Freedom is Moving Target

By César Omar Sánchez

“We are “free” only as long as we play our assigned parts. Once we call out power for what it is, once we assert our rights and resist, the chimera of freedom will vanish. The iron fist of the most sophisticated security and surveillance apparatus in human history will assert itself with a terrifying fury.”

-Chris Hedges

Contemporary American People Mindset

We live in a world where apathy and ignorance are running rampant and is highly contagious in our society. Like a virus, it spreads throughout our community and the entire nation with no limitation and continues to poison the minds of both youth and adults. We are currently living in two societies; on one side we have a minority that is aware of the current status we are all facing when it comes to ongoing systemic racist mechanisms towards African Americans, Latino, and people of color to this present day. On the other side, the majority, where spectacles triumph over literacy and continue to choose comfort over struggle.

Hispanics/Latinos Home and Abroad

As a brown skin Latino with indigenous ancestry background, I am aware of our history when it comes to colonialism and religious persecution, we too also understand what it means to fight for freedom. Freedom for us is still a constant struggle, we are still going through ongoing fight not only in the United States but back in Latin America countries like Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Brasil, …etc. In Eduardo Galeano's’ book Open Veins of Latin America, he exposes how Oligarchs, Corporations and Venture Capitalists have extradited so much wealth from these countries and how they became so powerful in the global financial market. Uruguayan author gives his assessment of Latin America:

“Latin America is the region of open veins. Everything from the discovery until our times has always been transmuted into European--or later--United States-- capital, and as such has accumulated on distant centers of power. Everything: the soil, its fruits, and its mineral-rich depths, the people and their capacity to work and to consume, natural resources and human resources.” ― Eduardo Hughes Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

The Illusion of Freedom within an Empire of Illusion

 To obtain absolute freedom, we must acknowledge that both the political apparatus and the socio-economic system we are currently in must be eradicated. Those in power will tell you and me that we live in the greatest country on earth and that freedom is guaranteed.  Marketing Strategists, Advertisers, and Public Relations agencies use their talent non-stop on selling you that we have "Freedom" in our political and economic paradigm. With the constant 24-hours, 7 days of the week of propaganda on mainstream media, its no wonder US Citizens are so confused.  These same individuals will continue to say that we must continue to vote and to trust these fat cat oligarchs that continue to profit off other people's misfortunes and even deaths. Many politicians today will lie in our face and say that these multimillionaires, banks, corporations, and the military-industrial complex are here to protect our freedom. This is only a façade and the capitalist system has been exposed to the American public of not being democratic and not allowing freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of beliefs that question those in power.

For African American people, unfortunately, freedom is limited to them and their voices have been suppressed for decades now. These mechanisms like voter suppression laws, mass incarceration, job discrimination is just some of the components that make African-Americans discourage and tries to break down their spirits, but it won't work, it never did and never will. 

This past week I attended the BAAFSSO (Black Alumni, Administrators, Faculty, Students and Staff Organization) meeting where many issues were being addressed to the current NJCU President, Sue Henderson. And I thought I felt inspired by many of my classmates voicing their concerns so passionately, I still felt a sense of hopelessness as I know that those in power will not take any actions to improve these conditions. Students and Faculty members should have the freedom to address their grievances without the fear of retribution from their peers or higher ranks within the executive board. The question becomes the following; are we truly living in a free society?

We can no longer continue in this fantasy world where we are sleepwalking towards oblivion. Our freedom is slowly being taken away and many of us have fallen asleep behind the wheel. I cannot sit back and see our black brothers and sisters continued being gunned down in every major city in this nation. I cannot just turn a blind eye while police are being militarized and are granted immunity for the slaughter of black youths. Again, I must ask the question, the word “freedom” …what does it signify in the United States of America for Blacks, Latinos, and people of color?

My Encounter with The Central Park Five

                Mass incarceration of black people in the United States is staggering and shocking.  Far too long black youth and men had their freedom taken away from a racist judicial court system. Two cases come in my mind, one was the injustice arrest and jail sentencing of five youths from New York City. They were known as the Central Park Five which was arrested for allegedly raping a white woman in the middle of the night at Central Park in 1989. A few years back I met with two of The Central Park Five, now The Exonerated Five, Raymond Santana and Yusef Salaam at John Jay College where I was preparing a speech on political prisoners. As I sat down with both Raymond and Yusef, they both described their horrible experience on how they were coerced during an exhausting police integration tactic. This quasi evidence of a confession from them is what helped the prosecutors sentence all innocent young youths to jail. They explain how quickly one’s freedom can be taken away so easily just because of their socio-economic status and the color of their skin.

We Want Freedom

The second case that comes to my mind is a prolific writer and probably the world’s most famous Long Distant Revolutionary political prisoner still being held in the United States’ prison said the following:

“Conventional wisdom would have one believe that it is insane to resist this, the mightiest of empires, but what history really shows is that today's empire is tomorrow's ashes; that nothing lasts forever, and that to not resist is to acquiesce in your own oppression. The greatest form of sanity that anyone can exercise is to resist that force that is trying to repress, oppress, and fight down the human spirit.”

