I said to myself, Oh, probably some local church leader. Maybe some guy who volunteers all his time in secret, and now has been outed by a loving neighbor, someone who wants him to be known for all his good Works.

So I read.

"SPRINGFIELD—Dave Ralston' confidence is at an all-time high. You'd be feeling good, too, if people across the country were calling and emailing you, saying you're a hero in a time when political role models are scarce," the paper gushes.

I'm beginning to get curious, now, walking back to the kitchen. I place the kettle on the burner, preparing to boil water for my coffee. (Yes, I boil water for my coffee, and yes, I grind the beans in the kitchen, too. No, I don't grow them, although wouldn't that be fantastic?)

A "hero in a time when political role models are scarce." I'm likin' this cat already. Damn straight we need some heroes in this day and age. I dive back into the article, hoping to be inspired as my water boils.

"People like honesty, and what I've learned lately is that I have a lot of support," Said Ralston, an outspoken Springfield city councilor who gained attention last month for an email he sent to his fellow councilors urging the city to crack down on illegal immigration. Critics pounced on the email and accused Ralston of making racist comments targeting Mexican immigrants in general. The outcry prompted Mayor Sid Leiken to denounce the "negative tone" of Ralston's email, and apologize to anyone who was offended."

Amongst the many statements the email made (which the paper does not reprint) are quotes such as Ralston's assertions that "I am not a racist. I just feel that it's not necessary to keep promoting that a group of people have been wronged." This gem was part of Ralston's opposition to naming a street in Oregon after Martin Luther King. Other statements involved the sort of rhetoric you'd expect from such an enlightened mind, and words like "invasion" to boost fears that Mexicans are "stealing" jobs that "Americans can and will do."

The newspaper article happily continues to what turns out to be the crux of the multi-page writeup:

"But then, a funny thing happened. [and I actually think the Register-Guard means "Funny, ha-ha" as well as "funny, odd"] Ralston supporters began flooding City Hall with scores of calls and mails, thanking the councilor for saying what they wished more politicians would say, regarding a touchy subject that has become a hot-button issue across the country."

IS IT TOO LATE TO GET DAVE RALSTON TO RUN FOR GOVERNOR?

—Junction City resident Jerry Bradbury

Yes, Jerry. It's too fucking late to get Dave Ralston to run for Governor. Though if you want a racist leader, just vote Republican. Your odds are very good that you will elect some terrified old White man who has swallowed, spoken, and spewed the Heroic American Party Line all his life. And you can get down and dirty in the Race War, do your best to keep all those filthy Mexicans out of the land your forefathers already done cheated them out of.

Let's get something clear right away. And I'm not handing out sugar pellets, so if it goes down rough, find some other website, some place where the truth is buried under an avalanche of sweet, refined, propaganda. White people are scared. Not all of ya, so keep your Stetson on tight. But fellas like this ignorant "Councilman" (who just doesn't understand why I want to call myself "Latino" and fight the glittering tide that would bleach away my brownness) and many like him are terrified. Scared of their race's past, and scared of what it means in their future.

Lou Dobbs, the big-bellied, empty-headed Minute"men", Dave Ralston, "Kristie Sampson-Kilcullen" (another Ralston-Disciple who says she feels that "a lot of people are trying to be PC about this"), Karen Reeves (another Springfield resident who claims that "People need to quit pussyfooting around this issue" and that all Ralston did was "speak from the heart") and more—they are all shakin' in their boots. The brown races are growing in number, and together, outnumber the Whites already. Of course, there is so much division sown, and no organization, so they do not realize this. But anybody can read the census reports, and we all know that "Latinos" are projected to soon outnumber the White Race, right here in America.

This is why we are hearing all this bullshit about assimilation, about borders und fences, about Halliburton's Secret-in-plain-sight detention centers, and about uninformed bigots like Republican Councilman for Springfield, Oregon Dave Ralston's heroic stance. "I feel like we're running out of time," Heroic Dave says. It's a sentiment that John Gibson would agree with.

