Tag: Aylen Mercado

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Opinion The Last Word

What I Learned From Working on the Memphis City Election

CREDIT: Jitdreamstime | Dreamstime.com

Perhaps the least exciting fact I can now share about myself is that I think that early voting is the bee’s knees. I’ve lived in Memphis for more than 15 years, and while I’m not eligible to vote and sometimes I use idioms I’ve picked up without 100 percent confidence that I’m using them correctly, I still hold that early voting is the most wonderful time of the year (sorry, winter holiday enthusiasts and Andy Williams admirers).

Think about it for a second. In this past municipal election, there were 18 early voting locations that, with the exception of the Shelby County Office Building, were open six days a week to all voters. There aren’t any assigned locations during early voting, so an eligible voter could walk into any early voting location with their ID and vote instantly. Heading back home after work, school, or the grocery store, and feeling informed about local politics and candidates? You could just pop into any location and cast your vote. It’s probably quicker than going through a drive-thru (which would be a great idea for a polling place if the election commission hasn’t considered it yet). Isn’t that so exciting?

Jitdreamstime | Dreamstime.com

Well, it was for me when I learned about it, and as it turned out, even though early voting has been around in Memphis for at least 20 years, I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know how it works. In the couple of weeks leading up to the October 3rd elections, I canvassed with Memphis For All, an independent political organization that works to improve voter participation and create progressive infrastructures that address the important issues that affect Memphians across racial and class lines. In this short time, I learned a lot about our city, local elections, people, and myself.

Like many Memphians, I’m still a bit lost on how the geography of districts works. I talked to some people at the edges of the city who forgot they could vote in local elections or maybe hoped that by moving far out enough they could avoid it altogether. For others, it was obvious they were in the city limits but they weren’t familiar with the candidates running for mayor or city council. There weren’t any campaign or election yard signs, door hangers, flyers, or anything of the sort in some of these neighborhoods that would suggest that campaign teams had canvassed the area before.

Given the history and current state of restrictions on voting that have disproportionately affected racially and ethnically marginalized communities, early voting is, of course, a great step toward increasing voter turnout by making voting times more accessible. But how was this information, or any general information about local elections, not reaching all Memphians? As we made phone calls, sent individual texts, and knocked on doors, it became clear that face-to-face time with folks was important for candidate name recognition and to bring more attention to the importance of local elections.

We knocked on thousands of doors and walked up and down countless neighborhood hills and apartment complex staircases. We talked to Memphians on their porches, front lawns, and, to some who initially thought we were trying to sell them AT&T internet, through their window blinds and storm doors.

We talked about public education, health care access, living wages, voting rights, and much more. I learned that people didn’t know the early voting locations and some were unsure about their assigned polling location for election day. While the list I worked from had many voters on the younger side, most of the people who answered the door were over 35. A handful of the people I talked to weren’t eligible to vote because of a felony conviction and wanted to learn more about voting rights restoration. Once I got into a conversation where the person realized I wasn’t trying to sell them cable, they opened up about their experiences on elections and voting. Each day the summer heat was unrelenting, but as we walked back to our cars as the sun went down — with fewer flyers in hand and more voter pledge cards filled — I packed up feeling energized about my city and her people.

I’ll continue to think through the fact that this year we had the second-lowest turnout in city elections ever because it’s a reality we cannot afford to shrug off. Yet, the results of the elections have not diminished how I feel. If anything, it has made me feel more confident in the work we did through Memphis For All. Of course, we’ll all look back and think about all the “should haves” that could have increased those numbers: “We should have done this. We should have done that.” But it’s in these numbers that we also had some of the best conversations with Memphians.

There are lessons in each exchange we had where we learned about the questions, concerns, and visions for our city from folks of truly all age backgrounds. If I had to do it all over again with weather forecasts in mind, I would pack more Gatorade in my bag and head back out to have those conversations. In one neighborhood, we met a group of young black girls around the age of 6 who, taking a break from their apartment’s playground, confidently approached us curious about what we were talking about to the adults. They wanted to learn more about what mayors and city council people are and what they do, and as we were heading back to the parking lot, they ran up to us with the Memphis For All door hangers in hand. They each pointed at the photos of Tami Sawyer and Michalyn Easter-Thomas and eagerly proclaimed, “That’s me.”

Aylen Mercado is a brown, queer, Latinx chingona and Memphian exploring race and ethnicity in the changing U.S. South.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

About That Cover …

Shelby County Commissioner Tami Sawyer (Source: Shelby County Commission)

Last Friday, I received a direct message on Twitter from county commissioner and mayoral candidate Tami Sawyer. I don’t know Sawyer well, but we’ve met and communicated a few times in recent years. I’ve always found her to be direct, genuine, and likeable.