― Mumia Abu-Jamal

The time to fight for freedom is now!  Freedom for All!

Why is it important to understand the Black Experience in America?

More than 30 years ago on the streets of Philadelphia, a Black Revolutionary Movement called MOVE was brutally suppressed by the State of Pennsylvania using terrorist methods to neutralize and kill many members of the organization. I remember as a child many of people around the Black and The Latino community spoke with outrage about the massacre that occurred on May 13th, 1985. MOVE was a Black Revolutionary group that challenged the establishment’s economic and political system within the United States of America. Unfortunately, many members of the MOVE organization were killed when the Mayor at the time Wilson Goode and Police Commissioner George J. Sambor ordered to drop a C-4 Plastic Explosive device from a helicopter on top of the MOVE Organization’s home. On the day of the police’s terrorist attack, many men, women, and children were killed and burned alive. The killing of MOVE was used as an example to silence any dissidents and other Black Liberation Movement that was critical of the way Black Community were being treated.

In my opinion, we must and continue to study, learn and speak about the Black Experience in America with accurate details of the historical context that happened decades and centuries ago.  I feel that we have the lost the way and many blacks and people of color from all religious and ethnic background has been silenced, been miseducated, misinformed, or simply has forgotten about Black Struggle and Revolutionary Movements only what they see in movies.   Though I find many politicians and even so-called scholars’ has simply watered down the black experience history to push their political agenda, many have been complacent to undermining the entire Black Experience History in the US and choose not to speak truth to power to those that continue to oppress the black community.

In the past, we had powerful Black leaders that revolted against all odds to fight against an Imperialist, Oppressive, Racist and Undemocratic Ideology in the United States. Our dear brothers and sisters like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, W.E.B Du Bois, Ida B. Wells, Fred Hampton, Stokely Carmichael, Patrice Lumumba, Nelson Mandela, and many other Black Leaders and Revolutionary Figures worldwide are hardly mentioned in mainstream media anymore. This is why we must continue to talk and learn about the black experience to try to understand the circumstances that are occurring today. From Mass Incarceration to the killing of unarmed Black American youth in the streets throughout this nation by racist police officers.

           Malcolm X said it best:

The thing that I would like to impress upon every Afro-American leader is that no kind of action in this country is ever going to bear fruit unless that action is tied in with the overall international struggle. (1)

As we are nearly one year away from the election primaries, we must take into account that politically, black people in the United States has been disenfranchised and voter’s suppression regulations have been in place to push away, black voters. In the past, the Communist Party in the United States were practically the only ones that stood in solidarity with the Black Community.

On the other hand, in their experience with the Communist party in the United States, black people were able to apprehend some of the greatest strengths and weaknesses of black-white alliances in the struggle for justice. (2)

As a Latino, I recognize the importance of learning about the Black Experience not only in this country but all over the world where many have been murdered and their ancestry history wiped off the face of the earth due to European Imperial Conquest. We must understand the current mechanism in this country that constantly tries to push important historical facts aside only for you to purchase a product in the store or online. We must acknowledge the fact that the triumph of spectacles is supreme, and literacy has been marginalized for the last 10 to 15 years.

We are currently living in two society; on one side we have a minority that is aware of the current status we are all facing when it comes to Black History Experience both past and present. The other side, the majority, continues to choose comfort over struggle.

by César Omar Sánchez. Community organizer, New York/New Jersey Cuba Si Coalition, Advisory Board Member of ProLibertad: Free All Political Prisoners Campaign.

Works Cited

1.      Spellman, A.B. By Any Means Necessary, Malcolm X. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1992

2. Harding, Vincent. Prologue: We the People. The Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights Reader. Penguin Books, 1991

My Encounter with Raymond Santana and Yusef Salaam ~ The Central Park Five

Hi there, A few years back I met with two of The Central Park Five, now The Exonerated Five, Raymond Santana and Yusef Salaam at John Jay College where I was preparing a speech on political prisoners. This is one series you must watch. No matter how painful and powerful Ava Duvernay's film hits you, there is no doubt that Ava’s film exposes how Racist, Bias and Broken our Criminal Justice System in the United States was and still is today.

Immigration and the United States: The Importance in American Society and Culture

Immigrants from every corner of this planet have brought with them culture, science, arts and special labor skills that were shared with others to enhance innovation. 

One good example is a Russian born boy that had a tremendous voice for theater, his name was Asa Yoelson. Asa, which later changed his name to Al  Johnson. Al Johnson later became a popular singer during the 1920s and 1930s was a highly paid entertainer at that time. He brought his idea of Jazz and to an American music-loving audience and was a huge success within the American performing arts. 

Other artists like Czech composer Antonin Dvorak who in 1892 was invited to come to the United States to direct the National Conservatory of Music and compose "American" music. His style of music captivated the American musical performance by storm. 

African American musical artists like Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw were second-generation Jewish Americans who were inspiring musicians who mixed their style of Jazz with European traditional style and made it more exciting to listen too. Both artists were performing their music during the Jim Crow segregation era. 

