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By HC116 and mim3@mim.org, May 12, 2005
Friends of the Border Patrol chairpersyn and executive director Andy Ramirez was a guest on Monday's Lou Dobbs Tonight . Ramirez is the former executive director of the organization Save Our State (Ron Prince), which has recently opposed legislation in Kalifornia to allow undocumented persyns to have drivers' licenses, and supported legislation in Kalifornia, Proposition 187 (1994), that would have prohibited public services, including health services, for undocumented persyns. Andy Ramirez has encouraged the u.$. Congress to pass legislation prohibiting drivers' licenses for undocumented persyns in all States. The organization that Andy Ramirez now directs, Friends of the Border Patrol, is in the middle of organizing to have a Minuteman-like project happen in San Diego in the summer, with training beginning in June. Ramirez has sought the support and help of Chris Simcox, leader of the Civil Homeland Defense Corps, recently renamed to the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, Inc. In fact, Minuteman Project co-founders Chris Simcox and Jim Gilchrist have both endorsed the Friends of the Border Patrol according to Andy Ramirez on Fox and Friends , May 3. Ramirez has appeared on other TV shows and radio shows, local and country-wide.
On Lou Dobbs Tonight , Lou Dobbs said that the Friends of of the Border Patrol, like the Minuteman Project, was probably going to called vigilantes, and asked how Ramirez addresses that. Later, Dobbs said: "And the idea that the ACLU is concerned about human rights violations, the suggestion that there's potential, as they put it, for racism and for violence, how do you react to the ACLU?"(1) (Actually, ACLU of Arizona Executive Director Eleanor Eisenberg said: "The Minuteman project has created a powder-keg situation with the potential to go beyond harassment and false imprisonment to real violence. We hope that our observer project will continue to shed light on the activities of the Minutemen and will ensure that private citizens do not detain, harass or humiliate others in violation of the law.")(2) Ramirez replied:
"Well, the ACLU, if they are really concerned about racism, violence, well, then, I think they should take a look at the number of recent e-mails I've gotten from people that are also of Mexican ancestry that have called me a coconut, as an example. If they are really concerned about human rights, then they should be stationed at the border..."(1)
The coconut metaphor means brown on the outside, white on the inside. There are similar metaphors for East Asian persyns and Black persyns: banana/twinkie (yellow/white) and oreo (black/white).
Lou Dobbs' interview with Andy Ramirez was very short, so the above is actually a big chunk of that interview. It presents an opportunity to clarify the relationship between racism and this deeply reactionary movement to heighten the repression of undocumented migrants and the closely related and increasingly intertwined border vigilantism movement.(3)
There are several things going on in Andy Ramirez's statement. One is the portrayal of Ramirez's opponents as racist--specifically, racist against Euro-Amerikans, who are actually a nation and the dominant nation in the united $tates in addition to being the dominant race. Another thing is Ramirez's putting white racism on the same footing as oppressed-nation "racism," which may not even be racism as far as what Ramirez mentioned, the supposed "coconut" comments. Attacking Ramirez as a "coconut" is one just means of struggle. Racism is something that requires power to accomplish, and the migrants crossing the border and their friends do not have the state on their side. Whites have such vast power within the United $tates government that every other ethnic or racial group voted against Bu$h, but he is in power today. It was a tiny distinction between Kerry and Bu$h who were in the exact same fraternity club at Yale, but still it was the whites who decided on that fine distinction. So when MIM talks about whites having power and other ethnicities or races not having power, there is nothing hypothetical --or worse, semantic--about it.
