I would like to open this letter by recognizing your recent efforts to shed light on the cases of many problems that many middle class United States citizens have begun to feel lately.  The unemployment, the disenfranchisement from the political process and, in many cases, the dispossession of personal and real property all have their roots in imperialistic capitalism and corporate greed, a point which your movement has not shied away from.  You have identified the source of the problem to a great degree.  For this, I commend you.

At the same time, I feel compelled to share some thoughts with you.  I do not write this letter as a critique.  Instead, I hope that this will serve as somewhat of a contribution, however modest.

I would like to first point out that while corporate imperialism has recently affected the white middle class a great deal, many peoples, like the Chican@/Mexican@/Ixachilanka have been historically and chronically victimized by similar branches of imperialism.  For five hundred years, we have been survivors of the worst genocide in history called the American Holocaust.  Some estimate that we lost one hundred twenty million people due to white European occupation of our lands and their extermination policies.  Today you are protesting the same force which masterminded the American Holocaust.  That force is a mix of imperialism, greed and racism.

In fact, in one way or another, many of your leaders are beneficiaries of the imperialist legacy that we have continued to deal with for five centuries.  I point this out not to condemn you, in particular, but rather as a suggestion that your movement address the historical cost perpetrated by the same powers that you now protest.  Moreover, rather than simply addressing the historical legacy, it is my hope that you would strive to advocate for some form of reparations, along with your other demands.  If it is to be a truly inclusive and comprehensive movement for justice, this is necessary.  To fail to account for the historical legacy left by our common enemy, is to limit the benefits of your movement to a more narrowly defined constituency.

Chronic unemployment, an issue for some in the Occupy Movment, is not unique to the United States.  In many countries all over the world, chronic unemployment is due in large measure to US intervention in vulnerable countries.  This is often done at the behest of capitalist and imperialist interest in these countries.  In 1933, Major General SD Butler reported to Common Sense “I helped make Mexico, and especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenue in. I helped pacify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers.”  People of color all around the world feel the full force of this continued policy.  Relative to the other consequences of war, unemployment is a small problem in these countries, which often is created at the hands of the same crony capitalists that you are protesting.

One of the demands at the national level of the “occupy” movement is an end to the electoral disenfranchisement of voters.  History teaches us about the chronic disenfranchisement of minority voters in the US.  Poll taxes, reading requirements, ancestry requirements, directed toward racial minorities have been the norm in this part of the world for longer than they have not been. 

Furthermore, on September 11, 1973 the US collaborated in the removal of the democratically-elected President of Chile.  In 2002 crony capitalists conspired to kidnap the democratically-elected president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez.  In 2004, democratically-elected president of Haite, Jean-Bertand Aristide, was forcibly removed from office and whisked away in a US aircraft.  In 2009 democratically-elected Nicaraguan president, Manuel Zelaya, was removed in a coup, which also seems to have been orchestrated by US officials.  As you protest the recent changes in voter ID requirements and the manipulation of voting machines, please know that we have survived these, and many more incidents too numerous to mention.

Finally, many of your supporters are outraged by the recent mass of home foreclosures, often accomplished by fraudulent documentation.  As a Mexican in the US, I can tell you that we are reminded yearly of the extra-legal appropriation of Mexican lands by US imperialists to the tune of lands from Texas to California.  It goes without saying that Northern Natives also suffered the dispossession and forced removal from all of their lands, also at the hands of the same class of people that you protest today.

In this letter, I picked out a few demands generally vocalized by the occupy movement, but our experience, as a people of color, has an added layer and added history in virtually all of your demands.  It is my hope that if the movement will strive for true inclusiveness, the movement will be open to an added layer of complexity, history, and contemporary and historical needs and demands. 

It is not simply the inclusion of people of color that will make the difference. Instead, the inclusion of our experience, perspective on and solutions to the same beast that you fight today will truly speak to the inclusiveness of your efforts.

Adelante En La Lucha,

Hector A. Chavana Jr.

OurNewAnahuac.net

One of the biggest dramas that played out over the past week was outlandish commentary by a controversial comedian, Katt Williams. Katt Williams had been among my favorite comedians, despite, or perhaps because of, his many controversial remarks.

Overnight a barrage of internet postings denounced some racist rant that Katt Williams, who is black, had spewed against Mexicans and Chicanos. It surprised me, as it may surprise you, that I really did not pay much attention to it…at first. In fact, I didn’t bother to investigate what he had said. I wondered how bad it could be, but I also thought that there was much more important things to worry about than a few words by an entertainer.

