:120225: This photograph of a wall just outside my cell was taken by Desto of Ser Verdadero. Both the photograph and the mural's message deserve to be shared as often as possible.

Muralist Salvador Jimenez created the work with a group of young artists, ages 16-21, as part of the National Museum of Mexican Art's exhibit: A Declaration of Immigration in Chicago, IL. The exhibit featured over 70 artists, all immigrants to the U.S., and was curated by Cesáreo Moreno.

Though the exhibit and the mural both serve to depict some of the experiences and political struggles of communities of immigrants within the U.S., there is an essential larger message here:

No human being is illegal.

I don't know if you heard me. Let me say that again:

NO HUMAN BEING IS ILLEGAL

No human being is illegal. Please apply that to everything. Always. Any scrap of dignity you feel entitled to for yourself should be given to every human being on the planet. No exceptions. I can think of zero circumstances in which dignity should be denied to another citizen of the planet. Or any other planet, for that matter. No human being is illegal. No human being is illegal. No human being is illegal. Keep saying it until you believe it. Now say it to everyone else.

:061109: My captors have sent this to me before. I have tried to ignore its stupidity. Finally I got it again with some appended comments from my friend Mike, and it inspired me to add my own. To all you ignorant fools out there who think you've been done wrong, think harder before you open your mouth.

The appalling text of the original message is contained within the block quotes, and my comments are the others.

Actually it's not. Didn't your mother ever tell you not to call people names? Just because nobody corrects you when you're being mean on purpose doesn't make it OK. Also, revenge isn't OK either, so if somebody calls you nasty names, retaliation will NOT make you the bigger person. Not even a little bit.

Because you are. Not only is it not nice to call people names, but there are some words you just don't use. And not just hurtful words relating to race. I feel this way about disparaging comments about all groups of people, be it religion, socioeconomic status, disability, sexual orientation or any other aspect of diversity. Categorical hatred is not OK with me. Washing your mouth out with soap is just not enough. If you ever use these words around me, even if you think you're joking, I will not spend any more time around you willingly. Partly because you disgust me. Partly because there are hundreds of other people I could spend my time with that treat other people with respect. And partly because if I look at you too long after a comment like that, I might just have to kick you in the teeth.

Really, does this need a response? Well, somebody wrote it, so apparently it does. Violence is not good - no argument there, but saying that white violence is OK because there's more violence other places is bullshit. I won't even go into why ghettos exist in the first place.

What is this "you have" crap? I'm pretty sure I have Martin Luther King Day, too. Just because I personally am not black doesn't mean I can't celebrate the day, or recognize a great man, or acknowledge much needed progress in the world. Same for Black History Month. It's mine, too. There are many black historical figures who have had an impact on MY life, even though I'm not black, and if you think they haven't impacted your life at all, then you need to study more black history! I won't list all the special holidays that commemorate the accomplishments of a white guy... I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader. As for BET, do you actually care that one of the HUNDREDS of channels that exist is a special interest channel? Oh wait, there are only about 5 that are NOT special interest channels. I'm pretty sure that if you had your own cable channel that focused on white entertainment, nobody would really care.

Are you kidding me? I would say all of the tax payers pay for that. I'm pretty sure you have to pay taxes if you are Hispanic or Black. I'm also pretty sure Americans don't really like taxation without representation... so if something is being paid for by tax money, it's because somebody that YOU and your community voted for decided it was a good idea. If you don't like it, go vote for somebody else. Oh, you didn't vote at all? Then shut up.

They are actually "Historically" Black Colleges. Historically so because white people back in the day didn't want to go to school with black people. Remember segregation? If the idea of historically black colleges offends you, then you must also be offended by the idea that black people were allowed to get a college education so long ago. Nowadays you don't HAVE to be black to go to those schools, just like you don't HAVE to be white to go to "historically" white colleges. And there are plenty of college funds that give money only to white students, but they are specific categories of white students. Really. Do some research.

Excuse me... do white people have a hard time with their white rights? Do they have a hard time being heard as a group? Have you as a white person EVER felt like you weren't being heard because of your race, or your rights weren't being upheld because you were white? I didn't think so. If either of those things were true for a million white people in this country, It would not be unreasonable to have a march. Since it's not true, shut up.

I defer to my friend Mike's comments: " 'white' is not an ethnic group. White people come from some of many European countries. So the next time you want to shout out your 'white pride,' know where you are from. there's nothing wrong with Irish Pride..."

Again, none of this is OK. If you do something wrong, take responsibility for it, both directions. If a white police officer beats up a black drug-dealer running from the law and posing a threat to society, but for a white drug dealer doing the same thing, he simply handcuffs him and puts him into the car, then that's racist. There is an orderly way criminals should be processed through the justice system, and it applies to everyone. It shouldn't matter what your crime is. Being arrested isn't supposed to hurt.

Whites aren't the only ones who can be racist, but fools like whoever wrote this e-mail originally sure make whites sound like racist assholes. As for being improper, as in "not in accord with propriety, modesty, good manners, or good taste; not marked by suitability, rightness, or appropriateness," I'm pretty sure that the e-mail is indeed improper, to put it mildly.

This last line certainly makes it easy to see which of my friends I continue to have respect for.




The rest of Mike's response is as follows:

MY RESPONSE:
It's not the fact that only whites are racist. All the things mentioned in the email are groups and societies based to embrace diversity, specifically in the United States. The reason it's racist to have a"White Entertainment Television" station or White scholarships is because "white" is not an ethnic group. White people come from some of many European countries. There are many European-based opportunities available. White Entertainment Television is ALL of TV; the "Big 4 networks" (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX) are prodominantly white oriented.

