Happy Loving Day!

In our work to reform out-dated immigration laws, it’s important to remember other struggles against unjust and retrograde laws. 

 

Only FORTY-ONE YEARS ago today, the U.S. Supreme court overturned bans on interracial marriage in the case Loving vs. Virginia

 

Check out the Loving Day website for more information on the holiday, resources and real stories from interracial couples around the country. http://www.lovingday.org/

ACTION: AZ Superintendent to Abolish Ethnic Studies Program

Today, I read this article from Latina Lista about Tom Horne, a school superintendent in Tuscon, Arizona who wants to do away with an ethnic studies program at a local High School. The classes he’s looking to eliminate include African American studies, Native American studies, Mexican American/Raza studies and Pan Asian studies.

Horne, who claims to have a long history of “opposing ethnic studies and gender studies” says that the decision is “not based on a question of academics or education, but ‘values.’”

The classes he’s proposing for elimination have been proven to help Latino students at the high school perform at higher levels.

Countless studies of such classes have shown that such programs don’t just enrich the curriculum but broadens the knowledge base of the students and fosters a sense of pride.

On a personal level, I am terrified by this justification. What he is proposing is a return to close-minded isolationist education that limits worldviews and works to keep people in agreement by keeping them in ignorace. Not only am I offended, as a woman, by his proud opposition to “gender studies”, but as a student of ethnic studies myself I am outraged that he is inserting “values” into his argument.

It is tactics like this that are working to re-institutionalize bigotry, mysoginy and racism. By eliminating these types of learning opportunities for young people, Horne is sending a message that Native Americans, African Americans, Mexican Americans and Asian Americans are not are part of our “values”.

Whatever happened to the melting pot? Whatever happened to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? What is my country heading towards - life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness only if you can prove that your values match ours?

Is anyone else outraged by this?

If so, take ACTION!

Horne will be in Tucson tomorrow in order to talk “about reasons TUSD should abolish its Ethnic Studies department”. Prior to his press conference, however, community members will gather in opposition to this deluded strategy of axing programs that lift up minority students.

Community members representing the four TUSD Ethnic Studies Departments (AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES, NATIVE AMERICAN STUDIES, MEXICAN AMERICAN/RAZA STUDIES, and PAN ASIAN STUDIES) will be holding a PRESS CONFERENCE in SUPPORT of ETHNIC STUDIES

Where: TUSD’s GOVERNING BOARD ROOM , 1010 E. 10th Street, Tucson, AZ 85719
Time: 9:30 a.m., Thursday, June 12, 2008

 

The Media Don’t Care about the Other Kind of Terrorists

From FireDogLake, comes a story about the recent arrests of domestic terrorists with plots to target local government buildings in Pennsylvania.

If you’re wondering why you haven’t heard the news, maybe its because the four people arrested were the wrong color.

Click here to read the full post. It definitely makes you reconsider the focus and energy of our “War on Terrorism”…

Jena 6 - We won’t sit down while injustice stands in our way

When candidates refuse to debate on Univision, it isn’t just about Latinos. Because then they turn around and refuse to debate with PBS and Tavis Smiley at a predominantly black university. It’s about systematic discrimination that hurts EVERYBODY.

When our court system, as a function of our broken immigration system, unjustly rips migrant families apart, it isn’t just about immigrants. Because then our court system in Louisiana attempts to jail young men for a school yard brawl that should be nothing more than a misdemeanor, if that. It’s about institutional discrimination that hurts EVERYBODY.

Today is the rally in the smalltown of Jena where local and national advocates are fighting to save the lives of 6 young men [action items below]. Immigrant advocates will be among those rallying in Jena, and wearing black in solidarity across the country. Because we know that your struggles are our struggles, as ours are yours.

Hate groups try to tell working class African Americans that immigrants are the cause of their economic and societal problems. Those groups are the same people that want to see the Jena 6 jailed and the key thrown away.

What you can do personally…

Send a letter to the Louisiana Attorney General

Make a contribution to the rally today

UPDATE:
On Friday, Sept. 14 the Louisiana Third Court of Appeals reversed the aggravated battery conviction of Mychal Bell, ruling that the youth should not have been tried and convicted as an adult for his alleged role in last year’s fight with a white high school student in Jena, La. The NAACP believes this was appropriate and just.

On Sept. 17, NAACP officials presented a petition of more than 60,000 signatures to Louisiana Gov. Blanco at the State Capitol. The thousands of online signatures were gathered via the NAACP website. They are a symbol of those concerned with the unequal treatment of the defendants and the pubic acknowledgement that the hanging of the three nooses is a serious hate crime offense.

WHO:
Thousands expected expected to participate in a rally for justice and equality in Jena, La.

Is Immigration the Problem?

