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A Mexican Revolution Photo History, 100 Years Later
Posted by: | CommentsWhat do most Americans know about the Mexican Revolution? It disrupted everything in Mexico 100 years ago this November, prompting several waves of Mexican immigrants to enter the United States five generations ago.
Most of us may have heard of President Porfirio Diaz, Francisco Madero, Pancho Villa, Emiliano Zapata, the soldaderas, Venustiano Carranza, Pascual Orozco, Victoriano Huerta, Álvaro Obregón, and others. In different contexts, we also know about William Randolph Hearst, President Woodrow Wilson, General John J. Pershing, George Patton. But do we know the latter were also participants in Mexico’s civil war upheaval?
Do we know who did what to whom when during an 18-year uprising by Mexicans that changed Mexico and the United States, a history that has continued to shape both nations? The Mexican Revolution is part of our unrecognized U.S. border history, and knowing the events of 100 years ago helps us to understand current immigration issues.
Here, for example, are the opening words of “Chapter 7: Rebel Armies Advance on Mexico City”:
Despite the unexpected developments that the revolution unleashed throughout Mexico, a feeling of expectancy, of widespread hopefulness prevailed. Even then, people had no idea what to expect, given the changes and uncertainties. What would happen when the revolutionary armies from the north and the south met in Mexico City?
People kept hearing they would be “liberated,” that the revolution would free them from Porfirio Diaz’s tyranny, but how that would happen remained unclear.
The Porfiriato had both shaped and created the Mexico that everybody knew for more than 30 years. After a generation and a half under Porfirio Diaz, and now in the grip of the revolution, most Mexicans were destitute. The country was in shambles, and Mexicans and the foreign investors wanted stability.
The advancing rebel generals–Villa, Obregon, and Zapata–were daily moving toward Mexico City with their armies. All three had supported Francisco Madero, but Madero was now gone. Obregon was beginning to fight for Carranza, and Zapata and Villa simultaneously inspired and scared the people because no one actually could say what they were going to do once they were in the Palacio Nacional, the National Palace.
The uncertain developments caused some Mexicans to be cautiously optimistic while others were depressed, and the rest didn’t know what or how to feel.
The great majority of the citizens were anxious and bewildered, for no one could control events that clearly were unpredictable. Even then, reports of battles, skirmishes, and disastrous encounters between the armies in different cities and regions of the country constantly surfaced. No one could say with certainty what would happen if and when soldiers from the different revolutionary factions met in the capital, Mexico City.
Would the losing soldiers be killed, imprisoned, or what? Would the victorious leaders meet and celebrate despite the unrest? What would they say? What would the people hear? What would they decide for Mexico? No one could say anything for sure. Clearly, it was not a good time to be in Mexico City or anywhere else in that vast country with so much unrest and unclear future. Most Mexicans didn’t know how other people they daily met on the streets felt about the revolution. It was awful because everything was in turmoil. No one knew what the following day would bring, or the next hour, or the next few minutes.
My 132-page photo history narrative contains 80 carefully selected photographs from the more than 483,000 pictures taken by Mexican, American, and foreign photographers who rushed to Mexico in 1910 to capture the revolution’s developments.
Note: Copies of Why Pancho Villa & Emiliano Zapata Wore Cananas: A 100th Year Photo History of the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1928 are available from Marco Portales at 3800 Chaucer Court, Bryan, Texas 77802.
Is White the New Black?
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Kelefa Sanneh has an interesting article in the New Yorker titled “Beyond the Pale: Is white the new black?” He first notes some of the famous racist commentaries like that of Glenn Beck, who said this about President Obama:
“This President, I think, has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people, or the white culture. I don’t know what it is.” … Beck sat for an interview with Katie Couric, and she asked him a deceptively simple question . . . posed by a Twitter user named adrianinflorida: “what did u mean white culture?” Whatever adventurous thoughts this query inspired, Beck did not seem eager to share them. “Um, I, I don’t know,” he said. Finally, [he said] “What is the white culture? I don’t know how to answer that that’s not a trap, you know what I mean?”
After discussing this extremist commentary, Sanneh then discusses the odd blog/website, “Stuff White People Like,” which was set up by the white Canadian, Christian Lander. Sanneh makes the insightful point that
… Lander isn’t really talking about white people, or, at any rate, not most of them. In fact, he sometimes defines “white people” in opposition to “the wrong kind of white people,” because his true target is a small subset of white people, a white cultural élite. Most white people don’t “hate” Republicans—they have voted Republican in every Presidential election since 1968.
