VivirLatino

Living & Luchando la Vida Latin@

Latino Gang Suspected in California Hate Crime

June 4th, 2009

A family in Pasadena, California thought they were moving into the home of their dreams. African-Americans who had no qualms about moving into an all-Latino neighborhood called Duarte, the Davy family they thought both the home and the area had everything they were looking for. That is, until their house was destroyed from top to bottom in an allegedly racially-motivated attack. The Los Angeles Times reports:

Davy never thought about the fact that they would be the only black family on the mostly Latino block — until someone reminded her in a way that still makes her eyes tear and her stomach twist.

On May 8, Davy opened the door to her home and was greeted by a barrage of spray-painted racial epithets. The hardwood floors, the mirrors, the televisions, the dressers — the vandals had turned the entire place into a canvas for that six-letter word used for decades to scare and scar African Americans.

Shaken, she immediately left and called police. And aside from one trip back to pick up some clothes, Davy has refused to return to a scene authorities believe was created by members of a local Latino gang.

“As far as hate crimes go, it’s probably one of the worst ones I’ve seen in my career,” said Sgt. Tony Haynes of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Duarte station. “They trashed the furniture and tossed drawers — there was pretty much no room left untouched.”

Chanisse discovered this terrifying scene upon coming home from picking up her daughter from day care. Since then, the Davys have been living in a hotel and are afraid to return to their home.

The LA Times reports that interracial shootings have happened in the past in Duarte, but no one in the community seems to have been prepared for something of this magnitude.

Earlier this week, Latino and Black victims of hate crimes in Pasadena, including Chanisse Davy, came together to demand an end to the violence.

Via / LA Times

Feminism, Latinidad and Silence : Ain’t Sotomayor a Woman?

June 1st, 2009

sotomayorphotos-1048-200x300 I can’t read most of the mainstream feminist websites. As in I can’t because doing so will likely make me really really angry and I’m angry enough about shit to purposely piss myself off. It’s the same reason I don’t watch Fox news or read the National Review. It’s an act of self-care and a decision to move my words and thoughts forward. Amiga Blackamazon reminded me how in the context of the Sonia Sotomayor nomination, mainstream feminist icons have been largely silent.

From Racism Review:

Funny how I haven’t heard any statements from these women castigating G. Gordon Liddy, Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, or Michael Steele for their repugnant, sexist, and racist remarks about Judge Sotomayor. Funny how they haven’t jumped out in front of this issue the same way they did when Hillary Clinton was the one on the receiving end of a barrage of sexist statements. Funny how the PUMAs (Party Unity My Ass) who were so outraged at the way the Democratic Party ostensibly treated Hillary Clinton now don’t seem to see this as a worthy cause of their efforts, and aren’t outraged by Democratic politicians’ unwillingness to call these abhorrent statements the blatant misogyny that they are.

What’s not funny are the implications this has for women of all races. When white feminists look the other way when Michelle Obama is callously referred to as “Obama’s Baby Mama,” when Sonia Sotomayor is savaged by right wing conservatives who engage in the basest types of sexism, or more broadly, when women of color across the country face higher rates of abuse, incarceration, and poverty than white women, it sends a clear message about their lack of respect for and interest in the ways sexism impacts women of other racial groups and class positions. It reinforces the idea that white women feminists are interested in maintaining their white privilege while undermining sexism, a process that keeps women of color oppressed but broadens the category of whites who have access to and are able to wield power over others. It perpetuates the (erroneous) message that feminism has nothing to offer women of color, even though they too suffer from the gender wage gap, sexual violence, and all the other manifestations of gender inequality.

I do not understand why white feminists like Steinem, Ferraro, Burk, and others still don’t seem to get this message that intersections of race and gender matter and that the feminist movement cannot succeed without the influence and involvement of ALL women.

This point has been made for years, by many progressive white women (playwright Eve Ensler, sociologist Margaret Andersen) and feminists of color (sociologist Patricia Hill Collins, activist Pauli Murray, writer Alice Walker). It would be really nice if the rampant sexism being directed towards Sonia Sotomayor finally served as an overdue wake-up call about the importance of both race and gender.

