With Nazi Germany under Hitler and Fascist Italy under Mussolini supporting the overthrow of Spain and other nations calling for “non-intervention”, the Abraham Lincoln Brigades served as a beacon during a time when the clouds of intolerance and extremism seem to cover Spain. For nearly two years the brigades fought advancing fascist troops on behalf of the democratically elected government of Spain.

The people who made up brigade were black and white, immigrant and non-immigrant, rich and poor, and Christian and Jew. While their backgrounds varied from individual to individual, what brought them together was the belief that humanity shared a destiny that was worth fighting for.

The Abraham Lincoln Brigade volunteers lost many battles. During reunions, veterans of the brigades sing of that time with pride but also with remorse as evidenced in the song Jarama Valley:

There’s a valley in Spain called Jarama
It’s a place that we all know so well
It was there that we gave of our manhood
And so many of our brave comrades fell.

We are proud of the Lincoln Battalion
And the fight for Madrid that it made
There we fought like true sons of the people
As part of the Fifteenth Brigade.

Now we’re far from that valley of sorrow
But its memory we ne’er will forget
So before we conclude this reunion
Let us stand to our glorious dead.

One can’t help but to wonder how the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, facing well armed and trained troops, found the strength not only to stand but to also move forward. What was their secret? As I read the accounts and archives this weekend of the Abraham Lincoln Brigades one thing becomes clear.

The real power of the brigades comes from the simple fact that they fought not because they believed they would win or lose—but rather it was simply the right thing to do. Or to steal from that famous poet Dylan Thomas they chose to “Rage, rage against the dying of the light”.

The members of the Abraham Lincoln Brigades are true heroes and heroines because they refused to be paralyzed, refused to turn their backs and run from the approaching darkness. They tied their destiny to others confronting the specters of intolerance, anti-Semitism and racism.

May the day come when we choose to be so bold.

Since the weeks leading up to the most significant elections ever to take place in the United States, federal law enforcement agencies, the media and human rights organizations have paid close attention to threats made against Presidential-Elect Barack Obama. Some of these threats have been made by individuals with ties to the neo-Nazi movement in the United States.

During the Democratic National Convention in August police in Denver, Colorado detained three individuals after a weapon, drugs and wigs were discovered in their possession. The individuals, eventually released, were described as white supremacists. Two months later two racist skinheads were arrested in Tennessee after law enforcement uncovered their plans to behead black Americans and assassinate Barack Obama.

According to the Chicago Tribune there have been at least 200 hate incidents directed at Obama and his supporters. Some of these incidents have included cross burnings. A tactic historically used by the Ku Klux Klan to intimidate blacks.

However it is beyond the graffiti, intimidation, and harassment that the far right is building its true power. With Republican leadership engaged in an internal power struggle to control the party apparatus, extremist factions within the party are seeking to strengthen their influence while more extreme external organizations hope that the current political vacuum will allow them to increase the influence of white nationalism in the American body politic.

While some factions like The Eagle’s Forum, The National Rifle Association, and Team America Political Action Committee have enter the politically charged minefield to control the Republican Party, other organizations like The Constitution Party, John Birch Society and the overtly anti-Semitic American Free Press hope that they will be able to create a third alternative to the current two party system. Regardless of the differences, what each faction shares is the belief that waging political attacks against President Obama will allow them to both undermine the incoming administration and grow their membership.

Political attacks on Obama began immediately after the last vote was cast. On December 1st and again on the 3rd a group called We the People Foundation ran full page ads in the Chicago Tribune questioning Obama’s citizenship. By law an American president is required to be born on U.S. territory and We the People Foundation (run by Robert Shultz) hoped to raise doubt regarding the right of Obama to be president. What the Chicago Tribune failed to point out when they ran the ads was that Shultz, a long time far right tax protester, bases his anti-tax theory on the belief that as a “free white sovereign male” he is not required to pay income tax. Shultz also argues that the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is illegal.

This particular attack on Obama is part of a larger tendency within the American far right to dismantle the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Brought into law after the American Civil War, the 14th Amendment defined legal citizenship for those born in the United States. This was a major blow against white supremacy after the Civil War because it superseded race, religion and ethnicity as the basis of citizenship.

Under the guise of “controlling immigration”, the far right Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the most influential anti-immigrant group in the United States, has stated publicly that one of its top goals for the next federal legislative session is to restrict the 14th Amendment. The Federation for American Immigration Reform was founded by John Tanton, a conservationist and retired ophthalmologist. FAIR has received 1.2 million dollars (U.S.) from the “racial science” foundation the Pioneer Fund. FAIR has many associations with political extremists including white nationalists.

Bob Dane the spokesperson for FAIR told the newspaper Sacramento Bee that “To deal with this tidal wave of human beings coming across the border, repealing the 14th Amendment would be an effective tool.” In reality, far from curbing immigration ending the 14th Amendment would effectively reverse major gains of the black civil rights and women’s rights.

