Why today? Why have I chosen to sit and reflect on the last 24 hours; this latest spin on the axis? In some ways, that deserves critique. Incidents of intensity happen a million times over in spaces around the globe. As the death machine of neo-imperialism and hyper-globalization churns on, there are a billion battles a day of all shapes and sizes. They all are important.
Today, those battles feel a little closer than usual. Perhaps the intensity is based on their interconnectness. From Phoenix to Encinitas to San Diego and stretching through the border all the way to Oaxaca. People are dying. They are dying quick deaths by gunshot and slow deaths by aggrevated starvation. They are being murdered by a system hell-bent on continuing its own exploitative existance no matter what. Today, all of this touched my life; here's a bit of what happened...
It began last night as news began to reach me. Much of this came into my e.mail beginning with news from a friend in Phoenix where posters have started going up with sayings like, "unholy outlaw wetbacks." I've never been to Phoenix and know little of what it's like there. But I have continued to learn about the intense anti-immigrant fervor influenced by members of the government and now this. I try to imagine what it would be like to wake up in the morning and see that - as its target and also as a member of the community.
I responded to the e.mail with one offering my solidarity and sending luck and love. I wish only the best to all those fighting for human rights and the livelihood and safety of all folks in Phoenix.
Moving next into my e.mail with a continued pang of grief over such hate, I saw a forward from the San Diego Minutemen listserve (yeah, fuckers - several of us are on it so we know what you're doing, idiots!). This e.mail informed me of two things:
One, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had done a raid yesterday of a day laborer site in Encinitas - a suburban town in North San Diego County. Of 26 folks that they caught, 24 were taken and probably detained and/or deported. Twenty-four people gone from their community, their families, friends. The second part of this e.mail, of course, is the joy of the Minutemen.
This joy, this arrogance at what they feel is their right to interfere in the lives of innocent individuals is so hugely a part of my emotional discontent right now. They brought that sick satisfaction not only to another day laborer site (they go to this one every weekend) today but used much more aggressiveness in their harassment. Even more disgusting, is that they followed that up with a trip to a Dia de los Muertos event in memorium of the thousands of people who have died crossing the Mexico/US border.
Let me repeat that, the Minutemen, in all their racist glory, came to a memorial for the death of innocent human beings. I wanted to vomit. Following the memorial they, of course, came up and got in everyone's face and were again aggressive and bigoted.
I think it is time to be perfectly clear, here. There is a fascist, racist, xenophobic fervor sweeping this area and this entire nation. The minutemen are violent agents determined to keep human beings from their basic human rights. They took the gloves off today by coming to that memorial and it's time to swing back. We fight these bigots everyday and meet them on some battle ground away from our own spaces. They want to come into our house, where we choose quiet reflection and prayer, we'll see them in their's.
to be continued...
