I'm very interested in the parallels between the criminalization of black people and the criminalization of migrants, and the parallels between the drug war in general and the criminalization of migrants, as I've written about at No Borders or Prison Walls. I recommend checking out this speech by the author of "The New Jim Crow". She doesn't talk about immigration, but you can see how what she talks about relates to it.
I'm also interested in looking at the roles the private prison corporations might have played in any legislation relating to the drug war, as they have with the criminalization of migrants with SB1070 both through ALEC/Russell Pearce and through Governer Jan Brewer. I intend to look further into that. I'm also interested, though, in why it the privatization of prisons isn't the problem per se. There have been economic and political reasons for people to be imprisoned before prisons were privatized. I discuss that a bit in What came first: the Racism or the Profit Motive? You can expect more on this in the future.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Drug War/Anti-Immigrant Hypocrisy
Don't you love when officials get slapped in the face with their own hypocrisy? I have posted numerous times about border patrol agents and national guard down near the border getting caught trafficking drugs while the general attitude promotes the stereotypical Mexican drug trafficker. Just recently, the biggest villains in Maricopa County have both had their hypocrisy exposed.
Just recently 3 of Sheriff Arpaio's deputies were arrested for their involvement in drug trafficking. One is suspected of having been corrupt for ten years. Arpaio knows that drugs are trafficked by cops and other government officials, but turns a blind eye. Meanwhile, he acts as though Mexican immigrants are the criminals (some are, but obviously some police are too). To top it off, he often portrays his officers as saviors of people held captive by human traffickers even as those officers also keep the same folks captive in their custody (and/or transfer them to detention or have them deported).
Senator Russell Pearce's son has gotten into trouble a lot, but the most recent news is that he violated his probation by smoking pot and will serve a year in prison. This is likely a light sentence for such a thing. Of course the Pearces, or mormons, or white people are not tinged with the stereotype of drug addicts, nor as law breakers. Mexicans are said to be the problem.
As I have pointed out before, the media tends to be a lot more understanding of the pressures involved in being an official down at the border and getting caught up in drug dealing. The big drug traffickers have the money to offer relatively low-waged border patrol agents. These agents are just parents who want to provide for their family. They're vulnerable to corruption because things are hard economically. Yeah, and isn't that the case for Mexicans too? Somehow we can just picture Mexicans as particularly devious and having no qualms about getting involved in drug dealing, whereas white people/US citizens give some resistance but cave in out of desparation. We should also consider that there is a wide range of involvement in the drug trafficking industry from the people heading the cartels, the folks who torture and murder others, to the small time pot dealer who could easily be your friendly neighbor who wouldn't hurt a flea. The thing about being a cop or an agent or a national guardsman is that these folks have the legitimacy and the tools they need to give them access to that which wouldn't be possible for other folks. They can cross the border unquestioned, they can use their authority and gun for criminal uses. They've been empowered to be even better drug traffickers than those without the uniforms and badges.
We must also acknowledge the ways in which the drug trafficking scene is so much more violent due to the involvement of the government. Recently there have been massive demonstrations by Mexican citizens demanding that the military remove itself from the war on drugs. It's making things worse. Of course the Mexican government is corrupt, and they're likely fighting certain cartels in favor of other cartels. Weapons and training (such as torture and murder) are provided directly or indirectly (though of course quietly) from military to cartels. People defect to the cartels because they pay better.
An overarching theme here is that drug trafficking pays better than most other jobs. In situations where people are hurting for money (such as poverty especially south of the border but also in the US) on top of the social pressures of showing you can purchase expensive things (particularly here in the US) and people getting into huge amounts of debt, how can anyone expect that people will steer clear of drug trafficking? If the state did not prevent people from (re)obtaining the means of subsistence (such as land), then they would have alternatives to these activities. If drugs were not illegal, there wouldn't be so much money in it, and there wouldn't be so much violence involved. If people were not so alienated and beaten down in their daily lives, there would be less demand for drugs in the first place.
See also: National Guardsmen Caught in Drug Smuggling Bust
Ex-ICE Officer Charged in Drug-Smuggling
Authorities bust major marijuana smuggling ring
Ex-ICE Officer Charged in Drug-Smuggling
Just recently 3 of Sheriff Arpaio's deputies were arrested for their involvement in drug trafficking. One is suspected of having been corrupt for ten years. Arpaio knows that drugs are trafficked by cops and other government officials, but turns a blind eye. Meanwhile, he acts as though Mexican immigrants are the criminals (some are, but obviously some police are too). To top it off, he often portrays his officers as saviors of people held captive by human traffickers even as those officers also keep the same folks captive in their custody (and/or transfer them to detention or have them deported).
