"Accompanied" or NOT, Child immigrants are Refugees!

Dear friends,

When a lost and confused Christopher Columbus was "discovered" by the indigenous people of a Caribbean island, then invited ashore, along with his fellow thugs, and treated well, who would've thought that over five centuries later the descendants of America's indigenous people would presently be both murdered, tortured, and imprisoned for traveling around the land upon which their predecessors have been doing so for thousands of years?

Moreover, now fleeing violence, why are children regardless of whether or not they are "accompanied" being treated as if they are unwanted criminals as opposed to being dealt with in the same way as the refugees who came here from Ireland, Poland, and Italy and whose descendants for the last four or five generations lie about being blood relatives of the original Pilgrim group?

G. Djata Bumpus Read full post

A must-hear video by Senator Bernie Sanders on "Immigration Reform"

"While he covers the usual issues of illegal immigration at the southern border of the U>S, he also makes note of the attempt by both Democrats and Republicans to sneak in legislation that will allow multi-national corporations to bring Eastern European and Asian workers to do entry-level white collar work that millions of our currently unemployed college graduates can do..."

Dear friends,

On the link below is an important 20 minutes-long presentation by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, regarding the upcoming "Immigration Reform" legislative issue where the Independent politican delivers a concise analysis.

While he covers the usual issues of illegal immigration at the southern border of the U>S, he also makes note of the attempt by both Democrats and Republicans to sneak in legislation that will allow multi-national corporations to bring Eastern European and Asian workers to do entry-level white collar work that millions of our currently unemployed college graduates can do. Are the Democrats, Republicans, and their multi-national corporate sponsors/bosses trying to lower wages? This is "God's country", after all. Please have a listen.

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/media/view/?id=abff86a1-5056-a032-524a-56c06d0c8574 Read full post

Elmer Smith on Republicans fighting "illegal immigration" with the US Constitution

."The 14th Amendment has been challenged by people who wanted to create second-class citizenship for freed slaves and for Chinese immigrants. It's old business." - Andrew Hoover, of the American Civil Liberties Union

Dear friends,

Considering the fact that Republicans, especially, will use the issue of immigration to flare up the racist feelings of so many of the citizens in this country, I felt it, perhaps, instructive for us to peruse a piece that was written a year and a half ago, by the now-retired, legendary journalist Elmer Smith, formerly of the Philadelphia Daily News. Enjoy!

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/columnists/elmer_smith/20110107_Elmer_Smith_.html?viewAll=y Read full post

Immigration law "reform", "racial" self-hatred, and White Supremacy

"Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. " - Dr. King, Letter from a Birmingham Jail

Dear friends,

In light of the all of the brouhaha, rearding the issue of immigration law reform, for those of us who “lack the complexion to get the connection”, as the legendary Muhammad Ali used to say, we have a major problem with fighting against systemic racist oppression and exploitation, due to the fact that we are often our own worst enemies, because of our self-hatred. That is: from non-European American store clerks who treat us differently than they do European American customers to drive-by shootings, both our feelings and acts of self-hatred make it difficult for either African American or other non-European American men or women to form genuinely loving relationships with each other, of any kind, much less make us be able to encourage our youth to get along with each other.

In other words, we see a mirrored image of our own self-hatred, when we look at those who look like us. Hence, in the White Supremacist culture of the United States, the whole idea of “immigration” has deteriorated into an attack against non-European Americans, while disregarding the historical shenanigans that have been and still are played by Europeans who come to this country and get citizenship, up to this very day, with far less scrutiny or concern.

Nevertheless, we non-European Americans must learn to love ourselves and our fellows. Most of all, we must begin to love life itself, as opposed to conceding to our inadequacies and insecurities, allowing ourselves to be disrespectful towards , as well as distrustful of, each other,.

