THE FUCKIN' LOUDEST ASIANS

Revolutionary Student Coordinating Committee is bringing back...

Sun, 02 Dec 2012 22:17:43 -0500

Revolutionary Student Coordinating Committee is bringing back the historic demand of the CUNY movement for real open admissions. For the first time in many years, students are campaigning to open up CUNY to serve the generations after them and the people as a whole - the students in high school, the working-class and oppressed communities in NYC.

Sign and share the link!

Asian Americans in the 99%

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 12:06:32 -0400

- Sid Brown

Don’t be fooled. “Divide and conquer” may have been a strategy utilized by various colonial powers throughout history to maintain social control, but it has not been abandoned. The Asian American model minority stereotype is no exception. It is not a compliment to the strengths of Asian culture and Asian people. Instead, it serves only to ridicule others, especially others of color, by asking, “If they can do it, why can’t you?” The consequence: many, including Asians, have bought into the idea, disregarding how Asian Americans are targets for and disadvantaged by racial inequality in various spheres of American society. With crumbling economic circumstances and Occupy Wall Street popularizing the rhetoric of the 99%, it is urgent to smash the model minority stereotype.

So, exactly who are the 99%, as opposed to the 1%? Occupy declares these groups signify the wealth and power disparity in society, with the greater concentration of power in the few hands of the much higher income bracket. The gap also represents the gap in access to necessities, such as an affordable home, a livable wage, healthy food, an adequate education, and healthcare. As the Occupy movement spread internationally, the 99% occupied and reoccupied what it meant to be a part of the majority of society who stand united in asserting that they will no longer be oppressed by the minority. Across the nation and even in countries from the Congo to Malaysia, people were declaring themselves to be the 99%. To develop and grow, we must challenge the symbols and vocabulary we adopt into our movements; the criticism of this image not invalid. It simplifies all the various complexities of the struggles, classes and identities of people into one massive category. Even though this limitation is important, it sends a powerful message of solidarity amongst people of various struggles, including Asian Americans. Also, the popularity of this image has given new life to the class debate which cannot be dismissed. While speaking for all Asian Americans is in no way possible, pervasive perceptions of Asian Americans must be challenged. Asian Americans make up the 99% too!

Statistics show that a higher percentage of Asian Americans are more likely to complete high school and go onto college as compared to African Americans, Latinos, or Native Americans[i]. They also show that they have a lower unemployment rate than all other ethnic groups, including whites, since the economic downturn in 2008[ii]. What these statistics do not account for, however, are the differences among the many Asian identity groups and nationalities. “Asian American” is a rather broad term. Most people aren’t even aware how this group includes Indians and Arabs, among others. There are also nations within nations such as the Tibetans in China and the Baluch in Pakistan. Further, when individuals from these nations of various socioeconomic backgrounds arrived in the United States, they carried with them their unique histories, languages, and cultures. In reality, there are strong disparities among Asian Americans. A 2010 Current Population Survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics found the unemployment rate of people of Vietnamese descent was higher than people of Indian, Chinese, or Korean descent[iii]. Statistics also demonstrate a higher rate of Indian, Chinese, Pakistani, and Korean Americans with earning college degrees, as compared to a strikingly smaller percentage of Cambodian, Hmong, and Laotian Americans. Even though few surveys account for these differences, the little information redeemed from the data cannot be ignored.

Adherents of the myth recurrently point to the large proportion of Asian American workers in high income work, such as the medical, engineering, and financial fields. This ignores the “brain drain” that helps shape the Asian American population, since many Asian individuals are filtered into the States as “skilled” laborers, unless they are sponsored by their family or acquire refugee status. In addition, a 1994 report examined a still relevant trend: how Asian American workers are affected by a “glass ceiling,” artificial barriers limiting women and people of color from rising to managerial and leadership positions. (This is not to say that more Asian Americans should strive to be CEOs. Our ultimate goal is to eliminate poverty and the imbalance of power inherent in capitalism.) The few Asian American “success stories” are exceptions, not the rule. How Asian Americans can concurrently have a higher median income than White Americans and a higher rate of poverty illustrates this. Analysis data from the Employment Development Department in 2010 further found that jobless Asian Americans face even longer periods of unemployment when compared to Latinos and Whites [iv]. All of this research points to show that Asians are not necessarily the “model minority” but face immense immigration barriers, are victims of institutional racism, and face a wealth gap within themselves.

During the winter months, after most Occupy encampments were raided, the movement went into self-reflection mode. Meanwhile, some Occupiers turned to organize around the foreclosure crisis by reoccupying foreclosed homes, preventing evictions, and working to hold banks accountable for illegal and discriminatory practices. The majority of the homes foreclosed on were of African and Latin American families. Though there is a lack of adequate information about the effect of foreclosures on Asian Americans, evidence does show a drop in the equity of homes where there are high concentrations of the community, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York. Evidence also shows that the Asian American homeownership rate of 59% lags behind the national rate of homeownership at 65.9%, despite higher median incomes and education levels than all other races. [v] Economists now warn the next crisis to burst will be with the bubbling student loan debt that is crippling many, including Asian American families.

