spread hate…they are nobodies. In terms of who is caging whom? They are not staff at the zoo, only other visitors. They are just as oppressed in thought as anyone. They are tools. They say “go back to where you came from” without thinking twice about any of this. The logic is so….stupid that you can’t even argue with it. That’s why I don’t usually. Sometimes I’ll respond when they cry You are stealing jobs and breaking our laws! Maybe I’ll say I was born here. Or You do know that US industry advertises for labor in Spanish on Mexican radio, right? Or You do know that railroad towns in many instances originated from the shanties and camps set up by Mexican workers, right? But mostly I don’t. Because like the song almost says, “They only have eyes for you…below them.” And that’s all these ones can see.

And all the while, these people are being used. They show up spouting lines that would make politicians jump like monkeys and clap with their feet. Sure, they have a heart and mind and their momma loves them, I bet. Some of them, at least.

But as time wears away the illusions, they understand they have been duped on some level. And being fooled stings. It humiliates. The stories preached in films and on TV and in books and in classrooms about the inherent white superiority and natural ability to succeed and Be Greater Than (and this includes dominating in numbers) were lies. These people who now live the dawning of the lie need someone to blame for this new pain. There are already prescribed scapegoats. They begin to seethe with frustration because while many of us already understood the nature of the illusion (because we’ve already paid for our lesson with pain) they are just getting around to seeing reality. They want to punish someone for their having been tricked. And just like trained animals, this small group of reality-resisters aren’t great at producing original thought on their own, and fall back on their training. And point to us. That’s who they want to punish for their being fooled.

Progress will come. It is coming. It is arriving. It is on its way. We are living it. It won’t be instant. It will hurt. Like harvesting crops in the blistering sun, it will exact a cost, a toll of pain and sweat. Did ya think justice grows on trees? Even if it did, you’d need someone to pick it. This time, I say don’t leave that work to others. Because they might decide later that the orchard belongs to those who work it.

MY FIRST THOUGHTS when I read about the boycott on Arizona as a reaction to their passing SB 1070 were, yeah! Let’s do it. Make them feel the pain. Nobody pays too much attention to anyone or anything in this nation unless it either costs a lot or makes a lot of cash.

But then I thought about how POC are always going to suffer more when an economy dips…and that the boycott might be a sort of double punishment on those already suffering greatly in AZ.

And then I thought some more, and a Twitter amigo added the thought that it’s gonna be rough on gente in AZ no matter what. That made sense. And not just now. After all, this is the state that fought against an MLK holiday!

So I think AZ should feel the pain from the rest of the Union. Because this state has decided that it wants to return to an era that the rest of the Union—the other states in the US—has left behind. A boycott by the rest of the states, or as many as possible, says “Okay. You want to go in a whole different direction than the country? Then do without the rest of the country’s support for a while. Think that over.”

Arizona needs to think this over. And a whole lot of us say so.

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update: and counting…
update2: ouch.
update3: whoa.