From Manifest Destiny to Manifest Insanity
Sunday 04 July 2010
by: Dr. Roberto Cintli Rodriguez, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed
As a result of several recent draconian laws, Arizona's image has taken a drubbing internationally. And yet, Arizona is but the spear. In reality, its politics are not dramatically different from those of other states, or from Washington's. More than a dozen states are waiting in the wings with copycat legislation, and the Obama administration continues to view migration through the prisms of law enforcement and military might.
Fueled by hateful and cowardly politicians and the hate-radio universe, these new and emerging laws are undeniably anti-Mexican and anti-immigrant, but most of all, they are anti-indigenous. In effect, they are an extension of Manifest Destiny. Its modern expression is Manifest Insanity - an attempt to maintain, amid the "browning" of the nation, the myth of America as the pristine home God promised to English-speaking, white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants.
The new Arizona laws are part of a spasmodic reaction to the demographic shift that immigration sets in motion; they are an attempt to maintain a political and cultural dominance over indigenous peoples, who are seen as nonhumans from defeated nations. The laws seek to maintain the narrative of conquest, an archetype dictating that the deaths of some 5,000 primarily indigenous Mexicans and Central Americans in the Arizona/Sonora desert in the past dozen years mean little in this clash. It is the same narrative used to rationalize the recent killings of two Mexicans by US agents along the US/Mexico border.
For those who are attempting to uphold this dominance, the browning of America represents a time reversal - a cultural and political turnabout of the so-called triumph of Western civilization. This is what Arizona represents: a civilizational clash, and a clash of narratives over the myth of America itself - nothing less.
Rodolfo Acuña, author of "Occupied America," came to Arizona last week offering a stark reminder about this clash. His book - along with Paulo Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" - has been at the center of the anti-ethnic-studies firestorm that culminated when Gov. Jan Brewer signed HB 2281 last month. (She had signed SB 1070 - the racial profiling law - the previous month.)
The controversy surrounding Acuña's book has been fueled by an extreme Eurocentric ignorance. For several years, State Superintendent Tom Horne has been pushing an "Americanization" agenda, insisting that Arizona students be exposed only to "Greco-Roman" knowledge. Knowledge centered elsewhere, including the Mesoamerican, or Maize, knowledge that is indigenous to this continent, is generally considered subversive and un-American. This knowledge is at the philosophical heart of Mexican American, or Raza, studies. Arizona is not alone in this insanity; Texas education officials recently banned the inclusion of labor leader Dolores Huerta in the state's school curricula.
Horne has long claimed that Raza studies preach hate, result in segregation, and promote anti-Americanism and the violent overthrow of the US government. Truth is, he has had a vendetta against Raza studies since Dolores Huerta proclaimed at Tucson High in 2006 that Republicans "hate Latinos." Horne (who constantly denigrates Huerta as "Cesar Chavez's former girlfriend") and his allies have spent the past several years trying to prove her right.
As Acuña found out in Arizona, the mere act of embracing a different philosophical center constitutes a threat to those invested in the cultural and political domination that would negate inclusive worldviews in education. More than that, it threatens the national narrative of taming a wild, savage and empty continent and conquering, exterminating and civilizing "the Indians."
Occupied America upsets the carefully crafted myth of the United States as the land of freedom and democracy or Paradise on Earth.
Raza studies' critics in Arizona - including media professionals - are barely familiar with Acuña's book. (He matter-of-factly tells them to read his book before attacking him.) At best, they spar over its title and a few catch phrases (mistranslating "La Raza" to mean "The Race" as opposed to "The People") and attempt to denigrate an entire discipline on the basis of their ignorance. Yet, at the core of their argument, the critics are correct. Ethnic studies is indeed a threat to the mythical America where the genocide, land theft, slavery and dehumanization that are the foundation of this nation are denied, or are mere footnotes. (Unchallenged, this glossed-over view permits US citizens to view permanent war as a God-given birthright.) Such complete denial - accompanied by the complementary myth of an empty continent - renders the concept of occupied America completely unfathomable.
Raza studies' critics attempt to dehumanize Mexicans/Chicanos. In the critics' conjured narrative, Mexicans/Chicanos are neither legitimate Americans nor legitimate human beings, neither are they afforded the status of indigenous peoples. At best, they are mongrels, undeserving of full human rights. The survival of this narrative is dependent upon the process of deindigenization and dehumanization. Those of us that cannot be deported (it remains to be seen what's in store during next year's battle in Arizona over the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship) are welcome here - as long as we participate in our own assimilation - or ethnic cleansing - and accept this nation's mythologized narrative.
That's the definition of Manifest Insanity.
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Feels like last throes of an insane and dying cultural concept. I just hope that the indigenous, treated so wrong for so long, do not give in to hate and angry violent forms of revolution. The true winning this time I feel will be to ride out the insanity of this tea party pimple on the ass of humanity that will ultimately cave in on its own delusional irrational ramblings, fading in the sunset of human history like some hateful unintelligence-muttering crazy person.
Many of the South American indigenous peoples already know this so well that they pray for us in the modern west constantly instead of contemplating hate, revolution and overthrow, which always leads to more of the insane same down the line.
It is just so damn ironic that President Obama, the first "black" president, is not behaving more like a very "white" Kucinich who would much rather go down as a brave outspoken assassinated president than a cowardly "assimilated" live one. The other over the top irony is the tea party movement calling Obama a leftist socialist communist type while President Obama behaves like a centrist republican. How far gone does the so called "right" have to be for that to happen?