Other factors disproportionately affect Asian Americans regarding access, further serving to challenge the model minority myth. One is the effect of the anti-immigration fervor for those both documented and undocumented, from the exploitation of low-wage immigrant workers to the increasing numbers of undocumented immigrants currently held in detention centers. Language barriers additionally exacerbate the prospects of working for a livable wage (which needs to be much higher than the minimum wage) or even access to information on social services. Gender norms in some cultures debar girls and women from higher education or entering fields deemed unsuitable for women. The class background of immigrant parents on second generation Asian Americans also influence access, as their children find themselves having to help their parents navigate through an educational system that is new to them as well. Many working-class families, who tend to live in ethnic enclaves of major cities where the standard of living is high, lack the financial resources to support their children in school, unlike their middle-class counterparts who often send their children to private schools or well-resourced suburban public schools. Institutional racism most notably manifests itself in the way Asian Americans, especially of Muslim, South Asian, and Middle Eastern descent, have experienced intense police surveillance and racial profiling since September 11th. To top this, Asian Americans have also experienced racial violence from Balbir Singh Sodhi to Private Danny Chen.

The most important factor to consider, however, is that most Asian Americans have ties to a homeland where their people have faced a cruel colonial past, nations that are now variably shaped by neoliberal practices by the hands of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, multinational corporations, wars funded or fought by foreign powers, and class warfare within their nations. Additionally, this fear played up by the media where India and China’s economies will soon eclipse that of the United States completely disregards the widespread poverty within these countries. Discarding these truths and perpetuating the model minority myth plunges a wedge between oppressed peoples, globally and in the US, and diminishes any future for all oppressed nationalities to work hand-in-hand for revolutionary change.

While it is true that a handful of Asians compose the elite 1%, the struggles of the majority of Asians thrust them into the 99th percentile. With the Arab Spring and the growing number of international protests against capitalism, austerity, and the debt crises, the momentum for solidarity must not be breached by false perceptions of one another. Occupy has been criticized for being a mostly white, male, college-educated movement but considering what is at stake, why aren’t more Asian Americans out on the streets? That is, on the streets standing with Occupy or the plethora of local organizations doing profound work within their communities. We must hold ourselves accountable in shaping the changes we want to see. If a new, just world is the vision, old colonialist strategies, like “divide and conquer,” must not be permitted to undermine this momentum. Asian Americans who have internalized the model minority myth must challenge their thinking and its colonial roots. Privileged Asian Americans must acknowledge the discrimination and oppression faced by the majority of Asians, and Americans in general. The importance of all people in recognizing these experiences does not mean the struggles of Asians in the U.S. eclipse those of other oppressed groups, but that Asian Americans also have a stake in the struggle for building a more just world. It is only through first reaching an understanding of a common struggle by dismantling such divisive myths that people can link to work to make this new world a reality.
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i. Austin, Algernon. Economic Policy Institute. “Hidden Disadvantage: Asian American Unemployment and the Great Recession.” Washington: 28 May 2010.

ii. National Commission on Asian American and Pacific Islander Research in Education (CARE). “Federal Higher Education Priorities and the Asian American and Pacific Islander Community,” 2010.

iii. U.S. Department of Labor. “Asian-American Labor Force in Recovery.” Washington D.C.: 2011.

iv. Semuels, Alana. “Unemployment Lasts Longer for Asian Americans.” Los Angeles Times, 7 September 2010.

v. De La Cruz-Viesca, Melany, and Brian Chiu. Asian Real Estate Association of America (AREAA) & UCLA Asian American Studies Center (UCLA AASC). “Following the Path to Asian American Homeownership Report: An Analysis of the United States, California, New York, Texas and Select U.S. Metropolitan Areas,” November 2010.

CUNY Queens College students rally against the murders of...

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 13:15:00 -0400

CUNY Queens College students rally against the murders of Trayvon Martin and Shaima Alawadi on March 29th.

The naked historical legacy of the US has always been white supremacy. They let white vigilantes, who terrorize poor oppressed-nationalities, get away with murder. If these racist killings keep happening, oppressed peoples are going to defend themselves by any means necessary.

—MAMAGUNZ

Unraveling the Threads of Violence Against Hoodies and...

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 15:59:00 -0400

Unraveling the Threads of Violence Against Hoodies and Hijabs

-Sid Brown & RAF

Current events indicate that we in the U.S. live in a climate where hijabs and hoodies are deemed as threatening. The late February murder of Trayvon Martin in Florida has ignited international outrage. The 17-year-old Martin was guilty of nothing but being a young, black man walking in his father’s upscale neighborhood and wearing the “suspicious” hoodie. Martin’s killer has yet to be charged for the murder due to a Florida law that permits him to use the argument of self-defense.

Just a week ago in California, Shaima Al Awadi was taken off life support after she was found by her daughter to be brutally beaten unconscious in their home. Al Awadi was an Iraqi-born Muslim woman who wore the traditional headscarf. At the scene, beside her body was a note similar to the one anonymously delivered to the family a month ago: “Go back to your country, you terrorist.” No suspect has been arrested for the crime. While each incident deserves individual attention, and justice must be fought for each victim, they are not isolated incidents. Some may say these events are simply acts by depraved and racist individuals, but they speak to a larger issue plaguing our society.

Surprisingly, the mainstream media has not failed to follow these two cases, especially that of Trayvon Martin. Perhaps this is because of the mass uprising on the streets and in social media networks. In their interpretation of the stories, however, there is something missing. What is missing (really, the elephant in the room) is the state-sanctioned violence and racial profiling that galvanizes racist vigilantes. It is not hijabs and hoodies (and let us not forget turbans, or dastars, worn by Sikhs) that ignorantly demarcate one a “terrorist,” a “criminal,” or a “delinquent”; it is the black and brown skin they cover. When the state encourages individuals to report “suspicious” activity and leads investigations that unfairly target these populations, such as the FBI monitoring Muslims in Newark, NJ and New York City or the prevalence of young Black and Latino males who are stopped and frisked by the NYPD, they encourage vigilante justice—a justice that desires to carry out the state’s objectives. Looking back at U.S. history, how else could white supremacists justify organizing lynch mobs to hang African Americans after the abandonment of Reconstruction and throughout decades of legal racial segregation? The police turned a blind eye whenever lynching happened, not stopping the lynchers nor preventing the bloodthirsty crowds from gathering to watch the murder unfold.

