If Lou Dobbs’ heart could melt

Obama, my brown mami, my white daddy

I was born to a Mexican mother and a white father. I was born to an immigrant and a third generation American. I was born to a parent who only spoke Spanish and a parent who spoke English and Spanish.

When Reverend Wright’s sermon on Hilliary Clinton first hit the news I wondered what he could have possible said to offend so many people. In fact I still wonder.

Here is a brief excerpt (for the full transcript and video go here):

I am sick of negros who just do not get it. Hillary was not a black boy raised in a single parent home. Barack was. Barack knows what it means to be a black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people!

Hillary can never know that. Hillary ain’t never been called a nigger. Hillary has never had her people defined as non-persons. Hilary ain’t had to work twice as hard just to get accepted by the rich white folk who run everything or to get a passing grade when you know you are smarter than that C-student sitting in the white house.

What about this sermon is untrue? What is so offensive? I am more offended that these things can’t be said loudly. I am also offended that to Obama’s response (full transcript and video here), right-wing radio accused him of throwing his grandmother “under the bus”. Obama’s speech reminded me of three things. He reminded me of my father, my friend, and of myself.

I can no more disown him [Reverend white] than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

My father often refers to me in terms I hate. Terms, that make me wince in pain. His racism sometimes overt but more often then not covert, is always there. I know however, that my father loves me. My father is just as much a part of me as my mother. The history that made him is also my history. My friend is still my friend. She may not understand how hurtful it is when she wants to ignore racism as I have it thrown in my face, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t love me, that she isn’t loyal to me. It just means that she has experienced the other side of the coin, the side with white privilege that doesn’t have to question any of this.

Obama’s speech echoed for me perhaps in a way it did for others that are like me. Those like the India María; ni de aquí ni de allá.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either “too black” or “not black enough.” We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

We are divided by being “not enough” of one and then being told we are too much of the other. We are divided by ethnic and racial lines and sometimes by religious lines too. It is not a world I want my children to grow-up in. My children will be mixed too. They have to be, because I am. I think Obama shows us our real American future and it frightens us. Our children will be mixed, they will be the children of immigrants and non-immigrants, of black, white, brown, yellow parents too. They will be the children of Christians and Muslims and Jews and Hindus. They will be monolingual, bilingual and multilingual. And our children will reject and reform the world that puts them in boxes.

I don’t care what color you are

A white female friend of mine emailed me and asked me about Obama and his church affiliation and how she was bothered by his church.

Quite honstly, I think that the more you mention someone’s color, the more we are driving a wedge. It bothers me when people even mention it, because it doesn’t matter. If you really want to move on from racism, my opinion is that you forget about color and just deal with the person. I guess that is what is so unusual to me about the site and the church. I don’t recall the catholic sites or jewish sites talking about the white values and the white way.

I was angry at first. How could my friend be so ignorant? So obtuse.

I told her we had the Greek Orthodox church, the Russian Orthodox Church. That I go to catholic mass in Spanish, a mass dedicated to the helping of Latinos. And my church runs the Latino Center of Hope.
I used to go to a German Lutheran Church that came into being to protect German cultures and beliefs.
And that our mutual friend wanted to attend a Polish Lutheran Church but can’t find one in Columbus.

We can’t disregard race, ethnicity, gender. While Obama won in Iowa , we should recognize that Iowa has a 2% African-American population and that 27% of the prison population in Iowa is African-American. We have to recognize that we need to support disenfranchised groups. This is why we unite as feminists in the womens movement, not because we are trying to drive a wedge but because we are trying to support each other in an unfair and imbalanced society…the same can be said for my church.

I thought I had made a good argument but she responded to my rebuttal with “I’m not saying you should disregard your roots, I’m just saying I don’t care what color you are.”

How can you not care? How can she not, as my friend, recognize that color is important in this society and that effects my life every day, even if she doesn’t care? I care what color you are because I recognize that it effects your personal experience. I care what gender you are, what country you are from, what languages you speak, because it effects your personal experience. Doesn’t she know that it is white privilege that allows her not to care about race, that allows her to not have to deal with it? How can my friend be so ignorant? I emailed another friend asking for advice on how to deal with the ignorance. And she responded, among other things, that my friend will never care until she decides to care and that it doesn’t sound like she wants to care.

I don’t really know how to convince someone that race matters. Or that I sting from within when my friend, a person I love, says she doesn’t care what color I am, and ignores a part of who I am. The best way to articulate why it is wrong to just ignore race as the problem, that I have seen yet, is from my friend who I went to for advice, and she put it in this light:

Ignoring race is like saying – you know, I don’t think we should mention money. Poor people will just be more marginalized if we mention that they don’t have money. Let’s just ignore it and focus on individual people- but not their circumstances.

Undocumented Irish

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day.

While you are celebrating with your Irish-Ameircan friends, or your Mirish friends, remember to spill a little of your green beer for the undocumented Irish in the United States.

Today is a good day to remember that it is not just Mexicans or Latinos that are not legally in this country but Europeans, Asians and Africans, too. And a good day to remind people that it isn’t as simple as “getting in line” to come to the United States.

