Appropriation vs. Militarization: What makes an Indian more furious?

I think it is great when indigenous people find solidarity on certain issues. Having said that, I spend a lot of time wondering what makes a certain issue sexy, while another one is completely ignored.

Appropriation is one of those issues I can totally vibe with, but I guess I’m feeling a little envious that it is just so damn sexy and that trying to bring attention to militarization isn’t. At all. In fact, I have had indigenous folks often try and “check” me on my anger towards militarization. This is where I get really confused. I wonder if they think that I'm making things up? Why are they so dismissive? Don't they see that what we are experiencing is a product of colonization also? Why does the real lived experience of militarization, at a crisis level, not matter?

I’ll see those same folks in a flying fit of rage over indigenous appropriation. I’ll see them furiously defend their anger, and their right to be angry. And I don't disagree with them! I mean, we are talking centuries of oppression, assimilation, and subjugation. Indigenous history has been lied about, in everything, and that has consequences. Movies, books, and popular culture have helped to condition the masses to remain incredibly ignorant towards indigenous people.

I feel that rage too. I didn’t really get it until I went to college and actually felt the weight of the ignorance. Before that though, I was a product of my surroundings. Many people back home don't view appropriations as an important issue, and probably wouldn't understand why so much time and energy is spent fighting it. To me, it makes complete sense why they don’t get it. They aren't reading case law that demonstrates what can happen when a bunch of white people write stereotypes and ignorance into law. People back home would probably be surprised to find out that there are masses (mostly on the East Coast) who think that Indians are extinct!

A lot of people back home just don’t want to worry about what white people who appropriate are doing. Appropriations doesn’t concern them, because they are doing their own thing. I get that too. I even envy it! Academia can be full of itself. While being exposed to the academic realm did change my perspective, it also skewed it. I long to live my life in a more traditional sense, away from the pasty walls of academia. Being immersed in academia can be short-sighted and it doesn't have all the answers either.

The “academic Indian” doesn’t get my rage over militarization, I think for the same reason a lot of my “rez Indian” friends don’t see the big deal about appropriation. They don’t see it because they aren't having the experiences that would lead them to make the connections. They haven’t had a family member abused by a border patrol agent. They don’t have to go through checkpoints to visit home. They haven’t been surrounded by seven vehicles, armed agents, and a helicopter while just trying to go about their day. They haven’t lived it.

As a consequence, the “academic Indian” often will treat my rage like it is my own problem. They don’t connect the experience of militarization to the history of colonization in the same way they connect appropriations to colonization. They see me as someone who is getting mad over something trivial, and treat me very similarly to how people respond when they defend appropriation.

The Art of Anti Indigenous and Anti Immigrant Deception: The Pope and Sophie Cruz

I feel like people are going to throw tomatoes at me for the blog I am about to write.

I can’t stop thinking about Sophie Cruz. An amazing little girl, so smart, so brave, and yet so misled by the nonprofits set up to lie and deceive. 

Did it bother you that I said that? Did it seem like I’m saying not nice things about a beautiful little girl who only wants the best for her parents and her family? I really, really hope not. The truth is I have a lot of admiration for Sophie Cruz. I feel for her parents and want them to be together and live and work in peace. I want to be fighting along side her to make that happen. But I can’t, because I know the truth about comprehensive immigration reform and exactly what is happening.

We don’t exactly live in a philosophical era where truth is highly prioritized. I don’t see a lot of critical discussion surrounding indigenous people and how they are affected by comprehensive immigration reform. And it seems like many people I know and love also fall for the theatrics that tell them that it is a good thing. I don’t know how to tell them what I know. I don’t know how to tell them that this has been done before.

There are patterns in colonialism, and there are tactics that have been used since the dawn of the colonial era to subjugate indigenous people. The divide and conquer tactic is the most prevalent and effective. The dream of manifest destiny paved the way for deception. When settlers set out to take land, many indigenous people were lied to in order to get them to make concessions. Early settlers repeatedly and continually made false promises in the form of treaties and other agreements. On numerous occasions, colonists would pick specific community members to con into accepting deceptive promises. These selected persons would in turn bring the lies back to the community. They often did this thinking they were helping their people, not knowing that the settlers intended a more sinister plan of action.

It breaks my heart to see this tactic used today, and to see so many fall for it. Sophie Cruz doesn’t know that the reform proposed serves to harm indigenous people. She doesn’t know that its passage would make immigrants go through a very complex process that could result in deportation. She doesn’t know the truth—that comprehensive immigration reform is anti immigrant and anti indigenous.

