I’ve heard the “safest place to sit” conversation at least a dozen times on airplanes over the years. I know several people who have to sit in particular places on planes, either through superstition or some silly belief that one can actually survive a plane wreck. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve had run of the mill conversations about the safety of planes. So I can only imagine that the “suspicious passengers” had to be just plain stupid or, more likely, racist.

It’s one thing to have a few ignorant bumpkins on a plane, it’s whole other when officials at AirTran, who should be well-equipped to deflect these types of situations, feed the frenzy by acting on such ridiculous complaints. Come to think of it, since AirTran doesn’t seem to want to take the heat on this one, maybe the complaining passengers should come forward and offer a personal apology. Maybe if all the busybodies out there had to actually show the face attached to the pointing finger, they would be less likely to concern themselves with the Muslim family sitting behind them.

Of course when other people have conversations about the safest places to sit on planes they are probably not dark-skinned Muslim men with beards and women with headscarves. These people must not have the same conversations as other Americans without facing hours of interrogation.

Seven years ago it was horrifying to see the way Arabs, Muslims, Sikhs and basically anyone who fit the description of “Middle Eastern terrorist” suffered at the hands of our government and our citizens. It was rationed away as hysterical fear in light of the 9/11 attacks. Today it is shameful that this type of blatant racial discrimination is still occurring, and the excuses are long gone.

The fact is the Arab, Muslim and Sikh communities in the U.S. have worked very hard to teach patience and understanding both internally and externally, especially when it comes to air travel. These instances of racial profiling are unacceptable and need to stop. It’s time the rest of us worked hard for tolerance too.

Tens of thousands of families are newly unemployed; home foreclosures are non-stop; businesses crumble; poverty and racism endures; new war rages in the Middle East—the economic-political chaos at home and worldwide is nothing short of sordid. Yet we hope, even audaciously.

For poor people these times are, of course, nothing new. Poor folk and poor neighborhoods and communities have seldom been on any political radar screen or in any political master plan. It’s important to remember that as headline-generating tough times reach into the middle class and even pare down some of the super-rich for whom “the system” has always worked. In light of all the pressing realities of the day, it’s more unlikely than ever that poverty and racism will be high on the national agenda—all the more reason why efforts must be redoubled to address, indeed attack, those harsh realities in our midst.

2009 marks several intriguing observances: the 200th (same day) birth of Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln, and the 150th year since the defining Lincoln-Douglas debates in their race for the Senate. While there are, of course, countless other important observances, these particularly remind us of the enduring legacy of unresolved social, cultural, racial, economic, religious, and political battles that have been at the core of American identity for generations. This is a year of complex intersections at which these old battles are not simply recognized, but continue to be waged. As we look forward to new possibilities we cannot ignore the fact that feet anxious for forward movement are still stuck in old mud.

When President Obama speaks this year at the national celebration of Lincoln’s birth, history will weigh heavily on the day. Commentators and pundits will lift up the historic moment and rightly hail its significance. They will, however, not be ready to remind us of the stark and enduring pain of racism in a nation that has long-held to whiteness as the mark of true belonging—pain that to this day, for example, marks Black teenagers for violence and death at epidemic proportions. This is the reality of the day, the new year. Complex intersections to be navigated, made straight for the journeys ahead.

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.”

Representatives of the seven organizations described their fear of a backlash in hate crimes after Barack Obama’s victory in the presidential election.

It’s a good sign that these groups are taking swift action to bring this to the public’s attention, but it’s not enough. It’s not just that violence fueled by hatred has increased; white supremacists are attracting more members. According to Maria Bello of USA Today they are becoming more sophisticated in who and how they recruit potential members.

It’s imperative that hate groups do not get a foothold in our communities. They are a threat to our immigrant friends and neighbors, and the tradition of our country as a welcoming nation. The rhetoric that they bring with them damages the dialogues our country is having around important issues. The more space we give them, the less we have for rational discourse on the economy, immigration, and foreign affairs. It’s time for Americans to demand a hate free society.

So why are we not talking about hunger in meaningful terms? Is it that we are afraid to acknowledge various systems of oppression that help shape this issue? Perhaps we believe that this issue should be vocalized solely by those who live with hunger since, after all it is their problem? Or is it that many of us do not have a frame of reference to hunger, so it becomes an abstract issue and as such it slides on the scale of importance? While I can hypothesize why there is a lack of main stream discourse on hunger, I can relate to its impact first hand.