Sawyer was asking me for contact information for the CEO of Contemporary Media, the parent company of Memphis magazine and the Memphis Flyer. She was upset about the cover of the September Memphis magazine. I told her that I hadn’t seen the magazine but that I knew it was about the mayoral race. She messaged me an image of the cover, which consisted of caricatures by artist Chris Ellis of mayoral candidates Jim Strickland, Willie Herenton, and Sawyer.

“Lord.” was my response.

It was horrible. I made a remark that all three candidates looked equally weird, but there was no getting around it: It was an offensive cover. Sawyer’s face had been distorted with the sort of stereotypical African-American tropes favored by racist cartoonists of the Jim Crow era. It did not look like her, even as caricature.The firestorm around the cover quickly consumed local social media and from there migrated to articles and columns in the Commercial Appeal and Daily Memphian and coverage by local television stations.

Shelby County Commissioner Tami Sawyer

The magazine editor initially issued a statement on the publication’s website, but it was weak sauce — asking readers to judge the magazine on its progressive history and issuing a more or less “sorry if we offended” apology. The next day, Contemporary Media CEO Anna Traverse issued a full-fledged formal apology, also on the magazine’s website. It was entitled “We Failed Memphis” and acknowledged the offensiveness of the cover images and the responsibility of the magazine to do better. Traverse also announced that newsstand copies of the magazine would not be distributed.

Many critics pointed out, correctly, that the Memphis magazine editorial staff is not diverse and that if, say, an African American were on staff, that cover decision might have been questioned and its intrinsic offensiveness pointed out. They are probably right.

We are well aware of the lack of diversity among editorial employees at CMI. Contemporary Media is facing the same issues that are plaguing many print magazines and newspapers around the country. Shrinking revenues have forced publications to reduce staff sizes. It’s not a great time for making hires, as much as we’d like to. Some publications have forced out older employees via buyouts and layoffs. It’s painful for those employees, but it does open the door to hire a younger and more diverse staff.

Contemporary Media has taken a different approach: keeping our staff but, in some cases, reducing their hours. Several editorial staffers have gone to four-days-a-week employment. Other full-time positions have been replaced with permanent part-time jobs, such as those of film editor and music editor. Five years ago, the Flyer had eight full-time editorial employees. Today, we have four — and I’m not one of them. (I voluntarily opted to work four days a week, beginning last January.) That said, the last four people I’ve hired to write for us (all in the last three years) are Maya Smith, staff reporter; Anthony Sain, Grizzlies beat writer; Andrea Fenise, fashion editor; and Aylen Mercado, monthly columnist. Three are African American; one is Hispanic.

We are aware of the problem and are trying our best to diversify our editorial voice at a time when we aren’t making full-time hires. It’s a struggle, but we’ll get there. The Flyer, for want of a better term, has been “right-sized,” consistent with its revenue.

We need to do better, but I’m convinced that under Traverse, who’s been our CEO all of 11 weeks, Contemporary Media is headed in the right direction. We are determined to continue to serve this community and do right by our readers — all of them.

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphisflyer.com

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Context is Complex: Race, Names, and Education Don’t Always Add Up

In Memphis, we’re all pretty familiar with this one question. It’s an ice-breaker question we’re all guilty of pulling out when we first meet someone. It helps us place them in the vast landscape of the city, and it’s often the first question we ask: So, where’d you go to school?

For me, that was usually the second question I got, right after “Where are you from?” If my answer — “Memphis” — didn’t satisfy their curiosity, they followed up with “Well, where are your parents from?” if not the more blatant “Where are you really from?”

Years ago, I would be stumped by this interrogation. I’d ask myself if Memphis wasn’t the right answer, then what was? I felt that I knew the ins and outs of Memphis. I knew what streets to avoid during rush hour, when to move lanes in advance to avoid certain pot holes, and where to go for a late-night pizza run. I was the human Google Maps of Memphis.

Joseph Hernández

Despite the fact that I regard Memphis as my hometown, people asked (and continue to ask) these questions because they are trying to place me somewhere.

Where are you really from? It seems like they are trying to place me anywhere but, apparently, Memphis. To them, I don’t fit their idea of what a Memphian looks like, and I’m not the only one. There are many folks from various cultural and linguistic backgrounds who don’t neatly fit within the U.S. black and white racial binary boxes. This is not necessarily a reflection of change. Rather, this is a reflection of how these boxes that were constructed have never fit the complex reality of people. This results in an assumption that just because someone fits within this fabricated box, they and everyone else in that box share the same experience.