The powers behind the theatrics knew exactly what they were doing. They knew that many indigenous people were protesting Junipero Serra that day. They know that a big part of CIR is militarization, and that increases migrant deaths. They know that it is a bad policy solution for indigenous people and migrants, but they don’t want us to know that. They intentionally chose a bright, amazing, adorable little girl to carry on their message of deception, and she has no idea. 

Junipero Serra is the Perfect Spokeperson for Comprehensive Immigration Reform and Divide and Conquer Policy

Junipero Serra is not the type of immigrant anyone should strive to be, but it is fitting that he is used to promote the colonial policy of comprehensive immigration reform. His tactics to convert, assimilate, and train indigenous people to become like settlers can be compared to modern day policies intending to assimilate the immigrant. Nowadays, the parameters for CIR have included an overwhelming push for assimilation. The legal environment is ripe with anti immigrant furor. That environment is composed of English-only battle cries, bans on ethnic studies, show me your papers SB 1070, 100 mile waiver of rights SB 750, countless laws waiving laws in the name of national security, and many CIR provisions that mandate assimilation in exchange for citizenship. Militarization is a part of CIR, and it is probably the most in-your-face form of colonization that we see coming out of it. In the Southwest, it started with missions. It continues with proposed spy towers on the Tohono O'odham reservation.

Back in the day, Serra wrote about his troubles converting the Indians to Christianity. He was feeling pretty down because they didn't want to convert willingly, so his solutions to their unresponsiveness was forced coercion. If they would not readily assimilate, they were whipped, beaten, forced into labor and not allowed to leave the missions. They had to adopt the ways of the dominant society or face the consequences. If they resisted, they were beaten into submission. Indians were not permitted to leave. Once they were in, they were trapped. Families, trapped behind the mission walls, were not even permitted to carry on relationships. Serra would purposely separate children from their parents so that they wouldn't learn their culture. (View Serra's testimonies here)

The conquest of Serra and others had devastating impacts on indigenous populations. Many did not survive the mission system. It wasn’t just because of diseases, as the settlers like to argue time and again. The settlers knew they were killing the Indians. Indians were viewed as savage and inferior, and therefore the decimation in population was not a concern to the colonizer.

It is fitting that Serra's canonization is being used to continue a similar policy. The push for comprehensive immigration reform says to indigenous people on the border, “We don’t have to consult you on anything. We’re going to take your lands and militarize them and you won’t have any voice in anything. You don't matter to us.”

In today's day and age, I have to give credit to the PR people in charge. They've given Serra an image of a saint, as one who gave indigenous people the wondrous gift of Christianity and away from their so-called heathen ways. They've managed to frame Comprehensive Immigration Reform as human rights necessity, when in reality the provisions it contains are human rights atrocities.  It's a giant set up. NGOs have been used to perpetuate the policy of divide and conquer.

Comprehensive immigration reform equals militarization. It means more border patrol, more harassment, guns, drones, tanks, towers, helicopters flying overhead, trespassing on Tohono O’odham land, and more migrants dying in desert.

The interests of white supremacy continue to condition immigrants, many with indigenous ancestry, to disrespect people indigenous to these lands. Not only have they been forced to leave everything they love because of colonial policies like NAFTA, but they are forced to take sides with the colonizer to survive. It is the same type of scenario indigenous peoples were forced into and why so many conceded to treaties and reservations. The system requires this assimilation in exchange for citizenship. 

Immigration is caused by colonization. Immigration also perpetuates colonialism through assimilation. The only way to break this cycle is through respect towards indigenous inhabitants. Given the fuss over the pope and the dismissal of indigenous people this week, we still have a long way to go in achieving that respect.

The simple logic of why militarization is bad, how it encourages crime, and how it harms our communities.

Say you are a little kid, playing innocently with friends. Say you are approached by a police officer who proceeds to tell you that you are worthless, your family is worthless, and that you are going to end up in jail. 

How would you feel? Would it incentivize you to respect authority and/or law enforcement? 

Lets pretend you love your mom and your whole family. They are the ones who feed you, clothe you, tend to your wounds, and provide a roof over your head. Now put yourself in the position of hearing the police constantly bashing your family, purposely, just to get a rise out of you.

How can you grow up respecting authority when continually faced with those kinds of encounters?

