by Irene Daniel
Another anniversary of the most shocking foreign attack on US soil, and another year to contemplate how we got here from there. It was a pivotal moment in our American history. In our immense grief, we pivoted way too far to the right, in the name of nationalism and patriotism; and ended up back in the 1950s and 60s. The good old days that white conservatives lament at your local Rotary club meetings; the days when white male heterosexuals could exploit the rest of the population at will, without the 'gov'ment' telling them what to do.
These good Christians, it appears, need to be ordered by law to: pay people a decent wage, treat everyone they do business with fairly -- without the discrimination that naturally accompanies their hatred of others based upon their white Jesus, to clean up after themselves, and to take responsibility for their actions and make amends when they damage others. How is that? How is it that they don't already know these basic tenets of common decency? These conservatives?
September 11, 2001, in many ways, paved the way for a new nationalism, very much in the spirit of the Reagan revolution. In this 21st century version of voodoo economics, the national greed-fest enjoyed by the wealthiest of the wealthy bankers and defense contractors, came with not only a huge price tag for the American taxpayers, but a 21st century bloodbath that killed or crippled thousands of our best and brightest young sailors and soldiers.
And as if that were not enough to set us back a bit, 9/11 made it okay to be biased against dark skin, not just Muslims, but Blacks and Latinos too. Let's not pretend that the demon of white supremacy was not bolstered with this new excuse to "otherize" our very own citizens. Again. Otherizing is one of the things we do best here in the land of un-equal opportunity and unjust enrichment for the wealthy and the pale-skinned. Remember Japanese internment during WWII? Japanese Americans do.
And last night President Obama addressed the nation, telling us that, once again, we must resolve to not let them get away with it, not let ISIL get away with beheading our citizens. Our mission now is to degrade and destroy them, and chase them down wherever they go! Although President Obama is, fortunately, much less cowboy about going to war than his predecessor, I am still profoundly suspicious of an administration that says no combat troops, when there are now nearly 1500 additional troops sent to Iraq within the last few months. Don't let this be your Vietnam, Mr. President.
And this ugliness of otherization has clearly manifested itself in the ongoing debate over immigration. 9/11 made it okay to fear little brown children. And call them names and throw rocks at the vehicle transporting them to a "safe" place. 9/11 made it okay to be afraid of people. Any people. But especially the ones that are "different;" that somehow feel foreign and, let's face it -- dirty. I've even heard nice Christian conservatives refer to dark skinned Indigenous people as "the mud races." Right to my face even. 9/11 made this man appear reasonable to others like him.
I was very disappointed to hear that President Obama has given in to the lowest common denominator, as have all too many American Presidents, by deciding to postpone any Executive Action on Immigration until after the election. Why do dark-skinned people always have to "be patient" and keep our "eyes on the prize" in order to cater to those who are uninformed, unenlightened, uneducated and just plain mean?
LBJ and Ike had many a quarrel over moving forward with Civil Rights legislation in the 1950s. Johnson was livid at Ike's excuses that "the south's not ready for Civil Rights." Johnson knew what that meant. That meant that his black employees could not stop at a restaurant or gas station in most states while driving from Texas to D.C. The south "not ready" meant that an employee of the Majority Leader of the United States Senate had to squat by the side of the road to pee, while traveling on business on behalf of her boss. That's what "not ready" and "be patient" means to people with dark skin in America.
We are tired of waiting. We are tired of leaders who lack the political and moral courage to do the right thing and actually live up to our often way over-the-top rhetoric; rhetoric, I might add, that our enemies, as well as our allies, see to be the BS that it is much of the time. Don't our leaders remember that fortune favors the bold? And that the arc of the moral universe still bends towards justice?
President Obama and the Democrats are making a huge mistake throwing Latinos under the bus until a more convenient time. We are the largest growing demographic in the nation. And if you want to know what happens when you push us over the edge with immigrant bashing and legislation like SB 1070, just look at what happened in California after the similar failure of Prop 187. Latinos boast of immense political clout in the Golden State because they mobilized like never before in the wake its passage. No one who insults Latinos gets elected statewide here. Right Meg Whitman?
But it is up to us, Latinos, to show up at the polls and show up for jury duty if we want our lives to be taken seriously by the leadership in our communities. Every month 50,000 Latinos become voter-eligible. There are more of us than there are of them. And a million votes trumps a million dollars. As uninspiring as it is to be cast aside in order to satisfy smaller minds, we cannot stay home at election time. We must mobilize. We must vote!
We have to make our voices heard and let it be known that, 9/11 or no 9/11, we are not settling for the back of the bus any longer. I am very tired of the Democratic Party giving lip-service to its base, as a sacrifice to the Republican conservative, and largely unenlightened and racist, base. Why do we do that? Why do we encourage them by pandering to the lowest common denominator?
The United States of America will never live up to all its rhetoric if we keep mollycoddling the know-nothings of our communities, who cling to an inglorious past. It's time for progressives, liberals and all who have been "otherized," to stop being "patient" and stop being understanding of smaller minds and even smaller hearts, and get out there and participate actively, and even aggressively, in our democracy. Vote! Show up for jury duty!
No more waiting. No more pandering to the fears of the low-information voters, those followers of millionaires who exploit them with talk of hatred and the fear of "the other."
Why in the world is the country that calls itself the greatest on earth, perennially pandering to those with the emptiest heads and the meanest spirits among us? That has to stop. Now!
No more. Bastante!
Si se puede! Andale!
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