One of my favorite movies is “Cool Hand Luke,” starring a young Paul Newman playing Luke, an escaped convict from a chain gang in Mississippi. Or maybe it’s Georgia or Alabama. The last line that Luke speaks is, “what we have here is a failure to communicate,” before he is gunned down by the sheriff’s posse sent to pursue him. Like Luke, I believe that there is never too much communication, never too much dialogue, or too much effort to enhance our understanding of one another. Think of the tragedy that could be avoided if we had more good communication. In the spirit of the irrepressible Cool Hand Luke, I offer these observations:
Since we are in the middle of Hispanic Heritage Month (Sept. 15-Oct. 15) let me start by saying that I don’t favor open borders. But I do favor an immigration program that allows for orderly entry and departure of guest workers from Mexico and Latin America. We can create such a program with biometric ID cards, tax withholding, etc. Just think, no more children in cages. Workers will go home if a percentage of the money they earn working in the U.S. is deposited in hometown banks and asylum seekers will have their cases adjudicated according to law.
Illegal immigration causes tremendous human suffering, but people come here because they have a habit to support. It’s called eating. There is another habit, a nasty one, that is supported not by the human contraband of border crossers but by another kind — illegal drugs. I am opposed to the use of such drugs, but I am also opposed to the draconian laws meant to prevent their use.
The U.S. war on drugs has caused untold misery in Latin America in corruption, organized crime and lethal violence to the tune of 250,000 dead in Mexico. This tragedy is fueled by the huge amounts of money that criminals fight to acquire by selling drugs in the U.S. We should legalize drugs because criminalizing them does not prevent their use. Just think, the criminals would have to find lawful occupations and our drug users could be treated with the taxes imposed on the legal sale of these substances.
I don’t like to wear a face cover for protection against COVID. But I realize that I need to protect myself and others against this deadly disease. I don’t like it, but it’s not an infringement of my liberty. It’s my patriotic duty. I wish that I could go to my favorite watering holes and meet my friends. But I will stay away until the plague subsides. It’s no fun staying at home, but just think of the money I’m saving.
I don’t want to defund the police, but I do want to weed out racism and stop racial profiling and unnecessary police violence. I want to move to community policing, where officers spend years in neighborhoods and get to know the people they are sworn to protect and serve. Just think how much safer and easier the job would be for our police if we did this.
I don’t want to take away your guns or have the government take away my guns (yes, I own rifles, pistols and shotguns). I want constitutionally allowed gun control to lessen the chances of horrific mass murder like what we’ve seen in recent years. I don’t want to wage a war on religion, but I want a clear separation of church and state where everyone is allowed to worship as they please but no believers are allowed to impose their belief systems on those holding different beliefs.
I don’t want to throw out the traditional version of U.S. history that all of us know. But as an ethnic studies teacher I want to teach everyone’s history, not just the history of the dominant group, the white Anglo-Saxons who have been the host group for dozens of nationalities and ethnicities who have come here to live and work and those who were here first, the Native Americans and the Chicanos. I want to teach the good and the beautiful of our history. But I also want to teach the bad and the ugly. Just think how much stronger we are when we learn both sides, stronger because the whole truth will make us stronger, but lies and half-truths never will.
Joe Barrera, Ph.D., is the former director of the Ethnic Studies program at UCCS. He teaches American Literature, U.S. Southwest Culture and History, and Military History. He is a combat veteran of the Vietnam War.
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October 04, 2020 at 06:00PM
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