Police Infiltration

I wrote to Mumia Abu-Jamal about a year ago, for those of you who don’t know who Mumia is, he is a famous activist from the Black Panther Party who got framed for murdering a cop. Ever since he’s been incarcerated, he’s been writing alot and being a political activist behind bars. He has written a book called “We Want Freedom: Life in the Black Panther Party” that is now one of my favorite books on the history of activistm in the 60s. His book is not ONLY about the Black Panther Party, he writes about some Chicano activism and the Young Lords (Puerto Ricans).

I wrote to him asking what could be done to mitigate Police infiltration? and what could be done about cops posing as other members of any radical party writing letters, etc as was done between Fred Hampton and I believe the Young Lords.

Edited: I used to have links to the actual letter and the transcript, Im moving everything to a new server, if you would like to read them immediately please email me: mazazoma @ gmail.com

Aztec Thought and Culture

A couple of years ago I got the book “Aztec Thought and Culture” by Miguel Leon-Portilla. It’s been so long since I’ve read it again. It’s somewhat impossible for me to absorb lots of information from a book unless I write and take notes of what I think is an important passage/quote from a book. Which I didnt do much with this one. That reminds me, I hate people who highlight passages and quotes in a book, sort of destroying it if you ask me. But anyway, several of us from www.mexicauprising.net are engaging in a “online book study” kind of thing on the forums and we are going to read/discuss one book a month. So that gives people time to order it if they dont have it and read it as well.

I think for the most part we are going to be discussing the many books written by Miguel L.P. He is a highly respected scholar/historian on Mexica/Mayan/Pre-Columbian history because for the most part he directly translates from Nahuatl codices and documents. Although he does translate it into spanish, his books are once again translated into english by professional linguists who have degrees from respectable institutions. He acknowledges that sometimes it is hard to find a direct translation from nahuatl to either spanish or english(as there are some nahuatl where there is no english/spanish equivalent). But you can say that for any language really.

We Will Rise

Recently, I’ve just read “We Will Rise” By Kurly Tlapoyawa. I think overall it’s a good book, there are some sections where Kurly presents undisputible data, the ones that I really liked were the sections on Tonantzin and Mexica ‘Human Sacrifice’. One thing that does get to me is how the author quotes Miguel Leon-Portilla’s Broken Spear’s book now and then but rejects the passage where Moctezuma stood upon a building and asked his people to lay down their arms, mexica commoners and warriors called him a vendido and proclaimed why should they follow their king? He calls it a eurocentric passage, but why doesn’t he reject the book(Broken Spears) entirely?

I’m not trying to dispute that it may be Eurocentric? I’ve just never read anything to support that Moctezuma didn’t sell out his people until I’ve read Kurly’s book. If anyone knows of a source(book, pamphlet, etc) that supports Kurly’s claim, I would like to know about it so that I can get it(if possible). I just wish Kurly took a more neutral approach on presenting his data, you can tell he gets personal about it and that may lead to other people(non indigenous) questioning his data, in some parts it seem like he’s going on a rant. Granted, just about everything is biased but still, he doesn’t have to be blatant about it.

Another part that got to me was his constant attack of Chicano organizations that fight for our people within the system. It’s a matter of opinion, yes the system must be overthrowed, but how can you do that if not all of our people know about our history and the atrocities done to us? How can you not work within the system to try to get the education to teach our people our real history? It’s not going to happen overnight. We must fight from within the system now, to be able to dictate what is taught to our people, once the majority has learned it, then we’ll work from there.

A perfect example of such is this Los Angeles Elementary School: http://www.dignidad.org

anahuak philosophy

Anahuak Philosophy by Saul Bermudez

We will cautiously attempt to introduce our ancestors’ philosophy so that we may once again discover that gave birth to one of the four great cultures our planet has engendered, the indigenous culture of Anahuak. We will attempt to disembroider the curtain that the European colonists wove to obscure our culture. This will not be just an intellectual development but a corporal and spiritual one as well. This is a discovery of basic attributes, of daily occurrences, a way of life in harmony with everyone and everything, of a simple although certainly not simplistic life, to discern the essential reasons for our actions, and, consequently, the nature of our relation with our environment, our mother, our Tonantzin.