I was reminded of this while I toured “Black Out: Silhouettes Then and Now,” a current exhibition at the Mississippi Museum of Art. The exhibit has silhouettes from the late 18th-century to the recent works of Kara Walker, Camille Utterback, and Kumi Yamashita. Many pieces were from prominent 19th-century artist Auguste Edouart. As I walked through his surviving collection of silhouettes, one name caught my attention: Joseph Marion Hernández. The label read “Joseph Marion Hernández was Florida’s first delegate to the House of Representatives and the first Hispanic member of Congress.”

A gallery attendant shared that he was surprised to learn that back in 1822, a Hispanic man was an elected representative. Big win for representation, right? Well, a lot of people thought so, too. I found that today Hernández’s tenure in Congress is celebrated as a bold move toward diversity. Multiple articles and books memorialize him as the first Hispanic (some even say “Latino”) member of Congress, especially during Hispanic Heritage Month.

This is where it gets tricky. One may think that because I have a Spanish-language last name and I speak Spanish that I would be excited to see Hernández, supposedly “someone like me,” up there. In actuality, I have very little, if anything, in common with him.

Hernández’s parents originally came to what is now Florida as indentured servants from Menorca, an island of Spain. They later accumulated land, owned plantations, and depended on labor from enslaved black people to build their wealth. Born in the then-Spanish colony of Florida, Hernández built on that capital, marrying a wealthy widow and expanding his sugar cane and cotton plantations. He owned, according to one estimate, as many as 150 enslaved black people. Other estimates suggest several hundred enslaved people worked his plantations.

When Florida became a U.S. territory, Hernández dropped Spain and pledged his allegiance to the U.S. As a wealthy, land-and-slave-owning man, why wouldn’t he? He controlled over 25,000 acres of land. This man was not about to pick up and go anywhere. Through the Spanish Land Grants and later as a member of Congress, he was able to keep and advocate for his land and power.

Hernández’s advocacy came in the form of advancing slavery and supporting the forced removal of the Seminoles. Hernández and the slavery-reliant U.S. economy also felt threatened by indigenous and black people organizing against settlers. Seminoles resisted their removal. Along with enslaved black people escaping slavery, they destroyed several plantations including one of Hernández’s. He spent his last years in yet another sugar plantation, one his family owned in Cuba.

I do not celebrate Joseph Marion Hernández. He was a land-grabbing Spanish plantation owner who sought wealth through the enslavement of black people not only in the U.S. but also Latin America. He acted only to preserve his land, wealth, and power. This is why context matters. Without it, we mindlessly celebrate him as the supposed pillar of representation and diversity.

When we ask, or asked, what school someone went to, what we are subconsciously doing is trying to frame how to understand each other. But sometimes that framing itself is distorted from the beginning. It’s true we can find some comfort in knowing where someone went to school because we can try to pinpoint immediate similarities and differences. We know that there are differences between public and private schools and even between public schools; however, there are different experiences within a single public school. What we then learn is the name of their school and not how they navigated through it.

It’s not until we peel back the layers that we understand those experiences. It’s not until we look through our critical eyes that we understand how important and complex context can be.

Aylen Mercado is a brown, queer, Latinx chingona and Memphian pursuing an Urban Studies and Latin American and Latinx Studies degree at Rhodes College.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Acknowledging Anti-Blackness

Anti-blackness in Latinx communities is rooted in white supremacy. Recognizing that marginalized people participate in anti-blackness is sometimes a hard concept for folks to accept. While we know, or at least should know by now, that our entire society participates in anti-blackness through various socio-political and economic ways, it can be especially difficult for people that come from histories of oppression to accept or even understand how they repeat patterns of oppression.

In dominant narratives of the U.S., we rarely learn about the intersections of black and Latinx histories, much less global histories. Because of this, we aren’t able to connect how legacies of colonialism then create white supremacy and reinforce whiteness as the dominant power across racial and ethnic lines.

What is race?

It’s important that we expand our thinking around race and ethnicity for several reasons. For one, connecting to a global history of race can help us see that racism and racist structures extend beyond the U.S. We can also begin to understand how those histories relate to the marginalization of people today.

In a PBS Q&A about his documentary film, Black in Latin America, Dr. Henry Louis Gates, a Harvard University professor of African and African-American Studies, drops some truth about black history in the Americas.

He explains that of the “11.2 million Africans that we can count who survived the Middle Passage and landed in the New World … only 450,000 came to the United States.” That’s a little over 4 percent, meaning that the rest of enslaved people from Africa were trafficked to Latin America and Caribbean regions. Depending on how much of the histories of slavery and colonization you’re familiar with, you might remember maps that charted the “Middle Passage” back in school. I recall seeing thicker arrows that pointed from Western Africa to Latin America and the Caribbean, but apart from that, we never talked about the implications of those arrows.