What must be made clear is that such acts of violence by the hands of civilians would not occur had the state not been at war with predominantly Muslim nations, where civilian deaths go nearly ignored. It doesn’t help that the media, which works hand in hand with the state, has made “Muslim” synonymous with “terrorist” and “un-American” in post 9/11 America. Further, these acts would not occur had the state not been at war with Black and Latino people, as the disproportionate rates at which African Americans and Latinos fill prison cells can attest to. This is largely due to the enforcement of the War on Drugs that racially profiles them.

After the huge response to Martin’s murder, some cried: What about police brutality such as the recent murder of Ramarley Graham in the Bronx? Graham, like Martin, was a young, black man who was unarmed but was shot by police in his grandmother’s apartment as he tried to flush a bag of marijuana down the toilet. Again, these are not isolated incidents from one another. The media tried to detract attention from Martin as the victim by claiming that he was only in his father’s town after he was suspended from school for carrying marijuana. Both he and Graham were painted as criminals because of their marijuana possession, but even if they were breaking the law, they should not have been murdered. (There is also an argument to be had about whether marijuana should be illegal in the first place, but we are focusing on the injustice of murders.) In Graham’s case, any white teen would have been let off the hook with no more than a slap on the wrist. There would have been mass outrage had a white teen been beaten for possession, much less murdered. No, neither’s crime was drug use—it was being Black. Similarly, Al Awadi was targeted for being a Brown, hijab-wearing, Muslim woman.

The public outcry over Martin and Al Awadi’s cases should be seized as an opportunity to encourage discussion of the xenophobic, white supremacist actions of the government and criminal justice system, which prompt individuals to commit such heinous crimes. The state may proclaim, “Do as we say and not as we do” all it wants, but we just can’t let it get off that easily. We should know better.

The most important thing that people should learn is that these cases come from systemic, not individual or abnormal, issues. The more the state—in this case, the politicians and the police—calls these “isolated incidents,” the more we must push back and demand a structural analysis with structural changes. We cannot take racist ideas and internalize them. We cannot accept their terms of “justice.” We need to rethink what justice means, not accept what the white supremacist, patriarchal, war-loving USA tells us it means.

Justice happens when we support victims of police brutality and vigilante violence. Justice happens when we do not think in simple terms of who is “innocent” or “guilty”—people are more complicated than good or evil, but they do not deserve to be murdered or brutally beaten because of petty crimes, or no crime at all.

Here are some thoughts on concrete solutions, big and small:

We have to end white supremacy in all its forms. That means ending the violence against people of color, white privilege, economic privilege of white and light-skinned people, racist stereotypes, and erasure of what really happened to Black, Brown, Red, and Yellow peoples in this country and abroad.
We have to end the belief that this was ever a “good” country founded on “good” ideas. USA was built by white men with land and reserved genocide, slavery, and rape for everybody else. It was never good. It continues to dominate people of color at home and abroad to this very day.
We need to rethink who is a criminal and who is undeserving of rights. Being Muslim, poor, a person of color, a woman, a queer, or an addict should not mean arbitrary punishment. It should mean we get our due for the years of oppression that we and our ancestors have faced. It should mean that we are no longer oppressed because of who we are, or in the case of the addict, it should mean we get treatment for our disease.
We need to hold the police accountable for murdering anyone, especially when the victims are disproportionately Black or Brown.
We need to tear down this justice system and build a new system that redresses past wrongs and aspires to be fair and humanizing to all who have been oppressed.

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Wed, 28 Mar 2012 13:01:28 -0400

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Wed, 21 Mar 2012 12:33:00 -0400

International Women’s Day, March 8

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 22:51:15 -0500

We honor and celebrate all proletarian and oppressed-nationality women.

The domestic worker who rears the spawn of rich white parasites in a foreign land while her own children grow up without her back home.

The garment worker whose hands, eyes and body are worn away by years of labor that is stolen from her.

The mother who travels hours for prison visits to keep her family together.

The survivor of domestic violence, sexual assault and rape.

We reaffirm the struggles of militant women for national and social liberation. We uphold all women who -– like Pirate Jenny in Nina Simone’s rendition of Bertolt Brecht’s classic song — will one day dig graves for their exploiters.

Enjoy the playlist.

Video

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:49:29 -0500

jedishiningsons: kiwizzo: Favianna...

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 01:55:15 -0500

jedishiningsons:

kiwizzo:

Favianna Rodriguez
FightPatriarchy

The truth…

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Sun, 08 Jan 2012 12:31:36 -0500

S.I. dad says Marine son victim of hate, just like Danny Chen

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 01:13:00 -0500

S.I. dad says Marine son victim of hate, just like Danny Chen:

Hamson Daniels McPherson died at the hands of racist Marines in May. Hoping that both McPherson’s and Chen’s cases are encouraging other oppressed-nationality soldiers to speak up about their experiences with racism in the US military.

—MAMAGUNZ

ON PRIVATE DANNY CHEN

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 15:24:00 -0500

In a six-month period, there were two alleged suicides of young US-born Chinese men serving in the US military occupation of Afghanistan.

Marine Lance Corporal Harry Lew died in Helmand province. Army Private Danny Chen died in Kandahar province. The first was from California. The second was born and raised in New York City’s Chinatown, the son of a cook and a garment worker.

