Showing posts with label Activism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Activism. Show all posts

3/13/09

Zack de la Rocha & 5,000 Arizonans' Peaceful Rage Against Racist Sheriff Arpaio

No Human is Illegal was one of the messages at the recent demonstration against Maricopa County's anti-immigrant, racist Sheriff Arpaio that drew some 5,000 protesters. One of the leaders of the action was Rage Against the Machine's Zack de la Rocha.

Links:
Phoenix television clip with de la Rocha interview
Arpaio Blog

1/26/09

Robb Pearson: Confessions of a Former Anti-Latino Immigrant Activist

After a well-publicized change of heart, Robb Pearson, former anti-Latino immigration activist and blogger, is working to promote compassion and common humanity as a framework for the immigration issue and other issues.

Recently, Pearson sat down with 9500Liberty to discuss his conversion. Here' the interview in two parts:

Part 1: The seduction of intolerance - "We don't like "illegal" immigrants. Most "illegals" are Hispanic. Therefore, we don't like Hispanics."


Part 2: "Racism is an issue with the anti-immigrant lobby...I finally got to see the human face of the issue I had been against...I came to the realization that this isn't about politics. This isn't even about immigration. It's about our common humanity."


Links:
Robb Pearson's Opening Speech
Hate Society Claims Morristown

11/15/08

Vigil for Marcello Lucero - Latino Immigrant Awakening?

I joined 1,000 or so of mourners at last night's outdoor vigil for Marcello Lucero in Patchogue, Long Island.

It was a diverse crowd, young and old, Latino and nonLatino. They came from the Latino precincts of the Patchogue area, as well as from communities across the length of Long Island, including Astoria, Jackson Heights, Sunset Park, Corona, Elmont, Hempstead, Long Beach, Glen Cove, Freeport, Amityville, Huntington, Brentwood, Central Islip, Southampton, Montauk. Some travelled from New Jersey and points further west.

The bulk of those assembled though were Latino immigrants -- most Ecuadorianos.

The vigil was held at the very site of Marcello's murder, on a street along side the Patchogue commuter rail station. It's the back and poorly lit side of the rail station, so one can easily see why the thugs would chose to do their evil work there.

Under a steady drizzle one mourner called 'tears from heaven', the vigil included prayers, chants, speeches and songs offered in Spanish, English and sometimes in both. Many in the audience held flickering candles. Many held home-made signs protesting Marcello's murder or demanding an end to hate. A lit shrine with a large photo of Marcello, religious artifacts, messages and flowers drew a wall of bereaved a hundred deep.

Especially touching was that a two other vigils were held simultaneously last night: One in Marcello's hometown in Ecuador and another in Nanuet, New York. The proceedings in Patchogue were heard by Marcello's mother via cellphone.

People speaking from the podium included a number of politicians:

- State Senator (and Majority Leader to be) Malcolm Smith of Queens who promised to use the full weight of the state to protect New York's immigrant communities.

- Patchogue Mayor Paul Pontieri who spoke about his family's own immigrant origins in a small town in Italy and how the death of Marcello has wounded the community he loves and has lived in all of his life.

- Assemblyman Phil Ramos condemned the murder of Marcello and the pattern of anti-Latino immigrant violence that has been a shameful part of Suffolk life. He spoke about his experience as a former Suffolk police officer in which he responded to several horrific acts of racist violence against Latino Immigrants.

There were labor leaders who rallied the crowd with chants of 'Justicia', 'Yes, We Can!' and 'Un Pueblo Unido No Puede Ser Vencido!'.

A number of Latin American nations sent their representatives, including Ecuador's Ambassador to the United Nations, embassy officials from Venezuela, El Salvador and others.

There were religious leaders including the Imam of Long Island's Muslim community who offered prayers and solidarity.

Marcello's younger brother spoke again about the need to stop the violence against immigrants who he described as good people, hardworking people.

Latino and immigrant leaders addressed the mourners, including Dr. Luis Valenzuela who called for Suffolk County politicians to stop bashing immigrants. Another noted that Lucero means 'bright star' in Spanish and that Marcello was shining a light towards a better place from his perch in heaven.

Finally, one very animated speaker--whose name and role I didn't get--opened his comments with 'good morning' even though it was night. It wasn't a mistake. His point was that Long Island's Latino community has been asleep for too long, reluctant to stand up for itself. But that last night's large turn out was a sign to him that the community has awakened.

Video: Newsday
Photos: Gerry Vazquez

9/29/08

Illinois Immigrant Advocates Say ¡Ya basta! Enough!

Illinois immigrant advocates call on ICE to stop the expanding raids and deportations that are separating hard-working families and terrorizing whole communities.

Link

12/15/07

To Iowa & New Hampshire

The following "call-to-action" is from Sag Harbor's Michael O'Neill (aka, MO), a member of the Long Island Immigrant Alliance.