Yes I know my enemies
They're the teachers who taught me to fight me
Compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission
Ignorance, hypocrisy, brutality, the elite
All of which are American dreams
All of which are American dreams
All of which are American dreams
All of which are American dreams
All of which are American dreams
All of which are American dreams
All of which are American dreams
All of which are American dreams

Rage Against the Machine, Know Your Enemy

The paper goes on, quoting two readers who wrote in, and citing their words multiple times, to give the impression that the entire world hates Mexican migrants and those who insist on waving Mexican flags, or calling themselves by that most offensive label, LATINO. The podunk Register-Guard boxes off a smaller section within the full page (the heroic and honest Dave Ralston gets the front page above the fold as well as all of A5) to inform us that they "City staff members are keeping a special file of comments sent in by people regarding City Councilor Dave Ralston's stance" and that the file is "about 3 inches thick" and that "a vast majority" of the letters in it "are from folks who agree" with the racist Republican. The writers happily support Mr. Ralston, and many in a tone of relief and unmitigated joy.

I've seen this before. There is a contingent of White people who are very frustrated by their inability to intelligently research and understand and discuss the history of America, the history of oppressed races in relation to America, and the current events as they relate to this history. These badgered and huffing humans don't have the knowledge base, the energy, or the gray matter to understand complexities like internal colonialism, or the many subtle ways that racism can still wreak so much havoc; they don't have the attention span to continue to understand how blacks and browns and yellows and reds have suffered under the White. Two generations or so is plenty time enough for people to "get over it." These White folks with Wonder Bread Brains and Saran-Wrapped souls think racism is like a big rat in the kitchen. You find it, you box it up, you ship it out. No more rat. Chale, it ain't like that, también. Racism...is more like a gas. It's like a gas that soaks into clothes, into lives, into brain cells, into behavior, into the fingers of creators, into the ads on your TV, on the front pages of your Newspaper. You can't waft it away with a short-tempered swat and forget about it. Each time you smell that stink, you have to lift your head and pay attention, seek out the stain. Unless, of course, you are the one making the stink, and maybe then you don't mind it so much. Maybe you actually enjoy it a little. Maybe that's your secret attachment to stink.

But these people are TIRED of thinking about racism, SICK of hearing about the fact that you are "Latino," ANNOYED that they can't just come out and "tell it like it is" without hearing from "Al Sharpton" Democrats and the like, without being castigated for their apparent racism. They are just like Dave Ralston, who says he's just "A Red Blooded American," and they just want to tell the brown people to fuck off without being picked on for their Honest American Blue Collar Red Blooded views. Dave Ralston thinks he's on to something with his Red Blood. And I bet you wonder, too.

Is the blood of the LATINO yellow? Has it turned gold in the thousands of years since the early Mesoamericans learned to farm? Does it now run buttery and gleaming like a river of maize through the veins of the Mexican?

Is the blood of the LATINO brown? Like her mid-summer skin, does it flood the veins darkly, like frijoles negros, pumping a burnt cinnamon resistance to American assimilation through the being of the Xicana?

Is the blood of the LATINO green? Fueled by far too many chiles and clumps of cilantro, does the blood of the LATINO twinkle like an emerald river, washing against the mossy banks of the soul, brimming over and around the jade aortic complex tiger tails of the heart?

Or is the blood of the LATINO red, deep red, crimson red, fiery red—just like the habanero, just like the red that spilled onto and over the stone of Tenochtitlán, thick red like the blood of the sacrifices of the Mexica, the red that lapped at the shores of Lake Texcoco, the red that Cortés and his killers spilled in holy abandon?

Maybe the blood of the LATINO is all four, or maybe its inscrutable. I wonder what color it is in the veins of those daring to mix it with other races, eh? Perhaps even now, these cells are meeting one another and making deals, Dave. Perhaps the LATINO blood will encourage true free thought, or worse yet, BROWN PRIDE. Is that what scares you? Do you fear a shift away from the Old America, where the non-white races were less outspoken and visible?

The truth of the matter is that this type of fear-borne sentiment, while certainly more prone to flourish in small towns, is going to grow throughout all of America. In fact, it's been present and latent all my life, but most have learned to keep it low. That inhibition is fading, that's what you'll notice. Now we have "heroes" like Dave Ralston, who "speak from their heart," and you know what these hero's hearts say? They say "Fence." They say "MY country." They say "my red blood is better than your brown skin."

