Angry White Kid

Race or Class or Both? A response to MC Serch

Early this year I started working with author JLove Calderon on a multimedia project she started called Till the White Day is Done. Part of that effort was her interview with MC Serch (of 3rd Bass and executive producer of Nas' Illmatic) and my response to it. Below are both the interview and my brief response. Hopefully we'll be producing more of this in the future.

In the interview, MC Serch comments on the role of both race and class in analyzing the causes of injustice and inequality.  He comes clearly down on the side of class trumping race, stating:

“We have to look at economics and see where it plays, and not race. Because now more than ever the guy with the most money wins.”

“I find it idiotic when people say, ‘It’s a black and white issue.’ It’s not.  It’s a poor or rich issue.”

Without a doubt, Serch is right that class is tremendously important.  It goes without saying that with enough money, a person can have access to almost anything.  But an important aspect of looking at the differences and inequalities between the working and middle classes and the upper and ruling classes, is the racial makeup of those classes.

Numerous studies have shown both that the wealthiest Americans are almost exclusively white and that on average, whites are wealthier than people of color.  For example, a 1997 paper by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, of all places, points out that the richest 1 percent of U.S. households own 33 percent of the wealth in the U.S.  And of that richest 1%, 92.1% are white.

Thomas Shapiro, director of the Institute on Assets and Social Policy, writes that in 2007, white households had a net worth that was $142,600 greater than black households, up from $100,700 in 1997. Shapiro states that “the racial wealth gap [is] a fundamental axis of racial inequality,” and that these numbers show “a firmly embedded racial stratification.”

Following Serch’s suggestion, by looking at these numbers to see who the guys with the most money are, the answer is definitive: the white guys.

Most white people reading this are probably wondering, “Well, if white people are the rich ones, then where’s my share?”  That’s a fair question, because obviously most white people are not rich.  But the fact still remains, even if we’re not rich, on average we still have more resources and wealth than people of color do, simply because we’re white.

At first glance, that last sentence doesn’t make very much sense.  A more in-depth explanation will have to wait for another blog post but the brief explanation is this: The reason white people across the board have more money is because for hundreds of years, the U.S. economy was built along racial lines designed to favor whites at the expense of all others.  Through the mechanisms of genocide, slavery, exclusion acts, Jim Crow laws, and redlining and other racist financial practices, whites amassed wealth, reinvested it and passed it on to their children; while entire segments of the population, especially blacks, were barred from owning anything and the wealth they did produce was taken from them.  

Stretch that out over 400 years and it’s easy to see why whites as a whole are in such a better financial condition.  That legacy of unequal wealth distribution and white supremacy is why in 2009, it’s still the case that the wealthiest people in the U.S. are almost all white, and that whites across the board are wealthier than any other racial group.

Mexico's fake RCMP report backfires

8/9 UPDATE: On Thursday, Mexico's National Human Rights Commission joined the chorus condemning the not-RCMP report, saying it "is not based on expertise, it's based on opinion." Still no response from the report's authors. Also, a reader pointed out that my nod to Amnesty International was more praiseworthy than merited. While Amnesty's statement urging that Plan Mexico funds be withheld is welcome, overall the organization has taken a disgraceful stance on Plan Mexico.  As Kristin Bricker reports, after Plan Mexico passed, it praised the initiative, calling it "appropriate and timely" and supporting the fact that only a paltry 15% of funds were conditions upon respect for human rights.

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It's been a busy and interesting week regarding developments in Oaxaca, Mexico, and the U.S.

First, there was the report in the Mexican media on July 29 that an investigation by officials from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police into the murder of U.S. independent journalist Brad Will affirmed the conclusions drawn by the Mexican Federal Attorney General's Office (PGR) regarding his death.  The PGR, contrary to all available evidence, claims Will, shot in Oaxaca in 2006, was killed at close range by a anti-government protester.  The media reports raised more questions than they answered. For example, why was the RCMP investigating this, and why, as evident from the reports, did they carry out such a clearly laughable investigation?

These questions and more were answered when Brad Will's family released a statement soundly debunking the so-called RCMP report. As it turns out, there was no official RCMP investigation.  It was merely three retired RCMP officers who did an "investigation" which the Mexican government then presented to the media as an official RCMP report.  Today, Physicians for Human Rights - a group that actually did investigate Brad's murder - issued a press release that similarly called into question the veracity of the ex-RCMPers report.  James Stephen, Phil Ziegler and Gary Buerk certainly have some serious rebutting to do if they don't want to be tarnished as integrity-free hacks-for-hire.  Although I'm sure there's always a market for those types.

