CONFRONTING RACE AND ETHNICITY

Prepared for the Forum on Race and Ethnicity hosted by the Grant County Democratic Party, Western New Mexico University, February 16, 2012

By Felipe de Ortego y Gasca, Moderator

Background In his 1903 treatise the Souls of Black Folks, W.E.B. Dubois prophecied that The problem of the twentieth century [was/would be] the problem of the color-line, little realizing that the problem of the color line would be the problem of the twenty-first century also. Interestingly, the renowned French philosopher Gobineau whose work An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races (1853-1855) is considered one of the earliest examples of scientific racism (Wikipedia). Today, Gobineaus views on race have been widely discredited with the growing contention that race is not a useful classificatory tool (Michael Yudell, A Short History of the Race Concept, GeneWatch, CRG Council for Responsible Genetics, Volume 22, 4,3, July 21, 2009). Yet, everywhere race has become a focal topic of politics and social conversations reflecting the human propensity to differentiate human populations. Currently, according to Michael Yudell, Historians and social scientists believe that race is socially constructed (Ibid.). Our concepts of race do not emerge from antiquity. They spring from the Age of Enlightenment in Europe. Notions of race, predicated on a matrix of ancestry, ethnicity, religion, and cultural practices, reveal how deep-seated racial prejudice is. The Jefferson ideal of equality falls short in American discussions of race. Despite the ideal, Jeffersonian himself believed that the differences between the races were fixed in nature and therefore the equality set out in the Declaration of Independence did not apply to all. At the core of American racial studies one finds the American School of Anthropology and its theory of polygenythat a hierarchy of human races had separate creations. Like the Nazi school of human differences, the American anthropologist Samuel Morton developed a scheme of racial differences based on cranial capacity to prove his theory that Caucasian and Mongolian races had the highest cranial capacity and therefore the highest levels of intelligence, while Africans had the lowest cranial capacity and thus the lower levels of intelligence (Ibid.).
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Modern racism predicates its notions of race based on the biology of hereditary genetics. This eugenic concept of race gave way to a 20th century concept of racial ideology and opposition to miscegenation in fear of weakening the white race; ergo the unalterable proposition that neither education, nor change in environment or climate, nor the eradication of racism itself could alter the fate of non-whites (Ibid.) In 1924, Virginia passed a Racial Integrity Act, an anti-miscegenation law to stop what it feared to be the mongrelization of the races (Ibid.). The classification of individuals by race came to a head in the United States in the latter half of the 20th century with the U.S. Supreme Court Decision in Brown v. Board of Education in which Gunnar Myrdals An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy was cited prominently by Thurgood Marshall as were the cases of Westminster v. Mendez (California, 1947) and Delgado v. Bastrop (Texas, 1948), both cases of constitutionality in segregating Mexican American children. The brilliance of Thurgood Marshalls argument put an end to the social myth of race as a legitimate classificatory tool of people. Unfortunately, ethnicity has replaced race as the trigger word in the classification of people. The obsolete notions of race have been passed on to ethnicity including the proposition that IQ has high genetic heritability. The taxonomies of ethnicity seem as irrational as the taxonomies or race. Then again, prejudice does not require a rational basis.

