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[18 Mighty Mountain Warriors - Illegal Immigrants]
[The Pinky Show - "How to Solve Illegal Immigration" (HELLA funny!)]
Happy Thangstaken to all my fellow illegal immigrants (whilst not really knowing how to wrap my head around the continuing genocide of indigenous folks, the fact that enslaved African heritage folks didn’t first arrive here of their own free will, and that the U.S. continues to profit from these facts today =T).
Giving Thanks,
Masashi
[DemocracyNow Interview w/ Amy Goodman pt. 1]
Read the rest of this entry »
[Cornel West w/ Tavis Smiley on Music]
Music at its best…is the grand archeology into and transfiguration of our guttural cry, the great human effort to grasp in time our deepest passions and yearnings as prisoners of time. Profound music leads us–beyond language–to the dark roots of our scream and the celestial
heights of our silence.-Cornel West
His autobiography, Brother West: Living & Loving Out Loud just came out. Cop it HERE!
Working my hardest to live & love out loud,
C
p.s.
[Cornel West w/ Amy Goodman on DemocracyNow]
I was born and raised in a “safer” part of the “City of Pride and Purpose,” and still managed to see friends and fellow residents murdered, incarcerated, and become victims of police brutality, physical and/or sexual assault (as you see above). My father/hero was the Officer of Public Communications for the Richmond Unified School District (which changed it’s name to the West Contra Costa County Schools after going bankrupt) for more than 20 years and today I am glad he wasn’t the one on camera having to answer for this heartbreaking, violent crime perpetuated in a morally bankrupt society. Although in the long run, it really doesn’t mean a fucking thing, I send my love and prayers to the 15-year-old girl who was brutally raped, beaten and humiliated for 2 hours by up to 10 different young men. Read the rest of this entry »
[Pharaohe Monch - Welcome to the Terrordome]
Troy Donald Jamerson > most.
SEN
p.s. For the youngsters out there (damn, I thought I’d never be this dude =P), this is a remake of Public Enemy’s classic from the LP, Fear of a Black Planet.
I’ve have GOT to think up a way to get out of my Public Policy seminar from 4-7pm, because Wednesday, November 4th, SFSU will be providing FREE screenings of ridculously talented filmmakers, Tadashi Nakamura’s “A Song for Ourselves” (about revolutionary Japanese American artist, activist, & educator Chris Iijima) & Eric Tandoc’s “Sounds of a New Hope” (about O.G. LA/BAY Hip-Hopper, educator, cultural worker, activist, Kiwi Illaphonte). Know about MassMovementTV!
Hoping I won’t be stuck in class,
C
p.s. If you are a student in Dr. Ueunten’s AAS335: Japanese American Personality course, you can get extra credit for attending the screening and writing about these films! Holler at me in class for details.
Some commentary regarding my previous post…
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Model Minority Report:
Eye-Witness to a Life Sentence
Peter had the meanest cross-over dribble I had ever seen in elementary school. It was similar to the way then Golden State Warrior, Tim Hardaway would dribble once through his leg to his left hand to get you off balance, and explode back to the right hand with such lightning quickness that his defender didn’t stand a chance – 2 points. I met Peter in the 5th grade and recall thinking that he didn’t “act like an Asian kid.” He would often disobey our teacher and would go from telling me I was his best friend one day, to telling me the next that he was going to “beat (my) ass and stab (me) with his brother’s bowie knife.” He often missed school, so when I didn’t see him on the basketball court that particular morning I didn’t think much of it. It wasn’t until I our teacher informed us that he had been killed that I realized I would never witness his crossover again. Because Peter didn’t fit into the rigid mold afforded to his racial group as an Asian American, he was silenced, made invisible, and sentenced to die in the street before reaching puberty. Read the rest of this entry »
[NY Times - Being Multiracial in America]
Wrote this for Raza580: Educational Equity…
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A Severed Nation’s Miseducation in Miscegenation:
Mixed Race Identity Formation in American Schools
If you are to walk into most high schools during their lunch period in the racially, ethnically, and socio-economically diverse San Francisco Bay Area today, you would in all probability find children socializing in groups of many different sizes. If you were to examine closer, the makeup of these groups, you might find the majority of them to be made up of adolescents of racially and/or socio-economically similar circumstances. Upon even further examination, it is safe to say that many of these groups would host an individual or two, whose parents were not of the same racial background. As young people grow older and begin to internalize notions of racialization and race identity, mixed race/heritage individuals will be faced with choosing a “side,” or possibly not having anybody side with them at all. Read the rest of this entry »
Following the recent devastation caused by Typhoon Ondoy (Ketsana) on the Philippine Islands, Members of the Bay Area’s talented creative community are lending their time & talents to aid the people of the Philippines through these difficult times. We encourage you to join us in solidarity and donate what you can, Whether it be monetary, food, clothing or medicine. Every little bit helps and it is instrumental that we look out for those less fortunate than us.
