-----Original Message----- From: change-links@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:change-links@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Uncle Don B Fanning Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 1:38 PM To: Change~Links list Subject: [change-links] FWD: Critique of Global Exchange on immigrant rallies FWD: Critique of Global Exchange on immigrant rallies From: dorindamoreno <dorindamoreno@xxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 20:07:21 -0800 Subject: [south_bay_activists] Re: Fwd: can someone tell me why?; central coast diversity alliance offers proposal for participation, elders/mentor program raul, antonio, and all concerned after reading the message herein. the below is a repeat of a decades old issue of the chasm between movement organizational alliances and the shortcomings of the liberal agenda. but, let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater. it is also always necessary identifying the issues with a proposal for resolve. from personal experience and observation i support the premise of this post and offer our solidarity in bringing forth a vehicle for hearing and bringing about an atmosphere for challenging those immediatly responsible for the dichotomy toward resolve, bridging the sources of this described symptom of the left and bringing forward the voice of the people toward negotiating a plan of action and working alliance. at the same time, striving from our own outreach and work within the youth of our specific communities, sending a call out for the opening of communications between youth and elders of the community and their friends working together towards the creation of a forum of human relations and sharing our mother earth and all our relations. we will send our proposals to all expressing interest in receiving our proposal package, functioning in the central coast through the work of elder dorinda moreno, central coast diversity alliance and friends. respectfully submitted, dorinda moreno central coast diversity alliance south bay activists indyiraqaction earthu c/s Raul Estemera wrote: HERE IS A MESSAGE FROM THE YOUTH OF COLOR. PERHAPS WHEN THE YOUTH SPEAK, WE SHOULD LISTEN, AND LOOK FOR SOLUTIONS TO WORKING TOGETHER- THIS IS WHAT REAL TRANSPARENCY IS. LOOKING AT EACH OTHER DIRECTLY AND APOLOGIZING FOR HAVING SLIGHTED PEOPLE. WE ALL WANT HARMONY-BUT ONLY IF WE CAN COME TO THE TABLE AS EQUALS CAN WE TRULLY HAVE IT!!! --- the forwarded message follows --- Subject: Re: can someone tell me why From: AMChoice@xxxxxxx Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 12:26:11 EST To: kmaleski@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, dragonlibre@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx, svtriathlete@xxxxxxxxxxx Racism Karen. Racism is what is going on. I know the organizers of the Watsonville/Salinas March quite well. In fact I was on the phone with one of the key organizers of it last night until around 11pm. After someone at our own march told several of us that there had been several arrests at the Watsonville Protest. However, this did not occur... there was just a citation. The lengthy story and statements issued by the organizations can be found on Indymedia and/or Indybay or Indy Media Santa Cruz. Regardless, what you've understood as a "harmonious" March for/on immigration and peace... is NOT an accurate description. The Brown Berets which were the key organizers of both the Watsonville and Salinas legs of this march were systematically undermined by the liberal favoritism and racist patterns of organizing found within Global Exchange. I.E. they undermined community involvement itself by sabotaging specific efforts to bridge communities cross cultural and racial lines. THE SAME THING OCCURED HERE. The typical pattern of Global Exchange as the point organization for the Guerro Azteca Project, has been to go around the overall community and work only with one local group/organization or person who very typically has had to possess two key pre-requisites: A. Whiteness and B. Liberal Attitudes. I'm not giving you MY opinion here, I'm giving you the opinion of the key Brown Beret Organizer who I spoke at length last night (Jennifer Laskin), and might I add... she IS also White. But even she recognized the overt and non-overt racism that played into their dealings with Global Exchange. As it was the Brown Berets hope that for once they'd be able to bridge the largely liberal and white peace community with the largely latino community in Watsonville etc. by having them march in solidarity with one another. Again, this was systematically undermined. Global Exchange... amidst planning by the Brown Berets, went around the Salinas and Watsonville organizers, and contacted key members of the Santa Cruz Peace Coalition, asking them to "organize an evening speaking event in SC or Salinas... and that they [global exchange]... would provide the speakers (i.e. Fernando Suarez Del Solar, Pablo Paredes and Medea Benjamin it should be noted that Medea Benjamin only showed up at the march after the