Once again, it is Thursday night, and once again, I am writing this because I think it needs to be documented and shared. And once again, this is about mass actions taking place in NYC. Once again, please feel free to share this.

The following is from my perspective:

Tonight was my 4th time down at Occupy Wall Street. I felt drawn to the protests, like I needed to be there, and I guess I was meant to be, as well as the people I ended up with.

At the general assembly a document was introduced called “The Declaration of the Occupation of New York City”. To my understanding, this document has been worked on for many days, by many people, in a working group. It was announced that this document would be disseminated to the media, to the Internet, to everyone who planned to occupy other cities in the country. Basically – this document is REALLY IMPORTANT, and the audience is meant to be everyone, we were told.

The general assembly read the document together, line by line. The GA has grown a lot in the past few days and has noticeably (finally?) gotten slightly more diverse. For me, reading the document together was a very powerful and moving moment, and I’ve never seen anything like it. Immediately after this I turned around and joined my friends Thanu and Sonny, who were with Manissa and Natasha. They had all just come back from the first local meeting for South Asians for Justice.

Without knowing we had spontaneously formed a bloc of South Asians present at the General Assembly. While it continued, we began to discuss the document amongst ourselves, specifically the second paragraph, and our issues with it. We weren’t the only ones who had concerns; numerous people spoke up and requested changes to the document. The facilitators kept wanting to go back to agenda items, but I personally felt, if people wanted to discuss this document, right here, right now, let’s do it, instead of pushing something else. To be heard, a person would shout “mic check!”, said a few words at a time, the crowd repeated their words, and so this process continued until the person’s message was finished.

I, Thanu, Sonny, Manissa, and Natasha felt that some language needed to be urgently changed. Please keep in mind that this document is a living, working document, and is unpublished, and is being changed as I type with the (as they are called) “friendly amendments” that were proposed. The line was: “As one people, formerly divided by the color of our skin, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or lack thereof, political party and cultural background, we acknowledge the reality: that there is only one race, the human race, and our survival requires the cooperation of its members…”

The first major concern amongst us was that the phrase “formerly divided by” was unrealistic, and erased histories of oppression that marginalized communities have suffered. The second concern was that the “human race” language also felt very out of touch.

We debated amongst ourselves whether to speak up about this. As I mentioned, individual people were airing their concerns about the document, even though the facilitators had requested to email any changes to them, or to speak to them later. I felt though, that our thoughts needed to be shared with the general assembly, and not just to a few over email. I was urged by our impromptu bloc to be the one to speak up. So I did.

I started shouting “mic check!”, got the crowd’s attention, and said that we did not agree with the phrase “formerly divided by” and instead felt it could perhaps be “despite”, and said that the original phrasing erased histories of oppression. Unfortunately, even though about 4 or 5 presumably white people had spoken up before me about changes to the document, I was told that this was a time for questions, not changes to the document – by a facilitator who was a man of colour. Talk about feeling shut down.

The main facilitator, a white man, said that the document and the paragraph was meant to reflect the future that we wanted, and that “formerly divided by” should stay. I again shouted “mic check!” and our spontaneous Brown Power crew again shouted my words after me – I reiterated again that the phrasing erased much history, and that it was idealistic and unrealistic. I think at this point I looked around and realized everyone was staring at me; it hit me what we were doing, that we had the floor, that we were demanding a change.

The protestors at Occupy Wall Street have been saying that there will be efforts to reach out to people of colour, to have communities of colour engage and be a part of the protests, to help create real change – because, let’s face it, the protests have been very white and people of colour need to be present, and need to speak up. Well, that’s exactly what we were doing, and I realized that we were helping to make that change happen.

The facilitators asked if our issue was an ethical concern – if it was, then it would have to be addressed. I said, yes it was, meaning, we were blocking the document in order for this ethical concern to be addressed. Manissa then read out what we felt the change should be to the phrase, after thanking the crowd and facilitators for working with us. The change was instead of “formerly divided by” to have it be “despite” or “despite the divisions of…etc”.

The change was accepted by the general assembly. Our impromptu crew/bloc turned to each other to discuss what just happened, and people listened in and expressed their agreement with what we did. We still felt however that the paragraph as a whole needed to be changed, and Sonny pointed out that the language left invisible or attempted to erase the dynamics of power. An Iranian man who had been at Occupy Wall Street for a number of days remarked that as a group we were conspicuous. Sonny noted that as a group of 5 brown people, with a hijabi and one wearing a turban, of course we grabbed attention in this still-mostly white crowd, and “how real can you get?”

The GA finished and we immediately proceeded to the impromptu meeting being held to address the document. Note, our proposed changes about the language to the sentence I mentioned above had already been accepted, but we still felt the document did not address or ignored issues of power. This is extremely important because a document being shared by Occupy Wall Street to the so-called 99% should not be ignoring or erasing issues of power. We found the guy who had been the main facilitator (and who also had been visibly frustrated with us) and started to discuss the paragraph.

Unfortunately though, there were many who tried to cut us off, and as we sat down on the ground, with Thanu bringing out her laptop, these people gathered nearby, pointed fingers at us, and made me feel very uncomfortable, as if we weren’t welcome. They clearly didn’t like what we were doing, but what we were doing was participating and engaging with Occupy Wall Street, and making ourselves heard – after all, isn’t that what the organizers want? The facilitator who had earlier attempted to shut us down, came and said we should come back the next day to finish our discussion. We said no, let’s do this right here and now, and hammer it out in 10 minutes, which we did. A white woman came up to me and asked, why didn’t we leave the main facilitator alone? I told her he wanted to listen to us and chose to sit down here with us, we didn’t force him. These were the unfortunate distractions and disruptions we had to deal with. I realized that change on the ground is hard, messy, and painful, and we could feel all of this.

This discussion was around the wording of the 2nd paragraph, which I won’t quote here, because like I said, this document is being changed and is unpublished as of right now. We didn’t like the language of how we are all one human race. The facilitator said that that is scientific fact, that we are all one race. We agreed, but had to explain that socially, there is inequality. It was highly problematic that we had to break down systems of oppression to this man who seemed to have the final say on this document, this document that will be shared with the world, that is supposed to represent Occupy Wall Street, as well as supposedly the 99%. Manissa had to explain that he as a white man had more power and privilege than her as a woman of colour. That racism isn’t about feelings, as he thought, but about power and oppression, as Sonny and Thanu explained. It boggled our minds that we were discussing power and privilege while at the same time we could feel this man’s power and privilege over us, and that he is a facilitator/organizer for Occupy Wall Street! Clearly there needs to be a lot of self-education workshops at Liberty Plaza.

Long story short, we got the paragraph changed to adequately address our concerns that it reflect issues around dynamics of power and privilege that marginalized people feel every single day. This was a very hard discussion to have, and it felt so real, it hurt. It hurt that it had to happen, it hurt that we had to explain what is really behind racism to this man, and the people around him, it hurt that so many tried to disrupt us. But at the same time, we were meant to be there, meant to be heard, to make this happen, to make these changes occur. And there were a lot of people sitting there and listening in and contributing constructively. We walked away realizing what we had just done – spontaneously come together, demand change, and create it, in a movement that we are in solidarity with, but also feel a need for constructive criticism.

This document, “The Declaration of the Occupation of New York City” will be shared with the world soon, and the five or so of us were able to come together, indeed we had to come together, to make sure this document didn’t reflect the ideals of a few people unaware of their power and privilege, but instead could reflect more of the reality of the 99%.

Thank you for reading.

peace,
Hena Ashraf

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known. [...]

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.

–From Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

Through a direct democratic process, we have come together as individuals and crafted these principles of solidarity, which are points of unity that include but are not limited to:

Engaging in direct and transparent participatory democracy;

Exercising personal and collective responsibility;

Recognizing individuals’ inherent privilege and the influence it has on all interactions;

Empowering one another against all forms of oppression;

Redefining how labor is valued;

The sanctity of individual privacy;

The belief that education is human right; and

Endeavoring to practice and support wide application of open source.

We are daring to imagine a new socio-political and economic alternative that offers greater possibility of equality. We are consolidating the other proposed principles of solidarity, after which demands will follow.

– From “PRINCIPLES OF SOLIDARITY – working draft”

I also need to mention that New York City is Haudenosaunee territory and home to many other First Nations. Waiting to see if that’s been mentioned anywhere. (Author’s note: Manhattan “proper” is home to to the Lenape who were defrauded of the island by the Dutch in 1626 – see more from Tequila Sovereign).

Not that I’m surprised that this was a misstep in organizing against Wall Street or really any organizing that happens when the “left” decides that it’s going to “take back America for the people” (which people?!). This is part of a much larger issue, and in fact there is so much nationalistic, patriotic language of imperialism wrapped up in these types of campaigns that it’s no wonder people can’t see the erasure of existence of the First Peoples of THIS territory that happens when we get all high and mighty with the pro-America agendas, and forget our OWN complicity and accountability to the way things are today – not just the corporations and the state.

Let me be clear. I’m not against ending capitalism and I’m not against people organizing to hold big corporations accountable for the extreme damage they are causing.  Yes, we need to end globalization. What I am saying is that I have all kinds of problems when to get to “ending capitalism” we step on other people’s rights – and in this case erode Indigenous rights – to make the point. I’m not saying people did it intentionally but that doesn’t even matter – good intentions are not enough and good intentions obviously can have adverse affects. This is such a played out old record too, walking on other people’s backs to get to a mystical land of equity.  Is it really just and equitable when specific people continue to be oppressed to get there? And it doesn’t have to be done! We don’t need more occupation – we need decolonization and it’s everyone’s responsibility to participate in that because COLONIALISM AFFECTS EVERYONE. EVERYONE! Colonialism also leads to capitalism, globalization, and industrialization. How can we truly end capitalism without ending colonialism? How does doing things in the name of “America” which was created by the imposition of hierarchies of class, race, ability, gender, and sexuality help that?

I can’t get on board with the nationalism of  an “American” (or now “Canadian!”) revolution – I just can’t.  There has been too much genocide and violence for the United States and Canada to be founded and to continue to exist as nation states.  I think John Paul Montano, Anishnaabe writer captured it quite well in his “Open Letter to Occupy Wall Street Activists”:

I hope you would make mention of the fact that the very land upon which you are protesting does not belong to you – that you are guests upon that stolen indigenous land. I had hoped mention would be made of the indigenous nation whose land that is. I had hoped that you would address the centuries-long history that we indigenous peoples of this continent have endured being subject to the countless ‘-isms’ of do-gooders claiming to be building a “more just society,” a “better world,” a “land of freedom” on top of our indigenous societies, on our indigenous lands, while destroying and/or ignoring our ways of life. I had hoped that you would acknowledge that, since you are settlers on indigenous land, you need and want our indigenous consent to your building anything on our land – never mind an entire society.