Anyway, with this much craziness going on right now, I have to believe we are getting close to catalyst time that brings about change after some or much chaos. So while we are already sending "coherence initiative" meditation and prayers to the Gulf region for all the life in the sea and on the coast, I suppose we could do the same in regard to all the Arizona type insanity and hold the indigenous cultures in Love and Light while they brave this storm of insanity to its conclusion and self-inflicted demise.
And to know, even now when it is this difficult to conceive of, that we are fundamentally and essentially One, including the insane tea party movement wingnuts, arghhhh, yuk, ahhhh, ohmmm...
(or is that ohmmmm, ahhhhh)
Thanks John for posting this, Chris B
Ohmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmming along for ALL the childrens children, for the race of men has so much yet to let go of and learn! Love love love...love is ALL there is!
What looks and quaks like a duck sometimes is not a duck. What we are seeing is a reaction to the Light. As the reaction continues--- it will then swing back to the left and finally rest in a neutral place in space.
July 11 is heating things up. It is bright under all that light.
I would encourage all to think of what else is possible. What else could happen that would be beautiful and positive and joyous. What else is possible.
The negative ego is in its death throes and is thrashing about gnashing its teeth right before it drops dead. The negative ego is being unplugged. So what else is possible? Life without the negative ego? Such heretical concepts. Love your neighbor for cooperation is the new game that is coming into play. With open eyes we make merry in the waves of Light and Love.
fairyfarmgirl
All great civilizations/ nations in history have come unraveled and fallen from prominence. The reason is the same in every instance. Loss of national solidarity due to immigration. The history of immigration in this country is a great one of people coming here with a dream of a better life for their children. These people came with a desire to become Americans, to integrate into our culture, to learn the language and to be willing to defend this country if necessary. They came here via a legal process in which they were registered and became willing contibutors to the public treasury.
Today we are faced with a massive influx of immigrants who have no respect for the legal process, no desire to be Americans, nor desire to contribute to the public trust but only to reap the benefits of our social programs. Articles such as the one posted here show a complete lack of understanding of the economic and social stresses imposed by all of this. The Arizona laws say nothing that is not already present in Federal law. They have merely asserted their states rights to enforce what the Feds will not.
I have had, all of my life, many Mexican freinds and I can tell you that they all support the efforts of Arizona. They see no racial component whatsoever in these laws and they understand what is at stake here. Call me a Tea Partier if you wish, you woulkd be wrong, but whatever. I wish to see our nation preserved for a while longer although, ulimately it will fall as history demands that it must.
Get a Globe and Look at it while standing above. Do you see any real divisions other than the emanations of Mother Earth?
Brother, we are all One body.
fairyfarmgirl
What race are we? To be certain, a pure bloodline from a genetic standpoint can no longer be found on the planet we call home. We are so mixed within our gene pools that none of us can truly say what race we are besides human. A favorite saying - Humankind, Be Both.
Who among us owns the land? In truth we own nothing-surely the first nation peoples know that better than we. We are but caretakers for a very very short while regardless of our arrogance during that blink of an eye. How do we learn to care for and about each other without seeing borders, lines of color and dollar signs?
Allow yourself to remember-
We signed up for this. Yes, allow yourself to remember the time before this incarnation when our souls met on the inner planes. We agreed to return to earth to learn, grow and heal. We agreed to be here at this time. We agreed to be strong and clear. We agreed to help harmonize the consciousness of humanity with the earth, the universe and beyond. We promised to help usher in the Age of Peace. We signed up for this.
Thank you for the light of Divine love that you are (even if you don't know it yet). Thank you for sharing your light with the world in so may ways. Thank for sharing heart to heart and soul to soul with me again in this lifetime. Each moment of darkness and Light providing exactly the lessons I/We have yet to learn. Love, peace and infinite blessings. What we do to each other, we do to ourselves. Allow yourself to remember.
You "wish to see OUR nation preserved for a little while longer"? Preserved as what, and for what and who? I can easily imagine that the indigenous, or at the very least, the previous sovereign inhabitants/caretakers of thls land could say the very same thing with much more moral authority and right to do so.
We as the European settlers that came and raped and stole this land have no moral authority to claim anything after what was done to this land, and what is still being done to and on this land. The most honest thing we could say at this point is that we wish to keep the land we stole from others for a little while longer because we are, after all, us, right? or is that far right, LOL....
Hi Folks-
I'd like to stand up for Kevin here a bit. I agree that this is less about racism than economics. Also, I think the PTB would just love to make people think it's about hatred and racism, when it's really about economics. I think this is one of those "fake" issues that get brewed up by the PTB to create division, kind of like the gay marriage thing. It's a diversion from the real issues. The real division here is about the few rich against the many poor and poor Americans have much in common with the poor Mexicans, The PTB don't want us to think that way. Better to create racial divide than having us cooperate to kick out our corporate controlled governments.
This problem was started by bad US policy to begin with. The economy went bad in Mexico when the US starting sending our government subsidized corn over there to compete with the local Mexican farmers unsubsidized corn, driving the local farmers into the cities to find work. For a while, multinational corporations took advantage of this new need for employment by hiring the Mexican farmers at rock bottom wages. Mexicans who had gained good job skills at these corporations realized they were getting shafted and could get many times the money for the same work over the border. Then the world economy shattered and now all these people have no work to be found anywhere. Most American's are resentful because there's not enough jobs for those already here, never mind more coming in.
The whole point though is that we really should be kicking our corporate backed politicians out of government and demand government by and for the people, the illegals are not the problem.