Why am I still nervous when a cop
pulls up behind me in traffic?
I have done nothing wrong
there are no warrants
no all points bulletins floating my name in the airwaves
not even an unpaid parking ticket
yet I look into the rear view mirror and see
hard eyes hidden by mirrored sunglasses watching every move
punching names and numbers into the computer to see if it
spits out anything worthy of his attention
despite my legal status
all of my papers are in order
neatly tucked away in the glove box
the radio is not loud
my tires are normal
there are no empty beer bottles littering
the floor of my suburban friendly vehicle
So why the butterflies in my stomach?
I am unassuming and nonthreatening
in every way but one: the hue of my skin
my children are with me, safely in their car seats
unaware of the sudden panic in my heart
I am a grown man
I have nothing to hide from “the law”
except maybe contempt
and the kind of bitterness
evolved from a lifetime of mistrust
Pavlovian baton beatings
murderers with badges
who receive slaps on the wrist and
the constant fear that I am but one
false move away from losing everything
in a moment of protest
©2010 Santino J. Rivera – Broken Sword Publications
*Dedicated to Oscar Grant and all of the brothers and sisters who have been murdered just like him.
They stabbed a guy here for $3 yesterday Continue reading »
the paper said the kids who did it were looking for gas money
and answers to questions never asked
Action News shoves a microphone in the victim’s face
they want to know how he feels,
even as he bleeds to death in the middle of a busy intersection
where the people are too preoccupied with their phones and coffee to care
the family wants to know why and
the camera’s eye turns to the audience
who has already changed the channel in search of the next fix
I look back on it all now
as the difference between poetry and war
like blood inside a glass of water
diluted and free flowing, poisoning
my thoughts fluid and tainted
my heart as cool as glass
hollow as the words that
spill out of your mouth
and into the gutters
of a different time, different place and different disposition
I walk with ghosts no more
Originally published in Demon in the Mirror by S. Joaquin Rivera
The secrets we have held in our hearts
for many generations evaporate
into the mainstream consciousness
and are consumed
like so many others before them
We discover that the People,
the ones we deemed as enemies for many years,
find those secrets, our secrets, beautiful and mysterious
so long as they discover them
and without hearing them pass though our own lips
Originally published in Demon in the Mirror by S. Joaquin Rivera
From Manifest Destiny to Manifest Insanity
By Roberto “Dr. Cintli” Rodriguez (reprinted here by permission of Roberto Rodriguez)
As a result of several recent draconian laws, Arizona’s image has taken a drubbing internationally. And yet, Arizona is but the spear. In reality, its politics are not that dramatically different from other states and not that different from Washington. That more than a dozen states are waiting in the wings with copycat legislation and that the Obama administration continues to view migration through a law enforcement and military prism is plenty proof.
Those politics, fueled by hateful and cowardly politicians and the hate-radio universe, are undeniably anti-Mexican and anti-immigrant. Yet in truth, they actually are anti-Indigenous. In effect, the politics that we are seeing are undeniably but an extension of Manifest Destiny. Its modern expression is a Manifest Insanity – an attempt to maintain the myth of America – conceived of as a promise of a pristine, God-given home – reserved for English-speaking White Anglo Saxon Protestants, this amid the “browning” of the nation.
These Arizona laws are part of a spasmodic reaction to this demographic shift, an attempt to maintain a political and cultural dominance over [brown] peoples seen as less than human and as defeated peoples. These laws seek to maintain this narrative of conquest. This is why the loss of lives of some 5,000 Mexicans and Central Americans – primarily Indigenous peoples ––in the Arizona/Sonora desert in the past dozen years, mean little in this clash. The same is true in regards to the recent killings of two Mexicans by U.S. agents along the U.S./Mexico border.
For those who are attempting to uphold this dominance, this browning represents a time reversal – a cultural and political reversal of the so-called triumph of Western Civilization. This is what Arizona represents; a civilizational clash and a clash of narratives over the myth of America itself. Nothing less.
Continue reading »
Recent Comments