The conclusions of another "investigation" regarding Oaxaca were released yesterday by Mexico's Supreme Court. They took it upon themselves to investigate the actions of the state and federal governments who brutally repressed the 2006 uprising.  Unsurprisingly, the Supreme Court found the use of force - which left 27 dead and hundreds injured, arrested and tortured - to be legitimate.  This is the same court which found the murders and mass rapes by police that occurred in Atenco in 2006 to be unworthy of investigating either.

But one question remains - why all these reports stating how the Mexican state is not at fault for the atrocities of 2006 in Oaxaca?  The answer can be found in Plan Mexico, aka the Merida Initiative. The three-year, $1.4 billion aid (mostly military) package to Mexico and Central America has a human rights requirement for Mexico.  Yearly, the U.S. State Department must certify Mexico's respect for human rights and the Congress must approve that certification.  If that doesn't happen, then Mexico loses 15% of the Plan Mexico funds.  Of course, Mexico gets the other 85% no matter how many people it tortures and kills, but it could do it much more effectively if it got 100% of the funds.

Also, later this month both Clinton and Obama are to visit Mexico to see how the U.S.'s hegemonic efforts under the tutelage of Felipe Calderon are holding up.  The family of Juan Manuel Martinez Moreno - the Oaxacan social activist being framed by Mexico for the murder of Brad Will - is requesting an audience with Obama in Mexico City.  The Mexican government would of course rather avoid this and any other scrutiny of its human rights record, while at the same time receiving all the Plan Mexico funds.  So the timing of the non-RCMP and Supreme Court reports saying that everything is fine in Oaxaca is no surprise.

However, it appears that their efforts have all been for naught. For while Clinton's State Dept. dutifully certified Mexico's human rights record this week, even though human rights complaints have risen 600% under Calderon's regime, Senator Leahy yesteday blocked the certification from being voted upon in the Senate, basically saying he doesn't believe the State Dept.  Maybe Amnesty International got to him.  This means that, at least for the time being, the Mexican government will only have 85% of the Plan Mexico funds at its disposal to deploy against the social movements demanding justice and an end to impunity.  Which, given that Plan Mexico shouldn't exist at all, is still appallingly too much.

Obama administration sides with the coupists in Honduras

The below video by The Real News Network provides a good overview of where things stand at the moment with regards to the coup in Honduras and the U.S.'s non-response.

So Hillary Clinton's buddy is lobbying Congress on behalf of the coupists and the Obama administration has yet to take any action to reprimand the de facto regime.  Of course they're being helped in creating public acceptance for their coup-coddling with deliberating misleading editorials from papers such as the Washington Post and the Arizona Republic.

Ken Silverstein at Harper's rightly sums it up:

Based on his response to events in Honduras, Barack Obama may as well be Ronald Reagan or George Bush when it comes to coups in Latin America. The Obama administration initially managed to muster "concern" about the coup, and has been acting in a cowardly fashion ever since.

Obama, Honduras and Hamas

In Russia on Tuesday, Obama stated that he supports the reinstatement of Manuel Zelaya, the overthrown president of Honduras, based on the following rationale:

America supports now the restoration of the democratically-elected President of Honduras, even though he has strongly opposed American policies...We do so not because we agree with him. We do so because we respect the universal principle that people should choose their own leaders, whether they are leaders we agree with or not.

Then why does Obama not respect the right of the Palestinians to choose their own leaders when they elected Hamas? (This of course is a policy critique and does not delve into the matter of whether leaders are necessary to begin with.)

The Obama administration's stance on the coup in Honduras has been disgraceful. Today, Clinton even refused to call for Zelaya's reinstatement:

While Secretary Clinton reiterated the United States' condemnation of Mr. Zelaya's ouster, she stopped short of calling for his reinstatement, a departure from statements by President Obama earlier Tuesday and from the position taken by much of the international community.

When asked whether the United States viewed Mr. Zelaya's return as central to the restoration of democratic order, she said that she did not want to "prejudge" the talks before they began.

I have been traveling but hope to translate more documents on Honduras in the coming days. In the meantime, I suggest NarcoNews.com, HablaHonduras.com, and Tlaxcala.es.

YouTubin' it with boysetsfire, Phil Ochs, and Ashes

While writing papers at the end of this last semester, my way of procrastinating was embarking on a YouTube improvement project.  And by that I mean posting videos I want to see up there. 

