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.

IF EVER THERE WERE A STARK EXAMPLE of the cruelty and inhumanity that powers so much of the white supremacist/anti-immigrant/neo-nazi movement, it is the manner in which a sweet little nine year old girl was shot dead in her own home, in the middle of the night.

Shawna Forde and her lackies pulled the trigger in this case, in June of last year. Many of us relate to and deeply feel for the Flores familia—whether it be because we are all humans; because nobody wants to be shot in their own bed; because we agree that children must be spared the spiritual sicknesses that adults trade back and forth like baubles; or because we are Mexicano or otherwise under the crosshairs these days. Those of us who do fit into one or more of these categories are often frustrated beyond belief that while the antics of boys in balloons or Ladies Gaga or Sad Sack Gibsons prove to be prime-time material, home invasions and murders tied to the current anti-Latino hostilities in the USA aren’t worth even two minutes on our major news channels.

This is institutionalized racism. As is the fact that nothing good or benevolent is ever reported about Mexicans or Mexicanos. Only a constant spew of criminality and demonization. Some might not care. And then, others might drown in their own blood in their own bed because so many don’t care. As our dear Brisenia did.

Does this institutionalized racism reach into the FBI? Or was it simply lackadaisical sloppiness that inspired them not act to either closely monitor or apprehend Forde and her ilk, even when warned ahead of time about the murderous plans of the Minuteman Defense League?

This is the news that just broke:

The FBI was told that Shawna Forde was planning a home invasion in the Arivaca area weeks before a man and his 9-year-old daughter were shot to death there.

According to documents filed this week in Pima County Superior Court, two confidential informants for the FBI say they told agents in April 2009 that Forde was recruiting people to raid a house she believed was filled with illicit drugs, money and guns. …

In a phone conversation taped by the FBI, Forde tells one of the informants that future jobs would be something of a test for a new recruit, saying: “Our hands are already dirty. We’ve got to know he can pull the trigger.”

Earlier this week, Forde’s defense attorney, Eric Larsen, filed a motion asking Judge John Leonardo to force prosecutors to hand over all FBI documents pertaining to the two confidential informants. The documents indicate neither was paid for his information, nor were they cooperating to avoid prosecution in any unrelated cases.

The documents include transcripts of separate interviews conducted by Pima County sheriff’s Sgt. Jill Murphy and by defense attorneys. Also included are nonconfidential FBI reports summing up what the informants told agents.

While the men say they told the FBI about Forde’s plans before the slayings, the FBI reports don’t reflect when it received the information.

Dave Joly, a spokesman for the FBI’s Denver division, said the bureau received the information “after the fact.” He declined to comment further because the case has not yet gone to trial.

So the informants claim they told the FBI, and now the FBI is covering its ass and saying “Hunh??”

Ass-covering is a human response. The problem is that this ass-covering that the FBI is doing will damage the prosecution’s case against Brisenia’s killers. So it’s a failure to protect on top of a failure to protect.

Larsen said that, assuming the FBI actually was aware of the alleged plot, he wants to know what the FBI thought about the information because, he said, if the agency chose not to act on the men’s information, that damages their credibility.

“If the FBI didn’t believe (the informants), why should the jury?” Larsen said.

Indeed. And why should the news cycle care at all about any of this?

Echoes of Noam Chomsky in my mind…about how terrorism is defined by the directions in which the guns point.

IT’S HARD TO KNOW WHAT TO SAY anymore on Arizona. The pus-ridden boil on the back of the USA’s purported ideals of justice for all. The exploded sore that reveals the ugly fragments and fibers of truth that typically weave so skillfully behind all our polite society lies.

Some say just as well; let this fight be on. It has always been here, skulking. And then sometimes, we fear what that fight will bring. Do we really want to see things go down this way? Can this not, finally, be avoided?

Pundits, bloggers, thinkers, people reach here and there, fix on this or that aspect, comment on what we can. But mostly, we watch in slow motion as reason and kindness crumble and a gross, vile, vindictive, dishonest, persecutory agenda dusts off its bone-spurred wings and launches into the Arizona sky. Who will bring this beast to bay? What cost by then?

