Writing from the heart

Recently, some friends have commented on my blog and wondered how I can write about such intimate feelings and situations. I have to be honest and confess I haven't really thought about this. Although I am aclimated to censoring my verbal output-- like most people-- I am not inclined nor comfortable in censoring my feelings, viewpoints or life story within the blogsphere.

Khalid's bizarre, unreasonable and unbelievable situation with the U.S. immigration system has given me the courage to speak out honestly and vehemently against what is clearly a racist, discrimnatory and elitist beauracracy that elevates irationality to a high art form.` There is no other way to characterize it. This beuracracy has historical ties to white nationalism, xenophobia and nativism.

I am certainly not the first person to identify the current wave of immigrant bashing and the subsequent restrictive and harsh immgration laws as being racist and framed and subsequently implemented by white nationalists. Authors such as Michael Welch, Deepa Fenandes and many others have made similar conclusions. Nor am I the first to label the resulting government institutions that manage immigration and national security as being racist. The logic follows that if the laws that are being implemented are born of white nationalism, xenophobia and racism, then any institution that enforces those laws will be similarly tainted. It's really not rocket science.

What is particularly troubling about contemporary America is how easily racist agendas can be easily summersed under benign rationals that render them platable for the general population. Twelve years ago it would have been unimaginable that the public would sanction detaining black and brown individuals at airports for scrutiny under the guise of national security. Eleven years ago it would have been a scandel if immigrants and their young children were thrown indefinately into prisons without due process. Ten years ago it would have been considered offensive if people were being pulled over by police officers in cars randomly, for no other reason than to ask for documentation. What other concessions are people willing to conceed?

We are at a turning point in our country. I feel it in the air as surely as I feel the ground underneath my feet. Are we going to give in to our basest natures and let brutality, discrimination and facism reign or are we going to resurrect our ideals of freedom, equality and tolerance for all? It is for this reason-- this urgency-- that I cannot sugar coat what I see as a significant detour from the noble aspirations we once held as a nation. We have never been a perfect nation, and will never be. But the foundations of our country, those ideals and values that used to define us as a people and a nation have been foresaken. For this reason I will continue to write from the heart.