Here's a sampling on the chance you like them, too.  First, my favorite band, boysetsfire, which I love even though they plugged the CPUSA in some of their liner notes. Second is Phil Ochs playing The Highwayman on an old poetry show.  Finally, my favorite emo band, Ashes.  No video for those, just the music.  Enjoy.

Catastrophe: 61 years and counting

A scene from the nakba.

Today around the world Palestinians commemorate the nakba (catastrophe) of the 1948 establishment of Israel and the ethnic cleansing of 75% of the indigenous Palestinian population from their lands and homes.

Sixty-one years later the Palestinian population is dispersed around the globe, forbidden by Israel to return to their homes.  Millions live in the refugee camps of Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.  Millions more live in camps or homes under occupation in the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem and the West Bank.  And more than a million live as third-class citizens under an openly racist, apartheid regime in the land they were born - now called Israel.

While Hamas and Fatah squabble over who gets to be the Palestinian facilitator of Israel's occupation, dictatorial Arab regimes count their U.S. dollars, and Israel continues the nakba backed by the U.S. and Europe.

Civil society, the only place where power truly resides, must continue to act.  BOYCOTT. DIVESTMENT. SANCTIONS.

Plan Mexico and the politics of fear

A friend recently asked what I thought of a Stratfor article about kidnapping in Mexico.  In particular he asked if Mexico is being focused on to take heat off Colombia and target Mexican social movements. As the House of Representatives just approved $300 million in military aid to Mexico, it's especially relevant. On March 11, Friends of Brad Will is organizing a caravan to D.C. to press Congress on stopping Plan Mexico.  Below is my answer, in article-esque form.

On a topical level, I am not very familiar with the kidnapping situation in Mexico.  I also found it amusing (though not surprising) how little the authors touch on the infiltration of the drug cartels into all levels of government.  But I do agree with you that this fits well with the increasing rhetoric we see coming from the administration regarding violence in Mexico. In my view, it's all circular.  Drugs come through Mexico for U.S. consumers. The cartels use this money to buy U.S. weapons, among other things. Cartels splinter due to the arrest or killing of leaders, due to the money involved, or due to new players in the game. This increases cartel-on-cartel violence. Add to the mix Calderon's "drug war", and you have cartels, cops, and soldiers all killing each other, leading to more than 6,000 homicides in 2008. Of course the drug business itself isn't effected because the police, military and civil administration on all levels are either so corrupt or so inept that all they do is tragically increase the body count.

Meanwhile, neo-liberalism continues, exacerbating poverty.  Paired with the corruption, impunity and violence of the state, that inevitably leads to protests and rebellions.  The successes of popular movements in places like Oaxaca and Atenco, paired with the ability of armed groups like the EPR to strike the state's infrastructure at will, certainly is causing the Mexican government a lot of distress.  This is especially the case as now more than ever movements in various states, such as Oaxaca, Morelos, Michoacan, Chiapas, Guerrero, DF, etc., are finding common cause with one another and are refusing to resort to electoral politics as a remedy.  And although I'm too cynical to put much stock in it, anywhere you go in Mexico you'll hear talk about something big happening in 2010.

Of course, not only is the Mexican government concerned about this, but the U.S., too.  Mexico is too good of a client to lose. So in response they rolled out the Merida Initiative, or Plan Mexico. This is a $1.6 billion package to Mexico, with a small amount of it going to countries in Central America.  Much of it will go to equipping and training the Mexican military and police forces - who are not only corrupt, but implicated repeatedly in severe human rights abuse cases. Plan Mexico fulfills several objectives: it reasserts U.S. hegemony over Mexico and Central America lost due to the war on Iraq, it gives Calderon the tools to deal with social movements, and since no actual money is leaving the U.S., only "services," it's a nice boon to U.S. corporations.  All of this without having to face the fact that U.S. drug consumption and U.S. weaponry is largely what is causing the violence and U.S. neo-liberal policies are largely what's causing the poverty that leads to social movements or social crimes.

Since Plan Mexico has to be approved yearly (it runs over three years), and since it is $1.6 billion, and since Plan Colombia has been such a failure (at least in terms of its stated goals), fearmongering about a violent Mexico such as this article does is necessary.  It plays right into the hands of the military industrial complex and U.S. efforts to keep the Monroe Doctrine going in the 21st century.

It's just another attempt to keep reality from interfering with their plans. You're much more likely to be extorted by a cop in Mexico than a kidnapper.  Of course the occasional randomness and brutality of it make it a particularly disturbing crime, but to the average visitor or the average Mexican, it's not a prominent concern.

