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10 de Marzo, 2008
A Robust Economy of Hate
Categorized under | Tags: Hate Crime, Hate Groups, ICE, Immigration, Latino, migra, Race, racism, White Supremacists
NEW YORK (AP) — Anti-immigrant sentiment is fueling nationwide increases in the number of hate groups and the number of hate crimes targeting Latinos, a watchdog group said Monday.The Southern Poverty Law Center, in a report titled "The Year in Hate," said it counted 888 hate groups in its latest tally, up from 844 in 2006 and 602 in 2000. [...]
The law center's report contends there is a link between anti-immigrant activism and the significant rise in hate crimes against Latinos in recent years. According to the latest FBI statistics, 819 people were victimized by anti-Latino hate crimes in 2006, compared with 595 in 2003.
"The immigration debate has turned ugly and the result has been a growth in white supremacist hate groups and anti-Latino hate crime," said Mark Potok, director of the law center's Intelligence Project. "The majority of anti-Latino hate crimes are carried out by people who think they're attacking immigrants, and very likely undocumented immigrants." [...]
In one such assault, in February 2007, three men broke into a mobile home in Wright City, Mo., yelling "immigration enforcement" and beat an illegal immigrant from Mexico with a piece of lumber, according to police reports.
In Arkansas, where the Latino population has grown rapidly, there have been several recent violent incidents. In December, police said, a Hispanic man was fatally beaten in Lowell, Ark., after his nephew spoke Spanish to the assailant's girlfriend.
EXCEPT IT'S NOT much of a "debate" is it? "Debate" is a grand word, one that implies intelligence, reason, insight, equal opportunity to speak and make your points, and an agenda of fairness and truth. I don't see what is happening out there, the noise coming from the biggest bullhorns as "debate." I see a lot of hostile agenda, I see fear feeding violence, I see the stupidest meanest most ignorant minds getting the most airplay, and a lot of people terrified, hunted, and suffering.
And I hurt to even think of that suffering. But part of me urges ICE on. Part of me thinks the worst possible option would be for this persecution to remain a piecemeal thing that picks away at the sanity and safety and well-being of so many gente out there while just keeping enough workers in place to maintain the USA's economy and productivity; keeping just enough undocumented workers busing tables and walking babies and raking leaves and cooking dinners and slaying cows so that us LEGULZ can Have All the Opportunity in the Woild; keeping enough cops and ICE monkeys on the move to gather just enough stats to get bigger funding for more prisons and weaponry; and basically keeping the conflict roiling and the fear growing, and the hate spreading...and nothing really being done to change anything for the better.
So that part of me—and granted, a sorrowful, frustrated, bitter part of me—cheers for each raid just because when I see one, I know another hole is being punched in the decrepit husk of our faltering economy and with each injury to a community and the businesses that support these communites and are supported by thse workers, we tumble faster into a recession, an inarguable and hungry depressive motion where a chain reaction eats away at so many financial dynamics that even the crusty upper echelons will soon begin to sway and I say let them sway and let them begin to dump and topple.
If nothing else can teach ignorant people Cause and Effect, or the interconnectedness of all of us, let this be the lesson that sticks. If the idea of humanity and human rights that no know borders is beyond the thought processes of putos with badges and poison political pens or skinheads who want to take out their lack of cultural pride and heart on others, then let them learn this way. Let the markets fall into dust that poisons the lungs of allllllllllllllllllllllll of us.
There is no border save the ones that slice across the psychological and spiritual terrain of each human, the ones we project outward and paste onto land, people, ideas. Now, in this nation, en esta tierra, there is only a network of money making and trabajo and currency exchange and food chaining that spans the continent. And the world! People in the USA are meeting a changing culture and eating up fear and racism from the media and distracting themselves from what hell the USA is visiting on the Middle East, and has done to Latin America for YEARS, and perversely, is now pointing at many of those who keep the engines running in this place, and their kin, and all Mexicanos, and in turn, Latinos. And Español.
And these haters want to make an electric, steel, poison, camera-littered, laser-armed supertall apartheid wall behind which the USA can send her companies, behind with the dark flunkies can toil, and within which we can enjoy our lurvely cheap goods and spicy stolen culture(s) and then on top of that flood the news with the clever shapes of White Supremacist propaganda. Where you gonna pay for this wall? We are eating a hole in our own head with the ravenous appetites of our wars. Who ya gonna get to build this wall? I say get out there and start toiling, minutemen and KKK and haters alike! Get out in that borderlands sun and start sweatin'. Might wanna bring your sunscreen.
Debate? We haven't even begun speaking in earnest. And hate? I ain't my papá. And I ain't shy. I'm down with your war, if that's what it's gonna be. I'd much rather see some distribution of empathy and kindness and reason. But I'm cool with choosing sides, too. I'm about fed up with all this.
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Comentarios (4)
leesee dijo:
Hey! I just blogged on this this very morning. Great minds think alike. Still enjoy your blog everyday.
Palabras por leesee spat forth on el 10 de Marzo, 2008 at 09:46 AM
azgoddess dijo:
haters building walls - supposedly to keep the illegals out but maybe, i was thinking they are to keep us in? and oh - who are the real illegals in this country? certainly not the native peoples of north america - sigh
Palabras por azgoddess spat forth on el 10 de Marzo, 2008 at 12:10 PM
mariachi mama dijo:
I know what you mean, Nez. Hell, sometimes I want the most restrictive enforcement mean as hell,shipping them out in cattle car policies because just maybe the great america will finally understand that they have no moral ground, no mas.
Palabras por mariachi mama spat forth on el 10 de Marzo, 2008 at 09:48 PM
K.VILLA dijo:
"There is no border save the ones that slice across the psychological and spiritual terrain of each human, the ones we project outward and paste onto land, people, ideas."
Wow. Profundo. You have beautifully put into words (once again!) something that I have been vaguely aware of for awhile and unable to articulate. Thank you.
Palabras por K.VILLA spat forth on el 11 de Marzo, 2008 at 11:38 AM