[News] May 1st and America's New Race War
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Thu Apr 27 12:20:56 EDT 2006
http://www.counterpunch.org/santos04272006.html
April 27, 2006
May 1st and America's New Race War
Immigration Endgame
By JUAN SANTOS
We can no longer use the term loosely --America's war against
migrants is real, and the nation's rulers mean to sweep the nation's
barrios the way Katrina swept the Black wards of New Orleans. And
like the military operations visited upon the Black population of
that city in the wake of the winds and floods, the war against
migrants is a race war --one directed from the highest levels of power.
The recent strikes by ICE against migrant workplaces in dozens of
cities across 26 states served as a crystal clear declaration: no
matter what immigration bill passes in Washington, "enforcement" is
the order of the day.
Whoever the government "legalizes," it means to round up the rest in
massive raids, ship them en masse to detention camps, then deport
them, creating an atmosphere of mass repression and terror among
brown people nationwide. Everyone with brown skin will be targeted.
The only question still on the table is who will be directly subject
to deportation.
The amnesty provisions of the bills being debated can only be summed
up as part of a divide and conquer strategy. The government is laying
its bet --that those who are offered a "path to legalization" will be
too frightened of losing their "legal" status to resist the mass
deportation of those still deemed "illegal."
Such divisions are being foreshadowed today in the struggle over the
May 1st Huelga General (general strike and boycott). The current
division is based in denial --denial that the main aspect of
government policy is a massive crackdown and ethnic cleansing --and
that "inclusion" has little to do with it.
The recent mass raids are part of a Homeland Security / ICE plan
called ENDGAME. The plan bluntly states the aim of the Bush
administration: to deport all deportable migrants by the year 2012.
It's in this context that the government wants pro-migrant groups to
accede to a "compromise." The simple truth is that those who are
willing to take the bait -like the National Council of La Raza --are
accepting terms of surrender in the war against migrants. In a
Devil's bargain they are willing to sacrifice as many as 7 million
people in order to save some 5 million from the most direct impacts
of mass raids, detention camps and deportations.
On May 1st these maneuvers will reach a dramatic climax. Those who
oppose the General Strike - like the "We Are America" coalition in
Los Angeles --are sending a message that resistance is futile; that
we should fear an imaginary "backlash" more than the concrete plans
of the government to attack our communities, and that the best we can
hope for is the "mercy" of the racist Republican Right. They say they
don't want us to "provoke" mass repression or legislative defeat.
Fearful and trapped between the power of those on high and the power
of those below, one section of the movement's middle class leadership
has changed its tune. No longer is their slogan a proud, defiant and
joyful "!Si, Se Puede!" but a resigned and cautious "No se puede."
They want to slip the needle into the vein and put the newly awakened
brown giant back to sleep.
But let's make it plain, as Brother Malcolm used to say:
Krystallnacht --the night of shattered glass that marked the onset of
the persecution, mass deportation and ultimately the mass death of
the targets of German fascism --was not a "backlash." It was, rather,
the implementation of an ongoing racist intent to persecute, exclude
and permanently remove unwanted ethnic groups, and to do so by any
means necessary.
The Gypsies, Slavs and Jews of Europe did nothing to "provoke" the
Nazis; Native America did nothing to "provoke" Europe; African
Americans did nothing to "provoke" lynching; the migrants of
Australia did nothing to "provoke" the white population to carry out
the recent anti-migrant race riots there.
Such persecutions operate on their own, internally reinforced racist
logic. The only thing those who were targeted had to do was exist
--and be vulnerable. And no one is more vulnerable than someone whose
very existence is deemed "illegal."
The race and vulnerability of most migrants to the US made
persecution a foregone conclusion; the writing on the wall was clear
from the moment a powerful group of racist lawmakers and their media
allies made an electric spectacular out of a tiny cult of ultra
rightists, vigilantes and "white nationalists" who took up arms and
went migrant hunting on the border.
The agenda was always straightforward racist persecution enforced
with guns --whether it's ICE or the Minutemen makes no difference,
just as there is no essential difference between the anti-Mexican
Zoot Suit Riots of the 40s, the recent anti-immigrant pogroms in
Australia, official mass roundups like Operation Wetback or the mass
incarceration of Japanese Americans during WW2.
The powers that be didn't wait to be "provoked" by impolite behavior
or economic boycotts before launching the recent mass raids.
In other words, nothing has changed except this: Since the mass
pro-amnesty marches in Chicago and Los Angeles our potential for mass
resistance against mass repression is now on the table as an absolute
factor in the equation.
And that's what the May 1st Huelga General is all about. It's about
our power and their vulnerability, instead of the other way around.
Many of those calling for the general strike understand the power of
resistance, and exactly how much is at stake.
Over a hundred actions in more than 60 cities are planned. Some
--even in the mainstream Spanish language press, are calling on us to
take as our banner not only the Black resistance of the 1960s, but to
follow the example of the recent student strikes and immigrant
rebellions in France, as well.
The future of millions lies in the balance on May 1st --and it is the
future not only of brown people, but of Blacks, whites, and of
everyone who has an investment in stopping the rapidly escalating
trend toward fascism in the US. If we fail on that date, there will
be no chance to reunite a divided movement. If we fail on that date,
a new message will be written on the wall: there was ultimately no
mass resistance to the racial scapegoating essential to the
development of full blown fascism in the US.
The middle ground has fallen away.
On May 1st we will send one of two messages: "We Resist" or "We Surrender."
It's up to us to shape the future, to shape our own endgame.
Everything depends on what we choose.
Juan Santos is a writer and editor living in Los Angeles.
He can be reached at<mailto:JuanSantos at Mexica.net> JuanSantos at Mexica.net
The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
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