The simple story of Cortés's evisceration of the the Aztecs is not so simple. In letters to Spain's King Carlos I, justifying morally Mexico’s occupation, Cortés distorted what was in fact a messy and confusing war involving several armies from already competing European nations. His lies linger.
What is euphemistically referred to as “modernity” is marked with the indelible stain of what might be termed the Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Slavery, White Supremacy, and Capitalism, with the bloody process of human bondage as the driving and animating force of this abject horror.
More Puerto Ricans—around 5.4 million—now live in the United States than in Puerto Rico, with around 3.3 million residents. The continued depopulation of the Caribbean island appears unstoppable.
Black Panther is a story we haven't seen told before in popular cinema — a story about black people completely untouched by colonialism, who exist entirely outside the global systems of institutionalized racism.
Despite the time elapsed, almost three-quarters of a century ago, a similar text, with the same title, could be written today: “Adrift by the seas of history, without direction, without destination, goes Puerto Rico: for four and a half centuries “ Now it should be added that the situation is worse and the island, hit by fierce hurricanes, especially the most recent and brutal named Donald Trump, faces a decisive moment in its history.
In the wake of Hurricanes Maria and Irma, the Caribbean must escape the trappings of modern-day colonialism and seek out its own kinds of sovereignties.
By now the botched, indifferent response of the Trump administration to Hurricane Maria’s devastation in Puerto Rico has been well-documented. Puerto Ricans, however, are not the only US citizens whose lack of democratic rights has affected its quality of life, and for the worse. The same can be said for the residents of Washington, DC, the nation’s capital.
Puerto Ricans are all U.S. citizens. They pay taxes and serve in the military and don't need a passport to come to the U.S. mainland, and they deserve the same help the people of Texas and Florida received when they were hit by hurricanes. Puerto Rico is a colony, and like other colonial empires, the United States has brutally exploited it's colony.
Puerto Rico has been hit by a triple disaster - Hurricane Maria; outrageous debt owed to vulture hedge funds; racist, colonial indifference by the Trump Administration. Puerto Ricans - on the island, and in the U.S. have called for the lifting of the Jones Act, as it applies to Puerto Rico; canceling the debt; and abolishing PROMESA. Yesterday a solidarity flight of medical and emergency organized by AFL-CIO unions brought needed supplies and aid workers to the island.
Presidential action needed when 3.4 million Americans are living without electricity, 40% of them without potable water, and hundreds of thousands without shelter. When some 80% of its agricultural crops were wiped out. This is an apocalyptic scenario. We can't even know what is going on very much because there is no wifi most places. Some entire towns haven't been heard from! But this President tweets about football players who protest racism.
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