Just when you thought Halloween, blackface and slave costumes had retired for the year comes news of a “Catch An Illegal” immigrant event on a college campus in Texas.
According to writer Scott Kaufman of rawstory.com, the University of Texas at Austin chapter of the Young Conservatives of Texas scheduled the “game” for Wednesday, Nov. 20.
“According to event’s Facebook page, ‘[t]here will be several people walking around the UT campus with the label ‘illegal immigrant’ on their clothing. Any UT student who catches one of these ‘illegal immigrants’ and brings them back to our table will receive a $25 gift card,” reported Mr. Kaufman.
“The event is being organized by Lorenzo Garcia, who claims it is intended ‘to spark a campus-wide discussion about the issue of illegal immigration, and how it affects our everyday lives,’ ” the writer added.
By the way, this is the same group that sponsored an “affirmative action bake sale.”
If it were not for the current vicious, hateful dangerous climate in the country, the event could be simply denounced as tasteless and classless, but it is much more than that.
It is another indicator of the state of race relations and a growing disregard for, ridicule of and targeting of Blacks, Latinos and anyone who is non-White.
Then there is the internal investigation underway of Detroit police officers accused of forcing Black men to sing and make animal noises.
A blogger first publicized the allegations complete with videos and images. The pictures and footage were alleged to have been shared between members of Grosse Pointe Park police and their families.
“A mentally ill man was the primary target of racially charged videos taken by several Grosse Pointe Park police officers, the Motor City Muckraker has learned,” the blog reported Monday, Nov. 18.
“One officer, who quipped about ‘the coloreds’ in a text message, sent at least six videos of the same mentally ill man singing or stuttering on command. Sometimes the subject was in the back of a squad car; other times he was approached by police and told to perform for the camera.
“At times he looked annoyed or embarrassed.
“Police are conducting an internal investigation based on videos and text messages we’ve received.
“We broke the story Friday (Nov. 16) after confirming that more than a dozen demeaning videos of Black men were sent and forwarded from the phones of Grosse Pointe Park police,” http://motorcitymuckraker.com. The Motor City Muckraker said the images and video came from an anonymous source.
In the initial report, Motor City Muckraker writer Steve Neavling added, “On the border of Detroit, Grosse Pointe is emblematic of the racial divide. In 1960, a civil case revealed the community used a screening process to effectively make it impossible for Black people and ‘Orientals’ to buy property. Grosse Pointe remains an area of wealth and privilege–and critics say it has done little to ease fears of racism.”
Then there are Nov. 15 reports that Chad Palmer, a Camden County, Ga., deputy sheriff, was suspended without pay and put on one year probation after dressing in blackface as an inmate picking cotton. Trouble began when a photo of the crouching deputy sheriff was made public. His superiors, however, insist there is no evidence that any of his arrests were racially motivated.
The humiliation and degrading treatment of Black and Brown people betray a mindset that is growing from the halls of Congress to the front seats of police cruisers and beyond.
It represents White anger and growing disgust with the children of her once slaves and a desire to be rid of us. It is symptomatic of a disdain for Black and Brown people that harbors the seeds of murder. The number of Black men and women stopped, beaten, brutalized, tased, shot or nearly rundown by police cars seems to grow by the day.
The problem emerges North, South, East and West and there is safe geographic haven, no safety in age, no safety in gender and no safety in any of the other ways in which we may try to define ourselves.
We remain the prey or the victims of stings from what the Holy Qur’an, the book of scripture of the Muslims, calls fiery serpents and who the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad say represent angry White people.
But despite the stings, the pain, the death and humiliation, we don’t seem to understand that our salvation and peace lies in separating from our former slavemasters.
“White people never intended for you to be a ‘full American’ sharing in the rights and privileges of America. Since ‘integration’ has been advanced as a policy and a strategy, White people know that it has failed. They don’t admit openly its failure, but there’s a pullback now from all of the issues that were sent through the integration policies, such as ‘bussing, ‘ observed Min. Farrakhan in a lecture titled “The Question of ‘Integration’ vs. ‘Separation.’ ” An excerpt of the article was published last December in The Final Call but the original lecture and warning was delivered in 1980. Things have only worsened.
“Today’s international pressures, domestic pressures, the forces of nature that are at work are absolutely forcing White people to take a stand–a very militant, anti-Black stand,” he warned.
“The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said to us that Allah (God), Master Fard Muhammad, had The Power to turn their minds and force them to do what He Wills against their own will. He said Master Fard Muhammad has The Power to make them bow to His Will … And the Bible teaches that ‘every knee will bow and every tongue will be forced to confess.’
“Whether you want to or not, circumstances will force you to do the very thing you don’t think you will ever do. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said that The Essentials of Life are Freedom, Justice and Equality. Anything that deprives you of freedom, deprives you of justice, deprives you of the essentials of life. If this world of the Caucasian is a world designed to deprive you and me, Black people, dark people and their own people, of Freedom, Justice and Equality, then this means what? That separation is absolutely vital to your own life,” the Minister said.
Do we want to live?