I will leave you with this new art piece from Erin Konsmo (also pictured above), our fabulous intern at The Native Youth Sexual Health Network she created on “OCCUPY: THE GAME OF COLONIALISM”.  Hopefully you get the picture now.

Going to the MLK memorial dedications gave me quite a bit to think about. I struggled, a lot, with Dr. King’s messages of non violence growing up, and I am working on a piece about these different schools of thought and how they influence us. I was grateful to Xernona Clayton, for being so candid about her struggle with accepting nonviolence while studying with Dr. King, because she articulated so much of what I felt.

So imagine my surprise this morning, while checking my feeds, to see this piece from Kenyon Farrow, titled “In Defense of Brontez—and the Rest of Us Too Proud or Too Trashy to Go Down Without a Fight.” In it, Farrow describes a situation where a friend of his was subjected to homophobic comments, and what happened after the situation escalated:

[H]e and friend/bandmate Adal had left the Paradiso nightclub when two Black men with some Caribbean accent began harassing them as they left the club. Adal is not queer, but the two men, according to Brontez, assumed that they were a couple, and began calling them “batty boy” and other epithets. Finally, they made the statement, “if we were at home you’d be dead by now.”

Brontez, clearly enraged, went the fuck off. After more words were exchanged, and Brontez says he spit at the car the men were in, and then he was punched in the face. Brontez says he then hit the man’s car with his bicycle lock and they assaulted Brontez and Adal (who’s face was broken in five places). The police were called but no arrests have been made.

In a write up of the incident in the Bay Area Citizen, another prominent activist (Kevin Bynes) entered the comments section and disputed the version of facts Brontez gave, which sparked an argument – and led Farrow to reflect on how we expect people to respond to violence:

But as Brontez himself said, and I very much believe, he wasn’t going to just let that shit slide. Brontez actually states in the article what Bynes re-asserts in his comment—he didn’t expect to be threatened with violence at a place he’d frequented for years (both men live in the neighborhood where this incident took place), so I am not sure why Bynes re-states this point in his comment—unless he flat out does not believe anything at all transpired to make Brontez angry in the first place (The Bay Citizen published a second story where Adal corroborates Brontez’s assertion that the men started harassing them first). Bynes’ assertion that the club used to be a queer space but is still frequented by queers seems to ignore the realities many of us know from experience. Many of us have been at “the club” in any city USA that used to be a queer bar, and the straights who then take it over act brand fucking new and further marginalize queers who continue to go there. And since when did neighborhoods or establishments with lots of LGBT people mean they were free from homo/transphobic violence? That doesn’t make any kind of sense.

So the question for me here, and where I vehemently disagree with Bynes, is how one defines “provocation” and who judges what then is the socially acceptable response. I tend to agree with Brontez. Too often people who are targeted for violence have to have their motivations and their recollection of all the “facts” or chronology of all the events hyper-scrutinized beyond recognition if they at all do anything other than lay down and take the abuse (or in the case of sexual assault, you’re accused of lying if you don’t have any physical evidence that you fought back, or you choose to try to still (and steel) yourself to try to avoid further violence, or are simply in a state of shock). And what is more true than not, most of us, in some way, respond verbally or physically fight back.

I think Brontez was enraged by the situation and responded accordingly. But rage, as bell hooks once stated, is an appropriate response to oppression. I actually have never seen Brontez angry to the point of fighting the way he clearly must have been that night. But any of us, caught at the right place at the wrong time, may have responded similarly. People get tired of this bullshit. I am tired of it. I have had people hurl similar epithets and make threats to me. One day I may walk away. Another day, I walk right into that fire. Once, similar to what happened to Brontez—two Black men started with me, but when I didn’t run or back down, they punched my non-black friend instead—who once they engaged, thought was going to be an easier target. So I know what it means to reach that point where you say to yourself, Fuck it. I don’t give a fuck what happens today. I am not going to be disrespected and let you walk away from here thinking that shit is OK to do. Not now.

Farrow is hitting the nail on the head here, and I’ll take it a step further – sometimes, walking away or taking the high road reinforces to that person that their behavior is permissible. Because there was no get-back, and there was no come up. Perhaps this is a class influenced response – I love how Kenyon writes “too proud or too trashy,” because fighting or making a scene in public are both coded as low class behaviors. I’m still thinking on it and forming what I want to say, but for now the floor is open.

Reader Keisha tipped us to a new joint initiative between Michael Bloomberg and George Soros. The New York Times reports:

The administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, in a blunt acknowledgment that thousands of young black and Latino men are cut off from New York’s civic, educational and economic life, plans to spend nearly $130 million on far-reaching measures to improve their circumstances.

The program, the most ambitious policy push of Mr. Bloomberg’s third term, would overhaul how the government interacts with a population of about 315,000 New Yorkers who are disproportionately undereducated, incarcerated and unemployed.

To pay for the endeavor in a time of fiscal austerity, the city is relying on an unusual source: Mr. Bloomberg himself, who intends to use his personal fortune to cover about a quarter of the cost, city officials said. A $30 million contribution from Mr. Bloomberg’s foundation would be matched by that of a fellow billionaire, George Soros, a hedge fund manager, with the remainder being paid for by the city.

Starting this fall, the administration said it would place job-recruitment centers in public-housing complexes where many young black and Latino men live, retrain probation officers in an effort to reduce recidivism, establish new fatherhood classes and assess schools on the academic progress of male black and Latino students.

Talk about a jump start. While many of the experts quoted remain overwhelmed and slightly pessimistic at the turn of events, there are some really great ideas in the initiative: a focus on practical needs, like payment for participation in programs, retraining parole officers, and creating school based initiatives around the achievement gap. I hope Bloomberg and Soros can make a dent with this plan – however, they are throwing millions and millions of dollars at what is a billion dollar problem. The racial wealth gap and the opportunity gaps take an outsized toll on children of color, and the Insight Center for Community Economic Development has published dozens of studies on how everything from access to child care to the nature of low wage work contribute to many of these issues. And even if this program succeeds in NYC, is there enough political will to replicate it in needed areas?

Still, it’s easy to get overly worried about the future. Bloomberg’s other initiatives have done exceedingly well and translated to other, nationwide projects and legislation – here’s to hoping the program is successful and it reignites a national conversation on the resource gaps in our communities.

(Image Credit: New York Times)

Around April Fool’s Day, I got this tip from friend of the blog Christina:

So, (queer) (Latina) DJ VenusxGG got in a Twitter fight last week with well-known but kinda slimey bass producer/DJ Diplo. Venus accused Diplo of being imperialist in his appropriation of musical forms (something he’s been accused of lots of times) and it ended up as a pretty entertaining/interesting public discourse for the bass community.

THEN today, XLR8R (another big bass magazine) decided to tap this for their April Fools joke…except they got Angela Davis involved. Kinda sloppy.

According to Fader’s Naomi Zeichner, who documented the tweet stream, the twitter fight began after Diplo came into one of their parties and began recording part of a set on his cellphone. @Ghe20Goth1k’s issue is extremely clear:

I told @diplo to stop and he was embarrassed by now we won’t get ant [sic] credit and he keeps making $$$ I can’t pay rent lol

Now, apparently DJ Diplo has developed a reputation for cultural appropriation – a term we’ve discussed often here, without much resolution. Since culture, by nature, is fluid, it is difficult to pinpoint when an homage or inspiration ends and appropriation begins. Diplo is best known for taking the sounds of other cultures and presenting them as hip consumables for a western audience. He rose to prominence alongside collaborator M.I.A. – and interestingly enough, even that story was steeped in appropriation of the work of a woman of color to advance his own ends. Despite being friends, Diplo (née Thomas Wesley Pentz) revealed to Drew Tewksbury:

“With M.I.A., we made a pop song totally by accident,” Pentz says. “We didn’t aim to have a big record. But she’s so cool, and that resonated with people.” He loaned a baile funk beat for her song “Bucky Done Gun” and got much of the credit for producing the whole album, which he says isn’t exactly the truth. “Back then, I told people that I produced [Arular], to get them to know who I was, but that was a total lie,” Pentz says.

Just another Diplo hustle.

M.I.A. didn’t seem to mind at the time, but presaging her second release, Kala, she set the record straight about Diplo’s participation. The media deemed Diplo the “mastermind behind M.I.A.,” but she says he had little to do with Arular. When pressed to name a chief collaborator, she credited Switch.

However, the idea that Diplo was the mastermind behind Arular clearly began to grate on M.I.A. In an interview with Pitchfork she calls out the racist, sexist, and cultural assumptions being made:

M.I.A.: Yesterday I read like five magazines in the airplane– it was a nine hour flight– and three out of five magazines said “Diplo: the mastermind behind M.I.A.’s politics!” And I was wondering, does that stem from [Pitchfork]? Because I find it really bonkers.

Pitchfork: Well, it’s hard to say where it originated. We certainly have made reference to Diplo playing a part on your records, but it seems like everyone plays that up.

M.I.A.: If you read the credits, he sent me a loop for “Bucky Done Gun”, and I made a song in London, and it became “Bucky Done Gun”. But that was the only song he was actually involved in on Arular. So the whole time I’ve had immigration problems and not been able to get in the country, what I am or what I do has got a life of its own, and is becoming less and less to do with me. And I just find it a bit upsetting and kind of insulting that I can’t have any ideas on my own because I’m a female or that people from undeveloped countries can’t have ideas of their own unless it’s backed up by someone who’s blond-haired and blue-eyed. After the first time it’s cool, the second time it’s cool, but after like the third, fourth, fifth time, maybe it’s an issue that we need to talk about, maybe that’s something important, you know. [...] I don’t want the whole interview to be about this, I just really wanted to be like ‘look, if anyone’s going to get credit for helping me produce this album, it was me and Switch who co-produced this album.’ Diplo has got two tracks on there, Timbaland’s got one track, Blaqstarr’s got two tracks, but the rest of it, the bulk of it, is built out of me and Switch. And if I can’t get credit because I’m a female and everything’s going to boil down to ‘everything has to be shot out of a man,’ then I much rather it go to Switch, who did actually give me the time and actually listened to what I was saying and actually came to India and Trinidad and all these places, and actually spent time on me and actually cared about what I was doing, and actually cared about the situation I was in with not being able to get into the country and not having access to things or, you know, being able to direct this album in a totally innovative direction. I was just kind of taking what I was given, and took the circumstances I was put in. And I wanted to make the most of it. And the only person that believed in it was Switch, and he gave me the freedom to have the space and have thinking time and have the experiences or whatever and came and shared them with me.

Pitchfork: I’m a little surprised by what you’re saying, not because I don’t agree with it, but because, in a way, you seem to be ceding or maybe even resigning the marquee to Switch out of frustration. All of this attention has been put on someone else in helping you make this record, and I completely understand why that would be upsetting, but at the end of the day, no matter who produced the tracks, it still says M.I.A. on the spine of the record packaging.