If someone says something truly wrong about whites in the united $tates, Kanada, England etc., it could be ethno-centrism or maybe prejudice. It is not racism. Most verbal attacks on whites occur in the context of a struggle over power and they are righteous given the situation. Where such attacks are incorrect is where they do not really involve power: some attacks on white lumpen in prisons are wrong, though again, white lumpen can side with the state, so some attacks on white lumpen will be right. The vanguard party itself is also no place for identity attacks, because the party does not have power. Yet even in the vanguard party, when the question of borders comes up, it is possible to perpetrate white nationalism and white racism by siding with the oppressors. That is a line question and there has to be an all-out battle over line questions. So it's important to battle hard in those situations where power plus prejudice equal racism or where the economics of imperialism generate imperialist chauvinism. Even in a revolutionary vanguard party, if a Latino/Latina finds him/herself favoring closed borders, such a persyn is a coconut and it raises the question whether recruiting standards were too low or degeneration happened. The borders question has to be handled differently than the question of language too. Parties speaking in different languages should exist and those who do not speak the language of a people should not be claiming to lead those people. If English-speakers do not allow themselves to be misrepresented as leaders of Spanish-speakers, that does not make them for closed borders. That is just responsible accuracy. Mao said Wang Ming's head was in the clouds above Moscow, not even China, but even Wang Ming spoke Chinese. That is another reason MIM is in favor of separate vanguard parties for the joint dictatorship of the proletariat of the oppressed nations. Aztlán is an overriding reason for that by itself.
Also, Dobbs and Ramirez both focus on whether the vigilantes are racist when that is a different question from whether the vigilantes are fascist. That is misleading. A movement can still be fascist or reactionary in another way without being racist. Fascism and racism are not the same thing; although, concretely, fascism and racism are bound up with each other in the united $tates. The Liberals who obsess with whether a movement is racist or not actually pave the way for fascism. They surrender the national question to the fascists by thinking only in terms of race. It is subjectivism, and the fascists take advantage of the larger population's subjectivism by pointing to tokens like Andy Ramirez to disprove charges of racism. And the fascist-tolerating Liberals fall for that even though the vigilante groups are disproportionately white people.
"Coconut" has the potential to upset ideas about race as a biological entity ("white" takes on a social meaning in "coconut") and could imply nation traitor the same way the term "labor aristocracy" refers to people who look like they're historically of working-class origin but have been converted to exploiters and the same way MIM calls biology-female people "gender aristocracy" in the united $tates. "Coconut" is similar to "Uncle Tom" in this way, though "coconut" and "Uncle Tom" can emphasize different things.
For oppressed nations to oppose integration with the dominant nation is generally more progressive than not. Oppressor nations should be supporting integration as best they can.
On the other hand, "coconut" has been used to attack Latinos who have integrated with whites even though the Latinos are revolutionary and have not integrated with Euro-Amerikans in an ideological way. Again, this has to do with not attacking people in a situation where no power beyond individual power is involved.
Culture formation and national consciousness is not all voluntary: if parents leave young children in front of "Leave it to Beaver" and the "Brady Bunch" on TV, there's going to be some cultural impact and that is part of national formation. People should not spend all their time individually conflicted over things like that, where it's partly "too late," but instead should move forward with what is scientific in whatever context, with an eye to the future. The individual is nothing anyway: the question is not how people have been screwed up by the past but how the individual can contribute to larger solutions of the future.
"Nation traitor" is often a more correct term than "coconut," which isn't necessarily focused on ideology. Definitions of "nation" vary, but "nation traitor" has an unambiguously social meaning and generalizes to every nation. When it comes to the border with Mexico, the question is mostly national and the national question is what drives all the other questions including more purely racial ones.
Within a college inside u.$. borders, the students are temporarily in the same place. It's not a struggle over the borders, but a struggle occurs to integrate the college and that struggle has progressive thrust; even though its underlying premise is the u.$. empire and the desirability of joining it. So in that context, an anti-racist struggle may occur and deserve support.Nonetheless, there is a question of what really drives forward politics and we study that scientifically. The reason that national struggle is overall more correct than the anti-racist struggle while the two overlap more often than not is that there is no material basis for the successful conclusion of an anti-racist struggle, because there is no white proletariat. Just as the Germans (including Jews or Turks inside German borders for example) themselves could not take down Hitler, and thereby conclude a successful anti-racist struggle, so too, we cannot move forward against exploitation inside u.$. borders with just the people who are inside those borders now. So for us, a "key link" in all struggles is opening the border. Get that really accomplished and all other struggles will be easier. Alternatively, do not orient oneself to the national struggle and end up making excuses for what happens next--60 million decisive votes for Bu$h for example, not just staying at home and letting Bu$h happen but going out and actively voting for Bu$h like never before.
