Mass graves found in Texas

Yeah, that’s not good. The mass grave was discovered near the US-Mexico border. Reportedly the bodies are of immigrants who crossed the border illegally and died during the crossing. According to Al Jazeera, the documents came out on Saturday and highlighted the discovery at Sacred Heart Burial Park in Falfurnias. This was part of a multi-year effort to identify immigrants who died near the US-Mexico border. The remains were found in varying stages of decomposition.

There were 110 unidentified people found in 2013. This summer, researchers have performed 52 exhumations. At this point we’re not sure how many people that is because of multiple bodied being placed together. Some remains were found under small, temporary grave markers bearing the name of a local funeral home, Funeraria del Angel Howard-Williams.

County officials say they paid the funeral home to handle the remains found in some remote areas. More than 300 people died crossing into the US from Mexico between 2011 and 2013.

I don’t even know what to say about this. Can’t we just move toward a borderless society with an emphasis on the global citizen? I know that would be hard and require extra work, but it seems better than people dying and being buried in mass graves.

Republicans have a gay friend or son or well, they know one! Apparently, they know no women.

The feminists are owning twitter this week. Between Steubenville, hearings on sexual assault in the military, and CPAC, we are all over the place. Irin Carmon, writer for Salon, wrote a piece “What about Rob Portman’s daughter? Why Republicans’ new empathy on gays and immigration won’t extend to reproductive rights.”

Oh, I’m taking it further: Conservatives will never be empathic to women because they don’t see women as autonomous human beings. I said it. *drops mic walks off*

Don’t get me wrong, a lot of people on our teams don’t see women as autonomous human beings either, for real look no further than the atheist community, which of course isn’t a monolith, but the majority of people who use facts to make decisions tend to be on my team politically. Challenge the almighty Richard Dawkin’s views on reproductive choice on twitter and wait for his believers. It doesn’t take long.

Why am I picking on the Republicans? Because Rob Portman of Ohio has now changed his view on gay marriage because of his gay son. Portman said this:

“We conservatives believe in personal liberty and minimal government interference in people’s lives. We also consider the family unit to be the fundamental building block of society. We should encourage people to make long-term commitments to each other and build families, so as to foster strong, stable communities and promote personal responsibility.”

This has started a great twitter discussion about how to introduce Portman to poor people and people of color. But you know what? He already knows women. He has a daughter, a wife, and presumably a mother, but even the way I’ve listed these, right? The women always seem to have a relationship to the men folk. President Obama is bad for it, too. “Our mothers, wives, and daughters” is a trope we hear from the right and left. Even a friend of mine asks, “How are your wives, mothers, and daughters?” as a greeting, and I get what she is trying to do. But what about asking about boss, professors, etc. because you know, the womenfolk can have jobs independent of the mens.

Carmon discusses Portman’s change of heart, but notes that he knows women, and he isn’t changing his mind on reproductive issues. Lots of Republicans who know women (some even are women) opposed reproductive rights, but also VAWA, fair pay, and general equality. But really, just look back to see how they talk about rape. The womenfolk are liars (even though only a small percent of rape allegations are false), and slutty women have it coming. That’s what we learned from the GOP about rape in the last year. Well, fuck you.

Honestly, I don’t know why the GOP thinks gays and people of color are stupid enough to fall for the bait and switch. But as the Republicans come around on these issues they pull out the anti-women arguments as to not scare their base. For example, Marco Rubio has changed his tune on immigration and immediately says this, “Just because we believe that life-all human life- is worthy of protections at every state of its development does not make you a chauvinist.” He added, “In fact, the people who are actually close-minded in American politics are people that love to preach about the certainty of science with regards to out climate but ignore the absolute fact that science has proven life begins at conception.” We can’t pinpoint conception; doctors and pregnant women guesstimate. *science* I feel I need to provide some context for good old Rubio.

There are several prominent figures in the GOP who are singing different tunes on gays and immigrants, because of personal situations (I have a gay friend, black friend, I know someone different than me I swear), but also may just a little bit they’ve realized white men will not win an election alone. The data exists; more people are ok with gay marriage now, so the GOP is reluctantly shifting their positions. Reproductive rights, specifically abortion because most people think that is the only one, aren’t shifting (we’re in the lead), but things are pretty static as far as support. Republicans like Mike Huckabee and Bob Vander Plaats threatened to leave their party if they give any room on reproductive rights.

Carmon is right, reproductive rights are thrown in with social issues, but they don’t play out the same way. Carmon points to Portman’s statement on gay marriage, essentially, the gays are trying to fall in line, and we like that so welcome to marriage and military service. Just don’t complain. Carmon continues to argue that, “there is still something more radical and terrifying about a woman not wanting to be a mother, or wanting to be a mother on her own terms…There is still far more empathy for an embryo or fetus than for the living woman.”