Senator Russell Pearce's son has gotten into trouble a lot, but the most recent news is that he violated his probation by smoking pot and will serve a year in prison. This is likely a light sentence for such a thing. Of course the Pearces, or mormons, or white people are not tinged with the stereotype of drug addicts, nor as law breakers. Mexicans are said to be the problem.
As I have pointed out before, the media tends to be a lot more understanding of the pressures involved in being an official down at the border and getting caught up in drug dealing. The big drug traffickers have the money to offer relatively low-waged border patrol agents. These agents are just parents who want to provide for their family. They're vulnerable to corruption because things are hard economically. Yeah, and isn't that the case for Mexicans too? Somehow we can just picture Mexicans as particularly devious and having no qualms about getting involved in drug dealing, whereas white people/US citizens give some resistance but cave in out of desparation. We should also consider that there is a wide range of involvement in the drug trafficking industry from the people heading the cartels, the folks who torture and murder others, to the small time pot dealer who could easily be your friendly neighbor who wouldn't hurt a flea. The thing about being a cop or an agent or a national guardsman is that these folks have the legitimacy and the tools they need to give them access to that which wouldn't be possible for other folks. They can cross the border unquestioned, they can use their authority and gun for criminal uses. They've been empowered to be even better drug traffickers than those without the uniforms and badges.
We must also acknowledge the ways in which the drug trafficking scene is so much more violent due to the involvement of the government. Recently there have been massive demonstrations by Mexican citizens demanding that the military remove itself from the war on drugs. It's making things worse. Of course the Mexican government is corrupt, and they're likely fighting certain cartels in favor of other cartels. Weapons and training (such as torture and murder) are provided directly or indirectly (though of course quietly) from military to cartels. People defect to the cartels because they pay better.
An overarching theme here is that drug trafficking pays better than most other jobs. In situations where people are hurting for money (such as poverty especially south of the border but also in the US) on top of the social pressures of showing you can purchase expensive things (particularly here in the US) and people getting into huge amounts of debt, how can anyone expect that people will steer clear of drug trafficking? If the state did not prevent people from (re)obtaining the means of subsistence (such as land), then they would have alternatives to these activities. If drugs were not illegal, there wouldn't be so much money in it, and there wouldn't be so much violence involved. If people were not so alienated and beaten down in their daily lives, there would be less demand for drugs in the first place.
See also: National Guardsmen Caught in Drug Smuggling Bust
Ex-ICE Officer Charged in Drug-Smuggling
Authorities bust major marijuana smuggling ring
Ex-ICE Officer Charged in Drug-Smuggling
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Tucson Uprising for Ethnic Studies
In case you haven't already seen footage of the lockdown at the TUSD (Tucson) meeting by a group of students calling themselves UNIDOS, here is a video of the action. The ethnic studies program has been under attack recently.
From my distanced position, it has seemed that the movement to defend ethnic studies has shied away from outright accusing standard education as racist. Even as a white person, I feel that my education was indoctrination into this white supremacist, colonialist, sexist capitalist society by telling us blatant lies or half-truths and lots of omissions. Why didn't I learn about Malcolm X or any number of important figures who represent a threat to the mentality that the education system is meant to maintain?
You might also listen to Tim Wise on this video in which he makes some interesting points about white people not wanting brown students to know their real history or they might hate white people.
I imagine that what is taught in the ethnic studies classes are much closer to the truth than other classes. But because proponents of ethnic studies are accused of reverse racism and promoting hate of the US government, people are going to tend to avoid giving anyone any more evidence to back up these accusations. Reverse racism is a crock, and I hope Nonetheless, I would also like to add that someone (I'm pretty sure it was Linda Paloma Allen) made the point in an indigenous panel recently that often the book "Occupied America: A History of Chicanos" is used in these ethnic studies classes, and while this book has a lot of valuable information, it marginalizes the local indigenous folks (like the O'odham). Although they are not Chicanos, if you're going to write a book called "Occupied America", do a little bit better job of representing those who were occupied in America (and by Mexico previously). I read the book a few years ago, and hadn't quite noticed this, but as I re-read parts of it when I was working on writing something about the "Baja Arizona" idea (which also had a proposed name of "Gadsden" which is lacking in any consideration of context), and did notice quite an omission. Of course it is believable that a lot of information is readily available, but something tells me it could've been included. And given that some folks find it so easy disregard the local struggles of indigenous people, if anyone is going to teach or read the book they should find some supplemental materials.
From my distanced position, it has seemed that the movement to defend ethnic studies has shied away from outright accusing standard education as racist. Even as a white person, I feel that my education was indoctrination into this white supremacist, colonialist, sexist capitalist society by telling us blatant lies or half-truths and lots of omissions. Why didn't I learn about Malcolm X or any number of important figures who represent a threat to the mentality that the education system is meant to maintain?