The reactionary side of the anti-racist struggle is that it often ends up being integration within the oppressor to oppress other nations and the bulk of the world's people of color who happen to live outside u.$. borders or the borders of Kanada, the UKKK etc. Anti-racist Amerikan nationalists say they are non-racist, because they simply do not care about anyone outside u.$. borders, but they are wrong. First of all, not caring about people outside u.$. borders again falls disproportionately on people of color, so there is no such thing as neutrality on that question. Secondly, whatever Amerika these alleged anti-racist integrationists set up behind closed borders is still going to be active in attacking people of color around the world, simply because that is where their short-term economic interests lie. Without more proletariat inside u.$. borders and/or major support from outside, that is not going to change. And no, we cannot surmise that Martians will land and destroy the Pentagon or nukes will hit and that change things: we have to work with what we have now to come to our line and strategy or be guilty of criminal division of the oppressed and exploited based on fantasy.
"Lackey" and "running dog" are good terms and apply more to oppressed nations. It is often necessary to be more specific than just "nation traitor": it is better to have white oppressors be nation traitors than have oppressed nationalities be nation traitors, and that often needs pointing out. It is only supremacists (from the National Alliance to the Libertarian National Socialist Green Party to David Yeagley) who pretend to believe that all nation traitors are equal and deserve contempt. The correct attitude in the oppressor nations was on display in Berlin May 9th, when demonstrators said "Spasibo" to the Red Army for bringing down Nazi injustice.
Andy Ramirez is from Chino. Regardless of his subjective attitude, we at MIM regard him to be standing on Aztlán territory. There is a theory connected to that from Stalin on the national question, but that theory takes more time than saying Ramirez is a "coconut." In a quick skirmish, people often latch on to what is easiest--what they can see in skin color. Much more often than not, attacking coconuts in connection to Proposition 187 or the like will be a good thing. Linking the anti-racist struggle to the border question happens with the best anti-racist movements.
The fact of race consciousness is not something MIM can fiat against and make it go away for the immediate future. So we seek to identify those parts that are progressive. White racism has no economic solution to it, and is not progressive, because it tends consciously and unconsciously to support dominance of the financial system over the rest of the world. Anti-white race consciousness is correct both for those who believe in integrated empires and those who see the national question as principal at this time including MIM.Of course, the white nationalists and fascists are going to call people like Andy Ramirez and Lupe Moreno (spokespersyn for the anti-migrant Latino-Americans for Immigration Reform) "Hispanics" even if Ramirez has usually minimized his Mexican ancestry; although, Ramirez has seemed eager to counter accusations of vigilantes' being racist. They have even called Lupe Moreno a "Latina activist." They use Moreno, Ramirez, and others, such as Terry Anderson and Ezola Foster, as proof that their movement isn't racist. Since they are using Ramirez's and Moreno's "race" to disprove charges of racism, it does make some sense to call Ramirez and Moreno coconuts as a second-best way of saying that their apparent ancestry doesn't matter, but racism isn't everything that motivates the movement to heighten the repression of undocumented migrants. What is more, race is not about individuals, so a couple tokens like Ramirez and Moreno never invalidate an anti-racist struggle. People who cannot see that are as yet pre-scientific Liberals who simply cannot think at the group level yet.