Now, when I use the term "love", I’m talking about it as an "act of being" as opposed to a "state of being". That means that, at least to me, love is only effective as a verb - not a noun. In other words, in this society, love as a "state of being", is a passive experience that we hear about through so many cheap songs on the radio and see on Hollyweird tv and movie productions. However, as an "act of being", love means that people are "actively" showing love towards one another – and things.

Consequently, love should be an active, not passive, practice of caring about, being concerned for, concentrating on, trying to understand, and feeling responsible towards not just our mates, but our work, and our communities. Besides, when love is passive, it doesn't last long, because it is just a "mood". To be sure, moods change, all of the time. Hence, the serial polygamy practiced by so many of those involved with the institution of marriage and other "love" relationships in our society, as people “fall” in and out of love. Still, the cultural institutions in our society lend to the self-hatred mentioned above that is practiced amongst us. Literature and images in schools, the arts, and, especially, the government- and corporate-controlled mainstream media deliberately perpetuate this indignity too.

Moreover, the idea that the violence among African American and other non-European American youth is largely the result of a lack of jobs and too much gun possession seems to be missing the point, which is: it is a lack of both social and historical conscience in the aforementioned youth that is at the bottom of our dilemma.

To be sure, that lack of conscience is no accident. The great Marcus Garvey pointed out: "This propaganda of dis-associating Western Negroes from Africa is not a new one. For many years white propagandists have been printing tons of literature to impress scattered Ethiopia, especially that portion within their civilization, with the idea that Africa is a despised place, inhabited by savages, and cannibals, where no civilized human being should go, especially black civilized human beings." - Marcus Garvey (Philosophy & Opinions of Marcus Garvey, edited by Amy Jacques-Garvey)

Additionally, mean-spirited terms like “minorities” that are based upon equally mean-spirited and phony claims that people make about being “white”, in spite of their true ancestral past, thus forming an artificial “majority” group, makes this problem proliferate. That is, of course, the basis of White Supremacy.

Nevertheless, in the end, when discussing the idea of superiority versus inferiority, Dr. King wrote, "

"Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. " - Letter from a Birmingham Jail

So-called “immigration law reform” , with talk now of even changing the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution is a blatant and racist attack against all non-European Americans, especially African Americans – not simply Mexicans and others.

“Dare to struggle – dare to win!” – Frederick Douglass

G. Djata Bumpus
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Arizona's Politicians outdo themselves as White Supremacists

“State schools chief Tom Horne, who has pushed the bill for years, said he believes the Tucson school district's Mexican-American studies program teaches Latino students that they are oppressed by white people.”

Dear friends,

Yesterday (5/12/10), the Associated Press headline read, “Arizona governor signs bill banning ethnic studies.”
If the recently-signed Immigration Bill by Governor Jan Brewer had you concerned about the resurrection of Jim Crow laws, have no fear. Brewer has just signed another bill into law that makes it illegal for any Arizona school district to offer courses that, as State schools chief Tom Horne, who has pushed the bill for years, said he believes: teaches Latino students that they are oppressed by white people… Public schools should not be encouraging students to resent a particular race.

Ouch!

I wonder what Horne thinks about the “ethnic chauvinism” (as he calls it) of official stories told in our school books, regarding Columbus’ voyage, much less landing on American soil, or the lie about the folks on the Mayflower coming here in the early-17th Century for religious freedom, or the roles of the Irish, Polish, Italian, German, or so many other people of European descent in relation to the aforementioned “Pilgrim” enterprise?

In any case, Horne continues: It's just like the old South, and it's long past time that we prohibited it.

Double “Ouch!!”

Imagine that. Horne’s concerned about Mexican American children so much that he “resents” them having a sense of self, identity-wise. There’s no law against his disapproval, of course. However, his is the same kind of drivel that “white” missionaries, historians, and “educators” have been using for generations, since the 19th Century, to “help” both Early American Natives and African Americans assimilate into the “mainstream” US citizenry. That is, in his own way, Horne and others like him are asking, “Why can’t we all be the same?”