Carmon concludes her piece by talking about how reproductive justice is an economic issue. I argue that poor people (mostly women) are viewed by conservatives like women through their relationship to the men around or if the menfolk are absent than their relationship to the government. You can see this in the infantilizing TANF policies we have that focus on marriage as a way to raise women out of poverty, and the presumptive guilt and drug addiction of all welfare recipients as the reasoning behind mandatory drug testing. Both of these groups are not seen as autonomous human beings.

So in summary, it is great the GOP is starting to see people of color (though in a very hierarchical way resulting in “good immigrants” vs. “Black people”) and gays as individuals who have rights, as people who are entitled to the same rights as the GOP. All that said there is no indication that the GOP sees women as equal or entitled to the same rights the GOP possess.

Immigration reform and women

I wasn’t going to talk about immigration reform or revenge porn this week. I was opting to wait till next week and see how things play out, but then the Nation go and write about domestic laborers being ignored in the proposed immigration reform, and now you have my attention.

Bryce Covert asks, “Why are domestic workers ignored in immigration reform?” Allow me to answer: because domestic laborers are always ignored. They are always left out, especially when discussion about labor come up. It is largely because domestic workers are women of color. I am in no way taking issue with Covert or her piece just pointing out what those of us who have studied domestic labor already know.

The proposal for immigration reform is a big deal, and as Colorlines points out the proposal includes special treatment for agriculture workers and DREAMers. The proposal states that for farm workers:

“[I]ndividuals who have been working without legal status in the Unites States agricultural industry have been performing a very important and difficult work  to maintain America’s food supply while earning subsistence wages. Due to the utmost importance in our nation maintaining the safety of its food supply, agricultural workers who commit to the long term stability of our nation’s agriculture industries will be treated differently than the rest of the undocumented populations because of the role they play in ensuring that Americans have safe and secure agricultural products to sell and consume. These individuals will earn a path to citizenship through a different process under our new agricultural worker program.”

Ok, this is goodish. I’m glad we’re paying attention to the physically painful, under-waged, under-appreciated, and generally invisible labor that agro work is. The cynic in me (which would be all of me) thinks about the corporations making bank off these workers and can’t help but feel their presences on this one. We wouldn’t want their vulnerable workforce to dry up would we? You see agro work can be invisible because we buy our food from the grocery stores. However, agro workers formed the FLOC, AFL-CIO, which was originally the United Farm Workers of America. You will remember Cesar Chavez, but the point isn’t a refresher on labor and agro work.  

As Covert points out, this description of agro workers can easily apply to domestic laborers. Domestic workers are often undocumented; the recent report from the National Domestic Workers Alliance says 46%  are foreign born and 35% are non-citizens. But now we have to talk about the kind of work domestic workers perform and if it qualifies as “very important” like the agro workers. I would argue yes, of course, but a lot of people wouldn’t.

Domestic work is generally care work, and very necessary to people. Children and the elderly must be cared for, homes, restaurants, stores, etc. must be cleaned. The people who perform this labor free up others to go to work outside the home. Some argue that the economy would be one quarter small if women (white women) never worked outside the home.

Domestic workers are also very underpaid. Domestic workers suffer from high levels of abuse on the job. Almost 75% have been injured on the job compared with 54% of US born workers. 80% have worked sick compared to the 56% of native workers.

Covert attributed their exclusion to the invisibility of their work because it exists in private homes. Covert calls herself cynical for point out that 95% of the workforce is female. I don’t think this is cynical at all. This is the nature of the game. Low-wage, women of color risk more when they speak out. That have also traditionally been left out, thus the independent labor movement surrounding domestic workers. I know Trumka is cool with them now, but this comes after decades specific exclusion. 

So I'm left wondering about the role of women moving forward in immigration reform. Because I want to know about  workers protections. When do they kick in exactly for each of our special groups? Can laborers sue for sexual harassment before they are citizens? Are they still vulnerable to exploitation by their employers while seeking citizenship? These pathways, do they include some kind of contract? Do people who want to leave agro work have to go to the end of the line for citizenship?

Hey America, Border Patrol Has Been Outsourced

Apparently, the United States has graduated to outsourcing border patrol. Thanks to live streaming videos anyone with Internet access can log on and monitor the border. According to Foreign Policy's blog Australians are currently watching our borders.

I look forward to the day Latin Americans spend their days doing this...maybe we can pay them. Also, I suppose no one thought that this might actually aid people seeking over the border. I feel a hack of epic proportion coming on.