Hispanic advocates must call out Democrats as well as Repubicans for human rights wrongs

Advocates of Nashville's Hispanic community are supposed to meet tomorrow under the wing of a prominent city law firm.

They are supposed to discuss how to react strategically to the the torture of Juana Villegas and her separation from her newborn son, the heinous 287g deportation program and the probable fall referendum on English First in the conducting of city business.

It is getting tougher by the day to be a Hispanic, a woman and an immigrant in Nashville. Even 1,500 human beings LEGALLY in this nation were detained and questioned by the county sheriff for hours under 287g's 14-month history here.

I am not officially part of the advocacy community. Advocates always have various priorities besides the crisis at hand. And they often protect their political buddies first -- Democrats -- before seeking immediate justice.

One of the points to tomorrow's meeting will probably be how to protect the reputations of Democratic Mayor Karl Dean and Congressman Jim Cooper, if the e-mail I received in response to attending the meeting was any indication.

Advocates will hear -- that in private -- Dean and Cooper really don't like 287g and are horrified by what happened to Ms. Villegas. But these leaders are politically trying to ride out the current storm over other, more important priorities -- like public school rezoning and budget cuts. So they can't use their political capital on 287g and Mrs. Villegas and the 1,500 people LEGALLY here who were detained and questioned for hours.

Advocates will also hear that these politicos do not want to risk making Sheriff Daron Hall -- a Democrat -- into a folkhero by coming out against his program. The City Paper -- a free newsstand publication adjacent to the free jobs circulars -- just got finished praising Hall and 287g.

That would be shocking except that there were newspapers in the South during the Civil Rights movement that praised Bull Connor and his water hoses in Birmingham, AL. Some things don't change, particularly when good ol' boy white folks are still running the local print media. They've never been the agents of change and the champions of human rights.

I can't stomach all this kind of crap. If a Democrat does wrong or fails to address a wrong, he or she should be called out immediately. The same goes for a Republican. But it seems advocates cry "foul" much more quickly when it comes to a Republican doing wrong than vice versa. That's hypocrisy, and it's wrong.

As for Nashville's print news media, I won't even waste words on its wrongs. That's because I know it won't change, even when my criticism is constructive.

I do, however, hope that something of substance for immedate results and justice will be forthcoming from tomorrow's meeting. But I am not counting it, nor will I be attending.

I consider my time on this earth as limited, leukemia or not. So each moment must be used for the greatest good for the most people as possible. That's why I'll continue to point out the cowardice of Mayor Dean and Congressman Cooper and encourage my readers of conscience across the country and Tennessee to boycott Nashville as a place to visit and hold their conventions. And people of conscience should not buy country music products from here.

Only the loss of dollars will increase the pressure on these public officials to finally speak up and act for basic human rights for all.

And only our consistency in criticizing the wrongs of both political partiies can we build credibility among members of the public that need to be convinced of our cause. And effect change.