SCOTUS Decision on Affirmative Action Represents Their Own Racial Reckoning in U.S. Society

My colleague, Dr. Liliana Garces, hits the nail on the head in the recent, anti-affirmative action SCOTUS decision as per this Chronicle of Higher Education report: 

“We have moved away from thinking of higher education as a public good to more of an individualistic, how-I’m-going-to-get-ahead perspective,” Liliana M. Garces, a professor of higher education at the University of Texas at Austin, told The Chronicle in a recent interview. “But if we come back to the public mission of higher education and its role in advancing the democratic goals of a multiracial society, we understand that institutions trying to build a diverse student body is advancing interests that benefit all of us in a multiracial democracy, by building capacity for diverse students to become leaders. If you ground yourself in that public role and mission of higher education, college admissions is not a zero-sum game.”

Dr. Garces calls out these two competing views, namely, the attainment of higher education as a public good, beneficial to society as a whole. This is diametrically opposite from the neoliberal view of higher education "consumers" enjoying a "market of options." Ample research shows how racially and ethnically diverse classrooms are better than non-diverse ones. That is, they prepare our youth for diverse working environments. Moreover, in terms of fairness, we all pay taxes for education such that all groups should benefit equitably—not equally considering that not all students are equally privileged.

Southern Methodist University Associate Professor Dominique J. Baker's statement compliments that of Garces, expressing that “The majority’s opinion rejects the reality of structural racism," including the real-world notion of privilege as evidenced in legacy admissions.

What I would add is that it's frankly convenient for SCOTUS to eschew a public goods perspective because in doing so—as affirmative action does—this readily takes one down the path of remedying the wrongs of structural inequality by compensating for these through policy tools that take race/ethnicity and other factors like class, gender, and ability into account.

The U.S. Supreme court agreed with Students for Fair Admission that race-consciousness equals racial discrimination. The logics of this decision are so patently mystifying because race-consciousness is how and not whether one sees race. Why is this so? The answer is because we live in a society and world where access to the good life that higher education affords, is circumscribed by race and class—with significant overlap between the two. One doesn't go a single day in this country without news of some kind that are expressly about race. Next to guns, it's our national obsession such that one can only be willfully blind to race. Hence, it's next to impossible not to see race. 

The issue is rather how one sees race. Does one see it as a basis for inclusion or exclusion, as a means to uplift or derogate? In contrast, so-called "racial discrimination" is an expression of individualist privilege and entitlement that ironically benefits white people, i.e., a racial group, in U.S. society.

Hakeem Jefferson and Victor Ray (2022) also recently nailed it when they anticipated even more consequential repercussions following the January 6 attack on U.S. Capitol that reveals rioters' own racial reckoning as a "white backlash to a perceived loss of power and status."

In the meantime, people of color are ascendant demographically, and to a certain extent socially, because of just policies like affirmative action and diversity, equity and inclusion—even if vast inequities in places like higher education remain (Ellsworth, Harding, Law & Pinder, 2022). 

Universities are tasked with creating pipeline programs and recruiting students of color to apply. We should continue along the trajectory, as well, of limiting the use of standardized tests for admissions purposes. In Texas, we should also double-down on percent plans in higher admissions. This brings not just our black and brown communities and coalitions into conversation, but white rural communities, as well. As with vouchers, there is a shared interest and natural constituency for a way forward.

In general, young people and the broader public need to grasp for themselves that higher education is a public good and join the struggle wherever you are for educational justice. Yes, this is a symbolic blow to the goals of diversity, equity and inclusion, but this is not the end, but rather still the beginning of this struggle.

-Angela Valenzuela

References

Jefferson, H. & Ray, V. (2022, Jan. 6) "White Backlash Is A Type Of Racial Reckoning, Too," By Hakeem Jefferson and Victor Ray | FiveThirtyEight

Ellsworth, D., Harding, E., Law, J. & Pinder, D. (2022, July 18). Racial and ethnic Equity in U.S. Higher Education, McKinsey Report. Retrieved: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/education/our-insights/racial-and-ethnic-equity-in-us-higher-education

The Supreme Court’s Decision Reveals a Gulf Between Two Views of Race and Merit
By Eric Hoover
JUNE 29, 2023

ILLUSTRATION BY THE CHRONICLE; PHOTOS BY TOM WILLIAMS, CQ-ROLL CALL, INC.,
GETTY IMAGES; ISTOCKChief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The U.S. Supreme Court looked behind the curtain. Then it knocked over the table and chairs. Now, colleges are left with one big mess and a slew of questions that will define a new era for college admissions in a nation riven by racial disparities.