The anti-migrant activists not only repel criticisms of racism but pretend to oppose racism. Andy Ramirez himself opposes racism in words. That's true in two senses. Ramirez does nothing to oppose racism materially. And also, Ramirez encourages racists to refrain from using obviously racist language. "I guarantee the public that we will not accept any individual volunteering for the FBP Border Watch who makes such irresponsible statements. This has come from our own experience, and with the advice from a number of individuals including Jim Gilchrist (Minuteman), and Chris Simcox (Civil Homeland Defense)."(4) Ramirez, Gilchrist and Simcox hope nobody will realize fascist Mussolini also opposed racism in words and even criticized Hitler for being too racist. This did not stop the Italy under Mussolini from engaging in formal and informal racial policies against Blacks, Africans, miscegenation and eventually Jews.
There urgently needs to be clarity on this point: this is not just about racism, but also about white oppressor nation reactionary nationalism and fascism. Andy Ramirez supports intensifying the repression of undocumented migrants; the existing repression of Latinos, documented and undocumented, is already harsh and reactionary. This also means that Ramirez supports migration laws creating undocumented status in the first place. The idea that the white nationalists and fascists only oppose "illegal immigration," but not Latino immigration in general, draws a very artificial distinction between illegal immigration and immigration, and also blurs drug smugglers with "illegal immigrants." We can take Ramirez at his word that he would volunteer at the Kanadian border the same way in all the thousands of miles of wilderness if the situation arose, but we're quite sure that his followers would not and have no record of fighting for an even-handed immigration policy. We also cannot help wondering why drug-smuggling and terrorist infiltration is not Ramirez's concern at the Kanadian border or in the ocean. Instead of obtaining an even-handed immigration policy first, the fascists selectively enforce the law even if we take the very best interpretation of what they are saying.
The concern with drug smuggling and u.$. businesses' taking advantage of undocumented migrants is also phony--if the vigilantes and other nationalists/fascists were really concerned with deaths and poverty related to drug smuggling and labor violations, they would oppose imperialism as well as support migration policies allowing more labor mobility. For Ramirez to support the repression of undocumented migrants, many of whom are proletarians, without opposing imperialism is objectively fascist. There are no good intentions here, no "well-meaning" vigilantes. They are chauvinist parasites, and even if they really think they are ending terrorism by sealing the border, they choose to be ignorant about what causes terrorism and absolve themselves of any collective responsibility for u.$. militarism and genocide . The vigilantes and other oppressor nationalists can't provide one bit of evidence that terrorists are more likely to cross the u.$.-Mexico border illegally--there is no such evidence, only scattered anecdotes about a handful of suspects, some of whom may not have even entered the united $tates and some of whom have since been discounted as suspects.(5) The oppressor nationalists are reactionary parasites who think that the united $tates is an oppressed country and believe that the united $tates is facing impending cultural and economic decline.
The movement to heighten the repression of undocumented migrants is fascist in character regardless of who advocates it. It is a reactionary movement with several different allies--as the coming "Unite to Fight" Against Illegal Immigration Summit in Las Vegas will show(3)--who have only tactical disagreements over how to repress migrants and would-be migrants and border-crossers.
The fascist-tolerating Liberals alleging there are many well-meaning vigilantes are oblivious to the reactionary chauvinist fears, militarist threats and virulent anti-communism characterizing the border pig "friends" and border pig wannabes.
" 'I'm here this week to bring a very simple, blue-collar message to our elected officials,' [Civil Homeland Defense Corps leader] Simcox said. '... the people are going to pick up the slack from this point on. We must take care of our own property. We must secure our borders. We must protect our neighbors and our families and our way of life.' "(8) Around 2003, "Simcox issued this warning as part of a 'message to the world': 'Do not attempt to cross the border illegally; you will be considered an enemy of the state; if aggressors attempt to forcefully enter our country they will be repelled with force if necessary!' "(9)
Religious "humanitarian" Border Angels' founder and president Enrique Morones has in the last month been key in inadvertently sowing confusion about the fascist nature of the border vigilantism movement. On Scarborough Country , April 5, Enrique, "opposing" the Minuteman Project, implied it was just people like the National Alliance and Aryan Resistance who were racist among the vigilantes.(10) Too quick to dispel any implication that the Minuteman Project itself was racist, Chris Simcox replied that the Minuteman Project had "Hispanics Americans, "African-Americans," and that Simcox had a "biracial African-American son." Enrique's other objection was that Minuteman Project volunteers weren't trained law enforcement.