You might also listen to Tim Wise on this video in which he makes some interesting points about white people not wanting brown students to know their real history or they might hate white people.
I imagine that what is taught in the ethnic studies classes are much closer to the truth than other classes. But because proponents of ethnic studies are accused of reverse racism and promoting hate of the US government, people are going to tend to avoid giving anyone any more evidence to back up these accusations. Reverse racism is a crock, and I hope Nonetheless, I would also like to add that someone (I'm pretty sure it was Linda Paloma Allen) made the point in an indigenous panel recently that often the book "Occupied America: A History of Chicanos" is used in these ethnic studies classes, and while this book has a lot of valuable information, it marginalizes the local indigenous folks (like the O'odham). Although they are not Chicanos, if you're going to write a book called "Occupied America", do a little bit better job of representing those who were occupied in America (and by Mexico previously). I read the book a few years ago, and hadn't quite noticed this, but as I re-read parts of it when I was working on writing something about the "Baja Arizona" idea (which also had a proposed name of "Gadsden" which is lacking in any consideration of context), and did notice quite an omission. Of course it is believable that a lot of information is readily available, but something tells me it could've been included. And given that some folks find it so easy disregard the local struggles of indigenous people, if anyone is going to teach or read the book they should find some supplemental materials.
Friday, April 1, 2011
The Constitution and Citizenship based on Genocide
While looking at the various pieces Indigenous feminist Andrea Smith (also part of INCITE!) I came across this discussion about the myths around the constitution, democracy, and "our founding forefathers". I was particularly interested in this because of my examination into what's being framed as an attack on the 14th amendment; the attempt to end (or reinterpret) birthright citizenship to exclude children born of undocumented parents.
I have been concerned with the tendency by the left to defend the sanctity of the constitution- to base the defense of immigrants solely on this amendment as if the writers of the amendment were unquestioningly right, and to change the constitution or its amendments is to be an enemy of democracy.
It is important to discuss immigration outside of the context of the constitution not only because the authors of the constitution and its amendments were not infallible, but also because the closing of borders, the criminalization of people and the reasons people are migrating to the U.S. are based on the same logic of colonialism, domination, and capitalism. Not only this, but it doesn't make sense to talk about something that is already illegal (unauthorized movement) in terms of the law. The defense of the amendment is only the defense of the children of the undocumented, not the undocumented parents themselves. We mustn't fall into the trap of defending those who are already "legal" and not those who are "illegal". Not to mention, I kinda doubt that undocumented immigrants for the most part give a crap about the US constitution.
For all these reasons, now is the time (if not before) to call into question the idea of citizenship in the first place. What does it mean? How does citizenship benefit the power structures?
In this essay, "American Studies without America: Native Feminisms and the Nation-State", Smith is discussing Judith Butler's analysis of Bush and the war on terror, but compares it to some of Butler's theory on gender and bodies (which is written in very academic language and is hard to paraphrase- the entire article is under the cut because i don't think it's available to the public).
I have been concerned with the tendency by the left to defend the sanctity of the constitution- to base the defense of immigrants solely on this amendment as if the writers of the amendment were unquestioningly right, and to change the constitution or its amendments is to be an enemy of democracy.
It is important to discuss immigration outside of the context of the constitution not only because the authors of the constitution and its amendments were not infallible, but also because the closing of borders, the criminalization of people and the reasons people are migrating to the U.S. are based on the same logic of colonialism, domination, and capitalism. Not only this, but it doesn't make sense to talk about something that is already illegal (unauthorized movement) in terms of the law. The defense of the amendment is only the defense of the children of the undocumented, not the undocumented parents themselves. We mustn't fall into the trap of defending those who are already "legal" and not those who are "illegal". Not to mention, I kinda doubt that undocumented immigrants for the most part give a crap about the US constitution.
For all these reasons, now is the time (if not before) to call into question the idea of citizenship in the first place. What does it mean? How does citizenship benefit the power structures?
In this essay, "American Studies without America: Native Feminisms and the Nation-State", Smith is discussing Judith Butler's analysis of Bush and the war on terror, but compares it to some of Butler's theory on gender and bodies (which is written in very academic language and is hard to paraphrase- the entire article is under the cut because i don't think it's available to the public).
