tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90198323091917719982024-03-13T23:21:49.350-07:00Stepping back to step right in…thoughts, critiques, articles, revolution, manifestos & healingAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08581037745519465607noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9019832309191771998.post-84246660636199201632015-08-07T19:10:00.000-07:002015-08-07T19:17:55.854-07:00Haiti, Racism, the Dominican Republic & Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric...Why it is, what it is...#Legalization4ALL #SinFronteras<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tve22-k6xos/VcVh8iRitTI/AAAAAAAAAyk/dcjiJrBsm2A/s1600/dominican-republic-stripping-citizenship-jpeg-0b572.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tve22-k6xos/VcVh8iRitTI/AAAAAAAAAyk/dcjiJrBsm2A/s320/dominican-republic-stripping-citizenship-jpeg-0b572.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While the media has moved on from the controversy of the Dominican Republic’s recent immigration legislation, there are many that have not…I am one of them. The rhetoric of the issue needs to be addressed and that starts with my stance, which is the following: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The “</span><a href="http://www.mip.gob.do/Portals/0/docs/PublicacionRegularizacion.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Plan de Regularización de Extranjeros de la República Dominicana</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">” or the Plan of regularization of foreigners in the Dominican Republic—aka, the DR’s new immigration policy—is anti-immigrant in nature and built upon the institutional and colorblind racism of the country...pure and simple...Now, let’s talk about why…</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The rhetoric of Dominicans who are in favor of or who have arrived to the staunch defense of their country’s actions in the recent immigration legislation is strikingly similar to the anti-immigrant speech found in the United States; and just like the U.S. and its fairy-tailed demonization of Mexico—</span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/07/31/cardinal-dolan-why-donald-trumps-anti-immigrant-rhetoric-is-so-problematic/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">thanks Trum</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">p—there is also a target in mind of the DR’s new immigration policy, Black bodies: </span><a href="http://therevealer.org/archives/16375" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Trujillo’s legacy against darkness and an Afrocentric Haiti</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> manifested as rule of law.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The recent Dominican anti-immigration laws against Haitians aren’t new. In fact, we knew about it last year and the year before as announcements were made from the Dominican government about its inevitable approach of border control. </span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/27/dominican-republic-citize_n_4002844.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first announcement came in 2013</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> as the Medina administration claimed an enforcement process that would result in deportation of ALL non-naturalized bodies with a presence in the country from 1929 till this day. </span><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/16/us-usa-dominican-immigration-idUSBREA4F0QR20140516" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In 2014, Dominican courts reviewed their legislation and adjusted it to permit Dominican-born Haitians to apply for naturalization</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">; something assured as simple and accessible on the surface. </span><a href="https://news.vice.com/video/citizenship-limbo-for-dominican-haitians-dominican-deadlock-dispatch-2" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unfortunately, such a claim was inaccurate</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> as bureaucracy, human error and the lack of outreach and transparency made such a process unattainable. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vJRWHbQNmgk/VcViH2t-QgI/AAAAAAAAAzM/IbZeAJ5paBA/s1600/IMG_1110_zpsh9m01ea0-610x458.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vJRWHbQNmgk/VcViH2t-QgI/AAAAAAAAAzM/IbZeAJ5paBA/s320/IMG_1110_zpsh9m01ea0-610x458.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The uproar from the international community, human rights organizations, and even Dominican expatriates has been </span><a href="http://haitiantimes.com/new-york-dominicans-protest-haitian-deportations-11682/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">LOUD</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Recently however, Dominicans in the island and others who have felt their national identities, culture, and government persecuted and attacked </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cg4ULem6oE" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">have rallied on social media</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> with an arrangement of arguments that sadly lack in humanity, simple logic, and are full of colorblind racist intention. Alas, not all Dominicans have catered to such racist and prejudiced sentiments. Many Dominicans have organized in defense of their Black brothers and sisters on the island of Hispaniola. However, I have come to realize that colonialism is an infection not easily purged, nor eradicated, but is something which must be healed, and we can only heal when we break the symptoms one by one and address them.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The following are the common arguments taken from various social media testimonials of Dominicans along with news editorials (with some notable exceptions) in the DR that I hope to clarify—yes, this is for </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cg4ULem6oE" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Manuel Pimentel </span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(@thatsDominican) who has sadly used his comic influence to perpetuate white supremacy…</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1)</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 9.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do not criticize our country if you are not there and do not know the facts…</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is problematic when Western affiliated activists critique a social issue in a non-Western country because it can be another form of imperialism. Many are weary of U.S. interventions, since historically, it has been used to benefit the U.S. and not the non-Western nations. To say that because one lives in the U.S., therefore one functions under a White imperialist gaze is not always accurate. For instance, I am Chicano Newyorquino; I am pretty radical in my politics; I love reading Marx; I am Mormon; I am a student of Critical Race Studies; I am an anarchist; I follow Indigenous thought; and I am a local activist. My neighbor is a White male who is Mormon; anti-immigrant; conservative; a racist; would love to see me burn in hell where I supposedly belong; and thinks that big business is the greatest thing to ever happen to our country and practices of freedom and democracy. We could not be more different and yet I live next to the man. Thus, because I live in a Western place, in an occupied Atzlan, I do not always fall in with Western imperialist thought—because I live in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gringo-landia</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> doesn’t mean I operate under the rules of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gringo-landia</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. In other words, I call it as it is, where it is and when it starts, because I’m </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paM03zurPQw" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“still a stranger in the country of my birth”</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> as a person of Color in the United States and I think plenty of Dominicans outside the island have that same validity.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2)</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 9.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The facts of the immigration law are misunderstood and this is actually a humane process compared to the rest of the world, even in the United States.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KIBObcEPhsU/VcViAFQY8NI/AAAAAAAAAy0/QZ8AUmwEc8Y/s1600/diaspora.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="208" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KIBObcEPhsU/VcViAFQY8NI/AAAAAAAAAy0/QZ8AUmwEc8Y/s320/diaspora.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If giving someone a choice to pack up and leave peacefully or forcibly, from a place they have always known as home, is humane then we really need to think twice about the meaning of the word. Better yet, why are we comparing which immigration policy is the worst and which is the most lenient? Are we trying to justify our nation’s policies because others ENFORCE IT BETTER?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The facts are not misunderstood. The situation originally demonstrated is exactly what is happening. </span><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/17/us-dominican-immigration-idUSKBN0OX23220150617" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The truth is that thousands have already been forced out.</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/dominican-republic-deportations-facing-uncertain-future-immigrants-begin-leaving-1992810" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thousands more have self-deported to avoid forceful reprisals, and close to 200,000 more are waiting for what happens next.</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/05/thousands-of-haitians-fleeing-dominican-republic-stuck-in-camps" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Only close to 9,000 have actually passed through a formal process of naturalization.</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> We also have to remember the most important aspect of this law: people are not being asked to leave, they are being TOLD to leave, #NOCHOICE.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/07/10/dominican-republic-temporarily-halts-deportation-of-haitians" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What’s worse is that people did begin showing up and reaching out for help but the bureaucracy and confusion of such a process seemed intentional, as hundreds sought aid with constant rejection, errors, and misinformation.</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> So people have been trying and when it became apparent that it wasn’t helping, many just stopped trying altogether. The outreach to distribute and administer relevant information was also another serious bureaucratic mishap. There were hardly enough staff to cater to the thousands of people needing services, nor were there outside agencies offering assistance, nor local infrastructure set up to assist anyone with these developments prior to actual implementation of the law.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3)</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 9.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Dominican Republic is not a racist place with racist people. We are all Black and mixed.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No one, and let me repeat, NO ONE is born a racist. No one carries racism in their biology or genome. Racism, however, can become a societal genealogy; something sustained socially and acted out. </span><a href="http://americasquarterly.org/content/dominican-republic-and-haiti-shared-view-diaspora" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Therefore, the Dominican Republic is not a place where people are just born racists; however, it is a place where people are NOT BORN A RACIST, but BORN INTO A RACIST SOCIETY & CULTURE.</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-f4i2QosCGJE/VcViX0KoeYI/AAAAAAAAAzU/WLMjoW4Tdec/s1600/trujillo-1_400_300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-f4i2QosCGJE/VcViX0KoeYI/AAAAAAAAAzU/WLMjoW4Tdec/s320/trujillo-1_400_300.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKqL8BZqo8Q" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">history of Dominican attitude towards Blackness </span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">stems back to the island’s revolution by Black slaves and the world’s attempt to devalue this revolution and limit its influence, because many Western Powers feared that if a Black country became successful after a slave revolt, it might just influence all other oppressed peoples. Means of racial oppression to Blackness in the DR has been in effect a lot more recent than presumed. The era of Trujillo didn’t just act out a severe repression towards all Dominicans; it also meant genocidal violence towards Black Dominicans and Haitians. It was also one of the largest attempts in the DR to de-Africanize the country, which meant to deny Blackness among Dominicans and to dehumanize Haiti, a very Afrocentric place. </span><a href="http://www2.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/misctopic/dominican/antihaiti.htm" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This also meant constant migratory proposals and policy encouragement throughout the 1900’s for White migrants to the DR from Spain and other countries were highly encouraged to “better the race.”</span></a></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Understanding the past of race relations in the Dominican Republic reveals the development of racism and colonialism on the island and its current impact; regardless of the fact that the majority of the country can identify as Black in the United States (this is why to be referred to as Haitian in the DR is more or less a racial slur for Blackness and why </span><a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/miss-rizos-beauty-identity-and-empowerment#/story" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">local activists like @MissRizos work so hard to instill Afrocentric beauty by reclaiming afros or </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">pajones</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> among Dominican@s).</span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Considering the past, it is obvious how these kinds of sentiments and social issues became part of </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">institutions, or institutional racism.</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Institutional racism is understood as racism that isn’t as overt or open as the racism of the past—we aren’t lynching Black people anymore, </span><a href="https://storify.com/reportedly/lynchings-immigration-issues-are-behind-tensions-b" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">although there have been at least 2 cases of lynching in the DR since this law passed</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">—nor are we hosing Black people down in the streets for the simple fact that they are of a different race. Instead, institutional racism works as policy and legal practices that disproportionately impact people of Color. We can look at immigration laws in the U.S. for further evidence of institutional racism. When the U.S. commits to immigration policy, they aren’t thinking of White people and probably not Black people, they are thinking of the “Mexican Invasion” but it is never framed that way and instead it is looked at as immigration policy that impacts all people coming to the U.S., but let’s be honest, we all know better.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This then brings up</span><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/culturally-speaking/201112/colorblind-ideology-is-form-racism" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Colorblind Racism</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, where people no longer admit racial difference and even find racism to be a terrible thing, but instead of focusing on race, they focus on “cultural” and “social” differences that make people inferior to them. For example, many Dominicans mention that they’re not racist towards Haitians for being Black, but find them to be a “bad” people, reproducing at an exceptional rate, and that “they rape our women.” Instead of saying one or two people are like this, the whole ethnic group is subjected to this characterization. It is literary the kind of racism where color or race is not admitted, but implied by focusing on supposed cultural and social deficits. The idea that because ‘we’re all Black,’ therefore we can’t be racist to fellow Black people, is complicated because people of color can definitely adopt racist ideologies and act them out; this is especially true in a place like the DR where most people do not happen to identify as </span><a href="http://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2011/08/dominicans_and_race_dont_call_them_black.