It appears that some Republicans are hoping to ride a racist backlash after the election of Obama. A top candidate for the Republican National Committee has come under fire for sending out a "Christmas CD" featuring a song titled "Barack the Magic Negro," first made famous by Rush Limbaugh during the election cycle.
Thursday, December 18, 4:30-6:30
Location: Kossuth Place & Bushwick Avenue
(the corner where Jose Sucuzhanay was attacked)
On Dec. 7, Ecuadorean immigrant Jose O. Sucuzhanay was brutally beaten with a bottle and baseball bat in Brooklyn by men shouting slurs. He died five days later in the hospital. The attack comes just weeks after another Ecuadorean immigrant, Marcelo Lucero, was brutally beaten and stabbed to death by a mob of teens in Suffolk County.
In recent years, media pundits and politicians have whipped up anti-immigrant hysteria as a way to turn U.S.-born workers' frustration away from the country's elite and towards the most defenseless sectors of society. Just last year, Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy campaigned on an anti-immigrant platform, calling for the local police to take on the roles of immigration agents. Is it any surprise that this atmosphere would eventually produce such a hate-crime?
Come out this Thursday to stand with the immigrant families and communities that are suffering through this recent rash of hate crimes. Stop the anti-immigrant hysteria! Stop the hate crimes! Full equality for immigrants now!
Supporting Organizations / Organizaciones que Apoyan:
Juventud Ecuatoriana, Latin American Workers Project, ANSWER Coalition
Two articles from the last year of the New Left Review provide the clearest explanation of the long-term causes of the financial crisis. In current American political discourse, both the right and the left have failed to make a clear public analysis of what is admittedly a very complex situation. While the right's claim that it was over-eager borrowers who took loans beyond the limits of their income is utterly vapid and ignores the real structural transformations of the finance industry, in ways the left's railing against "de-regulation" provides little more insight. Robin Blackburn and Robert Wade are worth reading in order to gain a good sense of the real structural and historical implications of the current crisis.
Robin Blackburn, "The Subprime Crisis," New Left Review 50 March-April 2008.
Though not yet released, the federal government's own history of reconstruction in Iraq over the last five years reveals the gross mismanagement, fraud and lies. The report also reveals how insiders and lobbyist manipulated funding for the war to meet political demands for Bush's re-election in 2004. While all of these revelations should surprise no one who has been paying attention, the level of detail that the inside report offers should be interesting when it is released, and it is fascinating to see how those within the military have become bitterly divided over a reconstruction effort many in the Pentagon opposed from the outset. The New York Times story can be read here.
Before the election on November 4th, the editors of el participante thought it would be a good idea to examine the state of action and thinking on campus relating to presidential politics. We are very happy to present you these different voices from campus politics on the upcoming election.
The September Issue of el participante is now being distributed. This issue features several issues relating to the emerging controversy over the presence of the ROTC on Columbia's campus, as well as articles dealing with activism and politics in general. The alternative Core Curriculum for radicals goes back to the origins of American radicalism in the writings of Thomas Skidmore, a critic of inequality during the era of the Workingmen's parties in the 1830s.
Volume 1, Issue 4 features:
Yadira Alvarez
Summer Experience: National Mobilization Against Sweatshops
Paco Martin Del Campo
Black Panther, Brown Beret Speak at Panel
Iliana Feliz and Johanna Ocaña
Lucha: Committed to Struggle
Wyatt Ford
Th e Myth of the G.I. Bill
Olivia Rosane
9/11, Service and the War
Rudi Batzell
Responses to the ROTC
Malena Arnaud
Th e Poverty of Micro-credit
Thomas Skidmore
Core: The Rights of Man to Property
Salon has an excellent article by Juan Cole emphasizing how George W. Bush and the American invasion and occupation of Iraq set the stage for Putin to have a free hand intervening in Georgia. Indeed, the precedent of the United Nations sanctioning the American occupation as an established fact indicated to the world that those with power could use it, even in ways that violated international law, and if successful, the institutions of international relations would cloak this violations in a veil of legitimacy. The article is definitely worth a read.
A man from Hong Kong, Hiu Lui Ng, died while imprisoned for overstaying his visa. The American state and police do not just brutalize Latinos and Blacks along the borders and in our cities, all who are poor, weak, and defensless are subject to be swept up. Hiu Lui Ng should be remember with other casualties like Sean Bell and Amadou Diallo.
And why has Obama's supposed "arrogance" become such a feature of Republican attacks? As Terry M. Neal writes, "when Camp McCain says he's arrogant, they're playing to those who think he's another black man who doesn't know his place" In other words, arrogant is the the new uppity.
