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

Notes from the garden: chicken raising

Hello, hello! Long time no write. There is much to write about with the garden, so I'm going to split up the posts by topic.

We got 4 chickens at my house in July. They're Isa Brown hybrid breed chickens, bred for egg laying. Each of the chickens had their own personality. The littlest chicken, whom I call Henrietta Lacks after the African American woman whose cancer cells became the first human cells to grow in-vitro, is the most curious and unafraid of people. The two alphas push everyone else out of their way to the food and occasionally like digging up the seedlings that I plant in the garden. The light colored one has the most distinctive personality - her name is Queen and she is by far the pickiest of the lot. She is last to emerge from the coop every morning, walking daintily on the board down while everyone else crashes out in search of food. When she eats sticky food like banana or apple, she'll wipe her beak against the ground or board. And she is always the least tempted by what I give her.

Chickens enjoying some food scraps

Within a week or two of arriving at their new coop, they started laying eggs of a lovely pink shade. It was really great to have fresh free range eggs on hand. Whatever you've heard about free range and organic food, trust me when I say that there's a HUGE difference between free range and non-free range eggs. Free range eggs are much yellower in color and firmer in shape, and when you cook up scrambled eggs, they actually fill you up.

Eggs, eggs, eggs!

Taking care of chickens is like taking care of any other pet. I wake up at 7:00am every morning because the chickens start making hungry noises and demand to be fed RIGHT THIS INSTANT. Sleepy eyed, I drag yourself out of bed to pour feed into their bowls and to watch them peck at their favorite seeds, leaving the ones they don't like at the bottom because of course every chicken has their favorite foods. After I've properly waken up and gotten breakfast, the chickens have finished eating what they will of the feed and start cooing for more food. So I go out to the garden again and start pulling some greens for them. Make sure to grab the broccoli leaves and not the comfrey, even though it's known as chicken fodder, because the ladies have a taste for vegetable leaves.

The chickens had early on associated the appearance of humans with food, so they always without fail run up to the fence and coo excessively anytime one of us returns home. I usually stop to wander through the garden and pull out some weeds to give to them to eat. Chickens also have a love of watermelon, bell pepper seeds, rice, bread, and chopped up garlic. Feeding them is a chore, but it's a fun chore (as opposed to cleaning up the coop, which is less than fun).

Chickens looking very hopefully for a sign of food

I've only had chickens for 5 months, but it's been a great experience to be a chicken farmer. Sadly, we have to give our chickens away because we're about to move house. But I'm looking forward to when I can own some land and start raising chickens again.

Goodbye, Queen! I'll miss you!

Affirmative action and other social justice articles

An Open Letter to Abigail Fisher: Really amazing opinion letter about affirmative action case at University of Texas. "Your white skin is not an entitlement pass. Mediocrity wasn’t adequate at the University of Texas at Austin and it is not acceptable in life." Agreed.

Top five myths about Asian Americans and affirmative action from Angry Asian Man. Affirmative action does Asians good, so don't hate it!

How media clearly reflects the sexism and the racism we cannot see in ourselves. A teacher reflects on a casting exercise with film students and how people of color/women are constantly being stereotyped into the same roles, even though these students are 'liberal'. It's NEVER just a book or movie, the media is how society learns these stereotypes in the first place.

We're a Culture, Not a Costume. For Halloween, choose costumes that don't perpetuate racist stereotypes!

I’m Not Interested in Finding a Truce in the Culture War. I’m Interested in Winning It. This is an interesting article. The author cites a book by Jonathan Haidt about how the Democrats and Republicans are locked in an endless war of pushing each other's buttons, refusing to give in on women's rights/abortion and religious freedom. But the author argues that access to healthcare (ie birthcontrol pills or abortion) is not an equal comparison to religious freedom, so is adment that the so-called culture war is not a real debate.

Affirmative Action at US Colleges

The affirmative action case in the US: I haven't read many articles on it yet, but man oh man. If they overturn affirmative action on the basis that "we don't need it anymore" or "it's unfair to white kids", I think I might throw up. There is still such a huge achievement gap between African American and Hispanic students with white or East Asian students and guess what, a lot of that is attributed to socioeconomic class. It's not because different ethnicities are inherently better or worse, it's that they don't have the same opportunities as white kids. Sorry, white girl who appealed to the Supreme Court about this, but I'm willing to bet that your job opportunities NO MATTER WHERE YOU GO TO SCHOOL will ALMOST ALWAYS be better than the Hispanic, African, Southeast Asian, or Native American kid. That's the white privilege kicking in. Poor whites might lose out on this, true, but I'm still pretty certain that their chances of success are still better than poor minorities if said minorities weren't offered that spot in the university. Racism is inherent in the system and we HAVE to fight this by giving our kids as many opportunities in education as we can. Affirmative action isn't perfect, but damnnit, it's still necessary.

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.

This made my head explode

SECRET VIDEO: Romney Tells Millionaire Donors What He REALLY Thinks of Obama Voters

Quote from Romney:

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.

Yeah, because only poor people eat real food, everyone else just eats their money. WTF????

Quote from article:

Here was Romney raw and unplugged—sort of unscripted. With this crowd of fellow millionaires, he apparently felt free to utter what he really believes and would never dare say out in the open. He displayed a high degree of disgust for nearly half of his fellow citizens, lumping all Obama voters into a mass of shiftless moochers who don't contribute much, if anything, to society, and he indicated that he viewed the election as a battle between strivers (such as himself and the donors before him) and parasitic free-riders who lack character, fortitude, and initiative. Yet Romney explained to his patrons that he could not speak such harsh words about Obama in public, lest he insult those independent voters who sided with Obama in 2008 and whom he desperately needs in this election. These were sentiments not to be shared with the voters; it was inside information, available only to the select few who had paid for the privilege of experiencing the real Romney.

My sentiment: How dare someone who claims he wants to be president of an entire country just turn around and diss half the country? Not surprising that Romney holds these views, but what has US politics turned into if a major political party thinks this sort of perspective is acceptable??? The role of government is to make decisions and manage resources for the welfare of the people and if the esteemed leader of said government can't even stand half the country, then we as a nation have a very serious problem.

This and the comments about 'legitimate rape' from Missouri senator candidate Todd Akin just really infuriates me. I want to take the Republican Party candidates seriously because a true democratic system would have legitimate points of view from both sides of the political spectrum, but all they do is alienate voters and make very poor judgements about policies. It's not politics, it's just ideology talking.