A Genocide of 10 Million: A Response to Thanissara’s ‘Revolutionary Spirituality’

Hi Thanissara:

I read your entire article twice, but I would need to read through it in parts many more times to fully absorb its wisdom. I’m deeply appreciative of your courage to put this all into words and communicate it to so many people.I deeply appreciate the depth of your analysis, both at the global scale (colonialism and capitalism) and at the more granular scale (Gaza, US, UK).

However, I noticed that NOT ONCE did you mention the 10 Million migrants who are currently under threat of deportation in the US. The vast majority of those under threat are of Hispanic origin, though many are also from African, Southeast Asian, West Asian and other regions of the world.

My experience is that Buddhists in the US DON’T GIVE A DAMN about Latino communities. I’ve seen this over and over again, that even though Latinos make up 12% of Buddhists in the US, they are ignored and excluded. They can’t be “real” Buddhists because they were raised as Catholics, some as Evangelical-Pentecostals. Culturally they’re “not like us.” They don’t speak our language. They’re too loud and emotionally expressive, so they couldn’t possibly appreciate silent meditation. Or whatever the excuse is.

When it came to this election, I prioritized the threat of deportation for the 10 Million people. I know that you and many others emphasized the horrific genocide of the people in Gaza, and I can understand why. But how can you possibly ignore the 10 Million people who live in your own country? I’ll give one reason why—because they live next door to you, in your neighborhood, in your town or city, and we have been conditioned to ignore the LOCAL, what is immediately around us. Instead we focus on distant conflicts that we have little control over.

These 10 Million people are poor, powerless, the working class who will work hard physical labor for any wage, no matter how bad the conditions are, so long as they can keep working. They are constantly harassed by the police and disproportionately imprisoned. They lack adequate housing and health care. Because they are undocumented, they are denied most public services.

Now, maybe The Billionaires won’t actually deport all 10 Million as they threatened. But we already saw what happened last time this Regime was in office. Family separations, children in cages, children separated from their parents and never returned, physical and sexual abuse of detainees including children, people lacking medical care, food, water and adequate shelter. What we are facing now is the mass incarceration of migrant families at a scale that exceeds even the internment camps of WWII, when thousands of Japanese, German and Italian immigrants were sent to prison camps.

How many will The Billionaires deport? We will see, but this incoming Dictatorship won the election largely on the promise and threat of deporting 10 Million people. Not only the Dictator-in-Chief, but his whole Regime is engaged and deeply committed to carrying out this promise of deporting 10 Million people.They have threatened to use the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798 to justify this crime, and to use the military and local police to carry out this genocide. And that’s what it is: it’s a genocide, right here in our own country.

So I hope in the future, when you recount the crimes and genocides perpetrated by this Regime, and the complicity of the 74 million people who voted for it, you will at least mention the 10 Million people who face “the largest mass deportation in the history of the United States.”

Thanks again for your article,

Shaun Bartone