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ACCORDING TO LIZ - The story of the week has been the abuse of women and girls by labor leader César Chávez. Some of it has been open knowledge for some time. So why the furor now?
Why the rush to strip him of the accolades he justly earned?
Even Trump didn’t have the moxie to strip John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s name from Washington’s Center for the Performing Arts before plastering his moniker on top.
Is it because Chávez had brown skin and was a recent immigrant?
Does it benefit Trump’s crusade against those who look or sounded Hispanic? Giving the faithful yet another target to distract them from his own damaging leadership and how his truly horrific wars are devastating the lives of all Americans and shredding the image of the United States’ greatness?
Celebrations honoring Chávez across the country are being cancelled, his name defaced, threats abound to rename streets and schools and even rename César Chávez Day because of his “shocking” behavior.
Is it the news media using scurrilous details to search out more eyeballs to sell advertising? Doubtful since it appears to be a thoroughly researched documentation of wrongdoing based on available complaints that were sidelined for decades.
Doubly doubtful in that the New York Times made access to the article free for everyone to read.
Is it a demeaning of Mexican Americans, of working people by toppling a working-class hero? Or a celebration of their own empowerment, taking the lead in taking down one of their own?
To understand some part of this, turn to the double standard enshrined in American history and politics.
The United States still prides itself as being a bastion of puritanism even though it wasn’t founded only by the Puritans, but as welcoming anyone fleeing the locked-in dictates of England and other monarchies.
Religious cults abounded where charismatic leaders “enjoying” carnal knowledge of multiple women and even young girls was not only overlooked but accepted as their due right.
For generations, people chose to ignore sexual abuse by the powerful and within the Catholic Church.
Mihran Kalaydjian brought up some excellent points in his CityWatch article last Thursday: “Because this moment is not about erasing history. It is about correcting it.”
“Sí, se puede” – the motto of the United Farm Workers – was not tied to the leader of the farmworkers’ movement, but embraced each member as “Yes, one can,” as “Yes, it can be done.”
But it is not just the one movement that must reject the culture that protected Chávez “at all costs.”
This must become another “Never again” moment, building on the Me-Too movement to demand transparency, accountability and, above all, honest truth.
“Never again” expanded from the Jewish Holocaust to apply to all genocide, and now it is up to our generation to expand it further, to apply to all abuses of power.
Unwanted sexual attention, no matter how minor the perpetrators believe it to be, is not about caring but about abuse of power. And when revealed, the focus far too often has been on protecting the community image of the offender, and the further shaming of the victim
Less commonly the victims can be boys and men, and, even more uncommonly, the abusers can be women but, in every case, there is an imbalance of power.
At a time of accelerating inequality when more and more men feel emasculated, with their inchoate anger driving the rise of the Manosphere, InCels, and White Identity in reaction to the increased legalized equality of women…
Remember Roger Ailes, an abused child who grew up to be an abusing man, the force behind the rise of Fox News and the MAGA movement who did more to degrade the tone of American public discourse since Joseph McCarthy, when he understood anger attracted more eyeballs and cynically applied it to rocket the network’s ratings. Whose fall came after a dozen women spoke out against his sexual abuse.
Does Fox News have no shame? Clearly not if it’s making some people money.
If an east-coast moneyed Kennedy scion can be forgiven, a middle-American angry powermonger be given a $40 million settlement, what’s different for César Chávez who really did a huge amount of good for so many, many people.
I am not excusing his actions which are unforgivable, but wonder why they are less forgivable than the sins of Kennedy and Ailes, of the Catholic Church…
Why is Chávez being penalized far more than Donald Trump for the same sense of entitlement and sexual double standards?
The former's citations for a lifetime of effort on behalf of subjugated farmworkers and Hispanic Americans are being torn down at the same time as the latter’s name is being plastered everywhere.
Does the ability to escape censure extend to most males or only powerful ones? Only the wealthy? Only those with white skins?
Is it racist? Is it to tarnish the image of a man who has become the face of the Latino civil rights movement? An attempt to justify the ICE tempest?
Does the timing of the release of the exposé reflect an attempt by those profiting from Trump’s irresponsible warmongering?
It is not OK to hide what has happened. But it is equally unacceptable to deny the value and importance of some abusers in other spheres.
Implicit in the NYT article: “Chávez has become only more revered in the Latino community, as President Trump’s efforts to limit immigration and scale back rights threaten to destroy many of the gains secured by decades of his work.”
Americans – people and politicians both – must come to understand that human beings are extraordinarily complex, and that it is normal to combine disparate elements in one person. The good and the bad. The great and the evil.
In the same way people cannot and should not forgive or forget the abuse, they cannot, they must not stop celebrating and honoring the achievement of the same flawed man.
People can be both good and bad. Even if his overall record is abominable, some of Trump’s actions have broadly benefited Americans.
What is important is what the JFKs and the César Chávezes did for the people.
Kennedy brought us Camelot and a commitment to land an American on the moon AND Cuba, Vietnam, and sordid affairs.
The United States helped rebuild Europe after the Second World War AND violently victimized slaves and Native Americans.
Americans inflicted nuclear weapons on the world AND developed amazing drugs to cure debilitating illnesses.
The United States produced FDRs and MLKs and DARPA on the road to greatness. AND gave rise to the Donald Trumps and J. Edgar Hoovers and monopolies, contributing nothing positive to American history.
Should the entire history of the United State then be off-limits?
Including, as so well put in the news-shattering NYT article, that:
“Chávez drew a spotlight to the plight of the American farmworker. He not only improved wages, living conditions and health care for generations of farmworkers and their families but also strengthened the political power of Latinos, giving their voice and concerns an urgency and moral authority on the national stage.”
Let’s take that moral authority one step further and agree to never again pigeonhole people as good or bad.
Celebrate and embrace the best of their accomplishments.
AND, at the same time, punish them appropriately and honor the victims by keeping their less savory sides on permanent display as a caution against letting power override respect for all people.
(Liz Amsden is a former Angeleno now living in Vermont and a regular CityWatch contributor. She writes on issues she’s passionate about, including social justice, government accountability, and community empowerment. Liz brings a sharp, activist voice to her commentary and continues to engage with Los Angeles civic affairs from afar. She can be reached at [email protected].)