While FAIR prepares to fuel bigotry by attacking immigrants and civil rights the National Rifle Association (NRA) has sought to sow fear and suspicion of a multi-racial democracy amongst whites by claiming that Obama has plans to pass laws that will allow the government to confiscate their guns. While these rumors are completely unfounded it has served to grow the ranks of the NRA. It has also vastly increased the sale of guns and ammunition since the election in the neighborhoods of white America where neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan organizations litter the streets with leaflets whispering of imminent “race war.”

Unsurprisingly hate violence is on the rise according to the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. The victims—Jewish, black, homosexual, and immigrant—are innocents in an environment created by white nationalists out to undermine the Obama presidency at any cost. A successful black presidency undercuts the bigoted arguments of white nationalists and affirms the possibility of a multiracial civil society—one where “the content of a person’s character means more than the color of their skin.”

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s appointment as Secretary of State bodes poorly for American troops that have been bogged down in an increasingly unpopular war in Iraq. American deaths are fast approaching 4,200 according to the Department of Defense. Clinton supported this unpopular war up until time public support turned overwhelmingly against it.

The road to achieving a national health care policy that is both affordable and accessible just got longer under the appointment of Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Daschle. With high paid medical lobbyists positioned as a major obstacle to health reform, now we will have a Secretary of Health whose spouse is a lobbyist for the health care companies. Daschle himself worked for a firm whose clients are made up of leading pharmaceutical interests.

Finally, the volatile issue of immigration has torn this nation apart emotionally and physically. In Arizona, Gov. Janet Napolitano has refused to confront the lawless sheriff Joe Arpaio who terrorizes, citizens and non-citizens alike, or armed paramilitary organizations that hunt immigrants in the desert.

Meanwhile, Arizona’s labor shortage due to anti-immigrant hysteria has negatively impacted an economy already in trouble. The University of Arizona predicts so-called employment verification–coupled with and enforcement-only strategy—has cost the economy billions of dollars in lost income and revenue. All of this unfolding under the leadership of Gov. Janet Napolitano, the probable head of Homeland Security.

Instead of preparing to take on accessible health care, withdrawal from Iraq, and fair immigration reform with audacity, the President-Elect is already bogging down his administration in the politics of the old. After eight years of failed policies the American public voted for a change based on the belief that the country needs—no deserves—new leadership.

On the economy, Obama reached back to the Bill Clinton years and hired the disciples of former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, a man who helped deregulate the financial industry. That deregulation led to our current economic crisis.

These are the faces, and this is the politics, of the old.

America’s vote for Barack Obama was a down payment on a new future. It’s time to remind the incoming administration exactly what we paid for.

The real truth, devoid of bigotry, according to Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight, is that new voters for Obama overwhelmingly voted to defeat the measure. New black voters were stronger supporters of gay rights than the “more experienced voters” that the mainstream LGBT leaders were focusing on for support.

By ignoring the pleas of black gay and lesbian leadership to fight for the black vote, the largely white LGBT leadership inadvertently sent a message showing who they needed and who they did not.

By overlooking the emerging and changing demographics of California, LGBT leadership placed its bet on a mythological white society that it chose to emulate rather than the multiracial America that actually exists. On the other hand, the opposition made up of Christian nationalists, The Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormons), and several opportunistic black leaders organized homophobia in the black community uncontested.

Rather than engaging blacks and Latinos, resources were focused in an attempt to convince an ever shrinking pool of “traditional” voters (read white) of the rightness of its cause. It is possible that if new black voters had been educated and mobilized that it might have been the very numbers needed to advance full citizenship for all. Regardless of “what could” or “what should” have happened there is still much that can be done by remembering.

Nearly twenty-five years ago I returned from a night on the town to find a message from my mother on my answering machine. She left a cryptic message telling me it was an emergency and to give her call when I got in. It was nearly 1:30 a.m. in the morning when I returned the call and she asked if I could come over. Off I sped across town on my scooter in the dead of the night worried that something traumatic had taken place in my family.

When I arrived my mother informed me that she had some terrible news. My sister had been there earlier in the evening and told my mom that she was a lesbian. I stood in the middle of the silent living room and according to my mom “made a profound statement” that left her speechless. I said, “she still my sister right?” With that I hugged my mom, got back on my scooter and headed home to bed.

Who my sister loved simply didn’t and doesn’t matter. She is MY sister and we have more in common than will ever separate us. Commonality, not blame, is the lesson that needs to be remembered by both communities in the coming months and years.

Our bonds are stronger than we think. Both communities suffer from job discrimination, hate crimes and housing discrimination. Regardless if they are gay or black, apathy and ignorance surrounding HIV-AIDS still sends too many of our friends and families before their time.