How we might help in the upcoming primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire speaking out against the Republican anti-immigrant disinformation and mainstreaming extremist, racist rhetoric.
All Republican candidates are running a sleazy one issue wedge campaign to scapegoat immigrants as the blame for conditions they in fact engendered by their own disastrous policies, resulting in decline of wages and deterioration of working conditions for a now angry middle class in economic distress or insecurity, just one paycheck away from sinking debt or one serious medical diagnosis away from economic calamity or one mortgage payment away from homelessness. As we hear from these nativist extremists, immigrants are the blame for the rising taxes, with the burden of their anchor babies filling our schools, welfare offices and hospitals and their parents, congenital "illegals," causing neighborhood deterioration and falling real estate values, filling our courthouses and prisons.

Worse, we are told, they are culturally incapable of becoming true Americans by the likes of Prof Samuel Huntington, because they obstinately cling to their language, refusing to speak English, preferring to live in barrios where they can become less visible, less traceable, hiding in a concentration of their own kind rather than integrate in the dominate culture. They are incapable of understanding democracy because of their long acceptance of Roman Catholicism and governance by dictatorships. That is why they read their own newspapers, have primitive toilet hygiene and primitive norms of publicly going when/wherever they want, play their own music, dance all night long, eat their own food, drink all day, and make anchor babies at the drop of a shillelagh. Unreliable, sneaky, thieves. papists.

Irresponsible, dirty, lazy louts of uncontrollable lust, with unruly numbers of children, given over to gangs, violence and crime, vectors of disease, mentally deficient, threatening and dangerous, drunks. These spurious charges made against the Irish might seem laughable today were they not the very same, precise accusations dredged up for alleged behavior of Latino immigrants. The same mindset that accompanied the evident cultural degradation inherent in the Irish invaders a 150 years ago is claimed for the immigrant invaders today, with the additional opprobrium of being intrinsically illegal beings, since the instance of their first step into the land of liberty and home of the free. This innate incapability to become civilized justified the hatred, bias, exploitation, vigilantism & legal discrimination used against the despised Irish.

It was in reaction to the profound economic change from the incipient industrial revolution moving the nation from an agricultural based economy on the one hand, while deteriorating structures of the traditional political parties' changing traditional alignments exerted upon the popular zeitgeist a great confusion, doubt, apprehension, anxiety and a sense of dislocation, easily manipulated by "patriotic" politicians in this time of antebellum national stress of perplexing division. Against this political turbulence, with so many parallels to our own times, a national campaign began taking off to allow the singling out an identifiable "criminality from a debased national character," making a scapegoat of the Irish immigrant as the other, the outsider, the alien, the papal agent of suspect loyalty, even conquest, as cause for the economic dislocations. Fashioning this scapegoat became the impetus to fashioning the Native American Party in 1843, Better known today as the Know Nothing Party, it would thrive in its toxic brew to become, even to this day, the most successful and largest 3rd party in American history.

Their electoral successes in the following years helped them take majority power based on a fevered nativist jingoism that promised exclusion, deportation and turning back the clock to a non-existent time before the arrival of immigrant invaders from Ireland, taking the jobs of natives, putting them in economic peril. Promises that could not be kept. They won office in many cities, including Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago; took over state legislatures, including Mass. Pennsylvania, Calif., and sent scores of their candidates or sympathizers to the House and Senate in Washington. Countless towns and hamlets passed anti-immigrant laws outlawing Irish from spending one night within their boundaries.

If we look back in astonishment at the popular charges against the Irish, we are baffled how this segment of the population, who dug by hand the Erie Canal, who would lay the trans-Continental RR from the East to Utah (& from the West by Chinese immigrant labor, who were to receive even harsher treatment than the Irish) & other feats of intensely menial labor, which laid the foundation for an expanding industrial revolution. This new economic order threatening the union of the states, would soon go on to enlarge our young country's economy enormously, bringing such prosperity to the U.S. that it would reach the pinnacle of world economic success and dominance in scant few decades.

Just as the present day no-good-turn shall-go-unpunished phenomena of our showing strange national gratitude for valued work, so too is it just as bizarrely exhibited for the undeniable contributions of recent immigrants to our well-being by growing our economy over the past decade & a half. We are also baffled how elected officials could elicit such prejudice against the Irish in face of the very visible contributions of their near heroic labor--even then widely recognized, just as is today's by los journaleros. In some inexplicable psychological sleight of hand, demagogues were able to transfer with alacrity the deeply and widely ingrained racist assumptions towards African slaves, if without the same intensity & longevity, upon the Irish. (See the wonderful book, How the Irish Became White)

I have no idea how to stop or foil the Republican Party's heedless plunge into a divisive, intolerant, nativist, wedge campaign to hold immigrants responsible for the outcome of their own policies and ideology of enlarging the power, privilege and wealth to the powerful, privileged and wealthy, which has so adversely affected the vast majority of working people, dismantling our Constitutional promise to democracy. Only by soundly defeating them will they be stopped. None of us can do much but continue our limited, small efforts to change the media-fueled dialogue (where "illegal immigrant" becomes acceptably neutral, no matter how indisputably it conveys instant criminality) from one impassionedly informed by the most vile, racist and openly neo-Nazi militants and their seemingly less strident demagogic Republican mouthpieces.

