Show Me the Tax-Payer's Money

Across our nation, from city to city, from State to State, from Post Office to Office of Homeland Security  - 90% of all government jobs (or rather jobs paying more than 100,000 dollars a year in wages and benefits  paid-for with tax-payers' monies) go towards a single group of people. Some citizens think to complain about welfare, some complain about 'welfare mothers'...; but the true cost, the durable cost, and the huge pension costs that expansion with the huge expansion of our national government from 2001 to 2007, comes in the form of  the expense (the social welfare) paid to the group our government calls "white males."

It is a normal tendency for people in power to populate and expand their fields of power who express themselves and think in way like those in power, have a like social and cultural agenda, thus expansion and concentrating the field of power is set to always be majority members to mirror the aesthetics and cosmetology of those holding majority power. This is a natural tendency and if we are to have a truly democratic society, a society that is inclusive and successful and durable, we must include all population at reflective levels, even group representation levels dictated by incomes and earned wages incomes. We have had an exclusive systems, when the majority of day to day governmental power is held in the hand of a less than 5% group 90% of who are members of the group “white males” being blindly supported and kept in place by the single largest population in the United States of America (with the exception of the fast expanding Latino population in regions of our nation) the working poor ‘whites’ (this includes the largest population getting welfare and Medicare benefits).

In places where people care about inclusion and representation* they are, even now, making right the great social wrong of social welfare in the form of high paying police and fire department jobs being given in the super-majority to only one small (and getting smaller ever day) group. And the $100,000 jobs that seem to go to members of their social/cultural fields of power (like city manager…., and School Superintendents), yes, that is right boys and girls, they are also filled almost to the point of exclusive membership with “white males.” As well, safeguarding this system of “white male” entitlement is the FBI, CIA, Department of Homeland Security, and Attorney Generals – also, so it seems populated with about 90% “white males.”

Baby-Boomers: hugely waged and even more Hugely Pension (with  benefits,) and in the condition of elected and appointed positions of power and authority are costing more in costs than the combined wages being paid to more than 60% of the people living in this Nation. Wages and benefits, by the way, no given to them by the citizens but rather taken and given to themselves - without votes or voters’ approval.   From senior staff at the Pentagon to the local seniors in the Police Forces and Fire Departments in San Diego California - it seems some 90% of the tax-payer funded jobs paying more than 100,000 dollars a years (with pensions paying just as much or more per year for the rest of their life) are given to members of this group "White Males."

What is perhaps more harmful to the overall cost of our government structure is the durable cost of the HUGE pension benefits member of this uber-high paid group receive – even after simply being elected into a ‘public’ office - once.  For in 2001, this group of over-paid and even more over-pensioned "white male" super-majority group, killed the Spending Limit Law and gave themselves a tax break. Or as Newt G. said it 'It is time to give the real Americans a tax, the people who make more than 100,000 dollars a year.' Yet even now, the cost to the tax-payers of these pension benefits alone, taken by this group for sometimes longer than they actually 'worked on the job,' puts these tax-payered pensioned government workers/politicos in the top 10% of all wage earners - even in their retirement.

And now, from city to city, from state to state, across our country, the tax-payers are paying (or trying to pay) the costs of keeping these uber-highly paid “white male” not only their salaries (for doing such a fine job running our country) but also for the rest of their long long life’s (for the white male is the longest lived male of any ethnic group.)  So, all you women, people of color, or those others of us who lack the social or political capital to be placed into one of the fully-funded and pensioned and benefited taxpayer supported jobs (with HUGE pensions and benefits), well, that 100,000,000 without medical care are told we are greedy and want something for nothing, those 170,000,000 of us who are unemployed or under-employed are told we are just too lazy to work, and that some 380,000,000 million Americans who make less than 32,000,000 dollars a year – well, we are just to uneducated to get a better paying job – they say. They, those how hold the 90% vast super-majority of all tax-payer funded jobs. And so, now we have cities and states, cutting funding to all social services, to schools, to libraries – simply in their attempts to pay the over-bloated pension benefits that the ‘cream’ going to the people who retired at rates of over 100,000 dollars a year – or rather – the ‘white male.’

