AUDIO: Independence Day, 2008

On this, the fourth day of July, in the year 2008, we find cause to celebrate our vices:

We dedicate this day to that declaration which decreed the end of our subjugation to tyranny and the beginning of our addiction to war; we revel in all 232 glorious years, and it is in commemoration that we unleash facsimiles of rockets and missiles and mushroom clouds into the air above us, to the hushed awe of the crowds huddled in the summer darkness, shivering with explosive thrill at the seductive whisper of our collective power.

We dedicate this day to our addiction to the flesh and bone and blood of our Mother; to $4 a gallon gasoline from the luxurious view afforded us from the windows of our SUVs; to the labor and sweat and crushed souls of those who toil for our convenience across oceans and earth, where, if we cannot easily see, no knowledge of modern slavery will penetrate to trouble our serene national psyche.

We dedicate this day to our Berlin border wall, to the 1,952 mile stretch of desperation and despair, to blind nationalism and xenophobia, because no one born outside these arbitrary borders, truly, can be completely human; we relish our corporate addiction to cheap labor and union busting, to salmonella-laced produce and lead-based toys and always low prices delivered with a brilliant yellow grin.

We dedicate this day to warrantless wiretapping with bipartisan immunity from prosecution, to spying on citizens in the event they should commit thought crimes and rebel; we dedicate this day to American fascism, to Big Brother government with none of the perks, to the Red Scare, to Black Lists and Do Not Fly; we dedicate this day to busting down doors, shoot first ask questions later.

We dedicate this day to the spiritual vacuum left in the wake of postmodernism, pining for the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus and Satan; we gnash our teeth and wail and cry because there is nothing left to believe in except, perhaps, that through war and waste and endless consumption, through wage slavery and sex trafficking and industrial abuse, through blind faith that all is well and a refusal to acknowledge the possibility that anything can and should be different, we will find salvation and we will not rot in Hell.

On this day we find cause to celebrate the occasion of our dependence, and we call ourselves free.

Check out Submission and Coffee! They discuss my post I am not damaged: the intersection of queer and kinky on the latest episode, #126.

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Gay Iranian Teen Denied Asylum and a lot more info

1. Why is liking to cook a gendered behavior and why is it unfeminist to take care of my house? Because, really, these are practical life skills and something that needs to be done by someone. This isn’t abstract theory. I’d be lying if I claimed there was no pressure whatsoever to take care of my house, but when I’m the only one with the free time to do it and I don’t actually mind, and if my siblings do their chores also and the boys do as much if not more housework than the girls, what exactly is the problem? Christ. You’d think wanting to eat decent home-cooked food or not wanting the kitchen to be buried in dirty dishes was some sort of crime against feminism. (And I’m not even supportive of so-called “choice feminism”!) I mean…really, people, it’s just something that needs to be taken care of, preferably by someone who doesn’t mind taking care of it.

Now when everyone else refuses to clean the litter box, that’s what pisses me off. Which reminds me…ugh.

2. Why are there no decent candidates running for…well, anything? The gubernatorial election in Colorado is specifically what I’m talking about. So there’s the Republican candidate, terrifying in most every way, and the Democrat who, true to the party line, is less evil and doesn’t seem to actually stand for anything without scowling about how he disapproves personally first (see: stance on abortion), and then there’s the Libertarian who is great on women’s issues and gay rights but is, well, Libertarian, and thus whom I cannot vote for in good conscience as the commie I am.

Okay, that’s oversimplifying. Her stance on immigration terrifies me, as does the general Libertarian philosophy regarding social welfare programs, which she definitely supports. Which brings me to the big point: all the candidates have fairly inadequate platforms regarding immigration. This is a big deal to me. I get to hear people using “immigration” as a thinly-veiled pretense for their racism every single day. “Immigration” as an excuse to ignore the complex race and class issues that are actually at the core of the matter. “Immigration” as a front to promote hate speech against not only undocumented workers, but pretty much anyone who vaguely resembles what they imagine lurks south of the border (where everything is Mexico), which includes anyone with darker skin, a Spanish-sounding last name, and/or a funny accent — because if you’re not white you must be “illegal”. No other explanation for it.

And I’m sick to death of this. Beauprez’s the worst; his website from what I’ve seen (and I didn’t linger very long) seems to be fairly tame compared to the propaganda his campaign’s been plastering all over Denver. It’s all xenophobic, reactionary hate speech. That’s all it is. At least Ritter’s only committed to enforcing the laws we already have, punishing companies who hire undocumented workers and the like, which I can support from a legal perspective even if it isn’t particularly useful or humane. (My personal opinions and proposed solutions? Maybe another time.)

