Author: mopress

By Greg Moses

"Texas Civil Rights Review attacks Alex Jones, Defends Plan of San Diego," reads the headline
at InfoWars.Com. The story there is a fairly accurate review of a brief
Sept. 19 commentary posted by yours truly. I do think Alex Jones picked
a poor target for his energies and resources when he chose to protest a
Diez y Seis de Septiembre rally on Saturday. So it is fair to say that
I attacked Mr. Jones, although my attack is limited and carefully
qualified.

But nowhere in the article of Sept. 16 do I defend
the plan of San Diego. In fact, I say in the story, "I am a pacifist.
No killing please." To the extent that the plan of San Diego calls for
killing of any sort, it is not something that I support. This portion
of the article is misrepresented in the headline, and ignored in the
otherwise comprehensive quotations. It may be the only part NOT quoted
by InfoWars.

What I encourage Mr. Jones to consider is another
way of reading references to the Plan of San Diego as a fragment of
historical memory. In the Sept. 19 article I suggest that the language
of Malcolm X provides a suitable analogy for thinking about the meaning
of voices who advocate a right to violence, especially when, just like
Malcolm, the people who preserve that right in speech happen to serve
as poor examples of violence in action. If we notice that expressed references to the Plan of San Diego
accompany peaceful and inclusive public actions, then we might ask: is
this to be taken literally? Or might there be some message intended to
provoke deeper thinking about justice and deeper commitments to the
everyday challenge of justice in our streets.

This is not a new argument from the Texas Civil Rights Review. I have made the case before in two articles: "Are Civil Rights Groups Racist?" and in an editorial entitled, "Measuring Racism.
In those articles I show how Alex Jones proceeds from a libertarian
logic that does many things well (as the work of Alex Jones is valuable
in many ways) but which fails precisely on such occasions as last
Saturday, when Mr. Jones made the Diez y Seis march a venue for his
protest against Chicano nationalism and its language of La Raza.

When
I hear Malcolm talk about the "white devil", when I hear him threaten
the "bullet" if the ballot won’t work, or when I hear the thinly veiled
reference to the right to violence in the call to justice "by any means
necessary", I do not chime with the judgment that this is, as Mike
Wallace once put it, "the hate that hate produced." Yet this is about
as far as libertarian logic can take us, where all parties stand on equal
ground and where demands for civility are evenly spread.

To go
beyond libertarian logic one must first deal with the hard question:
does white supremacy still prevail? I think you will find by and large
that libertarians have no way to answer the question, because they
embrace a logic that cannot do the proper analysis. All the libertarian
sees are individuals, some white, some black, some brown, etc. From
this basis, the libertarian has a difficult time conceiving how racial
power is to be discerned or how collective relations of power enter the
analytical field.

At any rate, let’s not multiply our
disputes. Here at the TCRR I am clear about which logic is being used
and why. I respect many uses of libertarian logic, but I also reject
its limitations. The decisive question I answer this way: white
supremacy persists in theory and practice. And this is the conceptual
premise upon which I build my working theory of the value of Civil
Rights. Had there never been any white supremacy, there never would
have been a Civil Rights movement, etc.

So I welcome
wholeheartedly the attention that TCRR is receiving from InfoWars. And
I suspect that the InfoWars audience will have some members who agree
that white supremacy is still a problem. Others will not. To those who
agree that white supremacy is still a problem, I ask this question: do
people have a right to self defense?

As a pacifist, I do not
draw quick or easy conclusions from the right to self defense, but I do
think the right exists and the Plan of San Diego was drawn and
conceived during such a time when that right was perceived to have
special urgency as a right. And this is the lesson that the Plan of San
Diego can teach us if we are interested in peace. Because the better
response to those who would recall the Plan of San Diego during these
times of crisis is not to condemn outright their right to recall, but
to ask, what are we going to do about white supremacy today?

