Abhijit Naskar's Blog - Posts Tagged "immigrants"

With hopes and dreams brimming in my heart,
I have traveled across miles and miles.
A single desire for a flame of acceptance,
Still burns bright in my heart's aisle.
You say home is where the heart is,
But my heart is accused of difference.
Sometimes I'm accused of faith or race,
Other times they question my allegiance.
Amidst the illusive fog of color and geography,
When did humanity cease mattering most!
Sentiments and dreams have no borders,
Character isn't exclusive to any single coast.
We’ve wasted enough time on labels and covers,
It's time to be family filling the world with colors.

When oppression became unbearable, America was born - when discrimination turned extreme, America was born - when rigidity became intolerable, America was born. America was born of an unbending desire for freedom - America was born of a drive for self-correction - America was born of an urge for progression.

Yes we did many mistakes in the process, even committed horrible atrocities - we drove people off their lands to build a new world for our children - and nothing that we can do today can mend those atrocities of yesterday, but what we can do is to make a promise to ourselves to never repeat those atrocities of our ancestors no more.

It's time we become the new Americans - Americans with more accountability than recklessness - Americans with more curiosity than rigidity - Americans with more acceptability than prejudice - Americans with more inclusivity than discrimination.

There is no our America and their America, there's only one America - the United States of America. You see, ours is not just the United States of America, ours is the United States of Assimilation. And we must practice this principle to the letter and spirit everyday of our lives.

For example, we of all people cannot in right mind deny shelter to those seeking refuge, especially when we are both sociologically and economically capable of doing so. Whoever comes to these shores of liberty, in the hope of life, freedom and happiness, automatically becomes an American, by measure of the same determination and will that made our founding fathers set foot on Plymouth Rock escaping British bigotry, snobbery and barbarism.

Our very country is founded by immigrants. America was built by refugees, and as such, if this land can't be a refuge for the subjugated and persecuted, then it is an insult on our very existence as the great land of the free and brave.

If immigrants ain't real Americans,
Neither is our revered Lady Liberty.
She too came from a distant land,
Yet today she is the American epitome.
If even this doesn't broaden your heart,
What about the founders of our history!
All of them were textbook immigrants,
What white supremacists cuss as refugee.
Any land that holds potential for ascension,
Draws the repressed souls of humanity.
Though I belong to the whole wide world,
Land of Lady Liberty is my home country.
A nation's character isn't defined by rigidity,
It is defined by a hearty unity in diversity.”

On earth we are immigrants from Africa – out in space we’d be immigrants from Earth – in a different galaxy, we’d be immigrants from Milkyway. To put simply, in exploration of space, both external and internal, terms like immigrant and indigenous are meaningless. It’s the heart that makes us indigenous or immigrant, not blood.

Refugees carry culture,
Colonizers carry infection.
Colonizers are the virus,
Refugees are civilization.

Refugees live on hope,
Colonizers thrive on greed.
Refugees dream of acceptance,
Colonizers dream supremacy.

Refugees are the true free and brave,
they carry within the silver lining.
There’s nothing brave about genocide,
no matter the whitewashed thanksgiving.

Refugees are practicing healers,
living testament of wounds to ointment.
Colonizers are proof of darwinism,
that from monkeys comes the human race.

Mass deportation is human trafficking, but you’d have to have a human heart, unchained by patriotic allegiances, to fathom this. Every genocidal maniac is a patriot, and it’s the golden age of crime, when the biggest cartel of a nation is its own government.

The average colored person is ten times
smarter, wiser, braver, and stronger,
than most white people, not because
we are genetically superior,

but because, when an entire planet
is rigged in favor of white colonials
over the black, the brown, the latino,
arab, indian, chinese, turk, and what not,
we have to be exceptional to survive.

White people can be mediocre,
and still respected, glorified even,
but rest of us have to be Ramanujans,
Rumis, Naskars, just to be regarded as human.

Most of the world’s geniuses are non-whites,
not because it’s genetic, but because, like
white people inherit blonde hair and blue eyes,
or daddy’s emeralds, we inherit generational
persecution, and any brain forced to endure
persecution as daily chore, becomes a powerhouse
of apparently supernatural mental faculties.

Yabancı olarak doğmak ayıp değil, ama
yabancı olarak ölmek en büyük lanettir.
To be born as foreigner is normal,
but to die as foreigner is animal.

To salute the flag is just
as animal as burning a flag,
to obey the scripture blind is just
as savage as burning a scripture.

Delegational democracy is just
as undignified as autocracy,
blind abidance of law is just
as primitive as anarchy.

I look after the world as family,
so the world may look after my family,
when I’m not there – that’s the kind of
blind faith that actually makes a difference.

To curse is animal, to console, human.
If you must be blind, be blind in tolerance.