Then he discusses the interesting and informative new book by Rich Benjamin “Searching for Whitopia, which we have discussed here before. Benjamin highlights the movement of whites into certain types of residential enclaves, an important study whose deeper implications Sanneh does not puruse. After pointing out how few black voters went for Republicans in 2008 (but omitting a discussion of how few other voters of color also did not vote Republican, a revealing omission? See 
our full book length discussion of this here), he then ends on a somewhat puzzling, punch-pulling note:
But what of it? Why is it that, from Christian Lander to Jon Stewart, a diagnosis of whiteness is often delivered, and received, as a kind of accusation? The answer is that the diagnosis is often accompanied by an implicit or explicit charge of racism. It’s become customary to suppose that a measure of discrimination is built into whiteness itself, a racial category that has often functioned as a purely negative designation: to be white in America is to be not nonwhite….
After noting that labor historian David Roediger
published an incendiary volume, “Towards the Abolition of Whiteness.” … “It is not merely that whiteness is oppressive and false; it is that whiteness is nothing but oppressive and false,” he wrote. In his view, fighting racism wasn’t enough; white people who wanted to oppose oppression would have to do battle with whiteness itself. Nearly two decades later, amid a rancorous debate over our first black President, the idea of abolishing whiteness seems no less tantalizing—and no less remote.
Actually, Roediger’s book is accurate and well-documented, and only “incendiary” to whites and others who do not like to hear the truth about US society. Sanneh waffles throughout this piece, and it is confusing. He does not dig deeply enough into the foundational reality underlying these matters, or else does not understand that self-defined “whites” invented most of the racial and racist terminology that we have used in North America, and often across the globe. Whites invented “whites” and “blacks” as racialized terms and as key parts of the white racial frame, just as they did most aspects of that racial framing of society, and its other language (including almost all major racist epithets.) In his phrases like measure of “discrimination is built into whiteness itself, a racial category that has often functioned as a purely negative designation,” he fails to see that the historical data demonstrate quite clearly that whites invented the whiteness reality as past of a centuries-old white racial frame that rationalized whites’ extensive racial oppression, so of course racial discrimination and other racial oppression is built into whiteness itself. In addition, the last part of this phrase seems to miss the point that for whites, whiteness is almost always a positive thing (his few examples to the contrary notwithstanding) and has “often functioned” in negative way only for those who have been oppressed by white domination and racial oppression.
And the last line, about abolishing whiteness, also seems to miss the critical point. The only way to abolish whiteness is to abolish the system of racial oppression, with its still-dominant racial hierarchy, and thus the dominant white racial frame. There is much more here than abolishing the term whiteness or some notion of whiteness. This is about a system and foundation of racial oppression, not just about terms and dialogue–or some notion that whites are now fully problematized, and thus that “white is the new black.” What a strange notion!
The South Will Rise Again?: Virginia and the Declaration of Confederate History Month
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As the empire strikes back within the Great Age of Obama in order to strengthen the Republican, tea party, and overall conservative base, Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, with a push from the Sons of the Confederate Veterans, has declared that the month of April will be Confederate History Month in Virginia. McDonnell not only desires to increase tourism in the state, but also to show citizens of Virginia the importance
to reflect upon [their] Commonwealth’s shared history, to understand the sacrifices of the Confederate leaders, soldiers, and citizens during the period of the Civil War…
The declaration has angered many due to the oversight of slavery. On Wednesday, April 7, 2010, McDonnell announced his mistake calling it a “major omission.” Since the controversy has caught nation’s attention, the governor has revised his proclamation for the celebration by noting that
It is important for all Virginians to understand that the institution of slavery led to this war and was an evil and inhumane practice that deprived people of their God-given inalienable rights and all Virginians are thankful for its permanent eradication from our borders, and the study of this time period should reflect upon and learn from his painful part of our history….
A little too late governor, don’t you think? Well maybe the governor and groups such as the Sons of the Confederate Veterans see the history of slavery as inconsequential.
I have to ask myself; slavery…inconsequential? A system supported by the White racial frame, unlike anywhere in the world gave roots to theories that African men and women were noted to have oversized sexual organs, indolence, and deceptiveness, and a low level of intelligence.
