Red, Brown & Blue

For the People: A Lesson Learned.

Something happened on my way to a good argument – I educated myself, applied reason and good sense, and found that I had less of a need to fight than I had previously believed.  In doing so, I realized that within the Texas text-book debate lies an opportunity to examine our current contentious political environment.

There has been a lot of talk in the news lately about the Texas State Board of Education, new Board Commissioner Gail Lowe, and the revision of Texas Essential Knowledge Skills.  Most of the talk concerns the fact that Lowe is a conservative Christian and she feels our Founding Fathers intended for our country to be guided by Christian principles, thus making it acceptable to use those principles to shape the education of American school children.  Like most of the things regarding the country’s Founding Fathers, it is debatable whether that was their intention, and statements can be cherry-picked from each of them to support either side of the argument.  Those men were remarkable thinkers, interested in multiple disciplines of thought, and supporters of the advancement of science to achieve greater understanding of the natural world.  Because of that support, I have a hard time believing that any of the Founders would argue against evolution or the Big Bang in favor of creationism or a fundamentalist time-line, which Lowe’s predecessor did while serving as Commissioner.

I read several of the published criticisms of the Texas State Board of Education.  I became concerned with some of the changes that were being considered which seemed to defy reason in favor of promoting a conservative political agenda.  I wanted to help publicize this revisionist agenda, criticize the flawed logic of the changes suggested, and call people to action against the subversion of public education.  Before sitting down to type, though, I took an important step.  Rather than regurgitate information that had come to me through secondary sources, I found the drafts of proposed revisions to Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, annotated with commentary from members of the board.

What I found actually came as a surprise.  Looking at the proposed changes for Social Studies, Special Topics Social Studies, US Government, US History, Sociology, and World History, I discovered that the proposed changes in these drafts overwhelmingly support a broad and multicultural point of view in public education.  Despite reports to the contrary, Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall are not being eliminated in favor of Ronald Reagan and Rush Limbaugh.  Many, many historical figures are being proposed as additions to the curriculum (including Chavez and Reagan) that were not previously specified as part of the required teachings.  The majority of the controversy surrounds opinions made by one or two board members (or panelists appointed by those members) on the significance of particular figures, or the balance of “liberal” figures against “conservative” figures.  This again brings me back to the Founders.

The process underway in Texas to shape the education of our children is reflective of the Founder’s desire for elected representatives to debate the merits of public policy and act in the public interest.  They knew that a consensus would be rare, so they created a government in which debate could be used to sway opinion, and the opinion held by the majority would emerge victorious.  Checks and balances would be in place, though, to protect against tyranny by the majority.   Americans seem to have forgotten that this is the way the system works.  Follow this train of thought – if our students are subjected to an education that is scientifically deficient or politically slanted, it is because the Board of Education, chosen by the citizens, approved of that education.  If the Board approves of that education but the majority of citizens do not, it is because dissenting citizens did not adequately exercise their right to vote for the Board. And if they did not adequately exercise their right, it stands to reason that the eligible voters did not take the time to educate themselves on the gravity of that election.  In turn, if an unfavorable outcome occurs, the next election provides a means of redress.  Knowing this, I can only shake my head in disbelief when I see modern tea-party protesters claiming that they have no representation.  The representation is present, only now, that particular opinion is in the minority.

It is important to the core concepts of our government that we hold our elected officials accountable.  We must make clear before and after they are elected what we want them to do on our behalf.  This is true right now in Texas as the Board decides the things teachers will talk about with our children, and it’s important nationally as our lawmakers decide how to change the health care system.  Equally important is remembering that decisions will favor the majority, and as a member of the minority, one must maintain a rational opposition. Extreme vitriol not only reflects poorly on your point of view, but causes an immediate disconnect with the party you’re trying to persuade.  We have all been guilty of it at some point.

