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Published on Saturday, October 31, 2009 by Color Lines
Torn Apart
From New York to Jamaica, families struggle to stay together.
Harsh immigration policy, compounded by systemic inequities built into the criminal justice system, might not be thwarting terrorists or making our country a whole lot safer. But the laws are doing a great job of breaking up another entity: families of color.
This story is part of "Torn Apart by Deportation," a series investigating the impacts of deportation on families of color.
© 2009 Applied Research Center
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9 Comments so far
Show AllI'm not buying into the pity. When you cheapen the value of my citizenship, I devalue my concern and empathy. I have to obey ALL laws. I don't ignore the ones I find inconvenient. This monumental and expensive stupidity has me distrustful of the left. And Lautneberg wanting to take the gestapo's no-fly list as a roster for disarming citizens? As a middle of the road, liberal leaning, Obama voter I'm looking real hard at the right.
beeks, ignorance is not an opinion
just saying
True, "ignorance is not an opinion", but opinions are often based on or in ignorance, and these aren't really opinions. We can't possibly have a real opinion about any subject in which we're either wholly or else too ignorant. Being able to have a real opinion requires being reasonably informed about the subject in question.
And we can have opinions based on a considerable amount of information while still being mistaken or wrong, and if we're honest and critically objective thinkers, then when we acquire additionally important information that alters the understanding we previously had of ... whatever the subject is, we may and often should change our initial views; while being wholly honest about this. I have this experience and don't pretend to have an opinion on subjects that I know to either know little or else nothing about. Sometimes, however, I have a fair amount of information that causes a certain view to form and then, later, acquire more information that causes the initial view to change. Dynamics; I'm not set in stone and neither are many of my views.
Human rights, doing for others what we'd want done for ourselves, iow, having compassion, empathy, now this is something I can have an opinion about without needing to be an expert on every instance of disregard for fellow human beings. I'm patriotic, but not like most people who claim to be this, for my [first] citizenship is naturally (vs politically) in humanity and, therefore, is worldwide. Other citizenships are political. They're not really natural; they're imposed, branded by human governments, political bureaucracies. Life grants us natural citizenship in humanity; and all living organisms or simply the Universe, for that matter.
As soon as someone's human rights and dignity is attacked, then I need to know nothing more in order to stand for defending the person's right to life and dignity. This can also apply to murderers, who aren't all evil and don't all commit such crimes because of really wanting to do so. It can be based in anger that explodes and shouldn't explode, but does; yet it's an anger that is based in or on real history. It can be someone who violently acts against children because of having known only this kind of experience, in which case the individual needs therapeutic healing. It can be someone who is non-white hating all whites because of the long and continuing history of what Europeans did to them, their families and their ancestors. I always try to [understand], and am also against white, aristocratic, bourgeois, corporatist, ... rule.
We have to deal or contend with the fact that politics bind us, but we nevertheless never should disregard human rights and dignity.
Jamaica is another victim of European invasion, colonisation, racket economics, slavery, etcetera. Are we to disregard this fact? Definitely not.
We have a choice and the main one is to see to the correcting, as much as possible, the wrongs done to Jamaicans, Haitians, Guatamelans, Hondurans, ..., Africans of many countries in Africa, Asians, and more; most definitely including aboriginal populations of the Americas and ... really everywhere. If we don't see to these needed and deserved corrections, then we should not complain when some of these people immigrate or migrate to our countries because of [need].
We must do for others as we'd want done for ourselves. Would we want others to sentence us to death in fatal economic conditions, if we needed to migrate in order to try to survive? NO. We'd greatly appreciate the populations where we'd migrate helping us, their solidarity with or compassion about our needs and lives.
This has nothing to do with being "left" or "right", for both (certainly in the West anyway) are guilty of extreme crimes against humanity, worldwide. I don't associate with such people, and they don't think and act for me.
Left, right, what's the difference? Superficial.
There's also the expression of, "Ignorance is bliss". Is it really blissful? Of course not. However, a lot of ignorant people like living this way, while thinking they're in bliss or a bliss, never guilty; like of supporting criminal political candidates, wars (of aggression), etcetera.