A system that allowed Influential historical figures, and heroes that are celebrated today, such as Thomas Jefferson, Immanuel Kant, Carl von Linne (Carolus Linnaeus), George Mason, and Louis Agassiz utilized the field of science to suggest a hierarchy of humanity where Blacks were placed at the bottom of the ladder while Whites stood atop.
Slavery, a system that gave allowances for the horrific scientific and medical treatment and experimentation done on Blacks from the slave era to today in the area of the prison industrial complex, contraception for females, and etc.
Inconsequential? A system that gave birth to one of the first acts of terrorism within our country that targeted Blacks through the institutionalized method of lynching. All of which was used to maintain white supremacy.
Slavery…a system that gave way to cutting Blacks out of equal financial endeavors that were allotted to Whites.
Slavery…a system whose effects today have handcuffed and placed Blacks on the revolving and tilted playing field of educational opportunities designed by the dominant White majority which consciously and subconsciously reproduces subjugation and control.
Inconsequential? Slavery…a system that continues to this day which pulls back the ancestral scabs upon my soul when I am confronted with the overt and covert eyes of racism and hate. This is not to mention the effects upon Whites and other non-Blacks that are forced to ingest the elixir of the White racial frame that supported the foundation of slavery.
Ask your self…Inconsequential?
Veterans’ Day & Racism: Link Roundup
Posted by: | CommentsIn the U.S., today is “Veterans’ Day,” a holiday intended to honor those who have fought and died in the armed services. There are several good pieces on Veterans Day and racism floating around the Internet that I wanted to share:
- “Black veterans: a complicated past and an unsung present.” Cliff Albright at The Examiner does a nice job of putting Veterans’ Day into context. He writes:
Black soldiers such as the Harlem Hellfighters and many others for centuries have done much to demonstrate Black courage and dignity. But on the other hand, Black soldiers have too often participated in wars of aggression, greed and imperialism–wars which were often aimed at other people of color. From the Buffalo Soldiers and their battles with the Native Americans to the Philippines, from Vietnam to Panama and Grenada, Black soldier have had to fight against folks that look like them for reasons that they must have known were, at best, questionable. In some cases, the irony of their predicament caused Black soldiers to show compassion for their foes, while in other cases it did not seem to make a difference. So clearly the experience of enlisted Black soldiers is part of why I’m torn about Veterans Day. But I’m also torn because of the experiences of Black veterans who weren’t actually enlisted in the U.S. Armed Forces. These are veterans of a different kind of war—the FBI’s war against Black America.
- “Joe Louis: A Veterans’ Day Tribute to an American Hero.” Dexter Rogers also The Examiner writes:
While Louis was at the apex of his career as champion he opted to serve his country. He served in the United States Army from 1942-1945. During Louis’ tenure he took some ridicule from the African American community. Every major sector of life for African Americans faced segregation. The military wasn’t exempt. Despite the latter Louis loved his country. When asked why he entered the army Louis he issued the following: “Lots of things are wrong with America, but Hitler ain’t going to fix them.” … Louis was a Private First Class when he entered Army but was faced with second-class treamtment. Though Louis was serving his country he was in a segregated Army. The segregation that existed in the military was merely a reflection of the institutionalized racism in society and American sports.
- “Firme: Honoring Ourselves, As We Honor Our Veterans.” Oscar at NuestraVoice writes:
Latinos in the U.S. military history have the highest number of Medals of Honor, the highest ranking medal for combat bravery in our Country, in all our wars since 1775, so we have proved our loyalty beyond a shadow of a doubt…..yet we still suffer from racism in our own backyard.
- “The Faces of Veterans’ Day” - ResistRacism has a very nice collection of historical photos of veterans from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds, and observes:
We remember that the faces of our heroes are of many colors, as is the face of our history.
Racial Illiteracy at the New York Times
Posted by: | CommentsThe usually savvy Frank Rich, a columnist at the New York Times, needs to get a new fact checker, for he really got it wrong in his May 11, 2008 column (NYT photo credit).