For
anyone interested in the people and programs of power that are
disrupting our democratic dreams all over the globe, the work of
InfoWars is a helpful resource. What is too sad is the inability of
Alex and InfoWars to see that what motivates MEChA and Chicano
Nationalism is the living experience of centuries of power that has
always operated in just the way InfoWars says it does. Which I suspect
is why InfoWars hangs onto the Second Amendment with unpried fingers.
And what is this commitment to the Second Amendment about if not the
right to violence?

As Alex Jones and InfoWars protect their
right to bear arms, so do some voices of a beleaguered community
protect the community’s right to self defense. As Alex Jones and
InfoWars demonstrate, where one goes with these rights to violence,
besides defending them, is a complex and auspicious responsibility that
nobody takes lightly, least of all the Texas Civil Rights Review, which
at once respects rights and encourages vigorous militant, nonviolent
activism, and peaceful assemblies such as the "beauty of it all" seen
Saturday in the streets of Austin during the Diez y Seis de Septiembre
celebration.

We are T.U.L.A.-TEXAS UNITED LATINO ARTISTS.

In the year of our Lord-2005-September 17-Saturday We set out to celebrate our 6th Annual Mexican Independence Day Parade and Festival at the Texas State Capitol- fulfilling the promise of our Slogans-T.U.L.A.

Utilizing the Universal Language of Art For The Promotion Of Peace and A Better Understanding Between Us All. Seeking the Path to Equality we discovered that the means through the eyes of a Child.

On a bus ride down Congress Ave. I witnessed children of different nationalities discuss a drawing one of them had composed. We realized that the Arts community has been traditionally and historically less prone to racial, sexual, ethnic divisions than those imposed on us by society. Our second slogan-T.U.L.A – In The Spirit OF Diversity- Un Nuevo Amanecer. A New Dawn with more compassion for each other. By the mere fact that we celebrate this historic day at The Texas State Capitol demonstrates that we have all evolved. Art has been responsible for this evolution. While it is in fact a historical date we also celebrate the strength of the Human spirit, which involves all of us. T.U.L.A. is an inclusive organization.

People of all walks of life are Welcomed to participate. Within this premises we claim the Right to Self Determination. For we live in a Democratic Society. Simply Put -We Must Paint Our Own Rainbow. No one will come to save or lobby for us, but us.

In the historical context we are faced with a dilemma. A vibe which is deeply engrained in the equation of thought here in this Country. ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL. This is fine and dandy but it excludes first of all Women and people of Color. This is Racism, and horrible sins have been committed against us because of it.

As a result we are invisible in the civil human rights game. Human Rights activist can sin against us and still retain their Activist aura, as was the case when Alex Jones lead the minutemen charge against the parade.

Still, Once again we see this ancient demon raise its ugly head in the form of the minutemen. Twenty-seven years ago we saw the same character in their racist campaign. The slogans were the same. The same hatred that we saw as the minutemen that attacked our parade. The difference was that they were called the KKK.

The behavior of the minutemen was pathetic, offensive, a throw back to 1930. Shouts of wetback, go back to Mexico were the mildest insults directed at us. With out a conscience they offended us, not considering we had children in the Parade.

Equally inconsiderate were the Anglo "radicals" with their "in your face "Confrontation of the minute men which further aggravated the situation. We don’t need anyone to protect us. The irony is that they all missed the beauty of it all.

I wish to commend our Brothers and Sisters in their Beautiful Motorcycles, customized cars and their floats for showing restrain. In strength, the minutemen were no match for us. We are a Brave Proud People, Proud as an Eagle and we refuse to live in Fear.

So what do we want is a constant question. Folks, we want everything that a society that we have helped build has to offer. In this city we are 40% of the population and the major work force. We work hard to make the Dream possible. For everyone. We love our country, our children, our parents, our neighbors. And we forgive those who have exploited and oppressed us.

There are more pressing needs in this country than the hatred the minutemen demonstrate. We invite all good People to come and share a day of peace and the beauty of our Art, our Culture and our Friendship. We are good Friends. And to those who are infuriated by our quest for Equality, Think about it every time you put gas in your car or the phone rings and you have a loved one in Iraq.

We are in this together.

Un Abrazo
Joe M. Perez-Chair-T.U.L.A.

