Author: mopress

The Walk to Free Suzi Hazahza

By Greg Moses

OpEdNews

“I hear you walk,” said the motel manager in Anson, Texas, handing a key to Jay Johnson-Castro, the kind of key that has a diamond-shaped room number attached. “So what are you walking for?”

“I gave him a little rundown,” says Johnson-Castro, speaking Wednesday night on the phone from the only occupied room in the motel:

“I’m an everyday guy who got angry at my country for wanting to build a wall at the border. So I walked in protest and seemed to attract some media attention. Then I learned about the prison camps that my country was building for immigrants. Then I learned about Hutto [the T. Don Hutto prison for immigrant families and children]. Then I learned about Haskell [the Rolling Plains prison at Haskell, Texas where immigrants are jailed with prisoners imported from Wyoming].

“I asked him, are you familiar with Haskell? And he shook his head yes. People around here seem to know. But I didn’t push the issue.” It was Johnson-Castro’s fifth conversation of the day.

The first conversation, with Abilene Reporter-News correspondent Blanca Cantu, took place shortly after 9am, when Johnson-Castro began his walk to Haskell from the old Abilene train station.

“Johnson-Castro, of Del Rio, said he was outraged to learn from news reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents took the members of a Jordanian family from their Richardson home and placed them in jail in Haskell where they have been detained for more than 100 days without an explanation from the government,” wrote Cantu for the Thursday edition.

“In protest of what has happened to the Hazahza family – who allege harassment by other inmates, lack of medical care and inhumane conditions – Johnson-Castro is walking from Abilene to the jail in Haskell.”

Cantu’s report included a summary of last week’s writ of habeas corpus filed in a Dallas federal court by New York attorneys Joshua Bardavid and Ted Cox, arguing that the Hazahza family should be released immediately. There is ”some sort of disconnect in the bureaucracy of immigration” Bardavid told Cantu. The family is seeking asylum from threatening conditions in Palestine, but they were being treated as “absconders.” The government has tried to deport the Hazahzas back to Jordan or Palestine, but can’t secure the travel documents.

For 20-year-old Suzi Hazahza, her 23-year-old sister Mirvat, their father Radi, and younger brother Ahmad, the bad connections of history and power have blown them into a prison hell that could last another 80 days or more.

As Johnson-Castro concluded his interview with Cantu outside the downtown post office, a reporter from KTAB news waited nearby with a camera. The reporters both seemed fair and polite, he says.

Traveling with Johnson-Castro is friend John Neck who drives along behind the walker to keep him safe from traffic. Neck had stepped out of his truck to take pictures of the walker talking to Abilene reporters. Next thing Neck knows is a Federal Marshall stepping out of the post office, asking why is he taking pictures of a federal building? We call it conversation number three.

Later down the road, the Haskell County Sheriff pulls over to chat. Right now Johnson-Castro is walking in Jones County, but the Sheriff is running an errand to Abilene and stops to talk to the walker.

The Sheriff warns Johnson-Castro that the Haskell City Council, the Haskell County Commissioners, and the Rolling Plains prison officials employed by the Emerald Companies of Louisiana have all instructed the Sheriff to keep Johnson-Castro away from the prison.

“But isn’t that a public county road?” asked Johnson-Castro. There will be another day or two to try to work something out before the walker arrives in Haskell Saturday afternoon for a prison vigil to free Suzi Hazahza. Meanwhile, Johnson-Castro asked the Sheriff if he has jurisdiction over any crimes committed in Haskell County.

“The Sheriff said yes, he did have jurisdiction over any crime in the county,” says Johnson-Castro. “So I asked him if he had jurisdiction over any crimes committed in jail? And he said he did. So I told him about some of the things that were going on. He didn’t seem too comfortable with that.”

Johnson-Castro explained to the Sheriff that his walk would be calling attention to conditions at the Haskell prison and raising “questions that need to be answered.” Who’s in there? From what countries? How are they being treated? What are their genders? Their ages? Are there translators to handle communication? Do they have counselors to talk to? How are abuses handled? Are prisoners filing any complaints of abuse? How are the complaints handled?

“We want to know all that, I told him. And we’re going to get it. He was very polite, very reserved, very professional, and I think he even offered some solidarity.”

Besides the five countable conversations of the day, we’re not reporting the one that goes on all the time between the walker Johnson-Castro and his friend John Neck.

“It’s an interesting part of Texas,” says Johnson-Castro of the 17 miles that he walked Wednesday along Highway 277. “And I admire this part of Texas a lot. The people here live more the way people used to live when they lived off the land. It’s a working community, and you see farm equipment everywhere along with oil equipment.”

“We passed one mobile home with an SUV parked outside, a bar-b-que grill, a big pile of dirt, and a big tree. Outside was a big cross and a big Texas star. This is the country we live in,” says Johnson-Castro. “And they still believe in prohibition. It will be interesting to see how their conscience responds to the abuse of people like Suzi.”