White people founded this country, and were pretty racist about it. Stealing land from Native Americans and enslaving them, only to find out they die from your european disease. let's sail to Africa and take these people, it'll be ok, as long as we have slaves that aren't white.

As a Black man reading this, this email is disgusting and awfully racist. If someone sends you this, please don't buy into this. This is White America trying to instill racism into you.

So the next time you want to shout out your "white pride", know where you are from. there's nothing wrong with Irish Pride...

By the way, I'm not mad at white people, this email is just pitiful.

-M.J. Moore, Portland, OR

:060315: Under sec. 412 of the act, my captors can detain, for seven days, non-citizens suspected of terrorism. After seven days, deportation proceedings must commence or criminal charges must be filed. Originally, my captors had asked for authority to detain suspects indefinitely without charge. The final bill, for all practical purposes, allows expanded detention simply by charging the detainee with a technical immigration violation. If a suspect cannot be deported, he can still be detained if my captors certify every six months that national security is at stake.

I have read several articles, blogs, and opinions regarding racial profiling and airport security. There is outrage at both ends of the spectrum. Outrage from those who have boarded a plane to find a passenger who “looked” Arab who was not searched at the gate and the subsequent fear of flying with such a passenger. Outrage also from those who themselves looked Arab and must endure searches every time they wish to travel. The opinions I find most interesting, however, are those that begin with one set of principles and end with another.

These opinions begin with the morally superior attitude that racial profiling should not exist at all because it is wrong. This seems to me like a fairly strong conviction that would not easily be swayed. But they then proceed to realize that airport searches that are entirely random (the ones that search the feeble old white man, but let the nervous-looking swarthy man pass un-harassed) defeat the purpose of preventing hijackers. They decide that they would rather exist in a world where people who look a certain way are singled out on the assumption that they are doing something/have done something/are about to do something wrong, and land safely at their destination, than exist in a world where everyone is treated fairly and potentially die in a plane crash.

In the sense of innate self-preservation encoded into the genes of all successful species, I suppose keeping oneself alive at all costs is understandable.

But what kind of life is that? Think about what you truly believe to be right and wrong in this world. Is the prospect of your own death enough to change your deeply held beliefs? Plus, the presumption of guilt based on ancestry is a dangerous game. It stinks of Executive Order 9066, among other horrendous episodes of history. Learn from past mistakes, people… Pardon me for a moment while I call on one of the greats.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said: “I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Is it even possible to listen to Dr. King’s speech and disagree? He did not add “except if they kinda look Arab because then maybe there might be a chance they would be statistically more likely to hijack an airplane.”

I would much rather die on an airplane, knowing that I had died in a world where the information on how to fly, build, crash, destroy, hijack an airplane was available to anyone with a library card (and library records untracked by the government), and in a world where everyone was judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin, than be safely alive in a world where the reverse were true.

I’m not saying safety isn’t important, but I don’t think racial profiling is the answer. I agree with Kjell Wooding’s article on http://pintday.org regarding irrational censorship. Wooding had posted something about many of the possible ways a person could subdue, injure, or kill someone on an airplane using items that could easily get past airport security. His point was that the prevention of disasters did not lie in what could get onto a plane, but in never, under any circumstances, letting a hijacker into the cockpit. A response was sent to the head of his department at the university where he was studying (it should be noted that the original posting was in no way affiliated with the university) warning of Wooding’s possible danger, and recommending that he be investigated and that the university “arrive at some security decisions.”

Ignoring for a moment the fact that the reader missed the point of the article, I would still rather have something like this available on the internet for everyone to see than have it censored. If someone publicly details the weaknesses of a system in a forum accessible even to the creators of that very system, then the system itself gets stronger. If you lived in a castle surrounded by people who wanted nothing more than to break into your castle, you would welcome the daily newsletter landing in front of your drawbridge detailing exactly how they planned to get inside. If they tell you in advance that there’s a low spot over the north wall, you don’t complain that now ALL the hordes know there’s a low spot over the north wall, instead you set to work making that spot higher.

The people who are actually planning to be destructive aren’t the ones who are going to publish exactly how they are going to do it, so everyone should be glad that somebody IS going to publish it, and we should be glad that it’s legal to do so. Also on that note, if airport searches are limited to, or predominantly focused on people who look a certain way, wouldn’t those who were planning to be destructive choose someone else to carry out their nefarious plans? Like maybe that elderly white man…

So airport searches should either be entirely random, or based on actual evidence of a person’s actual character (legally obtained with the proper warrants and that person’s knowledge). Nobody exactly fits any profile, and my civil liberties are more important to me than my safety. The civil liberties of my fellow humans are also more important to me than the safety of my fellow humans.

Oh, and if you’re going to die in a horrible accident, it will be at the hands of your friendly neighborhood drunk driver. Statistically, anyway.



More from the greats:

Mahatma Gandhi: “Freedom is not worth having if it doesn't include the freedom of making mistakes.”

Kahil Gibron: “Life without liberty, is like body without a spirit.”

Benjamin Franklin: “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Voltaire: “I disagree with what you say but I will defend to death your right to say it.”

Archibald Macleish: “What is freedom? Freedom is the right to choose: The right to create for yourself the alternatives of choice. Without the possibility of choice a man is not a man but a member, an instrument, a thing.”

Martin Luther King Jr.: “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of hatred.”