controversy and blatant prejudice within global exchange was confronted... she felt pressured to attend, she did not WANT to participate and had to be pressured into it. What you see now, is the spin after the fact, in the hopes of dealing with issues of prejudice by the police department.). This attempt to circumvent the community, succeeded only in dividing the Santa Cruz Peace community from the Salinas/Watsonville community (yet again) so that only a token handful (again needing to be pressured into attending) of white santa cruz peace activists participated in the march. Regardless, this sabotaging was undermined by the mass community sentiments amongst OUR community, that Latino/Hispanic/Chicano/Indigenous/Immigrant community... as the Berets DID NOT expect 2500 people to attend their march. Which was nearly ten times what they expected, in their wildest dreams... the fact that they did attend startled even the berets. As you can see those sentiments are strong and yes, even WE the "organizers/leaders" of our community are PART OF our community, and as a result are directly accountable to our community, this is by definition a "dictatorship of the prolitariat" which just means, "on order of the people". Global exchange and this exceptionalist "white liberal" attitude however does everything in its capacity to undermine any kind of accountability to the community, that community, ANY community. Except for its very own individualist and elitist concept of "white liberal" self, because it believes it has all the answers, it is right and everyone else is wrong. This kind of rampant prejudice is what we also dealt with here in San Jose. This needs to be known, internalized and understood. The likes of Fernando Suarez Del Solar, Pablo Paredes were simply caught in the middle. As was our Brown Beret companion, who has been caught up in this racist dragnet attitude amongst the Watsonville police, because he is the most "public" (read as "most brown and militant looking") of the Berets, vs. Jennifer ("pretty white and peaceful girl") who was actually the police liaison, had been keeping the police informed all along at the behest of the Berets in a working relationship. But when it came down to the day of the event, ugliness emerged (a chant our MC kept saying about George Bush and the Police, that ugliness he was referring to was not a physical ugliness but a psychological, cultural and social ugliness that is anti human)... the Watsonville police now want to even charge the Berets for their own overtime costs, as well as numerous other fines and citations against them. It, is B.S. We experienced something similar, the reason we were harassed so heavily by the police (16+ cars, 3 of which were unmarked, and a SUV at its peak) yesterday is because OUR (THE COMMUNITIES) rally was bigger, more involved, and more progressive than the one organized through SBM/Global Exchange. Think not that this is yet again and "us vs. them" thing with SBM... no, this is a pattern of behavior produced by this overridingly racist attitude that seeks to cut us (the people of color and oppressed) out of things WITHIN OUR OWN COMMUNITY... a pattern of exceptionalism and an attitude that has us constantly in another country telling how to be better societies, more "civilized, democratic and free"... in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti etc. etc. etc. but not limited to right wing militarists it also manifests itself here in San Jose, locally in the defense of the people of color in the De Anza 8, the Zunieda Event, the hijacked Luis Primo event, the attacks on Comite in Solidarity with Cuba & Latin America, the attempted cancellation of the Ward Churchill event, the personal attacks on individual organizers and leaders... and yes, YESTERDAYS ACTION/MARCH. Quetzacelouciua aka. Maria Ortiz, was given direct contact information with the Gurrerro Azteca Project and Fernando Suarez Del Solar, Pablo Paredes to such an extent, that they were going to be staying in her home, and she wanted to do a dinner/speaking engagement for them... and attempted out OUR behest to work with Global Exchange/SBM... but was cut out again and again and again... well guess what, the division, and ruffled feathers you saw yesterday were the last straw manifestation of that. And we are not remotely apologetic about it... let their feathers be ruffled, but they know now, and will continue to know this is OUR community... not theirs, and they either become part of it, or they will be excluded from it continually. They are the ones by their actions making it into an "us vs. them"... our communities, our cultures, our histories are many things, but exclusionary is not one of them... do you think we truly enjoy the marginalization that takes place, the racism? No, we want peace, we want equality, we want justice... we DO want harmony, and would love to sit besides our brothers and sisters of all colors, as lovers, friends, family. This IS our cultural way... it is not this false politics of systems and organizations, and super structures and top down