About the Books
Justice Unplugged
Years of Black, Brown and Otherized bodies, of all ages, dying in pursuit of dignity and resistant to injustice didn’t push people into action until being exposed as a nation, unapologetically, living the ideals of White supremacy — now in the form of a presidential candidate and ultimately as the representative of this nation, known to not have truly been elected by the people. As White fragility increases, the population of those convinced that colonialism has expired and that we are in this era of post-colonialism, neo-liberalism, or a new racism has decreased.
My endless pursuit of bridging street smarts to scholarship — dismantling that which promotes solutions that inflict pain and trauma on Others — against the government’s models that departmentalized justice when it requires hybridity and holistic framework, meant being relentless in declaring war on status quo’s orchestrated trap. Embedded into every fabric of our society, taking some of our own to fight against us, using language, knowledge, our safety and even mother nature against our survival. I could never be a bystander. I had to pull the plug on justice as it had come to be defined — to reclaim its meaning, lift up our history of resistance and thriving spirit, and find the Others again, amid the chaos.
An Other’s Mind
An Other’s Mind brings to light the many consequences of our human struggle to deal with differences amongst us and our most obvious differences pertaining to our race and culture tied into history and economics. The content of the book takes the reader on a scholarly journey via the context of true stories that expose the many ills of a society ruled by rationalizations that violate our human rights and dignity, leaving those viewed as Others to struggle against conditions that limits crucial choices attached to economics. In the narration of a personal journey and that of many students who have shared similar hardships, a necessity for an omnipresent consciousness, passion and action is revealed. In examining the book’s themes, a movement for change is ignited simply by exposing that a partnership between scholarship and street smarts is essential in alerting the oppressors that behind all their “logic,” we are aware of their hidden agendas.
From the beginning pages I acknowledge the mindset that we, the Others, must decode a”power language,” whose clever application upon Others distorts the truth. Without that, we’re exposed instantly and consistently to the mindset that the Other is from an inferior race. In fact, that mentality is embedded in almost every aspect of our societal functioning and is supported by research which often does not represent the make-up of our society and arrives at conclusions that compromise our development and survival. Specifically as a result of these conditions, this book was self-published as a manifesto of “what has been denied” or “hidden” from our scholarship–in fact, I could not accept a lower-case “B” edit by mainstream publishers when referring to “Black” and “Brown” people. Given what Others have lived and endured, we are not an adjective but truly a noun, a community reclaiming its power.
We cannot simply accept what we are fed. What I learned through community organizing and involvement in the civil rights movement is that this nation’s embracement of capitalism automatically requires the Other and their victimization. An Other’s Mind acknowledges that our marginalization and exploitation has in fact revealed to us the many injustices and hidden agendas imposed on us by those with money and power that attempt to keep us trapped and gated. The concept of Otherism is something we, those who have been oppressed and are often thought to be “not-knowing,” gullible, a “have-not,” understand very well because of our experiences and street smarts.
