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

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.

Jokes are played on folks from around the world who anticipated

Kind and warm welcome to this “land of the free.”

Labor under-rewarded is order of the day,

Manipulated by rulers of capital capitalizing off the

Need of poor folk and refugees to replenish their children’s bellies,

Or remit something… Read more

I was proud to have been among the many supporters they marshaled for the Farmworker Freedom March, a series of events April 16-18 calling attention to the fact… Read more

(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

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

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

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

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

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.

And that’s when a different sense of betrayal overcame me—a betrayal by some of my fellow US African Americans who have allowed themselves to show hate… Read more

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.

One must, to make a grave understatement, consider Columbus, the crews with him, and… Read more