And do we now see a sad mutation of our once-beautiful América? Or do the scales fall from our eyes to reveal the true, gleeful, unabashed visage of the monster we’ve been riding so many years, so high over these here crimson waves of grain?

NAM EthnoBlog, by Sandip Roy, Jun 14, 2010

Where is Nina Simone when you need her? Arizona needs her.

First there was Sheriff Joe Arpaio, shackling the undocumented, and marching them to camps down the baking streets of Phoenix.

Then came SB 1070 which requires the police to stop anyone who “looks” like they might be illegal and demand papers.

Then came word that ethnic studies programs were being targeted for being divisive. HB 2281 banned classes for particular ethnic groups or any courses that promoted ethnic solidarity instead of treating people as individuals.

If that wasn’t enough teachers with heavy accents were singled out. The Department of Education wants to reassign teachers whose accents are too heavy. The goal, apparently is to make sure there are no teachers with “faulty English” in Arizona. Let’s hope former President George W. Bush never goes looking for a teaching job in that state.

And now Sen. Russell Pearce, the man behind SB 1070 is revealing his true aim – the Fourteenth Amendment. A story in Time Magazine says buoyed by poll numbers for his illegal immigration crackdown Pearce wants to deny birth certificates to children born in Arizona of parents are here illegally.

Pearce says democracy supports him – 58% of Americans polled by Rasmussen think that children of illegal immigrants should not receive citizenship.

Friends say is the Grand Canyon state going off the deep end?

When four young black girls were killed in the Baptist church bombing in 1963, the story goes Nina Simone locked herself in her room and said she wanted to build her own gun.

In her book I Got Thunder – Lashonda Barnett who interviewed Simone, says her then husband dissuaded Simone telling her “Music is your weapon.” Four hours later she emerged with Mississippi Goddamn.

No church has been bombed in Arizona. And Gov. Jan Brewer assures the public that SB 1070 will be implemented without racial profiling. How? Don’t worry everyone is getting training. Hopefully. That will make former Arizona Governor Raul Castro, a Mexican American, relieved. He has been picked up by the police when he was a superior court judge and asked for his papers. He didn’t have them on him and they almost took him into custody. What he was doing was that most suspicious of activities, the “illegal dead giveaway” – painting a fence. (Oh, Tom Sawyer, where are you now?)

Constitutional experts say that if Arizona really goes after “anchor babies”, the courts will quickly strike it down.

But that’s not the point. The point is, Arizona will have moved the needle so far to the extreme on the issue of immigration SB1070 will start looking fair and balanced. Activists and politicians will think they have scored a victory because they beat back the attack on the Fourteenth Amendment, while SB 1070 remains in place.

Already in post-SB 1070 days, you hear less about all those other agreements already existing between sheriffs departments and ICE, where sheriff deputies can act as ICE agents. At least they are just checking once they pick up someone for some crime, we think, they aren’t just demanding papers because you look illegal.

It’s just like how John Ashcroft suddenly became a portrayed as a brave hospital-bed defender of our civil liberties, once Antonio Gonzalez came on Attorney General the scene.

As Arizona turns up the heat, pushing the rhetoric to even more ludicrous heights, SB 1070 will start sounding more mainstream.

Can’t you see it
Can’t you feel it
It’s all in the air

Lord have mercy on this land of mine
We all gonna get it in due time
I don’t belong here
I don’t belong there
I’ve even stopped believing in prayer

Arizona Goddam.

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.

DESPITE my many misgivings on how What-May-Become-CIR is shaping up, the energy at the rally on Sunday in DC was undeniably strong, fresh, vibrant, positive, and loud. More like a loving block party, concert and picnic than a “march,” the National Mall hosted hundreds of thousands of people supporting our fixing the broken immigration system. I’ll have a video for you (the next News With Nezua video) that I am going to use to convey some of that energy to you.