It is ironic that forty years after securing the right to vote some black people used the vote to deny the citizenship rights of others. It is also demoralizing that the LGBT leadership in California never once attempted to remind the black community that the person who laid the groundwork to secure those voting rights, Baird Rustin, was both black and gay–a possible bridge between both communities.

Regardless of the mistakes, ignorance, and miscalculations, one undeniable fact remains—the black and gay communities should either allow California’s Proposition 8 to serve as a lesson or simply concede the very idea of America to white nationalism.

If both communities seek an America where rights of citizenship are not based on the tyranny of the majority, it is time to start walking forward –together.

While initially used by the Barack Obama campaign as a title of a program that reach out to potential young evangelicals and Catholic voters it is now used to distinguish a growing group of young black leaders from those that participated in the 1960s Civil Rights movement. In short while the biblical figure of Moses (i.e. Martin Luther King, et al) led people out of captivity it was Joshua (i.e. new black leadership) who finally got everyone out of the wilderness and into the Promised Land.

With the election of Barack Obama everyone is embracing what should actually be called a Joshua Syndrome—the belief that we have entered a post-racial society where ones skin color is no longer a barrier to dreams and hopes. However, we can’t afford to confuse our glimpsing the Promised Land with actually being in it.

People point to the rise of a black middle class as an example of progress but in fact only 10% of the black population can be considered such. Now compare this to the fact that the white middle class makes up between 47%-49% of the total American population. The fact remains that the majority of blacks still live a life of hopelessness due to poverty, few educational opportunities and racial discrimination.

If we as Americans are to achieve a real post-racial society it will take more than simply voting for a president who is African American. It will take each of us, regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation or nationality, to ensure that a black political and economic agenda is embarked on by our nation.

Let us begin to send clear signals to the Obama administration that the state of black America is a priority to each of us. Of course there will be those who accuse the President-elect of pandering to people who look like him. But Frederick Douglass once remarked one can’t have lightening without rain. This is not about skin color. It is a choice between moving towards the promise of a post-racial America or remaining in the wilderness of racism and lost opportunities. Simply put there can be no post-racial society while discrimination remains.

In spite of the Joshua Syndrome, there are in fact actual Joshua’s among us. Strong creative personalities such as NAACP president Ben Jealous, TransAfrica executive director Nicole Lee, and Green For All president Van Jones, and many others who are tenaciously engaging issues that concern the majority of black American’s.

As our nation enters the doorway of the Promised Land let us not—in our haste to forget the present—close the door in the face of black America.

When well-known philanthropists give money to national anti-immigrant groups it gives a new twist to the axiom “throwing good money after bad.” The result is increased discrimination and violence against immigrants and their families.

Controversial anti-immigrant leader John Tanton used to brag that from 1983 until 1986 famed financial leader and philanthropist Warren Buffet made yearly gifts of $90,000 to his organization, U.S. Inc. While Buffet is thought of as a man who donates selflessly to the public good he is also remembered as supporting bigotry.

Buffet, having attended several of John Tanton’s events, raises the question of if he was in the room when Tanton mused that “As Whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night? Or will there be an explosion? … Perhaps this is the first instance in which those with their pants up are going to get caught by those with their pants down?” Tanton used Buffet’s support to grow the modern day anti-immigrant movement which has torn communities and working families apart.

Recent reports have surfaced that large donations to Tanton’s network are not a thing of the past. Philanthropists with deep financial pockets are supporting some of the nation’s most controversial anti-immigrant organizations—some with ties to political extremists including white nationalists.

A blogpost gaining momentum over at ValleyWag is reporting that Facebook Board of Director, Peter Thiel, may have donated up to $1 million dollars to NumbersUSA. In 1997, NumbersUSA’s executive director Roy Beck spoke at the national conference of the white nationalist Council of Conservative Citizens, the direct descendant of the white citizen’s councils of the 1960s. NumbersUSA was founded under the financial and administrative umbrella of John Tanton’s Michigan-based U.S. Inc.

The Center for New Community is now reporting that, in a September 2008 fundraising letter, FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) announced that “leading national philanthropist” Robert W. Wilson offered to match the donations of FAIR members. According to The Chronicle, Wilson, a retired hedge-fund manager, establishes “long relationships with organizations before bestowing a large gift.” Wilson is a Trustee of the Environmental Defense Fund.

These relationships, built by Wilson and Thiel, not only tarnished their respective images as national civic leaders but politically aligned them with individuals who espouse bigotry, bizarre notions of “race science,” and anti-Catholic bigotry.

