very interesting. I did read your glossary, very cool and much more modern and to the point! to add to your lexicon:
Thacuilo = Nahuatl for artist
con safos

I'm having a problem getting a handle on whom she is speaking to in that piece...Brown, Black, or Asian community leaders?...'Sympathetic' elements of the White power structure (stop laughing, Nezua), and if so, sympathetic to whom?

She also doesn't seem to want to address the flipside corollary of what happens when vatos roll in black 'hoods...or for that matter when any outsiders show up anywhere.

Usually, Orcinus is a little more focused on the issues, at least as it pertains to Krazy Kracker Kocksuckers...Hmmm.

I see it as her speaking to Blacks, Asians and Whites. Instilling fear of Mexicans. It's an old trick to let Asians feel speshul by calling them White/Smart/Better than other PoC; aligning them with Whites. It's not original. Also not original is stirring up the tension between the Brown and the Black—something readers here may notice I work against in many posts. Or try to. Her post is like a nitro soccer ball thrown down on the field of PoC. The agenda/focus is plain offensive in my opinion. What good will it do? How much harm?

The racist thought bleeds through very clearly to me even in the example of the "ladder rungs." Those Mexicans will hurt the Blacks only if we at the top allow it."

!!!

That is the White Lens in all its glory. Cappy Kirk keeping his loving eye on the crew... I guess tha Mex are "second rung from the bottom" and Blacks are way down there at the bottom. I wonder if she has a diagram on her wall?

Orcinus is more focused. That is, Dave is. Robinson's work often gets under my skin. You can very often catch strong whiffs of ivory tower elitism in it. Here, she nearly falls off the Top Rung, and all those whiffs sour into one strong draft of condescension and scaremongering. She sounds like Buchanan, almost. "We better come up with a 'snappy answer'" It feels like his "it's almost too late, we are being conquered" rhetoric. I seriously feel like she got scared by somethingmexican and is pushing back. I mean she oughtta be smarter than to generalize some kind of national takeover dream based on a gang in LA!

This is the problem I have sometimes with folks getting all talky and booky about shit that others live. This daddy-colonizer speechifying shit. It is not rooted in enough experience, and too much in thought...thought gained by one's privileged position. So it can easily drift into...well. Posts like that.

Yeah, it's poor science to get loftily theoretical about the realities of others...At best, misguided 'liberal' interference, at worst paternalistic patronization.

I've always worked on the assumption that there is the Power Elite, and then there are those whom they either control, or wish to control.
To such types, skin color (like religion, sexuality and other subjectively defining characteristics) is a useful tool for causing 'extramural' conflicts that stave off the wisdom of understanding, and a subsequent unified challenge to their authority.

'I wonder if she has a diagram on her wall?'...Modern times, ese, it's a flow chart on the Blackberry now.

Oh, for Pete's sake. You keep looking that hard to find offense where none was given, you're gonna get all twisted up and hurt yourself.

What I was doing was reporting, for the benefit of anybody of any race who happened to be reading (and, given our global audience, that covers a lot of territory) what conclusions the far-right white racists are almost certainly going to draw from the SPLC's report. (And, in fact, it didn't take two hours for a commenter in my threads to prove that assessment entirely correct.)

Genocide in the barrios is the loony right's effing dream come true. They live for the day that one side or the other wins, and moves on to the next minority group in both economic status and geographic proximity (which, in LA, happens to be the Asians on both counts). Then, finally, they'll get their long-awaited sacred Racial Holy War right there in the lily-white precincts of Chatsworth. They can't wait. Makes 'em hard just to think about it.

You may find that offensive (in fact, I hope you do, because it is) -- but blaming me for pointing this out how these pendejos think isn't going to do much to change it. It's not news to anybody that brown-on-black ugly brings out the worst in ugly whites, too; but we all still need to be ready to respond effectively to that shit when it comes.

And while we're at it: This "scared white person" lived for four years in 18th St. Hoover Crips turf. I've done political work in East Bakersfield, lived in Mexico, and actually once married myself a black Puerto Rican husband and put him through grad school. (Want to talk about the ways in which standardized school tests cheat biingual/bicultural kids? He's the country's leading expert on it.) Most of my 20s were spent in either a ghetto or a barrio, so I'm probably not the white person you think you're talking to.

As for my capitalization style: "Asian" gets caps because "Asia" is a proper noun. "African-American," ditto. "Chicano" and "European" both take a cap. But generic color words like black, brown, or white do not, unless they're the first word in a sentence. Don't like it? Take it up with the AP style book.

Well, hey. I didn't have to look too hard! There was a great deal that was offensive in that post. WARE THE ONCOMING RECOLONIA!!! Please. Anyway, if I get "all twisted up" as you say, at least I can't fall too far and hurt myself—only from the second rung of the ladder, after all.

