Category: Uncategorized

  • Reader Appreciates Database Reports

    Greg,

    I just wanted to drop you a note to tell you how much I appreciate the work you’re doing to cover the Texas Voter Database Project. This is flying well beneath the radar of our major media and you’re doing a great service to Texans to take a closer look at such an important project. Also, the questions you’re raising as you parse through the material are serious
    ones and I hope they get extracted and debated in a larger forum. Having found you through OffTheKuff, perhaps that will be the Texas blogosphere.

    Thank you! And keep up the good work.

    ———-

    Reply from Editor: You’re welcome. And thank you for taking time to send such a kind note. Indeed, the Texas Civil Rights Review is quite grateful to Kuff and many other Texas bloggers who keep us linked to a critical community of hope and activism.–gm

  • Ramsey's Dream Part Two

    Note: Sunday evening in the second-to-last episode of Pioneer House
    on PBS a tiny colonial enclave was visited by native peoples who
    presented themselves as living witness to history made whole. For the
    second time in the show’s season, modern-day colonists discarded an
    opportunity to radically re-evaluate their re-enactment. The first
    opportunity was the early morning departure of an African American
    freeman who became deeply disturbed at the experience of colonial
    economy. He could feel the natural birth of slavenomics coming, so he
    left. In both cases, neither the departure of an African American nor
    the arrival of Native Americans posed anything more than a brief
    distraction from the main game. Soon enough colonists get back to work
    for the company. Every night the colonists return to their beds. We
    know they sleep, but do they ever dream?—gm

    * * *

    The following letter from Ramsey Muniz was received via email from Irma L. Muniz on May 19.

    Please distribute the enclosed message regarding our ancient past and spirituality.

    "As I embrace our ancient sacred indigenous spirituality, I’m
    transformed by a passion I have only heard in our past; confined in
    these prisons now I feel it in my own Mexika soul. I have been given
    access to a great and universal profound secret. Now I know the
    suffering, sadness, sorrow, and sacrifices of my ancestors, and now it
    has become my own."–Tezcatlipoca (Ramsey Muñiz)

    It gives me great honor and pride to share with nuestra gente the
    second part of what I wrote late into the night, after awakening from
    an ancient Mexika dream. These are the exact words I wrote: "It is
    evident from our ancient Mexika writings, symbols, and manuscripts that
    eventually the primary principle of our cultural realization was the
    power of spirituality of the hearts of the masses of our people –
    spirituality in the sense of its liberation, teachings of justice, and
    the universal philosophy of a free humanity."

    Our most profound and challenging ancient history is like no other
    history on this earth. The vision, the intelligence and cosmic power
    within the creation of our existence, is like no other in the past
    present, and/or future. Even before the invasion of our Mexika Empire,
    our wise council of elders was preparing for this disaster.

    Our ancient history reveals and teaches us our creation, our
    foundation, philosophy of life, cultural structures, constantly
    demonstrating the power of our spirituality. It is this hidden
    spirituality that has provided the power and pride of resistance
    against oppression and atrocities. It doesn’t matter what policies
    and/or criminal penalties America brings upon the lives of our sisters
    and brothers who came to join us here in Aztlan. It is done! We are
    only following the direction and teachings of our ancient Mexika past
    into our present world of today. We are not just anybody. We are a
    universal cosmic people who lay claim to our spiritual culture from our
    past to rehabilitate ourselves, and to begin justifying the
    presentation of our national cultural existence.

    Perhaps we have not sufficiently demonstrated that present American
    colonialism is simply not content to impose its rule upon the present
    and futures of a dominated country. American 21st century colonialism
    is not satisfied merely with holding a people in its grip, and emptying
    the Mexicano/Mexicana brain of all form and content. By a kind of
    perverted logic, it turns to the past of the oppressed people and
    distorts, disfigures, and destroys it. This work of devaluating our
    pre-colonial history takes on a dialectic significance today. When we
    consider the efforts of the colonial epoch to carry out our spiritual
    cultural estrangement, we realize that nothing was left to chance, and
    that the total result looked for by colonial domination was indeed to
    convince Mexicanos that colonialism came to lighten their darkness.

    The effect consciously sought by America was to drive into
    Mexicanos’ minds the idea that if the settlers were to leave, they
    would at once fall back into barbarism, degradation, and bestiality. On
    the unconscious plane, colonialism, therefore, was considered by the
    Mexicanos as a mother who restrained her fundamentally perverse
    offspring from its evil instincts. She protected her child from itself
    – its ego – its physiology – its biology, and its own unhappiness,
    which became its very essence.

    We must teach and share with the youth of today the importance of
    our ancient Mexika history. How sad to be poor, sad to be chained and
    shackled by the injustices of the oppressor. But nothing is sadder than
    to witness the fact that our raza does not even know who we truly are.
    Our history teaches that we would pass through these periods of
    cultural/spiritual uncertainties. It also reveals that certain destined
    Mexicanos/Mexicanas would rise within the era of our Sixth Sun. It is
    written and destined that our raza will return to its creation and
    construct the means of once more becoming a free race, a free land, a
    free nation, a free spiritual/cultural Aztlan of today.