His column first chides Senator Clinton and critiques Senator McCain, while praising Senator Obama for his wisdom in running in 2008 and for relying on and generating many new voters, especially the young specific-called “millennials.” Here is the lulu of an error in an otherwise interesting rant:
Guess what: there are racists in America and, yes, the occasional rubes (even among Obama voters). . . . But there are many more white working-class voters, both Clinton and Obama supporters, who prefer Democratic policies after seven years of G.O.P. failure. And there is little evidence to suggest that there are enough racists of any class in America, let alone in swing states, to determine the results come fall.
Actually, there is a ton of evidence of “enough racist” thinkers, enough evidence to suggest that a majority of whites still think aggressively out of the white racist framing of African Americans and others of color. Rich might look here and here and here , for starters. Then he might check the many studies reported by Harvard University’s Project Implicit or the studies we have cited here on the still-common linking together by whites of African Americans with ape-like imagery (see the previous blogs on using Curious George to mock Obama, for example). And then there is the voting data showing that Senator Obama has gotten just 41 percent of the moderate and liberal white voters so far in the 29 Democratic Party primaries and caucuses for which there is exit poll data. And significantly less than that in West Virginia yesterday. And we could go on and on with such substantial data.
As Fyodor Dostoyevsky famously wrote (hat tip to Project Implicit):
Every man has reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone but only his friends. He has other matters in his mind which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But there are other things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind.
These everyday mechanisms suggest the ways in which whites’ (and others’) racist views are often held these days. As various researchers have shown, they are often only revealed to friends or relatives backstage. Or sometimes only in the secrecy of the voting booth. And often without the old racist views passing through the conscious mind. On this matter of high levels of backstage and implicit racism, as well as frontstage racism, there is much evidence.
Journalists, please take note!
On the 40th Anniverary of Martin Luther King’s Death
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On the 40th Anniversary of Martin Luther King’s death, there are lots of remembrances of him from people who were in Memphis at the time (thanks to gtwain for that link) and others for whom his death forever shaped the rest of their lives (photo credit). I thought it appropriate today to put up some thoughts about the two issues that were most on the mind of King at the time of his death: war and poverty. It was exactly one year before he was killed (April 7, 1967) that King gave his famous “Riverside Speech” (at Riverside Church here in New York) in which he denounced the Vietnam War. In that speech he lists seven, very powerful reasons for his opposition, among the most moving today is this:
My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettoes of the North over the last three years — especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they ask — and rightly so — what about Vietnam? They ask if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.
I think about this as I hear people today talk about violence and immediately shift the focus to angry, young, black men as if they had invented violence.
Of course, King was in Memphis in 1968 to draw attention to a protest by sanitation workers, a protest that he saw as central to the poor people’s movement he wanted to build. When Dr.King received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, he spoke of “two evils” – the first was racial injustice and the second was poverty:
A second evil which plagues the modern world is that of poverty. Like a monstrous octopus, it projects its nagging, prehensile tentacles in lands and villages all over the world. Almost two-thirds of the peoples of the world go to bed hungry at night. They are undernourished, ill-housed, and shabbily clad. Many of them have no houses or beds to sleep in. Their only beds are the sidewalks of the cities and the dusty roads of the villages. Most of these poverty-stricken children of God have never seen a physician or a dentist. This problem of poverty is not only seen in the class division between the highly developed industrial nations and the so-called underdeveloped nations; it is seen in the great economic gaps within the rich nations themselves. Take my own country for example. We have developed the greatest system of production that history has ever known. We have become the richest nation in the world. Our national gross product this year will reach the astounding figure of almost 650 billion dollars. Yet, at least one-fifth of our fellow citizens – some ten million families, comprising about forty million individuals – are bound to a miserable culture of poverty. In a sense the poverty of the poor in America is more frustrating than the poverty of Africa and Asia. The misery of the poor in Africa and Asia is shared misery, a fact of life for the vast majority; they are all poor together as a result of years of exploitation and underdevelopment. In sad contrast, the poor in America know that they live in the richest nation in the world, and that even though they are perishing on a lonely island of poverty they are surrounded by a vast ocean of material prosperity. …So it is obvious that if man is to redeem his spiritual and moral “lag”, he must go all out to bridge the social and economic gulf between the “haves” and the “have nots” of the world. Poverty is one of the most urgent items on the agenda of modern life.
His words ring as true today as they did more than forty years ago. My hope on this anniversary is that we can find the political will to carry forward the substance of Martin’s vision rather than simply reassure ourselves with ceremonial and self-congratulatory rhetoric that his dream has been realized.
