Arizona Uber Alles: Legislators Target Chicanos in Attempt to Close Intellectual Borders of Schools

Though it looks like just another report on the anti-immigrant screed that grows like cotton out in Arizona and across the country, the issue raised in this article gives one reason to both pause and sound the alarm: Latinos are being used to institute uniformity of “values” in schools. Not satisfied with the political profits reaped by targeting immigrants, the white legislators behind Arizona’s SB 1108 want to expand their racial franchise by trying to cut funding to schools that teach courses that “denigrate American values and the teachings of Western civilization”.

Among the individuals and organizations mentioned in the article as targets of SB 1108 are the student group, MECHA, Chicano Studies and my friend and eminent scholar/activist, Rudy Acuna, who emailed the piece with a telling title- “Scary”.

Though hardly new (ie; Rudy says his children’s books were targeted in a similar way in the early 70’s), these attacks come at a different time, a time in which the growing fear of Latinos is grotesquely fused with the kind of “civilizational” warfare and white fear I discuss in depth here.

By targeting Chicano studies, MECHA and other groups and individuals promoting critical thinking among Latinos, the forces of white fear get two important benefits: they get to motivate their aging, flaccid base with the political Viagra of a new “threat” while also turning critical thinking among Latino youth into a dangerous and expensive endeavor. Better for the young barbarians to be disciplined by institutions and environments free of critical thinking - military and police boot camps and other hero factories, shiny new prisons, Dickensian and de-unionized workplaces and schools that promote ideals mentioned in SB 1108 ,”American values”, “capitalism” and “civilization”.

Arizona uber alles.

Measure Backs ‘American Values” In State Schools

Arizona schools whose courses “denigrate American values and the teachings of Western civilization” could lose state funding under the terms of legislation approved Wednesday by a House panel.

SB1108 also would bar teaching practices that “overtly encourage dissent” from those values, including democracy, capitalism, pluralism and religious tolerance. Schools would have to surrender teaching materials to the state superintendent of public instruction, who could withhold state aid from districts that broke the law.

Another section of the bill would bar public schools, community colleges and universities from allowing organizations to operate on campus if it is “based in whole or in part on race-based criteria,” a provision Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, said is aimed at MEChA, the Moviemiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, a student group.

The 9-6 vote by the Appropriations Committee sends the measure to the full House.

The legislation appears aimed largely at the Tucson Unified School District, whose “Raza Studies” program has annoyed some people. Tucson resident Laura Leighton read lawmakers sections of some books used in classrooms which she said promote hatred.

If the proposal becomes law, however, it would have a statewide reach. And that concerned even some lawmakers who voted for it, saying the language of what would and would not be prohibited is “vague.”

Tucson school officials have said the program under fire has helped Hispanic students improve their academic achievement by building pride and focusing on their cultural heritage.

But Pearce, who crafted the measure, said the program doesn’t stop there. He said taxpayers are funding “hate speech paid for by tax dollars.”

And Pearce said some of the teachings amount to “sedition” by suggesting that the current border between the United States and Mexico disappear, with Mexico - and Hispanics - taking over the American Southwest.

Leighton had specific problems with a text called “Occupied America,” a book touted by its publisher as examining Chicano history from the coming of the Spanish in 1519.

She read one line which said “kill the gringos.” Another talked about a plan to take back the U.S. Southwest and deport all the Europeans.

A closer look, at the book, though, showed the line about the gringos was a quote from someone referenced. And that the plan to take back the area was not urging current action but instead detailing one pushed by Mexico in 1915.

Leighton, however, said she and others who reviewed the course work believe it is unacceptable.

“We find hate and revolution is being taught in their books,” she testified. “We found a denigration and disparagement of American values and a subversion of our history.”

Anna Graves said she believes schools are promoting a double standard with such programs.

“If we were to have a group of white citizens teaching white culture only for the white children, it would be totally and absolutely inappropriate in a country that is a country of diversity,” said Graves, a Mexican immigrant now a U.S. citizen.

“I absolute deplore people who come from another country and do not want anything to do with the culture, the language or anything that has to do with the government,” Graves said. She said they are in this country to send back money to relatives elsewhere and “are not here to provide loyalty.”

Rep. Peter Rios, D-Dudleyville, said that kind of attitude ignores the United States as a “culture of diversity.”

“What is the downside of students learning about their culture along with the American culture, value and mores?” he asked. Graves said nothing - as long as it’s not just Hispanic culture being taught.

More to the point, Graves said it’s the job of parents to teach children about their own ethnic background and culture.

“Not everybody had what you had,” Rios responded. “So some of these children have to pick up some of this positive self-image building at the school because they’re not getting it at home, they’re not getting it in the barrios of the neighborhood.”

And Rios suggested there was a reason to have programs aimed at teaching Hispanic youngsters about their heritage.

“At the end of the day, we all know the history books are written by the victors,” he said. “And we didn’t win too many of our battles coming from a Hispanic culture.”

Pearce said nothing in the Legislature precludes teaching about various cultures. What he opposes, he said, are the “hateful, despicable comments” becoming part of public education. What would be illegal, Pearce said, are “race-based” classes.

“Nobody would stand here, I suspect, and try to defend the KKK teachings at a Tucson school or anywhere else,” he said.

House Minority Leader Phil Lopes, D-Tucson, said lawmakers should butt out of the controversy. He said decisions of curriculum should be left to local school boards.

But Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, said lawmakers are entitled to regulate the use of tax dollars taken from Arizonans and “demand that our publicly funded education teach and inculcate our youth, our children with the values that make America what it is, the greatest and most free nation in the world.”

Biggs, however, conceded the language of what would be prohibited is “somewhat vague” and probably needs work.

Rep. David Schapira, D-Tempe, said it is more than vague. He questioned what it means to “overtly encourage dissent” from the values of American democracy and Western civilization.

School board and superintendents’ lobbyists signed in as opposed to the measure but did not speak. Nor did Sam Polito, Tempe schools lobbyist, saying it made no sense to try to derail Pearce’s bill in a committee he chairs.

Immigration, “Healing” Touchstones of Pope Benedict’s Appeals to U.S. Latinos

In a visit designed to gently quell concerns about cover-ups of child molestation, sexual abuse and other crimes in the Catholic church, Pope Benedict was greeted with gun-wielding troops, big Catholic crowds and much presidential pomp. And he arrived with a clear mission to appeal to the group that will determine the future of the Catholic Church in the U.S.: Latinos.

With the Pew Hispanic Center telling us that Latinos now comprise 1 of every 3 U.S. Catholics, the Pope’s message must of necessity include an unprecedented Latino PR component. And as Catholic fortunes continue their decline here, the importance of the Latino church grows. In the words of Susan Jacoby in the Washington Post,

Without Hispanic immigration, the situation of the American Catholic Church would be even more dire.

But, Jacoby says, even among the Latino faithful, the fate of the church looks Apocalyptic in a not-so-beneficial way,

But the majority of Hispanic children do not attend the declining number of Catholic schools, and, if the history of immigration is any guide, the attachment of Hispanics to the church of their parents and grandparents — a critical part of immigrant survival — will diminish in direct proportion to their assimilation into American life.

