Blacklisted by the NPIC: the price of speaking out against militarization

When colonial overlords have an agenda, interference with that agenda is not usually tolerated. This is especially true when the agenda is a well orchestrated, master planned puppet show. The overlords provide the theater, the special effects, the dialogue, the actors, and the puppets. They also count on making a huge profit from the whole ordeal. If anyone has a problem with the message, it may be possible to cause a small disturbance during the show, but usually if one tries, such person is swiftly booted out the door by security. 

The overlords are well connected with law enforcement, and so they'll press charges if they can conjure up a good enough reason to do so. The captive audience, who has already invested their time and money in the performance, is often grateful that they can continue to be moved and entertained without interference from those pesky conscientious objectors. The show must go on.

The funders of NGOs often take the position of the puppeteers. These philanthropic foundations don't get their money solely by the merit of their philosophies. They get their money from various business interests, many of whom have specific business goals that they want to accomplish. If the foundations didn't function to serve these interests, there would be no funding source. 

Those who have dared to object to the content of these spectacles are well aware of these realities. In Chicago, for instance, Ze Garcia and Ann-Meredith Wootton, part of the Moratorium on Deportations Campaign, participated in an immigrant rights march organized by multiple NGOs. Garcia carried a banner which read "immigration reform bill equals more deaths" and pointed out that S 744, the bill many of these NGOs were promoting at the march, promotes militarization. 

The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), like good loyal puppets and performers, targeted Garcia and Wootton. Security was called, and the two were arrested, even though ICIRR and SEIU was well aware that Garcia was under deportation proceedings. An account of this story is available here. Similar situations have occurred in respect to police brutality marches in Salinas, CA. In addition, the story is reminiscent of when Puente sided with the police after they pepper sprayed hundreds of marchers at a protest march, myself included in the crowd. 

These overlords are smart. They not only have NGOs, security forces, and the entire police state working to ensure their well oiled machine is succinct, but they have a monopoly over academia too. You see, one cannot just simply rise through the ranks of academia and challenge these people. They are well connected, well endowed, and their greedy claws have a grip on the academic circuit as well. Even after the most well intentioned student has jumped through all the required hoops and hurdles of academia, such a person is still a product of the system and must work within that structure. 

She can try to avoid the influence of all the big shady corporations and venture out independently, but there is always that big problem of funding. When looking to assist the poor or the working class, the do-gooder academic has to recognize that many in need of help do not have the resources. So, where to turn? Those of us in the academic world are directed back to the same old drawing board we started from. Foundations and nonprofits. 

I’ve been pretty vocal in my critiques against NGOs. In particular, I have beef with the National Day Labor Organizing Network (NDLON), and the subtle ways in which they have promoted militarization through immigration reform, such as disparaging Republicans and John Boehner for blocking S 744. In addition, I have beef with their close relationship to Puente, an organization which constantly claims to be pro indigenous and appropriates indigenous culture, yet does nothing to help indigenous people. In fact, they do the opposite. 

While Puente claims they do not support S 744, their chant of "Not 1 More" has been used nationwide to promote it, and even though this bill has everything to do with immigration, they have not let out a peep on the harms it would do. They have had flyers and promotional events advertising CIR, yet when confronted about this they always claim it was someone else who designed it. When critiqued on their silence and lack of support for Tohono O'odham who are the most impacted by militarization, their tactic as been to reach out to related tribes in order to validate their pro indigenous narrative. 

Divide and conquer is the oldest trick in the book, and it is pretty messed up when so called human rights organizations do it. Previously, I didn't want to call them out specifically, because I had hoped they would start to understand the destruction they were causing by hogging the mic and throwing others off the stage. But nope, they keep running over valid indigenous perspectives with their undocubus.

The consequence of speaking out often bears a huge emotional toll. As a result of my critiques, I’ve lost friends and possibly several job prospects. I’ve been accused of being a big mean bully. Often, when they respond, those working for these organizations play like they are the victims.

Don’t you see all the good we are doing? Why would you attack us? Our organization never had any affiliation with any of the atrocious things you are claiming. Yeah, well, okay… we did that. But you don’t understand the circumstances. Have you checked out all the good we have done? You should really ignore all the bad things and just focus on how great we are. Our huge platform and massive following makes us immune from all criticism. Oh! And guess what? If you speak out against us we will do everything in our power to ruin you. Either join us or cease to exist in this movement.

These types of responses have been frustrating. I'll admit, there were times where I have offered criticisms in ways that were not very tactful. At first I was totally nice. But after noticing the betrayals on the militarization issue, I became severely jaded. In addition, I felt used. Back in the day, I participated in many of Puente's marches and protests. Years later, I would find out that this effort was for nothing, and that all that time I dedicated my time to the movement, I was just a pawn in the greater reform agenda. 

I went to law school because I wanted to stop militarization on indigenous lands and marginalization of indigenous people. I wanted to fight against racism, xenophobia, human rights abuses, and the relentless targeting of the undocumented.  So forgive me when I become enraged when those who claim to be on the human rights train start to derail and push others off the train. 