Because there are separate aspects of any “cause” or political issue. Which is what makes the whole thing so frustrating sometimes. We all forget, we all remember, are reminded, when we talk it over. We begin pushing for the very best we can, as we should. Ideals lead the way. Then some others get angry and say that the first group is being too purist, or non-pragmatic. Compromises must be made. Then your undocumented friend says those compromises are cruel and unneeded and unnecessary. And then another undocumented friend says, hey—I’m willing to make those concessions. Then another citizen friend says but I am not willing to have a biometric Social Security card, and we shouldn’t let that be ushered in using this issue. Then someone else passes a link about a protest or march action and then someone else says isnt there more to making change than protests, than making noise? And then you attend a massive gathering like this in the absence of any movement from the white house after all the beautiful speeches made to la comunidad and you remember that every gathering is not about making an immediate change. Or rather, more comes out of something like this event than just definitive legislative action.

Sometimes you need to be around people who feel as you do, who look a bit like you, or have a name like you—especially when those things are under attack by various groups and voices in our nation. Especially when you are out there working that activismagic-whatever you do, making your heart visible and evident in the world, trying to chip away at wrongness because that gives you a lust for life, that makes you feel you have done more than take from the world. And that good things can happen, and that you are not alone, and that you stand with hundreds of thousands of other people. And that even though the people who would stab the very balloons out of the hands of mimes may be given too loud a voice at times, on the other hand, the people who know that justice is a right all humans have can gift each other with a very powerful weapon to place in the arsenal. And the event had a lot of that energy. It was very comforting to know that with so many Latinos around, even if we were dissimilar in many ways, we were standing together at the moment for things that go so often unchampioned or unmentioned by the most powerful voices in media, if not altogether slurred and derided. We were, for a handful of hours, a city of solidarity and flava and positivity.

And at the same time, all those aforementioned currents that can sometimes complement and sometimes contradict, were in play.

I saw a number of people who work this scene, the regulars, the activists (undocumented and citizens), some org people, some new media people…you get to know each other after a while! We always see each other at these events. Our feelings on what is right and what is possible overlap in places. And not in others. And always varying at different times, perhaps, depending on how the issue is playing out in Congress or on TV or in the White House. And to see that weave of multiplicity on the issue just in that group of people gives you a peek into how tough it has to be to move legislation with so many people in government, many whom are not just sometimes at variance with, but directly opposed to each other’s value systems and desires and ideologies, and many who don’t even deal in good faith, who are simply making decisions on cynical and power-based motives. It’s a wonder anything gets done. And it explains why so many of us on the Left are beaming sunshine out of our blogholes because the White House just passed insurance reform that still leaves us with a health care system that should hide in shame compared to that of many “less powerful” nations—not to make light of the very big deal that is this bill being passed, nonetheless….

One of these activist type friends I know—he is involved with one of the current orgs that speaks for/stands for/benefits from the Latino&Immigration type issues—was a bit bitter about the event. It was “cynical,” he said. “Why aren’t they telling people” that this is a big hoo-rah event when in reality, Schumer and others are lining up a nasty little deal before they even consider trying to sell it; a deal that involves National biometric ID cards/SS cards, and passing an English test (who says you have to speak English in the USA, we still don’t have any “official language,” after all!), admitting shame and criminality in being here at all (I’m still waiting to hear the US govt explain the reneging on NAFTA as well as many other actions that contribute to global inequality and spur immigration in the first place!) and blowing more money on a militarized and harmful border mentality and weaponry/wall, as well as funding (in part) Felipe Calderón’s drug war that has claimed over 17,000 lives by now. And I understand what he is saying. These things are not acceptable, in reality. At least not to me as a citizen. And I do live here, and have to live here for now. And so I feel I have a right—while not speaking for anyone else—to take part in pushing, shoving, nudging the world closer to where I feel it should be. Beginning here.

At the same time I could have said “Okay. Fair enough. But if that is cynical…then why don’t you tell that truth through the org you are attached to?” Because he does not, either. Nor do they. They stand for good things, too. But not the whole truth. Does anyone? Does anyone think the whole truth stands a chance in this nation? And yet you can’t really aim any lower and have too much self-respect. Because you know invariably that ideal will fall short, being channeled through an imperfect vessel—be it your own humanity, or Congress.