As Gates points out, part of the reason that we are not familiar with this part of black history in the Americas is due to our lack of global understanding. “Also,” he adds, “it is in part the responsibility of the countries in South America themselves — each of which underwent a period of whitening.”

When Gates says South America, here, he’s referring to Mexico and Central and South American countries. Countries in these regions intentionally put in place policies that incentivized European immigration with the intention to mejorar la raza, or “better the race.” This sociopolitical movement was pushed by their governments to minimize racial and ethnic diversity in decision-making power. These policies were both anti-indigenous and anti-black.

This, too, affects how even black and brown people have internalized racism, because for generations, people have been conditioned to see their Afro-descendance and indigenous descendance in negative way. For example, from a young age, people are taught what is “good hair” and “pelo malo” (“bad hair”). Ideas of beauty center on European traits, such as lighter complexions and straight hair.

Today, there is not a lot of visibility of indigenous people and black people in Latin America. Popular television shows and films center casts, roles, and narratives on people of European descent. So what we see on our screens are people who are of lighter skin. Meanwhile, brown and black people in Latin America are positioned in lesser roles in cinema, which contributes to their erasure. The critically acclaimed film, Roma, is one example in which an indigenous woman is recognized for her work as a leading actor but even then, Yalitza Aparicio has faced a lot of anti-indigenous racism.

In the U.S., we see the erasure of Afro-Latinx people who sit at the intersections of race and ethnicity. The imposed Latino pan-ethnic identity makes us think that there is a single Latinx or black experience. The internalized racism within marginalized groups not only harms what we’re capable of and limits our understanding of race and ethnicity and how it is created, but it is also violent. Latinx people who can be closer to whiteness because of race or class, do so at the expense of black and brown people. Given the real terror and violence implicated through white supremacist people and policies, we need to recognize and name how we participate in recreating oppression.

Acknowledging how we all participate in oppressive structure is one step and actively working to dismantle these structures is another. We can even begin to identify and address these things in our daily lives by reading into the spaces that we engage in, the people we are around, and the voices that we listen to.

Aylen Mercado is a brown, queer, Latinx chingona and Memphian pursuing an Urban Studies and Latin American and Latinx Studies degree at Rhodes College.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Dia de los Muertos is About Honoring Those Who Came Before

CREDIT: Krookedeye | Dreamstime.com

My first memories of Día de los Muertos are of the long hallways of an elementary school over on Winchester Road. I was 12, and having never witnessed a Day of the Dead celebration of any sort before, I took my time walking down the hallways of the school. With a book in my hand, I walked and found myself stopping at each altar and studying them. There was so much information to take in all at once. I didn’t open up my book much that day.

Altars were placed up and down the hallway on tables and the floor. The ones on the floor rose high above the ground because of the tiers that were shaped by a mix of large and small cardboard boxes and covered by cloth. Pan de muerto, sweet rolls of bread topped with sugar, sat next to collections of candy and bowls of fruit. While the types of food differed between each altar, they each had unlit wax candles or those small battery-operated candles that you find in the dollar store.

As I walked further down the hallway, I looked at each framed photo that appeared to have come from family photo albums. Some altars had images that I could recognize like famous musicians, artists, and actors. Others were prepared by organizations, and instead of having individual photos of people, they would have ofrendas that represented images of people. One table had materials that symbolized construction workers with bright orange vests, hardhats, and work boots. This altar remembered the lives of workers who died while working in construction due to unsafe work conditions.

Krookedeye | Dreamstime.com

Further down the hallway into the main lobby of the school I saw an altar by Danza Azteca Quetzalcoatl, one of the Aztec dance groups in the city. Like the other altars, it had multicolor papel picado, breads, food, and candles. It lay on the ground with incense bowls and was much larger than all other altars in the hallway. Cempazúchitl (marigold) flowers painted the white tile floors in a sea of yellow and orange.

I later learned some of the different elements and significance of Día de los Muertos. The celebration pulls aspects from Catholic Church rituals and pre-Columbian religious traditions going as far back as 3,000 years. The Aztec deity Mictecacíhuatl, or Lady of the Dead, is the protector of the dead and is more commonly referred to as La Catrina, whose image was popularized by Mexican printmaker José Guadalupe Posada. Traditionally, the dead were honored during the month of August. Along with music and processions, altars celebrated their life with the favorite food and drink of deceased. The month of celebration was condensed to November 1st and 2nd, All Saints Day and All Souls Day, with the arrival of Spanish missionaries who, realizing a resistance in the forceful converting of Native people to Christianity, could not do away with all aspects of indigenous culture and tradition.