Race-Based Prejudice and Discrimination Discrimination is overt action that denies opportunities for some and results in preferential treatment for others. Prejudice is preconceived opinion not based on reason or experience. There are judicial remedies for discrimination; there is no cure for prejudice. In the main, prejudice and discrimination are the product of social intimacy, that is, the extent of social interaction between groups. Most often, the lack of social intimacy engenders prejudice and discrimination, though there are times when social intimacy abets prejudice and discrimination. Nowhere is race-based prejudice and discrimination more starkly present than in the American prison system. With an incarcerated population of well over 2 million, the United States has earned the distinction of being the worlds largest jailer, ahead of China and Russia (A Nation Behind Bars, Civil Liberties, ACLU National Newsletter, Winter 2012, 1). Unfortunately, African Americans and Latinos bear the brunt of the over-incarceration crisis because of discriminatory laws and biased enforcement and sentencing (Ibid.). Since 1987 funding for prisons and incarcerations has almost the doubled funding for higher education. According to the American Civil Liberties Union we have become a nation behind bars. Ethnicity and Ancestry
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Ethnicity is defined in terms of shared genealogy, whether actual or presumed. Typically, if people believe they descend from a particular group, and they want to be associated with that group, then they are in fact members of that group. Ethnicity can be defined as a social boundary between groups reflecting distinctions made by individuals in their everyday lives based on cultural differences, such as language, religion, dress, food preferences, entertainment and artistic expression, as well social and physical differences between members of specific groups. Most often ancestry refers to national origin where ones ancestors are/were from. Ancestry may be based on group identity, e.g. Irish ancestry, Italian ancestry, etc. While ancestry-based discrimination is prohibited, it is still present in many covert ways. [See Anderson v. Conboy, 156 F.3d 167 (2d Cir. 1998), in which the court explained that 42 U.S.C. 1981's prohibition against racial discrimination "encompasses discrimination based on ancestry or ethnic characteristics. Today, the most egregious example of prejudice and discrimination based on ethnicity and ancestry is the situation in the Tucson Independent School District where Mexican American Studies has been eliminated as a program of study and a list of particular books bans their use in classrooms. These are books by eminent Chicano and Native American scholars. Banned also are Civil Disobedience, Brave New World and Shakespeare's The Tempest. The logic defies understanding except that it seems to be based on ethnicity and ancestry. All of this hullaballoo is the result of Arizona House Bill 2281 signed by Governor Jan Brewer banning Ethnic Studies Programs (which includes Chicano Studies) on the grounds that these Programs advocate ethnic separatism and encourages Latinos to rise up and create a new territory out of the southwestern region of the United States. Perhaps those Xenophobes need a history lesson on how the Hispanic Southwest came into the American fold. They also need to look at school textbooks to see how underrepresented Asian Americans, African Americans, Native Americans, and Mexican Americans are in those textbooks. Which is why we need Asian American Studies, African American Studies, Native American Studies, and Mexican American Studies. What are white Arizonans really afraid of? HB 2281 has come to the attention of the United Nations which condemns the Bill, citing Arizonas rage against immigration and ethnic minorities as a disturbing pattern of hostile legislative activity. The better word would be racism.
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What is most disturbing, however, is the coded language emerging in the public arena for racist rhetoric uttered with impunity. For example, Gingrichs imputed comment about Spanish being the language of the ghetto; or his epithet for President Obama as the Food Stamp President. This coded language dances around the N word.
As co-chair of the Intellectual Freedom Committee of the New Mexico Library Association, I see the ethnic cleansing in Arizona first as outright racism, then as a First Amendment Constitutional issue, and also as censorship. The U.S.

Department of Justice is considering a lawsuit against Arizona. The Office for Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association has issued a resolution protesting the Arizona situation. The National Council of Teachers of English has also issued a resolution as has the Association of American Indian Librarians. In Nazi Germany ethnic cleansing started with Kristal nacht, the night Germans rampaged through German cities and towns, breaking the glass fronts of Jewish businesses, marking the beginnings of the Final solution of the Jews in Germanythe Jewish holocaust Today, in Tucson, Arizona, American NazisArizona styled SSseized books by Chicano and Native American authors banned by the Tucson School board and the Arizona superintendent of Education on grounds that they are subversive and inimical to the well-being and civil order of the state. One of the banned books is Occupied American by Rudolfo Acua. Another banned book, "Rethinking
Columbus," includes works by Native Americans:

Suzan Shown Harjo's "We Have No Reason to Celebrate" Buffy Sainte-Marie's "My Country, 'Tis of Thy People You're Dying" Joseph Bruchac's "A Friend of the Indians" Cornel Pewewardy's "A Barbie-Doll Pocahontas" N. Scott Momaday's "The Delight Song of Tsoai-Talee" Michael Dorris's "Why I'm Not Thankful for Thanksgiving" Leslie Marmon's "Ceremony" Wendy Rose's "Three Thousand Dollar Death Song" Winona LaDuke's "To the Women of the World: Our Future, Our Responsibility According to one report, the banned books were seized out of the hands of students in the classrooms, including a photography book of Mexico. Crying, students said it was like Nazi Germany, and they were unable to sleep since it happened.
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The now banned books of the Tucson schools' Mexican American Studies includes two books by Native American author Sherman Alexie and a book of poetry by O'odham poet Ofelia Zepeda, as well as a number of books by prominent Chicano writers. The censorship list is long. In general, censorship is the action of one person or group stifling the expression(s) or action(s) of others. In Platos Republic, Socrates laid out a plan to censor the reading of Athenian youth to insure their correct education. Censorship thus seeks to control correct or orthological thinking. Extremes of censorship imprison objectors and destroy or suppress materials outside accepted norms. Other forms of censorship are manifest in the control and dissemination of informationfor example, textbooks that present only the dominant view of their society (like the Texas Textbook Massacre); or media controlled only by a particular group in a society. Censorship may take the form of regimentation, requiring all people to conform to a single tenet, as in theocratic or plutocratic societies. Censorship is socially more harmful than the material it seeks to ban (McClellan, 9). Moreover, all censorship should be opposed because there is never any guarantee that once it is made a tool of society it wont be used to suppress all unpopular ideas (Ibid., 30). These are expressions from the 60s in opposition to censorship. Current expressions about censorship posit that censorship ultimately limits languagelanguage that could be used to further intelligent discourse. By narrowing the scope of language, censorship inevitably deprives individuals of the opportunity to generate new visions and new ideas (Carter in Brown, 212). I remember a similar case of censorship that occurred in 1975 when the Fort Worth Public Schools banned books by Chicanos because they were considered subversive. My book We Are Chicanos was on that list.

WORKS CENSORED OR BANNED BY THE TUCSON SCHOOL DISTRICT PER SB 2281 American Government/Social Justice/Education

Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years (1998) by B. Bigelow and B. Peterson The Latino Condition: A Critical Reader (1998) by R. Delgado and J. Stefancic Critical Race Theory: An Introduction (2001) by R. Delgado and J. Stefancic Pedagogy of the Oppressed (2000) by P. Freire United States Government: Democracy in Action (2007) by R. C. Remy Dictionary of Latino Civil Rights History (2006) by F. A. Rosales Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology (1990) by H. Zinn

American History/Mexican American Perspectives

Occupied America: A History of Chicanos (2004) by R. Acua The Anaya Reader (1995) by R. Anaya The American Vision (2008) by J. Appleby et el. Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years (1998) by B. Bigelow and B. Peterson Drink Cultura: Chicanismo (1992) by J. A. Burciaga Message to Aztln: Selected Writings (1997) by R. Gonzales De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views Multi-Colored Century (1998) by E. S. Martnez 500 Aos Del Pueblo Chicano/500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures (1990) by E. S. Martnez Codex Tamuanchan: On Becoming Human (1998) by R. Rodrguez The X in La Raza II (1996) by R. Rodrguez Dictionary of Latino Civil Rights History (2006) by F. A. Rosales A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present (2003) by H. Zinn