The Texas Board of Education is accepting informal feedback on TEKS proposals through October 9.  You can go here to find the annotated drafts, the contact information, and the appropriate procedure for submitting commentary.  Shouts of “you lie” are not considered valid.

Jake Negovan strives to shine a light on truth and hypocrisy when the mainstream media overlooks those small details. “…For the People,” Jake’s column, is his platform to address the issues that our country faces as we continue growing toward a society of equality.

Signs of a Dangerous Undertow

Is it more than coincidence that what sparked a Congressman to yell at a black president were his feelings about brown immigrants?

The evidence is circumstantial, but the same might have once been said about the tip of the iceberg that sank the Titanic.

In the midst of President Obama’s speech to Congress on health care reform, after the president denied that legislation would provide free coverage for illegal immigrants, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-South Carolina) shouted disruptively, “You lie!”

Is it ironic or predictable that such anti-immigrant sentiment would spew forth from a representative of the state boasting the country’s fastest growing Hispanic population? Either way, it speaks volumes about what it’s like to be Latino right now, legal or not.

Funny that Wilson is from the Old South, land of the stereotypical “southern gentleman.” Unfortunately, he chose to embody a less favorable stereotype, one substantiated by his membership in what MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann described as “a radicalized, insurrection-glorifying group, accused of harboring white supremacists, called ‘Sons Of Confederate Veterans.’”

I wonder if he’d rudely heckle a white president? I wonder if he’d be so concerned about immigrants benefiting from health care reform if those immigrants weren’t changing the complexion of South Carolina?

I ask because if the health care debate has become heated to the point of hostility, what lies ahead for the immigration debate, given its obvious racial and ethnic overtones?

Wilson’s explosion foreshadows the combustible nature of our nation’s ongoing culture war. He and his ilk don’t want to pay for health care for those who can’t afford it, nor for illegal immigrants not paying taxes. Really, they just don’t want immigrants, period. They won’t admit the real reasons behind their stance because they know racist sentiment is political suicide. They’ll try to claim justification in the rule of law, but in moments like Wilson’s accusation, their true motivations are revealed.

Veins throbbing, skin flushed red, finger pointed in judgment, Wilson flashed his true colors. Publicly calling our president a liar, his actions exposed the nexus of opposition to both health care and immigration reform as a force motivated by fear, anger and hatred. His finger was really aimed squarely at people of color, who comprise nearly all of the immigrants in question and a disproportionate segment of the uninsured, not to mention those swept up in the current, including our president.

I can speak to this first-hand because when I’ve advocated for immigration reform, I’ve received comments like: “You’re lucky we let you stay in the country.”

Well, I should hope so since I was born and raised here and am an American citizen. However, the feedback illustrates the current I’m talking about. Anti-immigrant fervor fosters a general anti-Latino climate because beneath the surface lurks the same fear of cultural change. Tragically, it all swirls with the potential for a continuing rise in menacing hate crimes.

Wondering how Wilson’s hateful outburst played in South Carolina, I reviewed press coverage in his district, finding a mixture of surprise, disappointment and pride. Most disturbing was the pride.

One Wilson constituent, sitting among patrons at a diner near Columbia, told the Associated Press: “He’s the only one who has guts in that whole place. He’ll get re-elected in a landslide.”

If so, I’ll understand why the Southern Poverty Law Center ranks South Carolina third among the Top 5 Hot Spots for Hate Groups. At least 45 such organizations exist in Wilson’s state.

In his mea culpa, Wilson confessed: “I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the president’s remarks regarding the coverage of illegal immigrants in the health care bill.”

But the apology doesn’t mean that “emotions” like Wilson’s won’t resurface. In fact, if the subsequent increase in contributions to Wilson’s campaign is any indication, the Congressman is backed by many like-minded supporters. We must keep a keen eye on Wilson and his allies, because the waves he has made are a sign of dangerous undercurrents threatening to drown civil, honest and safe discourse in America.

We cannot tolerate rage that threatens civil discourse and public safety over national debate.

