One continent, many colors.
If you were to paint each geography with a different color, which one would you choose?
Let’s say that, on the American continent, you choose yellow, which is a bit orange. It is a very fashionable color in the north of that continent. Very in tune with the ICE gringo, whose troops hide their faces so as not to show that their skin is possibly the same color as their victims. “Beaners” is the derogatory term they use to describe their victims. With this double reference to what they eat and the color of their skin. They also used to use the term “cafecitos” (“brownies”).
Skin color and cultural identities are, for those at the top and their hired killers, a resource to identify the enemy to be eliminated. The Mexican army (today so adored by the progressivism that yesterday clamored against it), when it invaded Zapatista territory in 1995 -a product of Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León’s betrayal in February of that year-, attacked the communities to steal (as the so-called Pakal Immediate Reaction Force of the state government of Chiapas does now) the few belongings of the natives. As they invaded they shouted, “Pinches indios pozoleros!” (“Fucking pozol-drinking indians!”)
The irony is that, when they deserted, the soldiers would pass through the very communities they had looted, begging for a little… pozol.
But don’t get distracted by politically incorrect memories today. We are talking about skin colors.
There is more: for example, the language. It is clear to Mr. Trump that the “frijoleros” not only speak very different English, they have also created their own language.
In January 1994, when tens of thousands of federal troops arrived in Chiapas to “wipe out the lawbreakers,” an officer who deserted when he realized who they were chasing, told us that they asked the high command how they identified “the Zapatistas. The generals would answer: “they are short, dark skinned, speak bad or no Spanish, and their clothes are very like out of a museum or craft store .” The troops looked at each other. There were millions who fit that description.
I bring up this memory because that is the “criminal” criteria used by the gringo ICE to detain, beat, imprison and deport migrants.
Does it matter that the detainee has papers? No, what matters is the color of his skin, his slang, jargon, lingo (here we say “el modo”), his mustache, his baggy clothes, and that, when faced with a hamburger and tacos, he chooses… the tacos (“with cilantro, onion, tomato and lots of salsa please”). If he is also part of the LGBTIQ+ movement, well, he is a criminal with all the aggravating factors.
In the first years of the uprising, in the federal army barracks, they did everything possible to convince the troops to attack the Zapatistas. For example, they presented them with plays (a valid pedagogical resource) in which the deceased SupMarcos was gay, homosexual, faggot, queer, queen, butterfly, mayate, pillow-biter, or whatever they call them now. Everyone wanted to play the role of the deceased because, whoever he was, he was handsome.
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We start with skin color, and go from there to culture, language, height, food, clothing, sexual and affective identity, and so on. Add now your condition, legal or not, of having another geography as your own or your ancestors’ place of birth. Migrant, or of migrant parents, grandparents, great-grandparents. There you have the profile of the criminal to pursue.
Now look at any geography and identify the people who meet this “scientific” profile (which would put to shame any gringo series where the police are always brilliant, beautiful and, above all, incorruptible and law-abiding), and you will see that there are millions of them.
Without going too far, Trump’s cabinet has, in its key positions, descendants of migrants. Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, does not have a very Anglo surname and is the son of Cuban migrants. Kristy Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security, is of Norwegian descent. Without a cabinet post (yet), there is far-right Senator Ted Cruz, whose father is Cuban, and whose name is Rafael. Lori Chavez, secretary of labor, is of Mexican descent. Trump is of migrant descent and his wife is Slovenian by birth.
Since it is difficult to differentiate with these criteria, then let’s look at the repeated argument: they are criminals. In reality, what is not said is that they are taken as “potential criminals”.
You put aside that several of that cabinet have accusations of sexual abuse and drugs. Although not proven. Well then focus on those who are convicted, i.e., tried and convicted. Do you see? Oh yes, Donald Trump.
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In terms of migration, the so-called nation states, pretentiously called nation states, of their own initiative, and then following the U.S. police position, do the same. To the south of the American Union, Mexico has set up a criminal mechanism against migration coming from Central America and, through it, from other countries. The National Institute of Migration is a replica, in illegality, brutality, arbitrariness and violence, of the Border Patrol and ICE of the USA. And racism in society is not far behind. Of course, with its differences. In the USA they are beaten, imprisoned and deported. In Mexico they sell them to the bidding cartels, extort them, lock them up, disappear them, murder them… and burn them alive.
In El Salvador, Bukele (trained in the school of cadres of the FMLN party) locks them up and televises the conditions in which they find themselves. This does not prevent him from getting his cut from organized crime.
History repeats itself in the rest of the countries that have in those dark colors their foundation and their history. In progressive Chile (ha) and Milei’s Argentina, the people of the land, the Mapuche people, have been harassed for centuries (although they have emerged 10, 100, a thousand times victorious). In progressive Brazil, a “silent” ethnocide is taking place in the Amazon. Geographies such as Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru and Colombia repress as best they can the protests and rebellions of the natives, who are the color of the earth.
And yet, in the shop windows of progressivism (which, ironically, insists on vindicating the past), some “indigenous” mannequins sometimes show off their finery, aspiring, as servants, to have their color tolerated on the upper floors of the pyramid. That is, as a cheap and replaceable costume jewelry ornament.
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Nation States are born from the dispossession of wealth. But not only of them, also of identities, differences and particularities. The Nation State, with the myth of citizenship, imposes homogeneity and hegemonizes. A flag, shield, anthem, armed forces, national sports teams, official history and language, currency, legal structure and administration of justice; all contribute to supplant, with a violent imposition, the differences of color, race, language, gender and, of course, social position, history and culture.
The black, the brown, the yellow, the red, the white are “citizens.” The tall and the short; the fat and the skinny; the man, the woman and the other; the mestizo and the indigenous; the employer and the employee; the rich and the poor.
In this sense, the native people who are dispossessed of their territory are the same as the one who executes the eviction order and the “indigenous” official who endorsed the theft. The woman victim of violence is the same as the male who disappears, murders or assaults her. The transgender person is the same as the policeman who “ oversteps” in the performance of his duty. The cafeteria employee is the same as Carlos Slim. And so on.
And these “citizenships” are supported by a nationality, which, in turn, sustains the arguments for genocides, crimes of all sizes, and wars… to eliminate the expendable.
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If there are different colors above, at the top of the pyramid, and and also below, at the base on whose hearts bears the weight of the wealth of those above, what then is the difference?
The place in the pyramid.
With all their differences, particularities, colors, those who are at the base of that structure have in common that they are disposable. And, for the same reason, wars (in all their variations) exist to get rid of them.
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In every corner of this planet, even the most remote, there is a medium, large or small pyramid. It thinks of itself as eternal, powerful and indestructible.
Until someone says “no more,” becomes an organized collective and knocks it down to the cry of…
| ¡A la chingada el pirámide! اللعنة على الهرمj ebem ti piramidu γαμώ την πυραμίδα Fuck the pyramid scheiß auf die Pyramide fanculo la pirámide putain la pyramide merda á pirámide мамка му, пирамидата 屌個金字塔 a la xingada la pirámide seru na pyramidu 他妈的金字塔 피라미드 엿먹어 kneppe pyramidendo kelu pyramídukurat püramiidistvittu pyramidi joder pe pirámide rehe לעזאזל עם הפירמידה |
neuk de pirámide baszd meg a piramistada leis an pirimid fokkið við pýramídanum ピラミッドなんてクソくらえ pîramîdê qelandin Pyramidem in malam rem! Ssexsi lpiramidxijtlasojtla nopa pirámide knulle pyramiden لعنت به هرم pieprzyć piramidęf oda-se a pirámide pirámide nisqawan joderla dracu’ cu piramida к черту пирамидује* и пирамидуknulla pyramidenpiramiti siktir et до біса піраміду. piramideari madarikatua shaya iphiramidi |
But, in its place, do we make another pyramid?
Or something different?
Perhaps a meeting of some parts of the whole will hint at an answer.
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.
El Capitán
June 2025.