M.I.A.: That’s what I’m saying. There is an issue especially with what male journalists write about me and say “this MUST have come from a guy.” I can understand that, I can follow that, that’s fine. But when female journalists as well put your work and things down to it being all coming from a man, that really fucks me up. It’s bullshit. I mean, for me especially, I felt like this is the only thing I have, and if I can stick my neck out and go for the issues and go through my life as it is, the least I can have is my creativity. And I think that’s probably the stupidest thing about it. I wish somebody did conjure the spirit out so I can change that, and now I’m going to spit some politics, I was going to be like this… fucking… whatever, the thing that I was, I wish that somebody did conjure it out. But I’m not going to give that credit, whatever my life is and whatever my lifestyle and whatever people in Sri Lanka feel is right, like somebody masterminded it. You know what I mean? I think that’s bullshit.

But that interview was back in 2007 – and in the last few years, Diplo and M.I.A.’s careers have taken huge bounds in different directions. Diplo has been on a rising trajectory – which has left a salty aftertaste in the mouths of those who perform or create similar music, but don’t get the same kind of props. So when Venus Iceberg X notes that she isn’t getting going to get credit which means Diplo gets paid and she can’t pay rent, she’s talking about that opportunity cost. Interestingly enough, it seems that quite a few people are paying that cost. Fader, in an article called “Diplo Cannot Keep You Out of the Poorhouse”, discussed the fortunes of Maluca, another artist associated with Diplo’s Mad Decent Family:

A couple years ago, Diplo met Maluca (bka Nathalie Yepez) at a karaoke night at 205 Club in New York. They dated for a while, and when they broke up she played him the music she’d been working on and became a part of his Mad Decent family. She released a song with Mad Decent and a mixtape on her own, hung out at the mausoleum in Philly and helped clean it up.

Last week in Sally Singer’s revamped T Magazine, Maluca bemoaned that in spite of her high-profile affiliations (she just toured with Robyn, who commissioned plenty of Diplo production for her Body Talk albums), she’s hard for cash. She told Marcus Chang that, “It can be really expensive for an opening act. I had to pay for my travel, my manager came with me, who helped out with a lot of the expenses, but obviously I have to reimburse that money eventually. I got paid a performance fee, but it didn’t cover the costs for renting equipment, DJ, hair and makeup, my outfits.”

She’s dropping a series of Wepasodes dealing with being “fly on a budget” – recreating ODB’s food stamps run, explaining that she’s an unsigned artist and the costs associated with promotion aren’t always recouped. Juxtaposing images of her walking catwalks at fashion shows with her swiping her EBT card, Maluca tries to paint a picture of the decidedly unglamorous parts of a high profile career:

Maluca: Yo, it’s rough out there. People think because you’re on magazines, because you work with this producer or that producer, you got money – I ain’t got no money! I got four dollars in my pocket, I live with my mom…and I want you to see, what its really like, out here in the real world.

So maybe Venus Iceberg X is right in not trusting that an association with Diplo will lead to massive checks. But she takes the issue one step further – and calls Diplo out on imperialism:

Diplo (in red) starts saying some interesting things – calling himself an ally to Venus, and then inferring he doesn’t fit into racial or cultural categories (#columbusneedsapassport – we need to revisit that at some part):

It’s a fascinating conversation, complicated by a lot of factors. Race is one, but cultural imperialism, positioning, and authority also arise. This situation could be explained by the mercurial whims of the music industry – what propels some artists into the collective consciousness, while allowing other, equally talented artists to stay stuck in the cultural kiddie pool? Part of it is timing, part of it is management of brand and funds – and part of it is our societal structures that ascribes authority to certain groups of people over others. When we talk about cultural appropriation and musical imperialism, we’re ultimately asking who gets to be the arbiter of what is cool. Baile funk was doing its own thing pre-Diplo – but did it only make it to the States because there was a white face to make the sound more acceptable?

DJs are always tapping influences to create new soundscapes – it’s a part of the business. But the structural inequalities that manifest in the music industry, in many ways do have a common root: the violence of revulsion. Minh-ha was discussing blackface, when she explained it “highlights the privileged universal empty point that white bodies continue to occupy even in this so-called postracial moment, and in so doing, it positions racial difference against whiteness, as the other to whiteness” – but that could just as easily be applied to Diplo, despite his simultaneous embrace and rejection of his own whiteness and what that means in terms of cultural positioning. Would Diplo be Diplo if he wasn’t white? Are artists like Maluca and Venus Iceberg X struggling because people aren’t feeling their music without a white lens to make it safer? Racism and cultural imperialism are not the sole controlling factor for success and failure in the industry – but it would be disingenuous to pretend they aren’t a persistent bass line.

Wendi has more on this, but I want to end by pointing out how even trying to have conversations like this in the music industry can lead to marginalization. For their April Fool’s Joke, XL8R ran this post (snatched from the Google Cache):

Angela Davis Taps Ghe20 Gothik’s Venus X as a Guest Lecturer

* Words: August Howard

Earlier this morning, legendary political activist and celebrated scholar Angela Davis announced an upcoming two-day conference entitled Never Stop: Revolutionary Tactics in a Postmodern, Pansexual Society. Scheduled to take place on April 22 and 23 at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Never Stop will be kicked off by a special keynote address from Venus Iceberg X of NYC’s Ghe20 Gothik party. Says Davis, “Venus X is truly an incredible young woman and a touchstone for her entire generation. During my time working with the Black Panthers, the Communist party, and various other political movements, we certainly struck some blows on behalf of the oppressed masses, but Venus’ pioneering usage of hardstyle, screwed Top 40, YouTube rips, and animated GIFs is truly sticking it to ‘The Man’ and taking the struggle to another level.”

Venus X was similarly effusive in her praise of Davis. “Angela Davis is, like, mad cool. She was the founding member of the #BadGirlsClub, ya know? I also heard she totally loves vogue house.” As for the content of her upcoming speech, Venus said that she plans to tackle a variety of issues. “I already STR8 blew up the spot on Diplo a.k.a. Columbus Part II on Twitter, so U know I’m not about 2 hold back. #GAMECHANGER. I might be broke because of all the str8, white, imperialist, racist, and sexist pieces of shit out there, but the system can’t silence me anymore. Thanks 2 me and my crew, ppl are finally starting to #WAKEUP.”

Plans for the keynote address to be livestreamed by the FADER were still being confirmed at press time.

Commenter Diane E wrote:

Diane E.
Wow- this is pretty disrespectful- goes beyond april fools’ for sure. But now we see how all the privileged white boys own shit and stick together in all facets of the industry!!! even the ‘indie’ ones!!! Educate yourselves with some Audre Lorde before you go mix some cumbia and ‘neo-baile’ css funk for all your hipster fans to watch and not dance to! #neoculturalimperalists

(Image Credits: Bao Nguyen via Brooklyn Vegan, Diplo/Venus twitter images via Fader)

A first grade teacher in Paterson, New Jersey was recently put on administrative leave after she took to the internet to vent her frustrations about work. According to NBC New York, the teacher was suspended for “allegedly making Facebook comments that her six-year-old students are “future criminals” and referring to herself as a “warden,” according to school officials.”

Much of the handwringing over at Jezebel concerned the fate of the poor, poor teacher who probably just had a bad day. At Jezebel, Margaret Hartmann concludes her piece by saying:

It’s horrible to hear about an adult disrespecting the children in her care, but it also casts a bad light on teachers, who for the most part, got into the profession because they want to help children succeed. But that’s not news — that’s their job, and they do it every single day.

Are teachers definitely our undersung heroes? Yes.  Do they often work long hours at thankless tasks in order to make their children’s lives better?  Oh yes.

But do all teachers treat all children the same? No, no, no.

My radar pinged when I heard the term criminals employed, so I checked the demographics of Paterson.  And my suspicions were borne out.  According to Neighborhood Scout:

Paterson is a blue-collar town, with 35.4% of people working in blue-collar occupations, while the average in America is just 24.7%. Overall, Paterson is a city of sales and office workers, service providers, and production and manufacturing workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Paterson who work in office and administrative support jobs (18.20%), sales jobs (9.45%), and building maintenance and grounds keeping (6.25%).

The population of Paterson has a very low overall level of education: only 8.19% of people over 25 hold a 4-year college degree or higher.

The per capita income in Paterson in 2000 was $13,257, which is low income relative to New Jersey and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $53,028 for a family of four.

Paterson is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Paterson home come from a variety of different races and ancestries. People of Hispanic or Latino origin are the most prevalent group in Paterson, accounting for 50.17% of the city’s residents (people of Hispanic or Latino origin can be of any race). The most prevalent race in Paterson is White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Paterson include Italian and Jamaican.

Paterson also has a high percentage of its population that was born in another country: 32.79%.

The most common language spoken in Paterson is Spanish. Some people also speak English.

But that’s just a coincidence, right?

Maybe this was just a bad day for this teacher – but the problem is that bad days in public serving positions can have huge, lingering consequences.  And from what other administrators and school advocates are saying, the suspended teacher wasn’t the only one.

The New York Times provides more background information, explaining:

Irene Sterling, president of the Paterson Education Fund, a nonprofit group that supports the local school community, said parents were angry about the teacher’s comments because anyone, including her own students, could have read the negative characterizations. She said it highlighted a lack of commitment by some teachers. “It’s horrible,” she said. “And unfortunately, I don’t think she’s the only teacher in Paterson who thinks that way.”

The Paterson district, with 28,000 students and 2,425 teachers, has long been one of New Jersey’s most troubled school systems; it was taken over by the state in 1991 because of fiscal mismanagement and poor academic performance.

And NBC NY quotes the Board of Education president who makes other saddening disclosures:

Paterson Board of Education President Thomas Best said the alleged comments were “disheartening and unacceptable.”

“I think it’s extremely disappointing that we have teachers in the classroom who are responsible for ensuring that their students have a bright future not even giving those children a chance,” he said.

It’s also not the first time a teacher has made such comments about students, he said.

“Overall we have a good teaching force, but I’ve heard comments like this before,” said Best. “It’s not on Facebook, but a lot of times the kids are referred to as ‘animals.’”

If we like to believe the tales that it just takes one teacher to make a difference, one shining light acting as a beacon out of the darkness for children struggling in school and in life, then why is it so hard to apply that logic to teachers who make negative comments? That their dismissal could act like a wrecking ball? That some teachers could negatively impact the lives of their students?

When you call a six-year old a “future criminal,” you are speeding that child along a path that is tough to escape – the school to prison pipeline.  Impacting low income students of color the hardest, here’s how the pipeline manifests in different communities.

From the New York Civil Liberties Union:

The School to Prison Pipeline (STPP) is a nationwide system of local, state, and federal education and public safety policies that pushes students out of school  and into the criminal justice system. The system disproportionately targets youth of color and youth with disabilities. Inequities in areas such as school discipline, policing practices, high-stakes testing, wealth and healthcare distribution, school “grading” systems, and the prison-industrial complex all contribute to the Pipeline.