“Rebuild”
Friday October 16th @ 111 Minna Gallery
5pm-9:30pm
(in the Zappa/Stage Room)*Donating 100% of the proceeds & collections to those in need
*Sponsored by:
111 Minna Gallery
Manilatown Heritage Foundation
Filipino Community Center, Nomi
SF CHRP
DiAnne Tana Bueno
Randall Rufino of Blufizz
James Donato
Reignforest Collective*Uplifting DJ sets from:
Donnell De Leon (Dose)
Paul Abadilla (Choco)
Allan Perez (Skelator)
Cedric Nodado (Cedication.Crimes)
Noel Bacani (Xariusound)Lyrical performance by
Colin Masashi Ehara & Jeimil Belamide (Broken Halos)*Let’s do our part in helping a humble nation rebuild & endure the storm
It’s been a while now since Jei and I performed (and I’ve been going through a lot of internal debates about my own place in Hip-Hop’s practice), but we couldn’t say ‘no’ to something like this.
Please come through after work! ALL (100%!!!) of the proceeds go to help our brothers and sisters on the other side of the globe.
In solidarity,
C
[Nas on CNN: "Open Letter to Young Warriors in Chicago"]
16-Year-Old Honor Student Derrion Albert Beaten to Death in Roseland
By Kristen Mack and Stephanie Banchero
(via Chicago Tribune)
The Agape Community Center in Roseland has long been a sanctuary, a refuge for students who want to finish their homework, take Bible study courses or simply escape the chaotic streets in their Far South Side community. Read Entire article.
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Albert’s being beaten to death was caught on videotape and sh*t still seems to be perpetually hitting the fan. Our democracy is broken when babies are being killed by their elders and/or each other. But if you took the time to read this post, you probably already knew that. I am working to acknowledge that much of the relative safety from threat of violence I possess today came through certain degrees of unearned privilege.
Derrion Albert, Oscar Grant, my childhood best friend J, my homeboy’s big sister, my homegirl’s boyfriend, 3 of my former students, and countless others remind me to examine and interrogate my positionality in efforts to redistribute resources. The more I’ve studied this country, the more blatant it appears that we are all setup from birth to occupy positions that are literally destined for us. This doesn’t mean those who are middle-class or wealthy didn’t/don’t work hard, but at the same time, SAT scores can be directly relegated to one’s income.
While “rags to riches” stories from Jay-Z, Oprah, and even Obama fly at us through the window of pop culture, I can’t forget that these are all exceptions to rule. Derrion Albert was an exception to the rule himself as an Honor Student and undoubtedly headed to higher education. Despite “pulling himself up by his bootstraps,” his environment in America as a working-class American of African heritage still destroyed him. What also f*cks with me is whether this would have gotten any coverage whatsoever, had he not been an “honors student.” Does a childs ability to succeed academically make them a higher priority in our conscience than those who don’t? I am unclear how much more of this madness needs to happen before our government steps in (as it did with predominantly white/middle-class Columbine HS) to say, “enough is enough.”
I am thinking almost constantly these days about how to best support white people (and myself) in acknowledging privilege and moving past guilt, to redistributing resources; and how to best support Asian Americans (including myself) in examining how the “model minority” myth is a direct attack on Black and Latino Americans, as well as poor/working-class Southeast Asian, Pacific Islander, East Asian, South Asian, and white Americans. This is and has been at times a very painful process, but as I watch the violent and morbid internet videos of Derrion Albert and Oscar Grant from my cushy chair, my pain seems to literally “pale” in comparison.
Democracy inaction,
C
p.s. As I’m writing this just now, my dear homegirl is texting me to tell me that her boyfriend (a Black man) was just pulled over handcuffed and had an assault rifle pointed at his head by Police who thought he “fit the description of two Mexicans in a silver car.” FUCK.FUCK.FUCK.FUCK.