In 2007, Wilson gave $22.5 million to the New York Roman Catholic Archdiocese. There is a big difference between the Catholic Church and FAIR. FAIR has been listed as a hate group by the civil rights organization the Southern Poverty Law Center, alongside the Ku Klux Klan and the American National Socialist Workers Party. FAIR staffer Rosanna Pulido once said of the Catholic Church, “What better way to fill your pews and fill your offering coffers than with inviting in and giving sanctuary to illegal aliens? . . . What is being passed off right now by the Catholic Church is not Catholicism. It has nothing to do with Christianity or the Bible.”

Money isn’t the root of all evil, bigotry is. And philanthropists like Thiel and Wilson have no business lending it their financial support.

Neighbors, friends and family struggle to come to terms with this senseless tragedy. Just how did seven young people with their whole lives ahead of them ever come to believe that they had both duty and permission to attack and murder someone because they perceived him to be an immigrant? Not only should Suffolk County be asking this question, but all of America as well.

In one tragic moment before midnight on November 8, Marcelo Lucero became America’s “canary in a coal mine.” Like a canary, Lucero’s brutal murder should serve as a warning of a coming crisis bubbling up in the wake of the failure to secure meaningful national immigration reform. A crisis that if ignored will wound civil society, multicultural democracy and the gains made during the 1960’s movement for civil rights.

Not surprisingly, Suffolk County, like the rest of America, is not immune from the poison of anti-immigrant organizing. For nearly 10-years, organizations like the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) have been on the ground in Long Island seeding communities like Suffolk County with their special brew of racism, xenophobia and social Darwinism. The results have been devastating.

To have an understanding of who exactly FAIR is, one only has to look to its founder John Tanton. Tanton has long believed in eugenics, the idea that one race of people is genetically superior. He still sits on FAIR’s board, despite having written, “Hitler’s reign in Nazi Germany did little to advance the discussion of eugenics among sensitive persons.” (John Tanton, The Case for Passive Eugenics).

After being on the ground in Long Island for nearly a year, the Federation for American Immigration Reform’s work began to show results. In August 2001, Christopher Slavin and Ryan Wagner (also young men) lured two immigrants under the pretense of work to an abandoned building on Long Island and attempted to murder them by beating them with hammers for no other reason than that the two immigrants were Mexican. At the time those who had been infected by FAIR’s dystopian view of immigration called the attack an “isolated event.”

Seven years later it appears that the song remains the same. Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy who founded a FAIR front organization called Mayors and County Executives for Immigration Reform said this of the lynching of Marcelo Lucero “The beating, stabbing and killing of Marcello Lucero wasn’t a question of any county policy or legislation; it was a question of bad people doing horrific things,” [Associated Press, November 12, 2008] Levy said. However, newspapers across the country have correctly pointed out that heated rhetoric by anti-immigrant groups has been the source fueling growing attacks across the country.

Yes, seven youth are responsible for taking the life of a thirty-seven year old man who was on the way to a friend’s house to watch a movie. However, the Federation for American Immigration Reform and Steve Levy are equally responsible—they created the environment that led seven youth to believe that beating immigrants was a socially acceptable pastime. It’s a little late for FAIR and Steve Levy to pass the buck when for years they have sat in judgment declaring to those very same youth that, like the Dred Scott Decision, “immigrants have no rights that citizens need respect.”

Several days later Levy finally understood that the whole world was watching and back peddled, offering a half-hearted attempt at an apology as reported by Newsday. In his statement Levy doesn’t apologize for manipulating the facts surrounding immigration, he doesn’t seek forgiveness for his continual portrayal of immigrants as a criminal and dangerous element, nor does he take the opportunity to finally distance himself completely from the Federation for American Immigration Reform. Instead Levy only apologizes for being wrong that the story didn’t die alongside the body of Marcelo Lucero.

It is time to shun organizations like the Federation for American Immigration Reform and supposed leaders like Steve Levy. Levy and those like him have nothing to offer Americans but fear, lies, and now murder. They have torn our communities apart and now individuals like Marcelo Lucero are paying the price.

There are many views and opinions regarding immigration but we’ve come to a point where we must understand that Levy and FAIR and their allies do not represent any of those views accept the ones steeped in bigotry and hatred. We already know the costs of those views—we can see it on the bruised and battered body of Marcelo Lucero.

In the days to come we will see Steve Levy and the Federation for American Immigration Reform run for cover. They will attempt to shield themselves from responsibility by manipulating our sense of reconciliation and our attempts to find “middle ground” in all the tension surrounding this murder. However, it is time for each of us to draw a clear moral barrier against anti-immigrant bigotry. Marcelo Lucero was not the problem, nor is any immigrant, whether documented or not. The problem lies with those who continue to inject bigotry into the issue of immigration with no consequences from the American public.

If we fail to stand together with Marcelo Lucero by rejecting Steve Levy and his ilk only one thing remains clear—that while blood may be on the hands of Levy and seven youth it is surely on ours as well.