During the siege of Sarajevo all roads leading to and from the city were cut off, leaving the city without a food supply. In those first months of the war, we relied on food already in the house. Being true Europeans, we never really had fully stocked pantries. Flour was purchased only on occasions warranting cake making and vegetables, fruit and meat were purchased almost on a daily basis. My mom, sister and I began our war journey with a gallon of oil, half a pound of flour, quarter pound of sugar and a few cans of sardines forgotten in dark corners of the kitchen cupboard.

While we learned to be creative with what we had, finding food on a daily basis became a challenge. In the summer we learned to incorporate all kinds of weeds and grass into our diet. I spent long hours looking through a book “How to Survive in Wilderness” hoping to find alternative sources of food. Did you know that one can make flour out of the birch bark? Problem was, I realized, that we did not live in wilderness but in a concrete paved city with well groomed parks. Not a great source of edible vegetation.

After that first year of war, we began to receive a humanitarian aid consisting of American lunch packets left over from the Korean War, surplus rice, beans and lentils often infested with maggots, and a ration of oil less than a half of litter per a household of three. Salt and sugar became things that we dreamed about, and fruit, vegetables, meat and eggs were nostalgic memories of “those better days.”

Soon, we lived on rations of three thin slices of bread a day and a thin soup made of beans, lentil or rice. A half a can of Mackerels or a can of an unknown meat substance rounded up our diet. As the war worsened we were soon down to one meal a day, and in the third year of war the food was so scarce that we ran out completely. After a week we were too weak to interact with each other. The unselfish kindness of a neighbor saved us. Even though she and her mother struggled themselves, she came to our aid with enough flour and a can of sardines to get us through couple of days. This act of true compassion made “giving up” impossible.

The lack of food seemed to spark our obsession with all kinds of edible things. My sister and I spent hours reminiscing about food. I obsessively flipped through cookbooks lavishing over pictures of food. We focused a great deal of our cognitive resources on food, making it difficult to think of more abstract concepts such as freedom and life. We found it difficult to extend beyond the walls of our physical condition. Instead of living we were surviving and in that process we became silent. And this silence is the real tragedy of hunger.

Some time into the conversation I asked how many Anglos worked at the plant these days. The translation of my question caught my attention: “Cuanos Americanos trabajan en la planta ahora?” “How many Americans work at the plant now?” The workers’ response likewise focused on the number of “Americans,” not “Anglos,” even as the question itself was rephrased: “Cuantos blancos trabajan en la plant ahora?”—how many whites work at the plant?

It was a telling and disconcerting translation and response, reflecting the depth of perception that has taken root not only among immigrants, but also among those long residing in this country: Americans are Anglos.

My colleagues and I talked about this several weeks later, all of us still taken aback by the depth and breadth of this cultural perception of nationality and race. We still haven’t shaken the experience, though we are all more finely attuned to hearing it played out in our daily work, and responding to it accordingly.

We ought not to have been surprised—the Americans = Anglos perception has had a long shelf life. In 1753 Benjamin Franklin wrote despairingly of German settlers who came in droves, did not learn English, had a continual need of interpreters, and threatened to “soon so outnumber us, that all the advantages we have will not in My Opinion be able to preserve our language, and even our Government will become precarious.” While he allowed that Germans “have their Virtues” and “contribute greatly to the improvement of a Country,” he prayed “to preserve to Great Britain the Laws, Manners, Liberties, and Religion” of the emerging nation.

Germans and others of once-despised European descent did, of course, make it to the social, cultural, economic, political, and racial whiteness and dominance of the early Anglos, making it difficult for many over the past several centuries to differentiate them. In short, all those of pan-European descent became “Anglos.” Even the Irish made it, as Noel Ingatiev’s How the Irish Became White reveals, a volume whose title alone is worth the purchase. The step from Anglos = Americans was, thereby, a short one, to this day sinking deep roots into the minds of all who call the western hemisphere home.

It is to our detriment that we live precariously with this perception, expressed by hard-working immigrants just weeks ago in response to a passing question about the makeup of the workforce in their plant, that Anglos/whites = Americans. All “others” need not apply. As one of my friends would say rightly and with great indignation, “that’s really messed up.” Messed up it is. And untangling that mess is the task that lies before us as diverse peoples of a nation seeking democracy.