Cry Me a Reverse Racism River : Sonia Sotomayor Scares the White People

May 29th, 2009

Want to scare some white people? Put a Latina on the cusp of history and watch the “media” who have made their career on using stereotypes against people of color, lately immigrants, suddenly cry oppression.

Yes , yes as much as we all know that race is an artificial construct, suddenly those who have benefited the most from that construct are acting as if the fact they are white men has nothing to do with their position.

13-year-old wrongly convicted, imprisoned for 16 years

May 7th, 2009

VL has talked before about the injustices of prison in the U.S., including young teens being locked up for crimes for life with no chance of parole–a heinous and (in my opinion) illegal practice that should have died with Inquisition. Why, you ask? Take a look at the following video (here’s a printed version for those who don’t have video):

How much horrific could this man’s life possibly get? Imprisoned for 50 years at 13-years-old–except, wait a minute, you aren’t guilty?

What does a kid that is raised in a prison do once he’s released? When he’s been taught sexuality, relationships, reasoning skills, etc in a place that has been proven to encourage violence rather than end it?

Has he been raped in prison? Has he been beaten? Has he been taught that hitting women is a good way to prove he’s a man?

And outside of the supposition of violence, what does a person do when that person “graduated” from prison instead of high school? Or the university? What life will Thaddeus Jimenez be able to build for himself when sixteen years of his life has been stolen–because it seems so much easier to lock of up Latino kids and throw away the keys rather than find some alternative? Any alternative?

It all started here….

April 29th, 2009

childwswineflu I’m not really sure why CNN feels the need to run the story about where swine flu started. According CNN, this little boy is “ground zero” of the swine flu–which means what? That this little boy is the original site of destruction and violence? And wouldn’t you figure it, this original site of destruction and violence is a Mexican that is eating ice cream while the rest of us scream frantically and crawl on our hands and knees through the street.

Damn Mexicans.

I don’t know, though. I found this part of the article to be much more beneficial in understanding the whole scope of things:

Edgar has managed to bounce back from his symptoms and playfully credits ice cream for helping him feel better.

His mother blamed the virus on a huge pig farm in the neighborhood. Officials have conducted tests at the farm owned by U.S. company Smithfield Foods, and those tests came back negative.

Meanwhile, Mexican health officials suspect the swine flu outbreak has caused more than 159 deaths and roughly 2,500 illnesses.

That little section made me remember that factory pig farms are some of the worst polluters in the world.

“North Carolina’s ten million hogs produce twice as much feces and urine as the populations of the cities of Los Angeles, New York and Chicago combined. Industrial farms, most with thousands of hogs each, store the waste in open-air pits, called lagoons. They spray the waste, untreated, as manure on adjacent fields.”

So those dear little piggies may be as healthy as can be, but anybody breathing in their shit being sprayed on adjacent fields is probably going to have some problems.

But who wants to talk about the ethics and problems of factory farming practices when we can demonize ice cream eating little boys?

Somalian Pirate Situation Not So Simple

April 13th, 2009

If you’re like me, you probably haven’t really been paying too much attention to this whole “pirate situation” that the mainstream media is currently masturbating itself over. I did give a passing thought that I wished I knew more about the development of the “pirate phenomenon” that has sprung up over the past ten years or so, and I also considered the three obviously very poor very under funded “pirates” to be more than a bit stupid for so directly confronting a first world nation.

Other than that–I’ve been pretty non-committal. Mainstream news masturbation does not interest me too much, really.

But now alternative media and radical media sources are starting to do what they do best–presenting the story mainstream media is too busy jacking off to pay attention to.

First, start with the following videos from Somalian rapper, Knaan.

Texas Lawmaker Wants Asian Americans to Change their Names

April 9th, 2009

This sounds like something out of The Onion, but sadly, it’s true. This disgusting piece of news comes to us from The Houston Chronicle, and it makes me fear a trip back home to Texas: a Texas legislator, one Rep. Betty Brown (R-Terrell) suggests that voters of Asian heritage change their names to make them “easier for Americans to deal with.” Take a deep breath before reading the following:

Brown suggested that Asian-Americans should find a way to make their names more accessible.
“Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” Brown said.