The STPP operates directly and indirectly. Directly, schools send their students into the Pipeline through zero tolerance policies, and involving the police in minor discipline incidents. All too often school rules are enforced through metal detectors, pat-downs and frisks, arrests, and referrals to the juvenile justice system. And schools pressured to raise graduation and testing numbers can sometimes artificially achieve this by pushing out low-performing students into GED programs and the juvenile justice system.

Indirectly, schools push students towards the criminal justice system by excluding them from the learning environment and isolating them from their peer groups through suspension, expulsion, ineffective retention policies, transfers, and high-stakes testing requirements. [...]

Suspensions indirectly feed the Pipeline

• A child who has been suspended is more likely to fall behind in school, be retained a grade, drop out of high school, commit a crime, and become incarcerated as an adult[3]

• The best demographic indicators of children who will be suspended are not the type or severity of the crime, but the color of their skin, their special education status, the school they go to, and whether they have been suspended before[4]

From California Rural Legal Assistance:

CRLA has identified educational disparities in our communities of service that affect Latino children and children of limited English proficiency, in particular.  When school- and district-wide statistics relating to discipline, class assignment, dropout rate, graduation and enrollment in college are tracked by race, ethnicity and language it is clear that a disproportionate number of Latinos and limited English speaking children are not succeeding in California’s rural schools.  Education experts and advocates throughout the country have acknowledged similar disparities affecting other children of color and children enrolled in special education programs and numerous studies have demonstrated a positive correlation between failure in school and a higher chance of ending up in the criminal justice system and called this trend the “school to prison pipeline.”  CRLA is committed to addressing these disparities which result, not only in an increased chance of incarceration, but limit the work and life opportunities for these children.

From the LA Progressive, reporting on “Plugging Pasedena’s School-to-Prison Pipeline“:

“A black boy born in 2001 in America has a one in three chance of going to prison,” said moderator Saudeka Shabazz. “For a Latino boy, the odds are one in six.”

The school-to-prison pipeline is a set of policies combined with failing institutions that lead young men of color to prison or violent early death, according to Shabazz, a Berkeley grad who worked in gang intervention before becoming an outreach coordinator for the Children’s Defense Fund. She cited two early factors that put children into the pipeline:

• Health and mental health access: “Low birth weigh children often have learning delays or disabilities,” she said. “And poor mothers get less prenatal care, which leads to these problems.”

• Early childhood education: Children who get early education are higher achievers later on in life, according to Shabazz. “Teachers mark children early if they can’t keep up.”

Poverty works hand-in-glove with racial discrimination to put children of color behind the eight ball long before they reach high school.

From Reclaiming Futures’ report on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s publication “”Suspended Education: Urban Middle Schools in Crisis:”

[A]fter reviewing over 30 years of data from nearly 10,000 middle schools nationwide, it concludes that suspension is over-used as a disciplinary tool, and that youth of color — black males especially — are suspended far out of proportion to their numbers.

The authors looked specifically at types of suspensions where school staff could exercise discretion — incidents of fighting, disruptive behavior, and so on. They analyzed how many youth were suspended and broke down differences by race/ethnicity, and gender. What they learned was appalling: suspension rates have nearly doubled for students of all races/ethnicities since 1973; African American, Latino, and American Indian youth were suspended at higher rates than White youth; six percent of all black students were suspended in 1973, compared with 15 percent in 2006; and a breathtaking 28.3% of black males were suspended in 2006, compared with 10% of White males.

When researchers looked at the 18 largest urban school districts, they found that most “had several schools that suspended more than 50% of a given racial/gender group.” They even found schools that suspended more than half of their White and Hispanic female students. [...]

The disparate impact on youth of color, and black youth in particular, makes this a civil rights issue, the authors say. Here’s why:

Research on student behavior, race, and discipline has found no evidence that African-American over-representation in school suspension is due to higher rates of misbehavior (McCarthy and Hoge, 1987; McFadden et al., 1992; Shaw & Braden, 1990; Wu et al., 1982). Skiba et al. (2002) reviewed racial and gender disparities in school punishments in an urban setting, and found that White students were referred to the office significantly more frequently for offenses that appear more capable of objective documentation (e.g., smoking, vandalism, leaving without permission, and obscene language). African-American students, however, were referred more often for disrespect, excessive noise, threat, and loitering - behaviors that would seem to require more subjective judgment on the part of the referring agent. In short, there is no evidence that racial disparities in school discipline can be explained through higher rates of disruption among African-American students.

And from Fairtest.org’s position paper on No Child Left Behind and The School to Prison Pipeline, released March 2011:

In the nine years since Congress reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), startling growth has occurred in what is often described as the “School-to-Prison Pipeline”1 – the use of educational policies and practices that have the effect of pushing students, especially students of color and students with disabilities, out of schools and toward the juve- nile and criminal justice systems. This phenomenon has proved incredibly damaging to students, families, and communities. It has also proved tremendously costly, not only in terms of lost human potential but also in dollars, as states struggle with the soaring costs of police, courts, and incarceration amidst continuing economic difficulties. Yet far too little emphasis is being placed upon the pipeline crisis, its causes, and its consequences within most of the discussion around federal education policy and the reauthorization of the ESEA.
The swelling of the pipeline has many causes. But as Congress works to reauthorize the ESEA, it is essential to examine how NCLB itself has contributed to the pipeline phenomenon. Congress designed NCLB to hold schools accountable for student performance, correctly paying specific attention to differentials in outcomes by race, socioeconomic status, disability, and English language proficiency. However, the law focused its accountability frame- work almost exclusively on students’ standardized test performance, placed punitive sanctions on struggling schools without providing enough tools to actually improve their performance, and failed to address significant funding and resource disparities among our nation’s schools. As a result, NCLB had the effect of encouraging low-performing schools to meet benchmarks by narrowing curriculum and instruction and de-prioritizing the educational opportunities of many students. Indeed, No Child Left Behind’s “get-tough” approach to accountability has led to more students being left even further behind, thus feeding the dropout crisis and the School-to-Prison Pipeline. [...]

The sharp rise in the use of all of these practices in communities across the country over the last decade represents a prioritization of swift and severe punishment of students over the thoughtful consideration of how to better meet their educational needs, such as through academic and disciplinary interventions, counseling services, health services, special education programs, and other “wraparound” services. As a result, huge numbers of students have been put on a path to academic failure that is difficult to interrupt and often has devastating long-term consequences.

Teachers are often unjustly blamed for the failures of an overburdened and underfunded system.  However, let’s not pretend that all students are on a level and equal playing field, or that racism and perception of a student’s background can’t play a role in how we describe, view, or treat these kids.  First graders are six years old.  Six. Years. Old. No one’s life is set in stone at any age, much less the tender childhood years.  So let’s take a second to think of the children before immediately jumping to the teacher’s defense.

(Image Credit: The Youth Justice Coalition via Suspension Stories)

Like, late night I’m on a first class flight
The only brother in sight the flight attendant catch fright
I sit down in my seat, 2C
She approach officially talkin about, “Excuse me”
Her lips curl up into a tight space
Cause she don’t believe that I’m in the right place
Showed her my boarding pass, and then she sort of gasped
All embarrassed put an extra lime on my water glass
An hour later here she comes by walkin past
“I hate to be a pest but my son would love your autograph”
(Wowwww.. Mr. Nigga I love you, I have all your albums!..) [...]

For us especially, us most especially
A Mr Nigga VIP jail cell just for me
“If I knew you were coming I’d have baked a cake”
Just got some shoe-polish, painted my face
They say they want you successful, but then they make it stressful
You start keepin pace, they start changin up the tempo

—”Mr. Nigga,” Mos Def featuring Q-Tip

Recently, I was invited to speak at a major feminist event.

It was for a cause I cared deeply about, and I would share the stage with some of the best recognized figures in feminism.

And yet…I hesitated.

Less than three years ago, I would have jumped at this opportunity, delighted to be invited, honored to be included, proud to make my contribution. But that was then.

Now, I read the email with a healthy dose of suspicion.  Why did they want to invite me? They mentioned receiving my name on referral from another marquee named feminist, which made me wonder why the referral was needed.  Did they really need more speakers at this late date? Or did they need to add some color to yet another stage that was sure to be full of white women?

I also instantly felt guilty.  Was I projecting? Over reacting? After all, this was a short notice event. Isn’t the cause more important than my waffling feelings about mainstream, movement oriented feminism? Why was I instantly suspicious of their intent? Can’t I give people the benefit of the doubt for once?

The emotional see-saw over my decisions to participate in feminist focused events has been my constant companion for close to a year or so now, but it took on a new dimension when Jessica Valenti decided to leave Feministing.  That night, I was at a cocktail meetup, when one of my friends grabbed my hand and asked if I heard the news.  I’m a lot more removed from the blogosphere at large these days (our transformation is all consuming at the moment) so I hadn’t seen or heard about the post.  My friend, who is another African American woman, told me to take a look as soon as I got home.  “Basically,” she said, “it was all about her this whole time -she got hers so fuck us!”

So Jessica Valenti’s official departure from Feministing (and Renee’s subsequent response) is why I was actually spurred to write this post, but the problem goes back far longer than just that.

Before we begin, I would like to separate the issue as it stands – representation in mainstream, funded, capital F Feminism, from Jessica Valenti.  It is a bit difficult to do this – after all, Jessica’s site boasts that she was tagged the “poster girl for third-wave feminism” by Salon. To become a symbol of a movement (intentionally or unintentionally) means to also absorb all of the baggage that comes along with being held up as the symbol. And oh, there is baggage.

First, the idea that the third wave has mastered inclusion problems is sadly mistaken, since many of us surfing this new wave still see the rehashing that happens time and time again of second wave and first wave problems. However, it is absolutely amazing how often we see the same problems repeat themselves time and time again – particularly in the blogosphere.

Second, the idea that any one of us can represent the many is inherently flawed. It doesn’t matter who we’re talking about – no one can fully represent the whole of who we are and our varied thoughts and feelings. The trouble is that our current system requires exactly that – certain groups, in order to access a seat at the table, a representative will be assigned. Some folks would call that an attempt at diversity – but it is a nefarious double bind for those of us who get the nod. To refuse to participate may mean that voice is never represented, that the voices are the underrepresented are once again unvoiced, unheard, and perhaps unknown. Unfortunately, absence can be interpreted as a reinforcement of the status quo – if women of color are not present, then the uniformed interpret this to mean we have nothing to say. Or, even worse, it is a reinforcement that critical feminist theorists of color do not exist.

However, to accept the position also means to be pressed into the token spot. To often be the only person versed in issues pertinent to women of color. To have to change what you want to say or do or talk or think about because someone else on the panel just said something so egregious (and something quietly accepted as truth) that you know have to challenge their fucked up worldview.

