Fighting Racism Workshop

Category: Uncategorized

  • The New Colossus

    BY EMMA LAZARUS

    Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

    With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

    Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

    A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

    Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

    Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

    Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

    The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

    “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

    With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

    Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

    The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

    Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

    I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

    Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

    What the Poem Doesn’t Say

    What the poem should have said is if these people coming to our shores or to the borders of this nation ( a nation that was stolen from the natives that were killed and put on reservations, a nation that enriched itself from slavery and other imperialistic adventures), If these people are white they are welcome. If they aren’t white they are not welcome and will be criminalized and sent to For Profit Immigration Detention Centers where they will be turned into commodities to enrich a very few wealthy investors.

    Photo by Isabella Mendes on Pexels.com

    These western countries never tell the whole story of how they create refugees. Wether its war, economic, or climate refugees. Their stories do not seem to matter to the west.

    If you are interested in learning more I would suggest start by studying about economic refugees. Take the time to study about the International Monetary Fund (I.M.F.), World Bank, World Trade Organization, study the inner mechanisms of these organizations. Study Structural Adjustment Programs, S.A.P.’s and how they work to create even more poverty cutting programs and causing more desperation meanwhile only benefitting a very few. These western countries also deliberately never tell the story of how the wars they start all over the world cause more and more refugees.

    Photo by Markus Spiske on Pexels.com

    Those Fortunate Enough

    If anyone were fortunate enough to get through the militarized borders and got through the system. Then they would have to live as second class citizens. They would have to worry about if their education and training would be seen on par with those of the west. They would have to worry if their last name would prove to be an obstacle when looking for an apartment or employment.

    They will be forced to live a life where they will be constantly discriminated, insulted, gauked at, verbally and maybe physically abused, overworked, exploited, and their kids will be over-policed. Their children will have very small margin for error, terms like,”Boys Will be Boys” will not apply to them.

    They will have to worry about being internal colonies of that western state. They will have to worry about how their children will be indoctrinated to applaud the system, and to think like a white person from the west.

  • They Represent You

    Photo by August de Richelieu on Pexels.com

    The New Age of Fascism

    Disgusting racist politicians that would say anything to get elected even if it endangered BIPOC by emboldening racists are not an anomaly. They are the people that racist society produce. They are reflections of the society. They reflect the majority thinking in the society, products of their environment. Just look at the people that elected them. Just look at other politicians in the background, seeing that the road has been laid out for them and jumping at the opportunity to say what is on their mind.

    A country whose majority of people could care less about the hierarchy system, that systemic racism has in place. Where some are treated as second class citizens and looked down upon. Where the majority of its people could care less who is dying as long as the price of their gasoline is cheap. A country where the majority of its people never seem to question, why their governments are always bombing BIPOC, and instead say evil things like, “why don’t we just nuke them” knowing full well they wouldn’t feel the same if the country they are at war with had a population that was majority white. just study at the disparities in how South East Asia was bombed, compared to Nazi Germany.

    So don’t be shocked by these opportunistic, dishonest,nationalist, xenophobic, greedy, obnoxiously racist, entitled, priviledged, arrogant, selfish people. The are just reflections of your society.

  • This Evil Has to Stop!

    As a child when I learned about the Holocaust it truly broke my heart. I wondered how no one could help them, how could anyone be so cruel, especially to children?

    Living in the empire, I had never learned anything about Palestine. I did not know what Palestine was until I was in my early thirties. That is how good the propaganda was in the United States. The same country that indoctrinated me into believing they were a force for good in the world.

    The last four weeks of watching videos of Palestinian people being bombed and mutilated bodies including thousands of children killed, has broken my heart. My heart goes out to the people of Palestine. My heart goes out to everyone that has lost a family member or family members. I pray to God that help will come to them, and I pray that the perpretators are held accountable for their crimes.

    It breaks my heart thinking about the millions of Muslims killed by the west in the last 40 years. I think to myself what if those people also had phones and channeled the images to the world? Would things havebeen different? Would those wars have ended sooner? Would the citizens of these imperialistic western countries have awakened to the crimes committed in our name. I also am truly saddened by the images that it hurts to watch on social media, thinking, we can actually look away, but the people who live in Palestine, cannot simply just look away. It is truly heart breaking.

