Photos: March for Immigrant New York, 03.26.08

Photos from The New York Immigration Coalition’s March for Immigrant New York.

Today, we marched for:

+The needs of immigrant students in the NYC public school system
+Funding for English classes and immigrant legal services
+Affordable housing and renewal of rent stabilization laws
+Access to quality affordable health care
+Protection of workers’ rights

(Photos after the jump)

Buchanan: “Where is the gratitude?”

via Media Matters:

“[...]America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.”

Yo, Pat B., I am definitely loving the passive voice, effectively taking blame away from the whole slave ship thing. It totally says, “Well, they came over on the slave ships…it’s irrelevant who brought them here in the first place.”

I would post more here, but you really have to read the original to believe it. I’ll post a response later, when I’m not outraged and exhausted.

Namesake

I was Googling my domain today to see what came up and apparently there’s a quote by Eugene Debs:

“Solidarity is not a matter of sentiment but a fact, cold and impassive as the granite foundations of a skyscraper.”

Interesting quote and source, especially considering my line of work. Here I was, thinking I was clever for putting these two words together, and now Eugene Debs comes and steals my thunder.

Fair and Balanced

The Nation’s John Nichols follows up on the Obama campaign’s response to Fox News’ Chris Wallace’s comments about his network’s coverage of the Obama/Wright Faux Controversy.

A commenter on Nichols’ post provides the following links, showing that Wright’s comments were, of course, taken out of of context and blown out of proportion by Fox News:

9 Minute “Chickens have come home to roost” video. [YouTube]
Full Audio of Wright’s sermon, with reflections about September 11 victims. [Odeo.com]
“God Damn America”, in context. [YouTube]

The Breeders — Mountain Battles

It’s been a long time since the last Breeders album, Title TK. Mountain Battles isn’t even due out until early April, but of course “accidental” leaks are all the rage today.

Give a listen, courtesy of Funeral Pudding.

Regalame Esta Noche
Night of Joy

Cycles of Violence

When I saw that the topic for the YM Blog-a-thon was violence, I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to actively engage in dialogue. I’ve never been directly affected by the violence that occurred in my neighborhood, which is more of a matter of extreme luck than anything else. I’ve never known anyone my age who was taken away as a result of gang violence, nor do I know anyone who is currently serving in Iraq. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I almost feel underqualified to speak about youth and the violence that constantly goes on around us.

However, last week in his monumental speech about Race in America, Obama said something that resonated through me:

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families—a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods—parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement—all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continues to haunt us.

As I remember the working class Black community in Chicago where I grew up, I recall the man who was shot down the block after a drug deal gone wrong, doing my homework and hearing fights going on in the street below my bedroom, and the stray bullet that came through my house on New Years’ Eve. The conditions that Obama so elegantly lay out all converge and snowball and even though I was fortunate enough not to experience these things directly, I know they’ve had an effect on the way I perceive the world around me.

I don’t think that the “Cycle of Violence” that Obama mentions is limited to members of the community. Because violence and fear are so racialized– that is, Americans carry their own stereotypes over who is and who isn’t to be feared, largely based on whether or not someone has dark skin– the cycle becomes difficult to break, and police violence becomes more pronounced. At least one study suggests that police insensitivity and lack of accountability are to blame for police brutality and shootings of people of color.

I hate that I live in a world where there is a war waged against people who look like me. Just as violence is racialized, it’s also largely gendered– because Black communities lack the resources and economic opportunities readily available in middle-class White communities, Black males often seek to regain power by nontraditional means. Largely related to the War on Drugs, the War on Black Males has led to increased rates of incarceration, public fear and even lowered life expectancy. The Black man is a dying breed, and the real shame is that the racial dialogue that Obama and the Wright Debacle has opened has been sensationalized as little more than a story about a radical, “neo-Islamist” Pastor scaring White people and pushing for Black Power.

I hate to be naive here, but sometimes I can’t help but wish for sweeping systemic change to come all at once. I know it won’t, but I have trouble imagining a world where I may someday have to struggle with how to raise a Black man while letting him know that the societal cards are stacked against him. How do we help our brothers, and our communities? How do we gain economic independence and provide better opportunities in the places we live? Jeremiah Wright may have said things in a tone of voice too harsh for some people to accept, but we can’t forget the heart of his message, nor should we ignore the painful history lessons that Obama gave in Monday’s speech.

Pigs Fly, Hell Freezes Over

Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace takes Fox and Friends to task over their portrayal of some of Obama’s comments. (Via Think Progress.)

Five Minute Dance Party!

Hillary Clinton’s “Family” Feud

Today, Barbara Ehrenreich posted a piece in The Nation about Hillary Clinton’s associations with “The Family”, a Beltway Christian organization that sounds more like a conservative cult than an organization for praise and worship.

I’ve been saying for quite some time now that the Clinton family ties are more deeply rooted in American Neoconservativism than anyone cares to acknowledge, but after reading the 2007 Mother Jones article Ehrenreich mentions, I wonder why I’ve never come across it before.