Some people treat the expression literally, as if it's really meant to mean that being ignorant is blissful; but that's not the actual meaning of the phrase, certainly not in my usage of it anyway. My use is as a sarcastic metaphor; to ridicule or mock people who are "blissfully" ignorant and consequently commit and support Wrongs, people who are socially and intellectually irresponsible, yet pretend to be adults, which they are, but only in terms of physical, temporal age.
People who flame, rage out against use of this expression get fanatically wound or tied up in literalism; needing everything totally spelled out for them. I prefer to look for reasonable and, therefore, reality-based meaning. Their understanding is too literal and expressions aren't always to be taken in literal terms; these people or we sometimes forget. It can happen to "the best of us".
We have a contemporary example with people who claim that some chosen political candidates are supposedly of a "lesser evil", while never being able to defend or support the "lesser" qualifier and admitting to vote for evil. This is an example of a lesser "invincible ignorance", which I guess can be considered as a "willful ignorance". These voters recognise and admit voting for evil, but pretend that their chosen evil is less than a competitor evil; while never being able or even willing to try to back up this claim. I said "lesser" was unlikely with Obama, but his supporters who admitted evil and said that he was of a "lesser" kind pretended that he was lesser without ever supporting this with any proof or reasons, at all; regardless of being called upon to provide such proof or reasons.
They knew they were making a wrong choice and lived in (some) bliss about it. Some of these voters have since realised that they "helped" to screw themselves and most of the population, but there may still be some who blissfully enjoy the choice they made. And whether it was Obama or Hillary Clinton doesn't matter. Both were and remain [rotten], to the core, much. Madeleine Albright is deservedly criticised for her words when she said genocide of Iraqis was "worth the price", but while Obama and Hillary Clinton, and others, haven't stated these words, explicitly, the fact that they actually do is obvious.
A possible title for a possible book, "Why Ignorance is Bliss". The explanation? Ignorance. Examples? Surely enough to fill a book.
Reforming ignorance, step 1: Recognise that we are ignorant, don't know everything and therefore must be careful. When we are intelligently and humbly capable of recognising when we're ignorant, then we can improve. As long as we refuse to accept to acknowledge that we're ignorant, we will continue ... evils.
Immigrants and migrants only seeking to survive are NOT evil. Those of us who refuse them are ... wicked, egotistical, ignorant, ... Wrong.
And the Americas do NOT belong to the whites! Never did, never will. We are not the Earth's Lords. We are humans and must recognise all humans as human. And we need to de-corrupt politics and economics. If we achieved this, then people wouldn't feel a need to try to migrate to other countries just to try to survive. Earth does not belong to whites and our elites' non-white puppets, and subjected, suppressed, ... national leaders! (Not all state leaders who comply with the real rulers of the U.S. or West are really puppets, being rather suppressed, enslaved, ..., which leads them to acting like puppets that are willing. Like "coalition of the willing" for the war in Iraq, not all of the so-called willing were really willing.)
The government and corporations of the USA and European countries, and Canada, are to blame, and we, as citizens, must demand that the needed corrections be implemented, nationally and internationally. As long as we don't stand up against what our governments and corporations cause to other people (and ourselves), we don't have any moral ground to stand on against immigrants and migrants only seeking betterment compared to what they had in their original countries. We do not! They're not coming to much better, but compared to what they have in their original countries, maybe it's a little better in the U.S.
Slavery is passe; it's long past due time for real human rights and dignity to be really recognised and encouraged. The problem is found in our governments and corporations, instead being found in people seeking and deserving a real chance in life.
Our governments? Super-sized gangsterism, terrorism, .... Our corporations? They rule our governments. To govern is to manage is to be an administrator, and this is to be a servant to the general populations; not for populations to be slavery-like subjects to political "leadership", that is, servants.
Even the President of any country is a position in which the person is a [servant] chosen to represent the voting population; not a dictator, tyrant, ..., but a servant. It's being a servant granted certain authority, but limited; NOT God-like. Soldiers in the U.S. anyway are supposed to learn this in boot camp, where they're supposed to learn that their first oath is to the Constitution, not the individual sitting as President.
If that's true of politics, and it should be, then it's true of corporations. They rule our governments, so we need to act against this.
Human rights and dignity, FIRST!