However, Immigrants did not only brought music and theater as their specials skills to offer but also brought cooking methods and flavor.

"...the classic American hot dog is probably the product of nineteenth-century German immigration. “Wiener” and “frankfurter,” synonyms for hot dogs, reflect the geographical origins of German sausage-makers: Vienna (Wien in German) and Frankfurt. Similarly, hamburger is the name for a native of the German city of Hamburg, which must have been the place of origin of the German sausage-makers who popularized chopped beef, formed into a cake and fried. Hamburgers, hot dogs, and other traditional American foods were popularized in the early twentieth century in “diners,” a distinctive restaurant style resembling railroad cars. Diners were commonly run by Greeks and other immigrants who found a niche serving low-cost food to the American masses." 

From food to music and much more, immigrants have really contributed to American society making it the country it is today.

Reference

Gabaccia, Donna R. "We Are What We Eat: Ethnic Food and the Making of Americans" Havard. 2000

American government making immigration relatively easy by restrictions?

COLLAPSE

There were numerous changes in immigration policies that allowed a certain number of migrants to easily come into the United States. However, Nativist Anglo-American Protestants organized in mass numbers to suppress the huge influx of immigration process and the block the efforts for an immigrant to be a citizen. The biggest fear was the economic competition and religious belief in the spreading of Catholicism. 

During wartime, many feared of a subversive potential of spies infiltrating in the country. This led to the passing of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 which enabled government authority officials to detained and deport "aliens" from the United States. 

Let us keep reminding ourselves that American ports were receiving its first waves of immigrants; 31 Million between 1860 - 1930 arrived here. 

" Meanwhile, American ports began receiving the first waves of an enormous and transformative mass migration — some 31 million between 1860 and 1930. They represented a “new” immigration: Chinese, Italians, Greeks, Poles, Russians, Syrians, Slovaks, Serbs, Armenians. To many so-called “old stock” Americans, millions of these newcomers were dangerous and unworthy, and to the members of an Immigration Restriction League – which included in its number many of “the best people” of New England – the immigrants were of the “wrong” religions and nationalities." 

This way of thinking was really troublesome and if the Nativist Anglo-Americans Protestants would have gotten their way, many immigrants would have had to wait over 21 years to apply for citizenship.

These restrictions implemented on those days seems to be repeating itself all over again in today's world just repackaged and named something else.

Reference

Gerber, David A. "American Immigration: A Very Short Introduction."  Oxford University Press, 2011, pp 20 - 21.

Weisberger, Bernard. "For Immigrants - And All of Us - A Time To Fight" Retrieved from https://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/09/15/immigrants-and-all-us-time-fight 

Racism and discrimination in the US

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From the Chinese, Irish, and Italians that immigrated into this country, many of them faced extraordinary levels of racism and discrimination from most of the White Anglo-Saxons in this country. Racism in the United States is nothing new, even goes back to the “American Holocaust” that occurred in this country; the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous tribes (Native Americans) they were systematically annihilated.

Racism and Discrimination continue, except is that is a masquerade and repackaged in a different form so many won’t notice it. From the Mass Incarceration of Black Youth to the Mass deportation of Latinos and people of color from other countries; nothing has really changed.  

When it comes to talking about Racism and Discrimination in the United States, many feels that is a taboo topic. I believe if we are ever going to combat this issue, we must tackle it head and be open about it. By bringing people of different races and nationalities together, we can try to create a more compassionate world. To honestly achieve this goal, we must challenge and change the status quo to bring some sort of understanding and clarity which can ultimately lead to a more open dialogue.

NO HUMAN BEING IS ILLEGAL.

Once we start to understand the meaning of the phrase, we can start to break down all the mechanism that keeps us all apart.

Post-1965 migration

Since the signing of the bill in 1965, millions have immigrated to the United States of America. Though many Politicians and their constituents sympathize with immigrants seeking better opportunities and to be part of the melting pot, there were others that opposed the bill completely. The United States has always struggled with the idea of how a nation should be defined. Many argued that the type of immigrants that were coming into the country will no assimilate to "America's" way of thinking. Others persist that the United States is a "Judeo-Christian Nation", that immigrants from other religious groups are a contradiction to the American way of living. 

We always want to believe that this country opens the doors for the poor and the hungry. We the people of the United States of America want to believe that we extend our hands to help those in need and show compassion for immigrants. However, from a recent article, I came across the following is mentioned that really stuck in my mind:

 " The original version of the 1965 Act, cosponsored by Senator Philip Hart of Michigan and Representative Emmanuel Celler of New York, both liberal Democrats, favored those immigrants whose skills were “especially advantageous” to the United States." 

There is definitely a fundamental problem in how we view immigrants in this country back then and even to this day. Xenophobia today is in an all-time high and the debate on the immigration process to obtain visas for immigrants still continues. Was the actual Bill of 1965 and the politicians that signed it into law had good intentions? That is something we should really have an open debate on it in my opinion. 

Reference:

Gjelten, Tom. "The Immigration Act That Inadvertently Changed America". The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/immigration-act-1965/408409/. Accessed Oct 2, 2015