Honors History Writing #1


The gang known as “The Caucasian Crew" had been out on "beaner jumping" missions for almost a week. 37-year-old Marcelo Lucero was attacked and stabbed to death by this group of high school students in Long Beach on November 8th 2008. This was the second report of an Ecuadorean immigrant killed in a month, in the same area. Even though more than 145 years have passed since the civil war ended. Slavery was exchanged for discrimination. We are now experiencing the bad effects of a modern civil war.
Although the modern KKK, is not exactly the same group that terrorized African Americans in the 1860’s they still have the same basic goals and ideas; they just have adapted over time, to be able to infiltrate into different government fields, like ICE, border portal, police and politics.

Joseph M. Arpario who calls himself "America's Toughest Sheriff," is a law enforcement officer, and the sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona. He transformed his police department into an immigration enforcement agency with President Bush financial support. But less than a year ago the Department of Justice for civil rights violations started investigating him. Joe Arpario has been target of 2,150 lawsuits in U.S. District Court and hundreds more in Maricopa County courts. Arpario is accused of housing prisoners (immigrants) in tents, making them appear before media TV cameras wearing pink underwear, shackling them in chain gangs, and trespassing into neighboring jurisdictions to unlawfully dump immigrants at the border for deportation. This is Modern Slavery. Joseph M Arpario said in an interview “being called the Ku Klux Klan is an honor.”

During reconstruction, once that civil war ended they passed the 15 amendments that prohibit the state or Federal Government from using a citizen’s race, color or previous status as slave voting qualification. But as a result the Jim crow laws “Separate but equal” made it almost impossible to be able to vote. They did things, such as the literacy test, which meant if you couldn’t read or write you couldn't vote. Sadly, I think this is repeating its self again.

Unfortunately millions of African American and Latino students in the United States are not getting an equal education to most whites. This is not only because of the urban schools they attended, where “the teacher worries more about the student not getting in a fight then providing a good education”. The money that schools get comes from the local property taxes. So in communities where the houses and businesses are less expensive, the schools don’t get enough money to provide a high quality education. This is unfair. This is institutional racism. If we financed schools differently every student, regardless of his or her "race", could get a high quality education would out having the necessity of going to a better school far away from their community.

To enter a good collage today you need to score well in a test called the SAT. Research has been done to prove that this test is directed towards middle class Caucasian students. A bilingual student, automatically take more time analyzing each question. They read the question in English translated in to their 1st langue and translated back and as we all know the SAT is timed so this is a big disadvantage. Most African American and Latino student, don’t have economical support to pay for collages, they depend on the financial aid. Of those who decide attended a community college, only 3% graduate from a 4-year university. This clearly is a sneaky way of keeping minority out of good collages. America takes pride in being a diverse melting pot, yet we contradict ourselves with exams such as these.

“They say that war ended a long time ago. But around here it’s like it’s still going on”[1] Many of us think we have reached a modern society were color and culture is not an impediment for anything, and that we are all have the same opportunity. But the truth is that we are really living in a society where racism is thrown under the rug and ignored.
Somewhere along the way we have forgotten to respect and value people regardless of their race and culture, strong stereotypes have been formed, hard to overcome, this is the prize of living in a capitalist country where he have liberty. The truth is that discrimination is never going to end we need to work in education and tolerance because “Respect for the rights of others means peace.” Benito Juarez.

As for “The Caucasian Crew” All seven teenagers face a charge of first-degree gang assault. After Mr. Lucero’s death, many immigrants told the investigators that the “polices our not taking our reports of attacks seriously, often blaming the victim; there’s little point in going to the police, who are often not interested in our plight and instead demand to know immigration status.”




Works Cited

[1]Horwitz, Tony. Confederates in the Attic. Vintage, 1999. Print.

-Ecuadorian guy killed and other info
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local-beat/Latinos-Targeted-on-Easter-LI-56744592.html
http://www.longislandwins.com/blog/in_the_news/marcello_luceros_killing_follo.php
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2003687591_robinson01.html
http://pubrecord.org/nation/3835/sheriff-arapaio-slapped-another-civil/
http://afroamhistory.about.com/od/jimcrowlaw1/Jim_Crow_Laws.htm
http://www.workers.org/2008/us/arpaio_1106/
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2003687591_robinson01.html
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/102105
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separate_but_equal
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/nyregion/03suffolk.html?_r=1



"Civil War Quotes and Facts." Civil War Quotes and Facts. Nella_Ware. Web. .
Horwitz, Tony. Confederates in the Attic. Vintage, 1999. Print.
Klan, Ku Klux. Bringing a Message of Hope and Deliverance to White Christian America! KKK. Web. .