We must aggressively ascertain and expose the true motivations of immigration opponents so we can respond with a corresponding moral force that lives up to our ideals as a people.

We should be aware that anti-immigrant sentiment leads to anti-Latino sentiment as many fail to distinguish between Latinos born and raised here, legal immigrants, and those here illegally.

We must stop negative emotions from fanning fires of hate that could unleash more heinous crimes.

While the White House graciously accepted Wilson’s apology, the damage is done with the hate-mongers in our society, who are emboldened by reckless leaders like the Congressman from South Carolina.

I believe in forgiveness, but not in forgetting – or ignoring – what lurks beneath the waters that lie ahead.

Rudy Ruiz has been hailed as a cultural visionary. A published author and multicultural advocate, Ruiz is an acclaimed multicultural communications entrepreneur. He founded Red Brown and Blue as well as Interlex, one of the nation’s leading advocacy marketing agencies ranked by Ad Age as one of the Top US Agencies across all disciplines. Prior to that, Ruiz earned his BA in Government at Harvard College and his Masters in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Justice Should Be Color Blind, But People Aren’t.

The debate over President Obama’s selection of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court has incited many reactions. Opponents of programs designed to counter historic discrimination and prejudice claim that justice should be blind, seizing on Sotomayor’s ethnicity and past comments about the positive values of diversity to not only undermine her credibility but also to take a vicious swing at the kinds of policies that opened doors for her and other Hispanics and Blacks. This is an opportunistic and insidious endeavor, a clear attempt to leverage a truism about justice to undermine policies designed to engender equality. It’s a disingenuous threat that must be countered.

I agree that justice should be color blind, but people aren’t. Just the fact we have to say justice should be color blind implies that in our society, when we have allowed color to factor into our verdicts the results have been unfair. It’s a sad reality that has pervaded our history, dogs us today and is reflected in our society and economy. I agree that in the best of all worlds, in a utopia, race and ethnicity would not factor into decisions made by the courts, nor would they figure in deliberations by government agencies, schools, and corporations in awarding access to opportunities. But we don’t live in a utopia. Human beings must execute the laws and policies of our government. And last time I checked, human beings weren’t perfect. Human beings must make the final decisions. And human beings are driven not only by reason but also by emotion. Human beings still find comfort in familiarity and sense self-consciousness in the face of the different, whether it drives them to act negatively, justly or to overcompensate in a positive direction. The result of human racism over the centuries is that in America – although we have our first Black President – it is important to still note the following:

• Obama is the first minority President in over 200 years in a land first inhabited by Native Americans and then built largely on the shoulders of slaves and immigrants.

• Blacks and Hispanics are underrepresented in proportion to their population in practically every elected body in our nation, from Congress to the boards of Fortune 500 companies.

• Blacks and Hispanics, along with other minority groups, not only face discriminatory and predatory lending practices and higher foreclosure rates during the current mortgage crisis, but also exhibit enduring educational attainment gaps, income gaps, and health disparities.

The results of a history of racism and prejudice cannot be wiped out by one election. Color blindness cannot be achieved at the grassroots level simply because we have a few enlightened leaders and media pundits who would like us to believe it can be that easy. Those who would overturn race- and ethnicity-based policies designed to eliminate these types of gaps would also have us blindly believe we are living in a utopia.