Law school was hard. No joke. It is probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. It had so many emotional tolls. I was broke most of the time, and had to fake it in a world where everyone seemed to have an endless cash flow. Just about every semester, I had to hustle for books, food, and rent. I often felt inadequate and almost always felt like an outsider. I was from a completely different world. 

This world didn't get my struggle either. Oftentimes, I felt like I had nobody. When I looked to my former comrades, I found out they had completely turned on me. Maybe they had always been shady and I just hadn't seen it before. Either way, I felt very alone and hopeless. I lashed out. I even got blocked from NDLON's Facebook page for offering my critique. Meanwhile, I was going through other struggles in law school.

Why wouldn’t you have the required books for class before the semester starts? This is law school. We have expectations. There are no excuses.

Besides fearing that I would have to drop out because of money, my other biggest fear in going through law school was that I would lose my soul. It felt like I had to accept the system I was working within in order to fulfill its requirements. It would have been a lot easier if I could have just accepted it without question. But the system doesn’t ask for critique. Instead, it demands adherence. My mind doesn't let me do that though. All these pesky thoughts kept getting in the way. I'm not the best at rogue memorization. And logic based on settler colonial principles is entirely illogical to me.

In some ways, law school is inherently designed to be a soul killing process. On the first day of orientation, they provided us with some staggering statistics about how law students and lawyers are the most depressed, the biggest substance abusers, and tend to have high suicide rates. These statistics blew my mind. And yet, people still encourage this process?

They warned us that after graduating, if we have too much debt, we can be denied the character and fitness portion of the state we choose to practice within. I saw this as just another one of the many ways they filter out poor people and prevent them from having any power. There is no way to find out if they are going to deny you until you've already completed the process. Man, it is a lot of stress.

I wanted to do everything I could to prevent myself from selling out. I liked to philosophize and ponder what justice really meant, as I did not find it in most of what I studied. I did, however, relish in that moment whenever I did get that chance. In my Lawyers and Ethics class my first year, we read Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau. Many of the words stuck with me.

If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth--certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate , that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.

 I still can't fathom why they had us read this other than as a sadistic ploy to torture our conscious, if any of us happened to possess one. As future lawyers, we can't break the law. They'll deny our license. They'll take it away once we have it. But.... I simply cannot function as a mechanical object. I can’t. I knew that I adhered to their dogma, if I adhered completely without a word, I would be forced to become just another one of the mechanical parts.  

In a last ditch effort to save my own soul, I had to do something. I felt like they were trying to take my essence. The law school Skeksis were up to no good, trying to extract it from me. I had to fight back. I had to keep my essence, my soul, and the only way to do so was to start talking. 

Law school is like this....

Meanwhile, militarization was happening before my eyes. When I'd visit Arizona from Michigan, I couldn't believe the pace in which it was taking over. And what was Puente doing? What was NDLON doing? Not a word about it. When I'd bring it up to anyone else, they'd point to these organizations as the ultimate authority on human rights abuses. I felt like I had no other choice but make others aware of these discrepancies. I made a lot of people upset in the process.

I’m an emotional person. It hurt to lose friends. And my empty wallet wasn’t faring any better. How much easier would my life be if I had just conformed? But I couldn’t live with myself if I did that.

I went to law school because I grew up bearing witness to some pretty awful circumstances affecting the future of Arizona. I went because I don’t want my grandkids to have to be harassed by the Border Patrol. I went because I knew how corrupt the police are in my hometown. I went because when bad things happened to myself, my friends, or my family, we had nowhere to turn because the system wasn’t there for us. I went because racism and militarization were taking a huge toll, and I was sick and tired of being powerless to stop it. I went because I was at the end of my rope. 

So you see, NPIC, I'm not the bully. It was you who betrayed. I did everything for you.... I marched, I protested, I dedicated myself. It was you who turned your back. Maybe it wasn't actually you who caused this whole mess. But you certainly aren’t doing much to stop it. You should be called out. This betrayal affects everyone who trusted human rights organizations to fight for them. When the NPIC started to promote militarization under the guise of human rights, they did so in the most manipulative and deceptive ways possible. It cut deep. I wish these organizations would stop trying to cover up their manipulative traits by ostracizing those who have critiqued them. Instead of dividing and conquering, they should start listening. When strategy fails, rethink it. Critique isn’t such a terrible thing. It’s how we learn and get past our mistakes. It can make us better.

It is my hope that we can build a better, stronger movement. I would hope that organizers who truly want to make a difference might someday step away from the NPIC dark side and into the light. We need a partnership of attorneys and a fleet of influential civil rights warriors in order to bring on a movement that sends a clear message. This movement would take all sides of the people into consideration and include indigenous perspectives. This movement would be people centric and accountable and aware of its actions affecting all of its people. We just have to get our act together.

 Feedback? Email jupiternmars3@gmail.com