A Modest Proposal for Arizona Legislatures & Those They Might Inspire…

Featured, Health care, Homelessness, Vendors »

The New Homeless

By Eileen Hiltbrand

Before I became homeless my vision of the homeless was that of a scraggly man with a bottle of cheap booze wrapped in a paper bag, begging for spare change and sleeping under a bridge.  Oh how experiences can change one’s perceptions.

I am homeless.  I have a college degree in business and in which I graduated Summa Cum Laude from the Ohio State University.  I also have a Doctorate through which I graduated Cum Laude.  You wouldn’t picture me as “one of those homeless people.”  Yet I am.

There are many of me out here.  We sell these papers to keep a roof over our heads, provide the basics that we all need on a daily basis, or to pay for our medical needs and co-pays.  That’s not to say that some of us aren’t those “scraggly men” who live under a bridge.  Please don’t assume, however that the image of the “scraggly man” represents the whole of us.

Each of us are unique and different as to what brought us into homelessness.  In my case, I developed heart problems/failures in March of 2005.  Six weeks later, I woke up from a coma owing $1.2 million for healthcare.  Thereafter, I lost my house and subsequently a condo I rented.  Although I had health insurance my entire life, United Health Care denied my claims and I was too sick, and they were too big for me to fight.  Ergo, I found myself homeless.

I won’t go into the details about the basements, carports, etc., into which I crawled to find a warm place to sleep.  Needless to say, those of us who are homeless are not all derelicts, drunks, or crack-heads.

Let me just say thank-you for purchasing my/our papers when you see us standing out on these street corners.  I can only speak for myself but it means the world and my life to me.  Thank you.

Commentary, Featured, Headline, Homelessness, Inequality, prisons »

City needs to prioritize human need, not police

Commentary

By Travoy Horton

Columbus Skyline. Photo by Julian Rosario.

The City of Columbus will wind up with an extra $31.8 million according to city budget experts. The question is, how should this money be used?  In Mayor Coleman’s 2012 proposed budget, $505 million would allocate $505 million to public safety for police and firefighters; while a mere $4.1 million would go to homeless services.  Furthermore, the city council tentatively desires to spend extra funds on curbside recycling for residents and free graffiti-removal services for businesses, at a cost of $6 million and up to $2.4 million, respectively.  As beneficial as these two services may appear on the surface, when you dig deeper into the issue, the foolishness of spending funds on curbside recycling and graffiti-removal, and without the input of the population in Columbus, is un-American and ridiculous.
The voices of the homeless are not heard by our government.  And yet a democracy requires the input of the majority, and not having an equal or sufficient opportunity to address the city council and express an opinion regarding how these funds should be used is dictatorial.  In my opinion, we have two issues at hand:  one, the city should never be allowed to spend city’s surplus without giving all of its residents an opportunity to express a position on how these funds might be used.  Secondly, to fully be in touch with the residents of the city of Columbus, we need to take a deeper look at what would best serve our city and its residents the most.
From the stand point of the writer, a great portion of the funds must be used to curb homelessness, by providing affordable housing for people living on the streets and in shelters. In addition, funds must be allocated to provide decent job opportunities for street people and the working poor.
My question is: how can the city council ignore the great devastation in Columbus caused by unemployment and homelessness in this country, and in our great city? Are we so foolish in our thinking as to believe that the crisis homeless people face does not affect every fabric of our society?
I urge, therefore, that the residents of this great community write Mayor Coleman, and the city council, a seriously deep letter announcing that we, the people, demand a voice in our city government, and we would like the funds to be allocated to the service of the poor and the folks in our society who would benefit the most, the homeless.  If and when these goals are achieved we can then begin to think in terms of recycling and graffiti-removal.  Perhaps the homeless can even be employed in the capacity of recycling and graffiti removal personnel; earning a decent wage and affordable housing, thus paying taxes to the city as honorable residents and as Americans.  But until such time consider this point: a community can only be deemed civil and great based on how well it takes care of its poor and underprivileged; and the city of Columbus has not done a good job defending its less fortunate citizens.

So can we reverse this trend?  Think on these things!