From the shooting death of a teenager near Athens that sparked ongoing riots to the beating death of a Brooklyn man for being, what his attackers assumed, an immigrant and gay, we are inundated daily with stories of human rights violations. Sometimes so much so, I think we forget that these stories describe infringements on the basic human freedoms that our country was founded on and we have fought to give to others around the world. The most universal of these is the freedom to live and to do so peacefully.

Perhaps the most wide-spread human rights violations involve human trafficking - forcing human beings into slavery and servitude. This is not just a human rights issue, it’s a multi-billion dollar industry that is widespread in developing nations, but also right here in the United States.

The slavery and trafficking of human beings can be combated through rescue, rehabilitation and enforcement of human rights laws, but addressing the conditions that make a person vulnerable to exploitation is equally important. Victims are often displaced peoples, either from war, economics or forced migration. If a society does not provide pathways for refugees and immigrants to protect their human rights, then exploitative forces often move in to take advantage of these populations.

As individuals blessed with many freedoms there is much we can to do to protect and empower the oppressed. But we can’t each address every issue. In honor of Human Rights Day we should all choose just one human rights issue to support. Support doesn’t have to come in the form of money either, volunteering, writing letters, and petitioning are just a few of the ways we can help. Working together we can make universal freedom a reality.

Jane Addams was only 29 when she opened the Hull House Settlement in 1889 on Chicago’s tough west side with two friends, Miss Ellen Gates Starr and Miss Mary Keyser. All three were so naive they didn’t even lock the door the day they moved in. But they quickly learned the challenges facing their immigrant neighbors.

Addams opposed laws that would restrict immigration and push Americanization programs that were designed to delete the cultures of new immigrants. Instead Hull House welcomed folk dancers, singers, weavers, artists, book clubs, and political oratory from all political stripes. They hosted dozens of different ethnic clubs for adults and children, most for only one nationality, but a few mixed such as the Italians and Greeks, the Italians and Jews, and the Mexicans and Greeks.

Knowing new immigrants inspired Jane Addams to become an aggressive advocate for their work. In 1882, Hilda Satt Polacheck came from Poland to find factory work. In her memoir, Polacheck reports: “The American people still do not quite realize that it was Jane Addams who woke the conscience of America to the debt that it owed to the great masses of people who were pouring into America. It was Jane Addams who pointed out that these immigrants were making the clothing that Americans wore. They knitted the mittens and sweaters to keep American children warm. ..There was almost no phase of American life in which these immigrants did not serve.” Replace “making the clothing” with “preparing the food that Americans eat” and the same statement would hold in 2008.

We are still struggling with the same human rights issues facing Jane Addams and her neighbors in 1889, issues like wage theft, access to medical care, and a pathway to citizenship. Like Jane Addams, can we recognize that immigrants, the work that they do, and the cultures they bring, make our lives fuller and richer? As she wrote,

“…the things that make men alike are finer and better than the things that keep them apart, and that these basic likenesses, if they are properly accentuated, easily transcend the less essential differences of race, language, creed, and tradition.”

-Jane Addams: Twenty Years at Hull House (1910.)

See more about Jane Addams at http://www.uic.edu/jaddams/hull/urbanexp/. Read about Hilda Satt Polacheck in I Came A Stranger: The Story of a Hull-House Girl.

Jane Addams was the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize on Dec. 10, 1931. Work for peace tomorrow and every day.

Photo courtesy of Special Collections, University of Illinois at Chicago library.

That this nation early on proclaimed itself the United States of America may have been well-intended (in the most generous interpretation) as a declaration of belonging with the rest of the Americas, but the cultural and political identity that eventually emerged to produce the singularity “America”—referencing the US alone—has long been commonplace across the globe.

The Americas—the land mass spanning two continents—constitute almost thirty percent of the earth’s land area and is home to some nine hundred million people. Many of these good folk, especially to the South, consider themselves Americans in the broadest and truest sense; others—because of US dominance and appropriation of the term—want nothing to do with such an identity. Just ask a Canadian. With only a third of the Americas’ population, the United States has successfully laid deep claim to the term and to a particular identity associated with it.

This claim and its outcome is not a matter of splitting hairs over the use of a geographic or political reality. Rather, it is a matter of the degree to which the historical appropriation by a single nation of a broader, hemispheric identity parallels US dominance in the global context. America is our term, thank you. Others may try to use it, but we know what it really means.

