The War Against Reality

“The impulse to enter, with other humans, through language, into the order and disorder of the world, is poetic at its root as surely as it is political at its root.”

—Adrienne Rich

The issue of “reality” or “not reality” has become a battleground political one with the rise of MAGA fascism in the United States. It’s now a radical idea (and “dangerous” to boot) to want reality in schools, museums, libraries, and social institutions of our land.

What’s behind Trump trying to remove anything real about slavery, oppression, genocide, invasions, and unwarranted wars in U.S. history from our federally funded museums? Basically, it’s this: If anything upsets “Christian Nationalist” sensibilities when such-inclined people visit a bookstore or national park, it should be removed. The fragility of “racists” is now a concern of Trump’s government—and the Republicans locked-stepped behind him.

The Heritage Foundation, which wrote the “Project 2025” plan that Trump essentially adopted although he denied having anything to do with it, and organizations like Prager University (also known as PragerU) have been pushing a fantasized history of the so-called founding fathers, of Columbus’ “discovery” of America, of the “glory” of white settler culture and manifest destiny. Fantasies pushed on us for generations in history books, mass media, and institutions have been brought back. PragerU now has access to public schools in eight states although it’s not a “university”—it has no degrees or higher-ed credits. It’s meant to promote pro-capitalist and “America First” lies.

Starting in the 1970s after Civil Rights became the “law” of the land, curriculums began to tell the “other side” of the story. Not made-up history, but the actual calamities wrought by the class-and-race foundations of the United States (study and study—it’s all documented). This history included the struggles and triumphs against ideas, policies, and actions that are anti-Black, anti-Indigenous, anti-migrant, anti-labor, anti-women, and anti-Queer/trans.

It's all our “heritage.”

Today, the truths of this legacy are attacked as “critical race theory” or “DEI” (diversity, equity, and inclusion) or “woke.” Such works are being targeted in our teaching institutions as well as the depositories of our combined knowledge such as the Library of Congress.

Racist, misogynist, xenophobic, and homophobic small minds are now running the “asylum.”

When my bestselling memoir “Always Running, La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A.” first appeared in 1993, right-wing school board members wanted to ban it from reading lists and school libraries. My book joined others like “Why the Caged Bird Sings” or “To Kill a Mockingbird” or “The Bluest Eye.”

Why? Because the memoir brought “reality” into the classroom. Yes, “Always Running” is a graphic and stark literary work. It told the true-account of a Chicano gang member in the 60s and 70s, including the systemic race-class dynamic of Los Angeles County of the time. The book focused also on the discriminatory practices of the L.A.P.D. and L.A. County Sheriff’s Department. Bad policing led to the 1965 Watts Rebellion, the 1970s so-called East Los Angeles riots, and the 1992 Los Angeles Uprising. Deputy “gangs” that fueled street warfare and misapplied their authority got exposed in the early 1990s, although they had been active before and during the period covered in “Always Running.”

I took a risk in writing this memoir, unveiling the dark shroud that lay over our system of state control. Besides efforts to get rid of my book, I was attacked in some media circles and targeted by a few police officers (while other media and officers upheld what I wrote). In the end “Always Running” became popular among youth, students, and academics. It has sold over 650,000 copies. It’s considered one of the most stolen books in schools and libraries. It opened the door to gang memoirs of the time and those that followed. My book neither glorified gangs nor demonized them. The reality is more complex.

“Always Running,” and other books I’ve written since like “It Calls You Back,” “Hearts and Hands,” and “From Our Land to Our Land,” are part of my ongoing work as a leading gang interventionist and peace advocate. My experiences have mostly been in Los Angeles and Chicago, but also in countries like Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru, Argentina, England, Germany, and Italy. They’ve helped me continue facilitating writing workshops, poetry readings, and healing circles in prisons, jails, and juvenile lockups. Work I also do in Indigenous Reservations, Black and brown communities, and poor white areas. It also led to invitations to Paris, London, Sarajevo, Puerto Rico, and Tokyo, among others.

We need a full and complete account, not cherry-picked stuff that only show the “good things” this country supposedly did. Yes, there are many important things to say about the United States, especially the struggles that continue to make it more encompassing, embracing, and free (it’s got a long way to go, but I, for one, am committed to this fight).

Let’s tell the whole story.

This means addressing the hidden parts, the shadow side of our collective history, the systemic nature of class and race politics in the U.S., the empire created as well as the overthrow of other governments. If we don’t, we’ll keep pumping new blood into the false or distorted narratives.

Healing—personal, familial, and communal—is a key aspect of my work and message. But healing also includes the body politic. Healing shouldn’t exclude government or a different politics based on shared well-being. There are layers to all this. Micro and macro. Separate and all at once.

We need to reimagine and renew the whole system. We can start with being “real,” locally and globally, learning from all our history as well as the diversity of voices and lives: the good, the bad, the ugly, and beautiful. We can start with healing of the individual all the way up. Heal yourself but also heal the world. Currently our economy and politics are fragmented and unequitable. Even in chaos the strategically wise can find patterns. One important pattern is that something is dying as something is trying to be born. Let’s be clear on what these are… let’s become the midwives, as the Zapatistas say, of a new world holding many worlds.