Rodriguez: Huehuetlahtolli (Ancient Gudiances) re Sheriff Arpaio

Column of the Americas
The Huehuetlahtolli (Ancient Guidances) re Sheriff Arpaio
January 11, 2009
By Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez


Beware of the new Sheriff in town; he’s actually an old coyote.
He denigrates, dehumanizes and belittles; he’s an eater of flesh.
pink underwear, pinstripes and ball and chains are his trademark.
He’s actually an old sheriff who lives in another century, in the Wild West.
This is Sheriff Arpaio, of Maricopa County, Apartheid Arizona,


Beware of lawmen who hide behind their badges.
Be aware of this man who abuses his badge.
Beware of men who flaunt the law.
Be aware of this man who takes the law into his own hands.
Beware of the most investigated lawman in the country.


Beware of this man who even gives apartheid a bad name.
He chases red/brown men, women and children,
but says he only hunts down the “illegals” amongst them.
He says he knows how to tell them apart…
by the way they dress and talk, and by where they walk.


He’s got a sixth sense for justice and a sixth sense for humanity.
He’s got a sixth sense for determining who is human…
er, he has a sixth sense for determining who is a citizen,
who is an American and who merits human rights, and who does not?
That’s what compels him to use barricades and mass dragnet raids.


It is this sixth sense that guides him: Round them up!
Round them all up wherever red/brown people congregate,
wherever they live, work, shop, eat, play and pray.
His sixth sense tells him that many among them do not belong…
in Arizona, this country or anywhere on this sacred earth.


He does not mind being photographed with racial supremacists,
because he says he will photograph with anyone.
This is America, he says, and it is his job to be everyone’s Sheriff.
It is his job to send them back to where they came from…
the brown hordes – not the supremacists.

This is a man who defies the federal government,
who thinks he is bigger and greater than the law,
who thinks his number one job is to separates families,
and to create fear, hate and panic amongst us,
and to silence the rest of us.


Do not go near this man; he is rabid, rabid like a wild javeli.
He foams at the mouth, whenever he speaks of his duty,
to round up and deport the red/brown people in his midst.
If necessary, the lil Big man himself will drive them to the border,
especially if cameras are right behind in tow.


Do not go near this man; a man beloved by vigilantes,
a vain man who craves attention and aspires to higher office.
He is but a merchant of fear, ignorance and hate.
He is a man with a complex, but he is not complex;
he’s but a man with a big brown chip on his shoulder.


When you see this man and his posse, call 9-11.
When you see this sheriff running amuck and putting up barricades,
when you see and hear him yapping and wildly waving his arms,
when you see him engaging in his antics before the cameras,
Blow the trumpets and blow them loudly!


Blow the trumpets for his time has come.
Just as the time of Apartheid has also come and gone,
and just as CNN’s Lou Dobbs is now living in forced exile,
Arpaio will also surely be forced to flee, tail between his legs,
insisting on his constitutional right to racially profile.


When you see history marching by, know that Apartheid Man,
will be too preoccupied with trampling the Constitution,
to have time to march on by. Let that inspire you.
Like the undocumented who have lost their fear to march,
take the time to make an appointment with history.


Blow the trumpets loudly, for in the count of days,
his days and his nights are numbered.


Rodriguez, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona, can be
reached at: XColumn@gmail.com


* There is a National Call to Action Jan 16, 2010 to protest the
policies of Sheriff Joe Arpaio at Falcon Park in Phoenix, Arizona. For
more info: 602-314-5870 or www.puenteaz.org