To JK Rowling from Cho Chang

THIS. THIS SO MANY TIMES OVER. We're grown up enough now to challenge Rowling on her racist and closeted writing. I love the story, but damnit we deserve better than caricatures and tokenism.

Worth watching

1 - For Poor, Leap to College Often Ends in a Hard Fall. From NY Times, an article describing how class differences are leading to greater gaps at college level for students. This is of course complicated by racial links, as more people of color are poorer than whites.

2 - Dear Liberal Allies, what your classes on oppression didn't tell you. A Wellesleyunderground article on the people of color perspective on oppression.

3 - LGBTQ People from India. "Often QPOC get ignored in favour of white people during conversations about gender and sexuality, so I guess this is my attempt to try and push for greater visibility of lesser known people of colour in the LGBTQ movement in other parts of the world and try to debunk the notion that LGBTQ movement is primarily a white one."

4 - Things not to say to Asians. Seriously. We're tired of this shit.



5 - China's Female Imams and Mosques

Last Call to Prayer; China's Female Mosques from sharron lovell on Vimeo.

Experiences of QPOC students at Smith College & Junot Diaz on decolonial love

This was just passed onto me. A great short documentary made by a senior at Smith College on the experiences of queer people of color (QPOC) students on campus. Check it out!!



While I'm at it, check out Junot Diaz's keynote speech at Colorlines' Facing Race 2012 convention. He speaks about decolonial love and the difficulties of facing the privileges that we each hold.



A quote from Diaz's Q&A session:

The funny thing about our privilege is that we all have a blind spot around our privilege, shaped exactly like us. Most of us will identify privileges that we know we could live without. So when it comes time to talk about our privileges, we’ll throw shit down like it’s an ace. And that shit is a three! I understand that. You grow up and you live a life where you feel like you haven’t had shit, the last thing you want to give up is the one thing, the couple of things that you’ve really held on to.

I’m telling you guys, we’re never going to fucking get anywhere—if you want to hear my apocalyptic proclamation which I would never repeat, but which I know you motherfuckers are going to tweet about—we are never going to get anywhere as long as our economies of attraction continue to resemble, more or less, the economy of attraction of white supremacy.

Awesome videos

1 - BONES: Season 8 Episode 6 was kickass for a number of reasons; heartwrenching murder mystery, stories of 9/11, real character development. My favorite part though was this: intern Arastoo Vaziri (Pej Vahdat) relaying an interesting and awesome speech about separating 9/11 from the Muslim religion as a whole.


2 & 3 - Brave New Voices Slam Poetry: Spoken word amazingness! Call out that racism and shadeism.



White hipsters who care about animals more than other human beings? Fuck that shit.


Shadeism of the light skinned brown folk

amazing articles and videos

1 - Glamourbaby Diaries



Ruby Veridiano nurtures young women of color to challenge the fashion world and what it means to be beautiful, especially for Asian Americans. Amazing workshops!! I wish I could participate!

2 - PSY and the Acceptable Asian Man

PSY is the Korean pop star who wrote the song Gangnam Style that mainstream US has caught on. Very interesting article about how Asian pop stars are having trouble breaking into mainstream US music (hint, it's because of the Asian stereotypes/caricatures in American society).

3 - ChristianMuslim



Check out this music video for "ChristianMuslim," written, recorded and performed by Jason Chu and Rah Zemos. It's a really cool hand-drawn stop-motion animation piece speaking out against violence and bloodshed between people who "believe that we're all God's children".

4 - Refusing to Date Asian Men

Essay by Kathy Zhang '11 on the Patriarchy in US society and how stereotyping of Asians as feminine and non-sexual came from the need to suppress the minorities to uphold the dominance of white supremacy. An excellent read.

5 - Islamic History and Women You Never Hear Of

Kahula bint Azwar is the legendary woman you've never heard of. My new heroine!!

6 - PSY's Gangnam Style and what it ACTUALLY means

Analysis of PSY's hit song and putting it into context of Korean history. Excellent read.

7 - Citation Needed by allmypenguins

Article on how China isn't as suppressed as you think it is.