The first step we must take is to place aside our religious and cultural prejudices that stem from our European education. The indigenous philosophy is based on the assiduous observations made by our ancestors during thousands of years. These observations of our environment, as well as the cosmos, acquired mathematical entities when they entered our ancestors’ pupils. The precise observations and calculations were performed to decipher the secrets of the universe and thus the secrets that affect each moment of our existence. These are cycles that repeat themselves and that have been repeated for an eternity, ever since our universe came to our present state of harmony and after its initial rest and its subsequent explosion that gave it shape. For them, as for current astronomers, the firmament Xoxouhqui Xicaltzitli provides us with the chronological cycles that affect our planet: eclipses, movements, and alignments of planets and the sun, and so on. Moreover, all energies that influence all organisms in our home we have named “Earth.”

Once they perceived these movement and their relationship with us, they developed a philosophy in harmony with their observations, such as the concept of duality. The universe is a duality of energy. It is constant. It cannot be destroyed. Energy only changes form. Some of the states in which energy can exist are mass or light. Mass can be called potential, cold, solid, etc. Light can be given the name of kinetic, hot, fluid. When our grandparents saw these beautiful occurrences, they perceived that everything is related to one another; and thus they understood that everything in our planet also has these dualities including ourselves. For each particle in our bodies was once part of the nascent universe. For them, we humans are not some extraterrestrial beings. Instead we are part of this energy and movement: the solar system. The solar system in turn is a molecule of our galaxy, and our galaxy of our universe. Our ancestors called this universe our creator Ometeotl. As a result, the members of the Anahuak community obeyed the cycles that govern our planet, all the movements and reverberations that are Ometeotl.

Chicano Nationalism

I found a quote that is interesting:

“Nationalism exists… but until now, it hasn’t been formed into an image people can see. Until now it has been a dream. It has been my job to create a reality out of a dream, to create an ideology out of the longing. Everybody in the barrios is a nationalist.. [I]t doesn’t matter if he’s a middle-class, a vendido, a sellout, or what his politics may be. He’ll come back home, to La Raza, to his heart, if we will build centers of nationalism for him.. [N]ationalim is the key to our people liberating themselves … I am a revolutionary … because creating life amid death is a revolutionary act. Just as building nationalism in an era of imperalism is a life-giving act … We are an awakeing people, an emerging nation, a new breed.”

-Corky Gonzalez

So I asked an older chicano who graduated from UCSB about this passage and what it really meant, the vendido remark and the creating life amid death caught my eyes.

Well first of all the life and death was most likely talking about his Denver organization: Cruzada por la Justicia. At least 3 of his members were killed at a protest, but Im trying to find the exact names of the chicanos who were killed, a list if you will. Around that time lots of BPP members and White Leftists protesters were also killed, I’m not trying to downplay the killings of the chicanos in denver but just to restate what was going on in those times.

Corky says that a vendido will return to his raza, but I don’t know about that, it guess it could be the “degree” a certain vendido is. It also completely depends on the mindset and outlook on life the vendido has and what kind of acceptance he gets in his own little world, meaning if he has a wife/girlfriend that accepts him for who he is, even a vendido, then I see no substantial reason why he would go back to his raza.

But regardless of all that, I’ve seen alot of Chicanos online and at my college throw around that word alot so it’s hard to really understand what everyone’s opinion or model of what a vendido is. For one person it could be buying Taco Bell food because the UFW requested that everyone boycott Taco Bell. For another it has to be as harsh as putting down other chicanos. For another it can be getting a social security card, putting yourself voluntarily into the system. And so on, so there are varying degrees of a sellout. I just want to know which kind of sellout Corky had in mind when saying this.