I didn’t just make up this scenario. I witnessed it, as a little kid. I saw my friends treated that way. It didn’t happen to me. I was lucky enough to have a family that police did not bother. That luck kept me from experiencing the direct harassment many of my friends experienced. But it didn’t prevent me from witnessing it. I remember much of it vividly. They say experiences from childhood shape a lot of your world view. I saw that kind of treatment A LOT. A few stick out in my mind over others. I was pretty young when I watched the procession for Tyrone Childs, an unarmed Hia-Ced O'odham man shot by a scared rookie police officer. I was introduced to the dynamics and implications of the politics of fear early on. Maybe that is why I can see the problem so clearly, and for others, it is not so obvious.

I don’t know, to me its a no brainer. Its fairly obvious that if positions of authority systematically treat people disrespectfully from a young age, those kids grow up mutually disrespecting that authority. 

The cops told my friends they’d end up in jail, and guess where they ended up? Unfortunately for some, they were born into a cycle of oppression. The cops incited anger in them, encouraged them to rebel, and it was not the least bit surprising when they did. The frustrating thing, though, is that society will congratulate the cop for caging someone that same cop incessantly and needlessly harassed as a child, and judge the person being locked up without a second thought. 

There are many factors that confound this issue. As a kid, we were often discouraged and put down by our own community. We’d hear old folks squawking about having to pay property taxes that went to schools when they didn’t have kids of their own. We were such a burden for those old folks and were so expensive, yet we had textbooks from our parents' day and sports uniforms from the 80s (in the late 90s). We’d have teachers tell us we were the worst behaved, that we were behind other kids, and that we wouldn’t amount to anything. We were told that we were a failing school, that we weren’t very smart, that it was all our fault. 

I'm thankful to have had experiences that showed me the power of encouragement. In some cases, particularly in certain sports, I do remember being singled out and discouraged. Even though I was a competitive type, there were some things that I just wasn't good at. I distinctly remember doing terrible, getting frustrated, and getting mad at myself. Because I already knew I wasn't great, the more others pointed out my flaws, the worse I did. Even though I tried to do better, the negativity really hurt me and I would repeatedly fail. But then there were those coaches that encouraged me and told me I could do it. Man, what a contrast. I did great! I didn't dread practice and I made improvements every day. I learned, I grew, and I got better. Those experiences really opened my mind to the “how” and the “why” some kids thrive and some do not. 

For the most part, I was lucky. I had people take me aside and tell me I had potential. I had encouragement. I had love. That is why I am able to sit here, write a blog, and express these thoughts. 

These experiences have helped me understand the bigger picture. I often wonder why politicians on the Tohono O’odham Nation, in Pima County, and elsewhere don’t get it. Maybe they were sheltered. Maybe some of them did see people getting treated badly by authority figures but viewed themselves as superior. Maybe they would also pass judgement and also view certain people as "worthless" and unworthy of encouragement. I don’t know. But it boggles my mind that they are unable to see the correlation. It boggles my mind that their only "solutions" are to increase law enforcement, border patrol, and the like with no attention paid to jobs and education. They cast blame and ignore those that are trying to do better for themselves but are continually discouraged. 

Nowadays, schools face budget cuts while billions are appropriated to border security. What message does that send to kids?

Have they noticed that the more militarized the border becomes, the worse the problems get? Do they not see that murders have risen? Do they not see that cartels have become more violent? Do they not see that drug use has increased? Do they not see that people increasingly live their lives in fear? And the more we are all put on lock down the worse the fear gets.

Yet, the only answers the politicians can come up with is to increase militarization. They fail to look at cold hard data and recognize that militarization was the problem to begin with. 

Militarization = Oppression

How do they not see the correlation? 

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

When Racist Intent is Disguised as Philanthropic: the Ford Foundation, the NPIC, and Immigration Reform

In the past 3 years, there have been many things I have grown to love about Michigan. However, there is one prominent figurehead from this state that gets no love from me. Henry Ford may have made history when he established the first modern assembly line in 1913, but that doesn't outshine how he lived his life philosophies. So what if he made strides in developing "lean" production methods and changed the way industries do business up until this day? I'm still not impressed, even as many of those around me, including a number of law professors think he's great. There is more to a person than business practices, and that is especially evident when those business practices are heavily involved in promoting the most xenophobic of causes.

Maybe I can't appreciate his industry because I'm stuck on the fact that dude was a Nazi sympathizer and idolized Hitler. How am I supposed to appreciate his innovations when his vision was so corrupt? His capitalist cronyism did not do the world a favor. I get that people believe that he did Michigan a favor by bringing his manufacturing techniques to the state's economy. But I still don't like that Michigan is Ford obsessed. Its Henry Ford everything, even though the man possessed strong beliefs in eugenics, joining other prominent business tycoons of the day such as Nelson Rockefeller. Nelson believed in the family mission and along with John Rockefeller, perpetuated his beliefs through a foundation that funded pro eugenic studies and research. Ford contributed to this, and many people's car payments provided the means necessary to conduct this research. Ford himself played a big part in funding the powers that gave rise to the horrors of concentration camps, mass killings, etc.