idiocy. It is community cooperation... but when you never allow cooperation, let alone "discussion" to take place... then there can't ever be this working together, there is only the ever present cancer of prejudice and its division making behavior. We as a peoples will not be tokenized, used, abused, or told what to do by anybody, anywhere, anymore. We as a peoples are not children, in need of guidance. We are not only the indigenous peoples of this land, the blood, breath, and life of this land... but we are also the majority, the history, the lifes breath of San Jose and the entire continent itself, and they wanted to do this kind of thing WHERE WE LIVE... IN EAST SAN JOSE! ...Hell, no was the response... and notice, how the larger march, that majority march, the inclusive people of color march, was OURS.... NOT the one organized by SBM/GE... and additionally throughout the entire event we were going to wait for the coming of the other group, of merging our march with theirs, of acting in true solidarity and said it again and again, and meant it in our hearts and continue to feel that way... and time just passed, passed, and passed and they still hadn't arrived, so we marched... we marched four OUR cause. That war that effects us both at home and abroad. All is not as it seems. And yes indeed a great conflagration is coming. This way of division, exclusion and prejudice cannot continue. Cause we won't put up with it anymore. I speak here with a collective voice, cause there is few if anyone who would disagree with me (I as always welcome their words of wisdom, their hearts truth for it is more sincere than my own... for I am jaded, while they are tempered and humbled). Stand with Us, but not Walk in front of us... that IS the Strategy To Win... WE are the experts on oppression, not those who prosper off of it and impose it, they are not its victims, those who suffer through it and toil to survive... understand this "immigration" is a byproduct of survival... we are STARVING... it is that simple, it isn't about material gain, it isn't about being rich... it is about surviving... simply struggling to survive... that is the reality of our conditions, this is the reality, our community, our culture our existence resides within... so tell me who else has the expertise on how we all must overcome it? Who else knows our conditions? Is it going to be those who don't experience those things? Those whose actions and impositions placed this yoke of exploitation and oppression upon us? There is a Mexican term you should familiarize yourself with, its goes "Ala Chingada" in slang this normally is referred to as the F-word... it is not remotely the same thing. The Chingada is a brutal violent rape... but not simply a sexual rape, it is a reference to the socio-cultural rape we have experienced as a people. That genocidal historical fact that decimated our communities, our cultures, our history, our society, attacked our bodies, our minds, our spirits, our faith, our very confidence in ourselves. That is the Chingada... and it is something we continue to live through... this historical trauma, willfully and intentionally used against us that we try and live through and cope with daily, because IT STILL IS GOING ON. Do you (or the rapist) ever imply the rape victim is ever in the wrong? The cause of their victimization... if only "you'd do it/done it our way... you'd have/be fine..."? This is patronizing and sickening attitude we deal with daily. It makes us ill... This e-mail sounds like the weight of the world in response to a simple question you asked, I know this.... well, that is the answer. The weight of the world, of our history... of the hundreds of years of genocide we deal with daily, as well as the thousands of years of history that is our positive birthright, to overcome this era of our suffering. The victims of sickened "-isms" people use to justify their own prejudice, inequality, and repudiation metted out on us. All of it violently, be it in tendered insincere words and actions, to the head cracking and gun blasting we experience from the multitudes in uniform, be it with a suit and tie, or in fatigues, helmet and a badge.. Forward this to all those you'd like. Always, Antonio ameetingoftheways@xxxxxxxxx villagrg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ebergman@xxxxxxxxxxx fasaba@xxxxxxxxx bushlost@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx syesilyurt1@xxxxxxxxx andyluce@xxxxxxxxxxx nabbey@xxxxxxxxxx jnaesju@xxxxxxxxxxxxx svtriathlete@xxxxxxxxxxx gsanders@xxxxxxx chelaybarra@xxxxxxxxx jbritton32@xxxxxxxxxxxxx cross0828@xxxxxxxxx fredsam@xxxxxxxxxx Just think first <info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Janeen Reavis <janeean@xxxxxxxxx> Change Links Progressive Newspaper. Act. Act in Love and Spirit. New Pacifica Working Group http://www.egroups.com/group/NewPacifica 'Save Our Stations!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NewPacifica/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: NewPacifica-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/