So it’s never cut and dry. We all have our interests, we all have to make a living, we all have to make compromise, we all have our hands stained from rowing in the Empire Ship, and even in those moments we truly want to do only good, only the right thing, that still doesn’t mean we’ll agree on what exact shape that Thing will be. We come from different places. We stand in different places. We’ve had different beginnings. I’m still personally trying to learn how to be true to my own vision, and at the same time make room for yours. In a way, I guess at heart, that is what the USA is supposed to be about. (At least judging by the mantras children are pressured to speak to the flag in school.) Lately I feel we are not being too successful at making that vision happen. But maybe as a nation born squalling and bloody and steeped in lust and reverence for property, as well as violence and exploitation of the Other, we just take smaller steps than those that satisfy me right away.

What is there to do but to keep putting energy toward such an idea, and toward fighting the good fight?

Which is why I thank Reform Immigration for America very much for making my trip possible. I appreciate the help in getting there, and the no-strings freedom to report the way I report. Speaking of which, I have to get back to editing the video. Meanwhile, here’s a slideshow of the fotos I took. Maybe they will give you an idea, for now, of what I’m talking about….

WALKING on a morning after the rain falls for hours, I find worms strewn everywhere. Or I used to.

I’m thinking of Syracuse, New York. Neversink, New York. Gaithersburg, Maryland. And a few other places on the East Coast. I cast my mind back to the other places I grew up: New Mexico, Miami Beach, Massachusetts, San Diego…I don’t remember the worms. I don’t see them do this in Oregon…though that may be simply because the rain either falls all day and night, or the sun shines hotly for weeks at a time.

But maybe the call and response is the worm’s nature everywhere. Mother nature’s musical tears charming the earth-bound snake. Perhaps the conga-taps and pebble-bone raps of la lluvia that dance atop the woolen roof of their mud-sky dome home call them to the light. Is it a song that seduces? Is it a hammer that challenges? Is the sound of the rain—like the machines drilling down into Zion and getting nearer by the moment—a threat that demands they rise? Or is it a murmuring bass-laden call that undulates their five hearts into a loam-cresting shape? Do they respond but all the while attempt to escape?

There is another call and response that brings us far worse than worms. Worms, after all, churn the soil with their passage and their ingesting and filtering of the earth. They are useful and productive creatures. I speak now of a vile force in our culture today often benignly titled “those opposed to immigration.” Not “those concerned with the growing amount of poverty on the continent,” and not “those who fear losing their insurance.” I’m not talking about “people who wonder if all that stuff FOX says is true,” nor am I referencing “people who miss the way their town was before all the immigrants came.”

Because being aware of the culture changing and having feelings over it is not offensive. It is human. And normal. And all and any of us might feel that way. Change challenges the human creature, who seeks stasis often, even though s/he is an example of flux moving matter into motion until it melts away into dust…dust that never stands still but soon rises with the next breath of wind, and is breathed in again by the living. Perhaps it is because we are but an ever-fluctuating body of rivers and masses; drinking in, giving back the earth; aging, changing, growing, shrinking, spreading; our very molecules leaping out and trading places with those of the objects and people we surround ourselves with—that we seek some containers limiting the flex and flow of our lives. The preference of one type of culture is evidence, too, of that desire. The unwillingness of the aging to see that their world cannot last, and is everyday being reshaped by the younger…this is understandable. And a piece of that. The conservative mindset, too, is one you can reason out. It appeals to many because it soothes us in that sense. It is a lie, at heart. But oh, all the energy that is expended in creating the illusion that it does what it means to: contain, conform, civilize and stand as a bulwark against dawn drum-circle dances of expansiveness and transformation.

But the clan I speak of is not one of these people concerned with change. That would make them rational to a degree. These I mention are…no longer rational. If they ever were. These ones stepped away from that land at some point, now paddling manically over the stagnant swamp of hate. The group(s) to which I refer will overlook a story if it does not mention their chosen targets, but become sudden activists if the same story brings in those they choose to hate. And then they will appear, and advocate such things as watching people die in front of them; or suffer from lack of medical attention or lack of food, because they are Other. Because “they shouldn’t BE here” or because “it’s their own fault.” And so on. And so on. And so on. Visit any article online that discusses immigration, immigrants, or familes identified with a Spanish last name!

Because you can call these ones forth in a flock by the simple framing or titling of your post. It’s like a turkey call…if turkeys frothed blood and lived on handfuls of mescaline corn, that is.