Before they died, each of them was subjected to physical abuse and brutal humiliation, not from the people of Afghanistan who they were sent to fight and subjugate by the US ruling class, but from their fellow troops in the US occupying forces. In Danny Chen’s case, it has also come to light that he was the victim of racist and anti-Chinese harassment by his army superiors, one of them with a record as an attempted rapist.

Who Is the Real Enemy?

Who is the real enemy? Danny Chen signed up to fight for his country (he thought) against enemies in Afghanistan (he thought) and ended up dead by the actions of racist US troops. It wasn’t Afghans who dragged Danny from his bed across a floor. It wasn’t Afghans who made Danny crawl on the ground while pelting him with rocks. It wasn’t Afghans who tortured Danny, forcing him to hold water in his mouth while hanging upside down.

Danny Chen met the real enemy in Kandahar. He discovered that this enemy isn’t from Kandahar and isn’t Afghan. This enemy isn’t Iraqi or Palestinian. Danny learned that the real enemy is born from the same country where he was born, speaks the same language he spoke, wears the same uniform he wore, and salutes the same red-white-and-blue American flag he saluted.

For now, the dominant narrative is: “Danny Chen wanted to serve his country by joining its military. But, his country and its military failed to protect him. The military needs more effective diversity training programs and other reforms.” We have to closely scrutinize this narrative, its assumptions and its ideology. Whose country is it? Whose military is it and who does this military serve? Who is the real enemy?

A Racist Killing, A Racist Military, A Racist Society

Let’s review some history.

At the turn of the last century, the US killed a quarter of a million people in the Philippines, while white politicians called Filipinos “savages” and bellowed about the civilizing mission of US imperialism. It was during this war that the racist slur “gook” was first coined to refer to Filipino people, later to be used by US troops for other Asian and colonized peoples.

In the middle of the last century, there was the Korean War, when the US engaged in the indiscriminate saturation bombing of the people of northern Korea, dropping more bombs than those used in the Pacific region as a whole during World War II. More “gooks” to be exterminated.

After that, there was the Vietnam War, the My Lai massacre, and the multitude of atrocities that went unnamed.

With this history, is it any surprise that US-born Chinese and Asian soldiers face violent racism in the US military, regardless of how much they profess their loyalty to this country? Racism is inherent in the US military and no amount of diversity training will expunge it.

During the Vietnam War, testimony at the Winter Soldier Investigation exposed how both Asian soldiers in the US military and the so-called enemy in Vietnam were called “gooks” by racist US troops. The investigation also exposed how Black soldiers were beaten and starved by their white superiors.

During Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan, US military veterans testified to the widespread use of the racist slur “Haji” for the people they were occupying.

Like US society more broadly, sexual violence is also part of the culture of the US military. Iraq War veteran Rafay Siddiqui, speaking at Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan, said that in the military, “you’re not a man until you’ve taken advantage of a woman … you’re not a man until you’ve sexually abused.” New recruits witness their superiors being sexually abusive and are pressured to fit into this environment. Women in the military face widespread sexual violence. Victims are pressured by their superiors to stay silent.

Racism, militarism and war are built into the foundations of US society, a society that came about through genocide, land theft and slavery. The US capitalist economy and its globally-dominant currency cannot exist without the largest military that has ever existed in the history of civilization, without the global network of bases, and without the ever-present threat of force towards subject nations that are insufficiently compliant.

For all sections of US society, the American way of life is inextricably connected with global military power and more than half a century of military Keynesianism as state policy. For some sections, this way of life means luxury consumer goods, managerial employment and big houses in the suburbs; for others, jailhouse schools, permanent unemployment, low-wage jobs and prison.

Activists peddle illusions to the people when they imagine that transforming this state of affairs is simply a matter of shifting government budget priorities, e.g. “Money for Jobs and Education, Not for War and Occupation.” Activists fail to connect the dots when they condemn US militarism and military institutions, without explaining how these are expressions of an entire society (an economy, politics and culture) geared for war.

And yet, despite all of this, some of our leaders tell us that the solution is to create a few more diversity training programs in the military.

In the Court of International Public Opinion

Scrambling to do damage control in the arena of public relations, the US military brass has now charged eight soldiers for contributing to Danny Chen’s death. For the same reason, they are planning to meet with some Chinatown community representatives in January.

Yet, the news about Danny Chen has already spread around the world – and that is more important than any coverage it gets in the US media.

Even if the internal investigation turns out to be a cover-up, even if the military and the US courts acquit the racist criminals, enough of the truth is out. From Beijing to Karachi, from newspapers in Africa and Latin America, people everywhere are learning that a young US-born Chinese man enlisted in the US military, went to Afghanistan to fight for his chosen country, and died by the actions of racist US soldiers. Can charges be filed in international courts? Can the case be taken to the United Nations?

Danny Chen’s story – and his name – will be repeated again and again as a lesson that the US Empire consumes and destroys even its own well-meaning and innocent citizens. It will continue to be brought up for years in international forums to condemn the US Empire. If anyone needed a reminder as to the true nature of US society and its military in the Age of Hope and Change, here is that reminder.

Remember Danny Chen

While we continue to develop the groundswell of protest in Chinese and Asian communities, Danny Chen’s death also compels us to do some internal reflection – and criticism. Are community organizers building direct ties with poor and working-class Chinese youth who are not in college, have no plans for college and may be considering the US military? If not, why not? Are campus clubs doing anything about the problems in the community that feed into the economic draft? If not, why not? Do political groups prioritize and unite our communities behind the issues of poor and working-class Chinese people, rather than the assimilationist aspirations of the Chinese middle class? If not, why not?