I hate feeling these split loyalties. I can’t find a candidate who seems anywhere near decent on all the issues personally important to me: gay rights, women’s rights, immigration, and a general commitment to helping people in poverty you know, not starve or die from preventable illnesses and that kind of thing. The one that’s okay on the first two is terrible on the others. The one that’s more moderate on the last two is not that great on the first two. There was recently a post on the feminist community on LiveJournal urging people to vote for Winkler because she’s unabashedly pro-choice…without realizing that, for some of us affected by other issues, that’s not enough on its own. When I hear people talking about how “Mexicans are less than human” (actual quote) and about what they want to do to “those Hispanics”, you know what? Whether I, the queer Latina girl who mostly doesn’t like guys and isn’t sexually active, can get an abortion is the lesser threat to my immediate wellbeing.

3. If you have to preface a statement with “I’m not racist…” whatever comes out of your mouth next is almost certainly racist, and if not, it’s at the least going to be ignorant, poorly thought-out, problematic, or insensitive. Ditto for “I’m not sexist”, “I’m not homophobic”, etc. I know it’s been said before but it bears repeating.

3. a) If you feel the need to include someone’s race when talking about them in a situation where you would never think of attaching a racial slur if they were white, you’re racist. Sorry. (Or not. Yeah, not sorry.)

3. b) If you don’t want to be around me because you feel “judged” because I think you’re racist, maybe you shouldn’t say racist things. No, I’m not going to feel bad for leveling judgement after you just said something horribly offensive about the ethnic group I happen to, um, belong to. Especially if by “horribly offensive” I’m just trying to be polite about the fact that you just told me you want to commit what would legally constitute a hate crime.

4. Okay, I think I feel better until something else comes to mind.

5. Oh yeah, and I’m going to see the Dalai Lama speak tomorrow and that’s going to be really, really awesome. This isn’t an annoyance…unless maybe we start talking about how I feel about Tibet. I guess that’s another discussion for another time.

Bush on immigration:

President Bush, rebutting lawmakers advocating a law-and-order approach to immigration, said Monday that those who are calling for massive deportation of the estimated 11 million foreigners living illegally in the United States are not being realistic.

“Massive deportation of the people here is not going to work,” Bush said as a Congress divided over immigration returned from a two-week recess. “It’s just not going to work.”

…it is so bizarre to agree with him on something. (Although I know he’s only pandering to the corporations which benefit from cheap migrant labor, but when corporate interests happen to be the voice of logic…creepy.)

But it’s NOT realistic, and it WON’T solve the problem.

I’ll say it again: the issue most people are upset about are that Americans can’t compete with Mexicans for jobs, because the migrant workers aren’t able to organize to demand better wages and are willing to settle for basically nothing. The problem isn’t the desperate people looking for work: it’s corporate exploitation. Target the actual people responsible. Enforce the laws already on the books criminalizing the hiring of illegal workers. That’ll be much more effective in preventing people from coming than just deporting people.

I think no new legislation is even necessary. We already have all the laws we need on the books, don’t we? The problem is they aren’t being enforced because politicians will say one thing and do another (big surprise) — the people they supposedly “represent” demand stricter immigration laws, so they’ll give lip service to it…but the laws we already have aren’t being enforced because the people who fund both major parties prefer it that way.

Where I live, race and immigration issues seem much more pressing than anything else at the moment. So I apologize for my lack of things strictly related to feminism, because this is more immediately important to me.

I have been talking to people at work and apparently, Colorado police are randomly checking people on the highway near Denver to make sure they have proper documentation, etc. If they aren’t citizens or legal immigrants they’re being arrested. (I can’t find a news article to verify this, since supposedly the local media doesn’t want to talk about it. But since I know several different people who witnessed this I assume it’s in some way true.) Add this to the fact that the federal government has taken an interest in holding legally accountable the companies which hire undocumented workers, and all I can do is wonder why, if this is such a pressing issue, law enforcement has waited so long to actually do anything about it. I suspect pressure from the companies who benefit from cheap labor has kept the government complacent on the issue.

What’s going to happen to these people who have been arrested in Colorado? Allegedly, they’ll be held at the expense of the federal government until the state can convince it to ship them back over the border. Their property will be seized and auctioned off. They’ll be charged for forging documents and whatever else, and subject to harsher punishments if they come back — ever. They may no longer have a legal avenue to try to immigrate, either. And that’s harsh, but it isn’t my biggest worry. What concerns me most here is that they might not be given access to lawyers, etc., because the police see the issue as: they are not US citizens and not protected by the Bill of Rights. I think this is wrong. I also think it’s important to make it easier for these people to come to the US legally, or to work with the people who are already here rather than simply send them away.