So, to that end I wanted to share some stories from my life being sporadically dropped into feminist circles and what I have observed there. My hope is that because I’ve accrued some (read: precious little) currency in mainstream circles, that people will seriously reflect on the feminist status quo and recognize the way in which this space encourages tokenization and exploitation.

A Ms. Nigga VIP Panel Spot, Just for me!

I get asked to be on a lot of panels. Normally, being on a panel is a great way to attend a kick ass conference for free. So when I was first starting out, was thrilled to jump on a panel. Exposure, great networking – what’s not to like?

Now, dozens of panels later, I read every panel invitation as if I were trying to break The Da Vinci code. That practice started when I was on a panel a few years back. I had been invited to sit on a panel about women and media, and I thought they asked me to come to represent the digital sector. And perhaps the organizers did. But one of my co-panelists decided she was going to talk about how women didn’t recognize how good we had it. Everytime a panelist or audience member brought up a barrier to women in the industry, she responded by talking about how many gains women had made.

Finally I spoke up. “You said things are so much better for women- but you are only talking about white women. Outside of Oprah, where’s our progress, on or off screen?”

Not only did this woman not answer my question, she acted as if I had called her a racist. For some reason, she felt the need to inform the room about how she attends vibrant multicultural celebrations in her hometown that “celebrate differences.”

Now, what the fuck did that have to do with me pointing out that she had erased the experiences of women of color in the entertainment industry in all of her responses? Nothing. But I don’t think she was responding to my question – she was responding to my tokenized presence in that environment. It was instant defense mode – “let me prove how not racist I am,” not “let’s examine the disparity that exists when one says women and really means white women.”

Earlier this year, I opted to join a feminist media luncheon. I accepted and planned out my statements – I really wanted to stress the opportunities in the new media space, and encourage the young women to branch out from standard “feminist” conversations and instead go into other types of spaces and apply feminist concepts to the general threads there.

And the beginning of the conversation went well. However the third panelist, who arrived a bit later, started changing the tone of the conversation. It isn’t that this speaker intentionally set out to minimize the experiences of anyone who isn’t in line with the mainstream version of feminism – but her second-wave swagger and broad sweeping statements had the same effect.

Then I found myself at a crossroads – do I start talking about what I intended to and let her statements go unchallenged? Or do I once again have to represent for folks who aren’t in the room, to people who would most likely repeat the mistakes of their fore-mothers because they never learned anything different?

So once again, I swallowed what I wanted to say and instead talked about race, class, and structural injustice.

I felt like I had to take the loss for the greater good of team POC.  Why? Because tokens are inherently disempowered, no matter how much we want things to be different. To not represent is equally as painful as the knowledge that I am silencing myself when I do so. But these are the terrible choices we are forced to endure when people are willing to accept tokens in lieu of equity.

The Price We All Pay

Occasionally, we’ve run pieces about the cost of racism on Racialicious, many cross posted from our friends at Resist Racism.  One of my favorites, “The Cost of Racism” talks about how white supremacy has convinced itself of its own correctness (emphasis mine):

White people are raised in an environment in which they are regularly assured of their superiority. Their experts are white, like them. And they often live in segregation, thus denying them the opportunity to be exposed to other viewpoints.

What happens in a culture of white supremacy? White people assume that they are the experts. Even in the absence of any history, education or knowledge.

The most blatant example of this is when a white person (typically a white man) is pontificating about a subject and is challenged when a person of color expresses an opinion.  The white person will assume that the person of color knows nothing about the subject and will strive to “correct” him or her.  I’ve had this happen when a white person who was not in my field was speaking with authority about something in my field.  They never assume that you might actually be knowledgeable on the subject, nor do they assume that you might have professional credentials.  (I’d also note that this is a very common experience on the part of people of color.  And I recently heard a anecdote about this happening to a writer of color with a white man who was discussing her book.  Only he didn’t know she had written it.)

It does not cross their minds.  This is racism. [...]

When people are not regularly exposed to alternative viewpoints, and when other viewpoints are not carefully considered but instead immediately discounted, the end result is a people who lack the ability to think critically. Because they never learned to consider all the evidence.  They learned only who they need to listen to.

And it is this that we bump up against, time and time again.

Here’s another story.  I get an email from a writer who wants to quote me in a piece for an international newspaper about misogyny and hip-hop. This person stresses what a good opportunity for exposure this would be for me and my blog.  This person does not mention the extensive writing I’ve done on hip-hop, feminism, and everything in between.  This person did not appear to notice that I had already written extensively about the song and video in question.  Hell, this person didn’t appear to realize that I had already written extensively for the same international newspaper they were writing for, across a couple different sections.

So I ignored the email (which is easy for me to do, since I get about an email a minute most days).  But this person persisted, and emailed the person who referred me to ask for a proper introduction. In the magazine writing world, one of the first things you learn is that introductions are golden – here is a trusted person emailing someone you want to get in touch with saying “Hey, can you take the time to talk to this person?”  Why the initial offer was refused is beyond me.

But, the referral person sent me the whole email chain from this writer. And the writer’s initial email was to the referral, with a nice gushy line about their work and how they admired them, and would they please consider commenting. The referral noted she was not the best person to answer this question, and sent that person on to me.

The person who referred me is a white, well-known feminist that does NOT write about hip-hop. She’s a generalist, and she writes about a bit of everything.  Which brings me back to Resistance’s point above: why, if one is writing about hip hop and misogyny, would you go to a generalist, rather than an expert?

Why would you seek the opinion of someone who rarely, if ever writes about hip hop on a piece about hip hop? This person didn’t need to quote me as an expert.  They could have quoted Renina. Or any of the Crunk Feminists.  Or the R.N. Bradley, the Red Clay Scholar. Or any of the ladies at Clutch. Or Tricia Rose. Or Elizabeth Mendez Berry. Or Joan Morgan. Or Gwyndolyn Pough. Or look at men who identify as feminist or do feminist work – what about Byron Hurt who created a whole documentary on hip-hop and gender? What about Mark Anthony Neal? Need someone more well known? What about Melissa Harris-Perry?

Or, if this person is such a huge fan of mainstream feminism, why not reach out to the ladies at Feministing.com, the largest feminist hub in the blogosphere, and holler at Samhita, who is a hip hop head AND has the high profile position of Executive Editor? Why not Rose, who has also written extensively about hip-hop? And these are just the folks I can think of off the top of my head.

It’s the invisibility that burns. Amazing writing from all kinds of people is only a search box  away – yet, since we are not filed under “listen to,” we are ignored. And we are ignored in favor of people who will admit to not being experts on the topic or not having certain types of experiences.  This is when we start moving into erasure territory.  It isn’t that we are not out there, putting work into the public consciousness.  It’s that our words don’t count until they fall from the lips of a white girl.

I can only speak to my particular areas, which heavily focus on race and class.  But there are a lot of folks silenced because they don’t fit the profile La Lubu so helpfully outlines on Feministe:

“The feminist blogosphere is: young, but not too young (25-35); mostly white (and of northern european extraction); middle to upper-middle class; highly educated (always degreed, usually grad school or law degree); able-bodied and healthy; non-religious (but typically with a Protestant or Jewish background); childfree by choice (also not a caretaker of an elderly or disabled adult); body size from thin to very thin; cisgender; heterosexual; conventionally feminine/pretty; fashionable; not employed in a nontraditional (>25% female participation) workforce; native English speaking (family of origin usually native English speaking also); non-indigenous and several generations removed from immigrant ancestors; raised in a nuclear family (either intact or divorced—but not “unwed” or extended family); lives in a large metropolis; favors capitalism; unmarried/unpartnered (meaning: no formal or legal ties of responsibility to a partner); never incarcerated (no family incarcerated either); and has plenty of personal contact with people in positions of actual power (gets invited to policymaking meetings/summits).”

I hit a lot of these myself:  27 years old (started here when I was about 23 or 24), able bodied, childfree by choice, cisgender, heterosexual, native English speaking, large metropolis dwelling, neutral on capitalism, currently unmarried, never incarcerated, and recently, I discovered that I’ve been thrust into contact with a lot of people in positions of actual power.  But the other things, that I don’t fit?  They figure prominently into how others perceive me.

Much Ado About Book Deals

The term “book deal” has become short hand for a whole host of other things, most specifically how the words of some women are valued over others.  It’s also kind of seen as a low-level litmus test for “making it.”  If a person without a book deal criticized someone with a book deal, they would normally be tagged as “jealous,” angry that they don’t have one of these coveted agreements that vaults you into expert status. The other side of that criticism is more quiet, kind of a whisper, but it persists nonetheless: “If your writing was better, you would have a book deal too.”

So let’s talk about book deals, shall we?

I write in this space having contributed to two anthologies, multiple magazines, dozens of online outlets, and am about to pen my first foreward for a friend’s book about the Black Blogosphere. I am also delinquent in an academic chapter I owe to another friend about the Intersectional Internet. (If you’re reading, Doc Dre, I swear I’ll get it done, Jessica Yee as my 11th hour witness!)

The first time I was informed about the politics of book deals was 2008. The first time I was offered a book deal based on the Racialicious blog was also 2008 (and, to my knowledge, that offer still stands).  The first time I was introduced to a book agent was 2009, and the first time I was offered a personal book deal was 2010.

I still haven’t written a fucking book.

So, I say this to diffuse the she’s just jealous allegations by saying it outright – I could have a book deal, tomorrow, if I wanted and it would be on the shelves by winter. But I have not committed to a book yet.

This is partially due to (1) the politics surrounding book deals and (2) my complete and utter lack of interest in penning a memoir.

The latter reason should be fairly obvious to long time readers – I am very careful about revealing personal information about myself, and I would prefer to keep as much of my life as possible private.  Memoirs are super popular in the publishing world right now, so that’s what folks tend to push me toward.

The discussion of politics…well, let’s go back in time for a bit.

Back in 2008, I was a complete and total n00b, honored to attend my very first conference, Women, Action, and the Media.  It was the first time I had ever spoken on a panel before, so I was grateful to have Carmen steering the ship and Wendi Muse in the shotgun position.  Up until that point, we weren’t super involved in the feminist space – Carmen had been featured in Bitch Magazine and received a wave of (well-deserved) attention for her effortless discussion of race and gender issues.  Still, we were definitely the race kids invited to the gender party, so we didn’t really know what kind of space we stepped into.

And what I recall most about the time was how many friends we made.  Andi Ziesler and Lisa Jervis from Bitch Magazine introduced themselves – they proved to be great friends early on.  Bitch published my first (and favorite) magazine piece and Lisa Jervis floated my name in a lot of circles, which allowed me to rack out freelance credits later.  The most of the Feministing crew was there and they put on a fabulous dinner to promote their then new direction and site redesign.  I met tons of people, and everywhere, there was the feel of opportunity.  I remember being told, twice, to hit the after party after the evening’s official festivities close.  “Two people got book deals last year!” I was informed, though I appear to have forgotten who told me this.  No matter.