Today, across cities and regions in the U.S. and Mexico, the traditions of Día de los Muertos take on various interpretations. Since walking down the halls of that elementary school many years ago, my understanding of Día de los Muertos has grown along with the reach of these celebrations across Memphis. This year, there are at least four public Día de los Muertos events around our city organized by or in partnership with Mexican and Latinx people and organizations. The Memphis Day of the Dead that was once held at an elementary school and other venues will now be held for the second year at El Mercadito on Ridgeway on November 4th (1p.m.-7p.m.).

Because I didn’t grow up celebrating Día de los Muertos in my home, it took a few years of listening and observing to learn, and I continue to learn each year. Día de los Muertos has taught me to value not only the people in our life but also to honor those who have passed on from our life — to value and celebrate what they have taught us and what they continue to teach us beyond their own lived years. The lives de los muertos, the lives of the dead, that we remember on these two days in November and beyond teach us how to love and that we should extend that love to everyone. We extend that love to our folks like the TPS Journey for Justice Caravan that visited our city. We welcome you. We extend that love to the caravan of the south, the caravan of refugees from Central America who, like many before them, are seeking asylum in Mexico and the U.S. To the people walking hundreds of miles on foot with their children and to those walking alone, we welcome you.

And following Día de los Muertos, we recognize where we have failed at the lessons of love and growing taught to us by Día de los Muertos, among its many lessons.

Of utmost importance this Día de los Muertos, we must remember all those folks who were not welcomed and loved, those who were not given the chance to live their life to the fullest and to teach and grow with us. To Roxana Hernandez, a transgender woman and asylum seeker from Honduras who died in ICE custody, one of nine people to die in ICE custody this year … we failed you. And, in the spirit of this beautiful holiday, we will hold your name and your life with us, remembering your legacy, recognizing that we need to do better. Who will you remember to honor this Día de los Muertos?

Aylen Mercado is a brown, queer, Latinx chingona and Memphian pursuing an Urban Studies and Latin American and Latinx Studies degree at Rhodes College.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Breakfast With Books

On Sunday mornings, when the Memphis sun blesses us with just the right amount of brilliance, my parents will have breakfast in the park. They’re regulars now, and along with their small dog, they’ll take a walk around the park before sitting down to read, eat pastries, and drink mate. (Yerba mate, as it is otherwise commonly known, is a pre-Columbia tea that is consumed in several regions in South America.)

Some days, I’ll join them and hear about what they’ve been reading recently. Papá is reading the anthology ¡Presente! Latina Immigrant Voices in the Struggle for Racial Justice, and Mamá is reading La Transmigración de los Cuerpos, navigating through the Mexican vernacular employed in the borderlands narrative.

Books have always been invaluable treasures in my family. Somewhat ironically, this affinity for books was sparked by a blown fuse in an old TV we had growing up in Argentina. To fill the time, my folks subscribed to the Thursday and Sunday newspapers, the two days of the week that promised the most content for the buck. From there, they found a list of best-selling books, and in the late 1990s, Harry Potter was at the top of the list. And so, a single copy of Harry Potter y la Piedra Filosafal rotated around the family and was read and reread.

Back then, buying books was a luxury we could not afford. As a photographer, Mamá would take my 7-year-old sister and a 3-year-old me to the photo shop to get her rolls of film developed. While we waited, we went to the bookstore nearby where my sister and I would read any and all books that we could reach — well, my sister would actually read, and I would mimic her. The commute to the shopping center was $20, so we could never drop another $20 for books.

Mamá recalls that the first thing she bought with her first pay in Florida was books, which included Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. After work, she went straight to the Barnes & Noble that was on the route home. She passes me the mate. “I remember they were hard-covered books, too,” she tells me. “We never could buy a hard-covered book in Argentina.

Today, books are stacked in mix-matched shelves across the hall in their home. My collection drawn from my frequent trips to the used bookstore in the Memphis public library is in there, my favorites: Baldwin, Kumashiro, Morrison, and Ehrenreich. There are a few sets of German and French language learning cassettes and books, too. Do I know how to speak German or French? No, but I can count to 20, which for now is good enough for me.