Still, the Pope’s visit provides yet another example of how Latinos will play an definitive role in shaping the policies and public statements of the powerful and corrupt. While Benedict’s visit is supposed “open the path of healing and reconciliation”" before the most devastating scandal in U.S. Catholic history, it’s not likely to succeed. The Pope has repeatedly declined to take one of the most fundamental steps to healing: meet the victims-including the many Latinos- of abuse cara a cara.

Such non-action makes clear that there are ulterior motives behind Benedict’s “healing” tour.

For example, how the flag of immigrant rights provides powerful interests a cover for their crminial acts was vividly displayed today as Benedict began his trip by previewing his “concern” for the undocumented. According to the L.A. Times,

Benedict, who will visit Washington and New York in the trip that ends Sunday, said he will raise immigration issues during his stay. He said he was especially concerned by what he called the grave problem of families that are separated by immigration policies and by border violence.

So, as you watch English and Spanish language propaganda…..I mean coverage of the Pope’s visit, don’t let any God be the sole judge of Benedict and his motives.

In An Absolut World, Latinos Have Drunken Dreams of (Re)Conquista

This ad, which was yanked by Absolut following threats of a boycott, speaks for itself and inspires but a brief comment: If you’re going to drink (I hardly do because of the violence and rape and colonial self-hatred and misplaced coping and genocide and conquest drinking inspires -and masks), do so safely, with your values attached to your dollars. The world should be free of racism and other Absolute(s). Also, please note the error in the ad: coloring the southwest U.S. green instead of coloring over Canada with the sandy pastiches of the decadent empire drunkenly searching for the cheap wine of manufactured enemies with which to wash down the Viagra of “new frontiers”. And note how the Absolut invasion is being launched from the dark brown revolutionary shores of Venezuela.

We are neither drunk nor dreaming when we work to make the world less inebriated with the spirits of empire.

Israel “Cachao” Lopez-1918-2008: Muy Presente

Were this a more just planet-one in which musical tastes were less segregated-this world would better weigh the passing of its brilliant son, Israel “Cachao” Lopez, the father of the “mambo”, descarga y mucho mucho mas.

This world would inhale for a moment of silence before taking another moment to syncopate the silence with the sounds of Cachao’s profound musical legacy, a legacy with more children than he could ever count-and still growing; Were this world less color-conscious and more musically enlightened, the spell-check on this or any other software program would recognize the word “Cachao” in the same way that it recognizes words like “Beethoven” or “Miles”. With his intensity, creativity, he and his beloved wooden bajo (bass) have done their part to inspire the kinds of revolutions that alter musical destinies and software programs. His time, our time approaches.

I for one, am very sad at the passing of one who was for many like a musical Babalao, a high priest, a great teacher, the keeper of the ancient knowledge that defines us. Cachao now lives in that Pentheon of musicos who power my own madness from the asylum of the Great Beyond, better known as “El Mas Alla”.

Yet, I also celebrate the privilege of having seen Cachao and listened to and danced to his music, music that future generations Of Américans will come to respect and enjoy as we continue the work of making this a more just world. If you’d like to hear some of the background music of the movement that has and will continue to alter the course of this soon-to-be-less unjust world, check out Cachao’s website. As much as I love the lyricism and life of words, no literary muse can substitute the main Muse that whispered in Cachao’s big, brown ears.

Israel “Cachao” Lopez Presente!

Y con todo nuestro respeto te damos muchisimas gracias, michisimas.

(Please forgive the sound and visual quality of the video below, but it’s the only version on the web of one of my favorite Cachao song, Lindo Yambu. Despite the low production values, it’s good enough to pay respect to one of Great Value by singing the Cuban (not Greek) Coro,

“A la-la-la-la-la,

A-la-la-la-la-la

Que Bueno, Que Bueno Ah Eeh

More on DLC’s Racial Politics: “Insidious Innuendo” Video

This clip by Oilwellian provides a video complement to some of the things mentioned in my previous post:

Racial Idealism vs Racial Realism: Obama and the DLC

Racial Idealism vs Racial Realism: OBama’s Effort To Bridge the Divide and the DLC

New America Media, News Analysis, Roberto Lovato, Posted: Mar 19, 2008

Editor’s note: Obama’s electrifying speech in Philadelphia on race and race relations points to the realism-idealism gap between his camp and Hillary Clinton’s, writes NAM editor Robert Lovato. Lovato is a writer based in New York.

Barack Obama’s speech in Philadelphia eloquently displayed how the Obama and Clinton campaigns are divided by race idealism versus race realism.

Combining the statesman’s calm cadences with the reverend’s passion, Obama delivered what was arguably the crispest, most important delineation of U.S. race relations by a presidential candidate since Abraham Lincoln gave his House Divided speech.

In response to the ongoing racial pyrotechnics seen most recently in the controversies surrounding Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s former pastor whose racial denunciations from his Chicago pulpit have drawn criticism, and Clinton-backer Geraldine Ferraro who sparked controversy after saying, “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,” Obama used his abundant rhetorical gifts to advance the cause of race idealism. His speech tried to weaken the relentless pull of our racial past on our electoral present by pointing to a post-racial future.

“This nation is more than the sum of its parts,” he declared before a very racially mixed crowd of supporters sitting and swooning in Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center. “We may have different stories, but we hold common hopes.” The elevated responses in the Constitution Center seemed to simulate the paintings of children and adults of various ethnicities dancing in a circle as they rise from the ground.

In stark contrast to Obama’s strive-for-higher-ground idealism is the boots-on-the-ground march of the pre-eminent practitioners of racial realpolitik: the Clinton backers of Washington’s Democratic Leadership Council (DLC).

Caught between the current reality of an electorate that’s still mostly white and a primary process that reflects stunning demographic shifts, the racial politics of the Clinton supporters in the DLC reflect a strategic decision to consolidate their white base. Viewed from this vantage point, the DLC’s re-engineered appeals to white racial solidarity preview the new politics of the white minority era that looms on the racial horizon.

More than any other political machine in this very tense political moment, politicians affiliated with the DLC have developed policies and made statements that reconfigure racial politics beyond the Southern Strategy – appeals to white voter fear and anxieties with anti-black policy proposals that successfully transformed the once Democratic-leaning South into a Republican stronghold – that still defines much of the Republican racial realpolitik. DLC affiliates have more or less formed a beeline to make racial comments appealing to white voters as an unprecedented racial reality has come upon America: white minority status.

DLC operatives seem to recognize how quickly the political process is moving past the black-white racial politics towards a Sunbelt strategy targeting a more diverse and demographically different country, increasingly concentrated in the sunny southern states stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Like Obama, the DLC recognizes and anticipates the inevitable domination of the electoral college by Texas, Florida, California and other states heavily populated by Latinos and Asians.

Among the most recent comments and policy proposals by DLC affiliates reflecting the Sunbelt strategy are: the Geraldine Ferraro statement; the strong support for the anti-immigrant policies of the very punitive, anti-immigrant STRIVE Act by Rahm Emmanuel and James Carville, an enforcement-heavy immigration reform proposal which many Congressional Hispanic Caucus members have said will increase racial profiling; the anti-immigrant ads used by DLC Chair Harold Ford during his Senatorial bid in Tennessee; DLC stalwart Bob Kerrey’s claim that Obama attended a “secular madrassa”; the numerous racially-charged comments made by former DLC leader Bill Clinton, and, of course, Hillary Clinton in the course of her own campaign.

