IT IS OBVIOUS that an arm of the State or behavior of the State that the citizenry would normally recoil from—something like anti-constitutional raids, profit-driven prisons, cruel conditions of mass-detainment, or simply denial of rights sown by a machine made of corrupted legal processes—will first be enacted upon the Other. What’s next? Reality TV, of course!
FLAGSTAFF, AZ: At approximately 10AM on Thursday December 4th, Flagstaff Immigrant Rights Enforcement (FIRE) confronted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in a daring raid, serving a notice of deportation to ICE representatives at an ICE Management meeting.
THANKSGIVING is probably the most popular and earliest-given justification for invasion, murder, imperialism, occupation, and “othering” that we know of in this country. Even now in Iraq we hear fables fashioned on the same colonizer’s framework and it sickens. But Thanksgiving is Iraq, with its steaming platter of corpses. Iraq is Thanksgiving.
FINALLY, immigrants and darker-skinned people are being seen more and more as “us” and less and less as “alien/other/invader.” We now enlist more voices and more strength. Obama’s election is not the instigator of this change, simply one sign among many that our hearts and minds and awarenesses are demonstrating the reasonability and intelligence and empathy that a modern day human ought to have.
DEAR MISTER PRESIDENT ELECT: You are too smart to pretend you don’t see all this. So I say if you do not act on it and soon, you are nodding along with this scourge that threatens both our peoples and the whole nation as a consequence. And I know I don’t need to be overly direct about this, but I will anyway:
STEPHEN COLBERT always jabs and parries and stutter-steps while most of his guests are busy arranging their facial expression or shouting out unfunny jokes to try and appear as if they are keeping up. Author Sherman Alexie gets off some fast shots and smart comments as he makes his case for Barack Obama.
CHANGE is coming for the world. Neoliberalism is crashing, Free Market Philosophies are crashing, Wall Street is crashing: All the mechanisms in place that are best at making the rich richer and the powerful more powerful and the poor poorer are collapsing. Posturing Palin is on TV telling the commoners they need to support the party of elitism, and Evo Morales is doing just the opposite.
MY HEART RACED faster and faster and when it was over I…I let the sadness wash through me as it had to for a few moments. The bold ignorance and hate and bigotry was…terrifying. And sad. And loathesome. And real. But not new. This energy takes people’s lives every day in some part of this land. But maybe we move closer to a new time. And simply that possibility is inspiring.
AS SADDENED AND CYNICAL as I have become about humankind in my life, I still nurture a belief in the human heart and the sense of Right. I still feel that in most cases of wrong being done, all it takes is thinking, feeling people getting the real facts of a situation. And the facts of this situation are shocking and revolting to a thinking mind and feeling heart.
THESE HIERARCHIES ARE SO IMPORTANT. It’s always about who you can bring in to do the work or who you gonna round up to take away from the table. Later when you have a booming economic engine of might, claim America was assembled in America and entirely by white pioneers who had a dream and simply worked hard to make it happen. That way, when things falter, you know who to blame. Others.
Today marks the day we recognize the European GoldThirsters coming upon humans they never met before; the era that Italian, French, and Spanish LandWanters came sailing onto shores where other people lived; the time that yet provides the template still acted upon in many ways, wherein those who Know Better visit violence upon others to better distribute their resources.
OH…SENATOR? Can I interrupt your well-managed, well-lit, well-scripted campaign for un momento? I really, really, really dig your handsome biography photo and the poignant life story thing. But I have just a tiny little question. I know you don’t want your fancy friends to hear this, but…do you care about women starving to death?
WHILE OUR ORIGINAL INTENT was to present a meaningful side-by-side comparison of both Senator Obama’s and Senator McCain’s answers to our survey in order to better inform voters, Senator McCain’s unwillingness to answer questions or go on the record with his positions on the specific details covered in the questionnaire has made this impossible.
THEY ARE KILLING US OFF in the dark. These trapdoors swinging open, these cells swinging shut. These are not just “my people.” These are, in fact, all of our people. A “migrant worker” or an “immigrant” is just a word. An “illegal alien” is a human being just like all of us. A living, eating, working, hoping, fearing, dreaming human being.
Soy Indio y Euro, soy mestizo, soy Latino. I am the conqueror and the conquered, I am the field and the worker and the hungry consumer; I am all these things, but my heritage is and will always be la lucha. And that is why I am here many days. For mi gente are still in the fields. It is not a thing of the past.
House of Nezua
the XOLAGRAFIK theater!
