My Chilean companeros have a song by this title, and it means I Demand
Punishment.” It is for the military whores who rule their country.
Being a Norte Americano my hatreds seem to be more personalized,
if no less intense. I had this friend, see. He was funny and friendly and liked to have a
good time. After his Berkeley days he went off to the University
of Chicago and got his MBA, going to work for CitiCorpse in NYC.
Both distance and politics divided us, at least to some extent,
but his decency and charm counterbalanced these. I can hear him
laughing and saying ‘Look, Primo, give the man a chance.“ A voice
of tolerance. He bought a house in New Jersey and he and his parents
moved in and they lived. But not happily ever after. Because Navroze Mody, you see, was not a White Amerikan. He was of Indian
ancestry (the subcontinent, not the U.S.) and colored a wonderful
bronze. He was also an alien. Nowadays, in the cities of America the poor compete with the machines for oxygen and gnaw at each other in their despair. There are vicious packs that attack anything unusual, often race defines their hate. Hoboken has such subhumans, one assembly being known cutely as ‘Dot-Busters,” thus reflecting both their penchant for hip slang and their taste for attacking people from India. Said one doughty warrior in this unsung war: ‘The Hindu people should live the way we live. They shouldn’t have that smell that they have, dress up in curtains, and walk around in tribes." A real credit to america. So a gang, perhaps a dozen in number, ranging in age from maybe 11 to
17, attacked Navroze one October evening as he walked with a (white)
friend. The friend was (basically) unhurt, while Navroze well, the
reports mention severed eyeballs, crushed skull and feet, broken
spine. He died after a few days. Ah, but he wasn’t murdered by whites, as was the case in Howard Beach.
He was murdered by people described as ‘Hispanic.” Traditionally,
ghetto residents chew on the newest immigrants, reflecting the prejudice
they themselves encounter. Those peoples who have been so unlucky
as to be traders and merchants (the overseas chinese, the jews,
the indians) are particularly despised by their neighbors, and those
that value education are resented even more. Navroze was so successful here in this consumer paradise that he was brutally
murdered by a gang of scum, and the police and most of the press
were not particularly interested. (One police theory had it that
Nav was killed because he was bald!) I guess I wouldn’t be interested
either, except that I knew him. And that’s a shitty thing, that
I have to know the victim to really feel grief, because Nav’s death
is not unusual, not uncommon in this great land of opportunity.
So I don’t expect it of any of you— that you feel this strangling
sorrow and loss. But you might think about the people you know,
and picture them cold in the morgue, big toe tagged... if there
is one. And the pendejos that did this.., one of them is actually on trial, as
an adult, even! He—it—had better pray that the state of New Jersey
is severe, because Navroze was not killed by prejudice, or ideas
or poverty. He was brutally murdered by humans. Unlike complicated
socio-economic concepts, people are very convenient targets for
vengeance. Even the attorneys I know think that these nazi punks
should be. . “visited." Not because they are hispanic or poor,
but because they are not really human. Because all that wears a
human face is alien to them. But slaughtering them will not return Navroze. And it would be the bitterest
irony, for of all the people I know he was the sweetest, most decent.
For his life to be punctuated by brutal death... this is not a good
thing. But it is not a good thing that rabid animals roam the street. ¡Pido
Castigo!
—Primitivo Morales
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