We need to remember Danny Chen, but we need to live like Richard Aoki. The day will come when Chinese people in the US, all oppressed nationalities and the international working class will need soldiers who defend us against our enemies. But, before that day, we need soldiers who know the real enemy, who know their people and who know themselves. If Danny Chen’s death brings our soldiers, our veterans and our people one step closer towards that realization, he will not have died in vain.

—A FLA! Writing Group

We’re Starting A Magazine! Announcing AQ-47 & Call for Artwork Submissions

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 19:46:27 -0500

You may have noticed new voices on our blog roster, from our coverage of Arundhati Roy’s discussion of the Naxalites to our new convo series on the daily grind of being Asian + female. Stretching to that other Coast with correspondences from the Windy City, FLA is proud to announce our exciting new project called AQ-47, a consciousness-raising publication comprised of somber editorials, nonfiction prose, community voices, praxis, and poetics that foregrounds stories of political struggle in Asian communities. (See our mission statement after the jump.)

To reach out to like-minded Asian youth organizers and cultural workers in NYC, FLA launched a summer film series titled FLA! Film Club (think reading group + film class) to intentionally create a physical and social gathering space for politicking. AQ-47 developed out of the series at summer’s end and ache for reified talk. In these last couple of months, we’ve been busy collaborating and planning new content for FLA in conjunction with the new quarterly magazine. Anticipate more to come. But in the meantime, spread the word and contribute to this exciting FLA adventure and SUBMIT to AQ-47! (For more info, feel free to drop a line in the comments.)

Call for artwork. AQ-47, a volunteer-run consciousness-raising quarterly magazine based in NYC, seeks original artwork for inaugural issue on the state of Asian America. High resolution digital images, electronic submissions with subject line “Artwork inaugural submission” to aq47.magazine[at]gmail.com. Please include artist statement of no more than 500 words. Deadline December 23, 2011. Mediums can include, but not limited to: photography, watercolors, illustration, graphic art, infographics, etc. Feel free to email us if you have any questions.

Mission Statement. Founded in a Queens apartment during the summer of 2011, AQ-47 (Asian Quarterly-47) is a consciousness-raising magazine based in NYC. Comprised primarily of women, AQ-47 is a volunteer-run, grassroots publication that foregrounds stories of political struggle in Asian communities. It strives to be a platform for the exchange of anti-imperialist, class-conscious, queer-friendly, and feminist ideas in the fight for self-determination and social change.

Understanding that Asian movements are broad united fronts, AQ-47 centers the experiences, participation, and leadership of the most exploited and oppressed among our peoples: proletarians, women, and queer people. In the absence of spaces that provide revolutionary political analysis for Asian youth, AQ-47 wants to speak to our young people everywhere: in school, at home, at work, and in the community. As such, AQ-47 strives to foster solidarity with other oppressed nationalities to promote radical political action.

~AQ-47 Editorial Collective

Speaking to the other Comrades.

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 15:34:00 -0500

On November 9^th, 2011 the Center for Place, Culture and Politics at the City University of New York Graduate Center held partial readings of “Walking with the Comrades” by Arundhati Roy. The quotes listed in this article are based on those limited readings.
For more read: http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?264738-0

image: outlook india.

“Never in history has violence been initiated by the oppressed. How could they be the initiators, if they themselves are the result of violence? How could they be sponsors of something whose objective inauguration called for their existence as oppressed? There would be no oppressed had there been no prior situation of violence to establish their subjugation”. – Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

Arundhati Roy’s essays on “Walking with the Comrades” reiterates similar insightful truth presented by Freire, that is conceived only when one physically submerge themselves at the epicenter of struggles, establishing relationships at the grounds. In 2009, Roy spent weeks with the Maoist rebels in their “liberated area” of the Chhattisgarh State in Central India, where she lived and interviewed many insurgents, in an effort to put humanity to the poster-perfect nameless dark faces notably clad in olive-green uniforms and low strung heavy weapons. They have been dubbed as “the most serious internal threat to India’s national security” by PM Manmohan Singh.

The Naxalites, who are the far-left militant Maoists in India, root their origins to Naxalbari, a village in West Bengal. They now operate in different parts of the country and have organized the Adhivasis (tribal people) of Chhattisgarh since 1970s. While the Indian government strategically labeled the Adhivasi insurgents in Chhattisgarh and publicly proclaimed them as the “most serious internal threat”, they have also niftily taken custody of the Adhivasi homelands, making them illegal squatters in their own lands, ever since the adoption of the Indian Constitution in 1950.

Roy’s intervention to this internal war as a writer and as an activist comes as valiant and unapologetic in times when the corporate media had the country swayed to believe that the rebels are perilous gun-holders impeding country’s development and killers of innocent state personnel. Through her writings, she complicates the soothing narratives of much-prided popular Indian morality: non-violence, under the mask of Gandhism. She notes in the beginning, “It’s easier on the liberal conscience to believe that the war in the forests is a war between the Government of India and the Maoists… It’s convenient to forget that tribal people in Central India have a history of resistance that predates Mao by centuries”. For Roy, the Maoist insurgencies and Adhivasi uprisings are inter-exchangeable apparatus that aims at overthrowing of the state to reclaim their lost livelihoods and their right to live with dignity. She does that cautiously, however, as she asks some pressing questions, “Are ‘Maoists’ and ‘Tribals’ two entirely discrete categories as is being made out? Do their interests converge?”

