Descent into Chaos: The Chickens Coming Home to Roost

Descent into Chaos: The Chickens Coming Home to Roost

By Raúl Al-qaraz Ochoa

 (Note: contains political analysis some may find too intense for this political moment. To me, it is more timely and urgent than ever.)

Two days before the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, a 17 year-old boy by the name of Ramses Barron Torres was shot in the back of the right arm by a border patrol agent in the Arizona-Sonora border; the bullet continued into his chest cavity, puncturing a lung, and lodging in the left side of his ribcage. This vicious assassination went almost unnoticed in the press. The few reports out there blamed this “illegal alien” for allegedly “throwing rocks at the agent”, even though the boy was shot in the back. Clearly once again, the life of Mexican/native peoples are deemed inferior and unworthy of public outcry, while white people’s lives are prioritized and receive international attention.

In a blog titled “The Other Arizona Shooting”, Maegan La Mala painfully observes, “There have been no national moments of silence for the apparently unarmed teenager. No memes speculating on the sanity of the shooter(s) or if violent rhetoric played a role. That’s probably because Ramses Barron Torres is Mexican and was shot by U.S. Border Patrol.” http://vivirlatino.com/2011/01/11/the-other-arizona-shooting.php

Contrast Ramses’ death with Giffords’ stance on border militarization. According to Congress.org, She called for the deployment of the National Guard and more Border Patrol agents to the region. Giffords claimed victory when the Obama administration allotted 1,200 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border and dedicated about $600 million to add technology and border agents.

Giffords and Obama, essentially, provided the weaponry and the resources needed to make the assassination of Ramses possible.

During the 2010 election cycle, Republicans targeted Giffords. Retired Marine Jesse Kelly—backed by the Tea Party—attacked Giffords for not being tough enough on border security! The election between them was practically a contest on who is the toughest one in the Wild West called the Arizona border.

Jesse Kelley called for the construction of a double-layer border fence, the hiring of even more Border Patrol agents and the deployment of 10,000 National Guard troops – more than eight times the 1,200 sent by the Obama administration that Giffords praised.

These border policies—supported by politicians from both parties—have set the conditions for a slaughter over a thousand times more gruesome than what happened this Saturday in Tucson. The U.S.-Mexico-border is on track to continue being the site of a quiet genocide that has claimed the lives of over 8,000 people since the federal government’s policy of “prevention through deterrence” was adopted in 1994.

This cycle of violence is not surprising when you remember the fact that we stand on indigenous land taken by force, bloodshed, war and ongoing occupation. The U.S. southwest has been the site of a centuries-old battle-zone and it continues today.

With all the attention given to the murders in Tucson, we also need to be outraged by the “silent” rounds being fired against communities of color on a daily basis.

• Can the international media please shed light on the massacre happening at the U.S.-Mexico border?
• Can the international media please condemn itself for its violent and dehumanizing language used to refer to migrants, such as “illegal” or “alien”?
• Can the international media please take a moment of silence for Ramses Barron Torres, Brisenia Flores (another 9 year-old girl, killed by Minutemen white supremacists in Arizona last year, along with her father Raúl Flores), Sergio Andres Hernandez, Francisco Javier Dominguez, Anastasio Hernandez and so many more murdered by white supremacist vigilantes and border patrol agents?
• Can the international media please report how the loving father of a friend of mine was kidnapped by I.C.E. agents for being undocumented and now faces between 2 and 20 years in prison? Or the stress and trauma still felt years later by mothers and children in my own family due to family separations? How about the fear and terror this government has made my community feel; leaving parents too afraid to leave their own home, because they don’t know if they will return home that night to their family?
• Can the international media please shed light on how violence against our mothers and children is being waged through the attacks on the 14^th amendment birthright citizenship and the ban on ethnic studies?
• Can the international media please shed light on the state violence perpetrated by politicians sponsoring hateful words and legislation such as Russell Pearce, Jan Brewer, Tom Horne and the rest of them?
• Can the international media please condemn the corporations benefiting from the detention of thousands of innocent mothers and fathers, such as GEO Group, Corrections Corporation of America, Wells Fargo, General Electric?

It’s urgent. Maybe if you reported these things with the same shock and outrage as the shootings, maybe the domestic warfare being waged against our communities would end and we would stop being daily victims of abuse, violence and genocide.

As Malcolm X once expressed: “When you send your chickens out in the morning from your barnyard, those chickens will return that evening to your barnyard, not your neighbors barnyard. I think this [JFK assassination] is a prime example of the chickens coming back home to roost. That the chickens that he sent out, the violence that the [government has] perpetrated ….  [has returned]. This same violence [they unleashed] has come back to claim one of their own.”

With this never-ending cycle of violence going on, this assessment rings painfully true today… in Arizona and everywhere else.

The violence, the descent into chaos, the downward spiral of hatred was already present in our lives, and sad to say that by all accounts, it will only continue to get worse.