Commentary, Featured, Homelessness, Transportation »

City should expand COTA service

By AKA

Photo by e_walk. Creative Commons 2.0 (BY-NC-SA)

Did you ever wonder why things were so dead on the weekend’s downtown? Why there are no people strolling about in shops and restaurants? Well I don’t know about you but I take public transportation, and I find it to be extremely inconvenient getting from place to place. Let’s just say that going from point A to point B, I often wonder if walking would be faster. Especially on the weekends –waiting for a bus, doing what I have to do, and getting back to where I started from is like an all day affair.  I’ve thought about packing my sleeping bag a few times.

Now lets talk about the route #2 schedule which runs every 4-10 minutes from 8:08am to 7:01pm then it goes to around every 20 minutes till 10pm and after that it’s every hour until 12:00am, Monday-Friday. Now this is one of the most traveled routes, and people getting off later than that; you are just S.O.L. So get out of Downtown by midnight, or you’re riding a cab – or worse, you’re left walking.

With the new casino coming to the Westside – are they going to have to close at 11pm to let the people be able to catch the Central Ohio Transit Authority to take them home? Or are they going to camp the night alongside of the road?

Having public transportation is supposed to be convenient, but always having to wait alongside of the road for a Bus – there I said the B word – it is not a pleasurable experience. But it is the pulse of the city; no bus service, no pulse, as the dead downtown on the weekend shows.

Also I just wonder who makes up the routes, schedules and shelters for the transportation of the residents of Columbus. There is not even a seat or a shelter out at the Veterans Clinic on James Road. I was told by a driver that COTA expects the veterans to wait in the doorway of the clinic for the bus. Well the sun was shining and I was sitting in a wheelchair out front of the V.A., and the bus just rolled right through and almost didn’t stop except another veteran wanted on and he went running out waving the driver to stop. After boarding the driver said he was a little behind and didn’t see anybody at the stop so he was just going to cruise on.

Do you think maybe with some of that safety money they could make a couple of cross walks with flashing lights in the downtown area? Just a suggestion – maybe you could put one on Long St. where the YMCA is, or one on High St. between Long St. and Gay St, along with a crosswalk.

Oh, and while I’m still asking questions from COTA and whoever else that can answer, I would also like to know what happened to the bench across from the new Columbus Commons on the westside of High St. I have a handicap where standing for long periods of time is quite painful. I am left at a few bus stops downtown and some with no benches or shelter from the weather, it just plain ole sucks! If COTA thinks it discourages the homeless or other people from just hanging around, they might think of staggering single seats.

So here is what I’m saying, instead of tooting your own horn on how good the service is, let the people vote once or twice a year on routes and schedules.

Does it cost extra to paint all the buses gray now? I did really like them white!

And if COTA really needed to up fares, service should not only be a whole lot more convenient for the residents of Columbus, and also for the visitors that want to get around the city to what interests them, so that when they do come to Columbus they should find no problem getting around the city anytime day or night.

If the city of Columbus would like to grow larger and be a big Convention and Casino Town it certainly needs a bus service around the clock. New York is known as the City that never sleeps and I think its time for Columbus to wake-up.

A.K.A

Father, Mother, Brother, Sister

- The Homeless -

Any comments send to

P.O. Box 15383

Columbus, Oh 43215

Commentary, Featured, Headline, Homelessness, Vendors, Youth »

Voices from the Streets: How should the City of Columbus spend its $31.8 million surplus?

The city should spend this money on more projects pertaining to the homeless community – for more apartments with subsidized rents, and more available healthcare for men, women, and children.  Recently the shelters started the 30-day program, where residents cannot stay at the shelter longer than that 30 days.  Maybe some money could be spent on the shelters so that people could stay longer.
The City could also spend the money on the recreation centers which were closed last year to balance the budget.  This would have a great effect on our neighborhood children.  The children are our future.
Michael McDaniel

It’s not fair for them to just sit back and make all the decisions.  The City should ask other people’s opinion about what they’re doing, too.
Eleanor Suber