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Black but as White in the United States and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Indio</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in the DR.</span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ddSEFik2mJo/VcViACBarmI/AAAAAAAAAy8/DU_6qTvu_WU/s1600/d2b70-11386516_1449864925333465_1955257146_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ddSEFik2mJo/VcViACBarmI/AAAAAAAAAy8/DU_6qTvu_WU/s320/d2b70-11386516_1449864925333465_1955257146_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">4)</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 9.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Dominican Republic is a place with almost no resources. The DR has to check its population because it cannot sustain more. Haitians use resources without giving back. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is another argument that parallels White anti-immigration sentiments in the U.S.—right down to the wording! In fact, almost every immigrant group in the world faces this dilemma, whether it’s to a developing 3</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 8.799999999999999px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: super; white-space: pre-wrap;">rd</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> world, or Western nation. The Irish faced extreme prejudice when they first arrived in the U.S. and met the same kind of resistance: “We don’t have the resources; we can’t support more foreign groups; they’re criminals!” In Africa, the more developed countries reject nationals of poorer ones: “They take all of our jobs; they use too many of our resources.”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Currently in the United States, many think that every Latino south of the border, namely Mexicans, come and deplete every resource from medical care, to education, to social security benefits, to actual geographic space, and would have them expelled for that reason. Just watch the following Trump has garnered due to his anti-Mexican rhetoric; </span><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/election-2016-donald-trump-defends-calling-mexican-immigrants-rapists/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“They’re all rapists and criminals!”</span></a></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So I’m sorry if you as an anti-immigrant in the DR feel that your country is being robbed by under-qualified immigrants, because it’s really not; and I’m sorry that you feel that we in the U.S. have all the space in the world, but we do and so do you! Unfortunately, this kind of speech is based in fear tactics—Remember, presidential candidate Trump does this. More importantly, why are we not more concerned with the corruption that’s rampant in Latin America that steals mountains of money from the public? When did expelling innocent people become priority over checking political corruption?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">#LEGALIZATION4ALL </span></div>
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nativism_(politics)" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What I’m really trying to say is that this argument is not new.</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_immigration" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s been reused and recycled horribly</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> through hundreds of years of xenophobia, anti-immigrant hysteria, racially and ethnically charged nativism, and fear. The world uses these same excuses and it doesn’t justify use by the DR either for an anti-immigrant policy against a subjugated people.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">5)</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 9.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The DR helps Haiti and Haitians inside the DR constantly so it’s time they respect that and go back home.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This argument sadly, is just too ridiculous, too ignorantly framed, and too desperate for justification to even attend to. This is like The Golden Rule gone wrong. This demand for RESPECT begs the question: if this ethic of supporting your neighbor demands that you fall into favor with them, but not just any favor, the kind of favor (aka, ultimatum) that they leave because it’s in your best interest, kind of favor, is it really a JUST deal? </span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/29/dominican-cane-cutters_n_7688392.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What’s funny though is that the DR has always promoted immigration and immigration incentives from Haiti whenever it needed to cut sugar cane, and then expelled them whenever they didn’t.</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Of course, they pay Haitians for their plantation labor far less and treat them far worse than Dominican naturalized employees. So in the end, and in many ways, Haitian migrant labor has always economically and historically sustained the DR…interesting…so whom owes whom?</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08581037745519465607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9019832309191771998.post-84608663676643251712014-11-28T23:19:00.000-08:002014-11-28T23:20:29.092-08:00Ferguson...a Necessary Violence...<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EA8X6ZcAwY8/VHlybevJ-8I/AAAAAAAAAr4/4n8LC-7QXO4/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2014-11-29%2Bat%2B12.09.17%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EA8X6ZcAwY8/VHlybevJ-8I/AAAAAAAAAr4/4n8LC-7QXO4/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2014-11-29%2Bat%2B12.09.17%2BAM.png" height="177" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“A
system cannot fail those it was never meant to protect” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"> -<span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">W.E.B
Dubois<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Porque cuando la tiranía es ley, la revolución
es orden [because when tyranny is law, revolution is order]”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"> -<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11pt;">Calle
13 (Residente)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">On
November 24<sup>th</sup>, 2014 a St. Louis grand jury did not indict officer
Darin Wilson for the murder of Black youth Michael Brown. Responses on social
media ranged from salutes of victory to disappointment and ultimately, rage.
Oftentimes, this response was colored by race between Black communities and
other people of Color, and then Whites. However, before the assorted reactions
on social media, there loomed the threat from Ferguson activists that if the
Grand Jury would not indict, that there would be hell to pay. Ferguson
activists kept their word. Violence, protesting, looting, state terror and
militarized police all culminated into events that have been described as a
“war zone” by mainstream media and personal accounts, and while deficit
conversations develop about rioting and violence as committed by Ferguson activists,
we should realize that these particular consequences serve a purpose in their
intricate nature and are done not without reason. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I
write this with the hope of providing context behind the violence and to unveil
a multilayered process that can be fully appreciated as we decolonize and
challenge OUR approach to Ferguson. Firstly, we should not assume that Ferguson
activists and locals are involved in looting as part of rioting. To assume such
a portrayal is irresponsible of mainstream media forums and highly deficit of
the complexity that’s occurring in Ferguson. Second, while I avoid an
essentialized frame of resistance in Ferguson, violence and looting are part of
the reality of what’s occurring. That needs be admitted and understood, but must
be done so in the context of what has happened, the emotional trauma of locals,
their response, and even their resistance. The states reaction to Ferguson also
reveals power dynamics and how far activists must go to truly be recognized and
valued, because “a riot is the language of the unheard” (Dr. Martin Luther
King, 1963) and one can only remain unheard for so long. Lastly, we must
decolonize our lens as we see Ferguson unfold because resistance is complicated
and cannot be forced into a discourse of what is progressive or regressive. Neither
the liberal, nor the Eurocentric deserve a say in what is occurring and how. In
the end, what arises from Ferguson is an inconclusive framework developed out
of resistance and revolution, but very much valuable to the entire discussion
particularly speaking as a person of Color myself. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Looting
and violence is happening in Ferugson as a response to no indictment of the
murder of Michael Brown. That is one reality, but it is the one that mainstream
media will tell you and many participants on social media will distribute.
Other realities have difficulty coming to the surface. For example, the fact
that Ferguson activists have mobilized groups to protect local businesses from
looting and robbery is one that has just recently arisen. Another is that
peaceful demonstrations and civil disobedience continue as part of the
reactionary process to no indictment. Just as much as violence has been a
response, so has peaceful protest. So not everyone is involved in the violence
and looting as mass media suggests. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VHzeTNQAcQ4/VHlyjJftFtI/AAAAAAAAAsE/aJqbWlnMklo/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2014-11-29%2Bat%2B12.11.03%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VHzeTNQAcQ4/VHlyjJftFtI/AAAAAAAAAsE/aJqbWlnMklo/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2014-11-29%2Bat%2B12.11.03%2BAM.png" height="295" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">However,
what about the intense and forceful response of militarized police to both
violent and peaceful protests in Ferguson? Why are they not put under the
scope, at least to the degree by which Ferguson activists are constantly placed
under with regards to violence and chaos? Why are people telling Ferguson
activists to calm down when police on steroids show up in Ferguson ready to
wage war? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Che
Guevara, the Argentine revolutionary, wrote in a piece titled Guerilla Warfare:
A Method, the following: “Violence is not the monopoly of the exploiters and as
such the exploited can use it too and, moreover, ought to use it when the
moment arrives.” Violence against oppressed communities ought to be dealt back with violence. Too often we excuse violence as a cheap form of resistance that is not deserved by either party. But why is it okay for the police to arrive as a militarized
force, ready and capable with equipment utilized from wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq, to counter protests in Ferguson, but it’s not okay for the Ferguson
activists to resist with their own violent strategies? Already there is a power
dynamic set. The oppressor may counter insurgency with militarized weapons but
the oppressed cannot. Mainstream media has promoted this deficit tone, that
Ferguson activists have rallied to a violent cause, one with no purpose,
without context, and destructive to their respective community; but this isn’t
new. Rebellion and violence as an act by oppressed communities has always been misunderstood, undervalued, and silenced.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-j0NIrabSG3Q/VHlyk-V_LWI/AAAAAAAAAsQ/ycdxs3II_KI/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2014-11-29%2Bat%2B12.11.34%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-j0NIrabSG3Q/VHlyk-V_LWI/AAAAAAAAAsQ/ycdxs3II_KI/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2014-11-29%2Bat%2B12.11.34%2BAM.png" height="186" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">For
generations poor communities of Color, specifically Indigenous and
African-American, have been subject to a host of violent methods and acts that
have sought to displace them. From the disappearing of Black males through the
Prison Industrial Complex to the silencing of Indigenous identities by film and
media, people of Color experience violence from the physical to the
intellectual. As we become recipients to a generational continuity of violence
it is then wondered whether anybody has heard us before or even cares? The
great civil rights leaders have spoken countless times, marched in so many
directions, and printed so many papers that demand recognition as well as
advocacy. But maybe instead of getting along, and moving past pain and guilt,
what we need, what we want, is not a spot at the table of the master, but to
create our own table or decide whether there should even be one! Autonomy and
self-determination does not come by coordination and collaboration, compromise
or forgetting, it must be claimed and owned. What this looks like should not be
defined by Eurocentric standards, especially with regards to violence because
the response will most likely be that destructive or violent means do not
achieve anything for anyone. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">President
Obama and other civic members claim countless times that violent reactions to
the no-indictment verdict does not move the conversation or the cause in the right
direction. Many social media supporters of Michael Brown say the same. However,
what is occurring instead is a mitigated advocacy of a divisive issue that is
more or less political neutrality, this is talking versus walking; this is
providing lip service versus actual engagement. Counter to their arguments that
violence has not done anything to change society or move it in a just and
equitable position, are countless acts and events that have shown the contrary.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">ALJAZEERA
journalist Ned Resnikoff writes that </span><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">at times “the crisis caused by riots and property
destruction has had a significant role in forcing authorities to respond to
demands for political change.” Specific events such as the Watts Riot,
Stonewall Inn, Selma, Haymarket, and Blair Mountain are events where violence
was met with social acknowledgment and political consequences. Each pushed an
issue to the forefront by the sheer violence of what happened. Sometimes
something loud has to happen, really LOUD in order to be heard and recognized.
This is a tragic truth; sometimes violence is required. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Violence
as resistance, among other misunderstood methods, has its place from what we
expect of communities and what sometimes communities hope to achieve on their
own. Who are we to foreordain how a community harnesses its resistive energy
and unleashes it? Eve Tuck is a youth resistance scholar who suggests that
there are contradictions within the framework of schooling that are intended on
progressing students towards completion, but are actually foundational to
students being held back or marginalized. This results with identities that are
often described by Tuck as Dangerous Dignities which comprehends resistance as
a multi-faceted process, riddled with complicating discourses and something
that goes beyond the whole reproductive and resistance argument; as a dangerous
dignity sometimes we expect youth to resist in certain ways to transform
oppressive structures, but frankly, the resistant outcomes are unpredictable
and sometimes not transformative according to our lens. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Tuck’s
research findings tend to “complicate, extend, and sometimes explode current
conceptualizations of youth resistance.” What needs to happen is an approach to
Ferguson with a serious critique of resistance through the relationship of
Humiliating Ironies and Dangerous Dignities, and of liberal and Eurocentric
notions of progress. Why can’t progress be an entire community rising up? According
to Tuck, resistance can play out in the following:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D-IgrrqCFmk/VHlyjOoQ5FI/AAAAAAAAAsA/j8s1Nrd9FCk/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2014-11-29%2Bat%2B12.11.21%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D-IgrrqCFmk/VHlyjOoQ5FI/AAAAAAAAAsA/j8s1Nrd9FCk/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2014-11-29%2Bat%2B12.11.21%2BAM.png" height="320" width="308" /></a><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Does resistance do what we think it does?</i>
No, almost never. And it doesn’t go in the directions that we anticipate it
will go…We also learn that the material realities of resistance can be
dramatically different; the consequences may be muffled or delayed in some
scenarios, while the consequences may be simultaneous/immediate in others. But
resistance does do <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">something</i>, it does
produce, or prompt, or prevent something.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Resistance
does something, regardless of the shape or form it takes. It produces knowledge,
even if it is violent! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A
recent article by Cheryl Corley at NPR suggests that Ferguson has become the
Arab Spring to a whole new generation of activists local to their struggle.