I’m gonna say it right now: I don’t trust Hillary Clinton. (Bold letters AND italics! Beat that!) I don’t trust her because she doesn’t have my best interests at heart. Not because she’s not Black, and not because she’s not from Chicago, but because if she had any Democrat’s best interest at heart, she would have dropped out of the race by now. The only way she can win at this stage is if she wins over a significant number of Superdelegates– Election 2008’s very ownhanging chad. Among these Superdelegates are high Democratic Party officials, including Hillary’s Husband/BFF/#1 Fan, Mr. President Clinton. Is she sticking in the race because she knows the unpledged delegates– among which she has considerably more clout than Obama– will scratch her back? It seems that this is the case, despite the fact that she’d have you believe that she just wants the people to choose the candidate for the job.

The Democratic Party is struggling, and it has been for as long as I can remember. I’m 22 years old and I’ve only been alive for one Democrat in office. For the first time ever, Obama is having a resounding impact on young voters and people of color– two constituencies on which the Democratic Party pride themselves on caring about the most. The Party could benefit strategically from following Obama’s lead and attempting to revitalize their politics to stimulate real systemic change, but instead it’s politics as usual as Obama is left not getting the support he deserves. It’s really sad to see him stranded, especially since his mantra of Change and Hope has had so much of a profound impact in this election cycle.

But I am straying from the point and getting on my Obama Soapbox.

This Family Organization is really troubling, primarily because of its Conservative affiliations. Take the founding principles, for instance:

The Family was founded in Seattle in 1935 by Abraham Vereide
[...]
He organized Christian prayer breakfasts for politicians and businessmen that included anti-Communism and anti-union discussions.
[...]
By 1942, the organization had moved headquarters to Washington, DC, where it helped create breakfast groups in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives.

At the very least, doesn’t this make her appear to go against everything she claims to believe in, as both an individual and a Democrat? The connection between her religious affiliations and her legislation is what bothers me the most: For me, the main drawback is that it can be used to unite a little too much when called upon in less-than-desirable circumstances. In response to America’s past as a refuge from political persecution, religion remains the last frontier, the one subject that is too personal to criticize. Talk about Hillary’s policies, her ideas and her strategies, but discussing her religion and her affiliations is taboo, thus making religion the perfect cloak for political and personal gain.

In the past 15 years or so, neoconservatives have courted the Religious Right with a persistent fervor. We’ve seen elections centered on perceptions of morality more in the recent past than in any other time in American history. We’re being divided by race, class and who we worship. Alliances between church and state seem to be more visible and certainly more politically influential than ever before. If the media can question Obama’s pastor, why can’t they delve beneath Clinton’s cloaked-and-daggered steeple?

Five Long Years

Today is the first day of the Youth Media Blogathon, about youth and violence.

It couldn’t be a more fitting day to make our voices collectively heard: March 19, 2003 was the day that the United States invaded Iraq. Since that day, I have graduated both high school and college. I’ve written thousands of words and listened to hours of music. I have fallen in love– and out of it. I think back to where I was five years ago, and I remember how upset and frustrated I was because this country, my home was acting in our names to destroy someone else’s home. I was young, naive and frightened. I was too young to remember Desert Storm, but I remembered vaguely seeing reporters telling stories from a sandscape that might as well have been on Mars. For the first time that I could remember, I was fully aware of the terror and pain that my country was inflicting on real human beings on the other side of the world. I was insignificant. And I knew that the various demonstrations that I participated in– Walk-Outs, Sit-Ins, Teach-Ins and other protests that were organized around the Invasion could do very little to help. This was my place in history, and I was convinced that this Anti-War Movement I had found myself a part of was going up against some stiff competition. I felt my voice was too weak, too young and too alone to mean anything.

Five years is a long time. We’ve seen conservative cable news surge in popularity and we’ve become citizens of a near police state. It’s difficult to extract myself from the context of a young person who has come of age during this globally broadcast war, but I know that seeing people my age coming back home in body bags has given me an entirely different outlook on life. I remember thinking about how my life would be different if I lived in Iraq on this day five years ago. I felt guilty that I was relatively safe at home in Chicago while my government “shocked and awed” entire towns full of people with common experiences and memories. The language that was used to talk about war deeply upset me, mostly because the media made no qualms about constructing a cognitive veil between the clever catchphrases pitting “The Axis of Evil” against “The Coalition of the Willing,” the whole while glossing over the fact that “dead checking” left a lot of actual bloodshed in its wake.

Here we are, five years later, and the war is still sputtering on. Thousands of young folks have died in the name a country that never gave a damn about them; Iraqi youth have experienced the kinds of horrifying atrocities that most people wouldn’t wish on their worst enemies. I don’t know what more to say except that it really makes me upset, and it makes me wish for a better world for my children. If I’ve learned anything in these five years, it’s that one single voice may not mean much, but when there is a chorus of people united by ideals and armed with the desire to speak out against what they believe is unjust…that’s when movements are created. And that cannot be destroyed.