I love a good editorial that deconstructs and refutes anti-immigrant arguments in a well balanced discussion any day of the week. I particularly love one that frames our current issues within the wide lens of history. I recently saw an article on People’s Weekly World that takes apart the flawed and misguided arguments of Numbers USA, on of the numerous anti-immgirant groups springing up in the last few years… Read the article HERE

The author’s bottomline is that anti-immigrants have tried for centuries to rip our communities apart, but  “Today, immigrants and U.S.-born workers — Black, white and Latino — are joining together in a host of struggles. If we reject anti-immigration diversions, we can take a lesson from the 1930s, and “unite and fight” for the people’s needs.”

FIRM is continuing the work of building interethnic alliances that run deep and can build our common strength along a whole host of social justice issues- check out our multiethnic alliance building toolkit HERE

The King of Peace would make his last stand at the border

 

FIRM works on a broad range of issues related to immigrant rights including civic participation, state and local rights campaigns, and multiethnic alliance building. Dushaw Hockett, our organizer on multiethnic alliance building has authored a toolkit for communities looking to increase interethnic coaltion building (Get the toolkit HERE).

The following is an editorial from Dushaw:

  The King of Peace Would Make His Last Stand at the Border  As we prepare to memorialize the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., many will twist and bend his legacy toward their own agenda.  It happens every year.  This year is no different. But where would the true King stand on the heady issues of the day.  During the time he walked among us, he took controversial stands on many issues, including ones that left him feeling alone and isolated by those closest to him.  He took a stand on
Vietnam.  Poverty.  The right to vote.  And, lastly, he took a stand on violence before violence took a stand back.   If King were alive today, what would he stand for?  More importantly, what would he die for?  He once uttered “If a man hasn’t discovered something worth dying for, he isn’t fit to live.”   

Therefore, if King were with us today, I’m convinced he would make his last stand at the border, and would most likely die there.   The border I speak of plays out in the different dimensions of the immigration debate.  The geographic border that mothers, with children in tow, risk life and limb to cross.  Borders of the mind that divide minutemen and clergymen.  Borders of the heart that severe undocumented parents from their
U.S. born children.   If I was to apply King’s teachings to the current debate on immigration, here’s where I think he would stand: Violence.  King had an expansive definition of violence.  It wasn’t just fist striking face.  Knife cutting flesh.  Bullet penetrating skull.  No, King viewed poverty, racism and war as “triple evils” that, together, formed a vicious cycle of violence.  Using King’s definition, undocumented workers working long hours in harsh conditions for little to no wages would be violence.  Denying health coverage to children because of their immigration status would be violence. 

Unjust laws.  King believed in the law.  But he also believed in the right to break unjust laws.  Segregation was an unjust law.   Withholding the right to vote was an unjust law.  If he was with us today, the King I know would view 10 year visa backlogs that keep families separated an unjust practice of law.  He would view welcoming those fleeing political persecution but rejecting those persecuted (and tortured) by abject poverty an unjust law.  As a result, he would stand up for the 12 million undocumented men, women and children living in the
U.S. who “broke” the law.   Work and Poverty.  Before his death, King was preparing to move to scale on a major campaign against poverty.  If he was with us today, he would identify the workplace as a major point of tension in the immigration debate, but also an issue around which alliances could form.  I could hear King now responding to the question “Are immigrants taking jobs from native born persons?”  He’d ask, “Isn’t there a labor hierarchy in this country?  Doesn’t this hierarchy take the form of a ladder, with good jobs at the top and bad jobs at the bottom?  Isn’t the wanton pursuit of profits at the root of this hierarchy?  Isn’t it true that Black and Brown people are overwhelmingly stuck at the bottom of the ladder, and can’t climb to the top because the ladder is broken?  Isn’t the ladder broken for a host of reasons that include racial bias, lack of skills and education and language barriers?  If yes, then why not bring Black, Brown and other concerned persons into relationship with one another in order to repair the ladder.” “Why we can’t wait”.  While in a
Birmingham jail, King penned on tissue paper a compelling argument to fellow clergy leaders for “Why we can’t wait”.  The “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” was a response to calls for King to slow down the movement, to take a gradual approach to dismantling segregation.  King’s response was that ‘we can’t wait’.  If he was alive today, the King I know would make the same argument with respect to sensible and comprehensive immigration reform.  His argument would go something like this:  When hundreds are scorched to death each year in desert heat; when women are raped and don’t report it because of fear of deportation; when millions live in the shadows of the law and are exploited because of it; when little children are forced to ask relatives “Why does mommy and daddy have to leave?”, then you will know why we can’t wait.  King’s teachings are more relevant today than ever before.  As we memorialize King’s legacy, let us do so by standing with him at the border.