    Our sisters and brothers from Mexico who had the heart and courage
    to cross the borders into the United States will also one day return to
    Mexico and share the truth of the fact that we are one. That the
    Mexicanos living in the United States have the same roots as the Holy
    Land of Mexico. We are finally learning and accepting the truth of our
    ancient spirituality. We must have the courage, pride, and honor to
    free ourselves and provide the assistance to free our people as well.
    We must be a proud and respectful race once again. We must begin in our
    preschools, teaching our history, cultura, and spirituality. We must
    reunite once again! Our children, our youth, and the masses of our
    people must feel proud once again.

    We will soon be the majority of the population throughout the entire
    southwest of the United States. If we have been able to accomplish
    this, then the time has come for us to rise again, to reach out, and
    share with the masses of nuestra raza how we will fulfill the great
    destiny of our race.

    We of our Sixth Sun will continue to strongly advocate the
    implementation and existence of our own political party in Aztlan. It
    will happen! Our Holy Land of Mexico is also experiencing political and
    cultural changes among the masses. The time has come and many of us
    continue to suffer, but destiny will eventually remove the sacrifice,
    suffering, and imprisonment. No one can change what history brings to
    our lives and creation. We are a people who constantly live in the life
    of history.

    "We are Indian, blood and soul; the language and civilization are Spanish."–Jose Vasconcelos

    In exile,
    Tezcatlipoca
    freeramsey.com

  • New Civil Rights Division Switches to Non-Civil Rights Numbers

    First Row of First Table Fails to Specify Protected Classes

    EEO Report: Working Notes Two

    Reading the first Civil Rights audit prepared by the Division of Civil Rights at the Texas Workforce Commission is a hair-pulling screamer. The numbers are that bad. The problem arises from a choice on the part of the new civil rights team to use non-civil rights numbers as a basis for civil rights analysis.

    “The Equal Employment Opportunity and Minority Hiring Practices Report” is dated February 2005 and bears a March 8 cover letter to the Governor. The Workforce Commission website says the report was posted online March 15.

    And according to explanations given to the Governor, this is the first time the report has been prepared by the Civil Rights division at the Workforce Commission. In previous years, the work had been done by the Texas Commission on Human Rights. But that commission was decommissioned in 2003, although the URL bearing the new reports contains the old TCHR address.

    The problem with the latest civil rights report from Texas is that in Row One of the First Table of figures, the Civil Rights Division fails to quantify classes of race and ethnicity that are most pertinent to Texas Civil Rights.

    On the challenge of differentiating men from women, the report does its job. Of 10.07 million workers in Texas, 4.495 million are women and 5.575 million are men. As the top row of the first chart says, that’s a workforce that is 44.64 percent female, and 55.36 percent male.

    The male female comparisons in the first row of the first chart offer helpful beginnings for anyone interested in civil rights for women. The statewide allocation of administrative positions held by women very closely tracks the percentage of women in the total workforce, which serves as a first case indicator that women are probably getting their fair share of opportunities in that category of employment.

    In addition to women there are four other “protected classes” under civil rights law, and we would expect similar statistical treatment for each. They are Hispanics, African Americans, Native Americans, and Asian/Pacific Islanders. Just as row one of table one has given us workable numbers for women, we have a right to expect workable numbers for each of these groups.

    And finally, just as the numbers for the protected class of women must be compared to men, so must the numbers for protected races and ethnicities be compared to Caucasian or Anglo populations, too.

    But the first row of numbers for the first table of the 2005 Texas civil rights report, is a most deceptive and unhelpful guide. Although the first row purports to offer numbers for Caucasian Americans, African Americans, and Hispanic Americans, in fact the numbers are based on a source that can only give correct numbers for workers of Hispanic origin. And whether these workers are Hispanic Americans, as the Texas chart says, would be difficult to say for sure.

    Note: second take on the civil rights report. This one circles in on the real problem, the switch to BLS statistics rather than EEOC. But it’s a little long-winded.

  • Sean Gonsalves Replies: 'Thank you'

    Greg,

    Sean Gonsalves here. Someone sent me a link in which you critiqued my column. Thank you. Very well argued and articulated. And, I have to say, you’ve given me much to think about. I appreciate this kind of thoughtful, candid, criticism, which is so rare these days.

    You know, as I was reading your piece, I found myself nodding my head more than once. Again, thank you for the food for thought and for reminding for the need to think about these things even deeper.

    Be well. And write on!

    sg

    Posted with permission of author.

    PS: In a follow up email, Mr. Gonsalves writes: “I suspect, we agree on far more things than we disagree.” To which I reply here — as a long-time reader of your work, Mr. Gonsalves, I heartily agree. Take care.