A History Of Silence: What Year Was Heaven Desegregated? Jeffrey McDaniel

thepianofarm:

Watching the news about Diallo, my eight year-old cousin, Jake,

asks why don’t they build black people

with bulletproof skin? I tell Jake there’s another planet, where

humans change colors like mood rings.

You wake up Scottish, and fall asleep Chinese; enter a theatre

Persian, and exit Puerto Rican. And Earth

is a junkyard planet, where they send all the broken humans

who are stuck in one color. That pseudo-

angels in the world before this offer deals to black fetuses, to give up

their seats on the shuttle to earth, say: wait

for the next one, conditions will improve. Then Jake asks do they

have ghettos in the afterlife? Seven years ago

I sat in a car, an antenna filled with crack cocaine smoldering

between my lips, the smoke spreading

in my lungs, like the legs of Joseph Stalin’s mom in the delivery

room. An undercover piglet hoofed up

to the window. My buddy busted an illegal u-turn, screeched

the wrong way down a one-way street.

I chucked the antenna, shoved the crack rock up my asshole.

The cops swooped in from all sides,

yanked me out. I clutched my ass cheeks like a third fist gripping

a winning lotto ticket. The cop yelled,

White boys only come in this neighborhood for two reasons: to steal

cars and buy drugs. You already got wheels.

I ran into the burning building of my mind. I couldn’t see shit.

It was filled with crack smoke. I dug

through the ashes of my conscience, till I found my educated, white

male dialect, which I stuck in my voice box

and pushed play. Officer, I’m going to be honest with you: Blah,

blah, blah. See, the sad truth is my skin

said everything he needed to know. My skin whispered into his pink

ear, I’m white. You can’t pin shit on this

pale fabric. This pasty cloth is pin resistant. Now slap my wrist,

so I can go home, take this rock out

of my ass, and smoke it. If Diallo was white, the bullets would’ve

bounced off his chest like spitballs. But

his execution does prove that a black man with a wallet is as dangerous

to the cops as a black man with an Uzi.

Maybe he whipped that wallet out like a grenade, hollered, I buy,

therefore I am an American. Or maybe

he just said, hey man, my tax money paid for two of the bullets

in that gun. Last year on vacation in DC,

little Jake wondered how come there’s a Vietnam wall, Abe Lincoln’s

house, a Holocaust building, but nothing

about slavery?  No thousand-foot sculpture of a whip. No

giant dollar bill dipped in blood.

Is it ‘cause there’s no Hitler to blame it on, no donkey to stick it on?

Are they afraid the blacks will want a settlement?

I mean, if Japanese-Americans locked up in internment camps

for five years cashed out at thirty g’s, what’s

the price tag on a three-hundred-year session with a dominatrix

who’s not pretending? And the white people

say we gave ‘em February. Black History Month. But it’s so much

easier to have a month than an actual

conversation. Jake, life is one big song, and we are the chorus.

Riding the subway is a chorus. Driving

the freeway is a chorus. But you gotta stay ready, ‘cause you never

know when the other instruments will

drop out, and ta-dah—it’s your moment in the lit spot, the barometer

of your humanity, and you’ll hear the footsteps

of a hush, rushing through the theater, as you aim for the high notes

with the bow and arrow in your throat.

(Source: carrierudzinski, via fuckyeahslampoems)

"Ching Chong, Chinaman": The De-Americanization of Asian Americans

reaganing:

therealjzhao:

Eight U.S. soldiers serving in Afghanistan have been arrested in connection with the apparent suicide of Pvt. Danny Chen, a 19-year-old infantryman who was Chinese American. The arrests came after family members pressured the Pentagon to investigate allegations that Chen had been repeatedly taunted with racial slurs. The alleged anti-Asian bullying and taunting started during basic training when fellow soldiers used a mocking accent while calling him Jackie Chen; others allegedly told him to “go back to China.” The eight soldiers have been charged with dereliction of duty and manslaughter.

Also important to remember: de-Americanization shouldn’t have to end in death to be considered problematic and hurtful.

(via baseln)

I May Have Grunted in Satisfaction While Reading This

fascinasians:

Tonight [December 15] was the march and vigil for Private Danny Chen, who was killed in the army on October 3, 2011. We don’t know how he died. The army is withholding all evidence, which it owes to the family, that could answer this question. What we do know is that he did not die in combat. We know he was constantly harassed and discriminated against by his fellow soldiers for being Chinese. We know some really twisted, violent hazing was committed against him by his superiors, right before he was found dead. We decided to hold a march and vigil because the army is currently carrying out an investigation, and we have to show them that the public is watching and that they cannot get away with another cover-up.

Just yesterday, board members of OCA-NY along with Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez and Council Member Margaret Chin went to the Pentagon to meet with high-ranking army officials, where they made demands that may fundamentally transform the way that hazing and bias crimes are dealt with in the military. We need them to know that the public and the media are watching, and that if they do not meet our demands, we will redirect our campaign to focus on our young men and women who are thinking of enlisting. These young people need to know before they enlist, the Army will not protect them from harm by fellow soldiers.