Robynn Haas from the Catholic Voice further demonstrates this with a profound
account of Ferguson youth activists taking the stage at a mass meeting in
October with national civic, community and faith leaders and critiquing their
engagement while motivating the crowd. Haas reports the following commentary by
Ashley Yates at the meeting: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2zhzZ11ywsU/VHlym7nB_sI/AAAAAAAAAsY/R8sqQnriq7A/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2014-11-29%2Bat%2B12.12.57%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2zhzZ11ywsU/VHlym7nB_sI/AAAAAAAAAsY/R8sqQnriq7A/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2014-11-29%2Bat%2B12.12.57%2BAM.png" height="200" width="320" /></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“‘Ashley Yates, a young activist and a leader of the movement in
Ferguson, also took the podium. "People take our anger and they try to
make it violent, when the real violence is the AK-47s and the M16s that are
pointed at us," Yates lamented to the audience. Violence is "when you
see a sniper pop out of the top of a tank with a smile on his face, when all
you have is your hands and your words and your anger," she said. "I
am OK with being angry," she continued. "If you can see a dead black
body lying in the street for four and a half hours and that doesn't make you
angry, then you lack humanity…’” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The
resistance occurring in Ferguson is peaceful; it is civil disobedience; it is
marching; it is talking; but it is also violent. And in its violence it is
being recognized; at the same time, tragically it is being misinterpreted by so
many leaders and media organizations, by so many of us. Nevertheless, we must
admire Ferguson activists for putting a face to the issue and reacting in ways
that could not be ignored by the country, by us. We had to come face to face
with it. Where that takes us? I don’t know. But at least it exists in our minds
now, and with it, an obligation to not paint the violence and resistance of
Ferguson as backward or regressive, but as something much more profound in the
making. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">#BlackLivesMatter<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Critique
is resistance; Resistance is Revolution” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"> -<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="background: white; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #1c2021; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">L'lerrét Jazelle
Ailith</span> (Black TransGender Activist) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08581037745519465607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9019832309191771998.post-22402767654424904202014-07-25T23:22:00.001-07:002014-07-25T23:36:44.388-07:00Race on Race: a reflection of my error in using the African American experience...<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WeBFlTlDIMU/U9NAI3uW_pI/AAAAAAAAAYM/w4ZbVAruO_g/s1600/hmpr_ourwedding.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WeBFlTlDIMU/U9NAI3uW_pI/AAAAAAAAAYM/w4ZbVAruO_g/s1600/hmpr_ourwedding.jpg" height="320" width="216" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Race relations are complicated even <br />
between groups of color.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Talking
about race, let alone presenting on it at a higher education conference, is a
complicated and perpetual learning process. I don’t believe there is ever
really a solid outcome to the journey. I think it continues throughout the
entirety of our lives as our consciousness of it becomes more prevalent. I
wanted to preface this piece with the understanding of such intricacy, yet it
doesn’t excuse what I’m about to say. I made a mistake. I assumed, and I was
not prepared. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">A
White former co-worker/friend and I presented on a theoretical framework I had
been developing on the disruption of the normalizing tendency of Whiteness in
traditional spaces of student leadership; in other words, a framework that
could be applied to leadership offices in universities and colleges that would
promote and sustain the desire for diversity and implement policy and practices
to install it. Every presentation in Utah was a success with counselors being
motivated to follow the framework according to their context and apply it with
local educational institutions. In other words, it was a success! </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Here
we are in Chicago where the diversity of higher ed professionals is nothing
like Utah. NOTHING! We are surrounded by Black, Asian, and Latino professionals
everywhere. Our session was packed, over-packed! We began our presentation and
followed it smoothly. People laughed, people took notes, they nodded, they
smiled…etc. We broke our audience up into groups and had them dialogue using
the worksheet we gave them and that too was a success. Afterwards, a number of
people, Black, Brown, and White, came up to us and congratulated and thanked us
for the presentation. It was awesome, and our heads were in the clouds…but like
all powerful moments, a humbling is in order to bring balance—opposition in all
things is some real shit. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">A
lady came afterwards later on and asked to speak with us for a minute. And
being the already lofty sprits we were, we decided to welcome yet another round
of compliments. Her demeanor was gentle but authoritative and she asked us, “I
wanted to know why you used that clip in the beginning?” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">This
is where it hit me…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The
clip was from the beginning scenes of The Butler. A film about a young
African-American who served as a butler in the White House from the early years
of Jim Crow to the election of Barack Obama. The film tracks the journey of the
racial discourse through each era of race relations. The beginning scenes are
set in a sharecropping farm with a cruel White master and his slaves working.
The master grabs the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>mother of the
child-version of the butler and rapes her in a wooden shed where only the noise
is heard. He then walks out amongst his slaves where the father of the butler
protests and is shot in the head. No blood is shown, but the scene is still a
disturbing one—I get it, why would I show such a thing in a professional
conference?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Our
intention was to magnify the power of context and experiential learning in the
process of how one carries out their lives. The butler had always been hesitant
of the civil rights and Black power movements, but at the end—which we showed
as well—it depicted him joining his son at a protest for Nelson Mandela,
something quite powerful as the butler engaged a new form of resistance and
came to a much broader and radical consciousness. I shared with this woman—who
was also Black—and she said she understood, but did not appreciate the clip and
was upset that we showed it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The
romantic idealization of me as an awesome trainer on diversity in education,
was broken…and my pride laid there in shambles—that’s what too much praise will
do to you—and with a humbled heart, I began to listen. </span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-V0a-C-5toms/U9NAFaKJ1YI/AAAAAAAAAYE/5AVjyLQZET8/s1600/9781403965684.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-V0a-C-5toms/U9NAFaKJ1YI/AAAAAAAAAYE/5AVjyLQZET8/s1600/9781403965684.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sometimes I think this phrase is<br />
appropriate and other times<br />
I don't. It's problematic, that's for<br />
sure...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">She
said that we could not understand her feelings because we were not Black
ourselves, nor of the African American experience. She is completely right. She
mentioned that those kinds of images, that kind of tone and feeling that the
film presented, shares a dark moment in history, something not to be exploited
for a training on diversity where it will most likely not be truly understood
or talked about; it needed deconstruction and a libratory dialogue where
emotions could be dealt with and history contemplated, not overlooked. It’s
horror is sometimes too much, because in some places things like this have not
stopped. Nor has it’s racist attitude diminished, it has simply transformed
into another vehicle—i.e. the prison system.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">She
ended her words with, “I hope you take this in the way that I’m telling this to
you,” which was an incredibly gentle and soft manner, not angry just
disappointed and somewhat sad. “Completely,” I responded, “and thank you, thank
you so much for saying this, for having the courage to approach us and offer
your words, thank you so much. I am learning, I think we all are, and your
words will never be forgotten.” She smiled and I could only be disgusted with
myself. Yes it was only her opinion, but I began to remember how a few of the
older Black audience members also left after the clip and I could only regret
showing the clip in the first place, regardless of my intention. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">She
mentioned the age difference, because a lot of the younger, not all, just some,
Black professionals talked with us afterwards and applauded our presentation.
Sometimes generational experiences differ, and sometimes they don’t, but that
really isn’t important because I’m sure there were younger Black audience
members that felt the same way. </span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SUrRu-i9Nuc/U9NCT9w6hOI/AAAAAAAAAYo/5q9m6LyscP0/s1600/dominican-republic-haitian-e1380306639666-300x200.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SUrRu-i9Nuc/U9NCT9w6hOI/AAAAAAAAAYo/5q9m6LyscP0/s1600/dominican-republic-haitian-e1380306639666-300x200.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The perfect example of the contradiction and tension of <br />
race within the Latino umbrella. The young man is holding<br />
a sign that says "I am Dominican too" in protest of the D.R.'s <br />
new immigration policy on the deportation and stripping<br />
of citizenship of anyone with Haitian ancestry. Global critique<br />
has looked at this as a race-based issue against Black people<br />
in the Dominican Republic. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">She
also said that we COULDN’T show such a scene in this context because we weren’t
Black. Some people might get offended at this or become really defensive. I am
not one of those people and I didn’t feel that way at all. I agreed with her. It
is insanely problematic to show such images and continue with my presentation
as if it did not affect me. OF COURSE IT AFFECTED HER! THIS HAPPENED TO HER
PEOPLE FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS! She wasn’t just seeing a fake scene of a Black
actor get shot in the head, she was RELIVING that same oppression and violence! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">I
cannot speak to the African-American experience and because of that I do not
have a racialized knowledge about how to approach these things, and I typically
do not have the right (the Black experience in my opinion is different than the
African American experience because the term Black would include the Diaspora
at large which includes many Afro descended identities and the many contexts
that accompany them; the African American experience is a tragically unique
experience in the history of race relations, Dominicans and Afro Brazilians may
not be able to relate exactly but can adopt their racial politics). Because I
cannot speak to the Black or African American experience—<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">and this is important now so read carefully</b>—I have to notice their
racial realities are practically unknown to me and that I can pass through
society without ever acknowledging their truths, and be perfectly fine. </span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-R6SsRuxQNWc/U9NAMleIIcI/AAAAAAAAAYc/9pMGj3nSAuQ/s1600/imagesMZCDZNAA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-R6SsRuxQNWc/U9NAMleIIcI/AAAAAAAAAYc/9pMGj3nSAuQ/s1600/imagesMZCDZNAA.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another moment of tension. Many Latinos offered <br />
their voting power to President Obama in<br />
support of immigration reform that supported <br />
undocumented immigrants. Instead, his administration<br />
is accused of record-high deportations, the<br />
highest in decades.<br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">In
some ways, I can pass for White—an Eastern European White, Italian or Greek…etc.
This helps me and grants me a certain level of privilege in society—not a lot
but enough to get by. That privilege allows me to ignore any Black reality and
still get ahead in society; like completely disregard it, and be just fine in
the end. That’s the problem. I’ll go so far as to say that a lot of us Mesti@
Latinos ought to follow caution in this regard. We as a group, stand in danger of
homogenizing the hybrid in our racial nature and having that become a dominant
narrative, alienating both the Black and Indigenous experience—Rosa Clemente’s
One-Third argument. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you don’t believe
it? Look at how many college campuses would rather focus on engaging the “Latino”
population versus any of the other groups of color. This silences the
narratives of too many of our brothers and sisters of color; these are narratives
that may not have the population numbers to back them up in a board room
discussing outreach and cost effectiveness. But we are not an investment,
especially for or by any institution! This kind of discourse takes away from
any attempt at solidarity, coalition or decolonization. They pit us against
each other; divide us and leave the scraps for us to fight over them. These are
distractions, and they are deadly ones if we are ever to be honest with each
other about race relations in the U.S.. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5_p5aggNe5Q/U9NAMtdGHrI/AAAAAAAAAYY/EguuChJWia8/s1600/tumblr_m3f6e35j9u1rrl8lpo1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5_p5aggNe5Q/U9NAMtdGHrI/AAAAAAAAAYY/EguuChJWia8/s1600/tumblr_m3f6e35j9u1rrl8lpo1_500.jpg" height="320" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What many people don't realize is that<br />
there are many moments in U.S. history<br />
where Black and Brown communities<br />
resisted together in solidarity. As early<br />
as European contact, African and<br />
Indigenous peoples set up rebellions <br />
and even created their own communities.<br />
During the Black and Brown Power<br />
Movements, Brown Berets and Black<br />
Panthers often worked together.<br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">I
will never forget her words. They made me reflect my privilege in a very profound
way. I never like to say which group has it harder, but I think it’s important
for us to check and challenge the way EACH of us thinks about each other. If
she showed a film clip about violence perpetuated on a Latin American
immigrant, I would get upset as well. There are certain things that we ought to
think about before we act, and every process we encounter ought to be cognizant
of the many oppressed realities that exist within our context. To avoid or discount
them, is to participate in the erasure and exploitation of a group narrative.
Talking about race and ethnicity is a difficult and complex process. It is a
world filled with intersections across race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality.