I think the city should spend some of the money by providing steady jobs to felons… They have some already but it really doesn’t get you a long-term job, they want you to work for the temp agency for minimum wage, hard labor jobs.  Most of the jobs were just for 3-5 days, then after that you have to wait for another one to come in.  I see it by experience.
And they should spend some of it on helping young kids to lead them into the right direction; that life is what you make it, not what other people want it to be.   We need more organizations to help kids in need, like the Boys and Girls Club.  With some of the recreation centers closing, that took away the kids after school activities and a place where they could hang out with their peers…
Richard Casto

I think the $31.8 million dollars of extra money should help the Ohio Food Banks for pantries around the Columbus area, for families that are very low on income and trying their best to put food on tables for kids and adults.
I also think some of the money should go to help ex-felons that are coming out of prisons so they can learn skills, like how to fill out resumes and how to dress for certain jobs, and give them clothes for those jobs. Some of these ex-felons don’t have anything.
Yemen Anderson

My name is Mike Carano.  At the present time I am homeless.  I have tried to find full-time employment, but because I am an ex-felon the only job I can find is fast food, which would hardly pay the rent if I was not homeless.  Plus I served my country for three years with the U.S. Marine Corps, and I deserve better than this.
The City of Columbus has $31.8 million to help the homeless, and not to fatten politician’s pockets.  You have all kinds of men with all kinds of skills that would do everything in their power to get a chance to work.  On the south side of Columbus there are over 500 homes that are boarded up.  Why not use this money to help the homeless to get back to work, and with a home they can call their own?  If that were to happen it would cut the crime rate way down.
Michael Carano

Do you have a question for our vendors?
Email us at street.speech.columbus@gmail.com.

Homelessness, Vendors »

Staying Warm in the Winter: Tips from the Streets

By Mary Loritz

Getting dressed

First lesson: the name of the game is layering. Dressing in layers is fundamental to remaining warm, especially when spending long periods of time out in the cold. Two layers of socks, two hats, and thermal underwear are a few staples of traditional vendor winterwear. Gloves and mittens can be layered as well. A scarf is great for keeping your neck and chest warm – which helps to prevent colds and flus. Don’t wear anything too tight; it’s the air between your layers that keeps you warm, and you want to keep your blood moving. Carhartts, coveralls, and jumpsuits are a good choices for pants because they reduce drafts.

Vendor Lester Finney shares his experience in selecting the clothes to stay warm last winter:

“The things I did to stay warm in the winter time while I sold my Street Speech paper, when I would start to dress I would wear a couple of pairs of socks, one pair would be thermal socks, and a nice big thick toboggan. I also wore thermal underwear, a pair of sweatpants, and my regular pants over that. I’d also wear winterized boots to keep my feet warm and dry. I also had a pair of mittens, leather ones which were big enough for me to wear other gloves inside them. Last but not least, a good coat that could keep you warm.”

Lester stresses the utility of winterized boots in keeping your feet warm and dry. All of us know the aggravation of having wet feet on a snowy day. If you can’t afford solid winter boots, look for rain boots large enough to wear over your shoes in wet weather.

Photo by Seth Anderson. CC BY-SA 2.0

Heating

Vendor Everett Suber encouraged the use of a wood-burning stove like his mother used to have, “You could cook on it, and it would warm the whole house up,” he said. It doesn’t cost incur costs for utilities. Although one would have to find and chop wood, there’s benefit in exercising to stay warm, and maintaining healthy circulation is critically important in the cold. And homeless or not, everybody likes a real fire – it keeps us in touch with ourselves and our place in nature.

If one finds themselves with the gas turned off, a carefully monitored electric oven or space heater can be effective. Before arriving at such a solution, of course, vendors suggested a few local agencies that can provide assistance with heating bills during the winter: JOIN, IMPACT Community Action, and the American Breathing Association. If those don’t work, try finding a good church. First, though, see if you qualify for the federal Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP) to help subsidize your gas bill this winter, and apply before it gets too cold! You can find HEAP applications at the library and Job and Family Services (and more information by calling (800) 282-0880).

If living in a tent, consider candles. 10 lit candles placed in an aluminum roasting pan can keep a tent warm, even when it’s freezing outside. The Open Shelter helps to provide candles and other supplies to those staying on the land.

No matter where you are staying – in a house or on the street – Richie recommends getting a carpet or another covering to insulate the ground, so that a cold surface can’t leech body heat.

