The following is also a response from Jose B. Ochoa,

noted Civil Rights Attorney

Consider the epic singer. He alone knew the

secret beginnings and endings of his tribe: when

his children moved to the cities to become janitors

and key grips and hotel crooners, he grew hoarse

and eventually faded, silently, in his hut. When the

singer died, one version of everything was lost.

-- Miguel Syjuco, winner of the Man Asian

Literary Prize, from his novel “Ilustrado,”

p. 161, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York,

2010.

In a remarkably tortured exercise that he describes as his “opinion and insight”,

and one that is almost painful to read, ego driven lawyer Donald Williams has

entered the culture wars regarding a proposed “Hispanic” cultural center in what

he terms the “model city” of El Paso. Williams opines that

Based on the current state of affairs, circumstances and

demographics that exist in El Paso, to put a ‘Hispanic’

designation on the culture center is akin to creating a

similar center in Houston or in any other city that still has

a ‘white’ majority and naming it the ‘White Anglo Saxon

Protestant’ culture center.

Having delivered the above gem, such is his zeal to educate “la raza” that he

immediately dives head on into the fallacies that trap the unwary when they enter

the unforgiving world of logic.

Williams exuberantly embraces the “Post hoc, ergo propter hoc” - "after this,

therefore because of this" - logical fallacy, which teaches that because event B

followed event A, B must have been caused by A.

Having done this, he is able to tell us that since (B) cultural centers arise in

situations where minorities exist that have been (A) oppressed by the dominant

majority, (B) the cultural centers arose because of the oppression.

(Although the use of the word “usually” would normally save you from embracing

the fallacy, the recital of the laundry list attached to the word “minorities”, plus

equating a “White” cultural center in cities that would qualify for such with “brown”

people in El Paso simply make it imperative that you go to the local Community

College and take an introductory course in logic, or, at least one in basic rhetoric.

Free advice, no charge).

Then, happily standing the fallacy on its head, he somehow reasons that because

“brown” people are a majority in El Paso, to name the cultural center “Hispanic” is

to “replace an oppressive ‘white’ majority and culture with an oppressive ‘brown’

majority and culture.”

It is rather like adding 2 and 2 in old fashioned math and coming up with 5, or

maybe even 10. One could excuse this nonsense were it not preceded by self

aggrandizing assertions that he has not only celebrated “Bloody Sunday” for fifty

years, but also his “sixty-third (63)d observance of either ‘Black History Week’ or

‘Month’ (in appropriate bold face type).

Get it?

And what the hell does this have to do with the price of beans in El Chuco?

Simply that it serves as a prelude for Williams’s parading a number of Black

dignitaries (including, ahem, his very own self), who have contributed to the

making of this mythical model city, and who would, by Williams’s logic, be

offended by the politics of exclusion.

(I can almost hear my old friend, the late Col. Robin E Lee Washington, laughing as

he spins in his grave. It was Col. Washington who told me to beware of Williams,

because the latter “showed too many teeth.” He was right on the money. A shame

the Black El Paso Democrats, brought back to life by the much honored Colonel,

now depend on lawyer Williams for guidance.)

Spare us, Williams.

Spare us the patently offensive

Now that La Raza is the majority/dominant culture, you have

to think differently than you did in earlier years of your history.

Instead of demanding rights that are due to you, your

responsibility and obligation as the majority is to insure

and guarantee rights to those who are the present-day

minorities.

Spare us the patronizing crap about “la raza” being complicit in replacing an

”oppressive ‘white’ majority and culture with an oppressive ‘brown’ majority and

culture” by associating the cultural center with the “brown” people.

Really? “an oppressive brown majority and culture”?

Just who do you think you are that you dare to take us for a confederacy of dolts?

It is obvious that even though you arrived in El Paso in 1968, you have managed to

learn next to nothing about Hispanics, Mexican-Americans, Chicanos, Latinos, or

however we choose to label ourselves. You have learned to know even less about

our roots. And were it possible, you know even less still about our aspirations, as

we view them, in this society that in many respects, in 2015 still does not accept

our right to full participation in the body politic.

In short, you lack any kind of standing, be it linguistic, educational, or born from

experience, to write about a “brown culture”, particularly from your perspective on

civic morals, which, you must surely realize, wallows in a morass of mud.