There is no easy way. It wasn’t meant to be. It was meant to act as a dividing force
and to unlearn our colonization is hard, but doable. So continue challenging
yourself. Continue learning and unlearning. Continue to listen, and take
criticism when it’s given with love and with the intent to teach and share
knowledge. Continue to resist mainstream ways of thinking; they will enslave
you. Continue to make mistakes and continue to endure. The path to peace is a
complex one as well as ongoing, but it is truly worthwhile and beautiful in the
end. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Always Learning Truths,</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">TINO</span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08581037745519465607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9019832309191771998.post-20410273061521652002014-07-05T23:51:00.003-07:002014-12-20T07:21:11.083-08:00Chicano NewYorquino & the Rise of OtHeR SeLvEs in our "Latino" Community<div class="MsoNormal">
Identifying as Chicano is a choice, and one that has
produced a sense of homeland, despite my not being of Mexican descent. I am the
son of Honduran and Ecuadorian parents. What that exactly means? I honestly
have no idea. I love pupusas and have learned about a regional Honduran
context, local Garifuna and Maya histories, and not too much more from my
Ecuadorian side except that we run off of Spanish bloodlines and a Nacza
lineage—mind you this is powerful in itself, but I just didn’t feel connected.
Not much more to it, although there could be I’m sure if I took the time. But I
found something else that spoke to my struggle, that adopted me and rooted me
in something, in somewhere. I am Chicano…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However according to mainstream Chican@ discourse being born
of Centro and Sur American parents and raised under Caribbean urban influences
in the East coast, really doesn’t qualify entry to the Southwestern borderland
identity—I got to bleed Mexico in some fashion or another apparently. Whenever asked
what I am or what I identify as, I mention my parents then that I identify as
Chicano, but I’m scrutinized carefully and then told I can’t because I’m not a
Mexican born and raised here. Whatever…fragmented, I guess is the best way to
describe myself. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Fl2OJW_Tvmk/U7jtFy9kIpI/AAAAAAAAAWY/cue6oAZsgkI/s1600/Untitled.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Fl2OJW_Tvmk/U7jtFy9kIpI/AAAAAAAAAWY/cue6oAZsgkI/s1600/Untitled.jpg" height="148" width="200" /></a>I came from one of the most diverse cities in the states,
yet I felt that I could not classify myself. The term Latino proved to be
hollow in defining who I was. I did not speak Spanish well, and Latinos from
Latin America all called me Gringo. In other words, I was rejected. I could not
claim their identity, nor their space, because I was not of them. Gringos/White
people did not claim me either. White people would ask me where I was from, I
stated NY but then they responded jokingly, “No, like where are you really
from.” As if who I was had to be construed as foreign. Why did I have to be a
stranger to this country?<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YQprbbg9bu0/U7jxe7lwkOI/AAAAAAAAAXY/9QeigjR5oM8/s1600/soledad+o'brien+latino+in+america+cnn.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YQprbbg9bu0/U7jxe7lwkOI/AAAAAAAAAXY/9QeigjR5oM8/s1600/soledad+o'brien+latino+in+america+cnn.JPG" height="200" width="149" /></a>I came in contact with the term Chicano in Utah through a
book by Soledad O’Brian. Soledad described her experience as a journey webbed in
social identities and opposing messages. She needed a label, but was surrounded
by categories that had vied for her attention and fought for ownership. For the
first time ever, I felt I had read something that spoke to what I was feeling,
to what I felt haunted me my whole life—I believe Soledad had one hell of a
journey too because her parents were Irish and Afro Cuban. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After Soledad I pick up on the term Chicano when I met other
Latinos—specifically Mexican-American—who were not from Mexico but purposely
re-identified themselves as from neither here nor there. I was amazed. This is
what I felt, and they called themselves Chicanos. They seemed at peace with
themselves, regardless of how often they defended their titles against Latin
Americans. I began to search myself. Chicano authors like Corky Gonzalez,
Sandra Cisneros and Rudolfo Anaya began to fill the void that broke me,
fragmented me, and in their words I felt whole. In their words I discovered the
middle ground, the separation of worlds and merging of perspectives, of
occupying a mental state that was only intensified by a real-time geography
experience.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-A7RkwA6UiLU/U7jxc15xG0I/AAAAAAAAAXQ/YsIQNlthNEM/s1600/book-borderlands1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-A7RkwA6UiLU/U7jxc15xG0I/AAAAAAAAAXQ/YsIQNlthNEM/s1600/book-borderlands1.jpg" height="200" width="129" /></a></div>
I finally picked up Anzaldua—a Chican@ must-read—and never
had someone’s words stimulate both body and spirit. Her writing was beckoning
me to come home. Where? That was the thing, it wasn’t a real place I had to
choose from; it was a space I could dictate and define according to my terms.
The Borderlands. Anzaldua touched my heart and fulfilled me: <span style="background: white; color: #181818; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Until I am free to write bilingually and to switch
codes without having always to translate, while I still have to speak English
or Spanish when I would rather speak Spanglish, and as long as I have to
accommodate the English speakers rather than having them accommodate me, my
tongue will be illegitimate. I will no longer be made to feel ashamed of
existing. I will have my voice: Indian, Spanish, white. I will have my
serpent's tongue - my woman's voice, my sexual voice, my poet's voice. I will
overcome the tradition of silence…I want the freedom to carve and chisel my own
face, to staunch the bleeding with ashes, to fashion my own gods out of my
entrails...” </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In mentioning Anzaluda, I have to be honest in that her
literature very much represents the intersecting nuances of gender and
sexuality at the same time as race. To withhold that information would fall on
account of my privilege as male, and heterosexuality as a normative feature of
society. Yet these additive features to identity—although I could not relate to
and rightfully so—taught me so much more of the intricacy within the social
constructs of self, and the power in disrupting categories by naming your own
spaces. At the time, this was my gospel. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So I decided that I identify as Chicano. Why not? If race
and identity is socially constructed, who are you to tell me where I belong and
to who? The difficulty now is helping other Chicanos—specically
Mexican-American Chicanos—come to terms with the fact that I too can identify
as Chicano. Sadly, most Latinos and Chicanos have a very misunderstood and
lacking conception of the term itself. Welcome to colonial imperialism 101. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Historically Chicano derives from the transculturation of
Spanish and Indigenous language in Central Mexico originating in the conquest.
One version contests that the origin of the term grew from the evolution of
language in which Mestizos or Indigenous Mexicans came to be known as
considering the real pronunciation of the Azteca people—the Mexica (the X being
pronounced as a “sh” or “ch”). So one argument is the resulting cocktail of
language that is used as a derogatory term to affiliate individuals who could
not exactly adopt both worlds (Indigenous or European) or those who lived in
the Northern lands till Mexico and the Western half of the United States were
coerced as an imperialist strategy. This is one version and there are many. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kPJ3o_Eh1JI/U7jt8sqKsuI/AAAAAAAAAWo/odbZdL6lgL4/s1600/picture1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kPJ3o_Eh1JI/U7jt8sqKsuI/AAAAAAAAAWo/odbZdL6lgL4/s1600/picture1.jpg" height="130" width="200" /></a>But as we soak in the literature of the Chicano movement
from the Civil Rights era and look at the anti-colonial aspect of what it’s
formed into—a very anti-assimilationist project—we see resistance as a
prevailing theme for what Chican@ truly signifies. Yes it might be a creative
exchange of Spanish and Indigenous languages, but it is also the
re-appropriation of resistance for a group who really had/has no home. It
demands self-determination and representation. It seeks voice. That’s why the
term speaks to me. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But what about the African or Black experience of Latin America? Does
my identity not encompass that portion? Culturally? Racially? Yes. It
does.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Honduras and Ecuador are home to Afro-Latino demographics
and to deny them as part of my reality would be disappearing them from a larger
framework—this is how an entire people fade; their stories are never told.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Neither is this process new. Just like the
Indigenous struggle of identity and representation, the members of the African
diaspora in Latin America face an equally oppressive challenge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one wants to identify as Black…Colonialism
part II—Mexico also had 4X as many African slaves delivered to their shores
than the United States, FOUR TIMES as many, which suggests Mexico is just as
much Black as it is Indigenous or European (you see, entire histories
disappear)…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jNzEHfklOXY/U7js1KFLyeI/AAAAAAAAAWQ/DGEWCwKI66c/s1600/408408_489129307773304_1407448267_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jNzEHfklOXY/U7js1KFLyeI/AAAAAAAAAWQ/DGEWCwKI66c/s1600/408408_489129307773304_1407448267_n.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mad love and respect to Juan Ernesto<br />
(Tan shirt on the right) who passed<br />
away. You're still in our memories<br />
hermano...Rest in power...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I identify as Chicano but I can’t dissolve the Black experience
of my identity, of the afros my dad’s side of the family dons naturally, of the
cultural and racial salience my wife adds to the mix from the Dominican
Republic, and the fact that my personal and familial community is now very Afro
Latino. All of this adds to a complicated discourse on identity. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nevertheless, as I seek to untangle and not fragment, but
keep whole, I come to realize that there is true danger in the complexity that
I’ve arrived at. Rose Clemente critiques the neutrality of the 1/3 argument,
which is so contagious in the Caribbean—I am 1/3 Indigenous, 1/3 African, and
1/3 European. Contradictory to its own nature, hybridity results in the
dominance and expression of ones identity, the colonizers’. This hides the
racialized component of systemic oppression in one body. They will not see
three in one, but only one; and it will be the most European, the most Western,
the most White, and the most male. Politically this is a disadvantage. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Therefore, I identify as Chicano as a politically empowered
front, but I take it a step further than that. I do what Junot Diaz does, I
carry from the Caribbean and I introduce my other hidden selves by challenge
through creation. I add my home geography because place and space are critical
in this development, and I contribute with a contextualized Black experience of
the Afro Caribbean. In other words, I arrive at my own etymology, my own
conception of the borderlands and ocean gulfs: I am Chicano Newyorquino.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Jl5s9Q81vcM/U7jw3vgglWI/AAAAAAAAAXA/oFljxT1gdjg/s1600/Watchtower-squibb-buildings-brooklyn-bridge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Jl5s9Q81vcM/U7jw3vgglWI/AAAAAAAAAXA/oFljxT1gdjg/s1600/Watchtower-squibb-buildings-brooklyn-bridge.jpg" height="135" width="200" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HgveBK_TriU/U7jstl8JPuI/AAAAAAAAAWA/UGVV63Jd6-Y/s1600/1006404_10153052868360727_1258241027_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HgveBK_TriU/U7jstl8JPuI/AAAAAAAAAWA/UGVV63Jd6-Y/s1600/1006404_10153052868360727_1258241027_o.jpg" height="200" width="200" /></a>So let me make myself whole again, let me reintroduce the
assorted voices into my one body, and by extension the knowledge I wish to
share with my son one day. I’ve created the Chicano Newyorquino to withdraw
from a Western categorization and deliver an alternative, something that speaks
to my racial politics of adopting Atzlan as homeland, of resistance as dance
and Santeria, of occupying, of disrupting, of transcending, of loving because
my Brooklyn experience is all of this!…BUT…I say this with the understanding
that a radical racial politics must also arrive for Centro Americano identities
and Sur Americano bodies, LIKE ME! We can’t leave these folks hanging and
expect that our alternative discourses naturally fit them or just plain old
exclude them; yet they will have to define the parameters of their own
philosophy—no one else should. It will be an in-depth and long project of race
and decolonization. It begins ,and should be encouraged—not stifled—by all of
us. In fact, it is beginning though with the heavy entrance of Central American
youth into the United States from the frontera. People are beginning to realize
that countries like Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras actually exist! <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qBrvpGn0Qb8/U7jvdON_vwI/AAAAAAAAAW4/le8wb5SEXW4/s1600/164845_181013925271754_6181246_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qBrvpGn0Qb8/U7jvdON_vwI/AAAAAAAAAW4/le8wb5SEXW4/s1600/164845_181013925271754_6181246_n.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a>We as the mixed bodies of Latino parents now have an
obligation to set up new spaces and disrupt current categories that would seek
to label us. We must find the power to name ourselves and self-determine our
bodies. If we feel like we fit into a current discourse, then let’s disrupt
that shit! No one else should be doing this for us; not Chican@’s, not
Boriquas, ni los Dominicanos, or other “Latinos”, and especially not White
people. We must find a new means of existing and knowing—that we can do such a
thing and in no one else’s shadow—or we risk our own narratives, and in the process…ourselves.<br />
<br />
Tino</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i>
<i>Note: I apologize for not adding references. If you'd like to know them please email me at Tinouvu@gmail.com </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>I also feel that I did not explain enough about why we need a radical racial politics, why it's even necessary at all. Nor did I feel I provided a well enough application for Chicano to me. I hope you can forgive, but I just hashed it out and needed it out ASAP. One more thing, I want to acknowledge that my Honduran and Ecuadorean heritage have not disappeared. It's something I wish to search out better and understand more of. But I'd like to do this process with my son, and not by myself one day...</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></div>
<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08581037745519465607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9019832309191771998.post-72823027611364085702014-06-22T11:08:00.001-07:002014-06-22T11:13:11.420-07:00The Welcoming and Betrayal of a Post Racial Society - Opposite or Same Gender Attraction & Racism...<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ll start by making a somewhat satirical statement about
race in our current society: I hereby classify this suggested post-racial society
as “Color-blind”; that not one of us sees color, or at least we shouldn’t. WE
are all human beings. I do not see a person for their race; therefore, I see
them as a PERSON. Right…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is accurate in that one may see another as a person. Of
course. But something else is completely inaccurate in this statement and it is
that one does not notice the race of another specific individual, or shouldn’t.