These most recent statements and policy proposals by DLC affiliates reflect the DLC’s insights into the post-Southern Strategy, post-Dixiecrat moment. This vision was developed by several of the mostly southern founders of the DLC who, in their zeal to combat the GOP successes with white voters through the Southern Strategy, rejected the affirmative action and other “identity politics” in the Democratic party to return to the old white identity politics.

Asked about the statements by Ferraro and other DLC affiliates, DLC’s press secretary, Alice McKeon, declined to make a statement. Asked if Ferraro was affiliated with her organization, McKeon answered, “I’m not prepared to say anything about that right now.”

Longtime DLC critic and editor of the Black Agenda Report, Bruce Dixon, sees in the ratcheting up of racial politics in this primary season the DLC’s aspirations to make Democrats more competitive against the GOP. “The historic position of the DLC is that they want to compete for Republican voters and corporate dollars,” said Dixon. “Their support for the SAVE Act, the racial attacks on Obama are rooted in this desire.”

Dixon has for many years also questioned the relationship between the racial statements and policy proposals of DLC members and the major funding it receives from corporations and from foundations like the Bradley Foundation, a philanthropic organization which gave the Progressive Policy Institute, the DLC’s think tank, over $200,000. Bradley Foundation also has a long history of giving money to organizations and individuals dedicated to decimating civil rights like Charles Murray, author or the controversial Bell Curve who still supports thoroughly baseless racial ideas like the belief that there’s a correlation between race and intellectual capabilities. “The Clintons, Rahm Emanuel and the DLC have to say these (racial) things because their corporate sponsors need a segmented and divided workforce,” said Dixon. “They can’t possibly do anything else.”

Yet, given the chronic inflexibility of politicians of all stripes to articulate the real problems of race in the United States, Obama’s race idealism may, in fact, mark the beginning of, as he promised, real change. Charles Murray himself noted this on the National Review website after Obama’s speech. “As far as I’m concerned, it is just plain flat out brilliant—rhetorically, but also in capturing a lot of nuance about race in America,” he wrote. “It is so far above the standard we’re used to from our politicians.”

Race idealism, who knows, may very well carry the day beyond the primaries and the general election.

California University Launches Country’s First Central American Studies Major

This article from the L.A. Times talks about the first Central American Studies major established at any university in the U.S.

I had the privilege to work with students and faculty to help found this new discipline, which, from its inception, adopted a transnational approach that surveys the reality of Central Americans on the isthmus and here in the United States.

You can also find the piece below.

Central American studies gaining acceptance

The degree program at Cal State Northridge seeks to advance knowledge about the millions of migrants in the U.S. and their history. It touches some lingering sore spots too.

By Larry Gordon
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

March 9, 2008

The large wave of refugees from war-ravaged Central America that arrived two decades ago has transformed more than neighborhoods, the workforce and restaurant cuisine of Southern California.

Now, as Vanessa Guerrero’s new diploma shows, the influence of that migration is being embraced academically by one of the region’s largest public universities.

At her recent midyear graduation from Cal State Northridge, Guerrero became the first student in the United States to earn a bachelor’s degree in Central American studies, officials say. Eight years after starting the nation’s first minor in the field, the school took another unprecedented step last fall by elevating it to a diploma-worthy major.

Like many of her classmates with family roots in Central America, Guerrero said she wanted her studies to help pierce the walls of silence that older generations built around memories of violence and economic turmoil in their homelands.

“A lot of our families don’t talk about it very much, and if they do, we hear only one side of the story,” said Guerrero, 23, who was 5 when her family fled civil war in El Salvador. “I was definitely interested in learning more about my culture and my history.”

Some friends questioned the usefulness of Central American studies, an interdisciplinary program in history, sociology, literature, anthropology and the arts. But Guerrero, a North Hills resident who also majored in business administration, said the courses “helped me understand the issues of why people migrated, why we’re here, why I’m here” and would aid her plans to become an immigration or family law attorney.

Cal State Northridge has one of the largest groups of Central American students in the country, most of Salvadoran and Guatemalan descent. An estimated 3,500, or about 10% of the student body, were born in Central America or have immigrant parents who settled here, often near downtown Los Angeles or in the San Fernando Valley.

The university is known nationally as a pioneer in ethnic studies. Its Chicano and African American studies departments arose from late 1960s student protests, and the campus later added programs in Asian American, Armenian and Jewish studies. Supporters say ethnic studies are needed in a multicultural world, while critics contend that those classes foster racial identity instead of solid scholarship.

Central Americans constitute the vast majority of the 50 students enrolled in the new major and the several hundred others taking its courses. But some students had little previous contact with Central American cultures and “really want to understand this community and work with it,” according to program coordinator Beatriz Cortez, who was born in El Salvador and is an expert in Central American literature and art.

The program offers 21 courses, including Survey of Central American Literature, Changing Roles of Central American Women and others about film, religion and revolutionary movements. It has three full-time professors plus six others who work part time or are from other campus departments.

“Some of us recognized a need for there to be a kind of academic discipline to both document and analyze the Central American experience, especially given the huge Central American population in places like Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington,” said Roberto Lovato, who helped found the program and has taught in it.

At first, classes cobbled together readings from various sources because textbooks about Latino literature and history tend to concentrate on Mexicans, Puerto Ricans and Cubans. “We are the new kids on the block, and we still have a long way to go,” said Lovato, a son of Salvadoran immigrants and now a writer in New York.

Larry Estrada, president of the National Assn. for Ethnic Studies, said that Central American classes are usually included in more general Latino programs and that Cal State Northridge’s degree is the only one he knows of in the country.

“It’s a welcome addition,” said Estrada, a professor at Western Washington University. (Cal State established a Central American minor last year within its Latin American studies program.)

Northridge’s Central American classes were initially part of Chicano studies. People involved say the split involved sentiments akin to Central Americans’ resentments about Mexican American dominance in Latino life in Los Angeles.

“Central American studies was a new entity, and it deserved its own space,” recalled professor Rodolfo Acuna, founder of the university’s Chicano studies department. “No group wants to be eclipsed by another.”

The Central American program faced initial budget and planning problems, and its status will be reviewed in five years. But it seems to have escaped earlier ideological battles surrounding ethnic studies at schools nationwide, in part because it does not focus on one country or ethnicity. For example, UCLA students staged a two-week hunger strike in 1993 to gain departmental status for Chicano studies, a goal not reached until 2005.

The Cal State Northridge classes look at Central America’s seven nations — Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama — and their complicated tapestry of cultures and languages. Next fall, the program will add a professor, an anthropologist who specializes in the Creole and African-derived cultures along the Caribbean coast.

At a recent class of Modern History of Central American Peoples, instructor Celia Simonds lectured to 30 students about the federation that included most of the now-separate nations in Central America from 1824 to 1839 and the tensions between liberals and conservatives over economic and religious issues.

Simonds also spoke of how the region’s racial prejudices affected her own Costa Rican family. Her mother, a dark-skinned woman with some indigenous ancestry, was ridiculed by Simonds’ light-skinned paternal grandmother of Spanish heritage.

Another frequent theme is the political and emotional aftermath of the conflicts in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. Douglas Carranza, an anthropologist who is director of the program’s affiliated research institute, said some students’ parents were afraid of opening old wounds. “It is sometimes too painful to talk about,” he said.

