A DEPARTMENT LIKE ICE has no conscience, of course. Just directives (like “make 400,000 arrests this year”) and a great concern for its public image. If that’s the case, however, I can’t imagine why they’d think chilling out on train platforms and plucking young Latinas out of the crowd would go over well.
WELCOME TO ANOTHER SORDID CHAPTER in the Sherrif Joe Arpaio Freak Show. I know my regulars are all too aware of this sad, aging, dinocreptastic remnant of an era screeching into our past and not gracefully and with guns—but if you are not, here is a treat for you, a YouTube vid dealing with his latest daring act of wackery.
WHEN A GOVERNMENT build walls to stave off fears, it is, ironically, reinforcing that same emotion of fear. When hostile and punitive legislation is enacted, fear of the Other is mixed with aggression. When a fearful and aggressively rigid mindset is applied to social fluctuations that require flexibility and change, the result is a drastic increase of that negative energy.
IT’S TRUE THAT IMMIGRATION ACTIVISTS have been feeling that changes in immigration law were imminent; certainly it’s been a hope. I’ve gotta say, though…I don’t think this is the change people have been anticipating!
WHEN CONSIDERING THE MURDER OF BRISENIA FLORES, it does not help us find any valuable truth or approach any larger societal problem to isolate the event and wall it off from the larger context of anti-immigrant and thus anti-Latino hate and hostility in this nation. We have a larger problem on our hands.
TUESDAY, President Obama announced Sonia Sotomayor as his pick to replace Supreme Court Justice David Souter. Sotomayor could be the first Latina appointed to the Supreme Court. Predictably, attacks and slurs from the Right are already flying.
YOU KNOW what everyone is talking about! Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor! It is clearly a move intended to appease the aliens now hovering over the US, having breezed in from PuertoRico Planet—okay that’s not true but sometimes the lunacy in “political dialogue” makes me want to take a trip off-planet…
The Latin@ community has had ample reason to hope that President Obama would take on immigration reform in a humane manner. While he is undeniably centrist in his political approach and has long been fond of language stressing punitive solutions to the immigration issue, he has also said that “America is changing and we can’t be threatened by it.” But enforcement policies are becoming a threat, not only to immigrants, but the country at large.
FROM THE “SWINE” FLU’S declining fervor to 2009’s May Day marches for worker rights and immigrant solidarity; from the tragic killing of Luis Ramirez to legislative movement on immigration, these are tumultuous times. But it is precisely such conflict and challenge that provides the best opportunities to make lasting change.
QUESTIONS OF APPROPRIATION and Tokenism are areas one must approach carefully. Human beings are involved and there is nuance, to be sure. Good can be done with methods that are not optimally beneficial to all parties involved. Furthermore, that cost must be weighed by each person. And yet, shapes of Whiteness move behind and around us, often invisible. They must be named.
OUR VOICES have yet to be utilized and enjoined in a way that can efficiently organize around the issues that affect our communities. We will not always agree, nor should we. But we should have a way to centralize and engage the politics that affect us on so many levels.
A COALITION OF VOICES claiming to be acting in the interest of the undocumented are suggesting that they not be counted by the Census. This idea is so wrongheaded that it is a kindness to call it only an honest mistake.
NO GROUP OF PEOPLE IS “ALL BAD,” por supuesto! But some groups feel the need to defend themselves from the charge. And some would never dream of explaining a damn thing to anyone.
JUST AS A WALL that keeps the poor in place in our own cities and towns and marks the divide where law enforcement begins caring a whole lot more about property and people, so do the borders operate in our world. This entrenched and justified divide is a crime in and of itself. All the rest that follows is fallout.
THE NATIVIST LOBBY HAS INSINUATED ITSELF into the media dialogue on immigration to all our detriment. They create a false boogeyman of danger and parasitism, and promote the impression that the only response is a harsh, punitive one doled out in cuffs or a cell. The results of the February Bellingham raids are in, and put the lie to this screech of extremist thought.
House of Nezua
the XOLAGRAFIK theater!