There we have it, as global wage scales are set to equalize by about 2040, it is clear that even if the bottom 90% of wage earners in the United State were to be taxed at the total levels of their incomes, that those tax-payers will not be able to cover the basic costs of running our government and pay the HUGE pension and benefits of the government retired males in our shared society.

*

*http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_chicago_firefighters_lawsuit

An Example of Exclusion

I recently said/wrote something about how the Latino has long been the, by far, largest single population in City Council 4, and how 'I wished people would stop re-presenting this as a 'new' condition in what appear to be efforts to make somehow "OKAY" they years and years of Latino exclusion in an area will still to this days seems to suggest that the area is or was recently 'black' majority.'

*

As you can see by reviewing the data sets below it is likely that San Diego City Council District 4 became Latino as the single largest percentage of the population sometime about 1993. With an almost 50% greater Latino population than Black population in the year 2000. Today in San Diego City Council District 4 the Latino Population is almost twice as large as the black population. SanDag projections show that it is likely that sometime around 2039 some 50% of the whole of San Diego City Council District 4 will be Latino[i] – yet there seems that for some reason the community of interest continues to remain only the Black Community with only just recently placed ‘outside the community’ Latino surnamed Americans to serve on boards such as that of SEDC after years of none or only one Latino token representative. As well, it appears that the super-majority of contracts/support from City Council District 4 as well as none profit and SEDC contracts have likely gone to Black exclusive or black majority groups, or individuals. 

In short – the Latino likely became the population of plurality sometime about 1993, but for some reason was either excluded or had only token local Latino community representation for what appears to be the last twenty years. The City Redistricting board is likewise including the Latino with only token representation with one single actual Latino community member.

1990

Latino: 28%

Black:30%

http://profilewarehouse.sandag.org/profiles/cen/council4cen.pdf

 

2000

 

Latino: 36%

 

Black: 25%

 

http://profilewarehouse.sandag.org/profiles/cen00/council4cen00.pdf

2010:

Latino: 65,558

Black: 35,426

http://profilewarehouse.sandag.org/profiles/est/council4est.pdf

Roughly a 2 to 1 rate Latino over Black, or rather an about 42% Latino population and an about 23% black population – Almost two to one.

As well, when the majority of all news articles and new stories about a district are black centric it projects into the public sphere a condition of ownership / authority.  Along those same lines when reading 'over the last 10 years' suggest that this shift has only just now taken place. Perhaps a story about how, at the SEDC/Valencia Business Park public meetings, I have been just about the only Latino (not involved in the redevelopment effort directly) in attendance illustrates failures on the part of both SEDC and the group attempting to hold control over that development project?  I believe this can also be seems by other rates of actual inclusion and representation in development and redevelopment activities in this area - for SEDC President in 2006 (*I believe it was) said in the city council chambers "63% of our sphere of influence is Latino" and by looking at the one can see that this population is likely even larger today than it was then. 

From my perspective, the continued focus on a very narrow and small population that seems to have long had a disproportionally large amount of structural control over all political, developmental, and economic activities in the mainstream media (Televised/Written) acts as a support for what seems to be a history of 'right to rule' and 'ownership' behavioral norms. Remember, until I said that I thought it was against the voters rights act to call city council district 4 'a black district' (city council chambers 2005) - it was still being done by local elected representative. I believe a word search of past news articles (1990 to 2005) may support this re-memory of mine. But, we all do what we do; I am sure that my concerns about a woefully under-included and under-represented majority population are not shared by many in this city or county.

But then again, one need only read the posts on local mainstream news paper blogs to see what posts (who/what ethonocentric perspective) is allowed to be supported, are included, what perspectives are allowed to stay up and which are not allowed or 'edit' out.

