Status queueing

Sharing words from xicanopwr...

"As we strive for reform, make no mistake — we will be confronted with an uphill battle against those determined to keep the status quo. It is important to watch for the dangerous distraction that will pop up between now and March 4. But we must never forget how we got into this situation. And we must never forget the change we need in society will come only through our direct efforts to move the country in a more progressive direction."

Having just watched "Walkout", I'm in a feisty mood, not made better by having to teach Ana Castillo's Massacre of the Dreamers among other books to a web class. what all three of these texts have in common is the exposure of the status quo and the horrifying need by those in power to maintain it. Castillo writes:

Hispanic is nothing more than a concession made by the US legislature when they saw they couldn't get rid of us. If we won't go away, why not at least Europeanize us, make us presentable guests at the dinner table, take away our feathers and rattles and civilize us once and for all... This erroneous but nationally accepted label invented by a white supremacist bureaucracy...is a resignation to allow, after more that 200 years of denial, some cultural representation of the conquistadors....Until now, in other words, only Anglo-Saxons were legitimate informants of American culture." (Castillo 28)

Hermano at xicanopwr writes "we will be confronted with an uphill battle against those determined to keep the status quo. It is important to watch for the dangerous distraction that will pop up between now and March 4."

And the sellout "Hispanic" cop in Walkout says "Nothing's gonna change. The schools aren't gonna change", to which the Chicanita says "No. But we've changed."

And, in my anger and disgust with Arizona's race and culture issues, and the US' race and culture issues, and our fear-ridden, blindly nationalistic society which is headed to a fearful place because our leaders cannot seem to be able to say "oh SHIT, we're are so fucked up now, and it will hurt to make it right and my GOD, who made all these people feel so entitled to everything so blindly?", in this anger I say "All right. Okay. Maybe we can't change every failing school kick out every racist leader, fix the INS and stabilized wages all at once-- but we can change US and our attitudes and expectations." We can grow and learn, from the Chicanitas, from the workers, from the brothers, from our history and from a sense that we are responsible for assuring our own and our future's survival and thriving.

Let's change. Then let's REALLY change the status quo.