In even radical critiques of Bush's war on terror, the U.S. Constitution serves as an origin story—it is the prior condition of "democracy" preceding our fall into Bush's "lawlessness." The Constitution's status as an origin story then masks the genocide of indigenous peoples that is its foundation. Thus reading Butler against Butler, a Native feminist analysis might suggest that her analysis of Bush's policies is predicated on what David Kazanjian refers to as the "colonizing trick"—the liberal myth that the United States is founded on democratic principles rather than being built on the pillars of capitalism, colonialism, and white supremacy. In this way, even scholars such as Butler and Kaplan, who make radical critiques of the United States as an empire, still unwittingly or implicitly take the U.S. Constitution as their origin story, presuming the U.S. nation-state even as they critique it. Consequently, the project of imagining alternative forms of governance outside of the United States remains impoverished within the field of American studies. Certainly, Native feminism should provide a critical resource for this project because the United States could not exist without the genocide of Native peoples—genocide is not a mistake or aberration of U.S. democracy; it is foundational to it.It's worth pointing out here, as well, that some argue that the constitution was based on slavery as well, or at least the framers specifically avoided speaking on the ethics of slavery, and therefore condoned it.
As Sandy Grande states:
The United States is a nation defined by its original sin: the genocide of American Indians . . . American Indian tribes are viewed as an inherent threat to the nation, poised to expose the great lies of U.S. democracy: that we are a nation of laws and not random power; that we are guided by reason and not faith; that we are governed by representation and not executive order; and finally, that we stand as a self-determined citizenry and not a kingdom of blood or aristocracy . . . From the perspective of American Indians, "democracy" has been wielded with impunity as the first and most virulent weapon of mass destruction.From this perspective, the Bush regime does not represent a departure from U.S. democratic ideals but rather the fulfillment of a constitutional democracy based on theft and violence.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
Focus on Bigger Picture in Shadow of Victory
Yes, it's encouraging in some ways that Arizona Senate rejects 5 illegal-immigration bills, yet of course this is no reversal of SB 1070 or anything before it. As my partner noted to me, it's likely that it was more the pressure from the businesses than the people that made an impact this round, though I'd like to think that protesters are at least an annoyance if not worse to the politicians deciding the fate of so many.
I would like to point out, as I have in previous posts though perhaps buried within my writing, that the overarching goal of anti-immigrant legislation is not to remove all immigrants. It is to criminalize them so as to make them more exploitable and controllable. As many of you understand, migrants provide cheap labor. They would to some extent, even if they were not "illegal", as they have been in the past. But criminalizing them more and more keeps them in the precarious position that makes them easily exploited. Of course what makes them "illegal" is their presence in this country, which implies that the law makers want them out--and some probably do. But where blatant racists and business owners' interests come together is the interest in criminalizing a permanent underclass.
Let us not forget, however, that the prison industrial complex, the private prison industry in particular, directly profits from the criminalization of migrants. This is a more direct and observable player in this game, especially where it connects with those in government like Russell Pearce and Jan Brewer as I discussed in What came first: the Racism or the Profit Motive? On Private Prisons' push for SB1070. Then on a larger scale, with more funds and power, are the defense contractors who have been pushing for securing the border with walls and a variety of technological equipment.
As I wrote in Ending criminalization of people of color must be priority,
I would like to point out, as I have in previous posts though perhaps buried within my writing, that the overarching goal of anti-immigrant legislation is not to remove all immigrants. It is to criminalize them so as to make them more exploitable and controllable. As many of you understand, migrants provide cheap labor. They would to some extent, even if they were not "illegal", as they have been in the past. But criminalizing them more and more keeps them in the precarious position that makes them easily exploited. Of course what makes them "illegal" is their presence in this country, which implies that the law makers want them out--and some probably do. But where blatant racists and business owners' interests come together is the interest in criminalizing a permanent underclass.
Let us not forget, however, that the prison industrial complex, the private prison industry in particular, directly profits from the criminalization of migrants. This is a more direct and observable player in this game, especially where it connects with those in government like Russell Pearce and Jan Brewer as I discussed in What came first: the Racism or the Profit Motive? On Private Prisons' push for SB1070. Then on a larger scale, with more funds and power, are the defense contractors who have been pushing for securing the border with walls and a variety of technological equipment.
As I wrote in Ending criminalization of people of color must be priority,
Tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants, like those whose faces I could barely see, are held in detention centers and jails. SB 1070 has not yet gone into effect. This has been going on for so long and will only continue to do so as long as activists only insist upon ending racial profiling and stopping SB 1070 or even all racist bills/laws if it stops before calling for an end to the border and criminalization of people of color. There are so many undocumented immigrants who are living in our cities whose voices are overpowered by those who want to maintain the status quo. There are so many indigenous people near the border or even throughout this state whose voices are not heard, who are also impacted by the border and will also be impacted by SB1070 and so much more.We must not buy the rhetoric that if it weren't for this right-wing attack on immigrants, things would be just fine. Even before so many people were worried they'd be deported at any moment, they still had to work shitty jobs for low wages. Even before so many border patrol agents or national guard invaded O'odham land, there were still many problems faced by people in the border regions, or just with brown skin in general. Let's address the reasons so many are forced here in the first place and why so many people of color are in prisons, who profits, how settlers can decide who does or doesn't belong, and how does it all come crumbling down?
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