"I don't ignore the [laws] I find inconvenient." - I'm sure you have never exceeded the speed limit, or ignored a stop sign while riding your bike on an otherwise empty street.
It's precisely your lack of empathy that enables the ruling elites to exploit both you, and immigrants of all stripes - they know they can count on your ignorance and lack of compassion. They know that if they can focus your anger - about low wages, lack of jobs, whatever - on immigrants, gays, liberals, or other suspect groups, you won't be angry at them. So go ahead, oblige the elites, scapegoat the immigrants, and watch your own situation going from bad to worse.
If the U.S. is concerned about peddling drugs, then the U.S. government should start by cleaning itself of its international traffickers; like CIA, DEA and, perhaps anyway, FBI people, f.e. Then the U.S. should decriminalise drugs and treat consumption, for seriously addicted consumers, as a [health] problem and not a criminal one. Otherwise, the U.S. has nothing to preach or complain about. But the government mostly wants to go after only small-time dealers, and consumers, instead of the kingpins, who are pals with our political and financial industry "elites".
Furthermore, the U.S. harbors known international terrorists; deliberately, wittingly harbors them and refuses to extradite them to countries demanding the extraditions for necessary trials and sentencing. Immigrants or anyone else only peddling drugs, small-time dealers, are ignorable compared to the terrorists and assassins the U.S. harbors, in addition to those trained by the U.S., like at SoA (WHINSEC), and in the CIA operations branch.
Coloured people in the U.S. will eventually have a real say. I've read little about this, but what it said is that coloured people in the U.S. increasingly are a majority. Eventually, this majority will surely cease to be oppressed by ruling whites, who might then have to flee to Europe. I just hope that we're not all targeted, for I am not against equal rights, dignity, and opportunities for anyone. However, if we all become targeted, then it won't be difficult to understand. Anger will often take place of fairness, say, and it'll be an understandable anger. It already is.
Over the past week, I came across some article or else video in which it was stated that segregation is stronger now than it was in the 1960s, which was a real, yet not total, surprise to me. Public schools, f.e., apparently are more segregated today.
Harvard U., which is said to be a leading example in liberal thinking, is highly racist, discriminatory according to the video linked just below. I believe this and have never thought highly of Harvard, anyway. It's an elites' school, but it never impressed me; not particularly well, anyway. From what I recall having read in the 1990s, U. Mass. was the leading school in the U.S. for family doctors; this [inexpensive] university. That well impressed me.
"History of Racism in Boston" (9:52), from PeoplesVideo, which is www.peoplesvideo.org, Aug 11, 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wgznvVMbWA
Quote: "Phebe Eckfeldt a member of Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers, AFSCME Local 3650; a founder of the Boston Women's Fightback Network; and a leader of WWP in Boston.lays out the history of racism in Boston and Cambridge. It is a poison design to divid the workers".
I just came across PeoplesVideo.org over the past few days and am not sure, but think most or all videos at the website require purchase. However, there's the Youtube channel, where there are at least clips of videos. Since it's new to me, I can't vouch for it, but if its other videos qualitatively compare to the above one, then the website should be a good resoucce. The above video should definitely be viewed by everyone.
It's an important and excellent talk or presentation that Phebe Eckfeldt provides. People who care about human and worker rights definitely don't want to miss this video, in which we learn that Goldman Sachs and City Group control Harvard and now control its very discriminatory practices. We learn that Cambridge, Ma., is NOT a really liberal place; well, except for police liberally practicing racial profiling, etc., and Harvard fraudulently accepting to be called a liberal school that respects human rights for or of everyone, anyway. We already could know that Harvard is bs for a liberal school respecting human rights, with the school's endorsement of Zionist extremists like monsieur Dershowitz (spelling?), f.e.; but the above video provides a strong and current illustration from a different angle or viewpoint.
People have become dumbed down enough that today we have writers referring to corporations or business entities as "who", and people or individuals as "that", which is replaceable with "which". The words should be reversed, for "who" refers to a person or group of persons, while "that" and "which" refer to or infer non-persons. People complain about corporations being treated as if they have rights like individual people, yet these complaining people speak as if corporations are people and people are items or non-person entities.