Note: the following account is posted by permission of the author who
would like to remind readers that the story was quickly written after
some disappointment with other media reports. It should be considered a
draft.–gm

By Roberto R. Calderon

I attended the Marcha Contra el Racismo / Contra los Minutemen / En
Pro del Dream Act / Y Sixth Annual Austin, Texas 16 de Septiembre
Desfile/Parade, all rolled up into one. Perhaps these were too many
agendas to attach to one single event, perhaps not, but one could make
the argument surely that all of these various agendas are related in
that they have to do with migration, immigration, and in the case at
hand particularly that of Mexicanos and Latinos.

But before I make a few brief comments, let’s describe the
following four newspaper articles, three of which directly discussed
the event in Austin, and the fourth talks about the Minutemen in Tejas,
especially in El Valle and Brownsville, where our gente including the
authorities don’t want them there, present, and they’ve been put on
notice. The four articles are as follows:

1. Notimex, "Se enfrentan racistas e hispanos," El Universal, Mexico, D.F., Lunes 19 de septiembre de 2005, p. 34.

2. Patricia Estrada, "Marchan contra los ‘Minutemen,’" Al Dia, Dallas, Tejas, Lunes, Septiembre 19 de 2005.

3. Dick Stanley, "Annual Mexican Independence Parade Protested," Austin American-Statesman, Sunday, September 18, 2005.

4. Mark Lisheron, "Minutemen’s Arrival Prompts Concerns, Former Group
Leader Warns of Violence," Austin American-Statesman, Austin, Tejas,
Sunday, September 18, 2005.

For starters the Austin American-Statesman’s reporter’s
disinterested article has the numbers all wrong about how many
attendeded the marcha and how many right-wing protesters met us at the
gates to the Capitol grounds.

I should say that I attended the event and documented it by taking
some 260 photographs of the event from beginning to end. I was there,
and I didn’t leave until the last of us left the event. Several of us
who were present discussed the numbers or how many we thought were in
attendance. Between the Austin groups participating in the September
16th Annual Parade, and there were at least two floats, the Fiestas
Patrias Queen riding a car, several low riders, motorcycles, bicycles,
no charros on real horses though, and what not, the Austin crew in
short. Then there were two buses that came, one each from the greater
Dallas and San Antonio areas, and many individuals and families in
cars, trucks, and what not. Then there was another entire contingent of
people who didn’t actually march the two or three miles from the
assembly point at the Texas Department of Transportation’s huge parking
lot at the corner of Riverside Drive and Congress Avenue, to the
beautifully manicured grounds of the Capitol.

It was a beautiful, hot day for a marcha and rally, and we all
sweated generously. The temperature was close to 100 degress Farenheit.
We marched directly north toward the Capitol on Congress Avenue and the
event went off as scheduled and on time. The marcha started at 4 pm,
and the rally began around 5:30 pm and lasted until about 7 pm, when
everyone by then was leaving or had already left. Altogether we
estimated that there were about 1,000 persons in attendance at the peak
of the event which coincided with the first hour of the rally at the
Capitol grounds, on the Southside entrance.

The groups of people along the route of the marcha were mostly
friendly and supportive with many looking long and with interest at the
many contingents and individual participants. There were those who of
course yelled their displeasure, especially some in cars who had been
stopped by Austin City PD on motorbikes to let the marchers walk on
through. Some of these who had to wait at the lights weren’t too
pleased.

The marcha stretched along Congress Avenue for many a quarter of a
mile long at its greatest extension, with lots of room between
contingents. The atmosphere among those who participated in the marcha
and rally was definitely upbeat, celebratory, and full of energy. There
were many families with children at the event, there were many
university and college students at the event. And for many of the
college students, mostly Chicanos/Latinas, this was their first such
marcha and rally.

There were students and others though of course from all kinds of
groups, some blacks, even a few more whites, with the vast majority
present being comprised of raza. University contingents from the
University of Texas at Austin, University of Houston, University of
Texas at Dallas, University of North Texas at Denton, University of
Texas at San Antonio, and other universities and junior colleges also
attended. The students brought out their mantas, their t-shirts, their
youth and ideals.