    • I feel saddened by thinking, I can’t watch these videos on social media, then I think about the people living in Palestine, and how they can’t just NOT LOOK, it is their real life situation.
    • I am so saddened by the actions of the United States and their crimes against the Muslim people over the last 40 years

    Educate Yourself

    We must really study the history of the region. We must study how the Ottoman Empire was broken up after W.W.I and we must study British Mandate Palestine.

    We must study Theodore Herzl and the Zionist Movement, Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, and the Balfour Declaration. We must study the history of Settler Colonial Violence and ethnic cleansing, and the Nakba.

    Please write or call the White house and ask them to:

    Please stop the Collective Punishment, and Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza.

    Please stop supporting the mass murder of civilians of Gaza and the settler violence in the West Bank.

    Please stop Israel from killing people inside the Al Shifa hospital.

    Please push for peace and stop the genocide in Gaza.

    Please Free the people of Palestine!

  • Political Prisoners

    Here is a list of some current Political Prisoners in the United States of America that we wish to see free. There are many more, and we plan to add contacts and links to this blog, so keep checking in on it, there are links attached to each of the names. These people are all elders and many are suffering from serious medical conditions. What peole world wide are asking is that they be immediately be given Compassionate Release, and be returned to their families.

    Xinachtli/Alvaro Luna Hernandez

    Byron Chubbuck/Oso Blanco

    Kenny Zulu Whitmore

    Rev. Joy Powell

    Jamil Al Amin

    Ed Poindexter

    Mumia Abu Jamal

    Leonard Peltier

    Veronza Bowers

    Kamau Sadiki

    Kevin Rashid Johnson

    Additional Links:

    The United States Has Many Political Prisoners. Here’s a List. – Toward Freedom

    The United States has many political prisoners. Here’s a list – Geopolitical Economy Report

    Political prisoners in the USA – Alliance for Global Justice (afgj.org)

  • These Wars Have to Stop

    The evil we are witnessing on social media is horrendous. The mainstream media is clearly biased, and insensitive to all this suffering. We as a human race have to unify to push for peace.

    Recent studies show that, one in every five, or one in every six children worldwide live in a conflict zone; that is totally unacceptable! There is too much trauma in this world! Too much pain! When will the healing start?

    The Weapons companies whose stock rise as humans are blown to pieces commodify suffering. They have no conscience, they have no shame. If the United Nations can’t stand up and say, Enough! Then what the heck is its purpose?

    We live in a world, where they have the audacity to tell us who we can show solidarity for, and who is and who isn’t a worthy victim. We live in a racist world that values some lives over others. A world where some histories are repeatedly told and others never mentioned. We live in a world where some countries with great Public Relations/Propaganda Departments, actually make their people believe they are a good force in the world; meanwhile hiding their imperialistic histories and murderous present actions.

  • White Supremacy, Immigration, and Worthy Victims

    Another child has died in custody of U.S. Immigration. Her name was Anadith Danay Reyes Alvarez. Why are children being kept in cages, and in what conditions do they live, and how will this affect them in the future? Is this not the richest country in the history of the world? How did the country come to be? How did the country amass such great wealth, and at whose expense? I talk to people who talk about how they approve of immigration, but only if people do it the “Legal Way.” What was legal about Mexican Repatriation, or Operation Wetback? What was legal about the Chinese Exclusion Acts in 1884, or the one in 1924? What’s legal about all the broken treaties, with the indigenous people of Turtle Island? What is legal about Predatory Loans, and Economic HItmen, and about the whole last 531 years of Euro Colonial Violence across the globe?

    Worthy v Unworthy Victims

    Why is it that these people’s hearts tug when they see images of Berlin Wall victims, and feel a sympathy for the Pilgrims, but when they see BIPOC people, their hearts are filled with indifference? Why are some histories told over and over, and others not mentioned? Are BIPOC tears worth less to those that write the history books? Why can’t the lives lost in the Mediterranean, or in the U.S. Mexico border never reach the attention of say a Berlin Wall Victim? Why are some war victims instantly martyred and others simply forgotten?