Border Angels' Enrique Morones is proof that some Liberals don't even know fascism when they see it. On 760 KFMB's Rick Roberts Show , in San Diego, April 21, Enrique also spoke with Andy Ramirez of the Kalifornia-based Friends of the Border Patrol.(11) (760 KFMB is home to such other rednecks as Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Michael Savage. The Rick Roberts Show is now giving daily updates on the Kalifornia FBP Border Watch according to the Friends of the Border Patrol's Web site.) Enrique said he is "all for the sovereignty of one's nation," by which Enrique includes the united $tates even though there are multiple nations within the u.$. border. Enrique recognized the u.$.-Mexico border as a legitimate border. He agreed that there is an "issue" with "undocumented people" crossing the border and seemed to disagree on only how to police the border. Enrique portrayed the problem with the Minuteman Project as just "isolated cases" of unstable racists. Enrique feared an "international incident."
Rick Roberts and Andy Ramirez both said it is only Vicente Fox in Mexico, not imperialism, that is the source of the economic conditions in Mexico. Enrique took a conciliatory position and put the united $tates on the same footing as Mexico, blaming both countries equally for the "failure" at the border, without mentioning the relationship between imperialism and the bureaucrat capitalists in Mexico.
Andy Ramirez believes that Mexico is a "hostile foreign government."(12) Ramirez believes Border Patrol agents are "poorly paid" even though highly-paid Border Patrol agents have caused gentrification near the border ( putting the lie to the notion that Border Patrol agents aren't making a living wage even at $50,000 a year. ).(13)
Typical crypto-fascist Andy Ramirez believes that the u.$. government is lackey to the Mexico government, rather than the other way around. "Then Bush continues the butt kissing when he calls Mexico a democracy. Is Bush the U.S. President, or Fox’s Ambassador to the United States? The Mexican Government is clearly a hostile neighbor, and constantly meddles in U.S. lawmaking, policymaking, and the political process."(14)
Andy Ramirez's criticisms of u.$. businesses' paying low wages to undocumented persyns are fake. Ramirez believes that the cost of living for documented persyns is higher than for undocumented persyns even if they live in the same place, a supposed explanation for Amerikans' not taking the jobs undocumented migrants do. This is chauvinism.
Callous Andy Ramirez believes the so-called rights of "hardworking families, American families" trump the lives of undocumented migrants.(15)
Hysterical, whim-worshipping reactionary fear-monger Andy Ramirez:
- says that the united $tates is more vulnerable than it was on the day of the December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor raid;
- says that the u.$. government should scrutinize migrants, rather than Amerikan citizens with the Patriot Act;
- proposes "call[ing] in the debts of nations that owe America money" in order to improve the exchange rate of the u.$. dollar; and
- threatens sanctions against Mexico: "Let's place sanctions on foreign governments and demand economic and social reforms and keep them in place until we see life improve for those nations, and things shall improve."(16)
Andy Ramirez and other fascists don't acknowledge that there is already a lackey government in Mexico. Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist has even said that he'd support a revolution in Mexico. But Gilchrist does not mean bourgeois-democratic revolution or socialist revolution. Gilchrist's "revolution" would be no revolution: it would just be another comprador government in Mexico, more servile to a different faction of u.$. imperialists and more labor aristocrats. Andy Ramirez has said absolutely nothing to disagree with Gilchrist over this proposal for a fascist-backed coup in Mexico, even going as far as to threaten sanctions against Mexico. Instead, Ramirez looks to fellow fascist Gilchrist to give the Friends of the Border Patrol credibility and assistance.