Since Carmen, Wendi, and I were also interested in caucusing with the Women of Color contingent at the conference (see this link), we ended up splitting our time between two events – the Feministing dinner and the QWOC and friends party, ultimately skipping the after party.  (This is a *really* abbreviated version of events, mind – I’m only telling the book deal centric bits of the story.)

That same day, Wendi and I had attended a pre-caucus lunch where we found out that a pretty awesome writer, Adele Nieves, had sat down with a publisher called Seal Press to pitch her idea for an anthology.  From what I can recall about the initial pitch, it was about bringing marginalized voices to the center of feminist discourse – a book on feminism without the usual suspects.  However, the person who sat down with her completely missed why such a book was needed, and informed Nieves that the book just wouldn’t sell without a brand name feminist, like Jessica Valenti.

So, then came the fallout. And much of the discussions afterward explained why the ideas of book deals became so central to a lot of these debates.

• There are issues of knowing the people involved, and friendship, and wanting to believe the best about your friend’s intentions. (See the comments for why that didn’t hold up.)
• Some issues, around the same time, about ideas, credit, plagiarism, and the co-opting the work of women of color (and with defensive response here)
• Other issues, around the same time, on women of color engaging in “negative discourse” (and drama around belatedly discovered racist images here)
• On the people being protected, and why it’s always the same old, same old
• Discussions on the unbearable whiteness of feminism
• Holly going hard on why “It’s a Jungle in Here Too” and her words, which prompted me to think along the same lines:

Just add my name to the list of those who are no longer sure if we can simply “take feminism back.” Or even if it’s worth it. It’s not like there aren’t other movements out there that actually respect women — that are led by women and folks of many other genders, that work to improve women’s lives. This exodus from single-issue politics has been happening for a long time. At the same time, I want to believe that change is possible. I want to give people the benefit of the doubt. I know mistakes are made, and I know mistakes can be repaired — even mistakes that highlight what I believe is the single worst problem inside of “the feminist movement” today.

• And another Holly sentiment, quoted for truth:

Look, we all have a problem here in the feminist blogosphere. I hope that all of you bloggers will agree with me on this problem: some feminist bloggers have access to a bigger megaphone than others, and you have to be deluded to think that’s based on anything remotely resembling a meritocracy. I’m sorry — no matter how talented you are, how good a writer, how intellectually sharp and beautifully passionate, there are other things about you that play a very significant role in how you’re heard, who hears you, whether you get heard at all. That is the tough shit about the ugly world we live in — it’s not truly fair to anyone, because true fairness would be getting evaluated solely on your own merits. Nobody is — but of course, some people get the long end of the stick, and others the short end. Others are marginalized. If you don’t get that, please go read some racism 101 somewhere, okay?

(It’s interesting to note – I miss Holly’s work. She left the feminist blogosphere – like many women on the losing side of many of these battles -  to focus on other, real world based projects.)

It really isn’t fun to dredge up all the things that went on, particularly as I’d rather not think about it for too long, but it is necessarily to do so.  Because people forget.  Time went on, and this thing I remember so well as a pivotal turning point in the feminist blogosphere is history.  Digital dust. Which is why Irin at Jezebel had no idea why so many people could see where Renee was going with her piece – all this back story was forgotten.

So it’s not about the book deal. It’s about all the issues tied up in it – access to power, marketability,  the transmission of ideas challenges, (perceived and otherwise) to mainstream norms – all kinds of things.  I hang in a lot of mainstream spaces, and I have figured out the formula that unlocks things like book deals and radio appearances and television appearances and speaking gigs.  So please believe, I know the game.  And despite the fact that some of us are able to make it, the deck is stacked. Over on Jezebel, someone inquired about why Jessica received a lot of criticism for her work, and Carmen and I received much much less for similar work.  After explaining that the race space is dramatically underfunded and underexposed when compared to feminism, I said:

While I have been blessed and honored to have many of the same opportunities as many of my white, female contemporaries, ultimately I am not the face people think of when they think feminism. I could probably eke out a living there, but only as second or third string. The stars tend to fit a certain mold. That’s not a diss on Jessica (it’s really hard to talk about these things when you actually know folks) but it’s kind of like trying to get a job as an actress. Yes, you can do it if you aren’t conventionally attractive and you can even have a fun, character driven career. But you aren’t getting the best opportunities or top billing or top dollar. The conversations around book deals and such sounds like professional sour grapes, but it is actually folks protesting a system that don’t see my words as valuable as Jessicas – for a thousand and one reasons from marketing to societal structures.

The internet is littered with reasons why so many WOC opt out (of the blogosphere format anyway) – hell, the feminism tag on Racialicious should really be named “feminist drama.” I poached Thea Lim and Jessica Yee away from a feminist mag for this bullshit.

I hate that this is resting on the feet of Jessica, because this problem didn’t begin with her and won’t end with her. But I can understand feeling some rage at seeing that pattern play out yet again.

My entire piece for Jessica Yee’s Feminism for Real was based in this internal conflict, and unfortunately, I haven’t arrived at a solution within myself. The event I referenced at the beginning of the piece? I declined. Over the weekend I accepted two panel invitations. One read:

We love the voice and leadership you bring to the feminist movement, and we hope you will join us to have a dynamic, smart, and rollicking good conversation with Gloria Steinem, that will rock people’s socks and challenge the notion that feminism is just about white women above a certain age.

For their sake, I hope they understand what they just asked for.

—

Want to Keep Reading?

Lisa Factora-Borchers – Accepting Kyriarchy, Not Apologies

Latoya Peterson – The Or vs. The And – Women of Color and Mainstream Feminism

Mai’a – We Don’t Need Another Anti-Racism 101

What is the tipping point for a revolution?

Normally, there are many different things brewing – a political climate, social unrest, gross inequality that all contribute to turn a nation inside out. Yet many reports want to trace a revolution back to a single, definitive event. Crispus Attucks is considered the first martyr of the American Revolution, Rosa Parks is widely considered the catalyst of the US civil rights movement, her actions sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and Mohamed Bouaziz is the name behind the sudden surge in interest in self-immolation.

Bouaziz’s last protest made its way to cameras, which then spread the news that Tunisia was on the cusp of a revolt. Al Jazeera frames the story:

In a country where officials have little concern for the rights of citizens, there was nothing extraordinary about humiliating a young man trying to sell fruit and vegetables to support his family.

Yet when Mohamed Bouazizi poured inflammable liquid over his body and set himself alight outside the local municipal office, his act of protest cemented a revolt that would ultimately end President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s 23-year-rule.

Local police officers had been picking on Bouazizi for years, ever since he was a child. For his family, there is some comfort that their personal loss has had such stunning political consequences.

“I don’t want Mohamed’s death to be wasted,” Menobia Bouazizi, his mother, said. “Mohamed was the key to this revolt.”

And yet later, it is revealed that Bouazizi was one of many who had started to sound the alarm – an alarm suppressed by government officials and widely ignored by media under governmental control:

Mohamed Bouazizi was not the first Tunisian to set himself alight in an act of public protest.

Abdesslem Trimech, to name one of many cases occurred without any significant media attention, set himself ablaze in the town of Monastir on March 3 after facing bureaucratic hindrance in his own work as a street vendor.

Neither was it evident that the protests that begin in Sidi Bouzid would spread to other towns. There had been similar clashes between police and protesters in the town of Ben Guerdane, near the border with Libya, in August.

The key difference in Sidi Bouzid was that locals fought to get news of what was happening out, and succeeded.

“We could protest for two years here, but without videos no one would take any notice of us,” Horchani said.

I often wonder what ignites a protest and what does not. I specifically think of Lee Kyoung Hae, who stabbed himself in protest of the World Trade Organization’s policies toward South Korean farmers and their agricultural policy at large. I was in high school when the Battle in Seattle occurred – I’ve been fascinated by the World Trade Organization ever since. But while Lee did not die in vain, his protest did not lead to the type of uprising that could topple the WTO. Why? Why do some protests galvanize into movements, and others fade into time?

There are no clear answers to these questions, and yet the world keeps moving. Egypt, hot on the heels of Tunisia, also underwent a revolution, one that garnered a bit more attention from media outlets here.

Reader Lara tipped us to this amazing piece by Sarah Ghabrial, which delivers some much needed context:

As much as Egyptians may have surprised themselves and their neighbours, no one seems more caught off guard by this recent turn of events than members of western mainstream media and political officials. The western media appear bewildered, their commentary halting and unsure. Perhaps this is because, for so long, news agencies have stacked their rolodexes with analysts on the Middle East whose area of expertise lay primarily in terrorism and religious fundamentalism. They now seem ill prepared to comprehend this past week’s events, which have been so free of religious rhetoric, much less offer any insight on what the world may expect to come next. More than one commentator has remarked on the possibility of an Islamist take-over in Egypt and elsewhere, as though for lack of anything else worthwhile to say. Some appeared at a loss as they reported that protesters were not shouting “Death to America.”

The response to civil unrest in Egypt has been strangely unlike the response to the Iranian would-be “Green Revolution” of 2009. Because Iranians were standing up to a long-hated Islamist regime, their struggle was immediately embraced in the west across the political spectrum.

By contrast, western observers in the cultural mainstream have been hesitant about the Days of Anger, as they lack a clear and ready-made approach for identifying and understanding Arab discontent. This is probably due in part to the ostensible “secularism” of these regimes, and because instability in the Middle East is seen as a breeding ground for terrorism. Ironically, most terrorists out of Egypt are largely a product of the Mubarak school of stability — imprisonment, repression, and torture. But apparently the alternative is more horrifying: a scenario in which Egyptians may choose their own government. One can picture the Egyptians who populate the imagination of policymakers and journalists: a pious and incorrigible bunch, impelled in the direction of fanaticism as though by gravity. (Read the rest…)

And Larbi Sadiki pinpoints the real catalyst - and why so many news outlets missed the signs:

Regimes in countries like Tunisia and Algeria have been arming and training security apparatuses to fight Osama bin Laden. But they were caught unawares by the ‘bin Laden within’: the terror of marginalisation for the millions of educated youth who make up a large portion of the region’s population.

The winds of uncertainty blowing in the Arab west – the Maghreb – threaten to blow eastwards towards the Levant as the marginalised issue the fatalistic scream of despair to be given freedom and bread or death. [...]

From Tunisia and Algeria in the Maghreb to Jordan and Egypt in the Arab east, the real terror that eats at self-worth, sabotages community and communal rites of passage, including marriage, is the terror of socio-economic marginalisation.

The armies of ‘khobzistes’ (the unemployed of the Maghreb) – now marching for bread in the streets and slums of Algiers and Kasserine and who tomorrow may be in Amman, Rabat, San’aa, Ramallah, Cairo and southern Beirut – are not fighting the terror of unemployment with ideology. They do not need one. Unemployment is their ideology. The periphery is their geography. And for now, spontaneous peaceful protest and self-harm is their weaponry. They are ‘les misérables’ of the modern world.