In reality, a person is not seen, rather a person of COLOR is always
acknowledged; whether you like to or not, this always happens. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The truth is that race is a vivid and explicit theme, you
will see race because you cannot avoid it, again whether you like to or not.
After race is registered into the mental faculties it is then processed and
channeled through to realize and express specific emotions or feelings about
ones race through a filtering of the discourses or messages that society has
carefully installed into you to address other messages about a racial character.
In other words, society will tell you what to think about ones race when you
see someone who is of a non-white race—how to react to them, how to treat them,
what to say to them…etc…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To be honest with you, it’s because white is normal. It’s
okay. In fact, it’s so AWESOME that people all around the globe strive to be
white—please note the sarcasm because that’s important. Parents all over the
globe are overjoyed when their son or daughter has “advanced the race” by
breeding with a white person, because their grand-babies receive those
‘AWESOMELY’ normal but highly prized attributes: blue or green eyes, blonde
STRAIGHT—hair if you’re lucky—and that awesome white, but not pale skin. If
not, well then you’re the Black sheep…literally. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You may think otherwise. It’s okay. For you, especially if you’re
white, you’re thinking I—me the author—am dwelling on the past. I’m picking a
fight or advancing a reverse racist cause with no real purpose, just to receive
reaction and looking for an argument that has no merit because us ‘colored folk’
receive all the benefits of today anyway. Sometimes I wish you were right, but
none of this is even close to true. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Firstly, the fact that you’re upset and want, no…NEED, to
challenge this only indicates what I state, white is normalized and you can’t
help but claim that such is not true because I’m being RACIST, and because
there is no such thing as race…dang it, we are all humans and why don’t I just
look at the world that way! <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I can admit to carrying racist prejudices, that’s because we
all do. I’m not being racist to you—if you’re white—because this one individual
act does not account for a system-wide approach that pins an entire people down
that are not white. This is called racism. There’s a bigger picture involved. You
also probably think that race does not, should not exist, or be a factor in
this conversation…but the fact that you’re upset implies the contrary. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You can’t help but challenge what I’m telling you, that
whiteness is normalized, because all of a sudden you’re not normal anymore!
You’re different…? (drag that out…and then pause)… <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
----</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ll ask several of my white straight guy friends or white Lesbian friends,
about a woman we see passing by or hanging out at certain spot. Why have I
pointed her out? She’s attractive, and I’m inquiring about whether or not the
person I’m with agrees--mind you, most of these people believe that we have superseded race in America or feel that they are not racist at all. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What does this have to
do with anything I’m writing about? Everything…<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So I inquire, and oftentimes to my personal shock—but mostly
not really—they’ll totally disagree or act disgusted and say: “I’m not about
Asian girls…Black girls…Hispanic girls...Poly girls…” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Really…?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Hold up. Do you see what just happened? Rewind. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is no such thing as race right? And if there’s no such
thing as race, we don’t necessarily judge because of race or we shouldn’t
because that’s wrong? We don’t turn away or permit entry into our circle of love based on race? Particularly
in relationships to each other?...Right?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So why would a non-white girl not be your “thing”? Why can't I
just look at a woman for her beauty and simply be attracted to her regardless
for her race? Better yet, because I believe in and acknowledge race, I notice
that there is a contextually designed beauty to every female body of every race
and I consider that in my account of what makes someone attractive. Therefore I
find many different women from many different races to be beautiful, because
they do not have to LOOK white or carry caucasian features to be considered
attractive. They’re gorgeous in their own right. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
BY THE WAY...</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Just to be clear, the same thing happens when you flip gender roles. The same occurs with the various interpretations of sexuality and who someone would be attracted to. It becomes complicated with gender and sexuality and really needs more discussion by itself, but I won't stress because I'm speaking to a particular experience; nevertheless, those issues do need attention as well... </i> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My friends who say these things are not outright racists. In
fact, it’s hard to kind of find hardcore racists nowadays. There just average
people leading average lives. Good folks actually. This doesn’t change their
racism. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have literally dated a girl from every race and ethnicity,
and each one I have found beautiful according to my appreciation of beauty
within a racialized context. I didn’t like a Black girl because she looked
white, light-skinned or portrayed white facial bone structures. I liked her
because she was Black; because there’s a lot more to Black besides the amount
of melanin contained in your dermis (layers of skin), because there is
something incredibly rich and fresh in Black skin, kinky hair or full lips. I
won’t go into detail for each racial group because it’s unnecessary. I’ll leave
your hopeful appreciation of diversity to the rest. By the way, this doesn’t
mean that white isn’t beautiful, because it very much is—that’s been
normalized—but so is everything else!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the end, I married a beautiful Afro Latina who I would
say looks Mulatta (mix between White and Black) but carries mostly Black
African physical and cultural attributes. Yes I was attracted to her
physically, but I was also attracted to the cultural aspect of who she was. I
envied her strength as a Black woman; I saw power in the knowledge she could
pass down to our children; I loved the way she danced to our Spanish and Yoruba
songs, and most importantly, her body drove me nuts! But I love her! And of
course I love her as a human being—I didn’t marry some quadruped creature—but I
am willing to acknowledge her race as beautiful, because there is something
very humane about it. Humanity is the assorted races that exist. It is replete
with the color-tones and phenotypic features that we have all limited ourselves
to in the name of a social categorization that lacks justification in our
society and much less within our mind-frames. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Why am I writing this? Because by acknowledging and coming
to terms with race, even whiteness—as a normalized discourse (societal
message/condition)—we are stepping in the right direction. We aren’t hiding
behind the elephant in the corner. The more vulnerable we are with racialized
constructs, then the more honest we can be with each other. If you don’t think
someone is attractive based on your racialized beauty scale, that’s okay. I
don’t like it, and I think you’re limiting yourself in the most insane way, but
it’s okay, as long as you can equally accept that race is real, that color
matters, and that quite frankly, you might be racist because of your judgment.
It’s okay. Again, you’ve been pretty much molded from birth about what to think
about a specific kind of person and their racial group. Your job now, would be
to unlearn these racist tendencies and adopt alternative ways of understanding
race. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-T5iXj_XlVts/U6cbRcakRaI/AAAAAAAAAVM/Ye0XdPUu1RE/s1600/Woman_to_Woman_Peace_House_Group_thumb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-T5iXj_XlVts/U6cbRcakRaI/AAAAAAAAAVM/Ye0XdPUu1RE/s1600/Woman_to_Woman_Peace_House_Group_thumb.jpg" height="320" width="260" /></a>Open your eyes concerning beauty among the various racial
and ethnic groups that exist, and do not dwell on something that’s been
appropriated to be non-white and beautiful but is actually emulating White
facial or racial features to be deemed as attractive. I’m talking about an
actual racialized conception of beauty, something contextual yet applicable to
all humanity. Understanding this actually places us in the route where an
honest and authentic post-racial society can exist; where we don’t judge the
potential for relationships and love based on ill-manifested racialized
conditions. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, I truthfully don’t believe that such a society, a
post-racial one where we all get along happily regardless of what color or race
we are/identify as, would actually be possible. Western society just isn’t
manufactured that way. It never has been, nor will it ever be. There are too
many powerful stakeholders that would do anything to make sure that such would never
happen; even if the majority of the population were to be of color, or so mixed
that you couldn’t even tell. A powerful and racist minority is still very
possible, and in some ways that’s already present today. This message, if you
even want to call it that, isn’t just for white people, it’s also for our
communities of color in the effort that they shed colonial prejudices and begin
to adopt a new lens to their own racial identities, their own beauty; because
if you cannot begin with a positive manifestation of a self-beauty then nothing
else survives unless it is what mainstream thought tells you, that white-only
is beautiful. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So look at yourself. Look at others. Look at race, and look
at races. Notice carefully. Never be deficit, especially to a group that is not
your own, and watch and learn. Understand that race is real. That it will never
go away; and at the same time, confront the fact that you might not like
someone based upon their race, and that it is racist. Accept it. Own it. Then
challenge it. Work around it. Open yourself up. Be vulnerable and let the world
share itself with you. You’ll find that there is much you didn’t know, much you
now know and much you will know. Always be safe and always appreciate, never
hate…Peace <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(ii: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">In this piece I
use the word You or We, sometimes I, a lot. I leave it up to the reader but when I write “You” I generally am referring to a white person or someone of
color who identifies with whiteness. “We” being people of color or all of
humanity, and “I” being me, the author.)<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08581037745519465607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9019832309191771998.post-59931667796594931612014-06-09T12:24:00.003-07:002014-06-10T08:54:50.081-07:00To Speak Spanish or Not…? An Argument between two Non-Native Speakers<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When my parents came over, I wasn’t expecting for the
following to ensue: my pops<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>and wife
to be arguing over what language ought to be spoken in OUR home, and taught to
Luca, OUR son, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">nuestro hijo</i>. At first
the visit was typical. My <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mamita </i>dropping
off food and the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">abuelos </i>getting to
know their grandson. Typical. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
But my dad said something in English to his grandson, and my
wife responded jokingly, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">en este casa,
hablamos espanol! Jaja, Luca no entiende ingles </i>[in this house we speak
Spanish! Luca doesn’t understand English]. We [my <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mamita</i> and I] laughed. My dad with a smile responded, “Yina, you
know when Tino was 5 or 6 years old his teacher came to us and yelled at us
because he didn’t speak any English. She said, ‘Mr. Diaz do you know where your
boy is heading if he doesn’t learn English? Nowhere!’ I believe she was right.
