Sunday, April 09, 2006

a day of solidarity



"We've seen a movie a lot like this before -- about 50 years ago. It ended with a country being transformed by a movement that called for it to live up to its founding ideals of equal rights for all. Here's hoping for another happy ending."

"The organized power of the Catholic Church, both as a force in American politics and as the heart of the "sanctuary movement," to protect illegal immigrants from abuse is analogous to the role the black church and its white allies played in the civil rights movement."

"Sadly, anxiety over the increasing Hispanic population has caused some leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus and the NAACP to become tongue-tied on the subject. Privately, these members of Congress point to prison riots in California between blacks and Hispanics and turf fights between black and Hispanic high school students as evidence of rising tension between minority groups. There is a reluctance to counter this fear-mongering with a forward-looking vision of new coalitions among people of color. Instead there has been a lot of pandering to the worst instincts of people who often share with Hispanics the problems of bad schools, high incarceration rates and life at the bottom of the economic ladder."

Juan Wiliams writes an op-ed on this new movement in an excelent article from the Washington Post on this weekend's and today's major demonstrations.

We are all people of color! From pink to yellow to brown, all in our various shades!
THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND
words and music by Woody Guthrie
Chorus:This land is your land,
this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest,
to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me
As I was walking a ribbon of highway
I saw above me an endless skyway
I saw below me a golden valley
This land was made for you and meChorus
I've roamed and rambled and I've followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me
ChorusThe sun comes shining as I was strolling
The wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
The fog was lifting a voice come chanting
This land was made for you and me
ChorusAs I was walkin' - I saw a sign there
And that sign said - no tress passin'
But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!
ChorusIn the squares of the city -
In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office -
I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me.

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