But he stressed that student curiosity about family travails soon expands into many other topics, such as ancient history and environment.

Josue Guajan, for example, was born in Chicago and raised mainly in Guatemala until his family returned to the U.S. when he was 16. Through a Cal State Northridge class he realized, “I didn’t know that much about Central America, even though I lived over there. That made me keep going and keep learning.”

Now 23 and a double major in television production and Central American studies, the Van Nuys resident wants to become a documentary filmmaker specializing in the region. He is a leader of the Central American United Student Assn., which has provided water-supply equipment to Salvadoran and Guatemalan villages.

Karen Romero, a U.S.-born daughter of Salvadorans, said she delayed graduation to take extra classes for a double degree in history and Central American studies. Now 25 and a resident of the Mid-City area of Los Angeles, she wants to teach history in high school or college and thinks her Northridge education will help her better relate to students in ethnically diverse classrooms.

Her mother, she said, was upset at first that Romero was studying Central American politics because it revived memories of friends murdered because of activism at Salvadoran universities in the 1970s. Now, Romero said, her mother is “very proud” and tells relatives her daughter “knows more about the history of Central America than we do.”

larry.gordon@latimes.com

Basta Ya: Boycott “Si Se Puede” in Elections

In their harried pursuit of Latino votes in previous and in upcoming primaries like that in Texas, candidates Obama and Clinton have added another to the still-growing string of records broken this election year: number of times the phrase “Si se puede” has been used in a U.S. presidential election.

The record is being broken in large part thanks to the powerful, yet deadly combination of the exponential growth in the Latino electorate and the fabulous lack of imagination of campaign strategists. In their efforts to highlight the “intimacy” and “unity” between the candidates and Latinos, rally after rally in Dallas, Houston, El Paso and other urban, suburban and rural parts of Texas has included loud, mantra-like repetitions of the Spanish language phrase, which means “Yes We Can”.

Originally coined in 1972 by my friend, United Farm Workers co-founder, Dolores Huerta, “Si se Puede” became the UFW’s motto ; It then transcended the UFW to become an important slogan for many labor, immigration and other historic struggles involving the country’s largest “minority”.

And now, in what appears to signal another mainstreaming of a Latino trend, many, if not most Clinton or Obama rallies include some mention of the English or Spanish or English and Spanish language political slogan (see New York Times pic above).

While it is true that the mainstreaming of “Si Se Puede” provides us with another signal of how the larger body politic is successfully adjusting to the death of the black-white electorate, this mainstreaming comes at a high cost: the cheapening of “Si Se Puede”. To transform a term rooted historically in the salt of the earth struggles of working class Latinos in the campaigns of candidates who also repeat mantra-like the phrase “middle class” alters and diminishes the political value and movement power of “Si Se Puede”. That my friend, Dolores Huerta, uses the term to promote her favored candidate, Hillary Clinton, saddens me less because I am anti-Clinton than because I was pro-Si Se Puede since my political childhood.

Before the inevitable moment when big corporations start using the term as slogans in ads selling us cars, burgers and tampons arrives, let us put up a big “No Pasaran” (They Shall Not Pass) before the forces of Little Political Imagination: BOYCOTT “SI SE PUEDE” IN ELECTIONS-AND BEYOND. Such a boycott may well free up and force the creative energies to come up with newer, fresher and less-compromised political language.

Si Se Puede is Dead. Que Viva……………………….

Time Magazine Declares “Immigration: No Correlation With Crime”

This one just in from the Pathetically Obvious Truths Department: Time magazine has, in its most recent issue, discovered that, as far as immigrants go, there is no “No Correlation With Crime”.

I know: “Hey Lovato, chill out; We need these kinds of victories however small and obvious they may be.” And those of you who’d tell me this would be right. But it is, I believe, a measure of how deep the swamp of immigration politics is that we -and our adversaries- define the parameters of what constitutes a “victory”. It’s like those of us on the immigrant rights front have been so beaten down by the anti-migrant political moment that we adopt a Pavlovian approach to happiness: the absence or minimization of sadness and pain.

OK. Thanks for hearing the rant.

This piece from Time is actually a very important article, one we should be use as we push the anti-migrant boulder up the mountain of fear. And, despite it all, I really am ready and looking forward to looking down that mountain towards the verdant (verde que te quiero verde) Valley of Hope, a valley that was there long before the well-meaning gentrifyers from Obamamania showed up and tried to buy up land that predates and runs deeper than their suburbs and dorms.

I spent a lot of time walking through a Noreaster today and could hear the sprinkles of spring in the air.

Para Ganar Obama! (Or How to La Bamba to Victory!)

Though not an endorsement (I’m still working through whether these elections are some sort of grand political theater designed to makes us magically forget Bush broke the still-broken system), this music video from Mo Rocca is muy chistoso. Enjoy (and sorry for those of you who need translation - but get with it, homes!)

video source posted with vodpod

“Post-Racial” Society? Report Says U.S.Treatment of African Americans, Immigrants “Abysmal”

A new report to the to a United Nations human rights committee criticizes the U.S. government for its “abysmal” treatment of African Americans, immigrants and other racial and ethnic groups.

The report by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was delivered to the United Nations’ Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) in response to a ” flawed U.S. government report that underreported the state of racial discrimination in the United States.” CERD is a U.N.-sanctioned group of internationally recognized human rights experts that oversees compliance with a 2004 treaty on the elimination of racial discrimination. Since the Clinton Administration ratified the treaty in 1994, the U.S. government has used CERD to denounce racism and other discrimination in other countries.

Among the many”shortcomings” in the Bush Adminstration’s more positive report to CERD are the ACLU says, “the minor mention of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the outright omission of issues including the dramatic increase in anti-immigrant acts and practices, exploitation of migrant workers, the escalating problem of police brutality and racial profiling, and the “school to prison pipeline,” whereby the criminal justice system overzealously funnels students of color out of classrooms and on a path toward prison.”

Witnesses joining the ACLU for testimony before CERD in Geneva will include Akif Rahman, a native-born United States citizen who was detained, questioned and abused by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on five separate occasions as he re-entered the country after business or personal trips abroad.

The importance of such reports cannot be underestimated. One of the largely unwritten chapters of civil rights history is about how more internationalist and left-leaning African Americans like WEB Dubois and Paul Robeson used international forums to shame the U.S. government before its peers about Jim Crow. Declassified documents from numerous national security archives reveal that officials at the highest levels of government were, in fact, concerned about the international embarrassment brought on them by such acts of outing.

The ACLU report also provides a healthy antidote to the dangerous absurdity of the “post-racial” talk on the left and right side the Obamamania wave. For these and other reasons, it’s important for social movements to pressure Obama to use his abundant rhetorical gifts to speak about things in the report.

Fetishizing for Fun and Profit: Kayak.com Promotes Racist, Anti-immigrant Blogging

The screenshot above documents another example of how immigration “humor” gets used to sell things. The Kayak.com post promotes what it calls a “semi-illegal vacation” designed to “push travel boundaries just enough to cause a little commotion” by having travelers pose as undocumented immigrants.