It is clear, Republicans are all too willing to embrace, use and enfold anti-immigrant extremism into their primary races, in a leap-frogging, not to be out-positioned by a rival's anti-immigrant polemic and extremist proposals. I propose something each of us can do in the next two weeks before the Iowa caucuses & New Hampshire primary to lend our voices to naming this rightward Republican kow towing to the hard right, making common cause with the worst purveyors of racial bias, for what it is: the nativists' same old, tattered, irrational hatred and fear, waged under guise of the same implacable false patriotism (of true Americans) that will cause our nation inevitably greater economic and social harm.

One way we can help is to pass letters-to-the-editors (lte) to pro-immigrant advocates in Iowa and New Hampshire to give them to local people as aid to formulate their own letters to the editors to magnify influence and add their voices to the national conversation about immigration and stand up to the irrational fear and misinformed bigotry. Short, pithy letters on just one single aspect of immigration have the best chance of being selected, published and make the most effective reading.

There will be no single letter that will change minds and hearts, but the accumulated drip of letters, repeated over and over again could become a torrent of sanity to counter the screaming, in your face racism and disinformation of the most extreme out there who believe their hostility will threaten and intimidate into silence most ordinary people busy living their own lives, trying to keep their heads above water, without inclination or time to be consumed with hating immigrants they see as people not unlike themselves or their parents who arrived with only their suitcase or their immigrant great grandparents who worked hard to give their loved ones and their own grandkids they would never know or meet, a better life, a better chance than their lives at hard labor, with different cards in hand than the ones they were dealt,

Their literal and figurative backbreaking labor would elevate their hopes and ideals of democracy guaranteed in the dignity of their work that gives substance and meaning to our mythos of the U.S as a beacon of light, the shining city on the hill, a nation we proudly claim is a nation of immigrants. They believed their place at the table for their children and theirs would be obtained by an unbelievable ability to persevere and sacrifice for a future greater good. It is for that same greater good for which we must fight today, but from the comfort of our heated homes. We owe at least that in gratitude for our own privilege of keeping their memory vital, and being faithful to honor and carry on their hard won struggle to persevere against this once more renewed eruption of nativist anti-immigrant bigotry in our country.

Just one short letter a day or every other day from the hundred people or so on this listserv might have incalculable value in influencing what is happening on the ground in Iowa & New Hampshire for those of us without the resources or time or have responsibilities keeping us from going there ourselves to walk the walk. But enough of my preaching, here are some local progressives &/or groups that might agree to farm out your lte to friends they know and members of their orgs. Be sure to send only one letter to one addressee in one state, so 2 people would not send in the same letter to one paper or one paper in the same state. Under Tools in Outlook Express, click the "request read receipt" just to make sure it is not lost in cyberspace, but in fact arrived to an intended person's still current email.

--mo

Stoking the Immigration Fire - (one man's `anti-immigration'
efforts in New Hampshire)


"Only 5% of the New Hampshire population is foreign-born, but even here, illegal immigration is among the most volatile issues in the presidential primary campaign. Dennis Williams is one reason why.

Mr. Williams, a retired computer project manager, says he has faxed his senators, representative and the presidential candidates 217 times in the past 20 months about his opposition to illegal immigration. He has made dozens of phone calls to Washington. He emails immigration news to a circle of 100 friends

Immigration, and Its Politics, Shake Rural Iowa

The nation's struggle over immigration may seem distant in states like Iowa, hundreds of miles from any border, but the debate is part of daily life here, more than ever now as residents prepare to pick a president. Nearly all of more than two dozen people interviewed here last week said they considered immigration policy at or near the top of their lists of concerns as they look to the presidential next month.

And yet, nearly everyone interviewed said that none of the political candidates had arrived at a position on immigration that fully satisfied them. In real life, they said, the issues surrounding immigration, both legal and illegal, were far more complicated than bumper sticker slogans or jabs on a debate stage or even the carefully picked language of campaign policy papers.

The subject went largely unaddressed in Wednesday's Republican debate in Des Moines after the moderator discouraged discussion of immigration, suggesting that Iowans already were familiar with the candidates' positions."

In IOWA:

Iowa Immigration Rights Network
ssanchez@afsc.org

Nueva Esperanza Siouxland UMC
www.iaumc.org/sc/HispMin/HISPMIN.html

Gilberto González
ggonzalez@enlacesamerica.org

JoAnn Mackey
joannm@latinoheritagefestival.org

latino-conference@uiowa.edu

Vicki Pratt, PSD Social Justice Program Coordinator
vlpratt@aol.com

Nancy Hernandez deRiehl
chihuahuota@hotmail.com

info@friendsoftheimmigrant.org

iowa@richardsonforpresident.com

Rich Pleva
rich@ucciaconf.org

Ron Eslinger
ron@ucciaconf.org

Tony Stoik
tony@ucciaconf.org

Julia Rendon
Julia@ucciaconf.org

Names of Democratic Committeepeople, opponents of Republican immigrant bashing

Dave Neas
429 S. Temple St
Osceola, IA 50213
641-342-2059
chair@idp5.org

Rick Mullin
3715 Cheyenne Blvd.
Sioux City, IA 51104
H: 712-277-1376
vicenorth@idp5.org