Already, discussion of a domino effect looms large – and while some pundits are wondering which country is next, the larger question is what will these changes symbolize in the world within the next decade?

The FCC is scheduled to vote tomorrow on a huge merger between Comcast and NBC Universal, which would create a new media mega-corporation.  This has brought quite a bit of controversy over the future of the web, with many digital justice activists protesting the increase of corporate control over the web.

Angry Asian Man reports on an unexpected silver lining: the FCC has proposed that Comcast and NBC must improve diversity if they are going to complete the deal, to ensure minority broadcasters are not left out.  According to ABC News:

Public interest groups have urged the Obama administration to reject the deal. They fear Comcast might charge other cable distributors higher fees to transmit NBC Universal-owned content, leading to higher cable bills, fewer independent programing choices and less competition.

Comcast said in agreements filed with the FCC that it would add four new cable networks either owned or partly owned by African-Americans within eight years if the deal goes through.

It would also expand an existing channel carrying Asian-American programing to more markets, or create a new English-language channel that caters to Asian-American interests.

More diversity on major networks is definitely something to celebrate, but I’m not so sure this is the major step forward as some are quick to claim.

Most of what I’ve heard about the merger has been from the net neutrality aspect.  Back in August, Colorlines broke down why it was so important to keep an eye on Comcast:

The fight started because those scary scenarios about blocking and slowing traffic aren’t merely speculative. In 2005, Comcast blocked its users from sharing BitTorrents, which are popular ways to send and receive large files. The company claimed that it was preventing its users from committing copyright infringement, since the file-sharing platforms are often associated with quick and easy ways to get free music and movies.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) stepped in and ruled that no Internet service provider could block or interfere with user traffic—unless it was for “reasonable network management purposes.” Comcast challenged the ruling and this year a federal court overturned it, finding that the FCC didn’t have the authority to regulate broadband in the first place.

The court ruling has added yet another layer to the debate. The FCC is scrambling to regain its regulatory authority. That authority actually began eroding years ago, when a conservative majority of commissioners ruled that broadband be treated differently from landline phone and TV services, which are seen as essential to every household and therefore subject to federal oversight.

Meanwhile, service providers have argued vehemently against net neutrality regulations, saying that any formal rules would stifle competition and innovation—which would in turn keep prices up and limit broadband expansion into poor and rural communities.

So the issue on the table Tuesday is really a continuation of an earlier move – what right do large service providers have to restrict access for certain users?

The Comcast site even dips into the debate, explaining in a roundabout way that space online is limited, and most companies are making moves to ensure that there will be enough bandwidth for all our phones and devices.  However, they seek to control content providers, with far reaching impacts:

Level 3 Communications, a company that helps Netflix Inc stream videos online, has accused Comcast of charging it unfair fees to deliver content to Comcast subscribers.

(As a Comcast customer – they have a chokehold on my area – I find it interesting this is happening.  On Demand now promotes their movies by saying “Get it 28 days sooner than on Netflix!” so if I was Level 3/Netflix, I’d be pissed too.)

In addition to higher fees for certain types of content, there is the looming threat of “paid prioritization” – essentially the idea that certain content providers can pay more for more access and faster speed, which means smaller sites may be left to fight for the remaining scraps of slower, free bandwidth.

Senator Al Franken is not having it:

Just days before the FCC’s scheduled Tuesday morning vote on net neutrality, Franken blasted Genachowski for offering too many breaks to communications giants. “Let’s be clear. This is not real net neutrality,” the lawmaker said during the rare Saturday session. “This is the first time the FCC has allowed discrimination on the Internet,” he warned, referring to provisions that would let corporations pay for faster transmissions, creating Internet toll lanes.

The proposed rules, he further complained, would allow dominant wireless providers to block access to various applications, such as Google Maps. “I sincerely hope that the FCC will make significant improvements” before the Tuesday vote, he demanded.

While I am thrilled we will get some new programming out of the deal, I don’t feel like that’s a good trade or compromise.  Comcast-NBCU agreed to create the networks within four years.  They have yet to say what type of support the networks will be given, or if they feel any obligation to stick with these networks until they are financially viable.  They also agreed fairly quickly to creating more networks and the formation of “a diversity advisory board” – but the creation of these things has historically been a smokescreen for large corporations to hide behind, not avenues to lasting, institutional change.

The vote on Tuesday is impossible to call – there are too many factors in play.  However, this is one of those decisions that is ripe with unintended consequences, and we should all keep our eyes and ears open.

I’ve been buried in work for the Public Media Corps – the program ends December 17th, so there is a lot of work to accomplish between now and then.  Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to provide as many updates as I would have liked to on the program, so I am planning a series after I finish to talk about the things I learned over the last six months.

However, I did want to share one quick thing.

Back in September, I helped my co-fellows Brittany and Danielle with their social media club mixer at Anacostia High School.  The mixer was one of my favorite parts of the program since it allowed me to do what I like best – to engage with people.  The kids who came to the mixer were funny and high spirited, just as interested in tech as they were in pizza and trash talking.  I met Tony, a sweet kid who decided he was ready to be the next Jazze Pha and used my help to create his own beat using GarageBand, which he then attempted to convert into a ringtone for his cellphone.  One kid, named Robert, wanted to start a blog but did not have an email address.  So we worked through that process.  A girl named Tiny said she wanted to be a teacher, but later decided she wanted to start a blog to showcase her poetry.

And then, there was Mardez.

Quiet and serious, Mardez was one of those kids with a confidence that permeated the room.  Other kids seemed to genuinely like and respect him, and he had his priorities straight, soaking in knowledge like a sponge.  Mardez walked into the room and asked questions about being a graphic designer.  He showed me his portfolio, which was a printed binder full of graphic designs and effects, many featuring 50 Cent.  I told Mardez he should start scanning his work and putting it online – one, to create a holding space for all of it, and two to create a copy of all his work.  I saw Mardez again at the What’s Good DC taping on Tuesday and he chatted for a bit, mentioning he wanted to catch up.

Today, I found out from another fellow that Mardez was featured on a blog called The People’s District, an amazingly cool blog that tells the story of DC through all the types of people who live here.  When I read Mardez’s story, I felt my heart drop.

“I dropped out of high school after my freshman year. I had teachers who put me down and a school counselor who encouraged me to get D’s. I told him that I wanted to do better than that, but he said, ‘You ain’t gonna be any better than that.’ When my Mom had a baby, I knew that I needed to help my family get money and I left school because there was no future for me in the D.C. public schools. [...]

“A couple of months after I dropped out, we got put out of our house. The landlady put our stuff out in the snow along with my newborn baby brother. When we asked her for help, she just laughed in our face. When I saw my friends get off the bus, I thought they would laugh at me, but they didn’t. I just sat there and looked angry because there wasn’t nothing else that I could do. [...]

My cousin ended up helping me get back into school. He said, ‘You can’t drop out of high school and drop into a good job. It don’t work like that. You are not Bill Gates. You can do more help to your family by finishing school.’

“He helped me get to Anacostia High School. I changed my attitude and am doing the best I can. I want to go to college and even got a scholarship. So far, I have visited 13 colleges so far, and am trying to find a college that fits what I want to do in life, which is graphic design.”

I felt pain, not because of the sadness of his story, but because of how common that narrative is here in DC.  Our dropout rate is atrocious, with only 48.8% of students graduating from high school within four years of beginning 9th grade.  Mardez is one of the success stories – he was able to re-enter school and is on target to graduate this year, with a plan to go to college and a dream of becoming a graphic designer. But the problems still swirl around him.  Tony, the burgeoning producer, recently confessed at a social media club meeting that he was planning to drop out of school. Mardez told his story that day, to convince Tony to stay in school, and added one crucial detail: in 9th grade, one of his teachers embarrassed him by pointing out Mardez’s wrinkled clothes, ignoring all the issues Mardez was going through at home.  I really hope Mardez got through to Tony.

I wish I had been there for that meeting. I wish I had read Danielle’s post earlier, so that on Tuesday, I could have pulled Mardez aside and told him I was homeless too once, and I know what that feeling is like, and that life gets a little better once you can financially support yourself, and that he was on a good path.  I wish I had read that post earlier, so I could tell Tony that I knew exactly where he was, that I too had almost dropped out of school in my senior year, that my 3.5 average fell to a 1.5 and I missed 70 days of class.

But I didn’t know this, so I just let them play computer games on my Android tablet and talked to them about tech.

Then again, maybe that was better – I hated when people tried to talk to me about my life in senior year, when all I wanted to do was escape it.  Maybe leaving it alone was the best course of action. Let them play and explore possibilities.  Watching Mardez, Tony, and three other boys I didn’t know crowd around the tab and critique the gameplay aspects of Asphalt 5 reminded me of how much work I have left to do when talking about black boys, play practices, technology, and video games.

It’s stories like the ones Mardez and Tony told that remind me of why I got into this work in the first place, and why we focus a lot on structures on this blog.  Mardez has a good shot at making it, but he is surrounded by kids in the same boat, struggling against all kinds of social issues and political issues to try to craft lives for themselves.  Mardez’s story pains me because it reminds me of people that I knew, and people that I still know, kids who were exposed to the ways of the adult world a little too early, trying to make adult decisions (i.e. I need to drop out of school to help my family) without adult perspective and understanding how each of these actions could alter the course of their lives.

All of the fellows joined the Public Media Corps hoping we could impact our communities in some way.  But doing the work exposes how large the problems actually are.  We are all staring down at the end of the program, just fifteen days away.  I think everyone feels some sense of unfinished business.  But how do we keep moving forward?

How do we even begin to evaluate our work, when so many things are intangible?

And how do we reconcile all the things we’ve learned and grown to understand with the edicts laid out by those who fund programs like these?

(Image Credit: Danielle and Brittany, for the Public Media Corps)

By Arturo R. García

Most of the stories we’ve read about the now-infamous opening sequence prepared for The Simpsons by artist and documentary subject Banksy include a sentence along the lines of:

The extended sequence was apparently inspired by reports the show outsources the bulk of their animation to a company in South Korea, according to the BBC.

Not exactly breaking news; the show’s Wikipedia tells us its’ creators has been employing South Korean studios since its’ very first season, starting with AKOM Studios’ work on “Some Enchanted Evening.”

What is interesting is an allegation in the Asia Times by Chinese-based businessman Jing Kim that animation duties for many outsourced U.S. projects is actually outsourced again, to North Korea:

On one occasion, for example, North Korean animators employed by Shin came to Beijing from Pyongyang to work exclusively on several US animation movies, staying there for months, according to Kim.

When asked whether any of the movies were actually broadcast in the US, Kim said, “Oh, a lot, a lot. The ones that I participated in were as many as seven.”

