equality – Gringa of the Barrio

Although the gringa considers herself a pacifist, I am also a realist. Do I believe in the right to react violently in self-defense? Of course. Do I believe that there are times when the pursuit of social justice requires violence? Yes, I do. Do I believe that such a strategy works? Yes, because history supports the fact that, when all else fails, when civil discourse achieves nothing, violence can, indeed, bring about a result of more peace and justice.

One such example is the passage of the Civil Rights Act. From 1776 until 1964, nearly 200 years of legalized white supremacy not only defined the nation, but also defined each individual within American society. As demands rose for equal representation, equal opportunity and equal protection, the numbers of those clamoring voices grew ever larger. Yet democracy did not prevail in a government controlled by empowered racist white men who refused to budge.

So, what happened? What changed the minds of entitled, empowered, racist white male legislators? Did the majority of them suddenly wake up one day and think to themselves, “You know, I’ve actually been wrong all my life. Non-whites truly are equal. They deserve equal protection. And who cares that by legalizing their equality my constituents will feel threatened and probably won’t re-elect me and I’ll be out of a job. I’m going to work to pass the Civil Rights Act.”

That is a fantasy. That is not what happened. And the gringa finds it very frustrating that many never stop to think about what was the catalyst for a racist, empowered, entitled, white society to suddenly flood their workplaces with non-whites they would have to compete with for employment. Why would a society enjoying all the privileges of legalized, enforced privileges in every aspect of life suddenly be willing to come down from their perches in their gilded cages, willing to sit beside those they considered to be the lower rabble? White America of 1964 did not collectively have some enlightened, social evolution epiphany. So what happened? Violence happened, that’s what happened.

April 2, 1964: 54 civil rights demonstrators from the Congress of Racial Equality picketed a Tulsa, Oklahoma restaurant and were arrested.

April 22, 1964: A bi-racial group of young adults hold up subways and trains on the opening day of the New York World’s Fair. Many were arrested.

May 12, 1964: Cambridge, Maryland calls in the National Guard to bring order to a riot that began when white racists responded violently to a bi-racial civil rights march and prayer vigil.

June 26, 1964: Florida Governor orders extra police to bring to heel the race riots ripping apart the historical city of St. Augustine. Racist whites turned violent after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a peaceful civil rights march.

June 29, 1964: FBI discovers the remains of 3 civil rights workers who disappeared June 21 in Mississippi while working in the “Freedom Summer” program. They had been abducted, murdered and buried in an earthen dam by the KKK.

July 2, 1964: After nearly three years of civil unrest that culminated in a widely publicized recovery of those murdered by the Klan, finally the wheel of government turned. Three days after the bodies of civil rights workers were recovered who had been murdered by the KKK, President Lyndon Baines Johnson finished what assassinated President John Fitzgerald Kennedy had started and signed the Civil Rights Act into law.

What can our nation learn from this history? It should learn that terrorists who comprise race hate groups like the KKK and the re-branded KKK, the alt-right, are dangerous. They are terrorists and murderers. Although our nation does not protect the free speech of ISIS recruiters, for some insane reason, most municipalities grant public rally permits and authorize police protection for the public recruitment and incitement rallies of white supremacist terrorists.

There is no doubt that radical right wing race hate extremists are terrorists. The FBI has been investigating and infiltrating them for decades. They have documented their thousands upon thousands acts of terror: murder, rape, arson, bank robberies, bombings, kidnappings, etc. They classify radical right wing race hate extremists as the most serious domestic terror threat confronting the US. More serious than ISIS and responsible for more dead Americans than any other ideology.

Considering, then, the heinous nature that radical right wing race ideology takes when it truly feels its empowerment threatened, who in their right mind truly believes it will not take violence to stop them? So, when critics attack the tactics of anti-fascist groups who actively resist and fight violent race hate tactics with their own violence, the gringa accepts this. I will not criticize this.

It took American integrationists of all races working together and provoking racist American society to bring about the result of the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Yet the Civil Rights Act is not yet complete. So long as race hate terrorists are permitted to thrive in organized cells, enjoying a protection the nation does not give to other terrorist organizations, the US has not lived up to its obligation of enacting the spirit of the Civil Rights Act to its fullness. And don’t be foolish enough to think that 50 years of legalized equality has undone the work of nearly 200 years of legalized white supremacy.