Reflecting on the silent headshake from the motel manager that acknowledged Haskell prison, Johnson-Castro takes it as a sign:

“The people around here know, but they’re not talking. There are lots of people who have worked at Haskell prison camp over the years. And they haven’t told anyone either. They’re just not telling. I’m going to make an appeal for people to let their conscience go to work and tell what they know. Let’s put an end to this travesty on Texas soil. We’ll see how they respond.”

Although it didn’t make the newspaper, Johnson-Castro is fond of quoting the Statue of Liberty. He calls this walk the “Huddled masses yearning to breathe free walk” in honor of immigrants like Suzi Hazahza who on this warm and windy day are locked up inside the Haskell prison. He quotes the famous stanza right up to the ending: “I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

“Do you know what the golden door is?” he asks over the phone. “The golden door is the promise of opportunity in America, the promise to enjoy the freedoms. There’s a group of people that believe that their ancestors weren’t really immigrant immigrants. There’s a group that wants to stop immigrants. Immigration is offensive to them, and they are willing to treat people badly because of it.”

On Wednesday the Abilene Reporter-News announces a Klan rally at the nearby college town of Stephenville. Jay Johnson-Castro and John Neck are only two people, and the story of conscience they deliver to the pages of the Abilene newspaper Thursday arrives just in time.

In Part Three of his closing argument in behalf of Edgewood Intervenors in the 2004 Texas school funding trial, attorney David Hinojosa of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) argues that when it comes to the needs of economically disadvantaged students, Texas continues to discount students who deserve premium attention.

The general purpose and theory of comp ed in our nation and state is to compensate for low investments in low income children, low community investment, family advantages, low health investment, access to a history of success.

The evidence shows that parents of economically disadvantaged students often have low educational levels, poor housing, and they must overcome these obstacles created by poverty, including the lack of resources in their local public schools. And when the intensity of poverty increases, as the evidence shows, within a school or a school district, research has shown that the negative effects upon the economically disadvantaged are magnified.

Within the Edgewood intervenor districts, the intensity of poverty ranged from 70 percent economically disadvantaged to 96 percent economically disadvantaged. And while the West Orange-Cove plaintiff superintendent testified about the new struggle in dealing with an increasing number of economically disadvantaged children, our districts have been struggling at higher levels for a much longer period of time.

But as each witness testified, save for one, Dr. Armor, these children can succeed with appropriate resources. Even with the limited resources under TAAS our clients managed to pull up from below one year to reach recognized and exemplary status. Of course, it took about seven to eight years to get to that level because the resources were still insufficient at the time.

Now, as a whole, under TAAS the economically disadvantaged, the African-American and the Hispanic in the state were all the success that the State wanted to talk about those groups reaching. They never reached the 80 percent, all tests taken, standard under TAAS as a group, even after nine years of testing. They remained about 14 percentage points behind whites, which is further evidence that the comp ed weight is underestimated.

And as the testimony has shown, TAKS as a whole is a new ball game with low cut scores on each subject matter except in the initial year, and economically disadvantaged students still pass the TAKS test at least 10 percentage points behind the first test takers of the TAAS. And as Dr. Cloudt, for the State, agreed, the gap is back, even though it never went away. Looking at the comp ed test scores on TAKS, which we showed earlier, I’ll briefly go through this.

Well, before we look at the TAKS scores I want to show you where some of these economically disadvantaged children are coming from. And those photos are from Pharr-San Juan-Alamo that were offered. And in that region here’s a student community. They’re also known as colonias. Here’s another student home. This is the environment that our children leave and go to school. This is the environment providing them the in-house training that they need, or not providing that training.

And going to the fifth grade TAKS scores for the economically disadvantaged in 2003, you can still see the gap between fifth grade economically disadvantaged and all students, which actually also includes the economically disadvantaged, so it actually brings it down a little. The eighth graders trail as well. The eleventh graders trail as well.

Looking at the 2004, it’s no different. Only one-half of the fifth graders, one-half of the eighth graders and just over one-half of the eleventh graders of the economically disadvantaged total are passing the TAKS all-test standard.

And the eleventh graders need to pass it in order to graduate. 42 percent of the economically disadvantaged will either have to take it again and again and again, or else not get that high school diploma. And even with State aid, each superintendent for West Orange-Cove, the Alvarado, and the Edgewood intervenors all identified numerous critical-area needs which are special and immediate concerns, given the rising Texas standards imposed by our state and nation.

Harder tests have led to higher failure rates and the need for more intensive services for our at-risk and economically disadvantaged students. And the great need for additional necessary resources was identified through a sample of districts by Dr. Reyes.

Comparing the TAKS test scores for 2002-2003 — or comparing the on-time completion and potential for higher education graduation rates, the seven districts was a comparison of seven wealthy districts who averaged zero to 20 percent of economically disadvantaged, excluding Austin, and comparing it to a group of Edgewood intervenor districts which had economically disadvantaged students, 79 to 96 percent, economically disadvantaged. And the percentage difference shown is the percentage that it would take the economically disadvantaged in order to get up to the average of the non-economically disadvantaged districts.