Also present were several important contingents of Chicano and
Latino organized labor groups including some from the Austin and
Central Texas area, from San Antonio, from Houston, from Dallas, and
from Lubbock pa’ acabarla de fregar–!Si Se Puede! The same could be
said of Chicano/Latino professional associations, like the social
workers’ association that participated with their banner, and the
Centro por los Derechos Humanos out of Dallas, a Salvadoran
organization primarily.

There were specific leaders and politicians that particiapted.
Congressman Lloyd Dogget, D-Austin, spoke first and was followed by
whole host of other excellent speakers, some speaking with great
clarity, and some with great passion.

There were speakers from Arizona and the immigrant rights’
struggles there. Representatives from the League of United Latin
American Citizens (LULAC) particiapted including natioinal president
Hector Flores, who’s from Dallas, he walked the entire length along
with the rest and spoke with great effect at the rally.

There was Jaime Martinez of San Antonio and currently the president
for Texas statewide LACLAA and the annual Cesar Chavez Marcha in that
city as well. There was also Rosa Rosales, the Hatted Lady, as they
call her in San Antonio, a longtime civil rights activist in San Anto
and a longtime member and leader in women’s issues within LULAC.

There was State Representative Roberto R. Alonzo (D-Dallas) who
spoke as well to his credit. There was the only current Mexican
American/Latino on the Austin City Council, Raul Alvarez, who also
spoke forcefully in both Spanish and English. There was Ana
Yanez-Correa, one of the young organizers of the event who spoke with
much clarity and passion both, she is currently involved in efforts to
reform the Texas criminal justice system and has been past Texas LULAC
statewide education director.

There was Julieta Olivarez, her last name may escape me, a student
leader at UT Austin and immigrant who is fighting to have the Dream Act
pass so that she may exercise her profession, she is a registered nurse
and plans to continue her studies and obtaining a master’s in light of
being unable to work in the US. She spoke from a prepared script in
both English and Spanish with much emotion and compassion. Her
statement was moving and powerful. There were any number of men and
women from the different organizations that had attended who also
spoke. There was some music at the prior to and at the end of the
speeches.

At the entrance to the Capitiol grounds off of Congress Avenue
there were aligned some thirty to fifty mostly Anglo males tending
toward middle age rather than on the younger side of things. They held
signs and banners and yelled things like "Keep on marching all the way
south of the border…to Mexico," and "Go back to Mexico," and old
standard as we all know.

Needless to say paranoia runs deep among this crowd, and the media
gave them as much attention as the next person. Ap
parently a local
right-wing talk radio station, 106.6 FM, that had its banner at the
site of the counterdemonstration widely displayed, worked the airwaves
to generate the counterprotest.

Alongside this bunch of screaming white males were ordinary people
who weren’t necessarily white (Latinos and blacks) waiting for buses
and what not, and they applauded and cheered the marchers on, much to
the chagrin of the anti-immigrant bunch with whom they shared the
sidewalk space at the moment. This group of pro-Minutemen whites was by
no means anywhere near to numbering 100, as reported in the short
articles that follow. Clearly, each observer/reporter has his or her
own truth of the matter.

Raza and others in the marcha and rally used many of the standard
civil rights calls including "Si Se Puede!" "La Raza Unida, Jamas Sera
Vencida," "Hey, hey, ho, ho, the Minutemen Have Got to Go," "What Do We
Want? Justice! When Do We Want It? Now!" "Fuera con los Minutemen!"
"Raza Si, Migra No!" A young Chicana university student held a
hand-lettered poster that read: "Who Would Jesus Deport?"

And of course, there were many more slogans, chants, and posters
presented to create the statement that the marchers sought to make not
least among them that one born in the struggles of the Califoria
immigrant rights movement in the 1980s and 1990s if not earlier, "No
Human Being Is Illegal/Ningun Ser Humano Es Ilegal."