But it doesn't take brown skin. There are many who recognize this hate for what it is. Weakness. And the more brown hearts there are in this country, the more this sentiment will find a home in those who fear what their lives will be like in 2050, when the books begin to be rewritten by brown hands, when the words in the dictionaries will be redefined and given a maize-flavored slant, when the cities begin to be headed by the Brown, when the bus routes are chosen by LATINOs, when the advertisements speak to everyone, and when the language begins to fill more and more with sounds like por favor, güero, hola, and como estás?

The fear will grow, and the distraction will grow, and the hate will grow. But you and I will not weary, and we will not fear, and we will not falter. Because our goal is not to dominate anyone, nor to subjugate anyone, nor to "flip it," although "it" may well be deserved. I cannot speak for the Brown, but I will say that for me, I will certainly be allowed to speak proudly of my origins, of my antepasados, my lineage, and of Mexico. You will not shame me into pretending, wearing a White mask, or hushing up about Brown sentiment. That ain't me. Anymore.

I already know what assimilation is about, see? I was born to a brown father and a white mother, and after that teenage family busted up, I was surrounded by the White lifestyle and culture, legally adopted into the White Family unit, given an Irish last name by the courts, and decided on my own, at 8, to change my first name to a short, Anglo moniker. So I already tried that game. But you're wrong, Mr. Ralston: assimilation doesn't work like that. You don't get to just stop claiming your LATINO-ness and then suddenly be absent of longing, of memory, of the cellular mosaic that invisibly steers you toward a larger design. You live repressed, you live shamed, you live like an amnesiac exile from a land that still clings to him by the capillaries. I tried. It doesn't work. Slavery, even the spiritual and mental kind, kills. It kills the soul, the spirit, the self. And I've had to reverse course, because I was finding myself in some barren, bitter, empty terrain.

If you are White, you will never know this struggle. And to you, it may sound like so much nonsense. If you are White, this will never be an issue for you. No choices, no subjugation, no humiliation, no picking between pride and social condemnation. No desire to "keep promoting that a group of people have been wronged." No resistance to doing so. No issue for the dominant race in their own land.

And if you are brown, and you want to live in shame, and feel you are hiding, and mumble excuses to yourself to try and smooth over the many barbs that come your way while walking the great White path to Oneness, that is your choice. And that would make Uncle Sam happy. Because he wants nothing more than for all races and tribes to hang up their colors and lay down their dollar and devotion at the banner of Capitalist, Materialist, American means. Because there is no allegiance in this land. There is no honor, there is no culture, there is no tradition. None save war, and money, and might, and the grand tradition of eating the history of every race deemed lucky enough to provide a mascot to a McDonald's Happy Meal pack.

This nation will devour your history and your people and your self-awareness and your pride until you are nothing but a fat, pasty, mindless drone planted in front of your TV, fearing your stink, fearing your weight, fearing your neighbor, fearing the shadow terrorist bogeyman, fearing the invading darkies, fearing the future, fearing the past. This nation will hypnotize you until you repeat falsified lines from your falsified texts, and until you feel you owe nothing to the lands your grandparents called home, until you will argue nobody when the missiles are armed, until you learn to cheer when Fox "News" tells you to cheer. Once you are properly assimilated into the White American Race (despite your country of origin), you will cheer on the bombing of innocents if it's done in the name of American Power and American Freedoms. And that, mis amigos, is the goal.

Feel free, my fellow American. Feel free to follow that path. Those are your feet, your hands; that is your heart and your destiny you are deciding.

But don't you talk to me about the starving, NAFTA-strangled farmers who brave bullets and El Camino Diablo to feed their children. Don't you talk to me about the laws and history that you don't understand nor study, aside from cursory glances at the History channel or Newsweek. Don't you dare presume the nerve to talk to me about racism—which you think means a sign warning people where to sit. You walk amongst many unseen but strong currents, some of which twirl and twist, and move swifter and deeper than you can envision. Think on the tide. Smell the brine. Live under the sun for a while.

"Illegal." Je-je. What part of El Sexto Sol don't you understand?