The next slide shows potential for higher ed, SAT/ACT at or above criterion. The wealthiest districts had 54.4 percent of their kids pass. The poor districts had only 4 percent.

The next slide shows the achievement differences between the two sample districts, showing marked differences between the average of all students in one set of districts versus another set of districts.

The next slide shows that, even when you combine sample one and sample two — let’s lump them together. We’re not going to take them apart. When you look at the percentage difference of SED versus non-SED in the districts, you see the marked difference.

In the third grade see that it’s only 8.6 and 8.8 percent, and it grows all the way up to 72.8 percent by the tenth grade. And this next one shows when you look at within the district, the property poor districts, when you look at them and then you look at the percentage differences of at-risk versus non-at-risk students, you see that once again there is an incredible gap between the performance of the at-risk students.

The State would probably write them off and say “Well, they’re not supposed to pass. They’re at risk. That’s why they are at risk. The ones at-risk are moving out.” Well, the whole purpose of compensatory education is to eliminate the achievement differences, not to reduce it, not to put it aside.

Building a New

Global Audience

By Greg Moses
Texas Civil Rights

Review
http://texascivilrightsreview.org/phpnuke
Published at

Counterpunch

Take nothing away from the talent at Sunday night’s Oscars, white

folks can act. And Sean Penn shows no small courage when he travels to Baghdad to re-center our

experience of war. So please read carefully.
Because you’d think from watching it all on

Sunday night that a century of Hollywood has produced a remarkable global alliance of white audiences,

from Billy Crystal’s Long Island, to Peter Jackson’s New Zealand, not to mention Charlize Theron’s

South Africa, Nicole Kidman’s Australia, or Sir Ian Mckellan’s England.

In fact the

geography of this audience sounds remarkably like Bush’s coalition of the willing, doesn’t it?

Don’t get me wrong. The players who were honored Sunday night are my entertainment

heroes and all of them have been reliable witnesses against the late imperial wars. But didn’t

anybody else notice how white it all looked?

Once upon a time, as we saw Sunday evening,

the late, great Gregory Peck starred in the terrific movie, “To Kill a Mockingbird.” And not long

after that, as we also saw, the late and legendary Katherine Hepburn played a courageous part in

“Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”

But forty and fifty years later, after these

noteworthy achievements in the art of civil rights, guess who’s not coming to the Oscars? Does Oscar

have a last name? Oscar White?

There is no reason at this point to fawn over important

exceptions. I would rather point out that on Oscar night, some “losers” must be braver than others.

When I saw the first movie in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy a few years ago, I

watched it back-to-back with “Ali.” And since that long afternoon turned into evening, all the

excellencies of the trilogy have been speaking to me also of the fact that Tolkien’s mythology is

mightily white. After all he was born in South Africa, and he taught at Oxford.

But I

don’t begrudge Tolkien for writing a white mythology, especially when the theme begs its characters to

give up their obsession with total power. Tolkien itches the problem of white mythology from

within.

Nevertheless, I do worry about the images of conflict that are perpetuated in

this colossal epic, where ethereal whiteness meets an enemy made of dark mud.

And I

worry about collective structures of taste that are reinforced when these white-centered narratives

have no visible, say visual, counter-challenges in the nearby image mix. What happens when there is

nothing but other white-centered narratives to jostle up against on a night that celebrates excellence

to audiences around the world?

On this reading, the movie “Monster” could be viewed as

a cautionary exploration of white womanhood, artistically daring for a blonde, South African star.

Penn and his co-star Tim Robbins have been courageous in their outspoken warnings

against the ring of power in the real world, and I was not unmindful that Clint Eastwood made a choice

to put the two together this year, and then sat squarely behind them, as they took top honors from the

academy. Please don’t tell me that I overlooked all this.

But we do have a problem

here, and we need to talk about it without succumbing to cheap accusations.

For example,

today, when conservatives appeal to “merit and excellence” as “race neutral”; we cannot forget that

there was nothing race-neutral about “merit or excellence” on Sunday night. Nor is there any simple

way to evade the welded relationship between “merit” and “whiteness” that helps support our

mainstream sensibilities of what counts for truth and beauty.

It is a complex problem,

fitted exactly to the kind of cultural leadership exemplified by Penn and Robbins. Against this

problem, they are more active than most.

The difficulty of solving the problem demands

a reform of Oscar beyond the notable uplifting of our most disgruntled, white genius.

A

process of affirmative action, if you will, should be considered by the academy. Not because “lesser

excellences” of Black, Latino, Asian, or American Indian talents need “assistance”. No, that is not

the argument. The genius is there already, quite solid, and quite strong.

Reform is

needed, because presumptions of white-centered excellence need systematic counter-considerations and

persistent challenges. On Oscar night, when image is everything, let there be no more Oscar White!

In the first week of a nonviolent campaign that organizers say will last until all the children are freed from prison, five demonstrators Tuesday will stage a quiet protest outside the District Office of Dallas Congressman Pete Sessions.

. . .