Unlike worms, when any topic online touches on IMMIGRANTS or the USE OF SPANISH or (heaven forbid) BOTH….a horde of loathing, greed, fear, and inhumanity will flock to the article as if horseflies sniffing out an open wound. And there they will alight, and seethe, and with gangrenous lungs, heave. And they don’t just live online, unfortunately.

Nor does it matter what their pseudonyms, URLS, or station call letters proclaim. Like the NeoCons of late, these types employ language not to express the essence of their intentions, but to disguise them.

Yet, we know who these people are. We have all met them in our lives…haven’t we?  If you are black, if you are white, if you are golden, brown, red or some shade in between all these, you have met them. No matter. Because we all were once young. And if you were ever young, weak, or alone on the wrong street, you’ve met them. If you’re a woman, you’ve met them. But it is true, there are some, perhaps, who have been very lucky, and never actually had the opportunity to be there, in the middle of their circle. At the foot of their leer. On the end of their chain. They are the group with sticky fingers who use bright stickers to disguise the meat locker. They are the sullen faces that sag with the sensual anticipation of your pain. They are the hands that lift you up out of your own shoes and bind you, and beat you. They are the enemies of the vulnerable child. They are the plunderers in the home of the host. They are hateful to all mankind, because they can turn equally on anything and anyone; they channel an energy that needs no real reason to destroy, but drools at the opportunity. They wear crosses. Or bent crosses. Or crossed pikes. Or stiff collars.

Their arguments fall hollow. Their logic gapes with holes. They are not there to understand, reason, enjoin, connect, uplift, receive, exchange, or otherwise communicate or make progress. They are there to exterminate.

They find the presence of (A, B, or C, and here it is the Spanish Language and the people they perceive as MEXICAN) objectionable for whatever reason, and all they say and do is done and said in the name of removing that presence, in denigrating it, in casting it as an infectious or deviant light, in extirpating and erasing this OTHER element they find so very repulsive.

And they move with great mobility. Because those who harbor this energy do worm their way into our politics, and our culture, our courts, and our laws…. And they are aided by a culture of celebrity-priority, reaction and momentary concentration…and yup, racism.

When a virulent anti-immigrant (which is seen largely as Anti-Mexican and thus draws as much as a yawn in the larger culture) is allowed to flourish; when so much talk of ENGLISH ONLY and ENGLISH FIRST and OFFICIAL LANGUAGE is hammered forth by everyone in politics including the President of the United States of America; when ICE is allowed to do its dirty work without a massive media rejection and inspection…an ugly force moves through our nation.

And its’ tendrils reach out and choke people. This is not an abstract notion. This force materializes in myriad forms on our plane. For a moment, I’m speaking of online comments, and then in the next breath I talk of sheriffs and schools and banks that target the Brown™. Just as the ugly entity I describe can suddenly inhale and then breathe itself out into the shape of human beings where it can further its ugly ends.

–

TODAY’S STORY BEGINS at Devonshire Elementary, a school attended by 500 students. A little over 200 of those children are Hispanic. As you can see by the screenshot [below] taken of the website, the school boasts of its “various academic programs that are in place to reach students from a variety of cultural backgrounds,” including the “bilingual Girl Scouts.”

In 2006, a woman named Ana Ligia Mateo was hired as a bilingual secretary for the east Charlotte school. This is useful, obviously, so that she can serve as a liaison for the part of the community that speaks Spanish more comfortably.

But wait—do I need to break this down? To that non-reasoning group I mentioned, it won’t matter, even if I do. If I were now to introduce a story where, for example, the secretary was critiqued by staff for speaking Spanish, the Vile Group would strongly side with the opposition. It wouldn’t matter what she was legally hired for and it wouldn’t matter why she chose to speak Spanish. This anti-Spanish clan will bellow forth, starchy shorts tweaking their vocal chords, fuming about Official Languages—as if this is all an ego game, or some war of lingual conquest. We might remind them that many American citizens speak Spanish more comfortably and that there are no standing laws against doing so, and that especially in an emergency, people can revert to the language that comes easier. So you would definitely want a Spanish speaking person as secretary in such a population.