In the midst of this debate, opportunistic white nationalist organizations operating under the guise of “immigration reform” have fueled some of the worst aspects of this conversation.  They’ve done this by attacking local communities in an attempt to deny the basic dignity of community members regardless of their immigration status.

While many of us are aware of the political battles over immigration that are taking place at the state and federal levels, the majority of skirmishes are happening at the local level.  Anti-Immigrant organizations have specifically taken the battle to the grassroots in an attempt to stay below the radar of national immigrant, civil rights, labor and religious organizations that have been successful at defeating many of their most punitive measures.

In New Haven, Connecticut the Mayor finds himself under attack for ensuring that every person in his city has the rights and responsibilities that come from being part of a community.  In Phoenix, Arizona local immigrant labor leaders find their community continually terrorized by a local sheriff who considers being compared to the Ku Klux Klan a “badge of honor.”  The goal of anti-immigrant forces is to wear down the resolve of local immigrant rights leaders and to overwhelm their ability to impact state and national public policy.

On November 4th at the same time that Oregonians were casting votes that would defeat a statewide anti-immigrant attack on bilingual education, anti-immigrant activists passed a local measure that now places Columbia County, Oregon on the front-lines of the struggle against anti-immigrant organizing.   Measure 5-190 has set off a human rights crisis unseen in Columbia County’s recent history.  With employers now facing a $10,000 dollar fine or closure for not taking on the role of federal immigration enforcement officers, employees are being dismissed en mass throughout the county for simply being Latino.  Many families in Columbia County, like the majority of Americans, live paycheck to paycheck and are now left without the income to pay for their families housing and food.  In a county that is already cash strapped, the new measure will shrink Columbia’s ability to provide much needed services and possibly send the county into bankruptcy by forcing it to assume the role of the federal government.

Organizations like the Rural Organizing Project are already on the ground responding and they need our help.  Make a contribution of $25.00 right now by going to the donation button at www.rop.org/index.htm to send a message to the anti-immigrant movement that no matter where they attack we will not allow any community or individual to be isolated by them—that we stand united, indivisible. It’s time for each of us to stand together.

Fifty years from now the fight against anti-immigrant bigotry and its public policy impact will not be looked upon as immigrant history or  non-immigrant history, rather it will be seen as what it is—American history.  Having swept courageous Americans of every race, religion, gender, ethnicity, nationality and indeed sexual orientation it will be seen as what it is: America’s first fully integrated human rights movement.  It’s now sweeping through Columbia County Oregon.

Let’s make sure we’re a part of it.

You know the type of morning I’m talking about. The kind of morning when you wake up early and you have the whole day ahead of you. The sun is slowly rising in the east and your calendar is clear. You don’t have to work, your bills are paid (or at least up to date), there’s food in the fridge and no one gets to dictate what the day will hold for you. You can sit and quietly read the paper, take in the guilty pleasure of early morning TV, or surf the net without a care in the world.

Maybe you surprise the kids and take them to the park. Maybe you spend the time fishing, enjoying the quiet of the river. It’s not what you do that matters, but rather that the day is yours. These mornings are like a breath of fresh air that chase away the tension and stress of life. You savor the day, and at night when you close your eyes you know that it will be the memory of this day that will sustain you through the hard times.

It’s those special mornings that always remind me exactly what life is supposed to be like. Not days filled with wondering if you can pay your rent, clothe your children and pay the doctor, but rather a time where you get to build and create the world around you. We seem to be in short supply of these special mornings lately.

In fact lately it seems that there has been nothing but one bad cloud after another hanging over all our heads. The cloud actually arrived a little over twenty five years ago today and it has done a good job of making sure the specials mornings of which I speak are few and far between.

In 1981, Ronald Reagan and his henchmen engineered this cloud and rained Reaganomics across the fifty states, slowly drowning the promise of America. They did it by renouncing governmental responsibility to our local communities and to our nation. Failed public schools, a national transportation system in disarray, unsafe food, decline in real wages, little access to basic health care – this is the sum total of Reaganomics.

Many of us believed Ronald Reagan when, in 1984, he told us that “It’s morning in American again.” We thought that, because we worked hard, we were being presented with the well earned dessert of our labor, personal responsibility and sacrifice. In reality we were cynically given a pie made out of mud. It’s a pie we’re still paying for.

While the agenda of Reaganomics put more and more money into the pockets of the wealthiest amongst us – what eventually trickled down to the majority of citizens was the belief that things had to get better. In the summer of 2008, with banks closing, 1/5 of homes facing possible foreclosure, and retirement accounts shrinking, even THAT belief was ripped from our hands.