Well, they appear to have succeeded. Not long after this post went up, groups like the Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition (BAIRC), the Center for American Progress (CAP) and other groups and individuals gave Kayak several gigs and earfuls of complaints, forcing them to remove the post because of what representatives called “complaints”, according to folks at CAP.

This type of exoticism marks but another in the long line of insipid and goofy gimmicks that fetishize non-white Others for fun and profit, as mentioned here & here previously.

My advice to the racial thrillride seekers? Go ride the empty kayak of your suburban self.

Thanks to folks at BAIRC & CAP for bringing this to our attention.

Suspect Spokespeople: New NCLR Video Outs Immigrant Hatermongers

As part of its “Stop the Hate” campaign, the National Council of La Raza recently led production of the video below, which talks about the links between organized hate groups and anti-immigrant spokespeople -Minutemen Jim Gilchrist & Chris Simcox, FAIR’s Dan Stein and others - featured on mainstream newscasts.

The video and campaign come as welcome news from NCLR, which lost much credibility for its enthusiastic support of the nomination (and then silence about the numerous scandals) of disgraced former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

But another video in the “Stop the Hate” series is not as welcome. Prominently featured in the “Code Words of Hate” video is a spokesperson for the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a group that has a history of aiding and abetting police spying on African American, progressive, Latino and other groups. Some of us, for example, recall how the ADL presented “human rights” awards to such questionable figures as former Salvadoran President Calderon Sol, who had to wipe the blood from his hands before receiving the ADL award and giving a grandiloquent speech about the ethereal beauty of human rights.

Still, the NCLR campaign is an important one that takes on issues -racial code words, media, hate groups, language, etc.-we’ve discussed here at great length. So, we should support the campaign.

R

NPR Interview: Is There Really a Black/Latino Divide?

Would that we lived in a world with more journalists like Farai Chideya, the consequential host of NPR’s News and Notes. Guest Earl Ofari Hutchison, Congresswoman Maxine Waters and yours truly joined Farai in this brief, but quite cool deconstruction of the categories “Latino” and “Black/Latino divide”.

Something to think about while we await the results of the most racialized election in U.S. history, an election in which historic Latino participation heralds the beginning of the end of the “Black/white electorate”.

Of América Appears in Wall Street Journal

Despite (or perhaps because of) the economic meltdown, Of América’s stocks appear to be rising. At least that’s what our 2nd (count 2, segundo) appearance in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) , official voice of big capital, would indicate. This WSJ story about Latino bloggers and Super Tuesday mentions our esteemed site’s recent post about the double-talking bilingual antics of Mitt Romney and the now politically defunct Rotting Rudy Giuliani (Gracias a Nuestra Senora de la Justicia Social).

Given that we’re entering awards season, I’d like to take this opportunity thank the Academy and all of you who visit this barbarian haven for reading, commenting and passing the gas……….uhhh hot air…..I mean .. passing the word that makes such recognition possible.

Actually, mention in the WSJ would not have been possible without the increasingly irrefutable fact of Latino power in the life of América, a fact we try to mirror here. So see yourselves and smile

Gracias,

R

WBAI Interview About Obama and “Progressivism”

This just in from New York’s own WBAI. Check out this interview on Wakeup Call. Host Mario Murillo queries historian Gerald Horne, political scientist Valeria Sinclair-Chapman and yours truly about how “progressives” should deal with Barack Obama. Together, I think we brought a broader context to discussion about Obama, “change” and “hope”; We talked about such things as the historical context for Obamania, gender and Obama/Clinton and the geopolitical and economic context for the rise of populist, liberal pols like Obama, Clinton and Edwards.

Hope you like it!

Terror in Oklahoma: New Law Punishes Not Just Migrants, But Those Who Help Them

Beneath the smoke and mirrors of electoral news, behind the smog of “immigration policy” in the , a new criminal was born in the “sooner state”: the immigrant supporter.

Reports like this one in USA Today describe the details of House Bill 1804, the Oklahoma Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act of 2007, possibly the most repressive immigration law in the land. Among the measures in the law are calls to revoke the business licenses of employers that hire undocumented workers.

Lost to most of the reporting on Oklahoma’s 1804 is the fact that , in passing the law, Oklahoma -and the country-marked a major milestone in immigration history, one that extends the web of criminality enveloping low-wage non-citizens to drver’s license carrying, passport-wielding citizens. 1804 makes it a felony to provide transportation or shelter to the undocumented.

Laws policing - and punishing- citizens and non-citizens harken back to the Fugitive Slave Act, an 1850 law that similarly criminalized those who would aid and abet black slaves. And like the spate of state laws forcing (many police chiefs consider these laws a waste of time and taxes) local and state law enforcement officials to enforce immigration law, the Fugitive Slave Act required every law enforcement in the country to arrest runaway slaves. Oklahoma enforced that law with the same vigor it appears to have for this new law.

Tellingly, the overwhelmingly white state of Oklahoma passed no laws to pursue terrorists like those who bombed the federal building there. Like most legislators and “citizens” there, those terrorists were not olive colored or black.

Think about it.

(And note how the title of the USA Today article ascribes human traits (ie;”rattle”) to non-human businesses while not delving into the effects of such laws on human beings who happen to be immigrants. )

———–Strict immigration law rattles Okla. businesses

By Emily Bazar, USA TODAY

PARK HILL, Okla. — Autumn had arrived in eastern Oklahoma, and workers at the sprawling Greenleaf Nursery were prepping for deadly frosts. They needed to ship plants, erect greenhouses and bunch trees together to protect them against the cold.

But in late October, about 40 employees disappeared from the 600-acre nursery about an hour’s drive from Tulsa. “Some went to Texas, some went to Arkansas,” nursery President Randy Davis says. “They just left.”

Why did the workers, all immigrants, flee? “Those states don’t have 1804,” Davis says.

In a matter of weeks, “1804″ has become part of the Sooner State’s lexicon. It refers to House Bill 1804, the Oklahoma Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act of 2007, arguably the nation’s toughest state law targeting illegal immigrants.

Dozens of state legislatures, citing inaction by Congress, have adopted measures aimed at curbing illegal immigration. Oklahoma’s new law, which took effect Nov. 1, is particularly far-reaching and has begun sending ripples through the state’s economy and its immigrant communities. Besides highlighting the impact of illegal immigration on Oklahoma, the law has made the state a laboratory in the national debate over immigration.

The Oklahoma measure is broader than a controversial Arizona law that suspends or revokes business licenses of employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. Among other things, 1804 makes it a felony to transport or shelter illegal immigrants. It also denies illegal immigrants driver’s licenses and public benefits such as rental assistance and fuel subsidies.

Many business owners are especially nervous about provisions of 1804 that kick in July 1, when employers with government contracts must start checking new hires against a federal database to make sure they are legally eligible to work. If the employers don’t, they won’t get the contracts.

“I’ve already had customers who came in here and told me they’ve fired employees because they didn’t know if they were here legally,” says Tim Wagner, an owner of Cocina De Mino, a Mexican restaurant in Oklahoma City. He predicts industries such as agriculture will face worker shortages.

Widespread reports of vanishing employees and schoolchildren suggest thousands of illegal immigrants have left Oklahoma for neighboring states or their native countries. Cotton gins, hotels and home builders have lost workers. Restaurant and grocery store owners complain of fewer customers.