This corporation, like Goldcorp, which, or that poisoned Hondurans, etcetera; not who, but which or that. This person who opposed the corporation's wrongs and filed a lawsuit for reparations, etcetera; not a person which, but who. People complain and yet they do what they complain about.
If people don't understand this, then no wonder they always blame immigrants and migrants. I have economic problems and immigrants and migrant workers certainly don't help, but I do NOT blame them. I understand their situations and will not reject these people. What I demand, want, is correction of our governments and corporations, for they are the problem.
The only immigrants I disapprove of are those who support the evils of our governments and corporations. These immigrants should be OUT of here ... forever. Most foreigners do not come here out of supporting evils, but some do. Some, f.e., come here to be able to exploit among the poorest people of their same originating countries, like through the L1 and H1-B worker visa programs in the U.S. Canada allows farmers to employ migrant farm workers while treating them as if the Canadian Charter of Human Rights does not apply. Apparently many farmers like this, for it permits them to get cheaper labor and the workers can be abused in ways that Canadian law prohibits being done to citizens and legal residents, immigrants.
CCPA, Canadian Center for Policy Altneratives, or some similar name, at www.policyalternatives.ca, had articles about Canadian farmers doing this with migrant workers, beginning in western Ca, Alberta or B.C., and working its way eastward to Quebec over the past couple of or few years, and it is difficult for a Canadian resident and dualised citizen, as I am, to find work on farms. (Having a car would help, of course; yet searching would not be easy.) Is this the fault of the migrant workers? Of course not! It's the fault of the government and greedy farmers; and, yes, greed is found among farmers, too.
Our governments are SICK! Our corporations are lead by SICK people. They're the ones to correct; not people wanting to come here to try to better living standards for themselves; while, in the process, finding that it was all a sad dream anyway.
Conditions are not good for such foreigners and they're not good for poor whites, even. If not for poor whites, then also not for citizens of colour. This white, who has college and university diplomas, and ten years of professional experience doing software development mostly on UNIX systems, knows that the economic lack of fairness isn't only for non-whites; but I came from poverty and suppose that most whites don't come from [real] poverty. Even if I was born in and resident of Mass., I couldn't have affored even U. Mass. without good scholarship donations, which I might have been able to obtain, perhaps even better, but "life" did not take that course; it took the "streets" and at age 19 I had the equivalent of an 8th grade academic education, besides a plumbing course. Life took the course of rebellion and it's hurt, economically, but also provided another, different schooling.
Having less than the rich doesn't equate to being in poverty, which is how most whites I meet seem to think of life; always comparing themselves to the pig-rich, instead of economically average and below-average people. Much more is required to be of real poverty. A lot of people only want to incomprehensibly compare their economic standings with the rich, never with the poor, which provides a sick skewing of reality. It's perverted.
Some people look at me as if thinking, "Oh, you're white, you can't be economically suffering". Like, duh, what the heck planet are you from?! I apply for jobs requiring only high school diplomas and paying min. wage, but it'd be better than what I have, roughly 3x better, and some of the jobs pay around $3 over min. wage; yet no interviews, no interest, just discarded job applications. I can't blame these employers in our economy, for I'd surely be much like them; but it still leaves me at 3x and worse below min. wage for funds to live and this definitely is not welcome, either.
In all cases, I have to consider the reasons of all sides or parties involved. Yes, immigrants and migrant workers are part of the problem, BUT only out of consequence; not due to real cause! Look at the cause and correct it, instead of complaining about consequences. Want to correct or end consequences? Correct the causes!
Immigrants and migrants are not a problem, and when it comes to migrant workers, they are only acting [consequentially]; not as cause!
Want real justice for yourself? Then make sure to provide it to others too!
This is how real solidarity is developed. We don't scape-goat anyone. We carefully and honestly analyse what the problems are and work on correcting these, instead of only reacting to consequences. The latter can certainly alert us to problems existing, but are not the problems; only being consequences, symptoms. Cure a symptom? Good luck; you won't succeed. Cure the cause, and then you will succeed.
And, voila, the conclusion of my philosophically poemitic prose. Who among us is so Lord that he or she can decide that such prose cannot be permitted? Whoever does is wrong. After all, I just proved that it can be done. Consider it a sort of jazz without the musical instruments; and add them, if you wish. Why not?