Yet still worse, in the news papers, in written form the inferences, presuppositions and nuances of what is written is not a literal thing (the frequency of word use, word periodicity and phrasal discourse in the text are also very important) continue to re-present Black over Latino what may be understood to me a 'right' or rather 'ownerships' with a plurality of stories being non-latino main topic/postive action.  I believe E. Said (and some few others) wrote about this, yes? About how one population is re-presented as being somehow less than by what is put or allow to be put into written words? 

---

[i] http://profilewarehouse.sandag.org/profiles/fcst/council4fcst.pdf

Representation and Institutional Racism

In 2007 I wrote an email to the city attorney’s office in San Diego. The subject line of the email reads: "Representation and Institutional Racism"
I was concerned about what appeared to be a then in place and apparently structurally supported conditions of institutionalized racism existing in City Council District 4 if not the whole of San Diego City and County. It seems to me, that the talented less than 1% (a play on WEB Dubois’ talented 10 percent) which seemed to hold the super-majority of political, city governmental, and economy/social capital in that city county district were not only contributing to oppressive conditions to the majority of the working class populations of these area; but by seemingly insuring that only members (or in majority mainly members) of a narrowly defined group the talented less than 1% of the group these people seems to be re-presented as representing.
The topic was never, to the best of my knowledge, discussed in a public forum, nor was I contacted as to why the conditions either existed or did not exist, nor was the seeming pervasive existence of these oppressive and exclusionary conditions, to the best of my knowledge, ever corrected so that they meet city policies as I understand them.
From that time, many things have been written about Jim Crow in San Diego California.  Some by the mainstream authorized scholars of local universities staffers, but still the political leadership of all colors and religions – seems to reject any notion of correcting these repressive or exclusive conditions in our shared human environment.
*
I am interested in having you three weigh-in on the topic of representation and what constitutes ‘real efforts to insure representation’ as seems to be mandated by ordinance as well as City Council policies (including but not limited to those few listed below.) This is my effort to gain some understanding as to why it appears we still have a grossly under-represented/unrepresentative group (representation not reflective of demographic data) of our local citizens (the Latinos) in so many of our city departments, City Council District 4, CCDC/SEDC board and senior staffing, and the Encanto Community Planning Group. As well, if By-Laws of any Community Planning Group (or any like group,) can excluded efforts, direction or intentions of any real efforts…, so that the of under-representation / non-represented group (unequal suffrage) is allowed to continue to exist - apparently un-addressed.

During an Encanto Community Planning Group meeting I brought up that it was my understanding that we were to make firm and real attempts to assure demographically-reflective representation and inclusion in the composition of, not only the Encanto Community Planning Group, but also in all groups and departments in the City of San Diego.

Below*, I believe you will find, a few sections of council policies and ordinances which direct such efforts should (perhaps must) be made to have representative inclusion in the Encanto Community Planning Group as well as all City Departments, Boards, Committees…, or Community Planning Groups.

It is my feeling that in supporting groups which are exclusive / have minority population over-representation gives those who presently hold the majority of civic and governmental power - the rights and ability to insure and maintain exclusion, marginalization or the repression of large segments of our diverse population are insured.  I believe that such conditions may represent what could be defined as ‘institutional racism’ - perhaps similar to that of “Poll Tax‘ and ‘Jim Crow Laws’ of post-civil war era, or representative levels lower than the ‘1/3 representation law’ allowed for slaves of the pre-civil war era in certain regions of the United States of America. I believe we should all make efforts that such conditions are not allowed to exist today - anywhere in our City, State, or Nation.

Please respond with the planning department’s / City of San Diego’s position as to the direction, meaning, and application of these council police and ordinances* (as well as other mandates for equal right and representation issued or directed by the State and National governments as they apply to the City of San Diego’s governmental structure) so that I may understand what seems to be an unwillingness or inability to support these council polices and ordinances.

If I am wrong and there is no under-representation of any population or group in the city of San Diego in any board, committee, council, department, or other set however it may be defined - then I offer my most sincerely apologies for my misunderstanding. But if such is the case, that my understanding is in error, I would ask that data supporting claims of “reflective-representation” (such as made in City Council Chambers) be made available to me -- in a way that will allow for me to correct what I believe I have found in my own research and observations.