Or do we? Historically, culturally, and politically, to be an American is to be of European descent, or bluntly put, white. Indigenous peoples were pushed aside and afar to reservations on unwanted lands, their own nations within the dominant nation. Slaves were first nonhuman and, freed, only three-fifths human, their descendants kept violently from civic participation till the late twentieth century. Chinese were excluded. Eastern Europeans were notched into earlier eras of low-wage labor. Even Irish were despised. Mexicans were deported en masse and still are targets of an infamous Homeland Security End Game. And on and on. America, you see, has been white in the eyes and mirrors of most who live within the borders of the United States.

Yet, American identity has been and is (especially) today a moving, shifting phenomenon, shaped and reshaped in light of race, the contemporary immigration conundrum, the global migration of peoples, and the demographic trend that points to a minority-white nation by mid-century or sooner. The appropriation is in flux and will be for years to come. The Ad Council’s earlier television portrayal of diverse peoples, races, ethnicities, and nationalities was a jarring—and to many, unsettling—view of a dramatically changed and changing nation. The Obama family in the White House is a reality that many cannot and will not accept. Fueling the fires of old, the racist movement has not been silenced and still plies its despicable and violent trade. The anti-immigrant movement and its moderately-laced, but nonetheless brutal white nationalism advanced through the Federation for American Immigration Reform (with its ill-named acronym FAIR) and its allies clings to the old notion of nation—white, “Western cultured,” and still-dominant in a world of shrinking populations of European-descent “Americans.”

“Who is an American” will be a matter of ever-increasing debate and tension in years to come, unfolding in countless ways and places, practices and policies. This is not a small or insignificant matter, nor a simple question of semantics. It is a matter of deep, serious, and continuing reflection grounded in a democratic vision of community and justice. It is a matter of serious analysis and conversation, of hard work and organizing in a nation long-resistant to change in and by the dominant culture that appropriated and now “owns” a term—America—long-ago applied to a third of the earth.

Enrique Valencia put the matter in a different and equally powerful light in “Somos Mas Americanos” when he wrote that the peoples of Mexico “are more American than any son of the Anglo-Saxon.” Let the conversation unfold.

Despite the economic downturn this year, people were still lining up at 4am to take advantage of the deals. Lining up, pushing, shoving, and stampeding. Yep, stampeding. At one New York Wal-mart people were so desperate for discounted plasma TVs they trampled an employee.

Most didn’t even stop shopping to see if he was okay. And he wasn’t, he was dead.

Normally I like to blame corporations when bad things happen in stores like Wal-mart. It’s easy and usually accurate. But when I read about Jdimytai Damour’s death I thought to myself, “those greedy shoppers should go to jail right along with Wal-mart executives.” I don’t care how little security the store had or what was on sale, there is no excuse for stepping on someone until they die. Nobody in this country needs a TV that bad.

When we started this blog five months ago, I struggled with my own American-ness. If I was going to write honestly about forging a new American identity I had to renew my faith in the American people. I had to clear out the cobwebs of cynicism, and even if I didn’t live to see the year 2050, I had to invest myself in the belief that it would be a fair and just nation. Most days I feel pretty optimistic about this country. On the days when I read about people being killed in shopping malls, I feel like moving away.

It’s hard to believe in a nation whose government hunts down law-abiding people who step over the border for a job, but won’t prosecute those who trample the man who opens the door for them. It’s hard to comprehend that a company would only put things on sale from 5am to 11am knowing full well that shoppers will huddle like cattle at the door and then crush each other to get inside.

I’m positive that they can sell the same amount of TVs and Tickle-Me-Elmos the next day at the same price. But stores like Wal-mart need the frenzy of a “doorbuster“. They need to trick us into believing we can’t get it any other time for a lower price. The convenient path is to crucify Wal-mart.  There is no easier target and they certainly carry a share of the blame.

Louis Nizer once said, “When a man points a finger at someone else, he should remember that four of his fingers are pointing at himself.”  The American consumer is just as guilty and should take Damour’s death as a sign that our consumer needs have infringed on our humanity. That doesn’t mean we have to stop shopping, but we do need to send Wal-mart a message and not shop on Black Friday. We can pay a few extra dollars or buy a little less and go shopping on a different day. They’ll get the message and we’ll still find good enough deals. No one should have to die for a bargain.

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.