Notes:
1. "Lou Dobbs Tonight," http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0505/09/ldt.01.html
http://www.americanpatrol.com/WMV/050509-Ramirez-Dobbs.wmv
2. "ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project Staff Travels to Arizona to Support Monitoring Efforts by ACLU of Arizona," April 16, 2005, http://www.aclu.org/ImmigrantsRights/ImmigrantsRights.cfm?ID=18029&c=22
3. " 'Unite to Fight' Against Illegal Immigration SUMMIT," http://www.wakeupamericafoundation.com/summit_index.html
As of May 10, speakers and guests for the May 27-29 conference in Las Vegas include: Terry Anderson, Ezola Foster, Bob and Bonnie Eggle, Jan Herron, William Herron, Frosty Wooldridge, Tim Bueler, Jim Gilchrist, Chris Simcox, D. A. King (American Resistance Foundation), Glenn Spencer (American Border Patrol), Rick Oltman, Robert Vasquez, Barbara Coe (California Coalition for Immigration Reform), Jeffrey Bennett, Rob Luton, Chet Deraway (American Patriot Party), T. J. Bonner, John and Barbara March, William Gheen, Madeline Cosman, Joan Molinaro, Peter & Jan Gadiel, Lupe Moreno, Angie Morfin, Gil Cedillo, Garrett Chamberlain, Michael Corbin, Flash Sharrar, John Vincent, Richard Ziser, Gianluca Zanna, and George Dare.
4. "FBP Border Watch denies support and volunteer offer due to past racial remarks," May 3, 2005, http://www.friendsoftheborderpatrol.com/PRJTDenial01.html
5. Hugh Dellios, "Terror alerts ripple south of U.S. border," Chicago Tribune, August 19, 2004, http://blog.zmag.org/index.php/weblog/entry/war_on_terror2/
"Last week, the FBI investigated and ultimately discounted a report that another Al Qaeda suspect tried to open a bank account in Tijuana, across the U.S.-Mexico border from San Diego. U.S. officials are questioning a suspected Pakistani who carried a South African passport and a plane ticket to New York when she crossed illegally from Mexico into Texas."
J. Jaime Hernández, "Al-Qaeda, A Pretext for Sealing Mexican Border," March 21, 2005, http://www.mexidata.info/id431.html
6. "Minutemen plan to patrol San Diego border," May 2, 2005, http://www.kfmb.com/story.php?id=11305
7. Dan Baum, "Patriots on the Borderline," March 16, 2003, http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/immigration/borderline.htm
"Simcox speaks of sovereignty, the Pledge of Allegiance and the rule of law, but his body language is all about the gun. Sooner or later he's going to use it, he wants everybody to know, in a showdown with the illegal immigrants and Mexican drug dealers he believes are ruining the United States. 'These are enemies who are wrecking our economy,' he says, his eyes shiny with emotion. 'This is about national security.' If Simcox dies in a blaze of border gunfire, so be it, he says. 'Damn them. That's how much I care about my country.' "
8. Chris Strohm, "Lawmakers consider using military to seal U.S. borders," April 30, 2005, http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=93833
9. Chris Simcox, "Leaders of two citizen patrol groups feud over methods," Associated Press State & Local Wire, March 27, 2003.
10. " 'Scarborough Country' for April 5," April 13, 2005, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7406542/
11. http://www.760kfmb.com/asx/2005/04/minuteman.asx
12. Andy Ramirez, "Why I support the Border Patrol Agents...," March 28, 2005, http://friendsoftheborderpatrol.com/Viewpoint.html
13. Diane Smith, "Agents leaving Border Patrol in droves, union says," July 30, 2002, http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/3762176.htm
14. Andy Ramirez, "Enforce the law? A novel concept for the Bush administration," March 24, 2005, http://friendsoftheborderpatrol.com/Viewpoint.html
15. Andy Ramirez, "FBP Denounces Bush Amnesty," February 3, 2005, http://friendsoftheborderpatrol.com/Viewpoint.html
16. Andy Ramirez, "Andy Ramirez' Viewpoint," http://friendsoftheborderpatrol.com/Viewpoint.html
17. Kelly Brusch, "Rally supports Border Patrol agents, programs," July 24, 2004, http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/07/25/news/californian/23_22_217_24_04.txt