*(including but not limited to)
Please see #2 under the whereas items.
The message is ready to be sent with the following file or link attachments:
Shortcut to: http://docs.sandiego.gov/council_reso_ordinance/rao1988/O-88-185.pdf
Please see #7
The message is ready to be sent with the following file or link attachments:
Shortcut to: http://docs.sandiego.gov/councilpolicies/cpd_300-10.pdf
Here's the policy authority for the Diamond BID, which requires equal opportunity.
The message is ready to be sent with the following file or link attachments:
Shortcut to: http://docs.sandiego.gov/councilpolicies/cpd_900-07.pdf
See article II, section 5.
The message is ready to be sent with the following file or link attachments:
Shortcut to: http://docs.sandiego.gov/council_reso_ordinance/rao1988/O-88-185.pdf

Reflective Representation in our Class Rooms - Increased Rates of Student Success in the Past

*From a email sent to local School Board members  (2007/2008) none reply or returned any of my efforts to contribute."

At a recent community outreach meeting at the new Lincoln High School, I suggested that we should institute a policy of reflective representation. My rational is that, 'reflective levels of ethno-representation in the teaching staff and administration personnel [in which those student populations were centralized] appeared to contribute to a marked improvement in their performance and success.'  This assertion may be supported by reviewing policy changes which have increased African American teachers and African American administrative personnel in schools where the majority of the students are African American. You will find that excuses and rationales were used as reasons to argue that this policy could not be put into place. But, eventually such policies and practices were put into place – and the results of those policies can be easily found (1).

This has to do with many aspects of our human condition: bio-politics, human metrics, authorized knowledge sets, culturally specific knowledge transmitters. These are cultural attributes included in the construction of curriculum. In this email, I am not going to attempt to explain all these aspects of education to you. I will assume that you have researched these (and many other) aspects of education before taking up your positions representative of the public as members of our school board.

     “For anyone who has an interest in education, the term 'curriculum' is unavoidable. Few people, however, stop to think about curriculum; what it means, or what is required to implement curriculum. Even fewer people ask these questions; what is curriculum is for, what should serve as the proper foundation for curriculum-making, and how we should go about making curriculum decisions that benefit our communities? This book answers these questions. (“The Pursuit of Curriculum” - “Schooling and the Public Interest” William A. Reid)

Curriculum vs. Education

     Curriculum is at the heart of education. Curriculum defines what should be taught. On the other hand, education is a much more abstract, nebulous concept. Education takes place in the home through the family, in the larger community, in churches and other social spaces, education is even affected by the media. In essence, education is shaped by wide array of cultural factors that surround children every day. Curriculum, however, is a more specific, tangible activity that is always tied to decision-making processes. Curriculum is designated by specific institutions; whether they are schools, churches, non-profit agencies, or governmental and non-governmental programs that seek to educate. Unlike education, curriculum also requires that educators address what subject matter is to be taught. No discussion of curriculum can ignore the subject matter that must be included as part of any proposed curriculum.'

*

http://liberatingcurriculum.blogspot.com/ - I believe  Dr. Null is the founder of the group 'History of Curriculum''

It appears that there is a movement in our university system to control the flow of information and knowledge. This entity functions as the gatekeeper of research and theoretical knowledge, and oversees the training programs of teachers and administrative staffs. They authorize, what they feel is the 'Right' 'knowledge worthy of teaching,' and ensure that the 'Right' culture is transmitted to our students through a curriculum sanctioned and authorized by themselves. They feel that they not only have the 'Right' but also the 'Responsibility' to insure what is authorized. These conditions instantly insure that all but the very brightest and most able students succeed in 'making it through' our educational system, which is not an easy task. In order for disenfranchised groups to gain the right to teach students who share their same ethnicity/culture/society, who are equally disenfranchised as themselves, they must pass the same requirements as everyone else. This means they must pass a general baccalaureate program in a university, a teacher education program, and various tests – the educational component. On top of that, they need to pass the application and interview processes, all of which can be an extremely daunting task for students who come from a disenfranchised background.

