of Montreal frontman Kevin Barnes asks, “If I wasn’t so brown, would you let me play too?”
“There is a depressing movement afoot in the U.S.A. Whitey is becoming increasingly paranoid of Mexican immigration. Laws are being written to suppress and abuse the Mexican population in this country. Police officers are being encouraged to harass people who _ t the racial pro_ le of a potential illegal Mexican immigrant. Basically, anyone who is not overtly Caucasian, African or Asian-looking is in for trouble. The goal of these policies are to make this country less desirable and less hospitable to broke-ass people attempting to live here illegally. Most middle class people lack the necessary amount of imagination required to visualize themselves as anything other than what they are now. To imagine themselves as a human living in an impoverished land, born into an indigent family is impossible. They never realize how close they came to being born into that situation. It’s absolutely random chance that places us inside this or that womb, in this or that country during this or that time in history. None of us are to blame or celebrated for the vagina we emerged from. It’s all luck. Some of us have had better luck than others. There are fortuitous vaginas, I suppose. If we would all accept the fact that we either got lucky, or fucked, by the situation we were born into and that, since it was not a result of anything we can take credit for, we shouldn’t really feel proud of who we are or where we come from or which flag we cheer for during the Olympics. We all need to realize that, aside from the handful of truly terribly evil humans, we all are actually pretty much the same creature. That we all deserve the same rights and deserve the same privileges and opportunities. That we shouldn’t have to carry the burden of our original earth placement ‘til death just because that’s where we initially arrived. On a strictly human value level, there is no difference between the Governor of Arizona Jan Brewer and the Mexican woman trying to sneak into this country to establish a better life. If the tables were turned, I don’t see Jan encouraging racism and exclusionary legislation. Someday Jan, you might find yourself sneaking into her country. It’s not that farfetched. Every empire crumbles and one doesn’t always find oneself on the winning side.”
No comments:
Post a Comment