I appreciate your background. It can't stand in for rebuttal to my points. And there's more I didn't even make. I get too pissed off to wade through it all slowly. [If I cool off, maybe I'll go through it and make more points, edit this comment, as I have since I first posted it—por ejemplo, conflating "more and more Mexicans" that are filling Califas in the same sentence as the "Mexican Mafia"??? As if this allllll spells out more trouble for Blacks? They are not one and the same, yet you conflate them to make your skeeery point—there's one tiny one].

I still hold to what I saw in the post. It's okay that we don't agree. You may not see it all. But perhaps you shouldn't be soooo quick to know exactly what offense was given? You say "you keep looking that hard to find offense where none was given" as if that's the end of it. But maybe your opinion on that is not the overruling one? Just maybe. Just maybe there is more to what I'm saying. You never know. I didn't miss your point about the Right. Have you missed any of mine? Additionally, all this "You keep looking that hard" smacks of "you're being hypersensitive," the clarion call of those who tell PoC they ought to just "Get over" their feelings and experiences as PoC. But you are Miss Mexico Barrio Cripwoman, so I must be wrong on that....

And you did not use "White" as a color, did you? Copout! Did you really mean that "White" people are the color of a sheet? Naw. You meant it as a ethnic/racial classification, just like "Chicano," as you state. Anyway, um, the "AP style" means nothing to this vato! Come on! Next you'll be quoting me some Harvard dissertation to back up your edumacated point.

PS I should really apologize for implying you were condescending and elitist. Your comment has proven how wrong I was. I mean...did you really just type "I married myself a black Puerto Rican husband and put him through grad school"? You make it sound like adopting a poor African child and lifting him up to the top rung....

Guacha: we don't have to fight. That doesn't help anyone. Maybe I hurt your feelings, too. You say dumb shit, I say dumb shit. Despite our differing ethnic experience, somos humanos. What I think, after all this, is that you make some points, but laced in there—whether or not you see it—is some other shit that detracts from what you say, and is plain harmful. Inspires division. Maybe that's why we are now divided. Is that an acceptable middle ground? Maybe if I don't "look so hard" to be offended, I won't be. Maybe if you look harder at your post, you will be.

Man.

I have to say that reading Sara's post as being supportive of the white racist viewpoint is completely misreading it. I think it's clear that Sara is warning that white supremacists will use this violence for their own propaganda purposes, and she's right. Look at Arf Arf's comment in the accompanying thread for evidence of that.

You know, Orcinus is focused on white supremacists and how they operate and how we counter them. It's what we do. I'm baffled that anyone would think otherwise.

Don't like it? Take it up with the AP style book.

'I know we defy the laws of tradition...But, you see, we've never studied style'

;>)

Mrs.Robinson, with all due respect, I didn't get a sense of what 'conclusions the far-right white racists are almost certainly going to draw', but felt your article rather depicted the struggle between Black and Brown in the vast mad bowl of Los Angeles.

Only after your second pullquote are such things as you assert here regarding 'white eliminationists' addressed, and then only as a brief diversion from "...the ones who are second to the bottom, hovering just one rung above their victims".

Far be it from myself to cast any aspersions upon your personal life, and if I have done so you have my apologies.

Pax

Dave, I very much appreciate what Orcinus is about. I read you regularly. You two put a lot of work and heart into what you do. I didn't just stumble across your site!

But to your statement "Orcinus is focused on white supremacists and how they operate and how we counter them. It's what we do," all I can do is quote Mrs Robinson herself:

While Dave's been reminding us what white eliminationists are capable of, it may also be true that the groups with the strongest incentive to engage in eliminationist violence aren't the ones who are securely on top of the social order, but the ones who are second to the bottom, hovering just one rung above their victims. But even so: they only get away with it as long as those on the upper rungs allow it to continue unchallenged.

Please tell me how else to read these kinds of statements, Please. I'm waiting for a good argument aside from "I lived in Mexico and put a minority person through school."

Additionally, can a cop—who devotes his life to law enforcement and swears vows on it—also not break the law if he chooses? Does not racism sometimes hide in all of us? Are you not being biased? Can you address any of the points made here? Despite what else was said on your thread? Is it not possible Mrs Robinson made points that are "proven" by your commenters, but delivered those points in a tainted wrapper?

And Dave, I agree that focusing on White supremacists is what you (normally) do. And you do it well. THAT is why the post jumped out at me. I am not saying Robinson doesn't have a valid concern in there, am I? I didn't address it because I feel it is (unfortunately) buried in the framing of the concern—that of the fearful TopRunger looking out over the sea of warring color; that of the (patronizing, colonizer's) view that the TOP RUNG of da Witeman is "allowing" the BOTTOM RUNGS to hurt each other. And that the TOP RUNGS better be wary!!!! Because "Next thing you know..." YOU will be in the sights of the rapidly-growing Mexican Mafia (that is filling California) and their dream of "Recolonia" will have come true!