Before the vigil, we reached out to many organizations to support, and 36 signed onto our cause. We also reached out to Occupy Wall Street because justice and government transparency are in its mission, and we thought we could use the numbers and networks in OWS to bring out more support for our vigil, and we also wanted to show our solidarity with OWS.

So imagine my surprise when protesters from OWS showed up with OWS signs, not to stand with others lining up for the march to Columbus Park in support, but to stand in front of everyone, trying to direct them. These people, who had not, until that very moment, put in one bit of effort into organizing this action, who had no idea what the plan was, who had no idea who we were or who the family was, decided that they were going to make this an OWS event.

Conflict erupted when one of the OWS-affiliated protesters came with a giant Communist Party of China flag. This white man decided that he was entitled to represent us, at this protest for an American soldier, with a flag that has been used by this country to vilify the Chinese American community. When people began asking him not to demonstrate that flag because it was not the purpose of the event and we were in no way representing China or political parties, he began screaming at us about how we were ANTI-COMMUNIST and trying to take away his first amendment rights. We told him that Danny Chen was an American soldier and we wanted to respect the family and their wishes, but he continued screaming violent accusations at us at the top of his lungs and disrupting the event, until one of Danny Chen’s family members, on the verge of tears, finally convinced him to leave.

Then I overheard another OWS protester, who had earlier been trying to direct the protesters, give a video interview, and heard him saying, ever so solemnly, “They don’t want me here.” My question is: who are we and who are you? How do you expect to be welcomed as one of “us” when you have, from the beginning, made every effort to set yourself apart? Why do you think that you as an individual should be primary in this march for Private Danny Chen and his family? Why are you here giving video interviews?

Another white OWS protester began trying to use the human mic to direct the protest, and told me that I shouldn’t be using the blowhorn because the cops were going to take it away. I told her that, no, we had a parade permit and sound permit, which was why the police were there clearing the streets for our march. She looked confused and stopped yelling.

OWS protesters often make it seem like they are the birth of social justice activism, that they are here to teach us how to protest because none of us know what the fuck we are doing and need their wealth of experience to help us out. I was not at all surprised when that woman so naturally assumed that she, as a white woman, knew better than me – she thought that I had found a blowhorn somewhere and decided to play around with it. It didn’t occur to her that we had been planning this for weeks and thinking critically about every step, that it was led by a civil rights organization that has been at work for decades, that we had applied for 4 different kinds of permits so that our event could safely and effectively achieve its purpose.

The actions of these OWS protesters showed that they were at the march and vigil, not to show their support for Danny Chen’s family or the ongoing work on their case, but to provoke and garner attention for themselves and their brand, and then try to turn our strategic work and planning into a nonsensical, self-righteous tantrum. They acted like tourists on vacation in the social justice world, and our efforts and long-term goals were expendable in light of their self-interested pursuit of an interesting experience.

Soldier’s Death Raises Suspicions in Chinatown

This is terrifying to read - nineteen, Asian American, and lives in Chinatown? How many of these boys did I go to middle school with? How many of these boys did I meet at various friends’ birthday parties? I am just so frustrated, so angry, so saddened. Why doesn’t anyone talk about this? When are Asian Americans going to be recognized as citizens too?

God, it’s just - I read this article and I knew Danny Chen. He was literally almost every boy I knew in middle school and high school, and wherever this investigation goes, I am almost positive his family will never get the justice they deserve.

“When people like my mama have asked to be compensated for the building of a nation that these young, White hipsters demand justice and assistance from, they have been not only denied, but ridiculed. There is a certain amount of volcanic rage that I feel coursing through my veins when I consider what that says. I am angry that they have a voice. I am angry that they have a choice. I am angry that an entire nation of citizens, obviously unlike myself, have told me and continue to tell me that I should stop whining. I am sick to fucking death of my struggle being mocked while the struggles of others are given sympathy and accolades.”

—

Jo Nubian, “Pinto Beans, Wall Street and Me” (via notesonascandal)

Also this:

I admire all grass roots movements and believe them to really be the ways towards change.  I can’t knock the hustle, family.  A friend commented earlier that nothing ever changes until White folk struggle.  My grandma used to say that when Whites have to tighten their belts we are usually already naked.  Until there is some sort of universal poverty against which we all are struggling, how can we build?  The emergence of a class struggle can only exist when those in the differing classes begin on some semblance of equal footing.

Gosh, please go read the whole thing (it’s not long).

(via notyourkinddear)

Read the whole thing.

(via herocountry)

“Evidently it is only “class warfare” when one goes after wealthy political donors; it is merely deficit reduction when cutting jobs programs, slashing education, killing healthcare reform, and moving environment-spoiling industry into poor communities.”

—

NYT commenter on this post about Mitt Romney describing the Occupy Wall Street protests as “dangerous” and “class warfare”.

Also, describing peaceful protest as “dangerous”, Mitt? Last time I checked, the First Amendment was still in the Bill of Rights.

