in sun of tejas,
             death means                     
        negation of life
      not affirmation of                                   
           having lived,
       racism is dallas,
like amerika is negation        
    of humanist struggle
        & also the cause
       for struggling...

Bessie Rodríguez, a.k.a. María Cantú, was sentenced to serve five (5) years in the Texas Department of Corrections (TDC), neé Deformation, at the Goree Unit for Women, in 1970, on a murder conviction. The scenario was explained in fragments by Bessie and others thusly:

She shot Leonard Brown to death and for this was she convicted; she shot him after he had hospitalized her with broken ribs/ nose, after he had shot at her on different occasions, after he had knifed her twice (the second time happened just before she killed him), and after he had threatened to kill not only her but her family.The night she killed that 67 year old alleged police character, he had pulled a gun on her and slapped her around; they were both in his car. After threatening her life and kids, he put the gundown on the seat and began to cajole her. Bessie told him to keep away from her and her family; he became an unreasoning/angry tyrant; he hit her; and when she resisted him, he pulled out a knife and slashed her leg, raving that he would kill her and her family. Bessie fearfully reacted, picked up his gun and blindly shot him and then ran from the car to herhouse,carrying the weapon with her. Mortally wounded, Browndrove off and died on the road.

The following day, the police questioned Bessie about Leonard; they knew that they had had a relationship of sorts, for she had reported his beatings to them on different occasions. She did not admit having killed him; she underwent a lie-detector test; and she was not arrested and returned home.

Troubled by her conscience, Bessie turned herself in within the week. Detained in jail for over three months, she never saw-nor spoke with-an attorney. The only legal counselors ever to speak with her were emissaries from the District Attorney, in short, her prosecutors cum persecuters! She was summarily whisked off to court one day wherein a public defender was pointed out to her by the judge with the admonition of "This is your attorney."

No one had informed her of having any rights, and her newly appointed defender did not advise her of a possible defense nor did he ask her about motive, circumstances, nor mitigative forces and factors. He merely asked her if she had killed Brown and she confirmed it. He did not seek a postponement nor did he feel that her trial and its defense warranted his getting the time needed to study the case and all its particulars. He conferred with the D.A.'s office and judge, then told Bessie that he could get her a deal from the "cop-out man" if she were to plead guilty for a "nickel," otherwise she might have to serve out her life in prison. Fearful and ignorant of the law, Bessie plead guilty and accepted her five year sentence, rather than fight her case and risk a life or 99 year sentence. Not only did Bessie stand before the bench without legal help-her attorney did not even try to defend her but rather consigned her to prison, for he acted as an ex-officio prosecutor-but she should never have spent even one day in jail. Her self defense was, pure and simple, an act that is sanctioned under Texas law, and her picking up of Brown's gun to defend herself was justifiable, for Brown was at that point trying to kill her. She protected herself and family, yet her station in life (poverty, ignorance, social powerlessness, and being Chicana) condemned her to prison, while the rich and White usually are winked at.

That same year, 1970, a Dallas patrolman shot an 18 year old Black youth through the back. The youth died and nothing was done by either the D.A. or the courts. That cop, Darryl L. Cain, would years later cross the unfortunate path of Bessie's family.

Bessie was sent to the TDC after being remanded by the callous minds and bloodied hands of Dallas justice-just us!-to serve out part of her life in the heinous deformatory, that throbs with Texas hatreds, called Goree Unit. Each day would be an agony of working in the fields and having to tow the line. Days and nights of loneliness, anger, frustration, self hate, racist epithets from the guards, and shards of hope amid the rubble of menticidal anomie. Her mental world swirled with recollections, while her everyday reality was a harsh and callous labyrinth of cement, steel, censored mail, lack of privacy, fear, nothingness, and despair over an impaired future. Hope gestating and then arbitrarily crushed. Doing a day at a time and wishfulthinking toward an eventual release, she wanted to get back home, to embrace her family and share love with them. Her family also anxiously awaited her release. One of her sons, Santos Rodríguez, would never again see nor embrace her, nor would he ever cry out his eight year old fears nor share words of love with her.

SANTOS RODRIGUEZ was an eleven year old child in 1973; a Chicanito from Dallas, Texas. He was arrested, along with his 13 year old brother, David, on suspicion of burglarizing a gas station. Taken to the scene of the alleged crime, the boys were brutally and perversely interrogated.

Santos was handcuffed and sitting in the front passenger seat of the squad car; his brother, also cuffed, sat in the rear seat. Alongside David was Patrolman Darryl L. Cain. During the interrogation, and amidst the boys' protestations of innocence, Cain-already bloodied by his murder of a youth in 1970-pulled out his .357 magnum handgun, opened the chamber, removed all its bullets but two, closed and rolled the chamber ' and proceeded to place the gun's barrel against the back of Santos' head and then and there demand that the boy confess. What ensued was a perverse variation of Russian Roulette. The first time around, the hammer clicked with an empty thud in the bullet-less chamber.

While his brother was watching, the gun exploded the second turn at Dallas Cop/Pig Roulette. Santos was brutally murdered, and Cain was indefinitely suspended from the force, charged with murder, and released on a $5,000 bond that was later raised to $50,000 (due to demands by the Chicano/Black community for justice in Dallas).

Investigating officers later determined that the fingerprints at the scene of the burglarized gas station did not match those of Santos and David, and thus they concluded that there existed NO evidence to link the two brothers with the burglary.