The local reality is that less than 4% of the teaching staff (grades K though 12) in the southwestern states, and less than 3% of the teaching staff (grades k through 12) nation-wide, are self-identified as Latino (Mexicana/o, Chicano/a…, of Latin Origin). It is the objective research of sociologists of every ethnicity, which support the statements, not the results of selection-based or subjective self-serving research. (2)

Just as in the 1970's the educational hegemony fought against reflective representations of African Americans, the need for African American educators and administrators in predominantly African American classrooms and schools systems, today they resist the absolute imperative of having reflective representation of student populations in our classrooms and educational systems. The supporters of the educational hegemony today use the exact same rhetoric and excuses they used during the 1970s. The excuses they used to justify they could not hire African American professionals in the 1970s is shown in their refusal to hire Latinos today.

The NAACP sent me data that shows that while the average black person has a net worth of some $10,000 - the average Latino has a net worth of some $3,000. The Latino exists, on average, and a social-economic level some three times more difficult and impoverished than the African American, yet nothing is being done to correct this obscene social problem. The unequal levels of suffrage in our general society as well as in our educational system are preserved twofold. Latinos currently suffer the repression not only of the mainstream political apparatus but also under the hands of our own brothers and sisters of color who won their own positions of power as a result of affirmative action. They act as gatekeepers, and are now part of the very structure which under-serves our population. Are these rates reflected in our state's prison population? (www.piqe.org)

Since we lack the social capital to be hired by our friends and transported en masse to a different city to take over the educational system, we will continue to suffer the negative effects of not sharing in the attributes of the same field of power the elite belong to.  At a local meeting a man proudly proclaimed, 'We were all hired from Long Beach because we were the most qualified to do this job.' This supports the claim of social-capital being the largest contributor to being judged qualified to do a job in the United States – at least the job of running a school system. Again, we find it comfortable to work and deal with people who look, act, or hold similar sets of cultural imperatives. Unless the structures of power are populated with people that reflect the demographic of the populations they serve, equality and inclusion will never be achieved. We must make an effort to overcome this tendency for natural ethnic/culture bias if we wish to overcome unequal levels of suffrage that fragment our local populations.(3)

What is more interesting to some of us is that it appears that the average length of time for a superintended to hold that post in the educational systems in the U.S. is approximately 16 months. (according to dialogues with Director Green) What is even more interesting is how the professional educator is willing to implement the ideologies and policies of people hired to represent the people (note: I did not write 'people who represent the people' as private ideologies and opinions do not in more cases reflect the parents and people populating those areas.) –just remove this) Is it not strange that the said representatives of the people - feel they can dictate policies to the 'paid professionals' whom they hire to run our school systems, without input from the populations they are said to represent? One must ask – who has the highest level of educational training and exactly why do people who appear to win popular votes displace the researched and extensively investigated policies of a highly paid professional educator?

Seemingly, politically motivated programs such as 'Teaching Teachers How to Teach' place all non-mainstream encultured educators at a disadvantage due to the exclusion of culturally sensitive teaching practices which are unique to every ethnic/non-mainstream population. Likewise, it could be said that 'No Child Left behind' and that the 'National Standards' insure that all non-mainstream children suffer extreme hardships. It is no wonder that in many nations across our globe, almost every country in which there is ethnic diversity, the nations that excl are those where ethnicity is most represented in the power structures.

As we move toward facing the budget cuts caused by years of poor leadership and unreasonable fiscal policies, it seems that those teachers of color (in the southwestern United States of America – the Latina/o) face lay-offs. This will take place not only because they are typically the teachers/administrators with the least amount of time in service (as a result of years of exclusion from the failures in many university educational programs) but also because they lack the social / cultural capital and support from senior union members as well as senior administrate personnel.

As reflective representation in the education system decreases, even below the already low levels, the rates of Latina/o failures will increase. As failures increase, the number of disenfranchised young Latino men and women without prospects of gaining access to education and the job markets will increase. Lastly, since Latinos represent the single largest minority group in the United States of America, we are, by action and design, allowing for the conditions of anarchy within a functioning civil society.

