Like Sheep to the Slaughter.
CW- conspiracies, fascism, xenophobia, COVID19 mention.
I know that things are politcally heating up when I turn back to Medium twice in one week. Although I am now a professional writer, with amazing publications paying what I am worth for the work that it takes to write multi-year, award winning series (If you haven’t read the series “Without Immigrants, Who Will Grow Your Food, I invite you to do so here: https://farmersfootprint.us/who-grows-your-food-part-1/ part four will be up by the end of the summer!) Medium has always allowed me the freedom to be loud and (most of the time) right, it’s also worth noting that none of the things I write here reflect the ideas or work of the organizations and publications I work with, they are mine.
The past week felt like a year. From Biden’s refusal to step down from the power hes been seeking to attain since before I was born and getting sick, to Trump being shot, it seems like the universe really dished these old oligarchs a taste of their own medicine. And by medicine I mean a small taste of the chaos their own mismanagements on real policies affect in American lives. COVID19 was never beaten or “gone away” it’s just more acceptable now for people to be sick and die in a for profit healthcare system, after all it is mostly the already sick, old and poor that are dying.
Personally, and in agreement with tiktok content creators that put this thought out there: it is almost poetic justice that Trump was shot by an assault weapon being wileded by a mentally ill, Registered Republican man. At no point did a good guy with a gun intervene to save the day nor was there mention of gun control in all the entirety of the republican national convention or any conversation surrounding the spectacle. As I mentioned on my last rant, this thing feels comically orchestrated. I’ve supported and led marshalling and security for movement leaders and entire rallies better organized and more prepared whist unarmed and without a secret service budget. I don’t even have to be a retired security person to tell you that roof should’ve been cleared and occupied by someone protecting a former president days in advanced. In my own experience this year meeting people in high positions of power, the level of surveillance and security I have seen was simply not there for the rally of a former president. Only a bunch of clowns would allow the man they are protecting to get back into a possible line of sight and put him in a car.
Patched up, he took the stage last night at the RNC. In the audience his followers in solidarity donned up patches too, reminiscent of cattle tags. They held signs reading ‘Mass Deportation Now’ as he spoke ill of Nayib Bukele’s El Salvador, not because of the mass incarceration and forced labor but to spew more nonsensical lies about countries, entire autonomous states in the world, colluding to send criminals here. If this sounds familiar, it is because you heard this sort of propaganda at the begininng of the movie Scarface but about Cubans.
Trump promises another Operation Wetback, a policy so racist that it has a slur on its name. The largest mass deportation act in American history to date — if you’re not talking about the entirety of colonization of the continent as a whole, if you consider the million of tiny deportations created every time Indigenous People had to re-locate or suffer genocide.
What is astounding is that many Latinx still sit on the fence or downright support him. There was Latinx there in that kkk convention holding the signs right along with the people that cannot wait until they too are gone. The amount of misinformation in Spanish media is to blame.
Just this weekend during the Copa America, they sensationalized the worst parts of the game without enough nuance. Ticket agencies which in the past have been known to oversell were not mentioned. Nor the fact that a city like Miami, that prepared to circumvent spring breakers in a bid to change the culture of the city with militarized police did not prepare itself for the necessary security needed to accommodate soccer afficionados. I was there for Spring Break Breakup this year, astounded by the amount of police on bikes, horses, four wheelers, patrols and on foot. My newest conspiracy theory is that this Copa was in the USA during an election year so that the media can have an endless array of opportunities for “latinos acting badly” footage in order to manufacture consent. Republican talking heads wasted no time in using the final matches where some Colombia fans engaged in bad behavior to categorize everyone thieves, criminals, alcoholics. They drew the contrast between the soccer patrons that paid thousands for tickets and found no way in, or someone in their seats to the people jumping fences and climbing ducts to see the game and quickly drew similarities to what they call the border crisis. Although the damage done to the stadium is no different than when a beloved hockey or football team wins or loses in any major city in the USA the entire Latinx population is now being charged for those crimes. While Philadelphians as a whole are seen as quirky and passionate about their teams, South American has become the new group of Latinx they vilify. Along with the conservatives, there will invariably be some sheep for the wolf, sorry, Latinos for Trump that will continue using that rhetoric of “those criminals, those animals, those thieves” not realizing that to a wolf, the color of the wool isn’t going to change the taste of the sheep. They won’t see it until it is too late and they too find themselves deported or detained.
I blame the overall lack of access to information and organizing both here and in our own countries that contributes to the type of mentality that will have you love your opressors. Not to mention the incredible amount of pro American propaganda some of the older generations were taught during their formative years while their countries were being ran by US backed dictators. Moreover, evangelicalism has seeped into Latin America, creating just the type of heart that will harden and cloud judgement enough to convert your from someone captivated by the gospel of Jesus, The Revolutionary only to become the religious hypocritical He hated enough to physically assault and verbally bully in the New Testament. You see the same cognitive dissonance in evangelicals here in the US, who can hold the thought that god is in control of school shooting and allowed them to happen and that he surrounded Trump with angels to save him or that it is totally fine to have christianity forced onto public school students but god forbid any other religious thought is introduced to those same students. Personally, if I still believed in the Bible in that way, I’d be more worried about Trump being the anti-christ than the next prophet, or a christ figure by any biblical measure.
I believe them when they say they want us all gone. I believe they will do mass deportations if given a chance. With the latest Supreme Court rulings which makes being unhoused illegal enough to incarcerate and the threat of homelessness hanging over most American’s households who are two paychecks away from financial ruin, as project 2025 continues to roll out and unravel the last bits of democracy, equity and progress this country has ever made undocumented people aren’t the only ones prime for modern day slavery. If we are all gone, where will the cheap labor force come from?