Come on! Does this not seem like fearmongering to you? Does this not seem like a "White" tongue talkin? Does this not intentionally pit groups of people against each other?

See, dig: the reason I lose the point and see the framing is because I am more sensitive to it. But that does NOT mean I should 'stop being sensitive' or 'stop looking so hard' or 'get over it' or any other demeaning, condescending implication. What it means is that this framing will NOT offend a person who holds the view in their mind that those at the "top rungs" of a ladder (Whites and Asians?) are responsible for minding the squabbling hordes of Bottom Rungers (Mex and Black?). This locus of concern is not in the systems that the White culture has seen fit to keep fit; it is in the encroaching and violent tendencies of the BottomRungers. And if you hold that view, along with the view that it is the TopRung's lot to keep it all under control, then this framing will NEVER BOTHER you and I will sound "oversensitive" or something in even pointing it out.

Being steeped in facts on a topic for so many years does not (necessarily) include ever examining the examiner. Maybe when you step away or think about it, you'll get my point. Maybe not. I still respect what Orcinus does, no matter. Even if I am right about what I am saying, it doesn't mean I don't make errors, too, or that I am never blind to my own junk. This blog is about stepping out of blindness and into awareness, as well as Brown Pride, and uniting PoC. And having been blind to my own Lens often, I know that it's very often others who see our stuff before we do. And it always hurts to hear it.

I asked for the viewpoints of others for a reason. Thank you for yours. I take it into account as I will any other comments yet to come.

Sure. I understand your concern, and I think the framing could have been better. The dynamic she's referring to, I believe, is the historic one in which the economic elites set competing minorities off against each other. (For many years, for instance, white elites would use race -- either blacks or Asians, typically -- as a labor wedge issue, a means of keeping working-class people of all races from forming effective unions and advancing themselves.) Knowing Sara as I do, I don't think she's writing this approvingly.

What she's saying is this: The haters and racists on the right, including the Limbaughs and Hannitys, are going to use this situation to stir up fear among white people, to "prove" that their stereotypes about blacks and browns are true. It'd behoove us all to think of ways of blunting that bullshit.

Personally, I think the answer is to point to how this is an outgrowth of prison culture -- you know, the Aryan Brotherhood's depredations are at least as onerous as anything going on in LA. And that will get us thinking about he we chuck people into prison willy-nilly, as well as how we run our prisons.

Hi Dave. Thanks for that.

Perhaps, then, her reference to a paradigm gets muddled, and seems to be her own paradigm. I know I certainly lost the line between her pointing out (as you claim) a historic dynamic, and her actually using that dynamic in her own framing. Perhaps others can see that line better. To me, tho, the question of the "better framing" she could have used manifests as an article which has the potential to do as much harm, if not more, than good.

What she's saying is this: ...and I wish it were clearer. Please take into account the point of view that may be read from a piece, even it is was not intended. As I once called out Darkblack, himself, (in the thread to that link, as did many others earlier in other places—he is the cat who did the Blackface Lieberman on Huffpost a while back), and as anyone who understands racist memes knows, "intention" is certainly not the last word. But it is, ironically, the first one used when defending a body of work or words that hurts others with its "Framing."

I'm proud to say that Darkblack and I came to an understanding. Because we were able to listen to each other. This is what humans on the same rung do. Robinson came in here and did not listen, instead her initial impulse was to condescend and insult me for "looking so hard" to be offended. That's exactly what bugs me about her writing. As I said, it reeks often of that elitist bent. You are free to differ on that, as many others are. I don't want to argue it. And I don't want to make a crusade against her. As I said, Darkblack and I are friends today, and that's how I prefer it. I, too, am hotblooded, and often react quickly. But I can edit my comments here! ;) (altho I rarely do, and do not do once a comment is replied to.) So maybe if she had taken more time to think, she wouldn't have done that. That's not my larger point, a personal one. My larger point is as always, finding those insidious framings—whether they be in others' writing or my own—and calling them out. I think if you were to follow my writing, you see I am merciless with my own hidden junk, too.

Ultimately, I do agree with your last paragraph, and I think we begin to come together on that thought.

Methinks the friendly killer whale doth protest too much. ;)

Nezua, querido, where do you stand on using Marxist class analysis to understand the way things happen in America? Because much of what I'm hearing here seems to suggest that you don't buy it. You take offense at the suggestion that black and brown people have been pushed to the bottom; does this mean you don't think that's what's happened? You're also annoyed at the way I characterize the elite as mostly white; am I wrong?