Santos' wanton murder happened on July 24, 1973, a Texas Tuesday. The evil-ness of his murder is not all that novel, for our eyes and ears are almost inured and calloused by now by our having known or experienced such grisly murders and genocidic assaults on our humanity. The incident is but another account of still another Chicano/a being defiled by amerikan law and order a la Texas Rinche/Pinche Ranger style. Santos is gone, no longer to suffer out a destitute destiny of oppression in Texas. His brother, David, is alive, ever to be haunted by the spectre of powerlessness and the ghastly arbitrariness of despots and perverts. Both boys victims of the Nixon/Mitchell/ Agnew fantasized verbal garbage of "law & order," David carries terrifying images which re-vivify the agony of having witnessed his carnalito's head being blown apart in that gruesome game of "power, power-cops have the power, bam/blood/spurt!" This horrid/heinous unpardonable act could never have been the will of God-as some have already labeled it to dispel Chicano protestations and cries of racism, injustice, and police brutality-but it surely is part and parcel of what Chicanos and other ethnic peoples do expect and fear in this land of plenty for the rich and safety for the exploiters and desecrators.

Through the untiring efforts of Rubén Sandoval, a crusading attorney from one of El Paso's most despicable barrios-La Rivera del Eastside-who made it to become a lawyer, in spite of the system, with his determination and hope and with his realizing that Raza must survive, a campaign for the acquisition of justice came into being. Chicano history was made, for Cain was convicted, and Rubén was responsible, for he felt mandated by his conscience as a man/Chicano/attorney to see that community demands for justice might find realization. Though convicted, Cain was merely slapped on the wrist for his hitlerian barbarity and told to go and do no more wrong. His sentence was a mere five years, probated, which he is appealing. He is, reportedly, still working for the Dallas Pigsty, and if (perchance) Cain has a conscience, may it find solace someday, may he live to realize the inhuman implications of his deeds, may no convict ever dirty his hands and conscience by killing Cain-and if David must ever re-live those anguished moments, may Cain become human enough to also re-live them and see himself for what he has been. Poor, pitiful beast of a man with the blood-of lambs-haunting his mindsoul as he goes about in his world of saddened, inhuman shadows.

For us, as a people, the question is graver-a question of more than physical survival-one of stopping genocidal attacks on our very beings and sense of being. We have a right to live and thrive, like all peoples do, and we are faced with forces that portend the extinction of our Raza: ontologically, ethnically, linguistically, culturally, psychologically, socially, spiritually, and physically.

How many more Santoses must we see destroyed? How many more prayers must emanate from parched lips and throats? All people have the right to live in peace, dignity, worth, freedom, and with social/human meaning-no one should live in daily dreaded fear! Freedom, equality, justice, peace, and Christian love/ brotherhood-JUST WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU? Hiding? Along with your prostituted sisters: democracy and dignity? As for RAZA, where is our pride, our love for our people, our sense of morality, and our damn responsibility? All of us cabrones y cabronas, with our new titles and degrees (which we got because the movement made it possible for us to get E.O.P./s.o.b. funds!), who now talk about the time/need for gritos, marchas, y confrontaciones being over-realize that we as RAZA, have as yet to defend our basic/ sacred/human responsibility to live as human beings-for to be human is to defend life, liberty, and justice at whatever the cost. Cabrones encorbatados, you claim you only have time to read, think, and pedantically observe within your callous mindsets!

Dirgeful drums beat out hurt and anomie; clarions again call us to become responsible and struggle even harder toward liberation. Shall we continue shirking our moral responsibilities and life/ blood mandates, shall we again deny our humanity by not acting? Amerika must account for its deeds of genocide-we must nuremberg the culpable, exorcise its demonic forces ' and lavage its evilness out: we are all guilty. Our humanity must demand justice, dignity, peace, freedom, and meaningful opportunity-and we must take/create them with awareness and action: a praxis toward liberation. To not act, to just accept brutality, is to negate our being human and to forsake our birthrights as humane women and men.

Let history record that we, at last, stood up for truth, justice, love, liberation, and morality-that we have resolved that oppression must cease, even it shall have meant fighting and dying for the sake of having human righteousness on our side, for a life of moral cowardice is but a linkage of depravity, meaninglessness, and self vilification.

Any travesties against a people which point out a pattern of deracination and of injustice and murders which go unpunished are indications of the perversity of that society. Likewise, any people who do not attempt to liberate themselves from oppression, exploitation, and piecemeal genocide at whatever the price are a people who ultimately must deserve what they get, as cold as that might seem. We can no longer dream of government sponsored freedom nor of funded revolutionary movements. Respect and justice are not automatic responses from a saintly society, but rather the offspring of struggle and dedication to worthy ideals. For those Chicanos (and Blacks and other ethnics being oppressed) who think that it is advisable to play it safe in order to get good jobs, and for those who join social change movements in order to rip off good jobs, be assured that the time for ante-ing up is now, that the blood and hurt of the movement are prices we must all pay in order to create a meaningful social process for future generations.

Let it be heralded that Bessie's miscarriage of justice was a violation of her human/civil rights; that the cold blooded assassination of Santos was a vicious desecration and violation of the sacredness of human life; and that it is a clarion call for our pueblo to re-unite and seek in the streets what has been denied us in the courts. If the only way to answer the oppressors and child-murdering genociders is revolution, then let us prepare our mindsoulbodies for such confrontations-our failure to respond shall be our affirmation of our own inhumanity and lack of worth. Humanization is a defense of life's sacredness against the callousness of this people chewing society. Though Dallas is notorious for its 1500 to 10,000 year sentences for narcotic and property crimes, it is best known for its negation of human life.

Iloro tus pesadillas, Santos, y afirmo/que cambiaremos este mundo/ cueste lo que cueste....