I’m ambivalent even as I’m getting flashes of fascism. While this approach to make sure people are legally in the US may seem draconian and kind of scary, I understand the point and I think, all other concerns aside, that this is a perfectly rational legal approach. (Rational does not mean humane. Rational does not mean morally justifiable. Rational does not mean right.) I don’t think it will actually do anything to solve the problem, but I certainly think enforcing the law and just sending illegal immigrants home is preferable to the “Minuteman” approach where it’s somehow acceptable to shoot random people on sight to protect the purity of our Aryan nation or something. I think any attempt to resolve this issue through law enforcement is really the way to go — and to hear about it being handled from that perspective rather than the alternative is, sadly, a relief. From a legal perspective, I understand why the government doesn’t want undocumented people just wandering around, especially with fears of terrorism. (Is this attitude justified? I don’t know; I think it’s complicated. But I understand the argument.)

The legal issues surrounding illegal immigration which really concern me are thus:

Identity theft and fraud. When people are forced to immigrate without the proper legal channels some of them end up forging IDs and stealing social security numbers in order to work. Identity theft is a huge issue right now, and this makes it even worse. Some of these people are illegally buying houses and cars using other people’s information and while, yes, they’re certainly entitled to and require these things, they can’t do so at the expense of other people. I think this needs to be treated just as it would be if the people committing the crime were US citizens. Obviously, it needs to be addressed. There are already laws for this. We should enforce those instead of making more useless xenophobic legislation that doesn’t deal with the real issues.

Then there’s the issue of tax fraud — which some companies who knowingly hire undocumented workers are committing. (I don’t know that this is the majority of cases, but it does happen. More information and some numbers at The Tax Foundation Blog.) I believe that everyone deserves the work, has the right to work, but I understand why the government would not be pleased with this. Again, if the government cares about this issue, the law should to be enforced. For some reason, all of the sudden, that’s happening. Great. Law enforcement gets around to doing its job. I hear that the executives of these companies are being taken to court, which is good. I think that’s where the responsibility lies, not with the workers, but with upper management. Corporate corruption is an issue which extends even beyond this, but this is one part of it.

I think any excuse the government gives on why it needs to be able to constantly track everyone in the US at all times is total bull — so there goes any legal argument about strict documentation. But these others are, I think, legitimate concerns from a practical standpoint. These are also concerns which are not limited to immigrants — these are legal issues which need to be dealt with anyway, but sometimes the circumstances which make people desperate to enter this country also make them desperate enough to commit related crimes. These are the only legal issues which I can think of which are actually a justifiable concern instead of simply stereotyping or being blatantly xenophobic.

Of course, it’s technically illegal for them to be here and technically illegal to hire them, those who cry, “BUT THEY BROKE THE LAW!” are quick to remind us. Sometimes laws are good. Some laws protect our safety or property. Just because something is illegal doesn’t mean by default that it’s good or bad. Laws are in themselves meaningless. So, yes, it’s breaking the law. Unless there’s other laws being broken which are more serious crimes I don’t understand why this law should be such a big deal.

The problem is that…well, the people making the legislation to deal with the issue aren’t thinking about it this way. They’re appealing instead to xenophobic nationalism. More than that, these are people who casually talk about murder and massive human rights violations as if they’re perfectly acceptable.

Entering the country illegally is a crime, but it is not a death sentence.

Should people be executed trespassing? Would anyone suggest that as an appropriate punishment for someone born in this country?

People should not be allowed to die in the desert. They should not be gunned down at the border. I can’t believe that some politicians approve of these ideas as if they’re good ones. (Well, I actually can believe it, and that’s where I despair.)

They shouldn’t be employed for below minimum wage slave labor, either.

We need to look at the real issues: why are people so desperate that they’re willing to risk death to get here, with only shitty jobs and a whole lot of resentment from the locals as their reward? This isn’t a decision anyone makes lightly. These people are desperate, and what they find here may help a little, but it doesn’t really improve that.

I think the only way to solve this, actually fix the problems at the root of the matter, is to allow more people to immigrate through the proper legal channels. How much would the US economy improve if we allowed more people to enter the country legally in order to work at safe, decently-paying jobs? What the employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers are doing is bad for everyone concerned. It’s bad for the US economy, the US government, and the Mexican workers.