Les Lewis
2884 Hwy 30
Denison, IA 51442
H: pm 712-263-4037
vicecentral@idp5.org

Ann Stough
306 E Main St
Panora, IA 50216
641-755-3378
secretary@idp5.org

Ron Feilmeyer
305 E 21st St
Atlantic, IA 50022
H: 712-243-1137; Wk: 712-243-1663
treasurer@idp5.org

Josh Robinson
112 W. 5th St, #109
Storm Lake, IA 50588
712-732-0971
ruraloutreach@idp5.org
head of the IA Dem Media Alert

Erin Seidler
eseidler@iowademocrats.org

Iowa State University Dems

Sarah Sunderman
sarahsun@iastate.edu

Prof. Jose Amaya
jamaya@iastate.edu
Prof. Hector Avalos
havalos@iastate.edu

University of Iowa Dems

Nakhasi Atul
atul-nakhasi@uiowa.edu

John Mulrooney
john-mulrooney@uiowa.edu

University of Northern Iowa
vaughn.shannon@uni.edu

Southwest Iowa Latino Resource Center
info@swilrc.org

If you prefer to send directly to local Iowa media, click here for a list.

In New Hampshire:

latinosunidosnh@yahoo.com
hyoungdems@gmail.com

Judy Elliot
nhcosh@totalnetnh.net

Keith Kuenning
keithkuenning@msn.com

Maggie Forgarty
mfogarty@afsc.org

Arnie Alpert
aalpert@afsc.org

Emina Zlotrg
ezlotrg@afsc.org

Julia Ramsey
jramsey@nhdp.org

Tess George
tess@uuactionnetworknh.org

NH Immigrant Rights Network
wtinker@metrocast.net
info@democracyfornewhampshire.com
jeanie@nhhealthequity.org

County Dem Committeepeople:

