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 [...]
JUDGING BY THE EGREGIOUS SILENCE on mainstream U.S. infotainment stations, one might assume that the life and premeditated murder of an innocent child is only worth our compassion and outrage if she is white. Because the brutal shooting and home invasion that swallowed up the life of nine year-old Brisenia Flores has had a hard time getting any play on major “news” outlets.
READING THROUGH OTHER PEOPLES’ LETTERS can be a fun diversion for a Tuesday morning. Here’s one the New York Times online saw fit to publish, and that we here at the Unapologetic Mexican will be kind enough to answer.
A TIMELESS TACTIC practiced by the oppressor is to burn the pages of all your history books. To shatter your statues and to destroy your icons of hope and power. Today in Arizona, these age-old methods play out yet again. But they cannot stop us, nor the truth of our peoples.
A LAWBREAKING, RACIST POLICE OFFICER sheds tears of humiliation at being exposed. Serendipitously caught on video stomping an innocent man and threatening to “beat the fucking Mexican piss out of him,” he is temporarily suspended from the force until the public looks elsewhere, at which point he will be reinstated and treated to fresh Starbucks.
WE OWE ARIZONA OUR THANKS for passing a series of persecutory laws over time that finally culminate in today’s cultural crisis. Boycotts, civil disobedience, and righteous outrage are sweeping the country as this self-proclaimed nation of immigrants is engaged in a fight over its heart and soul.
WALLS IN THE MIND, WALLS IN THE DESERT. Ritual 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.
IF A STATE WANTS TO RETURN TO AN ERA that the rest of the Union decided to move past long ago, then perhaps they ought to be allowed to bootstrap themselves into oblivion.
A SMALL BUT INSISTENT FACTION of this nation’s populace, have today, indeed “taken back the country.” Taken us back to revisit the spirit of our country’s ugliest moments with the passing of Senate Bill 1070 in Arizona.
WE BELONG TO A PROUD LEGACY. We are tied to this land, we are descended from warriors, and Indian kings, and beautiful traditions y cultura that cannot be washed or stolen away by the dominant culture—though it surely tries…
WHERE LIES OUR TRUE FIGHT? With people of different skin tones? With people who use different word sounds to express their dreams, their pain, their hope, their hunger? Or with those who move hugely and cloaked over with flag and legal document, drawing blood worldwide?
ULTIMATELY, who benefits from these well-practiced fables? Who makes gain from the false lessons instilled? Who are the myths of Thanksgiving designed to benefit? What are the truths they are meant to obscure?
CRIMES IN LINE WITH THE DOMINANT PARADIGM are not seen as criminal. Others rouse fury and command milkbox galore. As Noam Chomsky said about terrorism being a simple distinction on which direction the guns were pointed in, so goes the justice system and media in the USA when it comes to people of color and whites.
THIS IS AND HAS BEEN a long, long war. This foul spirit that rises and repeats and seeks to make mi gente retreat has been tearing at the land and the skin of the face and the hands of my people for hundreds of years.
EVERY DAY IT BECOMES CLEARER that the current form of “Enforcement First” immigration tactics boil down to a War on Latinos with all the measures in place lending themselves enabling, requiring, or encouraging the illegal practice of racial profiling. The data and evidence grows, and here is another addition.
House of Nezua
the XOLAGRAFIK theater!
