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Whiter and whiter!

7:03 am By la Macha · arizona · 4 Comments

7 Jun 2010

Over the weekend, there was a small uproar in Arizona. As if things could get any worse.

Apparently, a mural was the site of intense “scrutiny” on the part of various far right protestors, including a city official. The problem? The mural depicted children who had dark skin. The depiction was deemed racist or “too politically correct.” And after the intense scrutiny mounted, the principal of the school that authorized the mural caved to pressure and asked the artist to ~~whiten~~ lighten the dark skinned children.

via Huffington Post

Mirroring patterns seen statewide, one can sense the backlash from people attempting to maintain the “old guard” status quo of well-defined power and race relations in the face of rapid change, as reflected in this comment from Prescott City Councilman and local radio host Steve Blair about the disputed mural:

“I’m not a racist by any stretch of the imagination, but whenever people start talking about diversity, it’s a word I can’t stand…. The focus doesn’t need to be on what’s different; the focus doesn’t need to be on the minority all the time…. Art is in the eye of the beholder, but I say (the Miller Valley mural) looks like graffiti in L.A….. I don’t see anything that ties the community into that mural.”

Before we rightly condemn such notions, it should be noted that Blair was giving voice to a point of view that has dominated the political discourse here for generations. Indeed, R.E. Wall, director of the Prescott Downtown Mural Project, reported that he and the other artists experienced weeks of “tense working conditions” at the site, including regular racial slurs shouted from vehicles and passersby such as: “You’re desecrating our school,” “Get the ni–ers off the wall,” and “Get the sp-c off the wall.” The original article detailing the mural’s completion drew a spate of vitriolic and racially-charged online comments that mirrored these verbal assaults. In an interview with the local newspaper, Wall observed that “the pressure stayed up consistently. We had two months of cars shouting at us.” Eventually, he said, the demands reached such a level that his group was asked by school officials to lighten the faces of the mural’s main subject, as well as the other children in the mural.

What message does this send to the school children (one of whom, in fact, was the model for the primary image that sparked the mural controversy) and others in the area with darker skin pigmentation?

Because of pressure (i.e. outrage) from various groups and media outlets over the weekend, it was announced that the mural would not be lightened after all.

Did you get that? The picture actually reflected a real child. A living and breathing child. A child whose image has been called sp*c and n*gger for the past two months. What does that child do now? Now that he knows what his fellow community members and neighbors think about him?

Thank heavens the picture wasn’t lightened. But–what does a child who can never lighten himself enough to not “look ghetto” do?

What other violence will this child face because he is recognized as the N*ggerSp*c on the wall? Is being called a N*ggerSp*c the only form of violence there is? Is being intimidated by school official and community members a type of violence?

Russell Pearce, author of SB 1070, connected to White Supremacist Organizations

12:29 pm By la Macha · arizona|Women|youth · 18 Comments

27 Apr 2010

Wow. These are eye opening videos. I always knew that Arizona was a scary state for immigrants–but this is pretty horrifying.

What the videos are: The state senator who is the author of the SB 1070 legislation (the legislation that requires racial profiling), has an apparently long historical connection to White Supremacist organizations. These videos show him at rallies where White Supremacist language, flags and signs are on prominent display.

Aggressions against Lawmakers increase post-HCR bill

11:03 am By la Macha · Violence · 1 Comment

25 Mar 2010

Well, as most VLati@ readers know, we’re not the biggest fans of the tea party folks around here. Sure there are legitimate beefs that the tea party folks have with the government and with their fellow community members–but their tactics, their anger, their attitude, are all entirely too familiar to those of us who have interacted with various hate groups like the Minute Men, the KKK and the “God Hates Fags” crew that protests funerals of gay soldiers (among others).

Now, it looks like lawmakers are on the receiving end of some of the scarier tactics.

The vandalism began last weekend, when the House debated the health bill for final passage. In Wichita, someone broke the window of a county Democratic Party headquarters with a brick that had “No to Obama” and “No ObamyCare” written on it. Lyndsey Stauble, executive director of the Sedgwick County Democratic Party, said she went to work Saturday morning to clean up the shattered glass around her desk.

“It was surprising and alarming to know that people, when they have so many opportunities for expression in this country, that somebody would resort to a brick,” Stauble said.

Over the next 24 hours, thrown bricks shattered the glass doors and windows of party headquarters from Rochester, N.Y., to Cincinnati. A propane gas line at the Charlottesville home of Rep. Tom Perriello’s brother was severed Tuesday after a self-identified “tea party” activist posted what he believed to be the Virginia Democrat’s address on a Web site and urged opponents to “drop by” to convey their opposition to his yes vote on the health bill.