Belknap: Lynn Chong
chonglyn@metrocast.net

Carroll: Mike Cauble
MCa4941@aol.com

Cheshire: Dan Eaton
eatonsstore@juno.com

Coos: Paul Robitaille
paulr@ncia.net

Grafton: John Chamberlin
thechamberlins@verizon.net

Hillsborough: Chris Pappas
pappas@post.harvard.edu

Merrimack: Rob Werner
rwerner@totalnetnh.net

Rockingham: Lenore Patton
gandlpatton@comcast.net

Strafford: Joan Ashwell
jfashwell@comcast.net

Sullivan: John Cloutier
jocloutier@adelphia.net

University of Southern New Hampshire

Jolan C. Rivera
jolancrivera@yahoo.com

David Dologite
dologite@earthlink.net

Yoel Camayd-Freixas
y.camayd-freixas@snhu.edu

Evelyn Friedman
efriedman@nuestracdc.org

Nelly Lejter
n.lejter@snhu.edu

Al Selinka
azelinka@rbf.com

Cynthia Hernandez Kolski
CYNTHIA@COMMUNICATIONEDUCATION.COM

William Huang
bill.huang@lacdc.org

Juan Gonzalez
gonzalez@allstonbrightoncdc.org

Matt Leighninger
mattleighninger@earthlink.net

William Maddocks
w.maddocks@snhu.edu

Armand Magnelli
magnelli@sprynet.com

Patricia Maher
pat@haymarket.org

Nancy Anne McArdle
nancymcardle@comcast.net

Randal Pinkett
rpinkett@bctpartners.com

Reemberto Rodriguez
reemberto@comcast.com

Tia Juana Malone
tmalone@developmentleadership.net

Karen Murrell
kmurrell@comcast.net

Jeffrey Nugent
jgfn@aol.com

Al Zelinka
azelinka@rbf.com

Adjibodou, Expedit Michel - e.adjibodou@snhu.edu
Aricanli, Tosun - t.aricanli@snhu.edu
Barongereje, William - w.barongereje@snhu.edu
Brace, Susan - s.brace@snhu.edu
Camayd-Freixas, Yoel - y.camayd-freixas@snhu.edu
Chalu, Henry - h.chalu@snhu.edu
Clamp, Christina - c.clamp@snhu.edu
Furany, Kadry - kadry.furany@snhu.edu
Gonzalez, Juan - j.gonzalez1@snhu.edu
Hack, Nadine - n.hack@snhu.edu
Harper, Malcolm - m.harper@snhu.edu
Hotchkiss, Charles - c.hotchkiss@snhu.edu
Hutchins, Shannon - shannon.hutchins@snhu.edu
Jackson, Deborah - deborah.jackson1@snhu.edu
Jacobs, Eric - e.jacobs@snhu.edu
Kaiza-Boshe, Theonestina - t.kaiza-boshe@snhu.edu
Kayandabila, Yamugu - y.kayandabila@snhu.edu
Kazungu, Khatibu - k.kazungu@snhu.edu
Kisoza, Lwekaza - l.kisoza@snhu.edu
Lejter, Nelly - n.lejter@snhu.edu
Lett, Woullard - w.lett@snhu.edu
Maddocks, William - w.maddocks@snhu.edu
Maher, Patricia - p.maher@snhu.edu
Malone, H. - h.malone@snhu.edu
Manyanda, Julius - j.manyanda@snhu.edu
Marealle, Maria - m.marealle@snhu.edu
Masasi, Rukia Saleh - r.masasi@snhu.edu
Mburu, Chris - c.mburu@snhu.edu
Milton, August - a.milton@snhu.edu
Mutasa, Felician - f.mutasa@snhu.edu
Ngaruko, Deus - d.ngaruko@snhu.edu
Ngatuni, Proches - .ngatuni@snhu.edu
O'Reilly, Martin - m.oreilly@snhu.edu
Onyango, Monica - m.onyango@snhu.edu
Palakurthi, Puneetha - p.palakurthi@snhu.edu
Paris, Paula - p.paris@snhu.edu
Reese, T David - t.reese@snhu.edu
Richmond, Anne Elizabeth - a.richmond@snhu.edu
Rielly, Catherine - c.rielly@snhu.edu
Rivera, Jolan - j.rivera@snhu.edu
Seib, Rebecca - rebecca.seib@snhu.edu
Shulman, Steven - s.shulman@snhu.edu
Shungu, Hamidu - h.shungu@snhu.edu
Sinda, Sinda - s.sinda@snhu.edu
Swack, Michael - m.swack@snhu.edu
Walcott, Derrick - derrick.walcott@snhu.edu
Werema, Samwel - s.werema@snhu.edu
Wilkinson, Alan - a.wilkinson@snhu.edu
Wilson, Kimberley - k.wilson@snhu.edu

Click here for a list of New Hampshire media.

11/26/07

¡Ya basta! Petition

Under the pretense of fighting "illegal" immigration, racists across America are using the media and political offices to foment anti-Latino hostilities.

The anti-Latino bullies and bigots have thus far gone unchallenged.

If you believe that it's time to hold the anti-Latinos--and the institutions that support them--to account, please say so by signing the ¡Ya basta! petition.

Click here to sign the ¡Ya basta! Petition.

10/24/07

Giving License to Minutemen: The GOP In the Driver's Seat by Michael O'Neill

The following is a letter of hope for those fighting the good fight during this ugly period of American nativism. Its author is Michael O'Neill of Long Island's Sag Harbor and a champion of immigrant rights. It is respectfully presented here with his permission.

License to Minutemen: The GOP In the Driver's Seat

In the noisome living room of the nativist hard right, for the GOP Militant today, there is only a cesspool darkness of the future of our nation. A darkness threatening to overtake the U.S. by a demographic ascendancy and territorial conquest; this darkness has replaced that traditional vanquished enemy, godless communism, by a far more subversive danger spreading over America's interior, throughout its breath and width. There is no longer any lip service to "Morning in America" given the future framed by a permanent Midnight in America where darkness descends upon our culture as a dark people of color rise to become the democratic majority.

The GOP is now mainstreaming extremists into the body politic of the U.S. to drown out the fearful, the timid, the intimidated with the effluence of their wedge politics. With our country in the middle of a catastrophic military and diplomatic defeat of unforeseeable consequence; with the drums of war again reverberating through our land, in a seeming effort to plunge the world deeper in the mire of blood as a Hail Mary desperation pass to pull victory out of defeat. The economic prospect of the middle class looks even grimmer as a war with Iran will cost a staggering amount.

It has not been so difficult for the GOP to maneuver extremists into channeling anger into blaming terrorists—the swarthy invaders. If it was simple enough to convince the majority that Iraq was responsible for 9/11, there should not be any obstacle to faulting illegal immigrants for all our economic and social problems. There is little doubt the GOP now see very well how they can muster and use angry racist mobs to further enflame a citizenry, as we saw today in Albany, primed to blame and scapegoat the "illegal immigrant," the brown invader, for outsourcing jobs, falling wages, record foreclosures, rising homelessness, unaffordable health care and a bleaker future, with no retirement, working till you are dropped in a hospital to expire...

The GOP at every level of government, national, state and regional, has been flushed into this seemingly fixed midnight of darkness where shades of reality are masked by their blinding affiliation with white supremacist, anti-immigrant, neo-con hard right organizations. Fueled by enormous wealth coming out of the Bush Administration protection racket for the likes of Ari Fleischer, Richard Mellon Scaife, the Coors family's tax-free billions, the Eric Prince (head of Blackwater, the mercenary group that has put in a bid to patrol the Mexican border) extended family, Cheney, Rove, Limbaugh, Coulter, Roger Ailes, and all their other glum warriors who repeat clichés to each other that privilege must be controlled, just as the cream rises to the top. Just as they, themselves are rewarded, praise the Lord.