In its long-awaited decision on Thursday, the court held that the way Harvard College and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill had considered applicants’ race violated the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The ruling, split along the court’s ideological lines, essentially struck down four and a half decades of legal precedent allowing institutions to consider race as one of many factors in their evaluations. The decision, every bit as drastic as many college officials had long feared, will shift the way many admissions offices assess students. And it will very likely change, perhaps dramatically, the racial and ethnic makeup of many campuses.

The ruling was a resounding victory for Students for Fair Admissions, known as SFFA, which sued Harvard and UNC, in 2014. For all the complexities contained within the two cases, SFFA’s argument in each boiled down to this: Race-consciousness is no different than racial discrimination. And in the end, the court agreed.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. forcefully rejected Harvard and UNC’s race-conscious admissions practices. Anyone who reads the opinion closely will detect the same apparent impatience with colleges, the same mistrust of their methods, that he and other conservative justices expressed during oral arguments last fall. The court concluded that Harvard and UNC’s stated goals were too elusive, too difficult to measure, to withstand strict scrutiny.

Above all, the court agreed with SFFA’s contention that the Constitution requires colorblindness in all federal laws, a notion that derives from a particular reading of the 14th Amendment, which guarantees “the equal protection of the laws” to all U.S. citizens. An applicant, Roberts wrote, “must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual — not on the basis of race. Many universities have for too long done just the opposite. And in doing so, they have concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin. Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.”

The allure of fascism: why do minorities join the far right? by Edwin Rios, May 22, 2023

This entire piece is worth reading considering that it focuses on Latinos who are drawn to the far right with a growing list of names like Afro-Cuban Proud Boys leader, Enrique Tarrio, who was recently found guilty for "sedition conspiracy" for the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.  

In particular, read Dr. Cristina Beltran's analysis below of how this has evolved over time, pointing to  a dynamic that she terms, “multiracial whiteness” that helps capture much of what is playing out currently with far-right men of color. While provocative, we shouldn't at all be surprised about this since we've always had language for this, including "internalized oppression" and "internalized racism." Simply expressed, multiracial white people adopt the dominant group's pejorative perspective of their own group.

Clearly, Latinos and other communities are on the receiving end of a continuous "complex and contradictory cocktail of misinformation." This is exactly what helps create space for these far-right identities. 

Relatedly, what is not at all addressed is the vacuum in identity that is engineered by a white chauvinist K-12, and to a great extent, higher education, curriculum that systematically excludes the knowledges, histories, stories, identities, languages, as well as prior and ongoing contributions made by our nation's Black and Brown, minoritized communities.  

I've always said and it's worth mentioning anew: The antidote to extremism is an Ethnic Studies curriculum—in both K-12 and higher education institutions—that provides the conceptual tools and frameworks needed to understand self in relation to family, community and society. Plus, rather than victimization or victimology, Ethnic Studies—along with gender and ability studies—empowers our youth, beginning with an enhanced sense of self that is pro-social, pro-community, pro-democratic, and an important avenue through which to perfect the union.

Sí se puede! Yes we can!

-Angela Valenzuela

The allure of fascism: why do minorities join the far right?

by Edwin Rios | The Guardian | May 22, 2023

A white supremacist ideology would appear to be antithetical to people of color, but there’s a perverse logic at play when they join extremist groups

While investigators search for a motive behind a Texas man’s mass killing of eight people at an outlet mall near Dallas earlier this month, they and groups such as the Anti-Defamation League believe they have uncovered social media posts in which he spewed white supremacist, misogynist and antisemitic rhetoric.

Experts say Mauricio Garcia’s apparent expression of hate-filled rhetoric fits into a modest but increasingly alarming pattern of largely men of color drawn to far-right communities. Since the election of Donald Trump, they say, more men of color have taken on leadership roles in far-right and militia groups and participated, and in some cases led, violent protests, most notably during the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.

For people of Latino descent like Garcia, who self-identified as Hispanic, the allure of rightwing proto-fascist politics comes from a complex and contradictory cocktail of misinformation within Latino communities, the presence of authoritarian influences from their countries of origin, and a proximity to whiteness in the US that relies more on dominance over people than one’s skin color. In this world, violence is an apt political response to threats to such dominance.

