Aura Bogado | The Nation

Last Tuesday, I was looking forward to a lecture at Riverside Church featuring Sohail Daulatzai on black, Muslim, South Asian, Latino and Third World international movements. Daulatzai teaches at UC Irvine, and his new book, Black Star, Crescent Moon: The Muslim International and Black Freedom Beyond America, frames the black freedom movement in an international context, deeply linked with what he terms the Muslim Third World. The Boston bombing had happened the day previously, and by Tuesday, the media were spinning in high gear and demonizing Muslims—and I could think of no better time to hear Daulatzai respond to the moment with a historical analysis. But regrettably, the event was postponed to quell any potential backlash. Since I couldn’t hear Daulatzai speak, I decided to engage him in a conversation that might help us understand why it’s critical for people of color to remain vigilant of all that’s transpired the past week.

Aura Bogado: First of all, I wanted to talk to you about the postponement of Tuesday’s event. It’s not at all isolated; I suspect we’ll start to hear more about the ways in which Muslims have had to take cover, and even think twice about attending prayer service, for example. Can you talk about the climate that essentially demands that some of us modify our behavior—which is really another way of demanding we modify our politics?

Sohail Daulatzai: The postponement of Tuesday’s event here in New York was deeply unfortunate, but it reflects how for many of us, for Muslims, immigrants, black folk, communities of color doing grassroots work and trying to make global connections, the pressures that we’ve been feeling have been very real, and they serve to silence debate. Just at the moment when we need to be having these conversations, we’re silenced once again, whether it’s those doing work in the mainstream, or others doing more critical work. It’s deeply disturbing, but unfortunately it’s not new, because the root sources of violence endure.

When I spoke with Claudia Muñoz two weeks ago, she said she was tired of fearing the moment when authorities might arbitrarily place her in detention. Because she arrived in Texas from Mexico at the age of 16, the 27-year-old is ineligible for Obama’s deferred action for students—and that means it might be easier for her to be deported. So Muñoz decided to take the matter into her own hands, and infiltrate a detention facility. “I’m the one who’s going to determine the moment when I’m detained, and the moment when I’m released,” she said.

Muñoz was apprehended a week-and-a-half ago by customs agents near the US-Canada border, and has been working to document the stories of immigrant women housed at the Calhoun County Correctional Facility near Detroit, Michigan. She works with the National Immigrant Youth Alliance (NIYA), which has infiltrated detention centers in the past with the aim of organizing with detainees on the inside. The facility holds just thirteen undocumented women—among non-immigrant inmates held for more serious charges.

Chuck Schumer, right, confers with fellow Senator John McCain as the Gang of Eight announces its immigration reform proposal. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Senator Chuck Schumer is the leading Democrat from the Gang of Eight lawmakers that have been crafting a comprehensive immigration reform bill. Schumer has used various opportunities to take credit for progress on that bill. Activists, on the other hand, want to take him to task for garnering more than $100,000 dollars in campaign contributions from private immigrant detention lobbyists.

An immigrant farmworker unloads eggplants in Delray Beach, Florida. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

President Obama granted two interviews to Spanish language networks, Univision and Telemundo, yesterday, using the opportunity to talk about a still-elusive comprehensive immigration reform bill. It has been assumed that the Senate will introduce its bill after lawmakers return from recess the second week of April—so it was no surprise to hear Obama mention introduction of the bill is imminent. More newsworthy is how little the president had to say about what the bill will contain, particularly when it comes to guest workers.