They astutely see the threat to Christian white Western Civilization by the non-white hordes from the south, the invaders who corrupt even our language, refusing to speak English, which the right claims with a straight face unites us as a people, as if they so highly value unity with those outside their own identity. This is the trajectory mapped by Samuel Huntington, who understood that the Roman Catholic Latino is culturally incapable of understanding the true nature of democracy, because their tradition of being ruled by an all powerful caudillo, an elite, a hierarchy of papists. This anti-Catholicism has been a significant, popular belief in the U.S. since colonial times when U.S. was surrounded by Catholic enemies, their economic rivals to the North and the South, with their French and Spanish rulers.

Today in the rotunda of the State Legislature in Albany, bands of Minimen, American Border Patrol, their gun-obsessed buddies, pious acolytes of Lou Dobbs, Tancredo & his grotesque clone Tedisco, bonded in the happy glue of despising Latino illegals, screamed in a tantrum of mob fury for the head of Spitzer, for the passage of a meaningless gesture that will reinforce their certainty they are riding the powerful steed of the headless horseman, to wreak terror in the hearts of legislators who ignore their Halloween cartoon of what our democracy means and what it looks like when we ship them back to Africa, Haiti, Mexico...

Yes, I know there are also Dems, like Levy, and there are a few progressive Republicans, like Chafee, Bloomberg, but they are anomalous, the exception. The grand ole party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, LaGuardia, Lindsay, Rockefeller, even Reagan, and Bush pere have been widened to include and welcome those in the resurfacings of this amalgam of anti-government and violent squads of posses militati, NRA John Birchers, Christian Identity, states' militias, neo-Nazi minutemen rallying around the red, white & blue of anti-immigrant patriotism. While they open wide their tent to this flotsam of lunatics, they demand we close entry to hard working immigrants. The lunatic fringe appears to be in the driver's seat, on their way to becoming the mainstream of Republicanism.

Don't be demoralized by their appearance of power that seems to leave so many Dems cowering, as in our Suffolk County legislature. Remember that the Know Nothing Party was the largest 3rd party in the history of American politics, holding a majority in several state legislatures, including Mass. & Penn. and a powerful force in others, with several senators elected to Congress and dozens in the House of Representatives. Yet, they were completely defeated in just 10 years by a nation undergoing unprecedented economic boom, finding pursuit of business, innovation and wealth to be more rewarding.

This nativism flares up periodically throughout our history in times of national stress; but has always been finally defeated by progressive forces building coalition, usually with a resulting expansion of a more inclusive definition of our democracy.

If nativists appear to be in the Republican driver's seat, you can be certain that with the putting of our shoulders to the wheel, the coming together as we speak, of progressive forces building a grassroots coalition, we will win out. We have history as our peloton* at our backs and the future in our reach. These minimen losers of GOP reaction are running on fumes. They are in the driver's seat for but a very short trip.

Michael O'Neill

Peloton is a fancy word, but useful. The peloton travels as an integrated unit, like geese flying in formation of a V, each rider making slight adjustments in response to the riders around them (particularly the one in front of each). When developed, riders at the front are exposed to higher loads, and will tend to slip off the front in order to rejoin the pack further back where there will be less aerodynamic resistance, thus able to conserve energy as they move, in turn up to the front. In some cases, with sufficient room to maneuver, this will develop into a fluid situation where the center of the peloton appears to be pushing through its own leading edge, exactly like the UFW tactic of the boycott..

10/6/07

Jena: Take your nooses down

Jena, a small town in Central Louisiana, exploded onto the headlines as the latest example of an undiminished American racism.

In the case of Jena--as in the many other Jenas of America--a virulent racism, suffered mostly quietly by its victims of color for eons, appears to be a prominent aspect of life. So much so that the local high school had a Tree for Whites Only on its grounds.

Yes, in this 21st Century there are still places in America reserved just for Whites--and the Whites Only Tree in Jena is just one of many such White preserves. It's American Apartheid.

The Tree Whites Only of Jena bore 3 nooses a year ago--and it was probably not the first time the lynching ropes hung there. They were a warning to Blacks to stay in their place, that is, the same place they've been put since they were owned.

The three nooses led to a fight, and in keeping with Jena's heritage, six Blacks teenagers were arrested and charged with attempted murder--a crime punishable in Louisiana with life in prison for Blacks.

Of course, the first of the six was found guilty of aggravated assault against a young white man by an all white jury despite conflicting testimony from witnesses.

White America can't figure out what all the fuss is about--Hannity and O'Reilly empathize, but only for the white dud who was made to pay for a tiny fraction of the sins committed by the good people of Jena.

Outrage broke out--but only in Black America. A march was called and instantly 20,000 young Blacks from across the nation turned out. The White response? Al Sharpton is to blame.

And rightwingers rush to uphold the law: The noose hanging was just boys being boys. The Black boys? They should all get life--'cause they broke the law.

Ya braak duh law, ya doo duh tyme, rot? Dat ders 'Merica!
Seems that the Jena racists and their co-conspirators don't take kindly to people calling them on their backwards ways.

Example?

Good Ole Boys around Jena and elsewhere have been spotted dragging nooses from their pick-ups.