Defend Aztlan

I was cleaning up my computer, you know? Deleting files and other stuff, then I found the defend aztlan writing I had done about a year ago I think? I posted it on soychicano, chicano.org, indigenous-revolution.com. I only got responses from soychicano.com, some of the members were cool about it and understood what I was trying to say, but other members were bickering, yeah I know everyone is not going to agree with me, but they were out to say that I was being selfish? I don’t know what’s so selfish about Aztlan, but anyway, I basically said that us Chicanos were not ready right now for Aztlan, mentally..

I talk to this guy who I shall name OG, he’s an older chicano, mid 30s I believe. He’s taught me alot about Chicanismo and about our history, I’ve learned alot from him over the years. Well anyway, recently he started talking to me about how Chicanoism is inherently racist and goes against just about EVERYTHING our ancestors did and how they lived. At first I got mad that he was attacking Chicanos and Chicanismo, but he is somewhat right. Just look at the other chicanos you see protecting the system, protecting the conqueror’s religion. I told him that a few Chicanos who are racist don’t speak for the rest of us. That I could do my best to change that. Chicanismo evolves over time you know? Well the only thing I want to do is stop the racism some Chicanos spew out of their mouth and their keyboards here on the internet.

He also said that we need to follow the red road, follow our true roots, and shed any european ideology that can hurt us. At first I thought he meant we should abandon society as we know it, technology, hospitals, etc. But then he explained himself in detail about how this system is ultimately killing us, an example is the food we eat, more than ever before, raza is dying from various diseases that our ancestors with herbs and other rituals could get rid of. Doctors know the power of herbal medicine and some doctors do practice it, but there’s much more money in drugs that the drug companies pump into our stores and doctor’s offices. I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theory nut but it does make sense. You see, our people had one of the most efficient diets in the world and this statement is backed up by scientists as well. Diseases like malnutrition, diabetes, chemical inbalances in the brain were for the most part unknown. Now you have raza having these problems because we eat fast food and other foods that ultimately will mess up our bodies or kill us. You can even see this on indian reservations! Check out your local indian casino and look at the native people who run it, you will NOT find too many skinny ones. They’re all fat and plump from eating American food.

So my friend OG thinks we’ll never reach Native enlightenment if we keep following Chicanismo and its ideals. I say we can through chicanismo, but it would take lots of work and lots of people to support each other through ideals and opinions. We as Chicanos can evolve Chicanismo and make it better, work on it, make it better for our people, if not for our children and grandchildren, etcetera.

Most Chicanos have christianity ingrained into their soul and mind, they have greed in there as well, as for some of us, throw in racism and hate. It’s not an easy task, but we must shed these from ourselves or at least not teach these ideals to our children. I would say its almost impossible because of the kind of society we live in, but we MUSt try. We have to.

Defend Aztlan:

“Its not enough, Aztlan as our own nation, a Chicano country, what will be the difference between that and now? We are not enlightened, we are still poisoned by the ancient White Man’s disease; greed. Aztlan now will not be any different, instead of an opressor that has white skin, it will be brown, no difference. Its not worth for any Chicano to die or risk their freedom for a nation that will not consist of truly free minds and people. We need a revolution of the mind.

It is our duty to inform the masses about the diseases that infects the world. Power, greed, deception, I cannot rid these diseases from my body, it is too strong, I have tried for and hoped for these diseases to leave my body and mind. The only way we can stop its multiplication is to prevent them from entering the minds of our children, inform them so they can be ready for what it is. You cannot fight your enemy if you do not know who or what it is. You must find the weaknesses of your enemy. Let’s tell our children the side effects of these diseases. Inform them of our experiences and how it will eventually destroy us and the people around us if we do nothing.

I love Aztlan and I love my people, I just want us to prepare for the worst, to expect the unexpected, so that we can fight through anything.