genocide Archives | puntorojo

October 1, 2024

Jockeying to Lead the Empire

On September 10th Kamala Harris and Donald Trump held their first presidential debate. An analysis of the content of their statements and responses shows how both candidates were verbally jockeying to present and position themselves as the better candidate to direct the course of genocide in Palestine and unfolding global imperialist war. They also sparred over who could better guarantee that capitalist accumulation continues to stack the fortunes of the billionaire class that backs and funds the two-party capitalist electoral regime. Neither of capital’s two preferred candidates spoke to the multiple and overlapping crises that are deteriorating the lives of working-class people. Below, Izzy Tellin and Michelle Rundquist share some analysis of the debate.

January 18, 2024

by Puntorojo Editorial Collective

Israel is Guilty of Genocide but the Law Won’t Save Us

South Africa’s presentation of a case for genocide against the state of Israel before the International Court of Justice in the Netherlands last week shed a crucial spotlight on the horrific conditions Palestinians continue to endure. Since Israel began its war against Gaza in October, more than 23,000 Palestinians have been killed, more than 50,000 injured, and 1.8 million people have been displaced from their homes. More than 9,000 Palestinian children have been killed. Gaza is on the brink of famine. Disease in Gaza runs rampant.

December 17, 2019

by Blas Reies

The Gilroy and El Paso massacres: Trump and the long history of anti-Mexican racism in the United States

It’s sad to say that I was shocked and angered but not surprised when I heard of the July 28, 2019 mass shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival, which was carried out by a white supremacist. I felt more shock, anger, and apprehension a few days later when I heard of yet another mass shooting carried out by another white supremacist, this time in El Paso, Tejas. Again, I wasn’t surprised that something like this could happen in the U.S. today.

Trump started his campaign for president about three years ago by calling Mexicans “rapists” and “criminals.” He has called us “enemies” of the U.S. and promised to build a wall to keep us out of this country. Once in office, he has called Central Americans “animals,” and their nations “shithole countries.” Political pundits like Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham have followed suit by claiming that immigration from poor countries makes the U.S. “dirty” and are “destroying America.” They have called Mexico a “hostile foreign power,’ implying that Mexicans in the U.S. are subversive agents. They have said that immigration is a threat to the U.S., which will lead to a less safe country and that it will result in the death of “America.”

September 6, 2019

by Héctor Reyes

U.S. imperialism in the Americas: the function of colonialism and racism, and how they are different

If you live in the U.S. and are not indigenous to it, you live on stolen land.

Frequently, racism and colonialism are used as substitutes for each other. The technical term for this type of conflation is metonym, as Chickasaw Nation scholar Jodi A. Byrd asserts. I want to argue that the currently popular use of the terms racism and colonialism as interchangeable qualities among social justice activists, and even academics, is not only inappropriate, but that their frequent conflation is the result of more than simple expediency.

The failure to recognize that colonialism is structurally different than and not just another manifestation of racism does irreparable damage to the victims of colonialism. In the specific context of colonialism, failure to recognize colonialism as a continuing crime of erasure and dispossession, the liberal prescriptions of inclusion and civil rights exacerbate the harms of colonialism.