“Part of what we’re seeing – not just in the militia groups, but all across, including a clear upsurge of people of color voting Republican party – is that there’s not a necessary connection between racial identity and your beliefs,” Daniel HoSang, professor of ethnicity, race and migration and American studies at Yale University, says.

He added: “It is complicated. It means disentangling your presumptions around race and political identity. We had an entire civil rights movement that was grounded on combating laws that were racially segregative. Now, we’re at a moment where it’s a bit more muddy and requires more nuance.”

Garcia, who was killed by police, wore a patch on his chest that read “RWDS”, which stands for “Right Wing Death Squad”, a nod to glorifying violence and an allusion popular among far-right and extremist groups to violence by Central and South American paramilitary groups against communists and what they saw enemies on the political left from as far back as the 1970s, the Associated Press reported.

The Anti-Defamation League found posts on Russian social media of Garcia with neo-Nazi tattoos and misogynist language, including those used by “incels”, a subculture of men who blame women and society for their inability to form romantic connections, a phenomenon that federal law enforcement sees as a rising threat that could escalate to violence, often against women.

“White supremacy itself is not just about membership, about who is and isn’t white,” says HoSang, co-author of the 2019 book Producers, Parasites, Patriots: Race and the New Right-Wing Politics of Precarity. “It comes with a politics and ideology of division … It’s also their beliefs about the nation and of the role of violence in enforcing that hierarchy.”

Unlike the white supremacists who rioted in Charlottesville in 2017, men of color attracted to white supremacist ideologies believe less in a white ethnostate and more that the state has failed them in the past and it will take violence to suppress threats and restore their perceived sense of order, HoSang says. Scholars have described their connection to these extremists as the “multiracial far right”

Cecilia Márquez, a history professor at Duke University, was less surprised than others when it was revealed the Texas mass shooter was Latino and had peddled white supremacist views. She has tracked the involvement of Latino people on the white nationalist website Stormfront, particularly since the killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, whose mother was Peruvian.

Márquez had seen a small but rising number of Latino men, and men of color broadly, being drawn into white nationalist forums and becoming radicalized. Márquez, whose research has found Latino participation in white supremacist groups as far back as the 1980s, described how Latinos on the website would identify as the heirs to the Spanish conquest in similar ways to how white supremacists would relate to Norse or Viking mythology.

She added that the internet “made it possible for white supremacists throughout the Americas to be able to talk to each other” in ways that were not possible before, noting that that communication through messaging apps like WhatsApp had “accelerated” not just the spread of misinformation but also of “information designed to radicalize people”.

“It felt really, really scary,” Márquez said. The Texas shooter, she added, was “not a single actor. He’s not by himself. He’s part of a growing community of people who are engaged in this kind of thinking, and increasingly this kind of violence.”

She emphasized, however, that Garcia’s views represented a fraction of this small population and fixating on him missed the larger story of how Latinos in the US have largely consolidated around Democratic political views. Still, experts say, Garcia represents a paradox of squaring away one’s racial identity with one’s political identity.

Like others, Cristina Beltrán, an associate professor who studies race and the right at New York University, emphasized that the experiences and views of Latino communities in the US are not monolithic, and being Latino is one part of a person’s identity.

“We know that experience alone doesn’t produce an identity. That is how you interpret your experiences,” Beltrán says.

What could also draw young men of color to the far right extends beyond perceived views of racial superiority. Beltrán argued that they could also be drawn to the practice of “domination” that is tied to American history and the subjugation of other groups such as women, noting that it was part of a “history of being able to feel free because some groups are below you”.

In a Washington Post op-ed, Beltrán, author of Cruelty as Citizenship: How Migrant Suffering Sustains White Democracy, also wrote that the rise of Donald Trump offered this form of what she called “multiracial whiteness” to far-right men of color like Enrique Tarrio, an Afro-Cuban former leader of the Proud Boys who was recently found guilty of seditious conspiracy in relation to the January 6 insurrection. Márquez and Beltrán both questioned whether those views opened pathways for men of color into more extremist ideology.

What’s more, Beltrán argues that the expansion of jobs within the US security and carceral apparatus in the past few decades have both inspired movements to dismantle those systems and reinforced the perception of a nation under threat, as people from communities of color both fill those jobs and are disproportionately affected by the prison system .

She added that those communities have certain views on how to resolve problems and are skewed to conservatism.

Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, wearing a shirt proclaiming support for Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd. Photograph: Chandan Khanna/AFP/Getty Images

“In Texas, you have a lot of migrants who are being brutalized by our really terrible immigration and border policy. But you also have over half of the border patrol being Latino,” Beltrán says. “They’re employed and being socialized into a brutal regime that is very dehumanizing to migrants.”

Within the histories of their countries of origin are moments of anti-Blackness and anti-Indigenous sentiment, as well as reactionary politics that led to the violent suppression of progressive views by dictators.

Beltrán says that within Texas, where the shooting took place, Latinos, particularly people of Mexican descent, have a complicated history as both having a proximity to whiteness and being subjected to lynching and brutalization by the Texas rangers.

“Latinos have always existed as a population that’s both been under assault, and also been brought into practices of racial domination,” Beltrán says.

In Garcia, Márquez saw a difficult tension: Garcia’s hate-filled views rest on the extreme end of a spectrum of conservatism that separates one’s connection to their racial and ethnic identity and one’s political views. She added that his hateful views, shared by an increasingly visible minority of people, were not representative but also should not be discounted.

Experts have pointed to Latino Republicans who have touted their own identities on the campaign trails while they supported former president Donald Trump’s anti-immigration policies.

“Maybe not everyone has a swastika on their body. But many of us have aunts and uncles who say inappropriate things at the table, or have someone who voted for Trump or doesn’t want to live in communities with other people,” Márquez says.

“Seeing [Garcia] as part of this spectrum is important. Yes, he is aberrant in so many ways – in so many ways. But to look away from him and eschew him from our community gets us off the hook because there is a lot of racism within the community and anti-Blackness and anti-Indigenous sentiment that we have to reckon with.”

My Mother's Day Reflection: Pondering Historian Nancy MacLean's Analysis of Democracy & the 88th (2023) session of the Texas State Legislature

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

On this day of Mother's Day of 2023, I ponder Nancy MacLean and the 88th session of the Texas State Legislature that will soon come to a close. I reflect on big items on which I have remained relatively current, including voter-suppression, cultural wars, high-stakes testing and accountability, city preemption politics, school privatization through vouchers and education savings accounts (ESAs), as well as anti-diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) bills.

Accordingly, I urge all to view this extraordinary lecture by Duke University, award-winning history of politics  Professor Nancy MacLean. Her talk is titled, "Scholar-to-Scholar Talk: Nancy MacLean, "The Pre-History and Likely Sequels—of the Insurrection at the U.S. Capitol," March 2, 2022. [Youtube]

And what a captivating storyteller she is! 

MacLean provides a gripping, conceptually keen analysis of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the the U.S. Capitol to help lay out a framework of concentric circles of support and validation of the Trump agenda that is not just intentional but also engineered and historic, putting democracy at risk. 

Expressed differently, according to studies of democracy globally such as studied by the Institute for Democracy in Stockholm, Sweden, our country is slipping if these factors are present: 

Individuals' right to vote through voter suppression policies and practices are curtailed. The following agendas are at play: disinformation campaigns that exploit the ignorance of the casual observer; a rigging of the judiciary or a highjacking of the legislative process; fierce privatization agendas such as with roads, prisons and schools that, as she says, "engorge corporate partners"; an undermining of established norms of governance; and a weaponizing of tensions over race, sexuality (transgender battles), and religion (anti-Islamism) to intentionally divide and fragment the polity. Sound familiar?

We're in fact ranked next to Hungary as a fledgling democracy. MacLean comments that these contrived dynamics put voters in a "constant state of fear, anger and agitation."

Listening to this and having read her prophetic book, Democracy in Chains (2018), I can easily see the power plays of the 88th Texas Legislature through this lens. She cogently explains how this represents a well-orchestrated, decades-long, agenda by a highly extremist radical right to seize power.

She rests this agenda at the feet of the Koch Donor Network that she says consists of close to 700 donors "determined to make the world to their liking." 

Within this network are ostensibly autonomous organizations like the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Federalist Society and others. Big oil is also a large part of this group which helps keep the horrible lie that climate change isn't real alive.

What they collectively seek is unfettered capitalism free of regulations that converts existence to a market where the best education—or other services one can get—is the best one can buy. Say no to vouchers and ESAs!

For this to prevail, consent must get engineered. Here is where citizens' very consciousness comes into play. Hence, we witness the attack on the schools to keep teachers feeling vulnerable and weakened. Book bans and other attacks on curriculum are part of the playbook, as well as a weakening of faculty governance at the higher education level such as through a limiting or ending tenure, DEI, and "woke curriculum" that faculty teach.