Some businesses and lawmakers are warning that the economic effects will hit consumers hard. Having a smaller pool of workers for certain jobs will cause delays and create competition among employers, leading them to raise wages and prices, Davis and others say.

Republican state Rep. Shane Jett, who opposed 1804, offers a more dire prediction. Without changes, the law “will be the single most destructive economic disaster since the Dust Bowl,” he says.

State Rep. Randy Terrill, the Republican author of the law, counters that 1804 will save money because taxpayers won’t be subsidizing services for illegal immigrants. “There’s significant evidence that HB 1804 is achieving its intended purpose, which is illegal aliens leaving the state of Oklahoma,” he says. “HB 1804 is a model not only for Oklahoma, but for other states and the nation as well.”

An exodus from Tulsa

Legislatures in 46 states adopted 244 immigration-related measures last year, the National Conference of State Legislatures says. Before the passage of 1804, Oklahoma’s immigrant population was growing, fueled by an expanding economy.

Nearly 5% of Oklahoma’s 3.6 million residents are foreign-born, Census figures show. The Pew Hispanic Center estimated in April 2006 that up to 75,000 were illegal immigrants.

Texas, which borders Oklahoma and Mexico, has a longer history with immigration issues. Daniel Kowalski, a Texas immigration lawyer who edits Bender’s Immigration Bulletin, believes a measure such as 1804 couldn’t win approval in Texas, in part because about 16% of that state’s 23.5 million residents are foreign-born. The center estimates that up to 1.6 million of them are illegal immigrants.

Since 1804 was approved in Oklahoma, 15,000-25,000 illegal immigrants have left Tulsa County, the Greater Tulsa Hispanic Chamber of Commerce says. Executive director Francisco Trevi?o bases the estimate on school enrollment, church attendance and reports from bus companies with service to Mexico.

“People are leaving to Mexico or Canada or other states,” says Jim Garcia, manager of Tulsa’s El Mercadito, a Hispanic grocery. He says sales have fallen 40% since Nov. 1. “A lot of people are going to Missouri or Arkansas because they think it’s safer.”

Arkansas state Rep. Rick Green, a Republican, says he has heard from a doctor who complained that illegal immigrants from Oklahoma have crossed the state line for medical care.

“With Arkansas being a very poor state economically, the concern is whether we can shoulder these expenses” stemming from any influx of immigrants from Oklahoma, he says.

Supporters of 1804 say the state will benefit from illegal immigrants leaving. “That’s money in our pocket,” says Carol Helm of Immigration Reform for Oklahoma Now.

Not all of those leaving Oklahoma are in the USA illegally. “I’ve lost two housekeepers out of a staff of 12,” says Joe Geis, general manager of the Sleep Inn & Suites in Edmond. “They were here legally, (but) they have family” members who were not.

Immigrant activist Blanca Thames says she has helped more than 1,000 families prepare power-of-attorney papers to protect children in case parents are deported. Many illegal immigrants have U.S.-born children who are citizens.

Constitutionality challenged

At Iglesia Piedra Angular (Cornerstone Hispanic Church) in Tulsa, senior pastor José Alfonso estimates that he has lost 15% of his 425-member congregation.

His church was a plaintiff in two lawsuits filed by the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders that challenged the constitutionality of the law. Both were dismissed, the latest last month when U.S. District Judge James Payne ruled that the plaintiffs, who included illegal immigrants, didn’t have standing to sue. He said they would not have been hurt if they had not violated U.S. law.

The coalition says it will appeal.

Several national and statewide business groups say they are considering their own lawsuit to challenge the law. “You’re basically putting employers in the middle of this fight,” says Jenna Hamilton of the National Association of Home Builders, one of the groups.

Lawmaker Terrill says he has little sympathy for businesses that hire illegal workers. He believes 1804 will create jobs for U.S. citizens.

“There is no job that an American citizen is unwilling to do,” he says. “They’re just not willing to do it at the wage rates that are being paid to illegal aliens.”

But some employers say it’s hard to hire citizens in their industries.

“We have extremely low unemployment. … The people in southwest Oklahoma who want to work are working,” says Tom Buchanan, a cotton, cattle and wheat farmer in Jackson County.

Chris Ellison, manager of the Motley Gin cotton gin in Hollis, lost eight of 16 workers since Nov. 1. He says the loss sent his overtime costs soaring.

“I would love to hire 20 U.S. citizens here,” Ellison says, but “local people are not going to quit a job to work three weeks during the year.”

Both men say they obey U.S. laws and check workers’ identity documents, but they acknowledge that some may have fake papers.

“We are not documents experts,” Buchanan says.

Like farmers and landscapers, builders say they’re struggling.

Earlier in 2007, Portillo Construction, which specializes in masonry and stone work in the Tulsa area, employed about 15 people, co-owner Natanael Portillo says. All were immigrants.

“On Nov. 1, not one employee showed up for work,” he says.

He has since hired several laborers but lost a contract on a house, he says. “We’re looking at between a $15,000 to $20,000 loss” for 2007, Portillo says.

Home builder Caleb McCaleb, who works in Oklahoma City and Edmond, says his framer lost 30 of his 80 workers, his painter lost 10 of 35 and his landscaper lost 15 of 40. That has put homes three or four weeks behind schedule.

“If we continue to lose workers, we are going to have to raise prices,” he says.

Cocina De Mino has seen its Hispanic clientele decline, especially on Sundays, Wagner says.

“After church, usually at 2 or 3 in the afternoon, they (would) bring their family. It’s usually groups of eight, 10 and 12,” he says. “Those groups are not coming in.”

At Plaza Santa Cecilia, a mall filled with Hispanic shops in Tulsa, Simon Navarro’s customer base has evaporated. Navarro, owner of a money-wiring service, says 500 people would come in every day to send money to relatives in Mexico and Central America. “Now,” he says, “I have 100.”

‘Son of 1804′ on horizon

Terrill plans to introduce a follow-up bill this year that he calls “Son of 1804.”

“HB 1804 does not represent everything that can or should be done in this area,” he says. Among other things, he says, the new measure would make English the state’s official language and allow police to seize property of those who violate 1804, including landlords.

Terrill says he has been contacted by legislators in at least a dozen states who have introduced or are drafting legislation similar to 1804.

Arkansas legislators may introduce bills when they next meet in January 2009, Green says. Some Arkansans who don’t want to wait will try to get a measure on the ballot this year.

“We’re getting a lot of pressure at home because they see what Oklahoma’s done,” Green says.

In Oklahoma, some of Terrill’s colleagues say 1804 needs fixing.

State Rep. Kris Steele, a Republican who voted for the bill, has received calls from non-immigrants complaining that they had to produce a document such as an original birth certificate or certified copy to renew an expired driver’s license. “I want to make sure we’re not necessarily putting the general public in a quandary,” he says.

Jett would like to create a state-run program that would allow illegal immigrants to pay a fine, then work and pay taxes. Those people, he says, would be exempt from 1804 at the state level but not from federal immigration law.

Jose and Esperanza Becerra, both 38, hope he succeeds.

The Tulsa couple came to Oklahoma from Mexico illegally, Jose 10 years ago and his wife five years ago. They were drawn here “because it was a pretty state and there was work,” Jose says.