English/Latino Literature

Ten Little Indians (2004) by S. Alexie The Fire Next Time (1990) by J. Baldwin Loverboys (2008) by A. Castillo Women Hollering Creek (1992) by S. Cisneros Mexican White Boy (2008) by M. de la Pena Drown (1997) by J. Daz Woodcuts of Women (2000) by D. Gilb At the Afro-Asian Conference in Algeria (1965) by E. Guevara
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Color Lines: "Does Anti-War Have to Be Anti-Racist Too?" (2003) by E. Martnez Culture Clash: Life, Death and Revolutionary Comedy (1998) by R. Montoya et al. Let Their Spirits Dance (2003) by S. Pope Duarte Two Badges: The Lives of Mona Ruiz (1997) by M. Ruiz The Tempest (1994) by W. Shakespeare A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America (1993) by R. Takaki The Devil's Highway (2004) by L. A. Urrea Puro Teatro: A Latino Anthology (1999) by A. Sandoval-Sanchez & N. Saporta Sternbach Twelve Impossible Things before Breakfast: Stories (1997) by J. Yolen Voices of a People's History of the United States (2004) by H. Zinn Live from Death Row (1996) by J. Abu-Jamal The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven (1994) by S. Alexie Zorro (2005) by I. Allende Borderlands La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1999) by G. Anzaldua A Place to Stand (2002), by J. S. Baca C-Train and Thirteen Mexicans (2002), by J. S. Baca Healing Earthquakes: Poems (2001) by J. S. Baca Immigrants in Our Own Land and Selected Early Poems (1990) by J. S. Baca Black Mesa Poems (1989) by J. S. Baca Martin & Mediations on the South Valley (1987) by J. S. Baca The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America's Public Schools (1995) by D. C. Berliner and B. J. Biddle Drink Cultura: Chicanismo (1992) by J. A Burciaga Red Hot Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Being Young and Latino in the United States (2005) by L. Carlson & O. Hijuielos Cool Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Growing up Latino in the United States (1995) by L. Carlson & O. Hijuelos So Far From God (1993) by A. Castillo Address to the Commonwealth Club of California (1985) by C. E. Chvez Women Hollering Creek (1992) by S. Cisneros House on Mango Street (1991), by S. Cisneros Drown (1997) by J. Daz Suffer Smoke (2001) by E. Diaz Bjorkquist Zapata's Discipline: Essays (1998) by M. Espada Like Water for Chocolate (1995) by L. Esquievel When Living was a Labor Camp (2000) by D. Garca La Llorona: Our Lady of Deformities (2000), by R. Garcia Cantos Al Sexto Sol: An Anthology of Aztlanahuac Writing (2003) by C. Garca-Camarilo et al. The Magic of Blood (1994) by D. Gilb
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Message to Aztlan: Selected Writings (2001) by Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales Saving Our Schools: The Case for Public Education, Saying No to "No Child Left Behind" (2004) by Goodman et al. Feminism is for Everybody (2000) by b hooks The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child (1999) by F. Jimnez Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools (1991) by J. Kozol Zigzagger (2003) by M. Muoz Infinite Divisions: An Anthology of Chicana Literature (1993) by T. D. Rebolledo & E. S. Rivero ...y no se lo trago la tierra/And the Earth Did Not Devour Him (1995) by T. Rivera Always Running - La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A. (2005) by L. Rodriguez Justice: A Question of Race (1997) by R. Rodrguez The X in La Raza II (1996) by R. Rodrguez Crisis in American Institutions (2006) by S. H. Skolnick & E. Currie Los Tucsonenses: The Mexican Community in Tucson, 1854-1941 (1986) by T. Sheridan Curandera (1993) by Carmen Tafolla Mexican American Literature (1990) by C. M. Tatum New Chicana/Chicano Writing (1993) by C. M. Tatum Civil Disobedience (1993) by H. D. Thoreau By the Lake of Sleeping Children (1996) by L. A. Urrea Nobody's Son: Notes from an American Life (2002) by L. A. Urrea Zoot Suit and Other Plays (1992) by L. Valdez Ocean Power: Poems from the Desert (1995) by O. Zepeda

UPDATE, Monday, January 16, 2012

Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya Yo Soy Joaquin/I Am Joaquin by Rodolfo Gonzales Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea The Devil's Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea