Los Angeles, Alta California
September 17, 2007
Angry mob attacks another "church immigrant sanctuary"
US race relations take a turn for the worse
It is now becoming a common scene in America to see mobs of angry and violent people confronting Christian churches that are providing sanctuary to undocumented mothers and their children. This time it occurred at the United Church of Christ in the infamous city of Simi Valley, California.
Simi Valley became notorious when its citizens acquitted
three Los Angeles Police officers who beat Black motorist
Rodney King and that was caught on video tape. Within
minutes of the acquittal, Los Angeles erupted into one of
largest and most destructive riots in its history. The three
officers were later tried in federal court and found guilty.
The attack occurred on Sunday when a large group of xenophobes gathered outside the church yelling for undocumented mother Liliana to come out and give herself up. The anti-immigrant nativists were acting perfectly like a lynching mob we have seen in films about the old West. According to local news sources, the vigilante mob was there to execute a citizen's arrest of Liliana of Oxnard. Liliana and her US citizen son have been given sanctuary by United Church of Christ.
These organized attacks against Christian Sanctuary Churches are becoming increasingly violent. For the second time, a church supporter was attacked with a chemical agent on his eyes and face. The victim had to be taken to Simi Valley Hospital where his condition is unknown. This incident became potentially lethal when 9 White supremacist skinheads showed up to join the mob. The local police averted a potentially explosives situation by keeping the skinheads at bay.
Like in Old Dixie, we may start witnessing the burning of churches that courageously choose to provide sanctuary to undocumented human beings. Some churches take Christ's teachings seriously. During the struggle to liberate the Black slaves, Christian churches join what was known as the "Underground Railroad". The Underground Railroad was a network of churches and safe houses that Black slaves in Dixie used to escape to Free States.
Today, the United States appears to be going backwards in its race
relations. The Ku Klux Klan has recently re-emerged to joined the
anti-immigrant nativists. In the state of Virginia, the KKK distributed
literature advocating "Stopping all non-White immigration" and in the
neighboring state of West Virginia, six Whites were arrested for
a heinous hate crime against a 20 year old Black woman. The woman
was repeatedly tortured, raped, beaten, and sexually mutilated for a
week while being held captive by her White abductors, one
of whom told her, "That's what we do to niggers around here."
According to police reports, the woman, had four stab wounds
in her left leg, bruised eyes, and had been repeatedly sexually
assaulted and humiliated. The woman told police that she was forced to
lick one of the White arrestee's "toes, vagina, and anal cavity."
Another White arrestee forced the woman to eat dog and rat feces, stated
a prosecutor's complaint filed in Logan County Magistrate Court.
Related La Voz de Aztlan reports:
Minuteman "Maces" parishioner at St. Peter's Catholic Church
The KKK joins anti-immigrant hate groups in Virginia
Video shows murder of Mexican migrant by Minutemen vigilantes
