And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 23:31:41 EST
We have got to spend the rest of our lives teaching the marketocracy that the
police brutality they deplored in the Third Reich is in our streets today.
Martha
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Return-path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Celebrating 20 Years of Life (Embargoed till 3/19)
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 18:57:13 EST
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* This week's column is a 1st person column by Roberto Rodriguez
FROM UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
FOR RELEASE: WEEK OF MARCH 19, 1999
COLUMN OF THE AMERICAS by Roberto Rodriguez
CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF LIFE
Twenty years ago this week, I lay bleeding profusely with a cracked skull,
facedown and handcuffed on a cold street in East L.A. I was prepared to face
my
maker. I had been brutally attacked on Whittier Boulevard -- not by street
hoodlums, but by four Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies wielding riot
sticks. Amid death threats while riding in the back seat of a squad car
heading
toward a secluded street, I said my last prayers.
Needless to say, I was not executed. But I was hospitalized, jailed and then
charged with attempting to kill the same deputies who nearly took my life --
all
this for photographing an incident of police brutality. I recovered and
eventually beat the criminal charges -- but not before being illegally
detained
approximately 60 additional times.
The blood I spilt on that boulevard keeps me connected there the way an
embryo is connected to the womb. Part of me died that night, but I was
spiritually reborn. Today, I'm blessed by life itself, this despite years of
living in fear and with unadulterated hate. My struggle for justice seemed
like
an eternity, yet the struggle to rehumanize myself has taken even longer.
Because of what I lived, I have dedicated my life to eliminating not only
the scourge of law enforcement abuse, but also to creating a world where all
people are valued as full human beings. Living with trauma hasn't been easy.
Thankfully, I'm motivated in my work -- partially because several people
risked
their lives for me by stepping forward, including witnesses and civil rights
giant Antonio Rodriguez, the attorney who defended me against the criminal
charges. Seven years after my assault, he also successfully represented me in
my
lawsuit.
In our writings, my wife (Patrisia Gonzales) and I relentlessly pursue the
root of the "truth" and defend the rights of all people, particularly those
whose rights have been trampled upon. For that, we are called racists and are
continually told by some of our readers to go back to where we came from.
Through our work, we have proven that we come from -- and belong -- here.
Despite being dragged through our judicial system, I never lost hope in it.
Yet in all these years, I've seen the system not work for many people who also
dared to step forward.
To this day I live with post-traumatic stress disorder. At Chicago's Center
for the Survivors of Torture and Political Violence, I learned that people
like
me are survivors of extrajudicial violence, not victims. Going there changed
my
worldview and was also instrumental in my own rehumanization process.
Prior to this, as a result of documenting hundreds of other cases of border
patrol and police brutality, I thought that the solution to this cancer was
simply to create effective civilian police review boards. Yet I've come to see
this as insufficient because it's obvious that the vast majority of the
thousands brutalized annually are people of color. As such, I came to view
such
actions as hate crimes and as violations of international law. Groups such as
Amnesty International now also recognize police brutality as a human rights
violation.
Racial hatred doesn't adequately explain why this extreme degradation
occurs. Dehumanization -- the belief that some people are less than human --
is
a better explanation.
The epidemic will end only when the culture of impunity is terminated. Civil
rights organizations have recently called for a national summit regarding this
crisis. It's long overdue. My belief, however, is that absent an urgent
executive action, these violations will not end voluntarily and will have to
be
addressed in international courts.
If we are serious about healing from this epidemic, we will also have to
provide (medical) reparations for the tens of thousands of scarred survivors.
Unable to attain justice or express their rage, many often turn to street and
domestic violence -- witness Rodney King's life after his beating. More
important, it will have to involve a rehumanization process, involving both
the
brutalized and the brutalizers. It will help little if only the brutalized
heal.
What will I do to celebrate my 20 years of survival? I'll thank the Creator,
and I will write about someone else's struggle for human dignity. I will
smile,
laugh, paint, dance. And I will also sing the songs of composer Agustin Lara
for
friends and elders. After all these years, I have finally begun to live once
again as a full human being.
Inin mi-tlah cuiloa ich nochi no yolo
Esto est� escrito con todo mi corazon
COPYRIGHT 1999 UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
* It's impossible to thank all the people/friends who stepped forward
throughout all these years... either in court or in the healing process... but
just wanted to say that all the support and prayers have been instrumental in
me moving forward as opposed to freezing 20 years ago.
My 7 1/2 year battle with the L.A. Sheriff's Department is documented in
"Justice: A Question of Race." My idea in writing it was so that what happened
to me will never happen to another human being again. Of course, the
dehumanization has not stopped and that's why I (we) continue to write.
Tlazocamati
* Roberto Rodriguez & Patrisia Gonzales are authors of Gonzales/Rodriguez:
Uncut & Uncensored (ISBN 0-918520-22-3 UC Berkeley, Ethnic Studies Library,
Publications Unit. Rodriguez is the author of Justice: A Question of Race
(Cloth ISBN 0-927534-69-X paper ISBN 0-927534-68-1 Bilingual Review Press) and
the antibook, The X in La Raza II and Codex Tamuanchan: On Becoming Human.
They can be reached at PO BOX 7905, Albq NM 87194-7904, 505-242-7282 or
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Gonzales's direct line is 505-248-0092 or [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
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