Location

When sleeping on the streets, scout for a location blocked from the wind, be certain to layer clothing, and carry lots of blankets. Sidewalk vents carry heat from the sewer and steam pipes underground and help to keep a person warm. An ideal location would both be adjacent to such a heat source as well as blocked from wind.

Health Care

Vendors also emphasized the importance of maintaining of your overall health to stay warm. This included suggestions to exercise, “the more you move around the warmer you get,” said Richie.

Other vendors also pointed out that to stay warm it’s important to take care of your overall health. Nourish yourself with hot foods and liquids: soups, stews, coffee and hot cocoa, “like Mama used to make.” Eat good food, not junk food. This includes staying away from alcohol; though it might help you to feel warmer, it brings your blood closer to the surface, cooling your body temperature and putting you more at risk of hypothermia. It also saps the body of vital nutrients.

While staying active and well-fed, stay social, too. Family and friends are effective protectors against both the doldrums and cold weather. “The more people you have in a house, the more body heat you have to warm yourself,” says Richie. And if you’re still cold, Richie suggests, “Cuddle up to a big-boned woman!” Though at 98.6 degrees, we all have the capacity to keep each other warm, regardless of body type.

If all else fails, Everett says, “Move to Florida!”

Commentary, Featured, Homelessness, Unemployment »

Can We Eat the Geese?

By William Moore, Street Speech vendor

I don’t understand why people go hungry in Columbus, the capital of Ohio.  While I bike commute from Grove City through downtown almost everyday, coming close to the grassy area of COSI and the Vets Memorial, I see BIG FAT geese, geese, geese — by the hundreds.  I counted 50 on a small patch of grass, then I quit counting because there were so many… the ducks and the geese are so well fed and lazy that they don’t even fly south anymore, and here we see or hear that people are starving in our fair city…  All I want to know is…

“Can we eat the geese?!”

During these holiday festivities believe it or not people and familes are going hungry.  My question still remains the same: why cant we somehow regulate a way where we can feed familes geese?  I know you cant fire a gun within the city limits, but what about setting and maintaining traps?  I think one goose is just as big as a turkey, and one goose could feed a family of four.  A family could sign up for a”Holiday-Goose”, let’s say 200 to 400 families.. that would’nt even put a dent in the geese population..

Photo by John Romkey.

Featured, Homelessness, Inequality, Vendors »

Lessons learned in the ’60s: Vendor Wayne Jones remembers the Civil Rights Era

By Tom Over

Wayne Jones & friend Jim Gainey. Photo by Katelyn Crawford.

Wayne Jones always has words of wisdom to share. Growing up in Columbus in the 1960s, he recalls his experiences amidst the unrest and changes of the time.

Jones said his grandfather, John L. Jones, was a book-smart civil rights activist, and one of Columbus’ first Black firefighters.

“He sued the state and won. He used his own legal expertise to win. He was a co-director of housing development at one time. He was a controversial figure who didn’t mind speaking up for the truth. I don’t either… the truth will set you free. The truth can be sweet to the taste and sour to the stomach or the other way around.”

Jones said getting the truth out about politics during the Black Civil Rights movement in the 1960s was one of the things that WVKO did, even though it faced challenges as Columbus’ first Black radio station.

“They tried to keep it neutral as much as possible, because money backed the station. ‘Keep your dog gone mouth shout or we’ll shut you down.’”

During that era, Jones was a teen living in Columbus. He said there was a curfew as protests against the Vietnam War took over the Ohio State campus, and race riots erupted in cities across the country, including Columbus.

“Stay in the house? I wasn’t going to stay in the house. I’d sneak out thru the window with my shoeshine kit. All of the colleges were acting up. Ohio State was acting up. And they brought out those armored vehicles. If you were caught out past your curfew, you could either be physically chastised or could get arrested.”

Coming of age, he one day looked in the mirror and recognized the cultural significance of having skin darker than the majority of people in the US.

“I not only could see it, but I felt it everywhere I’d go, because I’m an explorer. The more I traveled, the more they’d say ‘get away from me boy.’ Boy?”