Today, I can bring books to them as they did to me when I was young. It’s a beautiful switch in roles in many ways. Together, we also bring our love of reading and learning to Desayuno con Libros, a free breakfast and literacy program organized by Comunidades Unidas en Una Voz, Centro Cultural, and the C-3 Land Cooperative. The volunteer-run program, like its sister program Books and Breakfast in Westwood, receives donations of books, which then are given to families in the community. These books range in genres and many include books with Spanish text that may often not be found in public libraries with limited resources. For young children growing up in spaces that often discriminate against their mother’s tongue, this visibility is important in order to pass on their language and knowledge.

Growing up, we had a few children’s books, but we read those books over and over again, wearing down the binding each time. Seeing children sprint to the tables with books reminds me of our trips to the bookstore, except here, they can actually take the books home and read and come back for more. These books can take them to other worlds, exposing them to lives that aren’t always visible to them on television. They can imagine themselves in the experiences that they read about, and even create new ones on their own.

If you want to be a part of this, of expanding the worlds that young people can experience, you can contact Desayuno con Libros Memphis on Facebook. Books are the tools, and these kids are the future.

Aylen Mercado is a brown, queer, Latinx chingona and Memphian pursuing an Urban Studies and Latin American and Latinx Studies degree at Rhodes College.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Free Manuel Duran!

CREDIT: Memphis Notacias

The arrest of local journalist Manuel Duran was viewed live. In a virtual sense, we were there with him. We were there as he reported on the theatrical protest at 201 Poplar on Tuesday, April 3rd. He let us be witnesses, via his phone, as he live-streamed for Memphis Noticias and interviewed individuals who had gathered for a multi-lingual and multi-cultural peaceful demonstration.

He’s a well-known Spanish-language journalist, and he was reporting on a protest against immigration detention and private prisons. He was doing his job, his press credential was visible, and he was the only journalist arrested by the Memphis Police Department that day.

While there were other journalists on site, only Duran talked us through Tuesday’s action as it was happening — giving us unedited, live footage. He filmed protesters holding signs while others lined up, in the spirit of performance activism, dressed in blue scrubs with chains and shackles, others theatrically representing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers. He showed us, through his eyes, as someone spoke the following words — which continue to ring in my ears today:

Memphis Notacias

Manuel Duran

“We are changing the narrative. Poverty is not the problem. It’s the people who create, engineer, and perpetuate poverty, that is the problem. We have to take the fight to them. This is just a representation of their power, but now, they’ve even monetized jails where they have people working for little to nothing.”

Duran is a Memphis journalist, and he was doing his job. His commentary throughout the live-stream reminded us what this protest, led by the Coalition for Concerned Citizens (C3), Comunidades Unidas en Una Voz (CUUV), and Fight for 15 members, was really about. It was to bring attention to the continued injustices created by private prisons and the prison industrial complex. They were not only calling out the disproportionate rates that black and brown people are incarcerated and how their bodies are exploited for cheap labor, but were also calling for an end to the collaboration between Shelby County and ICE. As Duran says, this is a simple request by the people, given that ICE has increasingly been targeting folks with noncriminal arrests. He also reminded his Spanish-speaking viewers to recognize that while the separation of families through deportation is affecting the hispanic community, black people, too, are tied to this struggle, as black and brown communities are both exploited by private prisons.

Duran was doing his job. And we followed him as he filmed protestors crossing Poplar on the pedestrian crosswalk in front of the Shelby County Justice Center. And we walked backwards with him as he followed police requests to get off of the street. And we watched as an MPD officer pointed at Duran and a protester next to him, and the officer said to nearby cops, “Get ’em, guys.”

Our vision, through Duran’s phone, is shaken. We see the black concrete, the officer’s shoes, and hints of the blue scrubs. We hear a car alarm blaring beats in between people’s screams — and then, we, the viewer, are on the ground looking up at the gray, cloudy sky.

In those same hours the city was observing the MLK50 activities, journalists, photographers, and individual Facebook live-streamers were also documenting this demonstration and the arrests of eight protestors and of one journalist, Manuel Duran. All charges were dropped, and everyone walked, except Duran.

While the sheriff and the county have claimed that there is no collaboration with ICE, Duran’s detention proves otherwise. Their unwillingness to release him came despite overwhelming community support for him. More than 130 organizations and businesses and over 1,000 people made phone calls and sent emails. The sheriff had no obligation to honor the detainment request by ICE, further proving that the city and county are isolating those seeking truth.

In his live-stream, Duran pointed out that there were many journalists at the demonstration because “es importante esta noticia.” This news is important. Duran wanted to share this news with those who could not be there, with those who fear the hyper-surveillance in downtown Memphis, and who feel excluded from #IAmMemphis by means of criminalization. He wanted to show us that when our families are under attack, our communities will show up and support each other to address the causes of injustices and inequities.