I want you to know and to spread the word that only “…147 new un-skilled workers without US citizen or legal resident family already here were allowed to enter the US last year [2006] legally and receive green cards.” -Migra Matters

And that there are undocumented Irish in this country who would like to be able to work legitimately, have drivers licenses and more importantly not live in fear. People sometimes see this as a race issue or an ethnicity issue and it isn’t.

“I was not very long there until, like water, I found my own level. ‘My people’ — the people who know about oppression, discrimination, prejudice, poverty and the frustration and despair that they produce — were not Irish Americans. They were black, Puerto Rican, Chicano. And those who were supposed to be ‘my people’, the Irish Americans who know about English misrule and the Famine and supported the civil-rights movement at home, and knew that Partition and England were the cause of the problem, looked and sounded to me like Orangemen. They said exactly the same things about blacks that the loyalists said about us at home. In New York, I was given the key to the city by the mayor, an honour not to be sneezed at. I gave it to the Black Panthers.” -Bernadette Devlin McAliskey

Next time some racist person makes the argument that the Irish were different than Mexicans, remind them that they aren’t different and send them to these links.

Voices from the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform/The Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform “The Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform (ILIR) is fighting for the voice of the estimated 50,000 undocumented Irish in the immigration debate.”

Far From Home: A chronicle of the undocumented Irish in the United States (images of undocumented Irish in the United States).

Undocumented Irish in the US (Irish politicians try to lobby for the Irish in the United States)

Irish Immigrants Visit Congress to Ask for Rights

for now

I am in exams and have been crazy busy. Starting middle of next week, you can expect good posts regarding latino identity, gender identity, national and local politics. For now, I leave you with my brothers most recent blog entry.

He is traveling around Asia. I am envious.

dumpster diving in bangkok

so i found a backpack in the trash, it’s a small one, and the smallest pouch zipper is broken, i will see if i can fix it myself tomorrow (it’s 330am now).. then across the alley i saw another thai dude dumpstering, he was a bum i think… at some super market he was dumspteiring, we pulled out 5 dozen eggs (doubt they are organic), and a bunch of white bread, and some microwavable pizza, and a mostly dranken bottle of thai wiskey.

we chopped (poker term meaning split 50/50) the thai wiskey(we drank it on the spot obvoiusly), and i took only 1 dozen eggs, doubt i can eat much more.

also on the way home, there is a bar where you aren’t allowed to take alchohol into, and there was a full, barely opened wine cooler, which i drank.

all in all it was great
i’ll try to put in pics tomorrow

Free Beer

My mom raised us on local, organic foods.   We were vegetarians, my sister and brother later became and still are Vegans.  The three of us did not use drugs, or drink alcohol, as adolescents and both of them identified as sXe.  For this reason I was shocked to find out that my brother was hosting a kegger.  He made flyers advertising free beer and wine.  He told me that he had purchased 24 bottles of wine and four kegs of beer.  I didn’t really understand it but if this is what he waned to do so be it.

I stopped by his party had a slice of pizza but skipped out on the beer and there was no wine available, which in the end I decided it was okay not to have a glass since I was going to be driving home.  My brother living on OSU’s campus and having made tons of flyers advertising free beer, had successfully drawn people he did not know and that did not mesh well with his sXe, freevegan, punk friends.  In fact, my brother smiled and said “I only know about 20% of these people”.

Tired and not really interested in the party I left.  In the morning I found that the four kegs contained O’Douls non-alcoholic beer, the wine was non-alcoholic but tasted so awful it was not served.  His party had been overwhelmed with young kids looking for free beer and to get drunk and everyone went home sober.  LOL.

Local Art Show, C-Note

Zero (El-Amin Asadi) has created new art work, as he describes it, “Pencil powered mayhem”. It is to me some of his best work. My favorite piece of his is not available for viewing online but, I believe, will be up at the C-Note Art Show.

His pieces are raw and sometimes, painful for me to look at. They are frequently self reflections and the anguish is clearly evident. I find myself with a familiar pain and compassion that is too much to bear and am forced to look away.

C-Note is having both an online on art show, where you can vote for your favorite artists.

PS Remember, Columbus is the Indie Art Capital of the World. Support local artists!

Vote for the music video that makes you LOL

Which one of these two makes you laugh more and which one of these two gets you the most excited to go vote for Obama?

¡Ándale mi gente! ¿Cual de los dos te hace reír más?

Just so you know

I am a women.

I am a Latina.

I am a feminist.

I am working class.

I like Hilliary Clinton.

I am voting for Barack Obama in the primary.  Barack Obama is the best candidate for women, latinas, feminists and the working class.

I will never be that kind of white

I went to a bar tonight.  It was a bar on OSU’s campus.  It is a stereotypical frat/sorority bar.

I felt out of place.   Everyone was white.  Not kind-of white, like me,  but very white.  Like Ohio white.  Like blue eyes, blond hair, tanning salon bronzed skin, lots of make-up, middle/upper middle class, Ohio, not-like-me white.  I kept thinking “I will never be that kind of white”.  The white that doesn’t notice there aren’t any people of color around.  The white that feels completely in their element that they will never be questioned on their background.  It was uncomfortable, but it was an interesting social experiment.  No one knew I was uncomfortable.  The men still stared at me lusting to share their nasty bits and STDs.  The women still sized me up as their competition.

It sucked.