Don’t forget Puerto Rico. As War Drums blare over the sirens of the impeachment. As this “great” economy continues to leave tire marks and eviction notices on what used to be a middle class, don’t forget the Canaries.
The fact we have let Puerto Rico lay to waste is a sign that America, like the Bronx before it, is burning.
The misunderstanding of Puerto Ricans’ complex status as Americans is a reflection of both of our lack of education, care, and the tomfoolery of Colonialism that we used to be proud enough to deny.
Now we are content on building the next Deathstar with our Space Force. Billionaires are privateers, planning their escape from not just America, but earth; flying pirate flags on mega yachts to dodge taxes.
I’m half Puerto Rican, so I am somewhat invested in giving a f☆ck, but I see the main problem with Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans:
They are poor in a land that guarantees rights you can only cash in if you have the cash up front. The whole reason my people got here was because America needed cheap labor in the 50s and Eleanor Roosevelt’s genuine care for my Mother’s people met the pragmatic needs of Capitalism in a booming economy.
The plane flights to New York City dropped and this island of Creoles magically became full fledged Americans with a vote and a voice as soon as they set foot on the soil of those then 48 states.
It’s strange what happens in this country. Millions of Mexicans, some that are practically or for all purposes indigenous, are White on the year 2000 census. I watched it go down 20 years ago when the members of my so called Latino Fraternity back at WSU participated in a parlor trick. I watched everyone around me become White.
These hard working Mexican kids that had so much pride in La Raza and the struggle, struggled to check the box that said Hispanic of Black or Indian origin.
They marked White. Some doctor in Manhattan knew she was doing my Afro-Caribbean mother a solid when he looked at my grandmother the nurse and grandfather the cab driver and he marked her White on the birth certificate.
But in the eyes of the world none of them are. Not for a minute. In the eyes of the law, none of that is even supposed to matter.
In the eyes of on economy that attracted all of us here except for the remnants of tribes that own the ground beneath your feet, soaked in the blood and disappearing ink of broken treaties and genocide, money is what matters most.
Puerto Ricans are poor. My grandmother talks about growing up in the depression. But it doesn’t add up. At least not at first. The American age she was talking about was Puerto Rico as a child in the 1940s and as a teenager in New York the early 50s. That was the Boom. And the Boom is what brought her here on that fateful plane holding her to mother’s hand.
But as my mother told me during the last two economic downturns and the last one that almost broke all but the mega rich that laughed and bought up everything.
“Davin we are Puerto Ricans. It’s always a recession.”
Puerto Rico has been rocked by a hurricane that was met with indifference and regret. As the island is rebuilding, a cluster of earthquakes have knocked this island full of military veterans down again.
And these banana colored people– as they call themselves– that fit no box, are Americans in limbo with no vote, and are afloat in one of the biggest economic scams of the last century, would be a lot more “White” if they had a lot more money.
How much we care about people in this type of devastation is really a sign of our own values. How much it matters that this devastation is happening to America and Americans is a sign that our civics and social studies classes never really made it a priority to explain to us our own Empire and the role wealth equates to class, as the racial price on all our heads wavers by generation.
– Musician and writer Davin Michael Stedman has many ventures, such as the AMAZING blog, 100milesofmusic.com. Davin’s recent song has become a global earworm and Caribbean dancehall hit. Listen here on Reggaeville: DAVIN MICHAEL STEDMAN & ANTHONY RED ROSE – FREE YOUR MIND FEAT. SLY & ROBBIE WITH LENKY MARSDEN. The video is now available on Youtube: Tuff Gong Television. His single with British band Sherlock Soul is available here.
