Immigration

You’ve Got to Change Your Evil Ways, Georgia!

Written by Ken Brown

The title of the old hit from music legend Carlos Santana is freshly, and sadly, appropriate for today’s anti-immigrant climate—not only in that longtime southern bastion of hate, but across the country.

That Major League Baseball’s annual Civil Rights Game was played in Atlanta this past Sunday is already a slap in the face to conscious, justice-minded folk who realize that praising African American players while insulting indigenous people/Native Americans through caricaturized, stereotyped names and logos (think “Braves” and the concomitant “tomahawk chop,” negative imagery, etc.) is a perpetuation of the sick doublespeak this country uses against persons of color.

The slap is even more forceful in light of Georgia’s recent passing and signing… Read more

Immigration

Immigration Acrostic

Written by Ken Brown

Asinine interjections of anti-immigrant hate create

Bathos to any expectation of intelligent thought

Coming from people who, in their own insecurities,

Denigrate those who cross oceans and cross burning deserts—having been

Excluded from all that mutual wealth

Free trade agreements egregiously guaranteed.

Greed runs rampant as big bosses make profits while

Hypocritical descendants of immigrants clamor about an

Imagined invasion, their ignorance exceedingly ugly.

Ecopolitics

Farmworker Freedom March

Written by Ken Brown

The surge of emotion that welled up within me, as I looked at the vast line of hundreds of people marching through the streets of Lakeland, FL this past Sunday, was one of admiration, pride and humility.  As if I hadn’t already greatly respected the members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), my admiration for them grew as I saw how many came from south Florida to the Tampa Bay area to demand fairer pay and humane working conditions in the tomato fields.

What—Then or Now—Is Your Fourth of July?

Written by Ken Brown

Amidst another round of the yearly patriotism-without-critical-analysis hoopla that comes with this week, I find myself still inclined to agree with Fred. I ask this country the same question he did: “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?”

(Read, in preset context: “What, to African Americans and other people of color, immigrants discriminated against, and those oppressed by this country generally, is your Fourth of July?”)

On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave an address in Rochester, NY that probably surprised his audience with its tone. To be sure, Douglass’s speech includes very clear expressions of hope: “Notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented, of the… Read more

Nativist Groups Use Brutal Crime for Their Own Purposes

Written by Ken Brown

As a part of their Machiavellian attempt at poisoning the conversation in this country on immigration, nativist groups are twisting an awful crime for their own purposes. The Community Watchdog Project and Southern Connecticut Citizens for Immigration Reform, nativist groups responsible for fostering ill will toward immigrant communities and pro-immigrant policies in New Haven, CT, are exploiting a brutal beating and rape of a female worker for their own divisive purposes. Such behavior on these groups’ part is hateful and destructive to the well-being of the greater New Haven community.

The horrific crime took place on March 27, in the New Haven suburb of Hamden, by a suspect who is believed to possibly be… Read more

Politics

Obama Administration Missing an Anti-Racist Opportunity?

Written by Ken Brown

In the midst of the euphoric, if fallacious, state of a “post-racial” United States that much of the country is caught up in, the Obama administration is about to miss an opportunity to demonstrate a commitment to actually being anti-racist—working to dismantle the systemic, structural racism that continues to be foundational in our society. The administration has yet to commit to attending the Durban Review Conference, this April 20-24, in Geneva, Switzerland. The US government’s failure to attend such would be a slap in the face both to seekers of justice worldwide and to its own marginalized people.

The Review Conference will review the progress made, or not made, by the countries since the… Read more

“We are human beings looking for a means to survive”

Written by Ken Brown

Despite a feigned concern about the distinction between “illegal” and “legal” immigrants, anti-immigrant forces in this country have helped stir up a general contempt for immigrants which goes beyond the status of documentation. The rhetoric of FAIR and other nativist hatemongering groups has contributed to a prejudice from which documented immigrants are not immune.

Seila Mosquera is part of the Ecuadorian immigrant community in the greater New Haven, CT, area—a community which itself has been the target of white supremacy and nativist hate from such groups as the Community Watchdog Project and North East White Pride, as well as citizenry in general here in the supposedly liberal Nutmeg State. As a… Read more

Racial Profiling & Harassment in East Haven, CT

Written by Ken Brown

Same stupid, blatant, racist attacks; different day.

As many people in this country are seduced by the slick, guy-next-door type of racial/ethnic prejudice implicit in anti-immigrant xenophobia (think: FAIR, NumbersUSA, Community Watchdog Project, etc.), and as US imperialism and corporate aggression continue to milk profit out of populations of color who can ill afford it, we find ourselves jarringly reminded that overt racial profiling and harassment are still alive and well. It’s not slick; it’s not vague or subtle. It’s old-fashioned terrorizing right out on the street.

Police in East Haven, CT, a suburb of New Haven, have been accused of harassing Latino/a customers and merchants, and have gone so far as… Read more

Murder in Brooklyn Latest Hate Crime Against Immigrants

Written by Ken Brown

Last night I was busy fuming over some personal betrayals when I received a call from a colleague who told me that Jose O. Sucuzhanay, the Ecuadoran immigrant who, along with his brother, was severely beaten in Brooklyn on Sunday, had now been declared brain dead. Apparently, their attackers shouted anti-Latino and anti-gay epithets (making assumptions because they were walking with arms around each other) before assaulting them. I further learned that, according to reports, the perpetrators of this foolishness were believed to be African American.

Immigration

1492 – and the Xenophobia of 2008

Written by Ken Brown

This week has brought us to another recognition of Indigenous Peoples Day – conversely stated, to another lamentation of the wave of undocumented, oppressive immigration precipitated by one Christopher Columbus. It occurs to me that putting the anti-immigrant attack in this country under the lens of European migration into (read invasion of) this country allows us to see why, among many other reasons, such an attack is foolish and arrogant. If we examine the history of indigenous (i.e., “Native American,” “American Indian,” “First Nations,” etc.) folk in this country, the hypocrisy of the current anti-immigrant xenophobia becomes glaringly evident.