¡Pido Castigo!

My Chilean companeros have a song by this title, and it means "I Demand Punishment.” It is for the military whores who rule their country. Being a Norte Americano my hatreds seem to be more personalized, if no less intense.

I had this friend, see. He was funny and friendly and liked to have a good time. After his Berkeley days he went off to the University of Chicago and got his MBA, going to work for CitiCorpse in NYC. Both distance and politics divided us, at least to some extent, but his decency and charm counter balanced these. I can hear him laughing and saying ‘Look, Primo, give the man a chance.“ A voice of tolerance. He bought a house in New Jersey and he and his parents moved in and they lived. But not happily ever after.

Because Navroze Mody, you see, was not a White Amerikan. He was of Indian ancestry (the subcontinent, not the U.S.) and colored a wonderful bronze. He was also an alien.

Nowadays, in the cities of America the poor compete with the machines for oxygen and gnaw at each other in their despair. There are vicious packs that attack anything unusual, often race defines their hate. Hoboken has such subhumans, one assembly being known cutely as ‘Dot-Busters,” thus reflecting both their penchant for hip slang and their taste for attack ing people from India. Said one doughty warrior in this unsung war: ‘The Hindu people should live the way we live. They shouldn’t have that smell that they have, dress up in curtains, and walk around in tribes." A real credit to america.

So a gang, perhaps a dozen in number, ranging in age from maybe 11 to 17, attacked Navroze one October evening as he walked with a (white) friend. The friend was (basically) unhurt, while Navroze well, the reports mention severed eyeballs, crushed skull and feet, broken spine. He died after a few days.

Ah, but he wasn’t murdered by whites, as was the case in Howard Beach. He was murdered by people described as ‘Hispanic.” Traditionally, ghetto residents chew on the newest immigrants, reflecting the prejudice they themselves encounter. Those peoples who have been so unlucky as to be traders and merchants (the overseas chinese, the jews, the indians) are particularly despised by their neighbors, and those that value education are resented even more.
Navroze was so successful here in this consumer paradise that he was brutally murdered by a gang of scum, and the police and most of the press were not particularly interested. (One police theory had it that Nav was killed because he was bald!) I guess I wouldn’t be interested either, ex cept that I knew him. And that’s a shitty thing, that I have to know the victim to really feel grief, because Nav’s death is not unusual, not uncom mon in this great land of opportunity. So I don’t expect it of any of you— that you feel this strangling sorrow and loss. But you might think about the people you know, and picture them cold in the morgue, big toe tagged... if there is one.

And the pendejos that did this.., one of them is actually on trial, as an adult, even! He—it—had better pray that the state of New Jersey is severe, because Navroze was not killed by prejudice, or ideas or poverty. He was brutally murdered by humans. Unlike complicated socio-economic con cepts, people are very convenient targets for vengeance. Even the attorneys I know think that these nazi punks should be. . “visited." Not because they are hispanic or poor, but because they are not really human. Because all that wears a human face is alien to them.

But slaughtering them will not return Navroze. And it would be the bitterest irony, for of all the people I know he was the sweetest, most decent. For his life to be punctuated by brutal death... this is not a good thing.
But it is not a good thing that rabid animals roam the street. ¡Pido Castigo!

—Primitivo Morales