He recalls attitudes shifting during this era, “People said to me, ‘Don’t be no wimp. Don’t let this person talk to you like that. Don’t let this particular culture call you all these names and make you sit at the back of the bus. Don’t do it. Fight them. Stand up. Use any means necessary.’”

“Multi-culturally speaking, people started respecting people. You still had the bitterness among some people, but it depends on the unity of people, really. It takes somebody to stand up and say, ‘Listen, there is only one family. That’s the human race. The only difference is our culture to learn from and to grow from and expand, not to fear and kill.’ Martin Luther King Jr. did a good thing in bringing all humans together.”

Jones said the US has progressed in terms of relations between Blacks and Whites.

“We’ve come a long way. We don’t even think of calling you a honky or cracker or you calling me a nigger. We don’t even think of that anymore. Back in the 60s, it (a racial slur) would come out real quick. But now our cultures have blended.”

He said one of the things required for getting past bitterness is people standing up and saying, “There is only one family; that’s the human race.” He said we should not allow our cultural differences to scare and divide us. Instead, we should learn from them.

“We should never stop learning,” said Jones.

“If all the oceans and lakes were ink and all the trees were pens, you’d run out of ink and pens to write all the wisdom and knowledge there is to know about creation. You never stop learning until you’re dead. But the worst death in the world is to be mentally dead.”

He said it is important to learn to share, because it is the only way to thank God for blessing us.

“If you can’t share money or food, a smile is priceless charity. Words of encouragement and words of positive motivation, those are priceless charities.”

Commentary, Featured, Headline, Inequality »

A Modest Proposal for Arizona Legislatures & Those They Might Inspire…

Drew Lyness & Damon Berry

BACKGROUND

In the latest stand in Arizona’s continuing struggle against ‘Ethnic Studies’ programs which focus on the teaching of non-white histories and regional literatures, the Tucson Unified School District governing board voted in January to suspend the city’s Mexican American studies program indefinitely. The legislature deemed the program in direct violation of Arizona Revised Statutes 15-112, new laws passed in 2010:

A. A school district or charter school in this state shall not include in its program of instruction any courses or classes that include any of the following:

1.        Promote the overthrow of the United States government.

2.        Promote resentment toward a race or class of people.

3.        Are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group.

4.        Advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.

A burlap bag and chain cover banned books at the University of Arizona University Libraries in Tucson. http://www.flickr.com/photos/americanlibraries/4011295443/

Under the auspices of these laws, the state has moved into classrooms and removed a number of books from Mexican American history classes which it determined promoted ‘racial retribution’. Although the debate rages as to whether these titles are ‘banned’ — or simply can no longer be taught in an ethnic studies context— they include: 500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures edited by Elizabeth Martinez, Chicano! The History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement by Arturo Rosales, Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire, Occupied America: A History of Chicanos by Rodolfo Acuna, Critical Race Theory by Richard Delgado, Message to AZTLAN by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales, and, Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years by Bill Bigelow.

An expanded list of texts also considered too subversive for curricula use because they employ such incendiary terms as ‘oppression,’ ‘disenfranchisement,’ and ‘inequality,’ include: House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, and The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven, by Native American author Sherman Alexie.

An Open Letter from two white guys in central Ohio, to Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal, former superintendent Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne, administrative Judge Lewis Kowal, Governor Jan Brewer, and all those members of the Tucson Unified School District who bravely took a stand and voted to keep dangerous racial books out of their children’s schools.

*****

Dear Arizona State Legislators,

Let us begin by saying, as fellow public educators, we wish to offer you our heartfelt congratulations. We know very well the monumental task of teaching today’s students about fairness and equality under the accumulated weight of established racial propaganda, and we agree wholeheartedly that this historical adversary should finally be banished from curricula throughout this proud land.

We were dismayed that your recent initiative went woefully unnoticed by the national press, which remains a reliable cornerstone of our great democracy. To rectify this blatant censorship by the liberal media, it is our goal to now bring to you the recognition your powerful efforts deserve, so that you may serve as inspiration for others working to keep society safe from racial agitation.