A brick was thrown through the Niagara Falls district office of Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y.), who also received a threatening voice-mail message referring to sniper attacks. The front door to the Tucson district office of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) was shattered. And Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), whose last-minute negotiations to bar federal funding of abortion helped secure the bill’s passage, received a fax with a drawing of a noose and an anonymous voice mail saying: “You’re dead. We know where you live. We’ll get you.”

Stupak is one of my state representatives–and I can only imagine how happy the people of his district are (he’s from the very religious conservative side of the state) with his “betrayal.” As somebody who grew up being prayed over by Christians for engaging in various activities like wearing Democratic presidential runner stickers (I think it was Dukakis!!! ZOMG I’m old), I know how very little room there really is for negotiating with people who believe they are on God’s mission.

And make no mistake about it, Christianity is heavily intertwined with much of the tea partier’s ideology. A Christianity that is heavily steeped in white supremacy and heteropatriarchy. How many times have we seen signs at tea party conventions that scream about the US’s desperate need for a “Christian President”?

President Obama will never be a Christian President as long as he prays with black people. There will always be something vaguely “Nat Turner praying with the slaves” about that image that startles those who are invested in white supremacy. And when God is on the side of those who are so frightened of angry black slaves–why should they negotiate?

So my questions are: what should the response to these aggressions against law makers be? What should the response to the aggressions be by the pro-immigration community? What should the response to those tea partiers who condemn the aggressions be by the pro-immigration community?

Will fellow tea partiers condemn these aggressions?

And why are peaceful anti-war demonstrators under FBI surveillance, but an organization that has incited violence against the immigrant community, women, the LGBT community AND government officials-is only *just now* being recognized as potentially hazardous?

What is it about the tea party that allows so many of us to legitimize it as a valid organization that we don’t want to silence–even as it is pointing in a direction that often leads to really scary and even violent situations? Would we-ARE we-that tolerant of similar radical left organizations?

UPDATE: Just got the news that a bullet was shot through the Republican minority whip’s office. Ay.

Milk of Sorrow

11:58 am By la Macha · children|Family|Violence · 17 Comments

8 Feb 2010

From Larry La Fountain, comes news of this absolutely amazing looking film.

Trailer for the Peruvian film MILK OF SORROW, about a young woman who suffers from “frightened tit”, an illness transmitted through the maternal milk of women who were raped or abused during the terrorist war in Perú. Nominated for best foreign film Oscar. In Quechua and Spanish.

My limited Spanish is not near good enough to put a translation up of the clip, but if any of you out there have the time to post a translation in comments, we’ll post it up in the post and give you credit!

Bay Area Community Members to Hold Vigil and Release Statement about Murders in Maryland and Puerto Rico

20 Nov 2009

PRESS RELEASE

TIME: Sunday, November 22, 3:30pm
LOCATION: Mac Arthur and Grand Ave. at Lake Merritt

CONTACT: Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Liz Latty
PHONE: (510) 282-5223
EMAIL: morethanavigil@gmail.com

BAY AREA COMMUNITY MEMBERS TO HOLD VIGIL FOR QUEER/TRANS TEENS MURDERED IN MARYLAND AND PUERTO RICO

OAKLAND, CA – Outraged at the murders of two queer and trans teenagers last week, Bay Area queers and allies will gather at Lake Merritt this Sunday for a candlelight vigil and open mic to mourn and brainstorm ways to keep their community safer from violence.

Last Friday, 19-year-old Jorge Steven López-Mercado got into a car with Juan Martinez-Matos, 26, who later said he had been “searching for a prostitute.” Martinez-Matos murdered, beheaded and dismembered López-Mercado after, he said, he discovered that López-Mercado had male genitalia and was wearing feminine clothing. Martinez-Matos then set fire to Lopez-Mercado’s remains and left them on the side of a road. Martinez -Matos is now in custody and has confessed to the murder. His bail is set at $4 million.

The same week, in Baltimore, Maryland, queer fifteen-year-old Jason Mattison, Jr., was raped and stabbed to death in his aunt’s home by an adult male, a family friend with whom, according to a Baltimore police spokesperson, Mattison allegedly had a “forced sexual relationship.”

Queer activists say they worry that López-Mercado’s murderer will successfully invoke the defense of “gay or trans-panic” to justify the brutal killing. “The fact that Martinez -Matos is saying that López-Mercado was ‘wearing women’s clothing’ indicates that he might try to say he was ‘fooled’ and therefore ‘forced’ to kill López-Mercado for their gender identity,” Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, one of the organizers of the Oakland vigil said.

“This is completely inexcusable,” Liz Latty, another organizer of the rally this Sunday, said. “It’s blaming the victim. We unequivocally denounce the way that the lives of queer and transgendered people, sex workers, people of color, women and low-income people are devalued and seen as disposable. We especially denounce the ways in which femme-presenting sex workers of color are incredibly targetted for violence.”

Referring to López-Mercado’s murder, police investigator Ángel Rodríguez Colón told Univisión, “These types of people, when they enter this lifestyle and go out into the streets, know that this could happen.”

“We are outraged at the murders of López-Mercado and Mattison,” Oakland vigil organizer Latty said. “We, queer and transgendered people in Oakland, are mourning these senseless deaths. Yet we are also a resilient community. We wish to stand in solidarity with those in Puerto Rico and Baltimore who are surviving despite this invisibility and injustice.”

Bay Area organizers of the vigil have been in contact with friends of López-Mercado and are hoping to coordinate memorial events and future actions with the Puerto Rican and Baltimore queer communities.

Harry Rodriguez, a spokesperson for the FBI in Puetro Rico, said that the agency will monitor the investigation since federal statutes regarding hate crimes are implicated. Puerto Rican lawmaker, Charlie Hernandez, who authored the Hate Crimes Act of 2002, has been asking officials to consider charging Matos under that law. It would be the first time in Puerto Rico that a murder would be classified as a hate crime. According to the National Lesbian and Gay Task Force, López-Mercado is the tenth murder victim of a hate crime in Puerto Rico in the last seven years.

But Oakland vigil organizers say they want a different kind of justice that doesn’t rely on increased policing or punishment. They say that the prison system has not made life safer for victims of violence, especially those who are queer and transgendered people of color. Organizers say that violence against queer youth of color is only exacerbated by increased police enforcement, which disproportionally targets and locks up low-income people, people of color, sex workers, and gender non-conforming people.

“Hate crimes legislation and more police patrols would not make our communities safer. It would not have prevented the murders, and no punishment will bring these two men back,” organizer Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha said. “Systemic homophobia and transphobia killed López-Mercado and Mattison, who like other queer or gender non-comforming youth of color, faced barriers like street harassment and discrimination in every facet of life. What could’ve actually saved the two young men are things like free or affordable public transportation, an end to housing and employment discrimination against people of color, queer and trans folks, and the decriminalization of sex work.”

“We don’t know how Lopez-Mercado identified, gender-wise, right now,” added Piepzna-Samarasinha. ” What we do know is that transphobia is a huge part of why they were murdered. As we continue to receive information from Lopez-Mercado’s friends and family members about how Lopez-Mercado saw their gender, we will change their pronouns to the ones they preferred. We want to work to create a world where all people are free to live in safety with any gender expression they desire.”

Vigils mourning López-Mercado and Mattison will also take place this Sunday in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Amherst, MA, Tara Haute, Abilene, TX, Atlanta, and Durham.

Organizations Asking Department of Justice to Intervene in Murder Case of Jorge Steven López Mercado

6:41 am By Maegan La Mala · GLBT|Puerto Rico|Violence|youth · Comments Off

17 Nov 2009

georgestevenmercado Yesterday la Macha wrote about the horrific murder of Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado in Puerto Rico.

Some organizations are calling for the intervention of the United States Department of Justice, especially in light of comments that the local police investigator on the case made in the media:

The local police investigator assigned to the case said to Univisión about the victim: “Someone like that, who does those kind of things, and goes out in public, knows full well that this might happen to him.”…Puerto Rico’s Civil Rights Commission and Puerto Rico Para Tod@s, a local activist organization, have asked the Puerto Rico Police Department to take disciplinary action against Rodriguez. The PRPD has removed the investigator from the case, but local activists plan to protest outside the territorial capital in San Juan on Thursday. They also plan to hold a vigil later this week.

The Puerto Rican government added sexual orientation to its hate crimes laws in 2002, but Serrano complained local police have not used it to prosecute those accused of anti-gay violence. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has announced it will take jurisdiction over the case if local investigators conclude López’s killer or killers murdered him because of his sexual orientation.

Update on Nashville Family that Lost Children to State after Surviving Violent Attack

2:51 pm By Maegan la Mamita Mala · children|Family|Immigration|Nashville|Women · 1 Comment

7 Oct 2009

It reads like a bad novela if it weren’t the real nightmare that so many families are living in the United States. First, Maria Gurrola is violently attacked and her newborn, Yair Anthony Carillo, is abducted by a woman claiming to be an ICE agent. Then, once reunited with her baby, Maria lost Yair and her other three children, this time to State authorities who cited vague “safety issues”.

Yesterday, the petition to remove the children from the home was withdrawn and Gurrola has been reunited with all of her children.

Tuesday’s hearing was planned at Juvenile Court to discuss allegations that the family may have known of a plot to sell the baby for $25,000. Court documents did not detail who made the allegations.