How could their interests not converge? The Adhivasis have been historically displaced multiple times at the interests of the ruling capitalist class. While every national and state policy favored the corporations, the state government also organized illegal militia Salwa Judum, who would rape women, kill men and burn entire villages. This wouldn’t stop there. The central government orchestrated Operation Green Hunt to kill every rebel to render the Maoists headless, which has backfired and resulted into palpable yet dismal violence. The crime of the Chhattisgarh Adhivasis: living above some of the country’s richest minerals, which was and is their home. Their resistance, in such, has been key to radical Maoist organizing, which is impossible to find in the cosmopolitan urban centers of India. At the same time, most of the Adhivasi rebels may not have read Mao’s ‘little red book’ or discussed Marx’s Manifesto, they are attracted to the possibilities of what a just and egalitarian society could bring- comfort, harmony, life of dignity- ones they have never experienced in their lifetime.

“Walking with the Comrades” is not the first time Arundhati Roy has delivered to the public the vicarious plight of the most oppressed peoples of India. As an anti-imperialist and anti-globalization activist, she has spoken out and written against the US invasion of Afghanistan, India’s nuclear policies, the Israeli state, the genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka, amongst others. On a home scale, she has actively participated in Narmada Bachao Andolan, a movement resisting a dam project that would displace countless people. She has openly stated her support for the people of Kashmir demanding separation from India for which, she was also charged with sedition. But it was her more recent remarks about the Mumbai bombings and unequivocal criticisms of Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement, which has led to the squealing of the liberals and death threats from the right wing.

Much of Roy’s readers from her first international bestseller “The God of Small Things” (1997) disjoint the work from her more current political writings and ceaselessly question her about her next work of fiction. However, the work, although fictional is also a literary intervention to post-colonial India still tainted with internalized caste system, class hierarchies, and hollow political forces. If her enthusiasts had caught those social and political underpinnings in her writing then, her writings that followed after this seminal work come as no surprise.

-r.r.

Asian Youth Protest Police Brutality

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 02:18:00 -0400

Saturday, October 22, 2011 – Asian youth of different nationalities, who are associated with the Fuckin’ Loudest Asians! blog, joined the demonstration in New York City against police brutality, repression, and the criminalization of a generation. We marched from Manhattan’s Union Square to the Jacob Riis Houses in the Lower East Side. The protest was the 16th annual action against police brutality and organized by the New York local coordinating committee of the October 22nd Coalition. Several families of individuals murdered by the NYPD endorsed the action, as well as many community organizations.

More than 800 people joined the march as a whole. FLA! youth participated in a Youth & Student Contingent Against Police Brutality composed of more than 30 people, mostly oppressed nationality students in CUNY, the largest working-class and oppressed-nationality institution of higher education in the US. The contingent repeatedly raised militant chants against the pigs, based on our own experiences and those of our communities of being brutalized by law enforcement. The main chants that reverberated throughout the crowd were:

“No justice, no peace! Fuck the police!”

“NYPD, KKK! How many kids did you kill today?”

“NYPD! Not your police department!”

“NYPD, go to hell! We are all Sean Bell!”

“Cops are not the ninety-nine percent!”

A substantial number of people traveled uptown from Occupy Wall Street (OWS) to join the beginning of the march from Union Square. The pig violence against the mostly white activists at OWS has created new opportunities to expose the daily conditions of pig violence in oppressed nationality communities. The extraordinary mass arrests, macing, and beatings of OWS activists are taking place in the context of a system that carries out regular stop-and-frisks (more than any time in NYC history), ICE raids, racial profiling, and murders of oppressed nationality people. As the people of the world are increasingly turning their attention to OWS, we have to bring the problems faced everyday by oppressed nationalities to the forefront.

Only a month before the October 22nd action this year, a young Black man, Makever “Keba” Brown, was killed on FDR Drive by incoming traffic after being chased by the cops in the Riis Houses. As the march moved through the predominantly Black, Latino, and Asian working-class neighborhood of the Lower East Side, people in the community looked out their windows, watched from the sidewalk, cheered on the crowd, and joined the chants against the blue-shirted beasts. People need to realize that the role of the pigs is to protect the rule of the 1%, the bloodsuckers who own the banks and the corporations, the lazy motherfuckers who live off the wealth created by others and produce nothing themselves.

There need to be more Asian youth who join actions like these. There need to be more Asian youth who want to throw a middle-finger at the cops who brutalize our people and other oppressed people, at the teachers who tell us to be obedient, and at the parents who shove their feudal cultural shit down our throats.

Flyer distributed at the October 22nd march in NYC.

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 02:16:37 -0400

Flyer distributed at the October 22nd march in NYC.

Photo

Sat, 22 Oct 2011 01:33:03 -0400

Speaking Bitterness: Patriarchy in Asian Families

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 00:56:00 -0400

participants: MAMAGUNZ, Sid Brown, round-round, and r.r.

MAMAGUNZ: i wanted to talk about how parents treat sons and daughters differently mainly because my parents have been pressuring me to do all kinds of domestic chores and telling me things like, you have to know how to cook because you’ll need to feed your husband in the future. my brother, who is about 8 years younger, doesnt get that kind of treatment. he just sits in front of his computer after coming home from school. does nothing at all and expects my mother to do everything for him. it seems like parents train women to become housewives generation after generation, whereas boys are trained to become some sort of lump on a log. what’s up with that?

Sid Brown: its true, but boys feel a different kind of pressure too. they have to fulfill the duty of “providing for the family” (considering hetero-normative gender roles). for them, they are burdened with getting a good job and to most asian parents that means lawyer, doctor, engineer, etc.