Remember, too, that most of that post was drawn from a report from the Southern Poverty Law Center -- people who have a good reputation for doing their homework on stuff like this. Did you link through to the actual article? Because it was their sources who brought the term "Mexican Mafia" into the discussion. I don't blame you for not wanting to have your ethnic group smeared as gangsters (Italian-Americans don't appreciate it, either). But as Dave and I have both pointed out, there are propagandists who are already working overtime to blur the lines between "Mexicans" and "criminals" in the minds of the average American -- and they're in propaganda heaven over this. I'd like to hear your thoughts on what might be done about that.

Likewise, you still haven't said much about the report's allegations that an organized group of Chicanos has instigated a deliberate and widespread genocide movement in LA. Which is a pity, because I don't doubt you'd have something interesting and productive to add to that conversation, given how close you are to the culture and politics. It's much more your story to tell than it is mine.

As Dave says, I do see this as yet another example of elites playing one group off against another for their own gain. Turning a blind eye while Mexican gangs deliberately run the remaining black population out of town is a pretty sweet deal for those who think black folks shouldn't have come to LA in the first place. They don't even have to get their hands dirty. It's a game fascists play, and we need to call it out for what it is.

And it's a shame, because the LA I remember wasn't nearly this polarized. Twenty years ago, the gangs were based more on geography than race; and in mixed neighborhoods like ours, the membership reflected that. Also: mi Criolo esposo, with his Spanish surname(s) and nappy hair, was pretty quickly claimed by any ethnic group he ran into as one of their own (including Persians, Arabs, and Filipinos, which was a pretty funny commentary on just what a crock racial distinctions are). They just assumed he belonged. These days, though, he'd probably be a sitting duck -- for exactly the same reasons. The same things that once included him would now exclude him -- perhaps dangerously so. He'd be a one-man no-man's-land if he'd stayed LA or San Diego. Good thing he moved to Nueva York.

And yeah, the prisons do have a lot to answer for: they've been playing a wicked game of racial divide-and-conquer with their bloated prisoner population for the past couple decades, it should surprise no one that the results are finally showing up on the street. As Dave points out, the white gangs have gained a lot of strength from it, too. (My brother, who's back in again as of a week before Christmas, survives his periodic stays by sticking close to his own Angel posse.)

I absolutely cop to the fact that I didn't put it as well as I might have. It's a risk of blogging, as Dave has kindly reminded me more than once. And, in general, a little less academic distance and and a little more pointed fury wouldn't hurt -- and would probably make me a better blogger.

As for the AP stylebook: You can pick one up cheap at any decent large bookstore. It's the reporter's bible for all the picky-picky grammar, usage, and punctuation issues we encounter. (What's the proper abbreviation for "Senora"? And does that question mark go inside the quotes, or outside?) Media wannabees all get issued one on their first day in a newsroom or classroom, and live by it forever after. The world would be a better place if every blogger got issued one, too.

Hola, Mrs R. Thank you for writing.

• I do not know Marxist Class Analysis! I have not read Marx. I won't pretend to know what you mean. What I take offense at is not someone's theory in a past day or in a book in a school somewhere. It is someone speaking today in a way...well, I think it's clear from this exchange we had what I took offense, to, no? If you need clarification on any part of our conversation, please ask. That, I can answer.

• I don't think I put as much faith as you do in documents, reports, and the agenda of the media, for one. I think anything approved and floated by the structures in place are there for a reason. Do you get me? And I won't buy into a lot of that. Of course I am opposed to genocidal movements! I believe in finding the better parts of ourselves, not causing division, not propagating war. I don't want to see Mexicans kill people, and I don't want to see our military kill people. I don't want to see Blacks hurt. But I get a very uncomfortable feeling when I hear someone claiming to be on a "top rung" (White, I would guess that means, not even having read Marx) warning about the "bottom rungs" approaching and threatening the "Whites and Asians." I am sure you, with your facile mind, can grasp this quite easily without further explanation.

• You are free, of course, to call out things you feel are harmful. I am all for that. Again, I think it is clear why I had a problem with your post. And why I see it as potentially harmful. Isn't it clear? Of course we all have our focus. You are free to focus on what you see as a moment's biggest harm potential. And so am I. I think we just did that today!

• Also: mi Criolo esposo, with his Spanish surname(s) and nappy hair, was pretty quickly claimed by any ethnic group he ran into as one of their own (including Persians, Arabs, and Filipinos, which was a pretty funny commentary on just what a crock racial distinctions are). Well...that is one conclusion to draw. I would draw a different one. I would say that these groups feel a great need to be united, to add numbers to bolster their ability to not be wiped out. I think in this land being a person of color is a lonely and scary existence. For good reason. I do not claim that gangs are the "way to go." But I might quote Lorca and say that "At first glance, the rhythm may be confused with gaiety, but when you look more closely at the mechanism of social life and the painful slavery of both men and machines, you see that it is nothing but a kind of typical, empty anguish that makes even crime and gangs forgivable means of escape.”