Your ignorance regarding our culture is so appalling that in the end it becomes

truly splendid. Your assumption that you can preach to us about our societal

responsibilities and obligations is simply breathtaking.

I know all I need to know about you, lawyer Williams, and the kind of person you

are. I know because unlike the Epic Singer of the quotation, there are many of us,

we are no longer just janitors and such, and we have listened and learned from

the traditions of our elders, who live and are honored in our memories. We have

learned, and learned well, about people like you.

Let me tell you what kind of person you really are, because after all is said and

done, you are not a good man.

In my opinion and in that of many who know you, you are just another cheap

politician/lawyer who knows how to game the system.

Obviously, you know who and what you are. But you also need to know just how

many brown people view you, and after you made your screed public, it is with

marked disgust.

So where do we go from here?

Let me turn the tables. Do you think that any “brown” person in this city is qualified

to tell the Black community that it needs to think differently that in did in the early

days of its history? I think not.

We simply do not function from the same level of arrogance in which you find

comfort.

But how about the several cities in deep south states that have a large Black

majority population? Is it your view that a large Black population would vitiate the

desire or need for Black folk to have a Black History Cultural Center?

Or further, do you really hold that given Barak Obama’s presidency, there is no

longer any need for a Black Caucus somewhere in the beltway?

The above two observations are not original with me. They were suggested by a

friend and critic who also suggested that I out you for the tin horn demagogue,

that you are, which I now do, and cheerfully so.

Let me state the obvious. In this “model city”, what gains brown people made in

their employment with the city were wiped out by Joyce Wilson in her wholesale

removal of brown department heads

and subsequent appointments of her

friends or cronies to fill said positions.

And even prior to Wilson’s open distaste

for the brown people, as shown by

this image and her felt need to insult us

in a number of e-mails, there was the

ugly removal of several high ranking

browns during the Larry Francis

administration. Surely you remember

that?

It took federal lawsuits, and I filed and won three of them, to open up the boards of

trustees of the EPISD, the Ysleta ISD, and the Community College to brown people.

Let me also share with you the writings of my pal Prof. Felipe de Ortego y Gasca.

You might be surprised to learn that rather than hire an award winning female PhD

from El Paso to head the UTEP library system, a white male with little experience

was hired instead. And what was all that fuss not too long ago about downgrading

César Chávez day? Both these happenings took place within five years past.

http://www.hispanicvista.com/HVC/Opinion/Guest_Columns/022306Gguest.htm

And on the battlefield? In spite of our Medal of Honor and Distinguished Service

Cross veterans from the Segundo Barrio, this model city of yours yet has to

impress an historic overlay on the Barrio, even though the Barrio was the gateway

to millions of people from Mexico and points south who have made this country a

better nation.

You just don’t get it that discrimination aimed at the brown people is alive and well

in this model city, and that it is precisely for this reason we need and demand a

Mexican-American Cultural Center. You simply cannot understand that it doesn’t

matter whether la raza is a majority or a minority in our city.

But you really need to understand is that we don’t share a border with Spain, with

Cuba, with Puerto Rico, China, Lebanon, or any of the nations of origin you

mention in your screed.

We share a border with Mexico, and it is in that country where the roots for a huge

number of us are to be found. El Paso is truly blessed with its rich trove of history

from Mexico, and to a lesser extent, from Spain, history that informs the culture of

its people.

You are truly deluded in your notion that because we are a numerical majority, we

need to protect the rights of those who still resist our full participation in the body

politic. Were I a wit, I would ask you to share what you’re smoking.

Let me suggest to you that the next time you want to play the race card, you had

best think about the consequences.

You stand as the emperor did, naked, and, in your case, rolling in the mire.

We could do worse than naming the cultural center the “Company E, 36 Division,th

141 Combat Regiment, 2 Battalion, Mexican-American Memorial Culturalst nd

Center. One could say that Company E earned it. During World War Two, it was

almost totally decimated in repeated efforts to cross the Rapido River in Italy,

following the idiotic orders of a white general and a white major who viewed the

Barrio and Smeltertown boys and men as truly expendable.

I understand you hold some office with the Paso del Norte Tejano Democrats.

Since you do not advance the ideals and/or goals of this group, and if you have a

shred of decency about you, you should resign your membership. Failing that, and

if my hermanas y hermanos have a grain of sense, they should take steps to expel

you and strike your name from the membership rolls.. NI más, ni menos.

Jesús B. Ochoa Jr.