MAMAGUNZ: yeah, my parents are very happy that my brother goes to stuyvesant hs. so it seems like he has the brains and stuff. but he doesnt have any practical skills. neither one of my parents teach him how to do anything, so im wondering how hes even gonna try to get a job later lol. i try to teach him. like, my mother blow-dries his hair for him. i tell her that he should do it himself. when he tried to dry his hair, he held it too close to his scalp and ended up burning it. then he just stopped trying. even after i explain to him how to blow-dry his hair properly…

round-round: wow

MAMAGUNZ: yeah, its THAT bad

r.r.: i will have to agree with both of you to certain extent. girls= future housewife; boys= future breadwinner, sort of expectations. however, that’s definitely not as simple as we would speak for our mothers and their mothers. we are all college graduates here so i guess we all can agree that our parents do want us to have a public role besides the one of a housewife.

Sid Brown: that is pretty lame. :( my dad doesn’t encourage my brother to work to obtain those practical skills too like ironing, using a washer/dryer, and washing dishes by hand. but when he comes over my mom’s house where i live, he knows he isn’t getting away with that shit.

r.r.: but again, men don’t go through the similar “trainings” of running a household as women do. women are often expected to perform both roles. so i guess we could talk about what is “it” that leads parents to have such expectations from their daughters. or maybe i’m posing this question based on my own experience of my parents’ ideal daughter: a wonderwoman! (it has to be a wonderwoman. a fictional character, no?)

Sid Brown: actually, my parents don’t. i think they only wanted me to go to school to be more competitive in the marriage market lol but i DEFINITELY agree with r.r. clearly defined gender roles are not the norm for recent asian immigrant families, asian migrant workers, or working class american families in general.

round-round: i have a friend who lives in a female headed household. she is the eldest of four daughters. she feels like, as the eldest and asian immigrant, she needs to fill the void of her father. so she ends up playing the supporting mother role and the father role to her sisters. i wonder if this is also similar to the trope of the wonderwoman daughter.

r.r.: absolutely! remain a girl, unless you have to fill in for your brother/father/husband, etc. etc.

MAMAGUNZ: my parents expect me to multitask. they laugh when i say that my partner and i will split all tasks evenly. they think that doing that it feminizes my partner.

Sid Brown: oh i see now.

MAMAGUNZ: wonder if they think that if my bro takes on cooking and cleaning that he’ll turn into a woman overnight.

r.r.: i had a similar experience when my father saw my relationship with one of my exes who cleaned the apartment, did the dishes, etc. etc. my father was completely troubled with our relationship, and told us that it wouldn’t last for very long because there was no “respect” in our relationship. the relationship didn’t last, but for different reasons.

MAMAGUNZ: when i try to criticize my brother around my mother, she feels like she’s being attacked. and this is because she raised my brother. so any criticism of my brother becomes a criticism of her. what did your mother say?

r.r.: nothing. i’m sure she smirked behind his back. haha i have a question for you, MAMAGUNZ.

MAMAGUNZ: yeah?

r.r.: i remember growing up we were often told that if the children turns out to be right: respectful over-achieving boys and wonderwomen girls; it was always a pride for the father. but if the kids didn’t turn out to be the “ideal” children, it was always the mother’s fault. is that something that is similar in your culture?

MAMAGUNZ: yeah, my father actually blames my mother when my brother behaves badly.

round-round: same here.

MAMAGUNZ: he says something like, i work all day and i come home to this mess? how do you raise your children? as if we’re not his lol

r.r.: well, yu’re his children only if yu’re the “ideal” children.

MAMAGUNZ: how does this work in your fam, round-round?

round-round: my dad used to be like that too. if something me and my sister did was wrong, it was my mother’s fault b/c she’s supposed to be the disciplinarian. but after he retired, my mother set him straight.

MAMAGUNZ: LOL how?

round-round: in this way i think it’s really a gendered labor type of thing but after my mom took the gender out of it and made it purely about how labor is distributed between public/private, my dad became responsible for all the house stuff.

r.r.: i wonder if your mother has a similar experience and she has internalized this very patriarchal idea. so whenever you criticize her, it’s validating her own insecurities.

MAMAGUNZ: yeah, i think what you say is right, r.r. i wanna see my mother set my father straight like round-round’s mother did. your mom and my mom need to have a one-on-one.

Sid Brown: lol

r.r.: i want to hear more about your mom, round-round.

MAMAGUNZ: yeah!

round-round: well, my mom said that he’s been pulling a double standard on her when he retired. so now my dad’s a stay home dad who’s responsible for all the private labor.

Sid Brown: how cool.

round-round: i.e. household chores, etc. and disciplining children.

MAMAGUNZ: do his friends make fun of him?

round-round: i wouldn’t know. i hardly see his friends, and all his friends live in nursing homes.

MAMAGUNZ: ah, what about family? my dad’s side of the fam criticizes my mom for childrearing stuff. does your dad’s side of the fam criticize your mom for changing the roles in the house?

round-round: well, my dad’s brothers are all kinda maternal. the ladies in my dad’s side are known for being … untraditional. they’re all loud and can get really mean.

r.r.: haha

round-round: but i feel like it’s my aunties who really get on my mom. for not performing her duties well. “duties.”

MAMAGUNZ: aunties from your moms side?

round-round: no, my dad’s side

MAMAGUNZ: ah, what do they say?

Sid Brown: do your families have that in-laws problem where there is tons of pressure placed on the mother?

round-round: well, my mom comes from a lower class so there’s that dynamic too. and we’re Hakka so that’s different.

r.r.: hakka?

round-round: it’s a subethnic group in China.