It would have been confusing for him. I didn’t want him growing up with an
accent. I didn’t want him being discriminated. I didn’t want people hating him
because of how he sounded. She was Puerto Rican too.” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mamita</i> adds, “Peor que sea Latina tambien” [she just had to be
Latina too]—my Mom was always opposed to and never followed our English-only household policy. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Instantly, my wife and father go at it--when I say go at it, I mean the culturally relevant notion that WE as Caribbean Latinos associate the meaning of an argument, LOUD but not angry, and if angry not that Western kinda' angry. My father defends his nativist strategy for survival on behalf of his two-generations down posterity; my wife, responding with her own ESL experiences and unloading about 4 semesters worth of graduate work with English Language Learner research and study. The point that struck me in their
argument, with my <i>mamita </i>in the
corner spurring on my wife and shouting a “Si” and “Mira,” backing my wife up,
was when my wife said “And look at your son, a man who looks Latino but can’t
speak like one. A man who wishes more than anything to communicate with his own
people, but feels like he can’t!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
It stunned me… <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There was a moment of silence before they further explored
the many-nuanced subject of language acquisition and identity. She was so right
that it hurt. It wasn’t intentional, of course. It was more out of love than
accusation; more out of experiential warning than blame. It was the love of a
parent and spouse that understood the past injustice of language and racism,
nativism and education, and wanted her son equipped for these same struggles,
not ill-prepared. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
I supported my wife on this one. I had to. It isn’t just
that traditional spousal agreement that we non-verbally consent to—to back up
each other’s debates. But what she said hurt because it was true. Language for
me had always been an issue. I never truly felt “Latino” because I never spoke
like a “Latino,” I never spoke Spanish. When I was/am given the opportunity to
speak I usually freeze up. I get nervous. My words leave or I stutter, and words
repeat themselves in 3 to 7 cycles. As I talk, these same words feel like
weights, each pronunciation like a 45 lb. steel-plate dampening the chords of my identity. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m somewhat good now, pretty good. What did it take? A lot
of listening and shame-filled practice. It’s all good. It had to be that way.
It used to make me so angry—still does—whenever Mormon missionaries at the
Spanish congregations in Church I’d attend scoff when I would respond in
English to them. They said, “Haha, hermano solamente hablamos espanol aqui.”
“Screw you” I used to think. Screw all of you. Whiteboys that think they know
my own language better than I do—but they did, and that’s the hard part—and
comfortable, sometimes in jest when they err with<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>no critique: “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Elder, esta bien” </i>they would all say, comforting the Elder or
Sister missionary that made a mistake,<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> “aprender
otro idioma es dificil.” </i>When I make a mistake, in my own language critiqued
by my own community, I am the welcomed recipient of perplexed looks and
sympathetic but poetically disguised pats on the shoulder. No words.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-94ZBR-FgRUY/U5YJsyptXcI/AAAAAAAAAU8/bkfpX2Iph70/s1600/545471_165778646889201_206210747_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-94ZBR-FgRUY/U5YJsyptXcI/AAAAAAAAAU8/bkfpX2Iph70/s1600/545471_165778646889201_206210747_n.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a><o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But you have to understand the position my dad comes from.
You see there’s a context to why he feels the Uncle Tom way he does. My <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mamita </i>came to this country in her early
20’s. My dad came in the beginning of his high school years to Brooklyn, NY
from La Ceiba, Honduras. In high school he was surrounded by young Black and
Puerto Rican bodies that did not speak Spanish and that terrorized him because
that was all he knew. His <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">barrio </i>slaughtered
him. Roughed him up and created that tiny stick of terror that I now know as
Dad. Homie, literally grew up in the school of Hardknocks and graduated. My mom
once told me about a group of Italian dudes that chased him all the way home
screaming racial slurs because they heard him talking on the phone as he walked
back from work, I was at home and barely born. So I understood why he said
these things, why he believed them. There was context and I can’t hide or
ignore that. It’s often the reason why our people—and I use the term “OUR”
loosely because I don’t believe in essentialized configurations—are wedged in
colonial constructs that create a kind of lateral oppression. Get me right, I
don’t agree with my dad—not at all—but I understand given his narrative, weighted
around with context. We need to remember this. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the end, my wife is right and so is my dad. It’s complicated
right? How about this: My wife has a great understanding and foresight about
where language and identity need to become addressed for the future, she sees a
position for language and identity in social justice (in the home), and my Dad
displays a context for what has occurred in the past and where we can start to
deconstruct and decolonize, he represents the background of society along with
its intersecting layers of oppression. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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They both have much to contribute to the issue of language
and identity, oppression and society. I don’t look at my dad’s experience as
deficit, but as that of a young immigrant body seeking sense in a world that
alienated him. As for my wife, what more can I say except that she is the voice
of a future where families are no longer afraid to speak their native tongues
in their own spaces and harness the sustainability of their racial and cultural
legacies within their homes. Besides, she’s always right… <span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08581037745519465607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9019832309191771998.post-6030585523250532372014-05-19T22:44:00.003-07:002014-05-21T20:26:42.224-07:00Danza Azteca and Resistance? Rethinking challenges to dominance through dance.<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Not too long ago, I wrote about dance as resistance
and cultural exploitation in a Venceremos periodical in Salt
Lake City. I wrote about the current danger of folkloric and cultural dancing
as becoming entertainment and therefore assimilating into a commodity lacking context and intrinsic value. I’m writing today to
reevaluate my stance—this is for me personally—and providing an alternative
lens by which view to dance, resistance and appropriation. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5S1v1tQMJ00/U3rrYpBwsQI/AAAAAAAAASw/zMW0DrJjXJo/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-05-19+at+11.42.30+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5S1v1tQMJ00/U3rrYpBwsQI/AAAAAAAAASw/zMW0DrJjXJo/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-05-19+at+11.42.30+PM.png" height="306" width="400" /></a>There’s a group using Azteca dance
as a form of exercise while granting what they believe to be a shared cultural
experience. Activists and fellow Raza reacted in angst and frustration—do did
I—at the purchase of a dearly cherished identity into fitness; why are people
selling our traditions? Distorting the meaning of ancient belief into a
conditioning physical program that promises you to shed 50 lbs. or less in the-faster-than-average speed of a week! <span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Why are we giving our pearls to </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">swine? Why?
Then my question becomes, well why not...</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I do not suggest that there is no
risk of appropriation—particularly when the title of this article advocates for
the replacement of Zumba for Danca Azteca—that might very well happen. But what
I do see here is a chance to reintroduce an alternative-knowledge under an
evolved framework. As we continue our entry into a new century with innovative
strategies of community engagement, of adopting diverse but intersecting
struggles, of activism and the neoliberal agenda that constantly molds itself
to our activist response, we are left wondering whether or not our reactions
are reproductive to the nature of oppression or if they are authentic methods
of resistance. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I wrote the original article as a
warning to dance groups that such efforts were
oftentimes counter productive to what they were trying to achieve; that instead
of spreading cultural wealth, they were entertainers similar to Rome and her games. I feel this was unfair of me.<br />
The event that led to me making
such accusatory statements was a cultural night in an LDS chapel sponsored by
my Spanish-Speaking congregation. Families, children, and youth were dancing and I
was disgusted by how they all seemed so focused on performing versus the
context or narratives of such acts. Did they not know that these very dances
were based in resistance? To resist, to keep and preserve identity? But I
judged too harshly, because I’m sure they did know. They were aware. That
night, was their moment to lay claim to a White space. Their defiance to
Whiteness and class oppression, was their agency to dance how THEY wanted to
dance, WHERE they wanted to dance, and whatsoever they chose to dance. That
night, was their moment to shine, as a community, as one. That night they
danced to pass their knowledge onto their children. They danced to say we are
not foreigners for we are dancing our knowledges, our memories, right here on
what “you” claim is your ground. We belong. That was their resistance, by
solidifying their narrative in a space that is traditionally not theirs. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Then I think of the student groups
at UVU and BYU, Cultural Envoy and Living Legends, and aren’t they just
performing? Do half of them even know what they are dancing? Why they are
dancing it? Is there context? Is there blood…and memory? The truth? Some might
very well be lost in it; ignorant to what they are acting out and sold on the
merits of their “performance” as “culturally rich.” But tell that to a young
urban boy who grew up thinking that he was, as an identity, something so
foreign to the conceptualization of the American body. Share that animosity to the boy
who grew up with concrete and steel with nowhere to place roots because he felt he never had any.<br />
He was just Brown. Brown as Brown can be. So where his friends. They
never had a clue either. So when he saw those students dance in his
chapel—which was a sold out car mall in a decaying <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">barrio </i>of Brooklyn, NY—he saw something that he felt was missing his whole
life, he felt the hole filled. There was so much more to who he was than what
the concrete and steel had hammered into him his whole life. He saw the raw
appeal to ancestors; he never existed till that moment. It seemed alive to him.
That moment, he planted roots, and his journey began to find out who exactly he was. Is that moment not the product of resistance? A personal revolution
for a Brown body? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Umi Vaughan is a Afro Cuban artist
that came to Salt Lake City recently to present on his recently published book: Rebel Dance, Renegade Stance. His work exposes how Afro Cubans use dance to
maintain identity and preserve Blackness in an economy that can easily exploit
their heritage for the tourist dollar--this argument is also historical in nature.
He shares that there are many contradictions among these communities in terms
of dance and resistance, but these are their contradictions and no one else’s.
This is their struggle, something they must negotiate on their own without
interruption of outside forces because that’s where true violence lies.