To the Vile Group—again, if they had interest in meeting your mind (or their own morality) to begin with—you might paint an example. For instance, if you were vacationing in Mexico (as many US immigrants, or, I mean “Expats”) and you were not so great with language and you witnessed a violent crime (because rememeber, that’s what happens in Mexico!!!!), you might find yourself babbling in English to the neighbors, or to the police. Trying to get help. You might not even have the words to speak in time, to save a life, or right a great wrong.

Thought exercise: If people in the US read of an Ex-Pat living in Mexico…who tried to report a crime in English…and was publicly criticized and lost their job in Mexico for speaking English as they reported that crime…and the criminal got away, but the Ex-Pat had no job anymore…what would readers say about that? I imagine they would be incensed. It sounds surreal, doesn’t it. We can’t imagine it happening in Mexico.

No, that is the sort of thing that happens here in the US, though.

At Devonshire Elementary, two years after Ana Ligia Mateo was hired as a bilingual secretary, a new woman, Suzanne Gimenez, took over as principal. Note: Gimenez is not Latino/Hispanic; her name is, through marriage. And sadly, just as in the case of Lou Dobbs and his Mexican Wife, it seems the intra-cultural marriage has resulted in the non-Latino member of the couple becoming active in an anti-immigrant or anti-Spanish language/anti-Latino culture agenda. It’s sad, it’s wrong, and it’s just nasty to watch.

Like Gimenez’ sudden dictum that no Spanish was to be spoken by the bilingual secretary anymore.

Unless dealing with a situation where using a language other than English would endanger people, or harm the business, this is simply a ridiculous thing to require. But if another language used in a given moment would prevent harm to individuals or companies…what then? Would the Vile Group still protest its use?

Yup.

We see the English-Only rule instituted more and more, but not so much for the professed (and the only legal) reasons, though they provide cover for individuals feel they are reinforced finally for their own nasty preferences. These types feel reinforced by gauging the people and media around them. And when killers commit hate crimes against the Spanish-speaking/Latino community, especially when the guilty parties are let go or exonerated…it sends a message. When the victims of hate crimes are violently abused and violated and harmed…yet the case is not ruled a Hate crime…and they live but kill themselves later…the shadow over gente grows.

This hostile spirit that lives in many people is allowed to bloom when the individual believes the ground is fertile. And the rampant anti-immigrant:mexican:latino:hispanic:spanish-speaking energy is given voice and presence in many ways.

But I was telling a story about a bilingual secretary, sorry! I don’t mean to get off track.

So, two years after Ana Mateo was hired as a bilingual secretary for a school that celebrates cultural diversity on its website homepage with groups like the Bilingual Girl Scouts, a new principal is hired. And she demands no more Spanish be spoken.

When Mateo continued to aid parents by translating English or speaking Spanish to them when necessary, she was repeatedly told to stop by Gimenez, and forced out finally, before Gimenez’ first year with the new school had lapsed.

There’s that force, working to crush, squeeze out, eradicate my people’s culture. And not just mine. Boriqueños cultura, too. People from Spain, in fact, who aren’t even Latino. Many of us are connected to the Spanish language. And a smaller group keeps trying to make us feel vile…when it is they. They are the Vile Group.

Oh, I forgot one detail. The event that precipitated Mateo leaving the school.

One day in September, a parent came to Mateo, crying. “Distraught.” Understandably distraught. She was telling the school secretary that one of her sons’ classmates had been sodomized with a stick by another child at the school. She was trying to report a sexual crime against her son. Of course, she couldn’t speak English.

(Mateo) asked Ms. Gimenez if she could translate for the parent. Ms. Gimenez refused and told the parent her seven-year-old son could translate. The parent continued to cry and eventually left without having her issue resolved because she could not understand Ms. Gimenez’s responses.”

The suit says after an encounter with another distraught parent who could not communicate, Gimenez “screamed at (Mateo) that she could not speak Spanish to any parents.”

Mateo was sent to a conference room, the suit says, where Assistant Principal Kimberly Vaught told Mateo she knew Mateo could empathize with the parents because she “crossed the border just like them.” Mateo, who is described in the suit as a U.S. citizen who is “Hispanic/Nicaraguan,” said that was not true.