Since 1804 passed, the Becerras have closed their bank account and put their home on the market, just in case they are forced to leave quickly or against their will. “Since the law went into effect,” Esperanza says, “we are in fear every day.”

Immigration in the Age of Neoliberalism

This article from Canada’s Rabble Magazine raises many questions, not least of which is: “Why can’t we talk about immigration like this in the U.S.?”

Just check out some of these quotes:

These people migrate out of necessity, even when they know that doing so may be expensive and even dangerous. They also migrate because it is possible to do so: contemporary capitalism, in its neoliberal form, relies on the concept of “workforce mobility”, as various powerful groups like to point out.

We are concerned with an enormous conflict, which ties together a vast range of crises that span Indonesia, Central Asia, the Middle East and parts of Africa. The American Empire needs to exert control in these parts of the world over enormous energy resources. This new conquest of the region requires a re-engineering, and the subjugation of the people who live there.

Jeeez, just imagine, imagine what it’d be like to simply live in a country where these kinds of opinions are considered part of the legitimate and rational debate around immigration. Imagine. Instead, we live in a country where most of the key players in the current immigration debate: many national “immigrant rights” groups, their philanthropic patrons, the political-bureaucratic class, the media and the racist right- have an unspoken pact to limit discussion of immigration within the very limited psychic and physical borders of an empire in rapid decline.

That what is considered in this country “rational”, “civilized” and “newsworthy” bears absolutely zero resemblance to what articles like this one say speaks directly of the ‘why’ of this blog.

The “Dreaming Beyond the Walls of Civilization” tag in the title of Of América comes from the perpetual need for ALL of us to interrogate notions of “nation”, “civilization”, “rationality” and other terms tossed around nonsensically -and dangerously, especially around issues like “national security” and immigration.

Anyway, thanks for indulging me in this rant and please do read this piece as it provides some semblance of what a truly rational discussion around immigration might look like in this country. I’ll start believing in, voting for Obama or Clinton when they can say anything in this article.

And don’t you just love how the “Rabble” moniker implicitly knocks “civilization” ? If this is “civilization”, then you need to embrace your inner barbarian, your membership as part of the rabble. I have.

Gracias & enjoy.

R

Immigration in the age of neoliberalism

by the Political Analysis Collective
January 9, 2008

Since the town of Hérouxville made headlines several months ago, a debate has been raging in Quebec regarding the impact of Muslim immigration on “the true values of Quebec.”

Through the media, this debate has sparked the collective imagination. “There are too many immigrants”. “Reasonable accommodations are becoming unreasonable”. An aggressive tone has emerged.

While its mandate is to examine inter-community relations, the Bouchard-Taylor Commission was set against this controversial background. The goal of the Commission is laudable, but one would hope that the debate would be return to questions of inclusion and respect. However, it should not come as a surprise that this polemic controversy should “blow up” in Quebec, as in any other capitalist society.

Immigration and capitalist development

According to the UN, there were roughly 200 million immigrants (3% of the world population) in 2005. Millions of people leave their homes and this constitutes the largest migration in history. These people migrate out of necessity, even when they know that doing so may be expensive and even dangerous. They also migrate because it is possible to do so: contemporary capitalism, in its neoliberal form, relies on the concept of “workforce mobility”, as various powerful groups like to point out.

Neoliberalism is proceeding with a profound restructuring of work which depends on an enormous influx of new “heads and hands”. On the one hand, this is in response to the new needs of capitalistic accumulation. On the other hand, it is in response to demographic changes in capitalist countries. The current cycle requires an abundant workforce with few qualifications to work in agriculture, construction, private and personal services – a workforce that can be found in the large population “surplus” of the Third World.

This workforce is usually destined for low-wage, not very gratifying, sometimes dangerous and non-unionized or hardly “unionizable” jobs. The workforce must be mobile and precarious, while workers’ and social rights are de-emphasized. At another level, capitalism needs to recuperate qualified workers from other countries. The brain-drain is hardly new, but it is accelerated, especially in the “knowledge” economy, where the concentration of capital is greatest. Industrial quantities of qualified workers are required by the information technology, biomedical and engineering fields.

This phenomenon is even greater in the U.S., where more than 30 million “legal” immigrants can be found, and quite possibly as many “illegal” immigrants. The border indeed has become quite porous, letting in “legals” and “illegals”, thanks to policies that favour both legalisation and criminalisation of immigration. This contradiction effectively forces immigrants to accept working conditions that are below the norm. According to various estimates, more than 60% of “unqualified” jobs in the USA will be filled by immigrants within the next 10 years.

The Canadian context

Capitalist restructuring in Canada also calls on larger numbers of immigrants. An estimated quarter of a million persons immigrate legally to this country every year. Though much lower, the number of illegal immigrants is on the rise (especially from Asia). It is estimated that 22% of Canadians will be immigrants by 2017 (the proportion is currently 18.3%), a number unseen since 1920.

As is the case in other countries, the immigrant population is segmented. Even though the percentage of university-educated is higher for new immigrants, their income is, in general, 10% lower than other segments of the Canadian population. Here is another revealing statistic: 15% of immigrants live below the poverty line, which is twice the national percentage. In fact, capitalist social structures reproduce inequality. Pitting workers of the world one against another is profitable. Immigrants against born citizens, men against women, white against black, everyone against everyone: it all maintains the dominant order in place.

Currently, the immigration influx is mainly coming from Third World countries. In Canada, 47% of the population now affirms being from an origin ethnic other than British or French. In most large cities, the skin colour of the population has changed. Along with these indicators, others make singling out – and therefore discriminating and disciplining – immigrant workers easier. Part of this new wave of immigration comes from regions inhabited by Muslims in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. According to certain projections, 10 years from now more than 1.8 million Muslims will live in Canada. These immigrants are often fleeing war and other atrocities in troubled regions such as Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

As a rule, Muslim immigrants tend to live their daily lives much like the population at large. Religious identity is expressed through traditions, memories, important religious holidays, as well as food and clothing-related customs. Every now and then, these cultural differences, which count for very little in daily life, are manipulated by projects which seek to exaggerate these artefacts of identity, or they are used to control or manipulate other types of conflicts.

We must remember that similar policies have been used by those in power in the past. Under the rule of Duplessis, Quebec society in the 1950s was dominated by an anti-Semitic discourse. Repression was not limited to Jews only. Other religious minorities were also targeted, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses. However, the true enemy of power was the union movement, with Jews and communists as scapegoats. Nowadays, this scapegoat is Muslim and is visible for other reasons.

War without end

We are concerned with an enormous conflict, which ties together a vast range of crises that span Indonesia, Central Asia, the Middle East and parts of Africa. The American Empire needs to exert control in these parts of the world over enormous energy resources. This new conquest of the region requires a re-engineering, and the subjugation of the people who live there. Obviously, resistance is strong, as evidenced by the failures of NATO in Iraq and Afghanistan. The enemy is evil incarnate and dehumanised so that he may be eradicated with little regard for international law. It is us against them, a war of civilizations, as Samuel Huntingdon has stated.

This war is not only fought in Kandahar or Gaza: it is also fought in neighbourhoods where immigrants from those regions can be found. Though this tension existed before 2001, the events of that year have intensified police and security operations and tipped society into a “rights-free” zone. These operations include imprisonment without trial, black lists, so-called “security” certificates, intimidation or worse yet – as in Maher Arar’s case - the use of clandestine means to put “suspects” in life-threatening conditions.