But it’s so much easier to be reactionary. It’s so much easier to appeal to nationalism or racial prejudice than to actually look at these people as people and try to understand why they’re doing what they’re doing, and plan accordingly. It’s going to happen anyway, and if we make it impossible, people will still die trying. What can we do to make it safe, economically beneficial, and legal?

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Please stop being racist.

Just stop.

I know you think my skin’s just dark enough to look like I tan well, but I’m not white, and I don’t think it’s hard to figure that out. My name, for one, should be a fucking clue. Do you people honestly think that just because my skin’s not too brown for you that means I’ll happily eat up your racist bullshit? Because that’s how it seems to be. Hell knows I have no real idea what’s going on in your heads, because ya’ll seem to be stupid, even those of you who should know better.

I’m not from Mexico. I was born in Utah. I don’t speak Spanish. My grandfather was from Guatemala, that country in Central America that apparently doesn’t exist, because everything south of Texas is fucking Mexico to you.

But my name is a Spanish one. My hair and skin are brown. I have the short stature and figure of a Latin American mestizo, because that’s what I am and where I come from. I’m not tall and thin like an anglo girl; I have the short, thick bones and wide hips of the Mayan women my grandfather came from on one side, the other being the European, yes, European despite their language, conquistadores who gave me my name.

And, despite being raised in the white Mormon cultural vacuum that is Utah, I’m aware of it. You want to know why?

You are the people who can’t remember my last name, unable to spell it correctly even when I tell you how to your damn face, substituting my surname for whatever generic Spanish name comes to mind at the time.

You are the people who put me in the lowest academic classes when I transferred to school in Colorado, apparently assuming from my name that I was one of the many ESL students without even bothering to look at my fucking transcript, because if you had you would have seen that I was supposed to be in the advanced classes. And then you did it to my little sister when she went to middle school, too — making the same mistake two years in a row, which took a total of months of everyone’s life to resolve, again and again and again.

You are the people who assume I don’t speak English, or that I’m uneducated or incapable of being educated, that I’m less than human and unworthy of respect because my last name didn’t come from English or German or whatever other European languages seem more acceptable to you. And if I’m not subhuman I’m a demographic, oh, glee.

And you know what?

You may think that you’re only talking about undocumented Mexican workers when you say racist shit to my face, but you’re the same people who think that we’re all one homogenous group. Hell, you could at least pretend to be concerned about illegal immigration in general, since Mexico isn’t the only place that people come from — so when you only talk about “those people” with brown skin from further South than makes you comfortable, it’s pretty obvious you don’t actually care about the immigration issue. It’s just an excuse, because you’re fucking racist.

When you talk about those “Hispanics” taking all the jobs, it’s pretty fucking obvious this isn’t about immigration — it’s about language and culture and surnames and that which allows you to identify them without knowing anything more, skin. It’s about skin. Because you assume that an entire continent and a half is all Mexico, all immigrants, all illegal. Even those of us who are born here, even those who have lived here for generations longer than your families.

So when you say all these things, it seems pretty clear to me…that you’re talking about me, and forgive me if I find that pretty fucking offensive. Forgive me if that makes me defensive.

When you say that Mexicans are subhuman (and, literally, some of you have actually said this to my fucking face), you’re hurting me. When you talk about how “those people” are taking over and “ruining” “your” country, you’re hurting me. When you say that illegal immigrants deserve no legal rights or protections whatsoever, by extension, you include anyone Latino, you include anyone with a Spanish last name, even those of us here legally, even those of us born here, even those of us with skin pale enough to please you — because you don’t know us. You don’t know who we are, or how or why we’re here, and you all use rudimentary and, frankly, stupid measures to identify us.

So what reaction do you think you’re going to get from me? Why does it surprise you when my feelings are hurt and when it makes me angry? I’m not from Mexico and I’m a US citizen and I don’t speak Spanish — but I’m still going to be fucking personally offended when you say that shit, because people see my name and they automatically lump me into those categories. All. The. Damn. Time. I don’t care if you don’t realize it. I don’t care if you don’t think that about me, personally. I don’t care if I’m white enough that it doesn’t register in your egocentric anglo mind that my feelings as a mutt are going to be hurt. I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care.

This is still who I am, and I’m acutely aware of it. It’s your privilege not to have to think. It’s your privilege to plead ignorance, or to claim that’s not what you meant, or that you’re not including me because I’m somehow special and worthy of being elevated to “human” status.