"They killed my family..."

The news out of Gaza has been beyond horrible these past three weeks. I lament the fact I haven't been doing more. Blogging certainly seems like a trite effort.  I did want to share a few videos and articles. As Israel decides to end its campaign of carnage before Obama is inaugurated, the world must not forget Gaza. It must not forget that what has happened these past three weeks is merely the latest round of Israel's attempt to ethnically cleanse Palestine of the Palestinians.  It will never succeed however.  We need to ensure that.

Here are several alternatively heartbreakening and enraging articles and videos. Please spread the word. Please raise your voices.

Gaza war doctor grieves 3 daughters - Associated Press

Here is a partial transcript:
Eldar: ...we have on the line Dr. Abu El-Eish, we have been talking with him over the past period... he [his home] was just shelled, his family is wounded, maybe I can replay...

Dr. Abu El-Eish: No one can get to us... (unclear)... Ya Rabi, Ya Rabi (my god).. [he continues to cry throughout while Eldar talks to the audience]

Eldar: They killed his family, over the past few days we have been... I think I'm a bit overwhelmed too because,... (tearing up) Dr. Abu El-Eish is a Tel Hashomer physician, [to the doctor] Abu El-Eish we are now in the studio, [back to the audience] and he kept fearing his family would get hurt, once this week he went on air to Gabi Gazit [another anchor], because this was the only way [apparently referring to the previous near-miss incident].... In short, he was now hit, who was hurt Abu El-Eish?

Dr. Abu El-Eish: My girls, Ya Allah, Ya Allah

[around 1:00 into clip]

Eldar: He has eight children whom he has protected throughout the war, at his home in Beit Lahiya, maybe the only thing we can do is to ask someone who can, maybe in the IDF, Abu El-Eish can you tell me where your house is, maybe they will enable ambulances to get there

Dr. Abu El-Eish: (unclear) ...to save them, to save them, but they are dead already they were hit in the head, it was in their heads [died] on the spot, on the spot, Shlomi, Ya Allah, ... what have we done, what have we done [repeatedly]... they killed the family... [more screams in the background]

Israelis 'shot at fleeing Gazans' - BBC

Targest of Israeli attacks in Gaza - IMEU

Eliyahu advocates carpet bombing - Jerusalem Post

Pro-Israel rally attended by big-time NY Dems descends into calls for 'wiping out' Palestinians - AlterNet

Israel bans Arab parties from running in upcoming election - Haaretz

Israelis rain 'phosphorous bombs' over Gaza - IPS News

Israeli soldiers refuse to serve in Gaza - Ehud Shem Tov

Todos Somos Gaza - Subcomandante Marcos, EZLN

Enough. It's time for a boycott - Naomi Klein, The Guardian

In Gaza, the schools are dying, too - The Guardian

We will not go down (Song for Gaza) - Michael Heart

The APPO two years on: Where now for Oaxaca's social movement?

 
"They will only see us on our knees when in front of the
graves of our dead we can tell them...'We won.'"

An article I wrote, published so far on ZNet, MR Zine, Counter Currents, Tlaxcala, and Colectivos de Apoyo, Solidaridad y Accion. [Spanish translation] [Finnish translation] [Dutch translation] Feel free to republish.

The APPO two years on: Where now for Oaxaca's social movement?
By Scott Campbell
September 5, 2008

This fall in Oaxaca marks a season of commemorations. Already marches for fallen APPO members Jose Jimenez Colmenares and Lorenzo San Pablo Cervantes have woven their ways through the streets of the city, pausing at the spots they were murdered in 2006, holding ceremonies at the Cathedral.  Twenty-four more such processions await Oaxaca in the coming months. That number will only grow as efforts are pursued to identify the, at minimum, eight bodies in hidden graves discovered recently in Oaxaca's main cemetery.