While there were definitely many people of all different ages and
current generations, which was definitely another positive contribution
made by the marcha on Saturday (September 17), the majority of the
participants were on the young side, from children to youth currently
enrolled in and/or recently graduated from our state’s colleges and
universities.

The presence of organized labor from all points of the Tejas map
was heartening and another positive contribution made by the marcha
this past Saturday. One can say that many different segments of our
communities were in attendance, from longtime Tejano/Chicano residents
to more newly arrived gente. Similarly there were present more
acculturated and settled longtime immigrant families, leaders and
activists in their own right within their own communities. Mostly the
participants were came from the more urbanized areas of the state.

There were some Chicana/o faculty present that should be mentioned.
From UT Austin there were present Angela Valenzuela and Emilio Zamora,
and their daughters Clara and Luz. Also from UT Austin was
Radio-Television-Film professor Cary Anderson, recently arrived to
Austiin from Kentucky. He assited in documenting, filming, the marcha
and rally.

From UT San Antonio came Rodolfo "Rudy" Rosales with his wife Rosa
Rosales and their son Gabriel. From the University of Houston came
Lorenzo Cano, of the Center for Mexican American Studies there and the
new movimiento newspaper about the state, La Nueva Raza. And there were
other faculty from different campuses that I may not have recognized
but who were working in documenting the event as well. "Civil rights
for all," read the back of one t-shirt raza wore.

The t-shirt of the day, however, was being sold for $10 bucks by a
Chicana university student, never did catch her name or school
affiliation, but she sold out her entire stock. It was a plain white
t-shirt with the word "Minutemen" on front crossed out by a red circle
with a line drawn through it. And on the back was a dictionary like
definition of the word "Min-ute-men. def. Cowards; un-Americans;
domestic terrorists;…" and I can’t recall what other two or more
definitions were provided. Those in attendance liked the item and
bought it up accordingly.

There was lots of creativity, lots of networking, lots of plans for
continuing the struggle for civil rights, which is one and the same as
immigrant rights. This was one of the leading messages. Justice, means
all of us, not Just-Us, as activists have long said at such events
across the Southwest and across the country since at least the 1960s.
There were vague statements heard about there being another marcha
planned in the state and another sometime in 2007 or 2008 in
Washington, D.C. It was all in a day’s work down in Austin this past
weekend. Si Se Puede!

Alex Jones is usually up to something interesting and usually (as he
says) he has a good nose for standing on the side of civil liberties
(and sometimes civil rights). But on Saturday he spent his day
protesting the Diez y Seis de Septiembre march and rally in
Austin. Alex Jones is never without his reasons, but this time
(as with his sometime characterization of civil rights orgs as racist)
his instinct for confronting unjust power has wavered somewhat.

Now Mr. Jones finds himself policing the observance of the Mexican
equivalent of the Fourth of July, telling folks just how revolutionary
they should or should not be. Just to be clear, I’d like to pose a
question to Mr. Jones. If anyone had been arrested for their speech
Saturday, would you be defending their right to speak or the state’s
right to bust them? Mr. Jones takes special exception to t-shirts that commemorated the
Plan of San Diego, a 90-year-old scheme to rid the land of
Gringos–just as Father Hidalgo, in his legendary Grito de Dolores of
Sept. 16, 1810, once called for the arrest or removal of all Spaniards
from Mexico. Mr. Jones is horrified that the Plan of San Diego actually
motivated some killing 90 years ago. And that’s fine. I’m a pacifist
myself. No killing please. But what’s really interesting is how from
all the history available to him, Mr. Jones would be most scandalized
by the Plan of San Diego. As if, in the killing fields of Tejas, the
Plan of San Diego were the bloodiest exercise of power ever seen to
erupt from the barrel of a gun.

We recommend Mr. Jones revisit the Autobiography of Malcolm X
in
order to help him keep his balance when faced with outrageous claims
that white folks should some day suffer the very forms of power that
white folks have wielded these past forty three presidents and
counting. Which reminds me, the sooner Mr. Jones returns to his
valuable work on the trail of Bush 43rd and cronies, the better.–gm