Tuesday’s arrests were made with no valid reason. Even Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich had to admit that “[there] was not sufficient evidence to go forward with the prosecution.” But those arrests reveal what is a different Memphis for some and just a daily reality for others. This is not the first time that the state has picked up, arrested, or detained prominent community organizers. In fact, you may remember, earlier this year, we commemorated the life of a particular famous civil rights leader who was targeted for his message in a very similar way.

#FreeManuel

Aylen Mercado is a brown, queer, Latinx chingona pursuing an Urban Studies and Latin American and Latinx Studies degree at Rhodes College. A native of Argentina, she is researching Latinx identity in the South.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

A Future for All

CREDIT: Calvin Leake | Dreamstime.com

We Love (Some of) Memphis.

That’s the message I got after reading about recent developments from the Cooper-Young Neighborhood Watch. Earlier this year, the Cooper-Young Business Association partnered with the Shelby County District Attorney’s office in its “anti-trespassing program.” The program, which started from the DA’s office to “discourage incidents of loitering and criminal trespass” in apartment complexes, has expanded to cover commercial properties and now has over a dozen businesses signed up in the Cooper-Young area.

For businesses who participate in the program, this means that the police are given authorization of agency. Authorization of agency would typically require businesses to fill out a form against specifically named persons outlining that they are not allowed on property or else they will be charged with criminal trespassing. This program throws all of that out the window. Without warning, people can be arrested for criminal trespassing on first offense. Anyone can use their judgment to deem someone of trespassing, and the police can make arrests with or without a complaint made. Does that sound familiar? Targeting a person because you think they might commit a crime. Anyone? What is profiling?

Calvin Leake | Dreamstime.com

Cooper-Young

Correct. Programs like these that have been implemented around the country and in our city result in assuming certain behaviors are criminal behaviors. We then don’t see people as people, rather we assign them a role as criminals. Take the humanity out of a person and it becomes easier to isolate and incarcerate the body. Black and brown folks, especially men, are often targeted because the pigment in their skin does not fall within the spectrum of the predominantly white demographic of Cooper-Young. If you aren’t aware of this pattern of implicit, and sometimes explicit, bias, then you probably haven’t checked what your neighbor down the road has been posting on Nextdoor.com.

A couple of “shady” folks standing near your favorite coffee-yoga-organic-craft brewery during your happy hour? Sit down, Carol. There’s nothing incriminating about standing or talking. In fact, they probably know the neighborhood better than you. It’s this simple judgment that can now have severe results for folks of color engaging with police.

This isn’t the first time that such programs and ordinances regulating urban space have been enforced. We’ve seen it happen in almost every corner of “revitalized” Memphis space — from downtown, Crosstown, and Overton Square to the Edge District and University District. It doesn’t stop at the moving or closing of local businesses owned by people of color who attract the “wrong” crowd. It spreads to a structural separation of people and communities. Just take a look at how we’ve cut bus lines and frequency and don’t fix bus shelters but yet we paint our street lanes green for the urban cyclist.

There is nothing proactive about this as an approach to address crime. A proactive approach would be one that would assess and address the needs of the population that is facing chronic hunger and/or homelessness. It would challenge loitering prohibitions as restrictions to people’s right to move freely in public space. It would critically engage with solutions to address homelessness and its causes (low wages, lack of affordable housing, etc.). A proactive approach would be not just speaking on these issues when they hit the news, but actively investing in programming that would support individuals as they work to find stable jobs and housing. While Memphis is a city with one of the lowest costs of living, people cannot make it on $7.25 an hour.

Programs such as these ultimately reflect a neglect in the framing of the future for Memphis. When we are creating this Memphis, who is it for? And at whose expense? Are we prioritizing certain people’s comfort and in exchange suppressing the freedom and autonomy of others? The decisions made in Cooper-Young as well as in Overton Square and the Crosstown neighborhood give us a peek into some of these answers. How we police public streets and how we decide who gets to walk on those same roads will show the world whether we are moving forward or backward, and once we put up these signs claiming land for a certain group of people and intimidating others with criminal charges, we send a clear message.

As we reimagine and reshape urban space, we need to be critical of ourselves and our practices that exclude and literally push out people to the margins. Our actions are all connected, and what decisions we choose to support and call out will put us in history as community-builders or as complacent agents in the uprooting of communities.

We cannot convince ourselves that we are uplifting the city when we are simultaneously destroying opportunities for some and denying fellow Memphians access to a space in our envisioned future.