And this week the mayor of Jena denounced John Mellencamp. Why? Because Mellencamp--a prominent white songwriter and performer--had the audacity of siding with justice for the Jena 6. He does so movingly in a song titled Jena .

The good thing is that finally many in America are now watching. No longer can Jena just be Jena--and that's a good thing.



Related:

Mellencamp song about Jena, La. upsets mayor; calls song's video inflammatory
The Case of the Jena Six: Black High School Students Charged with Attempted Murder for Schoolyard Fight After Nooses Are Hung from Tree
In La., a missed opportunity ignites a racial uproar
Two arrested in noose incident near Jena, Louisiana

9/26/07

Evangelicos Sue Georgia Over Anti-Latino Immigrant Law

Atlanta Latino, Posted on New America Media:Sep 25, 2007
ATLANTA – The Hispanic Evangelical Church of Georgia, with the support of the National Latino Coalition of Christian Ministers, announced this week that they are filing a lawsuit against the state of Georgia for “treating their faithful without dignity,” according to Atlanta Latino newspaper.

State law 529 is unconstitutional, they argue, and encourages police to make arrests based on racial profiling. Pastors and congregational leaders are creating a database of reported cases of incidents involving their members.

On Sept. 16, 172 local churches canceled their services to participate in a protest with 8,000 Christians in Atlanta, who sang and carried Bibles, calling on local politicians to “stop their racist attacks” against honest people who only want to work to make a better life for their children.

Reverend Miguel Rivera, president of the coalition, said laws like 529 “revive racist rhetoric" and "manipulate the conscience of Americans in Georgia so that they see our brothers as invaders who have come to steal their jobs, when this is a fallacy." Immigrants come because there are jobs that Americans simply don’t want to do, he said.

9/8/07

Fight for Immigrants: A Long Island Update

Dr. Luis Valenzuela, leading immigrant advocate and executive director of the Long Island Immigrant Alliance, spoke recently at a Babylon Green Party Forum on Immigration. He gave a seminar on the local and national battle for immigrant justice.

Click here for a video of the the 29 minute presentation.

Among Dr. Valenzuela's successes is the defeat last spring of a proposed Suffolk County ordinance dubbed the "Standing While Latino" code.

An especially vile and discriminatory proposal, the bill sought to make illegal the gathering of two or more persons on public walkways. Enforcement of the ban would be targeted at Latino men.

Click here for Dr. Valenzuela's compelling testimony against the offensive bill.

BTW: Of all the local political parties, the Babylon Green Party stands alone in its commitment to ending racism and anti-immigrant bigotry on Long Island.

Thanks to the Wilders for their vision, commitment and leadership.

9/5/07

All languages spoken here

All languages spoken here (by Ruth Kunstadter, NorthJersey.Com - 9.5.07)

THE CURRENT immigration debate is not only dividing our nation, it is also threatening one of the most valuable -- and already endangered -- resources for the future of this country: the linguistic and cultural expertise of our immigrant communities.

Anti-immigrant fever is growing at an alarming rate. U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo recently blamed the horrific murders in Newark on lax immigration policies, and hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan have gained new energy by retraining their sights on immigrants.

We won't get very far in the new global economy -- or in the democratic beliefs we seek to promote abroad -- as a monolingual and xenophobic nation.

According to Doris Meissner, former commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, "We haven't had this kind of intensity and widespread, deep-seated anger for almost 100 years."

Not surprisingly, that anger is resulting in discrimination against all immigrants -- not just those who may be undocumented -- and, increasingly, against the languages they speak.

More

9/4/07

Prince William County Boycott Update: Raising the Heat

Carrying American flags and chanting "Si, se puede" ("Yes, we can"), several thousand Latinos rallied at the seat of Prince William County government yesterday to denounce the Board of Supervisors' plan to curb services to illegal immigrants. The rally was part of a week-long economic boycott of immigrant unfriendly businesses in Prince William County, Virginia.

In response, Prince William County Chairman Corey Stewart--and leading local anti-immigrant--urged residents to avoid pro-immigrant businesses.

Aiming to raise the heat on the county's anti-immigrant politicians, boycott organizers have announced plans for an Oct. 9 work stoppage in Prince William.

More

8/30/07

'We are All Elvira and Saulito Coalition' forms and Calls for Consumer Boycott

We are All Elvira and Saulito Coalition has been formed in Los Angeles and the group is calling for a September 12th consumer boycott in favor of immigration reform.

The new organization is the result of a merger between two Los Angeles-based groups: the March 25 Coalition, organizers of the May 1 boycotts the past two years; and the We Are America Coalition, which focuses on citizenship, lobbying and voter registration drives.

The groups united after the Aug. 19 arrest and deportation of Elvira Arellano.

8/28/07

Boycott In Prince William County

Finally, Latinos are beginning to stand up to the bully racists and fighting back.

The latest example of this growing militancy in the face of officially sanctioned bigotry is what's is happening in Prince William County just outside of the nation's capitol.

Latinos and immigrant rights activists there have called for a week-long boycott of all businesses in Prince William County, Virginia in response to what they see as a wave of anti-Latino immigrant hostilities.

