That article has some very good points. I say to my white brothers and sisters: What's wrong with cooking and cleaning for ourselves, for taking care of our own kids, for taking responsibility for the things we buy and produce instead of thinking we're so mighty that we can't? That's the most disturbing thing about all this. It's like we've become a nation of little rich children who can throw money at someone and never have to do anything we don't want to.

yes pat...it's true. the principles that so many of us here in america have taken on...they are ones of convenience, and of "Othering" people. and sadly, an engrained reflex to think of the Brown™ as below, and as yard workers, guest workers, maids. how sad a fate for the beautiful descendants of the indigenous of this continent. but we will not remain pegged in those holes.

thank you for your words.

Pat, I agree with the spirit of what you're saying. At the same time, I think we need to recognize that this hasn't "become a nation of little rich children who can throw money at someone and never have to do anything we don't want to.

That is all it ever was from the very beginning. It is one of those unspoken founding principles that shaped this nation into what it is now. They first did it to the Native Americans with their Manifest Destiny excuses for trying to enslave them. That didn't work out so well because the Natives knew the land better than they did so they could escape rather easily. They implemented indentured servitude where they used poor Europeans to do the work they didn't want to do themselves. Then they realized that having slaves is even cheaper than having servants so they started kidnapping Africans and taking them here to grow their food and take care of their children and "service" their men. That lasted for a long time and during that period they also tried it out on smaller groups (e.g. Asians out west).

So what is being done to Latin@s right now shouldn't surprise anyone one bit. The idea that this was once a nation of do-it-yourself, pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstrap, hardworking pioneers is nothing more than a myth. I think we need to recognize this as a pattern and not a new phenomenon.