Photo by Duke Schempp

Señor Presidente

Our Opinion/Latinos in America are wondering : Que Paso Barry?

By Cindy Gomez
Editor

“Del dicho al hecho hay mucho trecho” (“there’s a long journey from the saying to the doing”) – Mexican Proverb

President Obama was recently in El Paso Texas trying to blow smoke up our culos about Immigration Reform. He must have read the recent Census reports that shows a nearly thirty percent jump in population among Latinos in the last decade. But his walk-the-line speech fell on deaf ears. Mexican-Americans are not buying it. The question is, does Obama really care?

The facts are clear. Obama has been getting a butt chewing from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus for a while now because of his failure to follow through on his campaign promises. You may recall that Obama promised reform of the broken immigration system, an increase in visas and work permits, and a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented workers living in the U.S. You can bet that the Congressional Hispanic Caucus has done its level best to make the President implement these reforms.

Yet the President keeps increasing deportations, separating families, building “detention” centers, hiring border patrol agents, imposing checks for employment, and supporting the whole-sale attack on people of color in this country. And it’s not just Latino’s who are being dehumanized through the many levels of discriminatory laws being set into place everywhere. People of color living in this country from all over the world are feeling the crunch of racist law enforcement policies at the federal, state, and local levels.

You may have seen these new laws. Some are very cleverly disguised as nothing more than “security measures,” or deterrents to “identity theft.” Others are as innocuous as impeding “voter fraud” by requiring current state issued identification. There is no discussion of how communities of color are disproportionately targeted and negatively affected by these new laws. There is only a response of “we are a nation of laws,” echoing all the way from the White House.

Does President Obama forget that it was once legal to own him? Does he not remember the days when white men acted with impunity to kill people of color when and where they wanted, without repercussion? Maybe the President does not recall when, by law, he was not considered a full human. But he must remember back a couple of weeks when he kowtowed to the Donald Trumps of the world and showed everyone his long form birth certificate. He has to remember the empty feeling he had when all his dreams of teamwork and camaraderie went out the window along with his membership to the polo club. What were you thinking Barry? Did you really think they were going to let you in?

The President knew, or should have known, that he didn’t have a prayer in the world of getting immigration reform to pass with Republican support. Mexican bashing is the new black in politics and Obama knew it from the get go. He has tried to play quid pro quo with the GOP so that he could tell the progressives that although he did his best to accommodate the border security request of the GOP, they refuse to play fair with requests for comprehensive reform . The problem is that Latinos don’t want to hear about the trade-offs that Obama has to make to get along with hard line republicans and conservative democrats. They don’t want to HEAR anything, anymore.

Latinos are a community of action. They want to see the President put his promises into action and stop treating us like we’re a bunch of pendejos. We know when we’re being lied to. We know when we’re being unfairly fired and deported. We know when innocent families are being targeted in this country by the millions. We know when Latinos are subjected to human rights abuses and torture by U.S. authorities and employers. We know because the actions that this government takes against people of color tears at the fabric of our families every day. And there is nothing more important to Latinos than family. Obama and his administration are leading the attack on people of color while trying to convince us that we should still support him in 2012. You’ll get us the next time, right Barry?

Latinos aren’t going to be impressed by the fact that you just flexed Tio Sam’s muscle to kill Osama. They’re not freaking out about the dead piling up across the pond in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan. They’re much more preoccupied with the war that’s at their back door, and their front door. They’re worried about the mounting dead at the border, the mounting abuses of power in both the U.S. and Mexico. They’re worried about the future of their children, their grandchildren, their fathers and their mothers.

“Chinga tu madre” is the worst way to curse out someone in Mexico. It means “Go f#ck your mother.” Even thought President Obama didn’t close his speech in El Paso by saying this famous Mexican phrase, he might as well have. His administration is not just targeting “criminal illegals” or securing the border for the safety of this great nation of laws as he professes, (See my commentary on ICE’s “Secure Communities” program at http://hpr1.com/opinion/article/insecure_communities/) he is screwing all of us (read: people of color).

We know he’s talking out of both sides of his mouth while he does it too. He’s not really powerless to stop human rights abuses by employers in the U.S., or to stop deportation of Dream Act kids. He’s not powerless to stop sanctioning the orphaning of millions of U.S. born children by deporting their parents. President Obama, nuestro Presidente, owes Latinos more than an explanation. He owes us an apology and immediate corrective action. Elections are approaching quickly. We’re waiting.

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