Therefore, as we labor to banish pernicious and divisive teachings from our own communities, we respectfully ask for a moment of your time to clarify a few points which may better help us to follow your worthy example:

We remember a favorite story of ours growing up. Although you are a generation or two ahead of us, you may remember reading it too? The Story of Ferdinand was written in 1936 by American children’s author Munro Leaf and illustrated by Robert Lawson. This book tells of a peaceful bull in Spain who, rather than fighting, preferred to sit in the ring and smell the flowers. However much the matador and the bloodthirsty crowd tried to goad Ferdinand into violence, he simply ignored them. You see Ferdinand was truly smart, or if you like, ‘educated’. He had learned from his history of being a bull, that violent struggle never worked in the bull’s favor. Ferdinand figured that the matador had more people on his side, more power and weapons, and that as long as things remained the same, bulls would never be allowed to escape the ring. He had probably seen many of his bull friends go into the ring, never to return. When it came down to it, Ferdinand decided, the whole contest was really a cheap trick and the ring was really just a trap. Far better to take control of the one choice he had left, refuse to fight, and instead focus on the finer things in life.

Of course, in the long tradition of book-banning of which the Tucson School District forms the vanguard in 2012, The Story of Ferdinand was quickly black-listed by Franco following his coup and the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and fascism. The Story of Ferdinand was also burned on bonfires by the Nazi’s in Germany, and banned by the right-wing in countries all over the world. Mussolini and Stalin alike waged their own wars on literature and, at the height of their administrations, instigated frenzied attacks on all ideas and books they perceived challenged their status-quo.

However…

While obviously these particular regimes used their educational legislation to create climates of fear, impinge upon the rights of minorities, silence voices of dissent, inhibit access to civil rights, and to preserve the ignorance of those masses who blindly followed their ‘truth’ regimes; we are quite certain that Arizona will be the shining exception to this established historical trend.

Despite the unavoidable (and yes, we concede, slightly embarrassing) fact that all regimes which have sought to limit freedom of education and remove subversive texts from the classroom, once scrutinized under the unforgiving glare of history, turned out to be “the bad guys” — we are sure in the special case of Arizona, your administration is doing the morally correct thing!

We are furthermore very satisfied that some of the more controversial pieces of legislation currently being used in Arizona to target Spanish speakers, suspected illegal immigrants (those who appear not to belong), and any writings or teachings in opposition to these powerful political agendas, are entirely disconnected from your noble effort to unite our children under the banner of ‘national solidarity’ in public schools. Indeed, any attempt to link these things would be shamelessly naked politicking which would deny the firmly level playing-field on which all such political power-plays are made!

In fact, our utter confidence in your motives is in no small part due to the sensitive lengths each of you has gone to in order to prove that there is no way your policies or legislation could be considered to have a specific racialized target in mind. These quotes by two of your number, to take only the most obvious example, illustrates the true goals of your legislation, as well as the keen grasp you have on the historical legacy of racial politics, exclusion and segregation in the United States:

“You know, I tell people you can bring “Mein Kampf” into the classroom, but you’d better be really careful about the viewpoint in which you’re bringing that into the classroom.”

-        Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction, John Huppenthal.

 

“It’s just like the old South, and it’s long past time that we prohibited it.”

-     Arizona Attorney General, Tom Horne

With these intelligent points in mind, and to avoid the ‘Jim Crow’ scenario about which Attorney Horne is so nobly concerned, let us be as bold as to propose the first items on an expanded agenda in the continued legal war against special treatment for ethnic (numerical) majorities:

• Immediately add ‘Mein Kampf’ to the list of prohibited literature in the great state of Arizona. We have checked and it does not yet appear on your list! Given your repeated invocation of the holocaust, as well as the communist death camps, in both legislative language and your media appearances, we must admit this glaring omission baffles us a little? An accidental oversight, we’re certain.

• Also immediately ban from all classroom discussion any mention of Manifest Destiny, and the acquisition of the southwest from the Republic of Mexico in 1848, since both represent highly racialized projects which will only provoke resentment if not finally silenced once and for all. Those families in the southwest who the border once moved over, and whose stories, culture, language and skin-color is now the tacit object of state legislation, would do much better to forget this lesson. (This of course will necessitate a complete over-hauling of all high school and college history curricula, but we feel this but a small price to pay for ethnic solidarity in our Land of Equal Opportunity.)