You draw a "racial distinctions are crocks" from this one fact, and I draw such a different one. You see why it would be easy for us to misunderstand each other in many places.

If the gangs destroy the peace of a city, good. Let there be a clear and undeniable example for all to see. The Western paradigm is false, the one that thinks it can do whatever it likes and suppress the rot, the symptoms. Gang violence is balance, do you get me? It is a reckoning for what this land has put in place. Let the boil burst and bleed all over the false face of this pretty lady liberty. She is a whore and a killer. And she has harmed her children and calls it their own fault. I want peace. I do not wish for violence. But I wish for Truth.

• ON the last point...well. If you were to read my Skin of My Soul series (the one nominated for a Koufax with no prompting by me), you would see how I feel these days about language. I've been so adept with language since a child I was nearly a prodigy. But I've come around to seeing that as a false means of control. I think we use this language and framing of the Colonizer to hide from ourselves, and to nail down all the ethereal and intangible elements of our lives...and I think that is a very dangerous illusion and harmful to our health and harmony, in actuality. So I guess talk of style and format and properness leaves me cold these days. I see it not as a key to the cage, but as the gleam on the 12-guage.

Thank you for approaching me not as someone who "doesnt get it" but with respect. I would guess that you are a great person to know. And capable of great insight. And that we both have our blind spots. I don't know you well enough to know, but I would say that any problems you and I have in communication are certainly not insurmountable, and are probably due to some very different underlying philosophies.

Here's to growth, and connections with that which we once found foreign and scary. :)

I finally got time to go and read this, and wow, what a tragic article. Not hers (although that is pretty bad too, as it seems rather limited in outlook, in addition to the issues you point out), but the original one, which I actually just skimmed.

I don't live in LA anymore, and haven't for years, so I don't know how well the details actually match up with the reality, but I do know that when gangs move in the population itself can become sort of prisoners and quite often victims (even if they are of the same ancestry, etc).

I expect that we'll be seeing more things like this, too, around the country considering that LA usually exports its successes - and I'm pretty certain that certain elements of our state and federal governments consider the prison system and the resultant highly criminalized people they churn out (even if they were only in on minor crimes in the first place) a huge success.

Plus, all this "mafia" stuff... always ethnic or some scary "mafia", too. The Mexican mafia, the Asian mafia, the Russian mafia, Chinese (I think) triads, - I am not sure if there is a Black mafia?, this or that cartel, so on - but a lot this, while these groups actually exist in some form, it's not as if we've not had variations of mafias, including THE Mafia for decades - seems mainly used to instill fear and suspicion and the belief that one needs to have ones own mafia to survive.

It's like a snowball that just keeps picking up not only speed but all the lint and dirt and nails and other debris in its path, this history we have that is built on the crushed bones of oppression and hate and fear and greed.

Sigh. Sometimes I am not hopeful.

Surprised no one brought up the Klan... which used the next to the bottom poor whites to keep them from uniting with their natural economic allies against their REAL oppressors.

i see it as i do so many of the problems that bloom in this poisoned garden. you can keep spraying pesticide everywhere, but you will only drown the life eventually. you can't bring health with toxin (control) and denial (fake reasons for this violence and crime). you must not try to cheat nature. you must keep healthy soil, healthy plants, and do the work required to keep them healthy. (care for the little person, the poor, the meek.)

but no, this is the backalley greenhouse of the shortcut, and the weeds cannot be denied. they are an outgrowth of our stupidity and greed.

or if you want another metaphor: the land is ill. you can take aspirin all night. But until you take a look at the underlying infection, you will only see the sickness grow.

i know i tend to see things in broad, philosophical terms. not minute societal issues that can be dealt with by laws and propositions and policing. but that's part of my role here. whatever that is. i just see it that way. we all play our parts.

a stab at the literal?

the prison system, the elite system, the oppression of the poor and the PoC...greed based capitalism? they all lead to this shit. sorry, folks. it will only get worse.

Pues homes, Methinks your post made them chorro in their pinche calzones. tu sabes ... us uppity spics just need to chill da fuck out and leave this complex racial-think to the homes "who have a good reputation for doing their homework on stuff like this." We don't know what we are talking about.

Pues ... nezua, I know what I will be doing mañana, I going to hit the calles loco selling my snow cones so I can afford that fancy AP stylebook ... porque we all know we have bad grammar ... simon ... once we be edumacated and tell will let us hang at their sandbox. Maybe she is right the blogerosphere would be a better place if us pinche bloger@s had one whenever blog afta few rounds of tequila.