Things have been dim for so long that I’ve had a hard time remembering what morning actually looks like anymore. But yesterday I got the sense that something was different. The sun seemed a little brighter, the sky a little bluer. People were walking a little taller and with a little more confidence. All of this has now convinced me that tomorrow morning is going to be one of those special mornings that have been so rare recently.

Deep down inside I think each of us is remembering what it’s like to wake up with the promise of possibility - a morning where we control our destiny, one that is ours to build, to do with it what we choose. Yeah, it’s really morning in America again.

So now - what are you going to do with it?

On a Monday morning one of my school mates whispered that the previous weekend neo-Nazis protested against Jews and blacks in one of the parks that we passed along our way to school and that it had been in the paper. No one really talked about it much, and I’m sure that the conversation quickly turned to our favorite television shows, but from that day forward this park took on a sinister form in my mind.

While the conversation ended, I never forgot it. I also never ventured into that park even though I lived in Long Beach another eleven years. Who would have ever thought that a small group of neo-Nazis would succeed in limiting my America? At age eleven I was already being taught who was an American and what America should look like- in short – a lesson in belonging.

I’ve always been hesitant about sharing this story beyond a few of my closest friends. Mainly, I’ve always thought that people would respond to my story with “it was just a few malcontents,” and “there was no need to take them seriously.” I think that the recent media coverage to the assassination plot against presidential candidate Barack Obama proves me right. The problem wasn’t the neo Nazis in the park; the problem is the unwillingness of America to take them seriously.

According to the Jackson-Sun, “Daniel Cowart and Paul Schlesselman planned to go state to state to kill 88 people and behead 14 black people, according to federal authorities”. To neo-Nazis, 14 means the number of words in a defining statement about protecting the white race and preserving its future. Eighty-eight means the letter H twice - as in “Heil Hitler.” Afterwards, according to the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms), Cowart and Schlesselman planned on targeting presidential candidate Barack Obama.

While the public, political pundits, and even some law enforcement officials have been quick to downplay the actions of Cowart and Schlesselman using words such as “unlikely,” “unsophisticated,” and “bizarre”, these individuals are making a case for who they believe is an American. I can’t help but think back to 2006 when seven men who thought they were working with al-Qaida (but in actuality an FBI informant) were arrested in a plot against Chicago’s Sears Tower.

I can’t help but to ask if Coward and Schlesselman had been self-proclaimed Muslims would these same political pundits and law enforcement officials find themselves so blasé? Would the public write it off as “stupid kids who weren’t serious?”

Doubtful.

This double standard says much about identity in America and who has the right to belong. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, hate crimes targeting those perceived to be Muslim or Arab soured in the United States. Taxi drivers were assaulted, children were harassed and Muslim religious sites in the U.S. were vandalized.

Six years earlier on April 19, 1995 a young man by the name of Timothy McVeigh, who self-identified as a “white Christian”, drove a truck bomb into a federal building killing 168 people and injuring over eight hundred. I often ask my friends who identify as “white,” or “Christian” if they felt unsafe sending their children to school, or nervous about going to work, or attending church because they thought they might be targeted by those upset at Timothy McVeigh. All agreed that they never even considered themselves in danger for being associated with Timothy McVeigh.

At the end of McVeigh’s trial, one of the jurors expressed this sense of belonging by saying that she “had the hardest time convicting McVeigh, he seemed like he could be my next door neighbor or someone I would let date my daughter.” In the recent assassination plot against Barack Obama and the targeting of over 100 African Americans these same sentiments were expressed when Lacy Doss, a former classmate of Cowart’s said, “He was a nice person, to me anyway.”

Deep down the majority of the American public is willing to make allowances for those they believe belong. As a young black child on his way to school, I always wished that this same American public would let me belong by taking these threats seriously, too.

For several years nativists under the guise of “immigration reform” have waged endless attacks against Wells Fargo, even going so far as to create web pages such as Embargo Wells Fargo. Having declared a racial war against our nation’s immigrant and refugee communities, anti-immigrant organizations and leaders targeted Wells Fargo as part of their growing “war of attrition”. In short, make life a living hell for immigrants and anyone else who defends their inalienable rights to simply be treated like a human being. The anti-immigrant movement is demanding that Wells Fargo choose sides between community and barbarism.

However, Wells Fargo appears to have done the opposite. Rather than taking responsibility as a community leader and drawing a clear moral barrier against hate, Wells Fargo instead chooses to lend its indirect support to the anti-immigrant movement itself. According to the Center for New Community during the 2005-2006 election cycle the Wells Fargo and Company Employee PAC made fifty-eight contributions totaling $108,250 to members of the House Immigration Reform Caucus (HIRC).