Association of Raza Educators
Summer 2008
Dear Hispanic Scholarship Fund,
The Association of Raza Educators (A.R.E.) applauds your efforts at providing scholarships to Hispanic students across the country. We recognize the pre-eminent role the Hispanic Scholarship Fund plays as one of the major funding sources available to students seeking higher education in the Hispanic community. As educators, we share in your dream of "doubl[ing] the rate of Hispanics earning a college degree" and by means of various community-based efforts, we also seek to ensure that dream is realized. Unfortunately, many otherwise qualified students, through no fault of their own, are currently excluded from your scholarship fund by virtue of their citizenship status. The Association of Raza Educators implores you: open your scholarships to all students of Hispanic descent regardless of citizenship.
There are an estimated 65,000 undocumented students that graduate from U.S. high schools each year, the bulk of whom have lived in the country for more than five years and are of Hispanic descent. Federal funds are denied to them, as are the majority of private scholarships. Moreover, under your current application requirements, these Hispanic students, despite being in desperate need of funding, are ineligible for your scholarships. Undocumented students are, however, permitted to attend colleges and universities and are doing so in increasing numbers. Usually they support themselves by working long hours in low-wage industries, demonstrating the very same hard work ethic and determination to succeed that has been a source of pride to Hispanics for generations.
In spite of such formidable barriers and numerous difficulties, we have observed in our own classrooms that many of our brightest and most hardworking students come from the ranks of the undocumented. Under current conditions, namely increasing animosity toward the Hispanic immigrant community in general, and a paucity of any source of funding for higher education for which such students may qualify in particular, denial of private scholarships such as those provided by HSF, is paramount to denial of higher education and the benefits that such education brings to those fortunate enough to pursue and achieve it. While we recognize that it may be legal to deny noncitizens access to such scholarships, exclusion of these students is not only morally objectionable but harmful to the Hispanic and American community as well.
And here is the rest of it.
Immigrants, both documented and undocumented, continue to comprise a significant percentage of the Hispanic community in this country. As one of the leading organizations serving Hispanics, HSF cannot ignore the pivotal issue of immigration and its impact on Hispanic families and students. The federal government has not passed comprehensive immigration reform for over a decade. The process of naturalization has only become more onerous with current waiting periods lasting longer than 15 years for families already in process. In thousands of Hispanic homes across the country, families are split across citizenship lines where husbands and wives, parents and children, even brothers and sisters, may fall on either side. Recent immigration debates highlight the grim reality that passage of a more humane immigration policy is a remote possibility. While local and national politicians fail to resolve myriad immigration problems, tens of thousands of Hispanic youth, educated and living in this country, are falling through the cracks.
While the path to citizenship continues to be fraught with obstacles, the path to higher education should not be. As a private organization, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund not only has the power, but the responsibility to take leadership on this issue and provide industrious and persevering, undocumented Hispanic students with the tools and opportunities to realize for themselves the three-fold dream that we all share: an advanced education for Hispanics that "transforms" the individual, while benefiting the Hispanic community in general, and finally "strengthen[ing]" this nation as a whole.
Since the inclusion of undocumented students clearly meets these goals, the Association of Raza Educators beseeches the Hispanic Scholarship Fund to lift your current citizenship requirements and open your scholarships to all Hispanic students eligible to attend colleges and universities in this country. Only by integrating all members of the Hispanic community, will HSF truly be on the path to fulfilling its momentous and urgent mission.
Sincerely,
—Association of Raza Educators
To endorse this campaign email: razaeducators@aol.com
For information: 626-617-0401, or online at www.razaeducators.org
Endorsing Organizations: SURGE, California State University, Los Angeles; Student Advocates for Higher Education, San Jose State University; Dreamers in Action Standing, Fresno State University; AB540 Student Group, UC San Diego; Student Immigrant Movement, Massachusetts; Comité de Mujeres, Patricia Marin; T4SJ, San Francisco, Calif.; NYCoRE, New York; AMAE, Calif.; FUEL, California State University, Long Beach; Espiritu de Nuestro Futuro, California State University, Dominguez Hills; LULAC, Los Angeles and Orange County; Mothers for Justice, Santa Monica, Calif.; Children of Chiapas Foundation, Los Angeles, Calif.; Willie C. Velasquez Institute, East Los Angeles, Calif.; Community Coalition, South Los Angeles, Calif.; FCR, Frente Contra Las Redadas, South Central Los Angeles, Calif.
Summer 2008