A few days ago, Kate Brumback from the Associated Press reported that Lorenzo Jimenez finally found his ticket about four years ago to buy his first home in a suburb outside Atlanta. But Mr. Jimenez had one problem that many working fathers don’t have to consider when buying a house for their family.

While Mr. Jimenez had been working and paying taxes in the United States for about a decade, he didn’t have the documents required to prove his American patriotism. In other words, Mr. Jimenez didn’t have the papers to prove his citizenship. But he could prove his work ethic and that he was a lovely father by taking a quick survey from his closest neighbors, even from Nicole Griffin - but only before Mr. Jimenez put his house on the market.

Nicole Griffin is a 28-year-old single mother that lives down the street with her mom. She also didn’t mind if her two kids played with Mr. Jimenez’s children inside of his home. But all of this changed after Mr. Jimenez decided to sell his house.

After he put his house up for sale, Nicole Griffin, like Lorenzo Jimenez, finally found her ticket to live the American dream. She decided to buy his first home for $164,500 and Jimenez accepted.  But the deal didn’t run as smoothly as either party hoped. Instead, Griffin and Jimenez’s dream disappeared.

The deal went bad for a couple of reasons: 1) Since Jimenez didn’t have required documentation for citizenship, he put the house in his two year old daughter’s name, a maneuver that made it hard to switch the title of the house into Griffin’s name; 2) Griffin needed to prolong the sell until she could find a lower interest rate, a problem for anyone that needs the cash from selling a house.

As the deal began to fall apart, Griffin searched for every trick in the book to hold onto her dream house, even if it meant tearing the Jimenez family apart.

Griffin reported Jimenez’s immigration status to the local authorities. She called her local congressman, and even trespassed on his private property to put a big red sign in his front yard that read, “This house is owned by an illegal alien.” In response, Jimenez took his house off the market, lost his job, and looked for a lawyer to get the correct documentation to continue to pay taxes and work, so he could give his kids the life he never had.

Today, the Jimenez family lives in an apartment, while his first home remains empty. Griffin’s dream, of owning her first home, remains on the back burner, while she continues living with her mom.

It’s funny how quickly people turn ugly and irrational when they don’t get what they want. When her dream began to die, Griffin attacked Jimenez personally for not having the required documentation for citizenship.  She didn’t blame high interest rates. She didn’t blame the huge bureaucratic immigration mess that kept Jimenez from putting the house in his own name. Instead, she labeled Lorenzo Jimenez a dishonest criminal by calling him “illegal.”

But her response is nothing new. It’s becoming more common to blame immigrants for low wages, unemployment, health care costs, global warming, and the list goes on and on. To think of it, I should start blaming immigrants for forgetting to buy toilet paper, and why not?  I’m sure we can find some Washington organization, like Center for Immigrant Studies (CIS) and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) to manipulate some study to blame immigrants for my toilet paper situation.

What’s interesting is that neither organization actually fights to increase the minimum wage. CIS and FAIR aren’t helping Griffin find a better interest rate to buy her first home.

I guess FAIR and CIS really don’t care what happens to Griffin and Jimenez. But then again, I guess when someone doesn’t have to worry about interest rates, helping people give their children a brighter future is the least of FAIR’s and CIS’ concern. Or maybe CIS and FAIR are more interested in keeping the American dream away from people with names like Lorenzo Jimenez.

Maybe names should define citizenship and not work ethic and family values. I can definitely trust the name Franklin Raines – the CEO of Fannie Mae. When it comes to washing the American economy down the toilet, look no farther than someone with the same first name as Franklin D. Roosevelt.

It’s a tragedy when 25% of the 700,000 soldiers who came home from the Gulf War have neurological illnesses. It’s heartbreaking to learn that 17 years later it appears that they will not recover. It’s unimaginable that our own government caused it, but it is a crime of the highest order that for 17 years their suffering has been called into question. All of this has finally been made clear through an overdue and exhaustive scientific study into the validity of Gulf War syndrome which says “scientific research now available consistently indicates that Gulf War illness is real, that it is the result of neurotoxic exposures during Gulf War deployment, and that few veterans have recovered or substantially improved.”

To borrow an outraged question from a friend upon hearing the results; Where are the Arrests?!