• Continue to ignore all discussion of the so-called ‘Indian Wars’ from history lessons in K-12 classrooms. (This is, incidentally, a job at which we’re proud to say our nation already excels with flying colors). We feel formative knowledge of this protracted conflict and the political subjugation of an entire indigenous people on the basis of their ethnicity and non-Western traditions, can only inflame feelings of hostility and resentment on the part of both ‘oppressor’ and ‘oppressed’ alike. This of course would necessitate an alteration to the Arizona Revised Statutes 15-112, in their current form — but since you wrote them, you already know that!

We sincerely hope our modest proposals will be received in good faith and ethnic solidarity by the Arizona Legislature, and all those who support your struggle against racial oppression. We are certain that the quicker we can all forget the language and the stories of dissent against powerful regimes — and especially those ones which have worked throughout national history to construct and uphold notions of race for their own political and economic gain— the easier it will become for those in power to convince us all swiftly to unite under one flag, beneath one leadership, and towards one common national future in our magnificent homeland…

Sincerely Yours in Education and Inspiration,

Drew Lyness & Damon Berry, The Ohio State University

*****

Note to readers wise enough not to buy into the kind of illusion Arizona legislatures would like us to believe, however seductive it may be:

All nations have been to varying extents born out of conquest and oppression, inflicting slavery, rape & murder, and therefore all national identities are responsible for owning and understanding these multiple histories and the legacy of inequalities they breed. To suppress such acknowledgments in our collective present, such as is the political move in Arizona, is by default to allow only the teaching of dominant supremacist Military History. To exclude historically subjugated experiences from the classroom, even while hiding behind well-sounding and seemingly neutral color-blind language, is by default to promote the formation of a singular nationalist identity under which historically racialized and disenfranchised groups can be excluded and turned upon, once again, at political or economic will. To ban teaching about the nuances of power and oppression to our children, however much we all wish we didn’t have to in 2012, by default works towards maintaining the very thing the American Civil Rights movement fought to slowly change so that we may all gradually become mindful of the continuing struggle presented by our entwined histories of slavery, economic segregation, land grabs, reservation legislation, war, and capricious immigration policies.

Worryingly, we suspect that Arizona Legislators and those who see the world like them, may understand this already. Here, Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne engages in more insidious special pleading and amazingly suggests that MLK would be down with Arizona’s assault on ethnic solidarity:

“In the summer of 1963, having recently graduated from high school, I participated in the civil rights march on Washington, in which Martin Luther King stated that he wanted his children to be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. That has been a fundamental principal for me my entire life.”

When these people evoke the father of the Civil Rights movement in order to justify an assault on programs which were set up in direct response to that movement, it really is time to sit up and take notice. Do we really believe MLK would be here today, standing shoulder to shoulder with Tom Horne, and calling for the closure of African American Studies programs?!

When legislators like those in Arizona pass laws that aim to stultify the ongoing work such programs do towards creating a collective dialogue and understanding of race and power in America— either they badly misunderstand the historical legacy of subjugation that lead to the very idea of ‘race’ in the post-colonial world, or more disturbingly, they understand these things all too well and are in truth invested in fostering a climate of anti-immigrant paranoia and race-based panic from which they themselves stand to gain politically. It sounds good to talk about ‘treating students like individuals,’ and this is exactly why these kind of politicians use the word. They know most of us will unthinkingly buy it. However, if we know anything about America, success as an individual depends significantly on the amount of cards that happen to be stacked against that individual from birth. Ethnic studies programs and those who continue to advocate for actual racial justice, aim to deal a fair hand to everyone. As white people, the writers of this letter have as much responsibility as everybody else to acknowledge that. Forty years really isn’t a very long time in light of the centuries of violent subjugation people of color suffered after Europeans showed up here on boats.

To buy into Arizona’s cynical, divisive, and simplistic attempts towards preserving the whitewashing of history and culture, would be to believe that Martin Luther King’s dream became a reality the very moment he dreamt it. It would be to believe in magic rather than recognizing the hard work we as a society still need to do to truly get us ‘beyond’ race and to a better place. It would be incredibly dangerous.

“Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.”

— Heinrich Heine 1797-1856

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