Created by the infamous nativist Tom Tancredo who led attacks against Wells Fargo, HIRC represents one of the most entrenched threats to American pluralism today.” Members of HIRC have introduced some of the most punitive legislation proposed during the last two House sessions. The current head of HIRC is Congressman Brian Bilbray of California the former lobbyist of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). FAIR was recently named a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Other groups designated as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center include the Ku Klux Klan and the American National Socialist Workers Party. Ironically in 2007, Bilbray went on to co-sponsor anti-immigrant legislation that directly targeted the banking industry, including Wells Fargo.

Having been attacked by everyone from Lou Dobbs to Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) President Dan Stein, one would think that Wells Fargo would understand firsthand the impact that the bigotry of the anti-immigrant movement is having on local communities and Wells Fargo customers. In Arizona, anti-immigrant activists have literally destroyed the economy of Arizona in their attempt to divide the state and the families that live there.

Sadly Wells Fargo’s indirect support doesn’t end in the Nation’s beltway but to the streets of Arizona itself. In Arizona far away from the eyes of the nation, xenophobes have waged a relentless war against the immigrant community. Not simply satisfied with the harassment of Latino communities at the hands of armed vigilantes, Maricopa County Sherriff Joe Arpaio joined the fray, terrorizing citizens and non-citizens so much that the U.S. Department of Justice has an open investigation into his activities. Arpaio does this from space leased from Wells Fargo.

On Monday, October 27, 2008, Arizona has called for a national day of action against Wells Fargo. The demand is simple, they are asking that Wells Fargo stop housing and profiting from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s attempt to terrorize the Latino community of Arizona. Whatever your views on immigration policy, it’s hard not to be disturbed by Wells Fargo’s support of groups that seek to slam the door on America’s historic commitment to inclusion and opportunity.

Fortunately for our nation, Americans of all stripes have stood up to defend a historic commitment to unity, hard work, and rights. Organize a lunch time vigil at your local Wells Fargo. Call or email Wells Fargo. Tell Wells Fargo that its voice is necessary to pull the debate on immigration back from the intolerant fringes.

It’s time for Wells Fargo to send Arpaio packing.

Typically there are two types of discussions about American identity that take place in mainstream society. On one side you have the argument that there is nothing redeemable about the United States or the concept of America. This argument is typically filled with despair, condemnation, and cynicism. On the other side you get a plastic patriotism that chooses to ignore current reality and history. Neither speaks to the complexity and depth of American identity–an identity that continues to be strengthened not only on a political level but on the streets of America as well.

A new lit review has hit our streets and it brings the often ignored voices of America right back into the dialogue. Criminal Class Review has just released its second volume showcasing voices that are often ignored and marginalized. The voices are welcoming, biting, crazy and sane. They are like old familiar friends reminding me of the rich layers of my life. It would be too simple to call Criminal Class Review contributors writers, rather they are American folk artists reminding us that most people are simply trying to live their lives and raise their families. From Poetry Sucks by Saint Johnnie Walker to For the Love Needles by Bucky Sinister, issue one of Criminal Class Review reminds us of families and communities that are formed and tested on the streets of America. Often these are stronger than the institutions that surround them.

Often I find that people are surprised about my background and childhood, assuming that I grew up middle class. Perhaps it is because, like Obama, I am bi-lingual in that I speak two languages—the English of white America and the English of black America. Perhaps it is because my musical inclinations run the gamut from jazz to punk to reggae to country to hip hop. Or perhaps people like to see me in a way that makes them more comfortable, a reverse stereotype that refuses to accept that the poorest, the untouchables, the ignored and the criminals have nothing of any real worth to add to the grand experiment that is America.

Not many of my childhood friends made it out of Long Beach. Some succumbed to suicide, drug overdoses, and prison. Most are now fading memories of yesterdays. However, it is amongst those memories that I came to understand my Americaness. How much stronger a nation we might be if those voices could be heard by everyone—Criminal Class Review now makes it possible. To order Criminal Press contact Smash Records (D.C.), Bluestockings Bookstore (N.Y.), City Lights Booksellers and Publishers (San Francisco), Quimby’s (Chicago), Subterranean Books (St. Louis), and Tattered Cover (Denver).

When times were economically tough and media pundits told us we simply weren’t taking enough personal responsibility we doubled both our efforts and our sacrifices. What we were not told was that our leaders supposedly looking out for our best interests were instead letting other folks play under a different rule – the rule of greed.

This week we found out the price of greed. It is approximately Seven Hundred Billion Dollars and change. At a time when each of us has been instructed by elected officials that retirement, health care, education for our children and housing are our individual personal responsibility no one should be surprised that we are angry that our hard earned money must now go to footing the bill of those financial institutions that show not one ounce of the responsibility that has been asked of each of us.

We feel betrayed and rightfully so. Now to add insult to injury these same supporters of greed are attempting to convince us to sell out our American identity by blaming the most vulnerable amongst us. Poor working families, Latinos, Jews and African Americans (sound familiar?). The hope is that by pointing towards others they can escape further scrutiny by the American public. In short, divide the American public and perhaps we’ll forget who is actually responsible.