MAMAGUNZ: ah true, hakka women have a history of being loud and vocal. they didnt bind their feet cause they had to do farm work too.

round-round: so we have a coolie history and there’s a class dynamic there

MAMAGUNZ: to answer sid’s question: yeah, my fam places a lot of pressure on my mom. there was one time one of my aunts was like, wow, what did you do wrong? why does your son behave like that?

r.r.: i think i had a similar history too. my father’s side of the family were all peasants. my father was the only one who “made it” by joining the british army (well, he was literally dragged at the age of 13 by his father, but that’s a different story). but my mother’s side of the family were businessmen.

round-round: so who got the burden of blame when things went wrong?

r.r.: my father’s side of the family never said anything. even if they did, probably behind my mother’s back. so my mother didn’t necessarily have to go through the scorn of her in-laws (my paternal grandmother died long time before my parents got married). but i think she had internalized this idea herself, so she would feel the pressure even when there wasn’t any actual pressure. but my mother was/is also a housewife and my father being a breadwinner, they have a different power relationship.

MAMAGUNZ: how does that happen? people internalizing stuff?

round-round: and what exactly are our mothers internalizing?

r.r.: to state it simply: there are traditions built to hold up the patriarchal structure. our mothers internalize these structures through these traditions.

MAMAGUNZ: im thinking of an example. like, my father really wanted to have a son, cause sons are generally more cherished in chinese society. women used to be married off at a young age, so they weren’t considered to be as precious since they didn’t stay on the farm until they got old. i think that is still carried over when people migrate to the US.

r.r.: well, to go back to what you started off with: your parents are “training” you to become a good housewife because that’s the tradition. what they don’t understand is that they’re just pawns of the patriarchal structures.

MAMAGUNZ: true that.

Sid Brown: yeah, social pressures were huge when it came to my mom finally moving out and getting a divorce. me and my sisters actually wanted my parents to divorce but my mother feared the scorn associated with being a divorced mother. it is usually the woman blamed for the failure of the marriage, and it is more difficult for the woman to remarry.

Sid Brown: yup, women were considered a burden on the family. that is why they were married off at such a young age.

r.r.: i think that every culture is built up on patriarchy. it just gets carried out differently. child marriage, bride price are all cultural. patriarchy is universal.

MAMAGUNZ: can anyone say more about how every culture is built on patriarchy? like why there is a necessity for each culture to be carried out this way? or, an assumed “necessity.”

round-round: i agree that almost every culture has patriarchy built upon it, but at the same time i want to acknowledge that culture is not static. back to what MAMAGUNZ was saying about how patriarchy seemed to have migrated over with our parents. i agree to a certain extent that there are some values that have a historical legacy, but want to believe that our mothers are more than passive recipients of culture, especially when women’s bodies are supposed to be conduits of culture through childbirth and keeping up traditions. that seems especially true when we feel like we’re inheriting their unfair labors as wonderwomen.

Sid Brown: i just think religion has a big role in what is expected of either gender in my family. its the answer to nearly all questions as on gender roles. and then on top of that its justified by biology.

round-round: “justified.”

Sid Brown: i have had countless conversations with my aunts, who are all very strong women but encourage me to learn the things i need in order to be a good wife…. cook clean, make (good) chai.

MAMAGUNZ: yeah, how does biology enforce patriarchy?

Sid Brown: that a woman is weak and is the child bearer, so she needs to be protected. bla bla bla really, it has to do with honor—control the women in your family so your daughter does not have a child out of wedlock and you know your wife’s kids are your own.

r.r.: i know it’s definitely not science point of view, but to me, to be able to carry a life in a womb for an average of 9 months and to be able to bring another life to the earth by laboring through your vagina is a pretty powerful concept to me.

MAMAGUNZ: yeah, and women are not appreciated enough for that.

r.r.: i agree with Sid. i feel like women’s bodies are more subjected to family’s honor than men’s.

r.r.: i want to go back to what round-round was talking about when she mentioned how our mothers are more than just the passive recipients of culture. can we take a moment and think about what our own mothers have done? i think it’s important to recognize that.

Sid Brown: like round-round said… culture isn’t static. we know from our own mothers and I surely know from my own that as much as she resisted and wanted to stay with my father, she has sacrificed so much and continues to do so despite her “traditional” upbringing is all.

Putting things into perspective. Many Asians unwillingly come to...

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 23:27:00 -0400

Putting things into perspective. Many Asians unwillingly come to imperialist countries because of the damage those bloodsuckers did to our lands and our peoples. We continue to be oppressed when we get to the US and other imperialist countries. Our experiences in imperialist countries will always be connected to what’s going on in our homelands.

—MAMAGUNZ

On March 2011, in Vinita, Oklahoma, an ex-cop senselessly...

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 16:35:09 -0400

On March 2011, in Vinita, Oklahoma, an ex-cop senselessly brutalized a Hmong man named Neng Yang, who accidently ran over and killed the ex-cop’s dog. Even though Mr. Yang apologized profusely and offered to pay for the dog, Mr. Yang was beaten until he was unrecognizable. He left with broken facial bones, broken ribs, and bruises.

The monster who attacked Mr. Yang claimed that he was only defending himself. This is an absurd lie. The ex-cop is 6’1” and 250lbs, who is seemingly double the size of Mr. Yang.

On October 3^rd, there will be a 2^nd hearing in the Vinita County Courthouse. However, the Courthouse has tried every way to stop the case from moving forward. It has denied Mr. Yang access to a translator. It has also denied his right to use his surgeons and doctors to testify in court as witnesses to his case. Their reason is that the medical evidence will cause “financial hardship” on the county.

In a town that is majority white, it is not surprising that such a racist attack would happen. Too many of these cases have happened to Asian people – Fong Lee being one. While bringing these issues to court is important, we should trust and rely on ourselves to build movements around problems such as police brutality to prevent these horrible crimes from happening again.

—MAMAGUNZ