Aylen Mercado is a brown, queer, Latinx chingona and Memphian pursuing an Urban Studies and Latin American and Latinx Studies degree at Rhodes College. A native of Argentina, she is researching Latinx identity in the South.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

A Dream in Limbo

CREDIT: Joshua Roberts | reuters

Keeping Up with D. Trump is one of the most difficult reality TV shows to follow. It’s probably the longest-running series I’ve ever watched (I tend to trust the binge-able shows on Netflix that offer some sort of consistency). But with Trump, it seems that we can never trust him to be consistent, or even comprehendible.

In the past week alone, Trump has gone from, “We want the wall. The wall is going to happen, or we’re not going to have DACA” at a press conference at Camp David to saying on Tuesday that he’ll “take the heat” for a sweeping immigration deal, which he referred to as a “bill of love,” to protect over 700,000 young undocumented youth. He later backtracked and stated on Wednesday that any deal would have to include millions of dollars in investment towards the militarization of a border wall.

Imagine this recap preceded by your favorite voice-over of “Previously on ___” but instead of Lost, Ugly Betty, or The Walking Dead, it’s Trump’s White, Cishteropatriarchy America. Now you have an interesting comedy-drama and apocalyptic horror show that airs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, whether you want it to or not. Having watched almost a full year of this, er, production, I can’t say that I’ve picked up on a consistent plot or theme. If anything, the stress of not knowing what will happen next is the only thing I can be sure of.

Joshua Roberts | reuters

Previously on President Trump

I say this jokingly because humor is one of my coping mechanisms; however, this is my reality and the reality for anyone in the U.S. (and the world) who is poor, brown, black, indigenous, undocumented — or “made undocumented,” if we want to challenge the construction of borders and recognize the displacement of people who inhabited the land for hundreds of years before us. We have essentially been living in an apocalyptic episode that our friends and allies are only recently waking up to. We can’t really hit pause or take a commercial break from the stress and anxiety when we’re constantly having to defend our humanity. We can’t all go running into country fields and roast marshmallows over a bonfire after a good ol’ hike in the woods like Justin Timberlake.

For those of us who’ve been “resisting by just existing” our whole lives, the feeling of living during the Trump era is not unfamiliar. We remember the record number of deportations during the Obama administration and President Clinton’s NAFTA, which basically destroyed Mexico’s agriculture and economy, and Bush’s “Special Registration” program that disproportionately targeted Arabs and Muslims.

While Trump may seem like a culture shock to the average, apolitical person, we’ve been living under high levels of uncertainty for quite a while, long before Number 45 came into office. White men, fueled by power, have disenfranchised our youth and workers, defunded our education and public transportation, created barriers against the development of our businesses and livable housing, and have separated our families. We’ve been made immobile physically and economically by policy for years. The difference is that in the past nearly 365 days, things have intensified and accelerated. And the squabbles in Congress and Trump’s inconsistency don’t ease our concerns.

Hundreds of thousands of DREAMers and undocumented folks are dealing with the rollercoaster of reactions to Trump’s statements and tweets. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled to block the administration’s plan to end the DACA program, arguing that no action can be taken while the program is being legally disputed. Bruna Bouhid of United We Dream, the largest immigrant youth-led network in the U.S., responded, “We can’t keep relying on lawsuits and different presidents to come in and upend our lives. I don’t want to go through this anymore. It’s too hard. As a DACA recipient, it’s too much back and forth. You don’t know what your future looks like.”

On the one hand, the ruling gives a glimmer of hope, but undocumented people know the game and know to wait. Time reveals the truth in politicians facing reelection in 2018, and Trump’s cryptic stance(s) this week offer further evidence of how undocumented people’s lives are repeatedly used as bargaining chips.

Back in December, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was criticized for using DREAMers for photo-ops and pandering to the Latinx voter, leaving them with empty promises of work dedicated toward an immigration reform. At the end of 2017, Democrats were not willing to push further the inclusion of a clean DREAM Act in the spending deal. This past week has also seen the end of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for over 200,000 Salvadorans, many of whom have been living and working in the states for at least 20 years.

So what do you do when your life is just part of someone’s political agenda? For some, the answer is to take action (I highly recommend this to allies who have certain securities and privileges that undocumented folks and people who are targeted for their race, ethnicity, sexuality, faith, and nationality do not). To those who, like Bouhid, are tired of their existence being left on a cliffhanger with each episode of Keeping Up With D. Trump, please take a rest. In order to keep you and your love alive, we need you to check in with yourself, find your people for support, and do what you think is best for your body and mind.

Aylen Mercado is a brown, queer, Latinx chingona and Memphian pursuing an Urban Studies and Latin American and Latinx Studies degree at Rhodes College. A native of Argentina, she is researching Latinx identity in the South.