The illusion of Paradise Found is treacherous and must be dispelled. Much of the racism and discrimination that minorities encounter today is not as overt as it was in the past, rendering it easier for those who either wittingly or unwittingly propagate it to argue that it doesn’t exist. There are no signs that bar us from using the same bathrooms. We don’t have to sit in the back of the bus. Instead, we face a more quiet, lingering form of racism and prejudice that will take generations to overcome. It is a de facto or subtle racism that does not necessarily result from outright racially motivated decision making, but rather from decisions driven by other emotions, interests and relationships that coincidentally tend to correlate with race and ethnicity. For example, lucrative government and corporate contracts, as well as admission to exclusive schools and organizations are often awarded to equally or less qualified individuals or companies simply because of familiarity, relationships, and insider access. These types of relationships are often non-existent within minority communities because we are only beginning to build elite and professional classes of our own. So, in lieu of those types of built-in advantages, race- and ethnicity-based policies that encourage decision makers to provide opportunities to qualified minorities and minority-owned businesses are designed to level the playing field. It may be an imperfect solution for an imperfect world, but it’s better than turning a blind eye on a persistent problem.

As the debate rages on until Judge Sotomayor is sworn in as the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice, it is important to speak up against opponents who would turn the race card against minority groups and interests. It’s a coy game they are playing. And while I do agree we should aspire to a world where decisions are made regardless of color or creed, I’m not naïve enough to believe that we’ve reached that utopia. I also am not naïve enough to believe that the path to racial equality will be hastened by eliminating the few, weak and complex initiatives designed to help us reach that very goal. I’d much rather toil to eliminate the blatant disparities between all groups. And when statistics show that we are all truly functioning as equal peers in this society, then by all means, let’s do away with the mechanisms designed to help us get there. Then instead of being color blind, perhaps both justice and society will be capable of seeing us all – in full color – as equals.

Rudy Ruiz has been hailed as a cultural visionary. A published author and multicultural advocate, Ruiz is an acclaimed multicultural communications entrepreneur. He founded Red Brown and Blue as well as Interlex, one of the nation’s leading advocacy marketing agencies ranked by Ad Age as one of the Top US Agencies across all disciplines. Prior to that, Ruiz earned his BA in Government at Harvard College and his Masters in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Resources: To help protect the civil rights and advancements of multicultural communities, support MALDEF. Click here to learn how.

For the People: Justice is Unserved.

There is a difference between justice and law. The two are imperfectly paired, as one is an idealized concept of equity while the other is a definition of permissible or impermissible behavior. Law is the mechanical structure that we create to achieve justice. But as human beings we are fraught with natural imperfection and our laws suffer for our faults, often falling somewhere short of justice’s ideal.

Luis Ramirez has been dead for almost a year. He died in a hospital, the victim of a severe beating that his body was not able to withstand. He left behind two young children and a fiance. On the first of May, the young men who administered that beating were acquitted of murder in a Pennsylvania court, found guilty of no more than simple assault. They had been drinking the night of the incident. Six teens. All white. High school heroes of the local football team. Luis Ramirez was accompanied only by the young sister of his fiance. Insults were exchanged. A fight broke out. The fight stopped for long enough that Ramirez made a phone call to a friend for help. The fight resumed. It was nearly over when the friend arrived, brought to a close when Ramirez was kicked in the head as he lay on the ground. The six white teens fled the scene and Luis Ramirez was unconscious, foaming at the mouth.

Police eventually arrived on the scene, but did not pursue the reported assailants. With Ramirez on his way to a hospital in an ambulance, the police in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania thought it was of greater importance to frisk the friends that had answered his last phone call, and to search their vehicle for weapons. On the other hand, the teenage boys that ran from the scene were able to go about their lives for almost two weeks before being arrested. As revealed in last month’s trial, the first day of those two weeks allowed the boys to meet and to concoct a story to bolster their defense.

The foreman of the jury that acquitted these young men has made public statements that his co-jurors were predisposed to a verdict of “not guilty” against the defendants, and that the reason they were predisposed was because the defendants were white and the victim was not. Perhaps I have not yet mentioned that all 12 jurors were white.

One of the fundamental principles of the legal system in our country is the assumption of innocence until guilt is proven beyond a reasonable doubt. The same jury foreman that believes his co-jurors were racist and impartial also believes that the prosecution failed to overcome that doubt, and his 11 colleagues agreed. Sadly, the ghost of Luis Ramirez could not take the stand and point a ghoulish finger at each of his attackers. So instead, the bigot-riddled jury got to hear a lot of things that we have also heard from mainstream media outlets. Things that make an attempt to demean the character of the dead man, and somehow make him complicit in his own death.