(via downlo)

(via throatripper)

[TRIGGER WARNING for police brutality, racism, violence & blood]

mllesong:

crucijada:

spectralradiance

photos are at the link source, but they’re graphic as fuck, enough that I didn’t want to reblog them without adding a cut somehow, so be forewarned. This is still important shit even if you can’t look at them.

that-cherokee-bitch | deanpaints

On January 12, 2010, one day after his 18th birthday, CAPA High School honors student Jordan Trent Miles was ambushed by three plain clothes Pittsburgh police officers, who failed to identify themselves and approached him aggressively. The officers did not say “Stop! Police!”, they jumped out of an unmarked vehicle, one of them yelling “Where’s your money? Where’s the drugs? Where’s the gun?” Miles, never before in trouble with the police and thinking he was being robbed, began to run, and slipped on the icy sidewalk. The officers overtook Miles and administered a brutal beating that left him unrecognizable, ripping dreadlocks out of his head, and continuing to beat him as he lay on the ground after their initial assault, stammering the Lord’s Prayer. There can be no explaining away or excusing what was done to Miles.

The police officers lied about what happened, claiming there was a bulge in his pocket they assumed was a gun but “turned out to be a Mountain Dew bottle”. No bottle was ever entered into evidence, and Jordan and his friends will tell you he doesn’t even drink the soda. The officers also attempted to claim a neighbor reported him as a prowler and attempted to bring assault charges against Miles, which were tossed out of court when the neighbor said she did no such thing. Despite all this, the City of Pittsburgh went on to reward these violent officers with a commendation and, during their suspension, paid them more than they earned while working. Meanwhile, the Pittsburgh DA has not brought charges and the Justice Department announced on May 4th, 2011 that it would not prosecute the three officers. The mayor and police chief announced on May 5th that the three officers would be returning to work.

“I feel that my son was racially profiled,” Terez Miles said. “It’s a rough neighborhood; it was after dark. … They assumed he was up to no good because he’s black. My son, he knows nothing about the streets at all. He’s had a very sheltered life, he’s very quiet, he doesn’t know police officers sit in cars and stalk people like that.”

http://justiceforjordanmiles.com/

THIS FUCKING SHIT

(Source: kushite, via herocountry)

sleeeepy:

“At the [California] constitutional convention of 1878, John F. Miller warned: ‘Were the Chinese to amalgamate at all with our people, it would be the lowest, most vile and degraded of our race, and the result of that amalgamation would be a hybrid of the most despicable, a mongrel of the most detestable that has ever afflicted the earth.’” - Strangers from a Different Shore, Ronald Takaki

Race in the US is much more than a black and white binary. We can forgive, but we should not forget or overlook what Asian Americans in the past had to overcome, a past often relegated to oblivion when it comes to American history. Just because legislators are no longer trying to completely exclude Asian immigration or preventing marriage of Asians and non-Asians doesn’t mean that Asian Americans today still don’t struggle with racism. You don’t have to be living in a Chinatown ghetto to experience the sting of racism, but you don’t have to fight it alone either. 

(via baseln)

his 202: modern latin america has taught me one thing:

all of history can be summed up as such: stuff was fine and progressing naturally and then EUROPE and THE UNITED STATES came and FUCKED SHIT UP and now everyone else is trying to pick up the pieces.

mllesong:

Dealbreaker: He’s Got an Asian Fetish | GOOD

lenachen:

As promised, here’s my essay for GOOD. An excerpt below:

I was born in San Francisco and raised in Los Angeles. If you heard my voice without knowing what I looked like, you’d probably assume that I was a teenage white girl. My idea of fashion is a pair of skinny jeans, not a kimono. My parents are immigrants, but I am, for all intents and purposes, American through and through. Yet I wasn’t even out of high school when men began greeting me with “konichiwa, beautiful” on the street. (I am not Japanese). As I got older, the catcalls took a turn for the lewd: “Me love you long time!” “Sucky sucky!” I’ve lost track of the number of times a guy has gotten in my face and yelled the name of a random Asian country as a primitive courting strategy: “Hey, Korea!” “Vietnam?” “You Thai?” Even seemingly respectable men in respectable settings would introduce themselves and ask, “Where are you from?” only to frown and follow up with “No, really” when I responded with “California.”

Excellent.

 In that sense, the random dude on the street shouting “”Ching-chong! Ching-chong!” at every passing Asian gal is not so different from the guy who invites me to dinner and earnestly asks, “Do you prefer to eat with chopsticks?”

Hahaha.

(via herocountry)

“

As a Muslim, I’m sick of people asking me how I feel about 9/11. What do you want me to say, seriously? Do you want me to say, “It was a great plan, mwahahaha!” before I fly off on a magic carpet?

I was born and raised in this country and was just as shocked as everyone else to learn there were people on this earth so vile as to commit such a horrific attack - or to even think about doing it. But I didn’t do it. Neither did 99.999999999 percent of the roughly 1.5 billion people in the world who also call themselves Muslims. So why should I or any other Muslim apologize for what happened?

Nickleback is planning on releasing another album. Should I ask white people to apologize for that?

”

— Aman Ali (via kosherpiggy)

(Source: CNN, via throatripper)