—Worker: School Banned Spanish

Even when they are trying to be reasonable, certain types of people let many categories blur together: Hispanic, Nicaraguan, Puerto Rican, Mexican, Immigrant, Spanish, Border-hopper, Criminal, Bad, bad, bad. And for people who have no issue collapsing the boundaries that stand, logically, between all these areas, the same kinds inevitably insist on so many impassable barriers in our culture and on our land.

I don’t know about Assistant Principal Kimberly Vaught, but the kind I spoke of above do not employ logic, but a type of racial or cultural psychosis. And they are not just pointedly harmful to the presence, peace of mind of Latinos…were the rest of the People a bit more focused and thoughtful about it, they’d see that these types are the enemies of all good People. To use your position of power to silence a victimized child and all in the name of lingual hegemony?

The principal and assistant principal of Devonshire Elementary are not fit to hold office or wield power. They will be removed or heavily disciplined, I imagine. Most people, I do believe, will see this type of authority as a danger to the growth of our society, a society these types would sooner see stunted or rife with harm, than take a shape other than what they prefer.

_________

See and do more at Change.Org: Here, and to watch the Vile Group flock, see same issue but in “Immigration” category.

Crystal Dillman, the fiancee of Luis Ramirez, is moved to tears as members of Latina show their support for the couple outside the Schuylkill County Courthouse, in Pottsville, Pa. , Monday, Aug. 18, 2008. A preliminary hearing was held for three suspects charged in the beating death of Luis Ramirez, a 25-year-old Mexican immigrant who was severely beaten on July 12, in Shenandoah, Pa. Foto from RBB.

…BUT JUSTICE MAY TURN THEM OUT.

In July of 2008, Luis Ramirez was kicked to death in the street until he died by a group of whites who had been out drinking all night. Their screams and slurs while they beat him into the concrete made clear why they did what they did. Nobody was in doubt, and that’s the kind of town it is. A town where even the police collude to hide the murder of Mexicans, because it might besmirch the reputations of high school football stars if people knew they were cold blooded murderers. A town where the all-white jury finds the killers guilty of nothing more than aggravated assault.

But today we see a little justice.

Washington (CNN) — Five people, including three police officers, have been indicted in the fatal race-related beating of a Latino man in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, the Justice Department said Tuesday. …

In June, an all-white Pennsylvania jury convicted Donchak and Piekarsky, then 19 and 17, of misdemeanor simple assault in Ramirez’s death and acquitted them of felony counts including aggravated assault, ethnic intimidation and hindering apprehension. The two were sentenced to up to 23 months in the county jail. The incident divided the small, rural mining town of Shenandoah into camps for and against the youths and became a flash point for racial tensions nationwide.

Jurors found Piekarsky not guilty of third-degree murder. Prosecutors alleged he delivered a fatal kick to Ramirez’s head after Ramirez was knocked to the ground in the alcohol-fueled brawl on a residential Shenandoah street.

After the verdict, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder recommending the Justice Department pursue civil rights charges.

“The evidence suggests that Mr. Ramirez was targeted, beaten and killed because he was Mexican,” Rendell wrote. “Such lawlessness and violence hurts not only the victim of the attack, but also our towns and communities that are torn apart by such bigotry and intolerance.”

—CNN.com, 3 police officers among 5 people indicted in race-related beating

And we really should thank Mr. Rendell for doing so. Granted, he is probably as crooked as any other politician when it comes to raising funds and securing office, but he has helped bring about some justice in this case, and its an important one, I think.

A federal grand jury returned an indictment last week that charged Shenandoah Police Chief Matthew Nestor, Lt. William Moyer and Officer Jason Hayes with conspiring to obstruct justice during the federal probe of Ramirez’s beating. The indictment, unsealed today, also charges Moyer with witness and evidence tampering, and with lying to the FBI. If convicted, the officers face 20 years in prison on each of the obstruction charges, plus five years for conspiring to obstruct justice. Moyer also faces five years for making false statements to the FBI.

In a second indictment, Piekarsky and Donchak are charged with a federal hate crime that carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. Donchak also is charged in three additional counts with conspiring to obstruct justice and related offenses. Each of the conspiracy charges carries a maximum sentence of 20 years, while the other offenses each bring a five-year maximum sentence.