The official ring leader of the anti-immigrant faction and self-appointed harrasser of immigrants is Republican Jeff Frederick.

Click here for a news video account of the boycott.

It's an economic boycott. Boycotters are shopping only in establishments that post green "pro-immigrant" signs or in places outside of the county. The one thing that America and Americans understand above all else is that money talks. And now activists in Prince William are aiming to leverage the purchasing power of some 70,000+ Latinos and their supporters for social justice.

Communities across the nation are watching the Prince William action for lessons that can inform other actions in locailities as well as campaigns at a larger scale.

As rightwing radio has been used to mobilize against Latinos, I suspect that Spanish language radio is being used to help in mobilizing the boycotters. It's the one area in which Latinos are not totally overmatched.

The one thing I wonder about is whether there is an effort to nationalize the boycott--either now or later. That is, are Latinos and other pro-immigrant Americans across the nation being asked to support the action by also boycotting services and products with direct connection to Prince William County racists?

I'm sure that many Americans would gladly join the cause.

Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" Speech -- August 28, 1963

8/3/07

Racism Killed Immigration Reform (by Jon Garrido)

The following are excerpts from Latino Businessman and Activist Jon Garrido's Racism Killed Immigration Reform (Hispanic News - 7.31.07):

A federal judge dealt a decisive blow against a dangerous trend of freelance immigration policies by local governments. Judge James M. Munley of the central Pennsylvania district, struck down ordinances in the town of Hazleton that sought to harshly punish undocumented migrants for trying to live and work there, and employers and landlords for providing them with homes and jobs.

In the year 2097, 50% of the entire United States population will be Hispanic...5% will be white...''

The browning of America is inevitable. No one can stop it.
The ruling was a well-earned embarrassment for Mayor Louis J. Barletta and his proclaimed goal of making Hazleton ''one of the toughest places in the United States” for migrants. In doing so, Judge Munley laid down basic truths.

Basic truths that every American should remember

First, immigration is a federal responsibility. State and local governments have no right to usurp or upend a vast, ''carefully drawn federal statutory scheme” that governs who enters the country and the conditions under which immigrants stay, study, work and naturalize. Congress may be botching the job, but has not delegated it.
Herein lies the crux of the problem, racism was the major contributing factor that killed immigration reform

An Hispanic friend, Sen. Barack Obama said the recent Senate immigration debate ''was both ugly and racist in a way we haven't see since the struggle for civil rights.''

Even Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina in the well of the U.S. Senate said, ''There’s no shortage of plain old racism in this issue.''
Every brown face in America is suspect

If you think conservative Republican talk radio, cable television and other Americans focus only on migrants, you must be living in a cave for every brown face in America is suspect.
Citizenship

Hispanics cast 5.6 million votes in the 2006 midterms elections which represented only 13 percent of the total Hispanic population compared to the 27 percent of all blacks who cast votes and 39 percent of all whites who voted — a disappointing turnout attributed to a population too young to vote or ineligible because of citizenship status.

Working on getting out the vote will help but this is not enough. We need to go on the offense. We need to launch a local campaign to identify, name and shame those who systematically bash Hispanics. Then we need to launch a nationwide campaign.
The only consolation

The only consolation is a population projection from the Unites States Census Bureau: In the year 2097, 50% of the entire United States population will be Hispanic, 30% will be black, 13% will be Asian, 5% will be white, and 2% will be ''other.'' The browning of America is inevitable. No one can stop it.

8/1/07

Latinos Face 'Time for Confrontation'

MIAMI -- The Senate's failure to pass immigration reform sent Latinos the message: fend for yourselves, said Janet Murguía, head of National Council of La Raza, at its recent 2007 conference in Miami. A vocal minority of shock jock radio hosts fueled a mob that overcame Congress, Murguía said.

"We thought we were having a debate on immigration policy," she said. "But it was really a debate about who decides what it means to be an American." While Latinos have been trying hard to be civil and fair, she said, "some of our opponents have taken a different tack," using hatred and bigotry.

In politics, she said, there is a time for coorperation and a time for confrontation -- and Latinos have been cooperating long enough.

Democracy, Murguía said, challenges Latinos now to "ask the tough questions" such as, "What does it mean to be an American?" or "Will you stand up and reaffirm the best of America?"

Integration and further participation in American civic, social and economic life is the only way for Latinos to level the playing field, she said. Voting and mobilizing more voters through the recently announced Ya Es Hora (Now is the Time) campaign, Murguía added, represent the best option for their community to triumph over bigotry.

Click here for the full text (pdf) of Janet Murguía's speech at the 2007 NCLR conference.

7/26/07

Exposing MSM message board venom?

John Lamb said...

Interesting idea - do you think it could also work against the venom on comment boards run by mainstream media?

American Taíno said...

Absolutely! It would rightly cause a firestorm if any so-called mainstream media allowed boards laced with anti-Jewish or anti-black bigotry. But as long as people remember to insert "alien" or "illegal", the most despicable, racist rants are then viewed as acceptable commentary. That's wrong and it should be challenged everywhere!