Luis Ramirez was a 25-year-old illegal immigrant in the company of a 15-year-old “girlfriend” at the time he was attacked. This 15-year-old was not his fiance. He had two children out of wedlock with a white woman, who also had a third child that was not fathered by Ramirez. No one knows for sure if the white kids began insulting Ramirez, or if he made a provocative statement towards them first. The fight could have possibly ended before the immigrant received fatal blows, but as he walked away from his assailants, further insults caused him to charge back at them and resume the fight.

Try and tell me that you don’t see what this information is supposed to provide you. Subtly, or perhaps subliminally, these details are meant to paint Luis Ramirez as a freeloading border-crosser who came to our country to steal jobs and not pay taxes. He was a lecherous, miscegenational pedophile who seemed oblivious of birth control. He didn’t have the good sense to walk away from a fight when he could have, and suffered the consequences.

These are the details that we’ve heard about Luis Ramirez, and these are the details that the jury heard also. When you already have a prejudiced audience, highlighting the most stereotypical details of this man’s life are not going to help convince anyone to see things differently. It matters not that Ramirez had been working as a farm-hand in our country, picking lettuce and strawberries, for about six years. Only that he didn’t have the legal documentation that would allow him to do so. It didn’t matter that his work and his day-to-day life in Shenandoah contributed to the community. It only mattered that he was not on the radar of the IRS. And, yes, I have read multiple versions of Ramirez’s relationship to the girl he was with, and versions of her relationship to his fiance, and varying stories of whether the fiance was or was not his fiance, and multiple versions of the paternity of her children, but all of those things are only meant to conjure puritanical discomfort over someone’s sexual activities. It’s a smokescreen and a diversion meant to obscure the fact that a man was murdered.

The law of the United States is actually designed to protect the accused. The law worked in this case. These teenage boys were allowed to stand before a jury of their (all white) peers, and the burden was on the prosecution to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that they were guilty of purposely ending the life of Luis Ramirez because he was not a white American. The prosecution did not overcome that burden, and thus the jury was only convinced that the accused were guilty of assaulting someone.

And, they would likely tell you in hushed tones, that damned illegal Mexican had a beating coming to him anyway.

The Constitution enumerates several principles intended to preserve justice for all, while at the same time, laying the foundation of law. The 5th amendment provides due process. The 6th guarantees trial by jury and advice of legal counsel. The 14th amendment provides some details concerning citizenship, but also clearly states that no State shall deny any person within its jurisdiction equal protection under the law.

This must include undocumented immigrants.

Luis Ramirez was not granted the 14th amendment rights that were his due. Justice has not been served. Forget the interpretation of the law minced and portioned by the defense attorneys. The intent of the law – to serve justice – demands that these young men must pay for their crime. Their use of racial epithets demonstrates a hostility toward Latinos. Their overwhelming numbers demonstrate an intent to do grave harm. Delivering a kick to a man’s head and running away, as far as I’m concerned, demonstrates a willingness to cause death, as it certainly demonstrates an indifference towards his continued life. And corroboration amongst the group a day after the murder demonstrates an intent to manipulate the investigation and the legal process to the detriment of justice. They must not go unpunished for any of these crimes.

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund is petitioning the U.S. Department of Justice to open a Federal investigation over the racially-motivated murder of Luis Ramirez. I am making a direct appeal to all who read this. Sign that petition. I’m doing it. I’m doing it because I feel that every person on this planet deserves life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; not just those of us lucky enough to have been born in a land that promises it. I’m not Hispanic, not a friend or relative or Luis Ramirez, not an enemy of white kids or the State of Pennsylvania. I’m just a writer, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Sign that petition. Do it now.