This enemy must therefore “be constructed”. The demagogic media portrays the Muslim immigrant as “perverse, sly, and difficult to assimilate”. His customs are in direct contradiction with the modern world and human (especially, women’s) rights. From this perspective, the young girl wearing a veil is no more than a weapon in the hands of Islamic-terrorist groups. This Muslim menace must then be confined, monitored, controlled, even suppressed and deported, if the members of the community do not accept our “values”.

Responsibilities of civil society

Immigration as an “issue” is thus redefined in neoliberal “reasoning” and helps new, offensive, geopolitical measures that predispose opinion for war. It also justifies obvious regressions in civil rights by creating a feeling of insecurity all over the world. This strategy aims to divide society into numerous “ethnic”, religious and community groups, each one preoccupied in a struggle against the other.

It goes without saying that civil society must stand against this. It is incumbent upon us to rally the working class, immigrant or not, and fight against all these forms of discrimination that single out and marginalize immigrants, with regards to access to services, housing, employment and recognition of foreign credentials.

*Pierre Beaudet, Philippe Boudreau, Donald Cuccioletta, François Cyr, Thomas Chiasson-Lebel, Éric Martin, Michèle St Denis and André Vincent are members of the Political Analysis Collective (Collectif d’analyse politique). The original French version of this article was translated by Julie Daigneault.

Chatterati In Heat Over Lou Dobbs Presidential Bid. And Let Us Hope He Runs

Today’s Wall Street Journal (WSJ), CNN and the spinning class at large are abuzz with the possibility of a Lou Dobbs Presidential bid. This piece in the WSJ is pretty typical of what the chatterati are saying.

The depths of despair among “disaffected” (and overwhelmingly white) voters is palpable and a Dobbs candidacy may be just the electoral Viagra they need, according to one William Gheen, one of those “grassroots” racists the mainstream media can’t seem to get enough of.

“At this point, Dobbs is the only man in the country that would have a shot at making a historic independent run, and winning,” says William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration, an influential grass-roots group that favors strict enforcement of immigration laws, a favorite subject of Mr. Dobbs’s.

I for one wholeheartedly endorse a Dobbs candidacy if only because it will raise awareness of the issue in a more pointed way than even Tom Nobody-Can-Out-Anti-Immigrant-Me Tancredo. Really. Dobbs will force Obama and McCain to adopt more definite positions. But that’s less important than the effect such a bid might have among certain segments of the populace.

Among the groups most needing to wake up to the Dobbsian zietgeist are Latino and other immigrants themselves.

Reflecting what appears to be a huge and strategic chasm between many immigrant rights leaders and the immigrants communities they allegedly lead, most Latino immigrants in the United States have no idea who Lou Dobbs, their most powerful and telegenic adversary, is.

Most immigrants can pick out Tancredo, their toupee’d arch nemesis, from a line up, but most can’t identify the more dapper Dobbs. Spanish language media doesn’t talk about Dobbs and immigrant rights activists spend lots of time defending against and cursing him - en Ingles. And CNN en Espanol doesn’t dare turn him into a crossover star lest they risk losing advertising en Espanol. So, people like my parents, my cousins and most documented and undocumented immigrants I know haven’t an inkling what Lou Dobbs means.

Let us hope he runs.

Iowa Race Results: Obama, Huckabee and the “Colorblind” Electorate

 

Iowa Results: Race Invisibility or Invisible Race?

New America Media, Commentary, Roberto Lovato, Posted: Jan 04, 2008

Editor’s Note: The victory of Barack Obama in the Democratic caucus in one of the country’s whitest states has been hailed by pundits as a sign that the country is moving beyond the old rhetoric around race. But race might just be becoming invisible, now identified by symbols such as “illegal immigrant,” the cornerstone of the campaign of Iowa’s other winner, Republican Mike Huckabee, writes NAM contributor Roberto Lovato.

As news broke of Barack Obama’s victory in Iowa, one of the country’s whitest states, political pundits of all stripes quickly told us that we were witnessing a historic shift: the end of race and racism as campaign issues. Even CNN’s dour conservative political analyst Bill Bennett waxed multiculti as he proclaimed that Obama “taught” African Americans that race wasn’t an issue they needed in order to succeed in politics. Though enthusiastic about the Obama victory, Bennett’s more jocular colleague Jack Cafferty was not quite ready to intone a full-throated Kumbaya. But he did declare that the Illinois
senator’s win “gives him currency in a state where the color of his skin may be an issue.”

NBC’s Tom Brokaw credited the Mike Huckabee victory in the Republican caucus to “his defense against illegal immigration,” an issue not viewed in racial terms by white voters. On all parts of the political and media spectrum, pundits and politicos are interpreting the Iowa results to mean that we inhabit a color-blind electoral system.

While watching a black man win the vote of an overwhelmingly white electorate is especially welcome in such racially-charged times as ours, and while the victory of a poor (at least in terms of electoral cash) populist preacher over the preferred Republican candidates of corporate America is refreshing, we are hardly entering the age of race invisibility in politics.

Instead, Iowa points us towards the age of invisible race politics.

To his credit, Barack Obama has carefully cultivated an image as a “change” candidate who takes the higher ground, one that talks about race – but not racism. Iowa confirms that, in doing so, he can make even the whitest electorate feel like it’s voting to overcome the catastrophic legacy of racial discrimination, like the Oprah viewer that gives himself or herself a racial pat on the back for really, truly liking her show.

“[Obama] is being consumed as the embodiment of color blindness,” political theorist Angela Davis told the Nation magazine recently, adding that “it’s the notion that we have moved beyond racism by not taking race into account. That’s what makes him conceivable as a presidential candidate. He’s become the model of diversity in this period…a model of diversity as the difference that makes no difference. The change that brings no change.”

It was interesting to watch Obama deliver the most memorable and moving caucus victory speech in memory, one that included King-like intonations and references to the activists who “marched through Selma and Montgomery for freedom’s cause” in the 1960s. Such inspired, impassioned pleas follow a campaign trail-tested rhetoric in which racism such as that surrounding the Jena Six case remains a largely unspoken part of Obama’s speeches and policy platforms. He appears to be more comfortable getting choked up when speaking about the fight against the racist past than he does during those few times he talks about the racist present.

On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee also did his part to promote invisible race politics. The GOP underdog did so in no small part thanks to the issue of immigration, a very racial electoral wedge that many voters believe has nothing to do with race.

By focusing on “illegals,” “illegal aliens” and other racial codes, Huckabee and other Republican candidates get to ride the juggernaut of anti-immigrant, anti-Latino sentiment gripping the country - without appearing racist. Pundits have even taken to calling the immigration issue the “New Willie Horton,” in reference to how, during the 1988 presidential race, a political advertisement deployed by George H.W. Bush against Democratic rival Michael Dukakis featured a black man convicted of murder who raped a woman after being furloughed. Many African Americans and others deemed the Horton ads a thinly veiled appeal to anti-black sentiment in the electorate.

Latino leaders and editorials in Spanish-language newspapers have denounced Huckabee for openly touting the endorsement of Jim Gilchrist, one of the co-founders of the anti-immigrant Minutemen, an organization denounced as a racist hat