The murder of Luis Ramirez was the first to be nationally spotlighted by many human rights groups as an example of the violence that a burgeoning anti-immigrant movement has produced.

—splc, Pennsylvania Police Officers Indicted in Cover-Up of Immigrant’s Killing

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MARCELO LUCERO’s is one of those stories that haunts you. Stories that become iconic because of how terribly well they illustrate great wrongs that our human society has yet to escape. Marcelo’s story is very plain, the truth very ugly, the loss permanent.

I shudder to think of what it means to die in such a way. It should happen to nobody. That’s one of the parts that haunt me. I know what it’s like to be set upon by many hands. But to never make it home? To die there, bleeding to death in the dark. Because someone decided that you are a spic.

Because you were on the way to meet up with a friend and some crazy human or humans projected demons from their own soul onto you. And for sport they band up and go “beaner jumping” to scratch their sadistic itch. Mexican, Guatemalan, Cuban…they don’t care what kind of spic you are. “Beaner” is good enough.

Those bad seeds in Patchogue, the hate-pundits on the radio, the hate groups calling themselves “immigration restrictionists” while broadcasting the evil of that monster in their soul against the very same targets? They are all part of a fungal faction of our society that must be seared clean from the conversation so that sanity and a modern-day sense of humanity can prevail.

We must remember and act upon the better parts of the human spirit. We must not tolerate hate aimed so carelessly, into energy so fatal. We must band up to remember the truth and to remain moving forward. And to fight on in the name of Marcelo. And Luis. And all the others. And hope there are not too many others too soon. At the same time, we have to have each other’s backs.

We can all change this. If we want.

Salúd, Marcelo.

———————–
There will be a vigil in Patchogue

PROFESSIONAL VITRIOL-SPEWER Lou Dobbs claims that shots were fired at his house, and that this violence is due to his views on immigration. Implied in his words are the connection between focused ire and public violence.

They’ve created an atmosphere and they’ve been unrelenting in their propaganda,” Dobbs said in reference to pro-immigration groups.

—Shots Fired at NJ Home of Lou Dobbs

Get that? It’s the people fighting for the rights and humane treatment of immigrants who are creating a violent atmosphere. Yeah. Nothing like a little projection to help a ghoul live with itself.

Also chiming in is William Gheen, anti-immigrant president of ALIPAC, who tellingly admits in a newsletter that when you create an atmosphere of revulsion and loathing around people, this leads to violence: [my emphasis]

Friends of ALIPAC,

We have just learned that someone has fired a gun at the home of Lou Dobbs, with his wife just a few feet away from the incident. The gunfire followed a series of threatening phone calls.

Lou Dobbs is being targeted by the pro-illegal alien groups and pundits who feel that Dobbs is stopping Amnesty from passing.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, the Anti Defamation League, the National Council of La Raza, Media Matters, and Geraldo Rivera of Fox News are using false information to foment hatred towards Lou Dobbs or any American who speaks out against Amnesty or illegal immigration.

They have pushed for Lou Dobbs to be fired and since CNN has refused to do that some people are now turning to violence to try and achieve their goals.

The lies and hate coming from these radical pro-illegal alien groups is now manifesting in the form of gunfire fired into the occupied home of an innocent multi-racial family.

What conclusions can we draw from their only now admitting this connection many of us have been trying to underline for so long?

1. Lou Dobbs and William Gheen understand that what they do normally leads to the violence that continues to bring death and fear to our communities

thus

2. They enjoy causing that violence.

But now, ALLEGEDLY, shots are fired near Lou’s house, and they are up in arms talking about this dangerous environment. It is to laugh.

Lou, for the first time in his skanky life, is being held to account by organized groups online and off for the negativity and hostility and vile things he puts out into the air all year. And all he can come up with is calling people “fleas” as a response, go back to his daily demonization routine, and then whine about a violent environment from which he is normally cushioned due to his station, class, and situation.

Live by the sword, Lou?

(PS: Well, hardly a sword. And hardly a bullet, apparently! After all, if the projectile “struck the siding and then fell to the ground,” I’m guessing it was a slow moving BB, perhaps. Which means Lou’s well-layered makeup would have stopped it cold.)