- If we really wanted students to have success, would we not be spending more money on them, than the people we house in our prisons? How wrong is it, that any state in the United States would use the failure rate of third grade level reading exams to project future prison populations? How wrong is it, that the wealthy and powerful of any society would create a condition in which the only sure attainable life expectations of a whole large and still growing group of people, is to become a part of the industrial prison complex? Very.

 "Education either... is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity, or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world."     --Paulo Freire

*

1. http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED053108&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED053108

&

“Sourcebook of Equal Educational Opportunity”

 By Marquis Academic Media

*

2)

“Hispanic Education in the United States: Raices Y Alas,” By Eugene E. Garcia

&

“Latinos in higher education: Many enroll, too few graduate,” R Fry - Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center, 2002

&

 

“Telling Stories About School: Using Critical Race and Latino Critical Theories to Document Latina/Latino Education and Resistance” Lilia Fernández, University of California, San Diego

*

3)

http://www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/

(and as may be discovered in)  http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/disciplinegap/61967_staff13.shtml

&

Dembo Mayron, “Teaching for Learning: Applying Educational Psychology in the Classroom”

&

“Contemporary Education”

By Indiana State University School of Education

Oppression by the Once Oppressed

It seems that it is often the case that once a historically oppressed group gains a position of power, regardless of how small that field of power may be, there is a tendency to oppress those ‘others’ with less power existing inside their sphere of influence. Works like “Blow Back” or other may support the idea that the projection of power is a natural thing, that the once oppressed have a naturally tendency to project power over others once they are able to ‘push’ their right to rule. But, are we not better that this, are we not more developed than some such creatures hiding in the dark woods waiting for either a little red ridding hood or a wood cutter to come our way?

I had never noticed it until I come to the place I live now. Having a new family and buying a home in an affordable area of the city, I had thought that the diverse ethno-demographics of the area would contribute to a wonderfully supportive and inclusive environment. This has not been the case.

I first talked about the exclusion of groups of people to my local city councilperson. Upon that time he told me ‘it does not matter what color people are before the get elected to office, once they are in office they are all the same color – money green.’  I guess it was that I am a hopeful romantic, but surly there is something more to the political landscape that only green trees, with green, and green elected representatives, no? On the other hand, perhaps I miswrote the world and it should more correctly have been written with a ‘D’ at end instead of an ‘N’?

I went again to a man who was elected to represent, I guess, all the people of his city council district as asked about including the Latino, in someway, in the governmental and city owned corporations he has some sway over. Rejection, yelling I was told ‘I can hire any g_d#@$@ person I want’ and after I pointed out that the largest single group of his constitutions were Latino, and not black as his staff would suggest – I was shown the door. Was this really the some person who said, on a radio interview before an election, that he did not need the Latino because he had the Filipinos? Then, like a replay of “A Raisin in the Sun” goes about hiring only women of other ‘brown’ groups any only men of his own?

Over the years, the interactions with the membership of the local Black Power Elite (elected, appointed, or self-appointed too it would seem) has been many things but hardly friendly, inclusive, or supportive. I remember being told by one of our local elected leaders “you better not say anything about my district” and his in the city council chambers. Moreover “You don’t need to be here because we gots you people covered” by a member of the black power elite on a local planning group. Even by members of religious organizations – saying things like “we got us ours now you go get you yours” as if it were some kind of crazy battle for the scraps of social, economic, and political power the masters hand you for all other people to share. It goes on and on from there, local elites of the Black and Gay and Educational communities refusing to even allow that anything of exclusion much less racism was taking place in our area.  It this want we have become, so far advanced that each of us project power over others as soon as whatever group we ourselves belong to (or have attached ourselves to) gains the ability to oppress others? All say, it seems whatever they want about representation yet even by the most liberal among them – to ask, to beg that the Latino too be given a far level of inclusion (much less real equality) appears to be - just to much. In addition, to request than there be an open and non-threatening forum for these topics to be discussed? Forget about it, not one group appeared to be willing to even bring up the topic must less insure that the members of the forum (much less the audience in attendance) reflected the true condition of a democratic society and reflectively reflect the gender and ethno-demographic periodicities of the district, city, or county.