Seriously, who is to blame? Is it the doctors that administered pyridostigmine bromide, a drug meant to offset the effects of nerve gas? The commanders that ordered soldiers to coat their uniforms in poisonous pesticides? The veterans benefit administrators that repeatedly denied care? What about the politicians who pulled at our heartstrings with their tales of Vietnam war valor while year after year denying veterans’ medical benefits and undermining the public medical care system they depended on? That’s right John McCain, that one was for you.

You wouldn’t have known it by listening to the McCain campaign, but McCain was blasted for his dismal record on veterans by veteran rights advocates such as the bipartisan group Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA). He landed on the IAVA’s D list along with just 3 other senators and 5 congressmen, including Tom Tancredo and Ron Paul. There has been a real and undeniable effort on the behalf of some politicians and the government at large to cover up the consequences of war and muffle the voices of a veteran population in trouble.

But what about an American public that conveniently forgot the ravages of Agent Orange just twenty years prior? As the saying goes, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. The study is certainly a breakthrough for veterans fighting for treatment, and a testament to American determination, but what of today’s soldiers? Will they have to come home and fight another war just like their predecessors? The United States will not stop waging war tomorrow, and we won’t stop sending young men and women into toxic environments in the name of democracy. What we can do is realize that we are beholden to these soldiers for as long it takes for them to recover. Whether we agree with the wars they fight or not, for once let’s grant them dignity in spirit and in deed.

I arrived to Chicago in 1995, after escaping besieged Sarajevo, the capitol of Bosnia, a story that reads more like a suspense novel, rather than one’s life. As a legal resident, I found a job, and with a help of my husband and student loans, I earned a Bachelor’s degree and worked my way towards a Masters Degree. After three years of living in the US I was eligible to apply for American Citizenship. I did not apply.

Even though I was building my “American Dream”, an activity culturally advertised as a cornerstone of American Identities, I was an outsider. Surviving a war, which served as a brutal suppression of civil rights, I became cynical about the potential to change realities through political expressions such as voting. In addition to this, declaring allegiance to a country and promising to carry arms if called to serve in a time of war for was something I agonized over. Also, being born in a country and developing a passionate love and attachment to that country, through nationalist discourse was, I felt, much different than having to make that choice. The issue of citizenship was not a means to an end, but a privilege of choice and as such I felt that I had to honor that with a serious consideration.

Last year, after witnessing my mother’s continuous active participation in Bosnian elections despite the corruption and general understanding of voter fraud, I began to question my complacency about my own role in the society in which I live. “Why do you keep voting and serving as an election judge when you know that nothing will change?” I asked her.

“Honey, not voting is equivalent to a crime. I know that the possibility of change here is small, but if I am living in a society I will voice my opinion about it. And when things, such as war happen, I at least know that it didn’t happen because of my silence. I know where my responsibility lies,” she said.

This conversation was a catalyst for me, and I made my choice to move from the security of the sidelines and become actively engaged in my environment.

In August of 2007, I became an American citizen along with more than 660,000 people. I registered to vote the same day. On November 4th, 2008 I voted for the first time in my life, and went off to work that day hoping that my vote counted. On November 5th I started my day feeling hopeful about the future, for the first time since I turned sixteen in 1992. This optimism and understanding that one can help create a change is the gift of America.

In the days leading up to November 4th many white nationalists were posting of fear that Obama would win while others tried to reassure their brothers and sisters that McCain would win easily. On November 5th, I read through hundreds of new thread topics like “2008 election marks great disaster for white race” and “Now is the time organize and take action!”. As I read through dozens of threads with hundreds and hundreds of responses the overall theme was one of fear, anger, and hate. One thread was entitled “The Obama Presidency; What are you going to do about it?” I saw many disturbing responses. People talked about increasing their gun and ammo supplies whereas others replied that they were going to double their donations to “pro-white causes.”

The topic of, in their words, “getting rid” of Obama also came up on many of the discussions. Many responses are indignant for example “I hope he gets what’s coming to him!” . Many members questioned whether Obama was really a natural born US citizen and conspiracy theories of how he stole the election also were discussed. For many white nationalists, the idea of an election of a “non-white” was something that could never happen during their lifetime. Many cannot comprehend that it actually did and will never accept it. It’s apparent that for many people active on the message board, even interracial relationships are unacceptable.

Even though this is an internet message board, the message is clear and cannot be taken lightly. Activism among white nationalists will rise dramatically in the wake of Obama’s victory. Many white nationalists on the message board talked about “coming out of the white nationalist closet” and preaching their views to friends and others in order to increase their numbers. For many an Obama presidency brings hope and pride but for white nationalists it stirs hateful reactions.