Yet, sameness does not mean equality. In fact, why do we have to be the same in order to be considered equals? As a matter of fact, the idea of “sameness as being equal” is the intellectual basis upon which injustice and inequality flourish.

After all, for example, a person does not have to add numbers as quickly as you, run as fast as you, jump as high as you, lift as much weight as you, fist-fight as good as you, or have as much money as you, to be equal to you.

You are, in fact, equal, because you are both human individuals who have the exact same basic physical needs and you each understand that which you want to at a speed that is specific to you as individuals. That means also there is even an equality of intelligence among all people, in that context.

In other words, if you compare any individual with yourself, you will find: 1) You each require food and drink, in periodic intervals, or you will cease to exist in the form of a living being. 2) You each feel lonely and separate, as individual beings, even when you are sleeping beside someone. 3) No matter how few or many, you each have physical, mental, and emotional shortcomings. Every single person does. 4) You can each do well at one thing, but do poorly at some other activity. That is why you are equal to everyone, and everyone is equal to you.

Nevertheless, the descendants of immigrants like, for example, Polish Americans, Irish Americans, Italian Americans, Jews of various nationalities, and other European Americans have often started out by living in homogeneous communities; that is, segregated. However, they need not "integrate" in order to receive access to opportunity or responsibility with that opportunity. They merely have to claim that they are “white”. Neat trick.

Moreover, not only are African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Early American Natives, and others expected to “integrate”, we are also expected to reject our non-European pasts, in doing so.

To be sure, the descendants of European immigrants who were mentioned above have relinquished their true historical and cultural identities to be “Americans”. Still, and oddly enough, for all of their opposition to “gay” marriage and non- European immigration, it’s interesting that these same people do not appreciate the strong history of homosexual culture in both European and North American history, as well as the incessant “illegal” immigration of folks from all over Europe to our country - to this day.

Finally, the notion that, “The measure signed Tuesday prohibits classes that advocate ethnic solidarity, that are designed primarily for students of a particular race or that promote resentment toward a certain ethnic group.”, is clearly the language and legislation of colonial rulers.

G. Djata Bumpus


http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0512/arizona-governor-signs-bill-banning-ethnic-studies/
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About what is the new Immigration Law in Arizona?

"...the real laugh is: much of the area where the greatest amount of “illegal” immigration has been occurring was actually called Mexico, only five or six generations ago."

Dear friends,

With all of the brouhaha going on about the new immigration law in Arizona, there now needs to be a new call for not just cooperation, but a united front made up of African Americans, Africans, Caribbeans, Latinos, Asians, and Early-American Native peoples, along with any just European Americans who support the liberation of humanity.

There were attempts to do that, especially from the late-Sixties to late-Eighties. However, changes, beginning with the Reagan administration, made social awareness, much less activism, more difficult, because the powers-that-be, as it were, gave up a few crumbs, in the form of trinkets and baubles as well as a new “pop culture” to the “masses”, so that the former could maintain its legitimacy, in light of bank scandals, the Iran/Contra debacle, financing the Israeli (which it still does) and Iraqi regimes as well as South Africa when it was more obviously apartheid than it is today, and so many other national and international misdeeds in which our government was - and continues to be -strongly involved.

Nonetheless, I’m willing to bet that there are far more illegal Irish, Russian, Italian, and Polish immigrants in this country than there are, say, Jamaicans and other Caribbean immigrants here, for example. Additionally, there may even be more of them than there are of Mexicam immigrants, as far as we know. Why don’t we ever here about those European folks? Where is the uproar about them? Moreover, the real laugh is: much of the area where the greatest amount of “illegal” immigration has been occurring was actually called Mexico, only five or six generations ago. Also, that means that the West Coast is actually more like the West Bank.

Finally, on the link below, you will find a piece that I saved for the occasion - since last December (2009), from the New York Times. It paints a more genuine picture of the
“immigration” issue.

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/us/03immig.html?_r=1&hp
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