  • How Things Have Changed

    Recently I visited my home, after 5.5 years away, and what I saw and learned truly pained me. I loved seeing the palm trees after such a long time away, but then I started seeing the tents. In downtown L.A. there were more tents than before. I saw tents everywhere. I saw people living in tents on islands at traffic intersections. I had never seen such poverty in the so-called richest country in the history of the world. I saw mothers with signs, and mothers and fathers with their children holding up signs at shopping centers. It was all very troubling and very sad to see, as were the empty stores that had gone out of business. It all brought to mind the Merle Haggard song, “Are the Good Times Really Over for Good?“

    Photo by MART PRODUCTION on Pexels.com

    Another thing that really gripped me was how divided the country had grown. There were several U.S.A’s, instead of one. I thought of the opportunists and those corporations and robber barons they serve, and how they have sold the country out. Malcolm X once talked about “The chickens coming home to roost” and it all made sense, the relationship between capitalism and racism, the need for exploitation, the commodifying of suffering. Many historians believe Fascism is a revolution from the top down. It is not the workers on the bottom feeling screwed, no, it is about those on top, throwing a fit, and not wanting to share. That is why racism was created to divide the working classes, study Nathanial Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676. See how whites and blacks working together threatened the establishment, and they couldn’t have that; It’s like a guard in prison knowing that all the inmates are mad and they have their eyes on him. He doesn’t care about their religions or the amount of pigmentation on their skins, all he knows is that together they outnumber him and they are all angry and frustrated, so if he could just turn them on each other, it would make his life easier.

    Photo by lalesh aldarwish on Pexels.com

    I truly wish people can see that they are in the same predicament, and we are facing serious HUMAN ISSUES and we are wasting time and energy fighting each other, instead of tackling the real problems, e.g. Species Die Off, Climate Change, Lessening Nutritional Value of our Fruits and Vegetables, Eugenics, Endless Wars, and Cui Bono, Poverty, Wealth Inequality, Mental Health, Pandemics. United We Stand, Divided We Fall!

  • Civilized?

    Photo by Paweu0142 L. on Pexels.com

    Growing up as a child in the United States and being flooded by war propaganda my whole life. I remember I used to think that “I wish I get to see World War Three, in my lifetime.” I really wished I could partake in the war and do my part to defend my country. And I blame all that on the indoctrination and brainwashing that is growing up in the empire. From the G.I. dolls and cartoons to every Hollywood film, that would show the white male returning from World War 2 a hero. I thought to myself, “That is what men do.”

    I now find myself in a situation, where I may one day have that ill-thought desire come true, and I really wish it never comes true. I have studied the crimes of many countries, especially my own, and I now realize that war is evil, and that like the great essay written by General Smedley Darlington Butler, states”War is a Racket.”

    “I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

    ― Smedley D. Butler, War is a Racket

    I really wish we lived in a world where human beings interacted with others peacefully. I wish we lived in a world where no person had to flee their country due to war or famine. I wanted to write this post today because I was deeply upset yesterday while watching news clips. Besides the war coverage what also disturbed me was having to listen to clips of reporters dehumanizing BIPOC people.

    These reporters had somehow given the recent Ukrainian refugees a face and identity that they have lacked to give refugees from many other countries. They even went out of their way to vilify BIPOC refugees, not emphasizing why those BIPOC refugees were seeking asylum in the first place. What civilized/western countries or western backed countries were bombing their homes?

    These reporters were downplaying and dehumanizing BIPOC refugees, and exclusively siding and pleading the case for Ukrainians fleeing their countries today, stating “These are not your typical refugees.” Why would they compare the merit of any desperate people? The reporter continued with“because they were Christian, and they were white.” Another reporter mentioned the victims’ “blue eyes and blond hair”  while another spoke of them as “European and civilized.”