Pues ay te wacho.

jeje...ah. the fire of the mexicano!!! it warms mi alma.

you crack me the fuck up, vato. pues, es verdad. hablas la verdad, por supuesto. what it may be tuff to see for some is that it is very very verrrry hard to see beyond the Lens. a whole system of reliance on all those concepts that maintain the privileged system and view needs to be undone. and for such a supreme task, one must really have a good reason for leaving the thinking of the dominant cultura behind, sí? in my opinion, nearly impossible if that system benefits you and has held you up all your life...rather than poke into you. using a tool fashioned by the machine one is trying to dismantle with that same tool....if only it were as simple as "getting used to blogging." more like unhypnotizing yourself. but if we disagree with their thinking...pienso es mejor este they try, eh? and i know it can be hard (for us) to hear the same lens rise up, even when someone seems to be working hard at seeing around it, but we must have paciencia. its too easy to fight.

tho if fight we must, i'm glad you're on my side, vato. que viva la verdad, carnál.

You plead a lack of education, and "do not know from Marxist class analysis." But you've got no problem quoting Garcia Lorca at some length.

You are very funny, Senor Jonez.

my dearest mrs robinson:

i plead nothing! only admitted to not having read some books you have.

yes, "funny"...i think you are edging closer to hearing me, mebbe. ;)

i think it's pretty widely held knowledge that marxism completely ignores issues of race and patriarchy. not everything can be neatly summed with class analysis. that's pretty much the number one criticism of marx, that he ignores race and gender entirely.

"i think it's pretty widely held knowledge that marxism completely ignores issues of race and patriarchy. not everything can be neatly summed with class analysis. that's pretty much the number one criticism of marx, that he ignores race and gender entirely."

thank you for noting that Herm. I really want to take that and run with it but i'll make this snappy.

It really fucking bothers me when people act as if chicanos who haven't read marx or foucault or lenin are uneducated. ms. robinson, i am curious what you think of nahuatl analysis on colonialism? do you plead uneducation on this topic? oops, i forgot, it is only if we poc haven't read white canons that is important not that you haven't read indigenous theory.

What was Marx's first step of human history that he pointed out in "Historical Materialism"?--to transform nature to suit the needs of man? hmmm. i think some people might disagree, people who think we should live in harmony with nature like many native people do. i guess they haven't read marx though, huh? hense they don't know the great eurocentric virtues of exploiting the earth... Oh, and I love that part in "The Jewish Question" where marx critiques U.S. society without even mentioning slavery or native peoples (wasn't he writting in 1840???) I mean he wrote about the U.S. as if it was legally free back then!

I am not saying that marx class analysis is not a worthy read. i am saying that marx was, well, a racist. for many marxists, race is something that developed as a consequence of the market. whereas, a lot of poc have argued that without the social construction of race, the market would not have developed.

hegemony in the latin@ community is a very real thing. we would just like it contextualized and historisized the way the working class is. Marx did not accomplish that in he writtings and that is the conversation we need to have when debating this topic. lets keep in mind that the biggest mafia like gang in LA is the police and calling nezua ignorant because he hasn't read marx is a form of imperialism in itself. many people haven't read marx. these kids in LA have actual experiences dealing with powerful, bloody white supremacy, maybe we should read/listen to them first.

well, the last two mujeres that spoke up, mrs r, have good things to day. they always do. (as did XP, tho he made his statement indirectly and did not try to get along, as i have. perhaps he is more honest than me. [or less trusting, as i read back]) i can see why they are reacting as i did not. it is the tone and implications in your words. it is the same tone that always got to me in your writing. it may be the echo from bouncing off the rungs in between us.

but i did not take you as calling me ignorant, so no fear. like luisa, i do not accept that the framing you bring is THE framing, of course! that is the one you have learned in. this academic vice is your self-validation. without justifying it, what would your knowledge be? of course it is what you want to see through. i will not wrap my tone in admonishments that you read the books i want, or adhere to the style i want. but i will tell you what i think about the insinuations.

while i do love books (let's talk nietszche if you want, he was a favorite author of mine for a while, but how much can we rely on madmen, after all?) i am a person who also forms his views from his own living. that is where i come from. that is why i speak from my own life experience and what it has taught me, and not so much books on a syllabus. anyway, judging by the state of both capitalist countries as well as communist, i think a new way of thinking is desperately needed, eh?

no, i took it as you reaching around you wishfully for a book because you could not engage the situation without it. if a person cannot relate information they have ingested/read in a manner relevant to the conversation at hand—despite the other person not having read that book—then they haven't really learned much from it. that's how i see it. you did not bring it into the conversation yet, so i assume you do not know how to apply it to our conversation. if you do, i will certainly answer it.

try as you might, you have yet to escape the limitations of your own thinking, thinking of a type that has brought this land to where it is now. while you see yourself, perhaps, as pointing around the world, i am not in the box of your mental geography, and i see you pointing to various places inside of a box which i do not want to sit in. thus, we cannot agree yet on a legend. you use the word "educated" but immediately define it as including intimate information from a german dead man and not, say, a life lived homeless. You cannot understand how a man would want to educate himself with poets and artists and musicians, but not popular German thinkers.You attempt to be friendly (I think) and yet your words drip with the condescension and elitist thinking that you cannot escape. Your idea of Intelligent includes being trained in certain thought and format, and to me that looks like a dog on its hindlegs begging for treats.