Brown later told Ko: “Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?”

You can watch a video above of the House Elections Committee where this went down. Ramey Ko, a representative of the Organization of Chinese Americans, testified to the difficulties that Asian Americans often face when attempting to vote.

The Texas Democratic Party has demanded an apology from Brown, while the Republican party says Democrats “want this to be about race”.

If it isn’t about race, then what is it about?

Via / Chron.com

Conservative Commentator: “There’s Trash in the White House”

March 24th, 2009

What would we do without Media Matters, the organization that monitors the disgusting right wing slant we are subjected to — in varying degrees — in mainstream media? Well, we might have actually consume this trash in order to find little gems such as this one. In this asinine rant with absolutely no substance to speak of, conservative commentator (and “ex-liberal Democrat”) Tammy Bruce sounds off with outrage about nothing after listening to a benign quote made by Michelle Obama. Have a listen:

Huh? How is what she said outrageous? Let’s look at the transcript:

BRUCE: But here’s Michelle Obama explaining to some kids what it was like for her growing up because she sounded like a white person, whatever that means.

OBAMA [audio clip]: I did do my best, getting good grades was always important to me, and it wasn’t because my parents were -

BRUCE: It’s all about her.

OBAMA [audio clip]: — hounding me or that they had the expectation, it was just something that I wanted for myself. I wanted an A. And I didn’t care whether it was cool, ‘cause I remember there were kids around my neighborhood who would say, “Ooh, you talk funny, you talk like a white girl.” I heard that growing up my whole life, and I was like I don’t even know what that means, but you know what? I’m still getting my A.

BRUCE: What? What? What — what is that? And then she devolves into that weird fake accent, like Hillary did when talking to black people. What? What is that? That’s, that — you know what that is.

DAVID AFTER DENTIST [audio clip]: Is this going to be forever?

BRUCE: Yeah, that – remember nitrous oxide kid, on You Tube. No it’s not going to be forever, nitrous oxide kid. It’s not. Can you — can you believe that?

OBAMA [audio clip]: So do I need to introduce myself?

BRUCE: What a shame. That must’ve just ruined her damn day. “I wanted the A for myself, and I wanted to do it, and ooh, they said you sounded like a white person, I don’t know what that means, but uhh.” Huh?

Man, oh, man. That’s who he’s married to, what does that tell you? This is what we’ve got — you know what we’ve got? We’ve got trash in the White House. Trash is a, is a thing that is color blind, it can cross all eco — ecosocionomic kind of categories, you can work on Wall Street or work at the Wal-Mart. Trash are people who use other people to get things, who patronize others, who consider you bitter and clingy.

Has Bruce been hitting the crazy juice? Michelle and Barack Obama are “trash” and the comment made by Michelle Obama is supposed to be evidence for this?

“People who consider you bitter and clingy…”? WTF? Sounds like a personal problem to me. Is this lady projecting her feelings towards her ex-BF onto the Obamas?

My diagnosis: mental problem mixed with deep-seated racism and a dab of grasping at straws. What do you think?

Via / Media Matters

While VL Was Down, We Missed a Racist Controversial Cartoon

February 23rd, 2009

Perhaps you didn’t miss it, but if you did, let me know what you think of this cartoon in that pillar of American journalism, The New York Post:

The cartoon ran late last week and could have been expected was met with much public clamor. On the left people are calling this a racist potshot at President Obama. The righties say it’s merely an unfortunate coincidence — a simple allusion to the Chimpanzee who had recently escaped and mauled a woman in Connecticut. Yeah…

What do you think? Racist or bad timing?

Via / New York Post

Black History Month: Race and Racism in Brazil

February 10th, 2009

In honor of Black History Month, are a couple more videos focusing on an element of Afro-Latino culture. This time we focus on the plight of blacks in Brazil, and the reality of a nation that on the surface appears to be colorblind, but where the legacy of slavery remains.

The first video, from Al Jazeera, focuses on the hardships still faced by black Brazilians in Bahía. The second, from PBS, follows university students attempting to “qualify as black” in order to gain access to university in Brasilia.

Enjoy!

Via / Al Jazeera