I ignored it the first day. By the second and third day the online outrage continued, with more and more people denouncing Katt Williams as a racist. A boycott was announced. Still, I didn’t pay much attention, because I figured that it could not have much of an impact on serious issues at hand. Our schools are falling apart; our families are being broken apart by ICE; and some people are letting a joker get them upset.

Finally, another day passed, and I saw one of my favorite authors post an opinion editorial. Then I saw a young lady post a YouTube video about the situation. I decided not to ignore it any longer.

What I saw Katt Williams say did not shock me. It is not that what he said was inoffensive, but much of what I had already read had prepared me for the worst.

Challenging the historical fact that these lands were taken by the United States by force, Willams taunted, “”… it appears to me, y’all like it over here a lot… If y’all had California and you loved it, then you shouldn’t have given that mothaf*cka up. You should have fought for California, goddamnit, since you love it.”

He went on to the oldest of slights, “So if you love Mexico, bitch, get the f*ck over there,” oddly acknowledging in the same breath that blacks had often been told to go back to Africa.

Critics were quick to point out that we did not “give up” California, but rather that the United States was quick to take advantage of the toll that Mexico had taken in kicking out other colonizers a few years before the US invaded. In fact, California was lost in a bloody, bloody war, and was not “given up.”

Others pointed out that Williams was pouring fuel on a very hot fire in that his comments were made in Arizona, one of the most anti-Mexican states in the country, and a breeding ground for KKK and Nazi type groups. Williams, they said, was using the same language that these groups used in their rallies.

Some suggested that he had broken unwritten rules of minority solidarity, and others wondered aloud where the black community was to denounce of their own lost souls.

As for me, I remained amazed at the number of people that responded so quickly and loudly to this comedian, someone with no formal power or position. In essence, it reminded me of something that I had overlooked in those first few days of the news breaking, and frankly something that I had forgotten about. In this celebrity-driven culture, it is often the celebrities that have the power to inspire action and reaction in the people. In the end, I just wondered where our celebrities were hiding during all of this mess.

From early 1942, when Germans began deporting Polish Jews to killing centers, the situation of Judenrat leaders became morally unbearable. There were incidents where Judenräte were forced to prepare lists of deportees, while the Jewish ghetto police, which by this time usually operated directly under German command, was forced to assist in the actual evictions

I guess they were just enforcing the law? I wonder if stuff like this still happens today.

Trick 66: Vote For The Lesser Of Two Evils

Elections decide a winner and a loser. But for people without a candidate, elections are always losing propositions.

The masses are extolled to vote for Mr. X because he’s better than Mr. Y. Soon enough in the campaign, Mr. X and Mr. Y are indistinguishable in their rhetoric, promises and bad deeds. The masses are told to vote for Mr. X — he’s the lesser of two evils.

What a choice! Vote for an unfit candidate because the other choice is unfit . What happened to to voting for a good candidate of the people?

Stop Voting For The Lesser Of Two Evils. 

Join The Progresista Voter Union.

Vote Progresista Voter Union.

Residential segregation, demarcated, in a highly visible way, the distinct social standing of Anglos and Mexicans in the new order…American neighborhoods of handsome wood frame houses, paved streets, and enclosed sewers stood in sharp contrast with Mexican towns of corrugated tin shacks, dirt roads and outdoor privies. On the social plane, the rules of etiquette served to acknowledge Anglo superiority before the Anglo. Mexicans were expected, according to a historical account of the Winter Garden area, to have a “deferrential body posture and respectful voice tone” whenever in the presence of Anglos.

“The Case of Joe Campos Torres” is a documentary film about one of the most infamous cases of police misconduct in Houston history. Produced at KPRC-TV, Channel 2 in Houston in 1978 by Tony Bruni and written and edited by Carlos Calbillo, this documentary feature is reported by John Quiñones, now of ABC News in New York City.

Shot on location throughout Houston, this film chronicles the event and subsequent community protest meetings and community/police department negotiations and the legal actions taken by the Torres family against the Houston Police Department.

The writer/editor, Carlos Calbillo will be present for Q&A after the film. Members of the Torres family and representatives of the Houston Police Department have been invited to the screening and may also take part in the Q&A.

To be screened on Thursday, July 28, 2011 at 7PM at the Houston Community College Northline Campus, 8001 Fulton St. Houston, TX 77021

FREE and open to the public.

George Washington: Euro Trash Anchor Baby

 That’s All For Today

Oh yeah, he owned slaves.