I'll try once again to show how differently our presuppositions are, which is where we are running into trouble.

Turning a blind eye while Mexican gangs deliberately run the remaining black population out of town is a pretty sweet deal for those who think black folks shouldn't have come to LA in the first place.

And I say "turning a blind eye while White People deliberately confuse the issue of how they got this land, and lie to the children in school so they can spout their nationalistic jingo and continue to destroy PoC around the world in the same way in order to exploit their resources is a pretty sweet deal for those that benefit from such lies and murder."

You are still a White person fearmongering here, even here, even now as we speak. Using Blacks and Mexicans to protect the structure that creates nice Ivory Towers and machines like this mad nation run amok.

This makes me sad. But I understand.... It's a long way down from the top rung.

I like the bait-and-switch going on here, instead of debating the real issue, it was changed into "boy, you don't know your place" and now it's, "boy, stop citing grown-up stuff." OK I will bite, pues, lets see if the edumacatation fairy came to da crib last night...

Mrs. Robinson you make the big assumption that Nezua Limón Xolagrafik-Jonez has misinterpreted a "Marxist class analysis" theoretical framework, unlike the world of bourgeois intellectuals, just because Nezua chooses to cite some of Federico García Lorca works to support his believes. The problem with that assumption is that Nezua has to be either or, without giving him full credit of being able to clean out whatever elements he sees unfit to form his own beliefs.

By the way, it is hard to believe that García Lorca was a big supporter of a Marxist theory considering that during his time many believed that homosexuals were viewed as potential traitors, elements harmful to the socialist movement and state. I think you got the brown brotha, Pablo Neruda - García Lorca's friend who introduced him to communist party, mixed up.

But if you insist in wanting to go with a class base system in the US, it would be hard without race and gender as mentioned by my two comrades. No one here in the US was subjected to genocide or slavery because of their class. When did you ever hear about a lynch mob hunting down working class people? The Texas Rangers did not go into tow looking for the working class and no one burned down working class towns.

This is not to say that a Marxist idea is out of the question, Gustavo Gutiérrez contributed to Marxist theory regarding Latin America liberation. I am aware of Eugene Debs belief that white racism against peoples of color was solely a "divide-and-conquer strategy" of the ruling class and that any attention to its operations "apart from the general labor problem" would constitute racism in reverse. I WILL NOT DENY that Debs had a long history of fighting racism.

Marxism is indispensable because it highlights the relation of racist practices to the capitalist mode of production and recognizes the crucial role racism plays within the capitalist economy. Yet Marxism OVERLOOKS other spheres of American society where racism plays an integral role - especially the psychological and cultural spheres. Where do you think the right wing got their idea about a "color-blind" society? As you know, the right is very good at adopting linguistically from the left.

Marxist views tend to assume that racism has its roots in the rise of modern capitalism. Yet, it leaves out the fact that racism itself predates capitalism. Its roots lie in the earlier encounters between the civilizations of Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America - encounters that occurred long before the rise of modern capitalism.

It was an anti-indigenous racism that formed the fundamental pillar in Latin America's colonial society and it was this type of racism that influenced who to classify los mestizos. It would seem, that your argument Mrs. Robinson is that we must forget our past too. How is this argument any better than the far right? Why do you and David continue to provide historical analysis on racism on your blog?

Antonio Gramsci said the reason the "inevitable" socialist revolution never occurred was due to the fact that capitalism was not just maintained through violence and political and economic coercion, but through cultural hegemony in which the values of the bourgeoisie became the "common sense" values of all. Thus a consensus culture developed in which people in the working-class identified their own good with the good of the bourgeoisie, and helped to maintain the status quo rather than revolting.

I guess the edumacatation fairy did come and visit me last night. I guess us vatos are pretty smart.

The "Edumacatation Fairy" !!

Vato, you always crack me up.

as a guero I am not afraid of Blacks or Mexicans. Should I be?

yo soy Horsedooty!

jeje...no horsedooty. but maybe you are not on the Rung that mrs. r is?

mrs r—who is doing great damage to Orcinus' reputation with her sneering, racist views poking out hither and thon....

The problem I had, there was too insinuations regarding intellectual superiority - the same it was used against liza of culturekitchen. She also was being diminutive and using a lot rhetorical projection, which allowed to avoid racist terminology and preserve the colorblind myth through semantic moves.