I feel like everybody in Michigan needs to learn this history before spouting of his greatness. They celebrate the man like he is a God. The Henry Ford Museum, the Henry Ford Hospital, the Henry Ford academy in his home town of Dearborn are just a few of his progeny.

None of this should be shocking to anyone. There are thousands of materials that document this history. It is no secret. But what is shocking to me, is that his philanthropies continue to have a grip on our society even to this day. The Ford Foundation, started by Henry Ford's son, Easel Ford, was started in order to fund "charities" which also contended with Henry's sick world view. Ford had a knack for marketing though, so it isn't surprising that his son was able to market this control mechanism as something positive:

After the deaths of Edsel Ford in 1943 and Henry Ford in 1947, it became clear that the nonvoting stock of the Ford Motor Company they bequeathed to the Ford Foundation would create the largest philanthropy in the world. In response, the foundation’s board of trustees, led by Henry Ford II, Edsel’s son, commissioned studies to chart the institution’s future.

The seven-member Gaither Study Committee, headed by future Ford Foundation president H. Rowan Gaither, a respected San Francisco lawyer, recommended that the foundation become a national and international philanthropy dedicated to the advancement of human welfare. Perhaps most significant, the panel urged the foundation to focus on solving humankind’s most pressing problems, whatever they might be, rather than work in any particular field, which, at the time, was the traditional and accepted approach taken by foundations.

This philanthropy is as much BS as Henry Ford's views. I'm not buying that a racist eugenics supporter possessed the forethought required to save the world. What I find to be most disgusting though, is the power Henry Ford's progeny still has over the nonprofit world to this day.  Even posthumously, Ford's money is being used to control the philanthropic intent of hundreds of thousands of organizations across the country.

This form of deception through the Non-profit Industrial Complex was first brought to my attention by listening to a speech by Andrea Smith, a fierce scholar and feminist, who does an excellent job of breaking down the role of the NPIC by preventing people on the ground from organizing themselves. In one of her lectures, Smith relates how the grant process interferes with attempts to curb domestic violence:

...the state being the sneaky thing that it is comes in says, 'little ladies, it looks like you all have a problem with violence, and we'd like to give you a grant to solve this problem. However, when you accept our grant, you accept all the stipulations that go with this grant. So we are not going to fund any unseemly rabble-rousing activities. No, we think the problem is that survivors are victims, they are ill and need professional therapy from somebody with an MSW or a PhD, and you wanna do any activist work we want you to work with the state. We want you to work with the criminal justice system because as it so happens, we are building up the prison industrial complex and we'd like to co-opt your feminist rhetoric to support our repressive anti-crime agenda.

Specifically, the Ford Foundation was one of these grantors she spoke of.

 ...the most obvious way we can see is the huge foundations and how they impact our work, like the Ford Foundation. For instance, it's been documented how the Ford Foundation used its funding deliberately to ensure that the anti-apartheid struggle against South Africa would not have an anti-capitalist critique.

I could say on a personal level, with INCITE, we had a little run-in with the Ford Foundation ourselves because they gave us this $100,000 grant and told us to go spend it, so after we committed all our funds, they then retracted it over our statement on Palestine. So we had like $60,000 we had to raise in like three weeks, and what we found was we actually did raise it by calling a lot of people, so that goes to show that sometimes you don't need the funding that you think you need to do, but this also shows what these big foundations dictate the terms by which you may think to struggle or organize.

Its pretty crazy to think about how much influence and control these supposedly philanthropic foundations have over our lives. According to guidestar.org, the Ford Foundation has an income of $1,501,033,240.  In recent years, it has used a portion of its wealth to allocate grant money on a mission devoted to "protecting immigrant and migrant rights."  Yeah, right.  

I've written about how bills disguised as human rights, such as S 744, propose to further militarize Tohono O'odham lands and how many nonprofits are now staging hunger strikes that deceptively benefit the prison industrial complex. There is also plenty of reading available on how CIR in it's current form is anti indigenous and also anti immigrant. In addition, an array of resources and material educating migrants on the affects of such reforms are available on Moratorium on Deportations' page.