But Kim declined to name the US films, citing the sanctions imposed on North Korea. “If the names of the US companies are known, they will be screwed,” said Kim.

Kim said “many people will be hurt” if he went into details, adding, “We worked very carefully.”

When asked whether the US film companies involved actually knew that their cartoons had been made by North Koreans, Kim said: “They don’t want to know. If they knew, it wouldn’t be fun. After they make contracts with the South Koreans, they just assume that it is made there. They only care about the delivery [of the products] and their quality. It is too much for them to ask where they were actually made. We don’t have the obligation to tell them, either. The only thing they claim is the copyright.”

Though The Simpsons isn’t directly named or implicated in the story, shifting the sequence’s focus to North Korea – already the target of economic sanctions – sharpens the intended satire; in the Asia Times story, Kim further alleges that animators in the country are denied medical insurance, welfare and overtime while they work “without complaint.”

Unfortunately for the audience, Banksy leaves himself some comedic “outs” that aren’t terribly original. Anybody else remember Clerks: The Animated Series?

No lie, I laughed at the unicorn sequence for the same reason I laughed at the British version of The Office: it’s gallows humor. But it doesn’t go far enough in its’ muckraking, no matter what MTV might say. How much leeway Banksy and the show’s creative team actually had is hard to gauge – after all, Fox will probably take only so much rattling of its’ cage. But in the end, the biggest winner in this whole affair won’t be whatever animator is or isn’t toiling under inhumane conditions, but the network itself. Because let’s be honest, when was the last time we had a good reason to talk about The Simpsons?

By Special Correspondent Jessica Yee

This past Wednesday newly appointed Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development John Duncan issued an official apology from the government of Canada to Inuit for the forced high arctic relocation:

On behalf of the Government of Canada and all Canadians, we would like to offer a full and sincere apology to Inuit for the relocation of families from Inukjuak and Pond Inlet to Grise Fiord and Resolute Bay during the 1950s.

We would like to express our deepest sorrow for the extreme hardship and suffering caused by the relocation.  The families were separated from their home communities and extended families by more than a thousand kilometres.  They were not provided with adequate shelter and supplies.  They were not properly informed of how far away and how different from Inukjuak their new homes would be, and they were not aware that they would be separated into two communities once they arrived in the High Arctic.  Moreover, the Government failed to act on its promise to return anyone that did not wish to stay in the High Arctic to their old homes.

The Government of Canada deeply regrets the mistakes and broken promises of this dark chapter of our history and apologizes for the High Arctic relocation having taken place.  We would like to pay tribute to the relocatees for their perseverance and courage.  Despite the suffering and hardship, the relocatees and their descendants were successful in building vibrant communities in Grise Fiord and Resolute Bay.  The Government of Canada recognizes that these communities have contributed to a strong Canadian presence in the High Arctic.

The relocation of Inuit families to the High Arctic is a tragic chapter in Canada’s history that we should not forget, but that we must acknowledge, learn from and teach our children.  Acknowledging our shared history allows us to move forward in partnership and in a spirit of reconciliation.  The Government of Canada and Inuit have accomplished many great things together, and all Canadians have benefitted from the contributions of Inuit to our culture and history.  We must continue to strengthen our connections and deepen our understanding and respect.  We must jointly build a stronger, healthier and more vibrant Inuit Nunangat and, in turn, build a stronger, healthier and more vibrant Canada.

The forced “high arctic relocation” is a horribly little known part of Indigenous apartheid in Canada. So many families I know have relatives who were part of this and have fought for years to seek justice, even just to get the government to admit that it purposely put people there to assert so-called “Canadian sovereignty” (which is insulting even just to type those two words out).  Words like “relocation” are also coercive and intentionally polite to deceive people into thinking that Inuit were just fine and happy to be moved – and of course to defend Canada’s imposed right to commodify Indigenous people and make us disappear.

This latest apology is on the heels of a few apologies that have come from governments over the past few years to Indigenous people which again, makes me wonder about the difference in generations of their significance and impact, and how we all deal with healing differently, some with anger, and some with closure.

Inuk youth activist Janice Grey and friend of mine from the Nunavik region tells me how she feels about it:

Finally, after half a decade, those who were affected directly and indirectly by the federal government’s high arctic relocation have been given an official apology. These Inuit had their entire lives turned upside down by broken promises and a hidden agenda, now almost 60 years later they’ve built a life for themselves regardless of all the hardship. I completely agree that an apology is necessary, that this needs to be acknowledged and known by all Canadians, but what will it bring to the people other than the opportunity for forgiveness? Will the legacy of this apology resonate as much as the legacy of the actual relocation? The generations to follow will still be reeling from that trauma, but they, unlike their grandparents have an apology to live with. My only question really is, is that enough?

To me you can wrap it up in a nice bow and label it with “apology” all you want but the current government’s treatment of Inuit including the inaction on TB for example being 185 times higher in Inuit communities continuously make it difficult for me to believe they even know what they are talking about in the first place. To paraphrase Albert Memmi in the Colonizer and the Colonized, “There are a lot of declarations against racism and not enough plans of action”. Yeah no shit, government of Canada, no shit.

Compiled by Site Lead Arturo R. García

A white former transit officer was convicted of involuntary manslaughter Thursday in the videotaped shooting death of an unarmed black man on an Oakland train platform in an encounter that set off days of rioting in the city.

Prosecutors had wanted Johannes Mehserle convicted of murdering 22-year-old Oscar Grant, who was shot once in the back as he lay face-down.

The jury’s conviction on the lesser charge raised concerns of a repeat of the unrest that followed the shooting on New Year’s Day in 2009.
- KRON-TV

What happened to Grant is every black family’s worst nightmare for their children — especially their sons — in a country where racial profiling and police brutality of black folks is rampant and still unchecked. Being hassled by the cops for driving while black or in Grant’s case, breathing while black is almost a rite of passage for young black men. It usually happens somewhere in the neighborhood of 14-25. In my brother’s case, he was with a friend as a 16 year old just driving to another friend’s house when he was pulled over by a cop in our quiet Washington DC suburb, accused randomly & without cause of stealing the car and found himself facedown in a large intersection with a gun pointed at his head. It’s said here in the Bay Area that Oscar Grant’s mom actually encouraged him to ride the subway New Year’s Eve — because she thought it would be safer. There’s not a black mother in the United States, no matter your socioeconomic or educational level, who does not look at Oscar Grant’s mother and say — there but for the grace of God…goes I.
- Jack & Jill Politics

Photo by MC Kev Choice, musician (via Twitpic)

Don’t get me wrong, there are times when we have to take to the streets. I am down to march, chant, rally, block an intersection, commit civil disobedience- what ever it takes. But not just to make myself feel better. When we take to the streets, we should be saying what we want, clearly and resolutely- not just point out the problems but also demanding the solutions. I know too much to protest the sky, to mistake commotion for motion.
- Jakada Imani, Executive Director, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights

There ABSOLUTELY were narcs up in that crowd. Taking pics, askin questions, pretending to blend in … and stickin out like a sore thumb.
- Jeff Chang, journalist

Photo by Aldrin Bulayo, photographer (via Twitpic)

Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts said two to four people had been arrested, but he expected the number to rise.
The arrests come after protesters broke into a Foot Locker near the city’s downtown.
Protesters have also set some garbage cans on fire.
- The Oakland Tribune

paraphrase corp news TV anchors: “OMG YOU GUYS FOOT LOCKER HAS BEEN LOOTED! THIS IS AMAAAAAAZING! ALSO, COPS ARE AWESOME!”
- Nora Barrows-Friedman, journalist

Stephen Allen, a 22-year-old protester from West Oakland, got caught near a mob that broke through the gate of the Foot Locker shoe store and looted the store of sneakers and sportswear. Moments later, a masked man, in one swift and violent blow of a long object, broke the window of the Far East National Bank across the street.

Allen was upset.

“Before the sun went down I was happy with everything,” he said. “It’s no longer about Oscar Grant. The people who went in there and came out with shoes; that’s not about Oscar Grant anymore. What we had before the sun went down, that was justice. This is just pure stupidity.”
- The San Jose Mercury News

“I’m not shocked,” said San Francisco resident Ian Slattery. “The whole case has been really troubling. I think communities of color in the East Bay in particular, and understandably, are upset. Not because of this one instance but because of how the police interact with communities as a whole.”

“This [verdict] makes it difficult to have any trust between the community and the police,” Slattery continued. “This matters to all Californians. Not just in our communities here but around the state.”
- Buzzy Times

To begin with, I do think it’s myopic to call this verdict a total miscarriage of justice. The district attorney pursued a case of a white police officer’s (admittedly blatant, caught-on-tape) killing of a young, black man, and then saw the case through to a guilty verdict. That’s more progress than we’ve seen in cases past (for e.g., in the case of Rodney King).

From that perspective, I’m heartened by this evening’s verdict. I’ve long believed that the answers to racial injustice in America are far more complex than our an eye-for-an-eye moral code could ever offer anyway. Mehserle is just one man — an individual who’s part of a much larger justice system — and what matters is demanding accountability from law enforcement beyond this case alone.
- Anna Hirsch, Change.org

by Special Correspondent Arturo R. García

A recently-released study by the American Sociological Association reveals something a bit disturbing: 79 percent of Latinos who took part in a specially-designed survey identified themselves as “white,” no matter their skin color.

Of course, the key words there are “specially-designed.” The New Immigrant Survey, as the study was called, specifically denied participants the chance to identify themselves as “Some Other Race,” as they can on the U.S. Census. According to the study’s co-author, Reanne Frank, this demonstrates a willingness by Latinos to recognize white privilege.

“Most are attempting to push the boundaries of whiteness to include them, even if their skin color is darker,” said Frank, an assistant professor of sociology at Ohio State University.

Frank also said the ASA has received feedback saying the race question “doesn’t fit” many Latino respondents: 50 percent of Latinos who took the 2000 Census identified themselves as “Some Other Race.”

Full disclosure: I have done this in both the 2000 and 2010 Census. But it wasn’t because I wanted to attempt to assert “an alternative Latino racial identity,” as Frank suggests; “Race,” as defined in both the Census and the NIS, is more closely related to phenotype, whereas I always interpret it as something more closely related to nationality.

Of course, that aspect is also covered specifically in Question 8 of the Census: Is Person 1 of Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin? Among the answers:

• Yes, Mexican, Mexican Am., Chicano
• Yes, Puerto Rican
• Yes, Cuban
• Yes, another Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish Origin

However, it’s interesting to note that Question 9, while covering phenotype (White, Black/African American/Negro), also addresses nationality for other ethnic groups: American Indian and Alaskan Native, while grouped together, are listed apart from other groups, and various Asian nationalities (Japanese, Chinese, Korean, etc.) are listed as racial options. The ASA study doesn’t ask why Latinos don’t get that same treatment.