She talks about how we should not fall into the "divide and conquer" rhetoric, yet, she is very adamant at projecting racial motivations onto Latinos though some "Mexican Mafia" meme - all it does is add fuel to the fire and let her off the hook.

We can never move forward if our allies are unable to deal with their own faults.

i know. it's easy for me to get emotional and not want to take the time to break it down as you and luisa do here. i use shorthand words because i know what i know when i see it. i guess it's that hot mexican blood. but then again, it's half genuine awe/shock that she cannot see what she is projecting and inflaming, even if she means well.

the intellectual superiority is one thing. i see it as tied to the self-validation of that which gives her that feeling of worth...yet it is mutated, instead of worth or achievement, it manifests as condescension. "oh, you do not come from this background, you have not read what i have, you are not a real -X- because you dont use a style guide" or whatnot, and yet the attitude is blinding her to the fact that she is trapped by the measuring stick she swats at me with. truth is not contained in form or conformity to form. in fact, it may be hidden by too much of that.

she is right in sensing a gap between journalism background and blogging. much of the left blogosphere is very much not about that elitist attitude, as i see it. it is very much about tearing down those pillars that refuse to be questioned, and when they are, react with "sneering" condescension, as is easy to see is a quick reflex for her. in her own blog, and here. el respeto. scope out her comment threads. she is utterly rude to people who disagree. and how does she highlight it? Have you even read blah blah??? please!

i appreciate the time and energy given to the Orcinus agenda. but in my opinion, being an ally or saying you are against racism or the worldviews that lead to eliminationism is not so simple as the idea or title or pattern of post themes. it is (more importantly, and more clearly revealed in) how you interact. do you interact like a patriarch? Like a Top Runger? or someone of the Whole? it is about what memes show through the way you deal with people. it ain't easy, i know. the Lens hides our own true vision from us.

OK, I should not hold *you* responsible for this dissipated evening, but I am, just for one day ;-). Very late to this thread wherein the post and objections have altready been expounded upon but I do have one small question/doubt: I don't capitalize 'white' (yet) because to me,
subjectively, it smacks of racism/white supremacy. On brown (which I don't seem to capitalize, either) ... the reason for that non capitalization usually is, I don't want to suggest 'Brownness' as monolithic. However - these are the subjective reasonings I have on this matter. ?Que pensas vos?

for me it is a gesture of equality. if we use all these words as indicators of race/ethnicity, then they all get capitalized. or not. another option is not using the words "White" or "Brown" in those ways at all. but i do. when i do, thats my style. :)

and...i know you know this, but that is really not the point of what we were batting around. it was more about a highlighting of two shapes of motivation and reflex. Doing what you did—thinking out your reasons and offering them—vs a "get an AP style book, the blogosphere would really be better if everyone had one, darling" type of thing.

since color has been discussed here I have a question that I can't answer so is it true that the darker your skin color is in Mexico the less la gente think of you? (Mexicans, that is) I have heard this is true from several fairly dark skinned members of La Raza. What is your take on this?

yo soy Horsedooty!

horsedooty,

there is a hell of a lot of racism in mexico. indigenous people there are sort of treated like black or latino people here. but it is all very complicated...

and black mexicans are discriminated in mexico as well (ya hear that ms.robinson? black mexicans. look em up). and don't let the marxists fool you--cuba is extremely racist against it's afrocuban population. it is the aftermath of colonialism (well, maybe not the aftermath cuz colonialism is still all around us...).

but i think this is the subject for another thread.....

OK, I finally read her post. It generalizes very sweepingly about Mexicans/Latinos. Initially, it seems to want to defend Blacks against them, but then there is this:

"Soon, we'll no doubt be hearing gleeful warnings that the Asian and white communities will be next in their sights -- and that the future they've been dreaming of is finally coming to pass. If we're going to have a snappy comeback ready, we should probably start thinking about it now."

So it's really about how us Anglos-Euros-and-Asians had better stop "them" while they're still only killing Blacks?

I hear a lot of anti-Mexican sentiment from Blacks, and anti-Black sentiment from white or whitish Latinos, every week. The interesting question (DUH!) is why that happens, not how evil those terrible Mexicans are and how they're probably going to come for "us" next, or something.

She sounds really scared that Mexico might take back Cali. It might be fun if it did - an interesting shakeup. Maybe they would make us speak Nahuatl. I would enjoy taking the courses. ;-)

P.S. Did she mean it was more important to have read Marx than Garcia Lorca, by that comment? I mean, did she mean it was weird to have read Garcia Lorca and not Marx? I could say: Germans over Spaniards, that's more evidence of fear of ... the Brown Menace?

i guess there's a couple different ways you could take that sentence. i'm not sure, in the end, what she meant. communication between us seemed poor.

I get this feeling from Ms. Robinson too, a privileged white woman.