Michelle Malkin who couldn’t wait to be a mouthpiece on behalf of the greedy jumped into the fray with her September 24th editorial attacking “illegal” immigration for the mess. Malkin launches into a tirade, embracing a level of bigotry that would impress former Klansmen David Duke, falsely claiming that all immigrants are Latino and that all Latinos are immigrants. Because personal responsibility is not an important trait to Malkin she chooses to ignore that over 60% of sub-prime borrowers should have been offered fixed rate prime loans because of their superb credit many of them Latinos who have been here for generations (Wall Street Journal).

Malkin is not alone. Pundit after pundit has taken to the airwaves attacking our historic struggle against racism by targeting the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). CRA was established to remove racial barriers and to stop the forced segregation of American neighborhoods. I guess since financial leaders have destroyed the economy they now feel embolden to destroy the American values of fairness and opportunity as well.

The white nationalists movement can’t wait to bring anti-Semitism to the mix by targeting the Jewish community and even the Republican Party has chosen to get on the growing “let’s destroy American identity” bandwagon. In Michigan, the Macomb County Republican Party is engaging in voter suppression. How? By arguing that if you live in a home that is in foreclosure that you don’t have a local residence and shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Interestingly enough (but not surprising) they are only tracking in black neighborhoods. You can sum this tactic up in six words “lose your home, lose your vote” or “just how low can you go?”

According to the Kirwan Institute, “home ownership is one of the primary ways American families amass wealth.” I’d like to add that another way that we add wealth is by not allowing our diverse communities to be targeted during times of crisis. Sure sub-prime lenders are stealing from the wallets and pocketbooks of the American family, but let’s make sure they don’t steal our identity, one nation and indivisible as well.

I’ve heard that the argument over “legality” brings many conversations regarding immigration to a halt sending Americans, documented and undocumented running for cover.  I don’t happen to be one of those people. 

The charge of “illegality” is nothing more than a tactic to silence the debate on immigration. I refused to be silenced at a time when our neighbors our being “disappeared” off the streets of our cities, thousands die of dehydration in our deserts, sixteen year-olds work the factory floor fourteen hours a day so we can eat cheap chicken, and our society relishes blaming immigrants for everything from crime to climate change.

Until there is immigration reform in this country that allows Americans to take personal responsibility for the reasons that millions put their lives on the line to migrate to the United States without documents there will be no real solution.  To allow us to sleep better at night we’d rather accept that immigrants are criminals instead of victims of globalization.

Forty-five years ago Martin Luther King Jr. in his Letter from Birmingham Jail had this to say about the term illegal:  “We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country’s anti-religious laws.”

I think if Martin Luther King Jr. were here with us today.  He would laugh at those who attempt to relegate immigration to a mere issue of illegal and legal.  I like to imagine that he would silence them with his own pronouncement that, regardless of how one feels about the law, what we are indeed seeing is one of the largest acts of civil disobedience to ever take place on American soil.

Many today conveniently choose to ignore that “illegals” is a loaded expression similar to the word “welfare queen” a term used to dehumanize African Americans during the Reagan era.  In an environment where the debate on immigration reform is increasingly steeped in racism, the term “illegals” is nothing more than a callous attempt by anti-immigrant organizations to further dehumanize millions of undocumented immigrants and refugees in our country.

The attempt to mainstream the term “illegals” disregards the immigration debate as it is framed now, a bigoted battle being waged by Nativists over who is an American and what America will look like.

]]> http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2008/09/24/%e2%80%9cwhat-about-illegal-don%e2%80%99t-you-understand%e2%80%9d/feed/ http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2008/09/10/white-nationalists-defend-%e2%80%9cimmigrant-reform%e2%80%9d-organization/ http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2008/09/10/white-nationalists-defend-%e2%80%9cimmigrant-reform%e2%80%9d-organization/#comments Wed, 10 Sep 2008 23:04:28 +0000 Eric Ward http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/?p=566 A chapter of one of the most influential white nationalist organizations in the United States, the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), sought to defend the anti-immigrant Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) from charges of injecting racism into the national discussion on immigration.  While conveniently ignoring its own national ties to FAIR, the read more

A chapter of one of the most influential white nationalist organizations in the United States, the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), sought to defend the anti-immigrant Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) from charges of injecting racism into the national discussion on immigration.  While conveniently ignoring its own national ties to FAIR, the read more

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If you haven’t that’s okay. It’s not actually a joke.

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I’m addicted to CNN (Cable News Network). I love CNN and watch it constantly. Something has always fascinated me about 24-hour news coverage. When CNN started its second news channel nearly a decade ago I was elated because I could flip between channels with my remote control and really get continuous news, but I digress. When read more