Basta Dobbs!

Update

Yesterday, Mike and I celebrated being together for 7 months. He surprised me at work with roses and fruit and then we went out to dinner together. As I said before, it is nice to have him around now! It's amazing to me how simple things like doing laundry together or shopping for groceries can be so much fun when I do them with Mike.

On Monday, Emily and I went to the No More Deaths Meeting and got a chance to hear about the work of the Sierra Clubs Borderlands Campaign, which takes a stand against the environmental degradation that is caused by the many types of border enforcement. It is something that I definitely want to learn more about!

My time at BorderLinks is going well. I have a trip coming up in early November that I am beginning to plan for, and I have been helping out with a few projects such as a contact list, poster making, and planting the garden. It's such a fun group of people to work with!

Basta Dobbs!

This afternoon, I attended a press conference sponsored by Tucson-based Derechos Humanos, a grassroots organization which promotes respect for civil and human rights and fights the militarization and consequent discrimination on the South Border, and presente.org, a website that seeks to strengthen the political voice of Latino communities.

Isabel Garcia, the co-director of Derechos Humanos, as well as a public defender in Pima County, was the spokesperson, calling on CNN to drop Lou Dobbs for his racist and hate-filled speech on his show. Cities nationwide have gathered together today to say Enough! Basta! to the sad rhetoric of fear and hate that Dobbs shares with his audience about issues of immigration.

Lou Dobbs has consistently described migrants as "illegal aliens," (don't even get me started on those words to define HUMAN BEINGS) who are murderers and rapists that are trying to invade our country. As Isabel Garcia pointed out, that is a rhetoric of hate. We in this nation need to start paying attention to and using the rhetoric of love.

As Martin Luther King Jr. says in his sermon, The Strength to Love, "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction." I think that these are powerful words that we as a nation need to hear right now if immigration reform and our relationships with each other and the "other" are to get anywhere.

CNN is attempting to "show another side" with its presentation of Latino in America, which premieres tonight. It hopes to provide a more complex and in depth view of Latinos in America, as opposed to the prejudiced descriptions that Dobbs espouses.