The Obama victory will not cure the problem of racism and white nationalism in this country but we must not be deterred by the white nationalist views that Obama is not capable to lead this country because of his skin color. We must all look forward to the next four years with hope and optimism and not be held back by bigoted views. The next four years are an opportunity for America to get back on the right track and we must all trust that our new leader will steer us in a positive direction.

The day dragged on with customers asking their predictable questions: “How big is a medium cup?” “Where is the cream?” - I answer them with sass, to play the part of the typical independent cafe barista: “16 ounces, like every other joint in this city” and “Why don’t you look around for 10 seconds then ask me that question again”.

I decided to send a mass text message to everyone in my phone book letting them know that a group of us would be biking down together, and to meet at the coffee shop if they were interested. At the end of my shift, about ten people showed up, four of us had tickets. The rest of the group was going to gather material for a story to tell the grand-kids, no matter what the outcome the evening’s events, it would prove worthy of some kind of retelling, eh hem, wink.

We agreed to take Clark Street, not only to be visibly part of the political movement, but to be representatives in the constant struggle cyclists face: to be recognized as traffic. As we rode further south, the streets became as crowded as my thoughts. The sodium vapor bulb streetlights spilled their yellow light into what seemed liked a blurred photograph taken with no flash. All of the sudden we were on Michigan Avenue, looking for bike parking. We all walked toward the entrance together, past the t-shirt salesmen and war protesters, said our goodbyes and split ways.

Four of us waited in the line for about an hour. First enduring the loud speaker repeatedly stating what you must and mustn’t have with you, then a series of three ticket checks and bag searches. We finally reached the end, and for the first time, felt the excitement burning inside. In that moment I think we knew we had to just run towards whatever was ahead of us.

We could hear the roar of the masses as we got closer, but couldn’t see them. The standing area was shaped like a giant rectangular reservoir, with the edges sloped up. Only as we approached the edge of the dip did the multitudes reveal themselves. A vast sea of faceless shadows packed in the grassy field, a rare feast for the eyes indeed.

At first we didn’t know what to do, so we just kind of waded around without saying anything. After the initial shock faded we agreed to settle on one of the sloped sides, to safeguard a spot with overlooking the jumbo-tron and the crowd. There wasn’t much to do after that, besides wait for the screen to turn back to CNN. So we ate a ridiculously overpriced pizza while we waited.

As the votes were counted for each state, everyone sitting would stand and cheer or boo when appropriate. The roar was always deafening, no matter which way it went. Cell phone reception was very poor, but I managed to get a few bars. Perhaps the most lucid moment of that night for me came at 8:56, when I received a text message from my extremely conservative father that read: “Congratulations on your victory baby”. I have had many heated arguments with my pops in the past, where I left feeling angry and hopeless. But with that stupid little message, somehow it had all come undone. It was a virtual tip of the hat, a sign of respect that had never really been there before. I had felt very confident all night, but after that I knew it was over. After all, my dad is always right, just ask him.

The final twinkling was of course, the announcement. There was only a split second between Virgina being called blue, and the culmination of the mob. After that, it was totally off the chain.

One of the friends with me had battled an infamous illness for a good part of her youth, and because of her preexisting condition, found it nearly impossible to find any kind of health insurance that would cover her. After we all stopped jumping up and down and screaming, she looked at me, ecstatic, and with tears pouring down her face said “Katie, do you understand? I might get insurance now! I might be okay!”

Although the night may have continued, at that point it was over for me in a lot of ways. We stayed for the speeches, took the lakefront trail home and stopped by the water for a bit to take it all in. I sat there, and in my own way I prayed. To whom I’m not sure, but I prayed that the candidate would make peace with the promises he made to us.

And for the first time in my adult life, I was genuinely proud to be an American.

Have your voting rights been violated or did you witness discrimination or harassment at the polls? Tell your story and get help at VoterStory.org or call one of these hotlines: 1-866-MYVOTE1, 1-866-OUR-VOTE or 1-888-VE-Y-VOTA (en Español).

You can learn more about Social Contract Press’ relationships with the Federation for American Immigration Reform and other anti-immigrant groups by visiting the Campaign for a United America. The Campaign is exposing the truth behind these groups and their troubling associations with white supremacy.

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.