From Black envelopes used by a local redevelopment corporation to the exclusion or near exclusion of the Latino on their board (even though it was said in 2006 that 63% of the people living in their sphere of influence were Latino) to the refusal to return phone calls or respond to emails – the repression of Latino voices abound. And the few getting some support, any support from the city/county/state – seem to dare not say a thing about the gross under inclusion and representation of the single largest minority group in our city, state and nation.

And so, the question: It is normal, or even generally typical, for groups, once they gain a disproportionably large percentage of power (say like the 1% of Americans who make more than 1,100,000 dollars a year) to act in the future only the interest of their group over the general betterment of the shared human environment? And if so, are we not really simply saying that might makes right and that the strong and powerful have the right to do whatever they want to those weaker or meeker than themselves? As well, if that is true, then why do we have prisons so full of people who simply were putting this seemingly acceptable model “might makes right’ into practice; doing upon to others whatever they wanted to because they had the power to do it? Does a condition of poverty make the power to harm or put hardship onto others somehow more wrong or illegal, does having huge amounts of wealth make the self-serving behaviors of some somehow more okay or right?

Conditions of Latino Apartheid

Latino Apartheid

Perhaps one of the most compelling examples of what may be said to represent Latino Apartheid in the United States of American is the near exclusion on Latino men from taxpayer funded government jobs in which ‘workers’ are paid more than 100,000 dollars a year.  Government contactors, governmental departments such as the Department of Homeland Security, Faith Based Initiatives, and Water Departments, Nuclear Regulatory Commission…, congress or even the senate of the United States of American – at the level over 100,000 dollars a year - seemed to be peopled, in the super-majority, with members of a very narrow and nearly exclusive set. Other groups are woefully under-represented as well. Women, Asian…, Pacific Islanders, but the nations single largest minority “the Latino” suffers such disproportional under-representation that to even call it ‘token’ is less correct, it appears, then to believe it be more accurately representative of an actual condition of Latino Apartheid

There are many other examples of Latino Apartheid in the United States of American. Police departments, fire departments, academic associations, university departments, utilities providers, large non-profits – the list goes on, and on, and on; and, we will write about all of them in turn. Over the years, I have also been reviewing newspaper and news stations blogs, and noted the words used, and counted the racist or hurtful or angry words used by posters (and allowed to remain.) I have review the many posts allowed (as well as those not allowed) to stay-up, and the majority of the content freely contributed (and allowed to be included) to these websites. It would seems that by including what appears to be racist or “hate writing” directed more often then not towards the Latino, the News Media (knowingly or unknowingly) may actually be constructing a social normative range of behaviors that, mirrors the oppression or rather repression of the single largest minority in North America - the Latino.

First, we must write about the majority of contributors to the construction of socially acceptable (thought ethnically deplorable) Latino Apartheid; and this could be said to be the exclusion (or near exclusion) of the “Latino” in our government’s upper-level employee/contractor positions (which pay more than 100,000 dollars a year.) It could be said to reflect more a condition of institutional racism than the perpetuation of an authorized systematic structure called Latino Apartheid, but let us keep to one topic at a time. We must write about the conditions of Latino Apartheid in our governmental structures first, for when the attributes of a cultural are excluded from a society (or in this case a governmental system) the exclusion of culturally specific attributes created a system with reject all those who attributes they exclude. This Null assimilation, not only transmits a condition of “otherness” onto a segment (or segments) of our citizenry, but it also sets the stage for behaviors such as hate crimes, hate speech, racism, and repression throughout the society.  Moreover, as these anti-social ‘behaviors’ seem to be supported by the social-construct; a condition of exclusion, apparently supported by single largest field of structural authoritative power in our nation – the government, has been created.