Nevertheless, the outcome doesn’t change. Cuba is one of the few places where
the Yoruba religion exists in an entirely unadulterated form. That is
incredibly rare outside of Africa. They have managed to keep Africa within
their island, among their people. This has been done through dance. In other
words, dance is there resistance. Dance is Black.</div>
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I close by not voiding the article
Veneceremos published, but by challenging it. Too often we become so immersed
within our activist role that we often miss the small ways in which
marginalized communities create their own alternatives to resistance. We forget
that we too can become the oppressors to our communities. Cultural dance can
very much reproduce and enhance the tokenization and oppression of communities
of color, but it can also be a multifaceted and clandestine approach to
resistance. So how is Danza Azteca resistance? I don’t know, but the response
should be understood as complex and simultaneously impactful. It could very
well become the next Zumba, and if so, what if a new narrative develops around
fitness? Can our health not be cultural in its intuition? Can our people not
become the new face to healthy bodies through a re-immersion of ancient
dancing? Our Dancing!? Can this not be a new way, a more complex way to resist
and learn again what was taken from us? </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08581037745519465607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9019832309191771998.post-53623347442521710032014-05-13T21:30:00.001-07:002014-05-21T20:30:58.569-07:00A Mormon Liberation Theology - Mis Raizes Sin Papeles (My people without papers)<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My attendance at a Spanish-speaking Ward in Orem, UT coincided with the introduction of anti-immigration legislation in Arizona in the year 2010. At the same time, my involvement with the Dream Movement as an ally became a critical moment in my life as an activist and faithful member of the LDS faith. As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints, many of us viewed the potential of our own chapels as sites of local activism and resistance. Not only were these spaces filled with Latinos who often understood and empathized with the issue of justice for the undocumented community, but who could also be undocumented themselves. To say that we sought out Latinos in LDS Wards and Branches for recruitment and community support, is an understatement. We earnestly believed that our Mormon peers--whether they were of our own racial/ethnic grouping or not--would see eye-to-eye with our cause. After all, wouldn't the Savior want families to stay together and not be torn apart; and didn't we all believe in the access and support of education to all individuals residing within the walls of our nation? We believed we had a moral imperative that we could rally around. However, we were crushed when we found out that such wasn't the case. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Advocates among members of several congregations eventually joined. However, when it came to drawing that same support from the local leadership, we came up against a wall: "the house of The Lord does not host an opinion towards a political undertaking." Instead we were shunned--even from members of our own racial background. Turned down and seen as radical elements, we abandoned such efforts as the silence of what would happen to our paperless brothers and sisters went unabated in our Mormon spaces. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So we went a different direction. We looked to our cousins in the faith: the Catholic Diocese in Utah County. Instantly, we found a pipeline to working with the community. Not only had the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Padre</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> offered the chance for someone to make an announcement during </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Misa </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(Mass) but also had space made available in the lobby of the chapel where we could table and offer updates on immigration reform; alerting and recruiting, petition-signing and interacting. With our Mormon wards and branches, no such thing could be done. In some cases, many of us didn't even bother to ask--we became too afraid to do so. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Setting the tone, I would like to acknowledge the efforts of various members of our faith who pushed themselves unto the platform of immigration reform within our state and declared their faith as the holster by which they harnessed their immigrant activism. As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, we also felt that our faith added to our activism, that it provided the incentive and motivation to voice our sympathy, and simultaneously our anger, and declare that this was all very wrong. Something--someone--must act. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It wasn't just our racial or ethnic backgrounds that added to our compelling for action. It wasn't just the fact that many of us knew people or had family, or were even undocumented ourselves. It was our faith that stirred our hearts. It was our belief in the restored gospel, that a living Christ, would not condone what was occurring in political circles concerning immigration, nor would he have permitted a racist-nativism permeating among his followers. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What we could not understand, was the fact that in our own chapels, the realities of our members were being marginalized. That their voices were not given room. That their silence was normalized; and nothing was being done about it: treat the least of these my brethren…(Matthew 25) </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A context is needed to understand what I have previously expressed. In the cultural affairs of the church, along with the institutional frame that has been constructed, the church does not interfere with politics, nor does it welcome a political discourse within its walls. This explains the silence of immigration in our chapels as well as in our congregations. This also explains why activism with respect to immigrant rights or the Dream movement are not welcomed either. This is so because Mormonism is not viewed as an active player in the cause of social justice, but merely as a silent partner delivering salvation as well as humanitarian supplies all over the world. The gospel is not there for social movements, it is there to provide salvation for humanity: Man shall not live by bread alone...</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yet it is in this respect, that we as a culture--as a way of thinking--institutionally as well as individually, have been misinformed. It is not the cementing of our complacency and indifference in politics where we strengthen our testimony; action is our faith, political action towards social justice, is Christlike. What we need is a redefinition, a reevaluation, of what it means to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, particularly as we view undocumented brothers and sisters. What we need, is a mainstream re-interpretation of the gospel to be approached as a Liberation Theology. In the context of Raza members and oppressed nationalities, a racialized and migrant Liberation Theology.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Book of Mormon as Liberation Theology</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Liberation Theology as understood and acted on by Latin American priests and bishops, stood in the context of civil rights violations backed by U.S. interests as well as the economic devastation wreaked upon by Western exploitation. Gustavo Gutierrez, the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Padre </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">who first coined the term Liberation Theology, refers to such a movement as a "Theology which does not stop with reflecting on the world, but rather tries to be part of the process through which the world is transformed" (p. 12, Guitierrez, 1971). </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As a result, thinking in the frame of Liberation Theology does not function as a distinction between political, spiritual and religious. Instead, it sees parallels and intersections, connections and relations; such elements are intertwined: “Human reason has become political reason. For the contemporary historical consciousness, things political are not only those which one attends to during the free time afforded by one’s private life...everything has a political color..." (p. 30-31, Guttierez, 1971). </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Intrinsically the saviour's heart and hands were clean, such suffices for a symbolic resonance; but the saviour's hands were far from clean in the work of his salvation. They were doused in the realities of the world. In his heart, weighed the realness of suffering and poverty; and with his hands, he dug into the world's raw appeal to save mankind. He did not elevate man to his eternal realm so that they could be clothed in glory to never comprehend that opposition in all things would be one of the more critical of eternal principles. He came down, and condescended to our nature; took on our lens; felt our pain. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So there existed no neutral condition to the Savior's willingness to care for humanity; nor is there an objective judgement from a religious institution on societal issues. Dennis Potter, an associate professor with Utah Valley University understood the Book of Mormon as a literary source of Liberation Theology. Potter's argument offers an analysis based on a socio-political reading of the Book of Mormon that suggests the Mormon canon as a warning to the rich and wealthy of their hypocritical natures. Potter also discusses some of the counters against a socio-political reading of the Book of Mormon and demonstrates that reading such a text as politically neutral is a serious error, because individual moral choices impact our societies, which in turn governs the politics of any given situation: </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“There is another objection to a socio-political reading of the Book of Mormon. One may argue that a religion, and religious organization, must be politically neutral. Religion, on this view, has only to do with personal salvation and morality. Religious organizations should encourage its members to be politically active but should not take stances on issues that don’t directly affect individual morality. However, when a political decision begins to affect an issue of “personal morality,” then the organization may take a stand. This happened in the case of the Knight Amendment in California.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The view that the political can be separated from issues of personal morality is flawed. Politics deals with the way we should organize ourselves in our community. We cannot completely separate individual action from societal implications. What we do affects our community. But then, anything that would have implications for individual morality would also have implications for social morality, and this involves political decisions about how to organize society…A church that fails to denounce slavery or the holocaust tacitly enables it. There is no space to be neutral about grave societal injustices” (Potter, Liberation Theology in the Book of Mormon)</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Elder Christofferson's talk in the April 2013 Conference, titled Redemption, referenced the critical need for modern Latter Day Saints to not forget that the redemptive work we've taken on isn't merely about salvation, but one of justice and love; one that acts against the suffering of others. This path, Elder Christofferson mentions, is one of a temporal nature, it is subjective to reality and is not an objective connotation: "The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Mathew 20:28). In this example, Elder Christofferson demands that we gear our efforts to do good as an action, not as simple rhetoric:</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"This kind of redemptive work means helping people with their problems. It means befriending the poor and the weak, alleviating suffering, righting wrongs, defending truth, strengthening the rising generation, and achieving security and happiness at home. Much of our redemptive work on earth is to help others grow and achieve their just hopes and aspirations" (Conference 2013, Christofferson)</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Doing good, is far from a neutral stance of doing nothing. Even more potent than his reflection of the Savior's acts is his mentioning of Victor Hugo's novel Les Misérables and the fictional but powerful action of Bishop Bienvenu's charity to Jean Valjean--a criminal and protagonist. Aside from the fact that the novel takes place in France's revolutionary stage, to which Elder Christofferson said is a narrative that "has always touched and inspired" him (April Conference 2013), we learn from the Apostle's words that the savior and traditional culture of all Mormons never was founded on objective realities; that there is a moral imperative to every action we perform as Latter Day Saints. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mormon individuals frequently summon this moral effect. They do so whenever someone is need in their local wards, the institution gathers resources to help countries who've been affected by natural disasters, and has even had something to say about Gay Marriage in the United States--I prefer not to engage this topic because it adds another layer of complexity and deserves a whole dialogue unto itself. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This very issue is one where we see the dialectical hand in the politics of the institution of religion in the Latter Day Saint Church. As Mormon individuals, we are encouraged to participate in our local and national politics but to take a stand and introduce that within spiritual spaces is neither appropriate nor relevant (Cook, Oct 2013). Yet when the issue endangers personal morality, it receives a free pass within church discourses--formally and informally. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Potter notes the continuing debate of gay marriage and Mormon opinion; this reveals reveals the political nature of the church and its membership. To go on as politically neutral is an ill-conceived logic. Political and individual morality, is not a disconnected issue. Individual moral choices are influenced by religion which in turn affects communities, communities are organized by politics; therefore, individual morality founded by religious philosophies pertains to societal thought and action which is managed by politics. The two are interwoven. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Potter then introduces the dilemma of which moral side may be justified in the chapels of Mormon congregations. While this a perfectly good question and a matter that deserves attention, I admit to its complexity--Potter provides a credible argument of leaning towards the Left in these matters. Nevertheless, the question I pose asks something very specific in terms of morality. What is it about undocumented students not having an equal opportunity to education, or the separation and deportation of their families, that is not enough of a moral issue to discuss openly?</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Raza Mormon Liberation Theology, A Migrant One...</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The arrival of the undocumented as a moral plight to be sympathized with by Mormon individuals and the LDS Church, is still one in progress. Church members hold conflicted views since the 12th Article of Faith proclaims: 12) We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law (Pearl of Great Price, Articles of Faith). The legality of undocumented immigrants then becomes the crux of the question. Which moral issue holds more weight? </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The moral conundrum, however, is easily dismissed when we acknowledge the words spoken by Latter day apostles at the October 2013 General Conference: "Our twelfth article of faith states our belief in being subject to civil authority and 'in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.' But man’s laws cannot make moral what God has declared immoral. Commitment to our highest priority—to love and serve God—requires that we look to His law for our standard of behavior" (Oaks, Oct. 2013); "Remember: sin, even if legalized by man, is still sin in the eyes of God!" (Nelson, Oct. 2013). Deportations and separating families, though legalized by man, are still sin in the eyes of God!</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our leaders have firmly stated that the law does not live above the morals upheld by the gospel. So what's the issue? The issue of morality becomes complex when it is acknowledged that the United States had a hand in pushing millions of migrants north in seeking refuge from the turmoil occurring in their home countries; this is the unethical and tragic responsibility of millions migrating to borders through political intervention and imperialism--the CIA had its hands in hundreds of assassinations of Latin American political leaders, along with the training of death squads for the slaughter of the Latin American subaltern (Harvest of Empire, 2012). </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Frontera</i></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> shuts down dependent on the politics of what occurs North of the border, and South. Who moves between the two are also factors of accountability stemming from U.S. interests; so if U.S. politics and imperialism are the heirs of this movement, of migrants risking their lives to cross various national borders to escape the oppression that we as a nation have produced, do we not have a moral obligation to address the issue we are indirectly or directly generating?</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Undocumented immigrants are in the United States through an ill-conceived unjustly constructed racist-nativist piece of immigration legislation that does not take into account the imperialism and oppression created by the United States. I ask again, brothers and sisters, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>hermanos y hermanas,</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">...is there no moral cause to address the unjust nature of the deportation and separation of families? Is there no moral foundation to allow young Latino youth to become involved politically to defend their paperless brothers and sisters, their families? Is there no moral cause to permit our chapels as sites of resistance and action; as spaces of dialogue, counseling and immigration policy updates? Is there no moral cause to say something?</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I argue for a space and place--the two are quite different, one being security of location and the other being the conditions that operate culturally in that location--where the issue of undocumented immigration may be tackled on by our Spanish-Speaking Mormon congregations. For bishops to provide updates on reform and to publicly advocate, on the pulpit, for our community to become engaged and act...to do something! We begin by reframing a public discourse of Mormon and take on a liberation theological stance of the faith, a more honest, and what I feel is a more accurate tone of our spirituality. What I argue for is no different than what other religious institutions have come to advocate for and support; a voice for God's people--does it matter that it's a Brown one? An undocumented one?</span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08581037745519465607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9019832309191771998.post-33031303031918160112014-05-03T17:59:00.001-07:002014-05-03T18:10:20.863-07:00Graduating…and by Graduating, I am resisting…A radical consequence of a radical education...<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I just graduated…my wife graduated
as well. We both graduated. I think the whole process is problematic. I don’t
like the celebratory notion of it. I like to keep it internal. I like to close
off the sacredness of the experience to just a select few. Plus, I just hate
big events sometimes. They are stressful, I’m impatient…and they are stressful.
That’s big to me. That’s when I fail to remember that this experience is beyond
my simple recognition. It affects others, deeply. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I never walked for my Bachelors. My
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mamita </i>regretted this which made me
suffer for it too. What I constantly forget is that there are others who have
walked much harder paths than I have, had nowhere near the privilege I’ve
maintained throughout my life—born and raised in the U.S. and bilingual in both
languages—and like my parents, are new to the idea of a formal Western
education. Instead they sacrificed every bit of themselves to make sure I could
experience these things; in many ways, they still do. In their eyes, we are the
challenge to Racist Nativist discourses that condemn their children for even
trying, that they are too foreign to succeed in this country. When we walk out
with our cap on and gown flowing, we are proving that their sacrifice was worth
it, that it meant something. Primarily, we owe it to them and their efforts for
putting us here in the first place.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
We also owe it to the
transformation of an entire societal discourse of Brown and Black bodies;
pledging that we are not the criminalized ‘other’ half of this country, instead
we are the scholars of families long repressed, rising, like a fresh
intellectual wave. With the walk that portrays our completion of education we
produce a countering image and re-sustain that our narrative is one based in
intelligence and consciousness. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
There are too many activists that
damn our education system—justifiably so—and withdraw from any kind of
transformational activism to educational structures because such is not
“revolutionary” enough, that such work is reproductive and not radical—“we need
to get rid of the structure not prolong it!” But they are wrong!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
They base their perspective from privilege
when they have gone through that same educational pipeline to only arrive at
critiquing others to abandon their efforts. They tell young Black and Brown
bodies, working class youth, that they are not radical enough when we as
students march strongly out of that building with a rolled up canvas in hand, the representation of our
social ingenuity. They are wrong, because that paper signifies protest. That
paper, for us, is radical. That paper says we will subvert oppressive
strategies from the wealth forged out of our communities and cultures, and we
will not just prevail but we will push ahead, with alternatives that will
redefine equity and justice for our people! We will not fail.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Is this to mean that our public
school systems are failing underserved groups in this nation? Of course it
does. Are Brown and Black bodies targets of this marginalization? Again, yes.