Metro police spokesman Don Aaron released a press release saying that Metro police agree that the children should be returned to the parents after extensive interviews by Metro, TBI and the FBI over the last day. All the agencies are in agreement, he said.

“At this time, (authorities) do not believe the parents, Maria Gurrola and Jose Carrillo, are involved,” Aaron said. “Significant unanswered questions remain, however, including why Gurrola and her newborn son were chosen by alleged kidnapper, Tammy Renee Silas. Statements made to law enforcement by Silas are part of the continuing investigation.”

Now if only all the babies can be reunited with their mothers, like Cirila and Angeline.

Via / USA Today

Is Decriminalization Enough to Stop the “War on Drugs” Violence in Latin America?

28 Aug 2009

Marijuana Two Latin American countries recently have made moves to decriminalize the possession of certain drugs for personal use, a move that some are touting as a positive new direction in the “war on drugs”.

In Argentina:

Argentina’s Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that it is unconstitutional to prosecute cases involving personal marijuana use as long as it does not harm others. It did not, however, set a weight limit for what it considers personal use.

The judges’ decision urges the Argentine government to “create policies against illegal drug trafficking and adopt preventive health measures, with information and education against drug consumption directed at the most vulnerable groups.

And in Mexico:

Under the new law, a police search that turns up a half-gram of cocaine, the equivalent of about four lines, will not bring any jail time. The same applies for 5 grams of marijuana (about four cigarettes), 50 milligrams of heroin, 40 milligrams of methamphetamine or 0.015 milligrams of LSD.

A Transgender Person is Murdered Every 3 Days in the World…Mostly in Latin America

29 Jul 2009

transmap Here at VL we have covered lots of stories about violence against transgender people, and unfortunately many of these cases of violence end in death. What I didn’t know was that the rate at which transgender murders occur worldwide was so high; a recent report by non-profit organization Transgender Europe (TGEU) shows that a transgender person is killed every 3 days. And another disturbing fact is that the majority of these murders are happening in Latin America:

The cases have been reported from all six World regions: North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. The majority of cases have been reported from Latin America and North America. On these continents the majority of cases have been reported from Brazil (59) and the U.S.A. (16) for 2008 and from Brazil (23), Venezuela (20), and Guatemala (10) for the first six months of 2009. Moreover, the preliminary results show a total of 11 murdered trans people reported for Colombia followed by 5 for Honduras and 4 for Mexico and Venezuela for 2008, and 6 for Mexico and 3 for Argentina, and the Dominican Republic for the first six months of 2009.

In total 91 murders of trans people were reported in 11 Latin American countries in 2008, and 73 murders of trans people in 11 Latin American countries in the first six months of 2009. The reported murders of trans people in Latin America account for 75% and 88% of the world wide reported murders of trans people in 2008 and the first six months of
2009 respectively.

The map associated with the study (image above) for 2009 to date shows the highest concentration of murders in South America, particularly in Brazil.

Spain’s Ambiente G reports on another chilling statistic: in Peru, a gay or lesbian person is killed every 5 days.

Via / Ambiente G and TGEU

Live From Ciudad Juarez : A Reflection on Voice and Visibility

28 Jul 2009

I came to this post via Hermana Resist’s twitter.

• Five people were murdered at different times throughout the day this morning and into the afternoon…
• Three young men were arrested after crashing a van and fleeing the scene. The men were armed and fired on the police before being arrested…
• One dead body was found floating at the Acequia Madre near the Emiliano Zapata neighborhood. Two others were found injured in that same area…
• One dead body was deposited in the Obrera neighborhood…
• All six members of a family nearly died as they slept. Unknown perpetrators poured gasoline down one of the home’s air ducts and then threw a match to ignite the liquid. The fumes and flames reached every room. Three people sustained 2nd degree burns. The most seriously injured was a 7 year old boy, Héctor Daniel Camacho Esparza…
• Four young men were stabbed last night at the corner of Lázaro Cárdenas and Puerto de Palos; three died and one is in critical condition…
• School was back in session today at the Secundaria Federal. The school had been closed since Friday after two homemade bombs were thrown onto the school grounds…
• The Bancomer bank on the corner of Lara Leos and Paseo Triunfo de la Repbulica was robbed this afternoon…
• A .22 caliber rifle was found abandoned on a public street…
• Three men were detained after having injured several female victims…

The problem in Juarez has spread beyond just homicides. These headlines don’t even include all of the carjackings which are too numerous to report and all the kidnappings which are never reported. There is no one to turn to for help since the police are often the ones orchestrating the kidnappings.

The stories of Juarez aren’t unknown to me pero I do not live them everyday. Yes, I face different kinds of violence daily and maybe it’s because of that perspective I wondered about what wasn’t being said in this article.
Read more…

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