A message to all professors: Our silence does not protect us!

For Ethnic Studies advocates in K-12, we've not even been able to get House Bill 45 out of committee for a hearing this legislative session! At least during the last 2021 legislative session, the exact same bill came out of both houses and landed just shy of the governor's desk, but Republicans decided to debate CRT instead of Ethnic Studies. None of this is coincidental, but rather contrived. And what is so unfortunate is how black, brown, and white youth could benefit equally from a curriculum that sheds light on intergroup histories, tensions, and solidarity throughout history. This curriculum is, in fact, a helpful antidote to the white nationalist ideologies that find fertile ground in the legislated ignorance that itself has a long history as I myself have documented in my own work (Valenzuela, 2021). 

It should therefore come as no surprise that some Latinos and other people of color, succumb to such ideologies when they've been deprived of curriculum and pedagogy that speaks to theirs', as well as others' experiences. Someday, by the way, Ethnic Studies will just get called "a good education,."

I am reminded of Herman and Chomsky's (2010) notion of a manufacturing of consent—through whitewashed books and curriculum that are designed to keep our youth in the dark regarding the actual truths of history. Doing so is less easy these days compared to earlier times when folks didn't have access to the Internet. And not just that, but there has been an evolution of consciousness itself—to which so much of the intrigue surrounding Gen Z attests (Twenge, 2023)

Still, right-wing trolls and websites spread all manner of disinformation that, as MacLean expresses, is referred to by some  as the "Outrage Industry." This works to make people feel scared and defensive—especially of the "other"—like they are under siege.

Might we not even link a general sense of malaise to this that manifests in so many ways, including domestic abuse and gun violence—both of which are empirically linked?

If you're in Texas right now, this has been quite the session, so incredibly hostile to our transgender youth, drag queens, immigrants, gun safety advocates, women that seek abortions, and minorities—atop existing campaigns that seek to limit the vote, ban books, curriculum, along with eliminating tenure, diversity, equity, and inclusion offices and initiatives at the higher education level.  

These agendas do not come from the people. Most families are worried about the economy, want greater security and gun safety laws. They are concerned about the grid, desirous of great public schools, concerned about debilitating student debt, and greater access and funding support for their children's pursuit of higher education. 

Simultaneously, and not trivially, we are also all observing the shift to a multiracial/multiethnic democracy. Instead of leading on these changes, including a furthering of diversity, equity, and inclusion offices and initiatives, those in power are seizing not just power, but a white chauvinist, culturally supremacist vision of society where wealth and power are concentrated in the hands of the few.

My, how that is so NOT a winning strategy in a state that is only becoming more, not less, diverse!

It was clear that there were "a thousand fires" that we had to put out this legislative session. We were correct in understanding that the purpose was in part ideological, but also designed to fragment or weaken us as an advocacy community. What MacLean allows us to consider is that fragmentation and polarization under the auspices of the so-called "culture wars," is part of a much larger scheme that attaches to oligarchy where a small group of people hold most of the power.

We should all find it disturbing, as a manifestation of white supremacy, Alabama Congressman Tommy Tuberville's recent statements that white nationalists are as entitled to the military as anybody else when an ethical and moral stance would have been to state instead that they should all be removed. The clear danger in this as MacLean outlines, is the development of factions within the military that could lead to a divided military about which U.S. generals have already openly expressed concerns. I encourage all to see this video on Extremism in the Military.

Solutions? We definitely need to get dark money out of politics. This requires a lot of grassroots mobilizing in order to protect election integrity. To promote democratic processes and democracy itself, we need leaders that are prepared to do the hard work of challenging the well-heeled ecosystem of a right-wing outrage industry, and bringing down the tone and frenetic noise of (un)civil discourse and highly partisan politics, while they're at it.

Let's ourselves remember, as Ghandi once said, that we ourselves need to be the change that we want to see in the world. We shouldn't ourselves be polarizing. Admittedly, when the house is on fire, it's hard to not be a bit upset about that. Yet, if we see this as part of an anti-democratic strategy to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of the few, it becomes important to manifest the opposite of what extremists want to see. After all, chaos, disorder, and division among the masses serve their agenda as MacLean well explains.

I spoke yesterday evening with my soon-to-be 11-year-old grandson and 4-year old granddaughter about guns and violence, news of which they cannot possibly be immune, even as small children. Without a doubt, they not only hear things, but they have their own opinions.

