{"id":44007,"date":"2020-06-04T11:13:56","date_gmt":"2020-06-04T18:13:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eltecolote.org\/content\/?p=44007"},"modified":"2023-05-25T10:07:27","modified_gmt":"2023-05-25T17:07:27","slug":"editorial-when-we-speak-the-language-of-the-unheard-they-listen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eltecolote.org\/content\/en\/editorial-when-we-speak-the-language-of-the-unheard-they-listen\/","title":{"rendered":"Editorial: When we speak the language of the unheard, they listen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There\u2019s not much say about the evil that murdered George Floyd, at least not much that hasn\u2019t been already said. Those familiar with El Tecolote should be familiar with our stance when it comes to the killing of unarmed Black, Indigenous and People of Color by police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But some of you may wonder why a legacy Latino publication such as this would dedicate space in its pages to denounce the murder of yet another unarmed Black man. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer is simple: Our fight is the same fight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the time since the video of George Floyd being murdered by Minneapolis police on May 25 went viral on social media, demonstrations have erupted across the U.S., with Americans taking to the streets to express their pain and frustration. From Minneapolis to Atlanta, from New York to the Bay and beyond, police precincts and patrol cars have been set ablaze. Windows of predatory banking institutions were smashed. The property of various corporations was appropriated and redistributed to the people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These uprisings are not, as elected officials from both sides of the isle have claimed, \u201cdisgracing the memory of George Floyd,\u201d nor that of Ahmaud Arbery, nor Breonna Taylor, nor Tony McDade, all of whom were murdered by police last month. Rather, they are the spontaneous expression of collective outrage from people who\u2019ve been told to sit patiently, that change is on the way, that police reform is possible if you vote for the lesser of two evils\u2014this while Black and Brown men and women continue to die in the street and in their homes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those who condemn this sort of uprising predictably invoke the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr. in their calls for peaceful demonstrations, but such invocations always seem to omit that King\u2019s pacifism was met with violence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consider the following: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How quick our elected leaders were to calculate the cost of broken windows and burning buildings, yet they have never bothered to calculate the sum owed to descendants of those whose forced labor built the foundation for the United States\u2019 prosperity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How those in mainstream media condemned the destruction of luxury stores and corporate property, yet shrugged at the images of dogs being unleashed on Native Americans defending their land in Standing Rock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How quick reporters were to label the demonstrators as looters, conveniently leaving out that the land on which we stand today was looted, taken violently by force from the original inhabitants of this continent. Or that the United States has been looting Latin America and the Middle East for decades. Or that the rich in this country are looting the treasury, as evidenced most recently with a stimulus in which the lion\u2019s share of the benefits went to millionaires, while the rest of us received $1200, if we were lucky. <\/p>\n\n\n\n