So why can’t we just wipe out the system and build something new? Better? Because
what if it’s a simple exchange from one head to the next, characterized by the
same system? Some of these oppressive tendencies are systems and genealogies
woven into the fabric of our society. They compose basic elements of what
Western civilization is. That doesn’t mean that change and social justice is
impossible. Actually, it suggests that resistance is real; that it’s consistent,
and with the evolution of capitalist oppression into neoliberal subjugation,
transformative resistance adapts to the same consequences, and continues…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
So when we graduate, especially as
critical thinkers, especially as social justice advocates, as advocates not for
anyone but as allies serving WITH those that are oppressed, we are RESISTING;
resisting to change structures, to counter and create new narratives, to
preserve knowledge and cultural wealth, to live…freely…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
There is one memory that stands out
to me in this moment. A young African-American man sat by me on the Trax line
when I was heading home from school. He saw my cap and gown packet and asked if
I was going to graduate. I lifted my eyes from my reading and with a warm smile
said yes. He tapped my arm furiously with joy and said, “YES! Alright. That’s
what our brothers gotta’ do!” He went on to share that it was my duty to
graduate, that privilege will always disappear us [males of color] from the
scene of success here in the states. He questioned me if I understood the
concepts of Racial Battle fatigue, White Privilege and Cultural Wealth. I said
I did. He smiled at me and said, “you sir, are prepared for this world. Now,
make it happen.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I’ll never forget that. I’ll never
forget the words, but I’ll also never forget the energy of accomplishment in
the spirit of resistance that was produced. In this one act, that compromised
many years of struggle, love and learning, I had overcome. With the smiles of
my family and community buoying me, with the love of my partner—who has also
completed her Masters in Education—that has supported me the entire time, and
the hope that my son will carry on resisting the domination of Western
discourses against our communities, I go on. I resist. I let my mothers tears nourish
the struggle I will always be engaged in, and with my partner and son, we walk
on…I now, make it happen… <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">- Tino</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SIgdrkFTqIs/U2WQ8YpP-3I/AAAAAAAAASQ/BFSYF193s2c/s1600/10310614_10154252540760727_5453484987155612967_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SIgdrkFTqIs/U2WQ8YpP-3I/AAAAAAAAASQ/BFSYF193s2c/s1600/10310614_10154252540760727_5453484987155612967_n.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08581037745519465607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9019832309191771998.post-46042867896420509682014-04-22T23:17:00.000-07:002014-05-03T18:08:01.481-07:00Messy Beginning's (autobiography for class)<div class="Body" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">I cried a lot growing up. I don't know
why, but I did. I haven't told many people. I think it was because I was never
satisfied with myself; I never loved myself. I hated me. It's hard to shed that
self-disgust or humiliation. I never really owned it. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">I was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY
in a decent neighborhood and in an okay one-bedroom apartment and I cried for a
long time. I lived in a mostly Jewish and Russian community stocked with a few buildings
where people of color filled their own corners This was my neighborhood; and my
friends lived in other areas where more people of color lived. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">My parents were from Ecuador and
Honduras (Indigenous woman meets a White Latino with a Mulatto family
background) and they met in Brooklyn. My dad lived as a teenager in Brooklyn
where Puertoricans and Black populations dominated. A young Spanish-speaking <i>Centro
Americano </i>living where he lived had to choose, but he didn't, he couldn't.
He didn't know the language. So he grew up strong and hard. He was small but no
one messed with him. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">My dad tried to raise me up the same,
but I was too soft; my mother's boy. I was too nice. I didn't speak up very
much. I didn't look very handsome. I wasn't very athletic despite all his
attempts; nor could I speak Spanish very well--my mom got scared and spoke to
us in English because the White lady from school told her 'he's not going to go
anywhere Mrs. Diaz if he doesn't learn English.' He was away a lot anyway
because he worked two jobs. Could I blame him? No. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">So I cried. I cried because I wasn't
good looking; because like Oscar Wao from Junot Diaz's book, <i>tuvo ese
tigueraje-</i>-I wasn't smooth, like my dad. People flocked to my dad. They
loved him. He was charismatic. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">So I envied him, and I loved my <i>Mamita.
</i>She was beautiful, she is! Hasn't aged a day from my earliest memories. An
Indigenous princess; an Inca queen. Black hair that I grew up touching when
scared at night, we grew up in that one-bedroom apartment with her; all my
brothers and sisters in one bed.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">--------</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">I was never very cool. In fact, I
wasn't. I was funny, but that's because I let people make fun of me. You gotta'
be PuertoRican or Dominican to be cool, maybe Italian but that's not very
Latino. Hispanics also gotta' listen to rap or Hip Hop, gotta' where baggy clothes
with a chain or two, and hang around the finest females they can try and tap.
So I was never sure. How could I be? In high school I made the Spanish clicks
laugh a lot. Again, mostly making fun of me or me making fun of myself. They
said, "Hey, this guy's funny," and I laughed with them. I wanted them
to like me, and who wouldn't? The girls were beautiful and the guys were cool. PuertoRicans
and Dominicans hung out in their own groups. Too cool to integrate, too
prideful to realize they shared more than they had different. They fought each
other too. Over girls, drugs, spots in high school. Whatever. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">There were also the "Mexicans"
and I hung out with them too. They took me in. Beat me up too so I could hang
out in their sect, and they laughed as well--again, mostly at me but I felt
better about it this time. I envied the <i>Caribeno's, </i>they were so
bad-ass, so cool, so sexy, even the guys. But the "Mexicans"--<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">no one was actually Mexican, but they were
all Ecuadorean or Peruvian and other countries, yet I don't know how they
eventually came to be called "Mexicans"</b>--were cool too. Their
girls looked beautiful in a different way, like Indigenous beautiful and then
there was Afro-beautiful or Latina beautiful. But the guys looked hard, rough.
The guys used to let me smoke with them, laugh at my jokes, and introduce me to
the girls and even the girls touched my face and said, "Tino, <i>jaja </i>you're
so funny."</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">----------</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">I had friends from everywhere! I guess
that's the beauty of living in a city like mine. People from everywhere. I had
a Black Jew as a friend, an Irish guy, Italian dude, 2 Ecuadorian fella's, a
half-Black and half-White character, an Egyptian best friend, and a Chinese
friend. One of my best friends was this Black girl and we're still close. She
was "goth" and I guess you could say I was a very soft-core version
of that too. I LOVED rock and roll, alternative and heavy metal! She did too
and we were close. Most of the guys I mentioned filled their typical societal
roles so we all made a very odd group of friends. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">I was never very involved at school. I
don't think any of us were. I didn't even go to prom! Maybe the Italians were
student government folks, maybe, but the Latinos did dance student clubs. I
don't think I ever really cared about any of that but I used to love writing. I
could write short stories and poems; and with those I escaped my settings
often. I left the city to go see places and leave the same damn 8 block
circumference that seemed to always hold me prisoner. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">I
read books about places and people, so different that they all seemed fantasy.
Native Americans? Do they still exist? What are they like? I used to look out
at the stars from my apartment window--you know I believed in Aliens and I
would have a little notebook waiting for one to arrive so I could plot its
course in my notebook--and think to myself that there had to be so much more
out there, so much more. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">I dated a Black girl and Korean girl.
I wasn't very cool but hey, everybody's gotta' have somebody to love. Right? I
thought she was gorgeous, plenty of my homies did not. She had hips, she had
curves, and a protruding set of teeth deviated with the cutest gaps. It didn't
last long though. When my mom found out she was about to kill me! Partly
because she was Black and another part because Mormon kids aren't supposed to
date till they're 16. On our fourth kiss I accidentally bit her lip when we
were making out in the train station. Oh well...<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">I like to say I lost my virginity to
the Korean girl, but the truth is she was my first experience in the nude with
a woman</span><span style="font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman";">—</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">but that</span><span style="font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">s it. She actually
approached me and I was shocked because again, it's not like I got way better
looking as the years passed or that my <i>tigueraje </i>became like "mad
fly". We went out and she told me she really liked me and again, shocked!
We went to her place one night where we put on my music and I showed her how to
dance the <i>Caribeno </i>dances and slowly we got closer, and slowly we
kissed. Before I knew it, it was over. We went out a few times more. Homegirl
really liked me, maybe loved me. She said her parents told her to watch out for
me because "he's Latino, you know how many young girls those guys leave
pregnant!" I didn't treat her very well though, and I have to be honest,
she deserved better. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">I left to college one day with a
scholarship to BYU-Idaho--it was my one ticket out of the dump that held me
hostage so I took it even if I didn't want it. Kim even wrote me a letter
telling me how much she cared for me, and how she would miss my touch and all
this other stuff. I feel sad about it now but back then, I was just glad
someone would give me the chance. Terrible, right?</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">--------</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Then
9/11 happened and I remembered the day well. I had another good friend in class
who was more or less pointed out for wearing her hijab, a symbol of her faith.
Terrorist? I could see the eyes and minds of classmates, even the teacher,
targeting her. I felt bad for her that day, as bad as I felt the afternoon a
good friend and I went to the roof of our building and saw the smoke of the
towers melt into the bloody horizon. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">It was my first time thinking about
justice and equity. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">--------</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">As I reflect on the experiences of my
youth I am astonished that I have written this much and with such frankness in
some cases. I've enjoyed the process and feel very liberated in some ways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I also feel somewhat embarrassed by some of
the things I wrote but again, I feel very liberated. I wrote in the style I
feel most comfortable in, which allowed me to fully express what I feel. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">I notice that I had very deficit views
of my own community. I couldn't wait to get out. I wanted to leave so badly.
Honestly I feel very fortunate to have had the experiences I've had but I wish
I looked at them from a different point of view. I wished I had developed a lens
in my youth to actually be a part of something. I feel that there were so many
things that happened that demanded action and participation, but so many of us
were blind to it. All of our teachers were White and in many cases our classes
were sites of discipline.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">While I write about my dad a lot, I
feel that he has still influenced me for the better. He came to Utah when I had
a terrible accident and he left everything and started over here. It's my fault
that they struggle now but he's so proud of me; and though I'm not sure if I'll
ever have a great relationship with him, I love him. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">I feel that I can attribute my
activism and sincere love for people to my <i>Mamita. </i>She taught me to care
for the poor and people in need. She engrained in me a sincere desire for
justice and equity. To say how she did this would require another 3-page paper
but I owe everything that is good in me to her. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">I miss the people I've talked about in
this paper. I didn't realize I did. However as I shed my deficit thinking of
how not-so-participatory we were I notice that we had it in us; that we were
capable and that systems in our schools and structures that ravaged our
neighborhoods, actually held us down. We could have been heroes, and maybe
plenty of us were. After all, I did leave.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">I can't say that we were very active
in our communities and schools, to not say that I think would hide a very
explicit reality that systems of power bind and restrict our youth. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">I
term Utah my training site because now I feel ready to go back and do so much
in the context of community and activism. Another whole autobiography would
have to explain what has occurred for me here but I have no regrets. I think
every act and course my life has taken has provided me with insight and
perspective; enough so that I feel we as youth, and our younger brothers and
sisters, are capable beyond dream, and that we have much to offer this world in
the end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> That we no longer have to cry in our sleep, hiding our shame as if there is actually something to be shameful about. We ought to not cry, but if we do, it's okay, let's talk about it, I hope we do. I don't cry anymore, and if I do, it's with the hope and love that things are actually not too bad... </span></span><o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08581037745519465607noreply@blogger.com0