The Philippine State, Society
& Economy, 1998-2001

Aug 17, 99
Il Postino: On the Death
of Joseph Santos Ileto
By California Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines

As authorities described Joseph Santos Ileto’s death, he was simply referred to as "the postal worker"—a man without an identity, without a history. In contrast, Buford O’Neal Furrow’s name has become familiar to most people as the man behind the shooting rampage that occurred this past week at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in southern California.

Furrow and the five shooting victims of the community center have been the main focus of media coverage over the last week. Ironically, the only fatality was Joseph Santos Ileto, who has been either at the margins of news stories or largely silenced and ignored.

While many of us are appalled at the silencing of Ileto’s story, it is hardly surprising nor new. The histories of other Filipino and Filipino American victims of racist violence are often left out of the media. Indeed, they are suppressed in most accounts of US history. This year marked 100 years of the Filipino-American War, a war that has been virtually erased from US national consciousness. Yet, hundreds of thousands of Filipinos died at the hands of the US armed forces.

As the Filipino people triumphed over Spanish colonizers, the United States stepped in and pretended to help. When it became clear that the Filipino people did not want a new colonial master, the United States unleashed a nearly genocidal war of conquest against the Filipino people.

The war of conquest was waged supposedly to "civilize" an already independent people, to "Christianize" a people who were already mostly Catholic and to "benevolently assimilate" the Philippines as a US colony.

Referring to Filipinos as "niggers," "barbarians" and "savages," US General Shafter is quoted in 1900 as saying, "It may be necessary to kill half of the Filipinos," while General Jacob "Howlin’ Jake" Smith ordered his men to "Kill and burn, kill and burn, the more you kill and the more you burn the more you please me."

Shortly after the effective pacification of the Filipino people, American big business brought tens of thousands of Filipinos to work as cheap laborers in the agricultural industry to pick the fruits and vegetables that would feed white Americans. To ensure lower wages, big business pitted white workers against workers of color, and often workers of color and of different ethnic backgrounds against each other.

Filipinos were attacked by white laborers who believed them to be "undesirable" and "possessing unhealthy habits" that would eventually lead to the "deterioration of the white race in the state of California."

These anti-Filipino race riots occurred in the late 1920s and early 1930s. White workers, ultimately fearing their jobs were being threatened by Filipino workers, formed "Filipino hunting parties running in groups from 25 to 100 persons" to victimize Filipinos.

While Buford Furrow, a one-man hunting party, is responsible for killing Joseph Ileto and harming five Jewish community members, this shooting rampage is merely symptomatic of a logic that underlies American history and its democratically-held institutions. If there is one thing that Furrow is unequivocally guilty of, it is that he has made us stare right into the reality that the United States is a society borne out of violence, racism and exploitation.

"Low Profile Racism"

While some have characterized Furrow as being mentally unstable, authorities have described him as a "low profile racist" who elicited little suspicion on the part of others who knew him.

Our attention has recently been focused on overt acts of racist violence (the LA shootings, the shootings of people of color in Chicago and Columbine), but what about the "low profile" racism, violence and oppression being perpetrated by the legally armed forces of the United States? Every day, poor people of color are being targeted by local police in "routine" traffic stops and innumerable incidences of police brutality while armed I.N.S. agents patrolling the United States’ southern border scouting down suspected undocumented migrants.

In less overt, yet equally brutal, acts of violence, the US government allows poor people of color to suffer as the unemployed and underemployed. They lack financial security, have no access to affordable housing, quality education and health care. Thus, the US government continues to erode already token programs of affirmative action, social security, welfare and immigrant support.

Beyond its borders the US government violently suppresses those who do not conform to its "new world order." Through direct military intervention in Iraq and Yugoslavia, the ominously escalating "low intensity warfare" in Colombia, the US military comeback via the highly unpopular "Visiting Forces Agreement" in the Philippines and countless other military interventions, violence is what maintains the United States as a global superpower for big business.

Complementing violent suppression is the supposed benevolence and humanitarianism of US-led institutions such as the WTO (World Trade Organization), IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the World Bank. These are the sources which reinforce the "globalization" of international big business and local elites and perpetuate extreme misery, poverty and suffering for most of the world’s people.

"Low profile" racism, violence and oppression has become an everyday part of the lives of poor, third world, people of color in the United States and around the world. While we must unite against seemingly individually instigated violent actions such as Furrow’s, we must be united in our commitment to identify, expose and struggle against the institutionally instigated and reinforced "low profile" racism, violence and oppression that characterize life for people in our communities, as Filipinos and Filipino Americans, as people of color, as marginalized and oppressed people.

The Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines (CHRP) joins in mourning the death of Joseph Santos Ileto. And in the same vein that we wish Ileto’s name and identity not to be obscured, we sympathize and extend support to the five victims of the shooting rampage: Isabelle Shalometh, Mindy Finkelstein, Benjamin Kadish, Joshua Stepakoff and James Zisell. CHRP also calls on all compatriots and all peace-loving people opposed to racism and oppression to condemn Buford Furrow as well as to join together to protest and fight the institutions that perpetrate and perpetuate violence in the lives of people of color everywhere.

Do Buford Furrow’s statements nauseate and sicken us? Do his actions strike fear and dread in us? Do they move us to protect our most highly revered principles of peace, freedom and human rights? If they do, then we need to look beyond the proposed solutions of tightening gun control, policing anti-Semitic groups and other hate-motivated groups, creating laws to penalize such acts—and address the institutional forces that kill and victimize people everyday away from the media spotlight and without the uproar from editorials and congressional lawmakers.

It is an injustice simply to trace the path that the Glock 9-mm pistol took before landing in the hands of Furrow and track it as one reporter did all the way back to its manufacturer. What really needs to be investigated is what and how Furrow was created? What monstrous forces created him?

Signed,

California Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines (Convenor)
New York Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines
Philippine Forum (New York)
MAKABAYAN Collective (New York)


About the Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines (CHRP)

CHRP is a newly formed committee that welcomes members of the Filipino community and friends of the Filipino people. CHRP is raising awareness of issues affecting the Filipino people—wherever they live and work—and is struggling against the abuse of human rights. CHRP’s vision of "human rights" goes beyond its conventional meaning to include: freedom from sexual, gender and racial oppression; the right to work in a safe workplace and to earn a living wage; the right to live in and struggle for a society where people’s interests, not profits, elite corporate or military strength, determine the laws and policies governing society.





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