    I found this all truly disgusting. What this all told me is that the corporate-owned media and the board of directors of those companies are just as racist as always. And since I have come to understand that fascism is a revolution from the top-down, I am reassured that these multi-national corporations still cling to their eugenic agenda as tightly as ever. If you have the time just go back and study what robber barons funded the eugenic ideas taught in schools that have helped turn the world into a pigmentocracy. Study the worldwide Eugenic Conventions and the infamous pseudo scientific ideas of eugenicists like Francis Galton, Charles Davenport, Madison Grant, Harry Laughlin, Eugon Fischer, Alfred Ploetz, Ernst Rudin, I recommend starting with the book “War Against the Weak” by Edwin Black, and “Imbeciles” by Adam Cohen.

    Why Now?

    I also had to stop and ask myself the questions, why am I seeing all this support for this one country, and I did not see the same when western countries were attacking and killing millions of Muslims the last thirty years? Why did I not see Iraqi flags and the colors of the Iraqi flag everywhere I went? Why didn’t major sporting organizations boycott teams from aggressor countries back then? I thought about it long and hard and I think I understand what their ultimate goals are.

    Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com


    “Why, of course, the people don’t want war, why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come backto his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.” – Herman Goering

  • Our Future is Very Much Intertwined

    Photo by Artem Podrez on Pexels.co

    While the world is fighting the ravages of a global pandemic, and as the disparity between the rich and poor continues to grow. There are some who continue to fund and push for more war. Do these men in suits send their sons and daughters to fight these wars against other vulnerable people? The answer is no, they never do.

    Average people all over the world are bombarded with images of war and refugees and famine and suffering. And then there are stories of the billionaires (as if rubbing it in our faces), and the stories of the increases in military spending, and how so much more will be spent on weapons, there seems to always be money for weapons.

    In regards to this perpetual state of war the world seems locked in, I ask myself, why do we allow these greedy world leaders to jeopardize our, and our families’ futures, for their greed? What banks fund these militaries and how do they benefit? What corporations, military contractors, weapons manufacturers push for this? Who benefits from all this?

    And Then There is Racism

    And as if there were not enough social ills to go around, some people with higher amounts of pigmentation in their skin (like myself) still have to deal with something called racism, and all the physical and psychological linked to racism. I read about racism all over the world, I read about Caste Systems, I read about what seems like a worldwide system of Pigmentocracy, and it truly breaks my heart. I feel human beings have so many issues that we need to tackle as a human race but we are wasting the opportunity to create something better by just fighting each other. I also think about the criminals/businessmen/oligarchs responsible for so many of the world’s ills, and I think about how they must rejoice at how human beings fight each other over nonsense and miss out on building a united struggle against the real problems that affect society and those responsible.

    Human Issues

    If I told you 15,000 to 20,000 children that die daily from malnutrition does that not bother you? If I told you that the Earth’s species are dying off in record numbers would that merit your concern? How about other wrongs e.g. carcinogens in your food, water, and air. What I am stating is that these are not white or black or brown issues, these are human issues and we need to put a stop to these injustices and take action as a united human race. We all love our children, and their futures are at stake. Future generations’ futures are also at stake, and we are living in a crucial time for humanity and we are squandering the opportunity.

    See to these plutocrats and oligarchs in power all they see is returns on shares and quarterly profits. That is what interests them. You and I are expandable in their eyes. Once they run out of people to make war on in this region or they find it geopolitically more logical to strike war in another region, they will do just that without a blink of an eye.

    Once they have locked up all the brown and black bodies, they will move on to the next group to be commercially exploited. All one would have to do is study the increase in prison populations in the last 50 years. Their system of capital was never meant to serve us and in reality, is failing us, and so they have come up with a way to lock up what they have considered the Surplus Population, and have even commodified the whole operation by contracting out prison labor.

    Every year they continue to find the budget or find private groups that fund the building of new prisons, but ask yourself, why they can’t find the funds or the steady groups of investors that wish to spend on education? Please take some time and read up on the For-Profit Prison System and how that works, and study the history of Convict Leasing.