America is a nation of mutts and immigrants and their children. You white people don’t get off talking about how those immigrants are ruining “your” country, because it wasn’t “yours” until you took it, and I think the ruining thing was pretty much all your fault to begin with. (And I’ve got colonial invaders from all over the world in my past, Spanish America, British India and Africa, and who knows where else — but I kind of accept that my ancestors were responsible for that and that I benefit from it.) Your families all came here from somewhere else, and apparently that’s all fine and dandy for you because your names aren’t Spanish and you don’t have indigenous Latin American blood to darken your skin. Why is it different for us? Why don’t we get the benefit of the doubt in the land of opportunity?

I’m not a good little queer, who shuts up and doesn’t trouble you with my existence. I’m not a complacent little bitch who puts up and puts out and takes being treated as anything less than a man would be. I’m not a baby-making machine or a sex object, and I’m not a heterosexual man’s pornographic bisexual fantasy. Given that, I’m not going to be a nice little mestizo, a quiet little mutt, a properly hidden and assimilated Latina to make myself palatable to you, either.

Love, Julie

PS: And you know what else?

My grandmother on the other side was a Mexican immigrant who never became a US citizen. And. She was Anglo. She was from Utah Mormons, from English nobility and German ancestry, totally, completely, thoroughly white. You see, in order for Utah to become a state they had to outlaw polygamy, so my great-great-grandfather and his three or four wives packed up and moved to a Mormon colony in Chihuahua where it was still against the law but no one cared, and they stayed there for generations until they ran out of nice anglo boys to marry their daughters off to.

I’ll bet that blows your narrow little mind. This is what happens when you define a whole country, a whole continent, a plethora of cultures and languages and racial backgrounds, as one homogenous being.

This is what happens: things don’t fit. Reality doesn’t conform to expectation.

Do you like irony as much as I do?

…wait, yes, they have, and it didn’t work then, either.

Discussions on race with most people tend to really, really disturb me. It’s creepy how little people seem to actually know about history — and if they do know about history, they seem incapable of making the connection to the present day. So that the rest of you thinking people can share in my total bewilderment, I present some brief examples of this thinking in action, courtesy of the scary people I’ve talked to on a perfectly average day at work:

Statement 1: Those damn Mexicans, taking our American jobs BLAH BLAH BLAH

My Reaction: Yeah! And don’t forget those filthy Irish immigrants, taking all the underpaid, unsafe factory jobs that Americans don’t want! This is just like the Industrial Revolution! We should send them all back to Ireland! Or Mexico! Wherever!

…yeah, whatever. Blame everything on the popular scapegoat at the time. Same old. This has only been happening in the US since the country was founded. Immigration happens. Get over it.

Statement 2: We ought to round up all those Muslims and lock them up! Damn terrorists.

My Reaction: ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? World War II, anyone? Does ANYONE remember WWII? You know, that little part where Asian-American citizens were rounded up and put into internment camps and they lost their jobs and their rights and they were beaten and killed and malnourished, and it’s only, oh, recognized as one of the most horrible things that’s ever happened in this country, ever? Something that most people now universally recognize was evil and wrong and totally unwarranted?

WHAT YOU’RE SAYING IS THE EXACT SAME THING. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU??

Statement 3: Racism would go away if people stopped making a big deal about it. OR, racism doesn’t exist anymore.

My Reaction: See statements 1 & 2 and then shut the hell up.

Statement 4: Damn Mexicans! We need to build a wall across the border so that they can’t sneak in!

My Reaction: Great idea. That’ll totally work. And we totally have the money to spend on that, too, since our government isn’t, like, bankrupt or anything. Why don’t you go quit your job and do that? And then, why don’t you go toil in a field somewhere for pennies an hour since we won’t have anyone else willing to do it? HAVE FUN. Or, alternately, why don’t you go buy free trade organic whatever and complain about how much stuff costs when people actually get paid for their work. Oh, but you don’t want to spend more? Thought not.

Statement 5: Those people in the Middle East are filthy and uncivilized pigs and BLAH BLAH BLAH

My Reaction: The savages! We’d better invade and civilize them with our Christianity! That’s totally worked throughout history!

Oh, wait, you think we just ought to nuke all them? BRILLIANT IDEA! Nuclear winter ROCKS!

…no, seriously, what the hell is wrong with you that you’d make that kind of statement?

Oh, and one final note: Just because you think I look white doesn’t mean I am, and it doesn’t mean I’m not going to call you on your racist bullshit. Just, yanno, saying.