After doing some research on Ford and the NPIC, I also discovered that they are heavily invested in diversity, which I find very interesting given Henry's eugenics advocacy. What I find more interesting is their investment in migrant social justice.  The Ford Foundation only provides grant money if the mission is to "educate and move public opinion to support reform of immigration systems."  Notice there is a catch to this education clause. Nonprofits aren't supposed to educate unless it is to move public opinion towards supporting immigration reform. In addition, they want these grantees to be engaged in "promoting advocacy and legal support for enforcement issues specific to the Mexico-U.S. border," along with other flowery language that pretends that the Ford Foundation cares about migrant lives.This misnomer is about as genuine as the myth that Henry Ford himself was a good person. You get an idea of where the foundation's priorities lie when the criteria specifically states, "We do not support work on refugee issues."   

Most disappointing of all though, is noting who is most manipulated by this marketing of grant funding. The most targeted and vulnerable populations depend on nonprofits as their only sources of advocacy. Many are cut off from speaking out themselves because they have the entire system working against them. Nonprofits are the only visible and vocal microphone that supposedly represent the interests of the people.  The problem is, nonprofits, because of their funding sources, work from the top down. Many in leadership positions are well read about the ill effects of reform but stay silent. Some organizations are explicit in their reform advocacy, others don't say a word. Sometimes silence is complicity. As in the words of an organizer at Moratorium Against Deportations, they aren't going to bite the hand that feeds them. These nonprofits who support immigration reform most likely can't speak out against it, or else they would cease to be an organization.

That doesn't mean they should get a pass though. When nonprofits push for comprehensive reform, it lacks substance. They package it as this super deal and never even discuss what the reform does. What is worse, they disguise it with language such as "not one more," failing to note that the bill they promote would deport a lot more. That is deceptive. That is straight up lying to your people. My question to them is: At what point does your organization become greater than the cause? When are you (as people, not an org) going to dump these failing strategies and fight for real? 

Reform is nothing revolutionary. Not only that, it has an "Indian problem" to address. Some of these organizations even claim to be pro indigenous as they promote these Andrew Jackson-like colonial policies that threaten the very existence of indigenous peoples along the border and their connections across.

Some organizations claim to be from the ground up rather than the top down, but when one understands how these orgs are held hostage by grant gatekeepers, that premise is harder to believe. When are the demands of the people on the ground going to be heard? When are people going to finally rid themselves of this divide and begin to recognize their own power en masse? Any entities playing politics should be informing people of what ultimately threatens many. These organizations are supposed to be advocating for the people, but they don't inform them of certain nuances that come with the reforms they advocate (e.g. militarization, hefty fines, a long and difficult process, and deportation for many criminalized non-DREAMers). Staying informed is key to survival as a movement, and until that happens, these so-called ground up impostors funded by the Ford Foundation will continue in their ability to succeed in their corporate sponsored campaigns of mass deception. 

Related: Beware of the Funders of Immigrant Rights

roses are red, violets are blue, which type of police state has your political party chosen for you?

both lobby for prisons, a scandal indeed

they have your relatives AND your vote under lock and key

they tell you there is this path in a bed of roses they've made

the ultra violent violets straight up have you played

CIR is a facade, enough with the charade

the head of the reform lobby is a militarization parade

thick with thorns, slimy with snakes
S 744 is a trick, funded by fakes 

when are the activists, the reform backers going to see

that they've now just become a pawn to a prison lobby company

Geo Group, the Corrections Corporations of America, its true

hide your kids, hide your wife, they're coming for you

cuz when they run low on immigrants to house in their jails

they'll need to make a profit, so get ready to make bail

Additional links:

Whose immigration reform?

Comprehensive Immigration Reform is Anti-Immigrant and Anti-Indigenous

What, exactly, is meant by Comprehensive Immigration Reform?

National Poop Month of Action Against Sell Out NGOs

Chicago's SEIU Arrest and Stock Photo
Change.org petition denouncing ICIRR and SEIU policing
Colonization under the guise of "immigrant rights"
Colonial attitudes are not so subtile - we are hella perpetuating them

How Influential Immigrant Rights Group Used Police to Suppress Other Immigrant Rights Activists on May Day

Ze's Testimony - Chicago May Day
Accomplices Not Allies: Abolishing the Ally Industrial Complex

Red and Brown Solidarity A Must Says Hip Hop Duo Shining Soul
Caught in the Crossfire: U.S.-Mexico Border Militarization Threatens Way of Life for Native Tribe

Related:

Anti Police Signs Not Allowed At Salinas March