    These Are Not the Same Chickens

    The abuses are everywhere, it is even happening with livestock, learn about CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations), for one, all that locking up so many animals in close proximity to each other besides even the cruelty to the poor animals, also endangers us all as a human race to future epidemics, and what about the number of antibiotics used on the sick animals, how will that affect us and for what, to maximize some shareholders’ profits? I once read in Bill McKibben’s book “Deep Economy”, how today we would have to eat four chickens to get the same amount of nutrients we would eat from a chicken in the 1970s.

    Behavioral Surplus

    I only hope we wake up in time and see the pattern, that there is a constant increase in abuse, and if they realized that nothing is off-limits and that everything is being commodified, even our very own privacy, or have they still not heard the term, “Surveillance Capitalism?” We are all in this together. Our lives and our futures are intertwined. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice anywhere.”

    “They got money for wars, but can’t feed the poor.” – Tupac Shakur

    

  • POLITICAL PRISONERS

    Photo by, Miguel Torres

    Over the years I learned about many political prisoners both in the U.S. and some held in other countries around the world. I learned about Oscar Lopez Rivera and was very confused. I didn’t know the U.S. had political prisoners. As I learned more about Mr. Lopez Rivera I also learned about the historical relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico. I learned about the forced sterilization of one-third of Puerto Rican women of childbearing age. I learned about massacres and I learned of other political prisoners e.g. Lolita Lebron, and Rafael Cancel Miranda. I also learned about experiments conducted on Puerto Ricans and I learned about the bombing of Viejes and of the horrible treatment of Puerto Rican leader, Pedro Albizo Campos.

    Move

    I learned all about John Africa’s Move Organization and all the sad stories, I learned about the Move 9. I learned about the bombing of the home on Osage Avenue on the 10th of May, 1985, and how the city and police murdered eleven members of the Move family including children. I also learned how Ramona Africa was arrested after surviving the bombing. I also learned about the popular Philadelphia journalist who later join the group Mumia Abu Jamal, who is still in prison for a crime, no one believes he truly committed.

    Peoples Movements

    I learned about various people’s movements including the American Indian Movement, and the Black Panther Party, and about the measures that the U.S. government took to destroy these people’s movements, e.g. the counterintelligence program, COINTELPRO. I honestly learned a lot and the more I read the more I wanted to learn about how this world really works, and how some people are not allowed to choose alternative lifestyles or ideologies, or even free to choose a different path for their people. Nor are BIPOC people free to defend their people, or speak out against police or government violence committed against their people. In other words, I learned just how free, we BIPOC people living in the so-called Land of the Free really aren’t.

    Free Them All

    I want all these human beings that have been separated from their families for political motives, to be immediately released and reunited with their families. We need a better, fairer world. No child should have to go to bed hungry, nor have to flee their home due to war, or be afraid because of violence. All this has to stop. We need to unite against the class war that has us all fighting one another while a select few benefit from this evil. End wars! Free all political prisoners!

    “A better world is possible.” – Oscar Lopez Rivera

    1. Free Mumia Abu Jamal
    2. Free Sundiata Acoli
    3. Free Ruchell Magee
    4. Free Xinachtli/Alvaro Luna Hernandez
    5. Free Rev. Joy Powell
    6. Free Byron Chubbuck (Oso Blanco)
    7. Free Veronza Bowers
    8. Free Ed Poindexter
    9. Free Mutulu Shakur
    10. Free Leonard Peltier
    11. Free Kevin Rashid Johnson
    12. Free Jamil Al-Amin
    13. Free Kenny Zulu Whitmore
    14. Free Kamau Sadiki
    15. Free Julian Assange
    16. Free Marius Mason
    17. Free Dr. Aafia Siddiqui
    18. Free Aron Atabek
    19. Free Nûdem Durak
    20. Free Julian Assange
    21. Free All the Political Prisoners incarcerated worldwide
    22. Free All the children imprisoned worldwide
    23. End For Profit Prisons and For Profit Immigration detention