I shared that as opposed to speaking from our fear or anger, how we need to speak from our hearts so that we can be peaceful and still in the storm that surrounds us. The heart reminds us of love, care and compassion, I said. Yes, the storm is all around us and we may sometimes feel small and scared. Maybe what we all have to do, I told them, is to be the calm vessel in the ocean. We cannot control the ocean, but we ourselves be calm. And then our vessel connects with other vessels that also want to be calm. And we do this with our parents, families and communities and we build a new and better world in this way.

My granddaughter was stoked by the conversation and wanted to know more about the heart. She shared that she drew a picture for me, her grandma, to let me know how much she loves me—as well as another for her mother. I told her that the heart is love, caring, kindness, and compassion and that I couldn't be happier and looked forward to getting her drawing. Yep, being a grandma is awesome.

I really do think that most people are good and that we want to live in peace—not just with each other, but also with our Earth mother. I also think, and science has shown, that we are super-collaborators as a species. I see this all the time in the university classroom. Hence, despite the challenges there is much reason to be hopeful.

However we all walk away from this legislative session, we're all entitled to our emotions, but let's not at all succumb to cynicism or despair. If you do, you empower those in power that hold ill will toward you and your community and want to elicit this from you and me as a sign of achieving their aims.

Pathetic, but true and that's what MacLean underscores in her talk.

Those of us who advocated this session on behalf of our children, youth, and  communities—and we were many—enjoyed a sense of solidarity-building, love, and commitment to a more just, caring and inclusive world where all enjoy and deserve a sense of dignity and belonging. 

I am excited about this world that we are building from the ashes of legislative animus. At all cost, we must hold onto that vision. It is abundantly clear to me that we possess all the resources, talent, and wherewithal to prevail such that the solution remains the same: Organize, organize, organize.

I am so proud of our young people. From where I stand, there was a palpable growth in our grassroots organizations and a fresh, post-pandemic energy of a new generation of young, driven activists and leaders. In contrast to Republicans' false, even weird, narrative of DEI initiatives creating divisions, ours is a positive, hopeful—yes, diverse, equitable, and inclusive—vision for the future.

Ours is not at all about division—but rather a coming together as a rich tapestry of intersectional, intergenerational, multi-ethnic, socioeconomic, and racial diversity, enunciating democratic principles like fairness, openness, transparency, due process, academic freedom, as well as the value and hard work of diversity, equity and inclusion. 

It is in this very circumstance and context that we organized just such a group that calls itself Black Brown Dialogues on Policy. We call on Black and Brown unity and coalition building for the expressed purpose of addressing policy concerns and possibilities that we hold in common—and there are many. We use the terms "Black" and "Brown" in order to not lose half of our group by using labels (like "Latinx" or "African American" vs. "Black," etc.) that get in the way of the kinds of things that we need to work on together as similarly-situated communities with histories of coalition building and knowing, always, that there is more that unites than divides us. In the interest of clarity, "black and brown" is for us a large tent inclusive of all genders, socioeconomic classes, racial and ethnic groups, as well as white allies.

Our membership also consists of an aggrieved humanity, most particularly, the Uvalde families advocating for reform. Now we add Allen, Texas, to a growing list of casualties whose deaths should not be in vain. I hope that Gov. Abbott signs into law the bill that will raise the age limit to 21 for any person to be able to purchase a high-powered weapon. I hope vouchers don't pass and that our state leaders open their eyes and see the U.S.-Mexico border as the humanitarian crisis that it is.

It's not easy, but we do win when we hold onto the core of who we are and don't become the polarizing, divisive, or violent force that oligarchs want us to become. 

Do listen to Dr. MacLean. Her analysis not only masterfully connects the dots, but is prophetic. Forewarned is forearmed.

Happy Mother's Day, everybody! 

-Angela Valenzuela

References

ABC News. (2020). Examining Extremism in the Military. Retrieved: 

https://youtu.be/RoKt8mYbJuU

Herman, E. S., & Chomsky, N. (2010). Manufacturing consent: The political economy of the mass media. Random House.

MacLean, N. (2018). Democracy in chains: The deep history of the radical right's stealth plan for America. Penguin.

Twenge, J. M. (2023). Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America's Future. Simon and Schuster.

Valenzuela, A. (2021). Decolonizing Citizenship: The Movement for Ethnic Studies in Texas. In Pratt, M., Gonzales, P., & Rosaldo, R. (Eds.) Trumpism, Mexican America, and the Struggle for Latinx Citizenship. Santa Fe: University of New Mexico Press.