In what is a lifetime for social movements and a blink of an eye in history's ledger, a little more than two years have passed since the people of Oaxaca erupted in spontaneous but ingrained rebellion against the barbaric rule of Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz (URO) and all that he embodies.  Mere days after URO's storm troopers raided the city center on June 14, 2006, in an attempt to remove the encampment of striking teachers (after regrouping, the zocalo was retaken by the teachers and their supporters), the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO) was formed.  At its core, the APPO was a consensus-driven, horizontal grouping rooted in the millennia-old indigenous practice of assemblies.  David Venegas, APPO participant and member of the anarchist group VOCAL, recently wrote in the Oaxacan daily Noticias that "the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca is, naturally, opposed to power, since horizontalism, respect for consensus and respectful dialog are the fundamental principles of the assembly."[1] For more than five months, APPO controlled the city of Oaxaca and much of the state. Not until Vicente Fox, in one of his parting shots as president, sent in paramilitary federal police on November 25 did URO regain "control." Rather it would be more accurate to say the APPO lost physical control.  Much has been written and recounted about those "days of freedom", as one friend called them, that it is unnecessary to relate them here. For a comprehensive recounting, I recommend Nancy Davies' The People Decide: Oaxaca's Popular Assembly, available from NarcoNews.com.

Two years later what is left now in Oaxaca? Has the APPO been reduced to a memorial mechanism to commemorate its fallen?  Is it accurate, as URO keeps insisting with epileptic vigor, that, "nothing is happening" here?  Or are we seeing a movement in chrysalis, reconsolidating only to reemerge just as vibrant, but even smarter, than before?

To be sure, there are conflicting messages and what will emerge is far from predetermined.  A bleak picture can easily be painted. For starters, the APPO for all intents and purposes no longer exists, in terms of an assembly which meets, makes collective decisions, and takes action. However, many organizations that were part of the APPO still use that name when publicizing their actions and sending out communiques, which ironically - or tragically - frequently denounce other organizations that were APPO members and who also use the APPO label.  Obviously this creates confusion at best and dejection and disillusionment at worst.

There are no clean divisions here, but the conflict can be uneasily broken down into two general camps. Those who have chosen to use the political and social clout of the APPO to engage with the current political system and try to get what they can from it and those who reject any relationship with the system that in 2006 was killing and disappearing their comrades.  This has created, as Kiado Cruz, editor of OaxacaLibre.org, wrote, "a general paralysis"[2] within the social movement and in its current formulation there is no hope for forward progress. This loggerhead has led to diminishing displays of social mobilization under the banner of the APPO, and in further blows to the now agency-less entity, these disputes between the two camps often take place publicly.

Dispatch from Oaxaca #2: So much better than the official version

Here's my second reportback from our trip, sent out August 7, 2008.

Dear friends and family,

A lot has happened since the first/last long note. First, Kristina's parents and sister arrived on July 6 and stayed through July 15.  It was a good opportunity to take a break and see some of the tourist attractions and share with others what we'd so far encountered in Oaxaca. We traveled to the Zapotec ruins at Monte Alban and Mitla, as well as to the markets of Ocotlan, San Antonino and Santo Tomas Jalieza. In Teotitlan del Valle, famous for their rug weaving, we dropped in on the town's annual "Venerable Blood of Christ" patron saint festival. No blood, but a lot of dancing and flowers.

On July 16, I went out to observe a protest march. Observe being the operative word, as it is against the Mexican constitution for foreigners to be involved in political activity. It was an intense and uplifting event. The cause for it was the attack by police on a march on July 16, 2007. Then, the APPO ("What's the APPO?" - see my first dispatch), were protesting the government-run and corporate-sponsored Guelaguetza.  Guelaguetza is a Zapotec word meaning something along the lines of mutual aid/support. It's also a festival where on the last two Mondays of July, indigenous groups from Oaxaca's seven regions come to the city and perform traditional dances.  Many years ago the government took control of the Guelaguetza, turning it into the state's biggest tourist attraction and charging an exorbitant $40 per person to attend the "mutual aid" festival. Since 67% of working Oaxacans earn less than $8 a day (27% earn no money, relying on subsistence farming or trade), the people are pretty indignant about the theft of, and profiteering off of, their culture.

The day before the Guelaguetza in 2007, the people attempted to peacefully march to the site of the festival, only to be brutality attacked by the police.  Dozens were tortured (they have special "torture vans"), severely beaten and arrested.

The march this year started right next to a military barracks and ambled its way all around town before ending up in the town center four hours later. The people of Oaxaca know how to protest. There were indigenous dancers, stilt walkers, fireworks, people throwing candy, people giving out mescal, bands, and swarms of kids (sometimes older folks, and sometimes families, too) going out and graffiti-ing everything in sight. Some of the crazier places they hit were the military admissions center and the entrance to the barracks, while it was guarded by federal police with automatic weapons.  The rest of the marchers were down with it, only urging them to hurry up and not to succumb to any provocations (from pissed off bank managers, for example).  There was no overt police presence, though there were obviously undercovers.