As far as the gringa is concerned, Antifa is the conscience of the nation rearing its ugly head. How the nation responds will determine whether or not we will finally exterminate race hate terrorists from our population once and for all. Why should the US be exempt from such a thing? The world expected it of Germany after World War II. And the German people rose to the occasion with nobility and courage, stamping out the shame of Nazism one generation after another. Shouldn’t the US not hold itself to the same standard? Should it not also stamp out the very terror ideology that has murdered more Americans than any other?

It is the responsibility of local law enforcement to ensure that their citizenry live in an environment of safety and security. When municipalities grant public speaking permits for race hate recruiters and authorize law enforcement protection by officers who are paid by the very tax payers threatened by the ideology these officers are duty-bound and ordered to protect, what message does that send to their local communities? It sends the message that for those who live in such a community who happen to be a minority or a non-racist white, you had better beware because your local government and law enforcement provide aid and comfort to race hate terrorists.

When such a thing happens it is indeed time for a revolution. A terrorist is a terrorist regardless of skin color. And the only way to rid a community of terrorists of any kind is to give them no quarter whatsoever. And if they continue to push their terror agendas, actively recruiting from among your neighbors and children, if push comes to shove, it may take violence to excise such a cancer from among you. And such action is not terrorism or hypocrisy. It is self-preservation of your way of life. In many cases, it is justice.

When victims of decades, even centuries of oppression and organized legal terrorism can get no relief or justice, do you honestly expect nothing to happen? Remember, the Civil Rights Act only passed because enough people got so fed up and became so disruptive that it was in the interest of national security to finally give the people what they demanded regardless of the fact that white male American legislators were, for the most part, conditioned to be rabid racists since birth.

Do people really believe that law enforcement should not be held to the same standard as citizens? Are they not citizens themselves? Citizens who took an oath to serve and protect their fellow citizens? Yet they can be videotaped committing obvious acts of murder and walk away from a courtroom with their freedom, and sometimes their jobs, intact.

When this happens, American society should expect that there will be hell to pay. Especially when one considers that the FBI has already reported in 2006 that white supremacist terrorists have effectively infiltrated US law enforcement on all levels. Yet this news has been virtually swept under the nation’s proverbial rug.

As grieving mothers, fathers, spouses, children, siblings and communities become overwhelmed with grief without relief and communities realize that each and every one of them are unsafe in the presence of law enforcement, what the hell does this country honestly expect? The gringa will tell you what to expect.

Expect a response of graduated escalation for demands of justice. Expect prayer vigils that give way to peace marches. When those are unheard, expect peace marches to give way to sit-ins. When nothing happens, expect sit-ins to give way to noisy protests with bullhorns. When this is ignored, expect noisy protests to bring about clashes with race haters trying to silence the voice of the victims. When race haters are given public sympathy and support, expect, eventually, riots.

When there is no justice to be found in a nation that is responsible for thousands of non-whites lynched and tortured and raped and driven from their homes and business, do not expect minorities to stand idly and quietly by and be lynched by the barrel of a racist cop’s gun. Do not expect them to sit quietly and idly by while the murderers of their ancestors march with police protection through the streets where they live and their children go to school.

And for those who would criticize matching violence for violence, the gringa says, “Grow up.” Get out of your privileged la la land because when cries for justice are ignored long enough and loved ones are watching those they love dying and suffering because of ignored justice, then a fist, a rock or a molotav cocktail becomes justice. Respond to the soft cry for justice. For if you don’t, your nation may find itself responding to a riotous demand for justice.

Do NOT tolerate your local municipality granting ANY permit for public speaking by a race hate terror group. Terrorists ARE NOT entitled to First Amendment protection. They are TERRORISTS and a danger to your community. They are a danger to your children. Your municipal government and local law enforcement are supposed to be protecting YOU from them, NOT protecting the terrorists from you as they openly and actively recruit in your neighborhood.

If your neighborhood wants to hear an inspiring speech or rally cry that will make this nation great, reject white race hate recruitment rallies. Demand, instead, that your municipality provide an open, outdoor theater screening of a speech like this: