O Me! O Life!

kamounke: “If you’re an adivasi [tribal Indian] living in a...

Fri, 24 May 2013 23:40:15 -0700

“If you’re an adivasi [tribal Indian] living in a forest village and 800 CRP [Central Reserve Police] come and surround your village and start burning it, what are you supposed to do? Are you supposed to go on hunger strike? Can the hungry go on a hunger strike? Non-violence is a piece of theatre. You need an audience. What can you do when you have no audience? People have the right to resist annihilation.” - Arundhati Roy

"Up to that point, we had been called Orientals. Oriental was a rug that everyone steps on, so we..."

Fri, 24 May 2013 23:39:45 -0700

““Up to that point, we had been called Orientals. Oriental was a rug that everyone steps on, so we ain’t no Orientals. We were Asian American.””

- - Richard Aoki

The birth of Asian American identity springs from radical roots, anti-racism, solidarity with Black Power, and embracing the importance of self-definition. We need to remember the Asian American Political Alliance.

From their declaration in 1969:

DECLARATION OF THE ASIAN AMERICAN POLITICAL ALLIANCE, 1969
(http://instruct.westvalley.edu/kelly/History20_on_campus/Online%20Readings/asian_american.htm)
The Asian American Political Alliance is people. It is a people’s alliance to effect social and political changes. We believe that the American society is historically racist and one which has systematically employed social discrimination and economic imperialism, both domestically and internationally, exploiting all non-white people in the process of building up their affluent society.

They did so at the expense of all of us. Uncontrolled capitalism has pushed all of the non-white people into a cosial position so that only manual jobs with subhuman pay are open to them. Consequently, we have been psychologically so conditioned by the blue-eye-blond-hair standard that many of us have lost our perspective. We can only survive if “we know our place” - shut up and accept what we are given. We resent this kind of domination and we are determined to change it.

The goal of AAPA is political education and advancement of the movement among Asian people, so that they may make all decisions that affect their own lives, in a society that never asks people to do so. AAPA is not an isolated group, and should never profess to be such. Its only legitimacy and value is in the effects it has on many people, not just a small group of people. In the same vein, AAPA is not meant to isolate Asians from other people; it is unhealthy as well as unwise to do such a thing. AAPA must constantly expand and grow, and reach out to other people and groups. At the same time, AAPA must meet the needs of its own members and deal with its own problems.

In the past political organizations have tended to subject themselves to rigid, traditional levels of structure in which a few make the decisions, present them to the body, and the body can vote either “yes” or “no.” This hierarchistic organization, however, is only a manifestation of the elite control, primidal [sic (pyramidal)] structure mentality in which you are not capable of making your own decisions, an idea drilled into you from the foundations of this society.

AAPA is only what the people make it. We have adopted a structure which better fits the needs and goals of our alliance, not a structure to which we have to adjust ourselves. Furthermore, there is no membership in AAPA in the strict sense of the word. There are workers who for common interests join together with one or more people to intensify the effectiveness of an action.

(via angryapihistory)

ROARING IN APPROVAL

drive drive drive drive drive i love (hate) driving but the feeling of having mobility is immensely...

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:26:37 -0700

drive drive drive drive drive i love (hate) driving but the feeling of having mobility is immensely satisfying.

also, to spend $150 of my savings to go on an incredible portland —> san francisco (yosemite, crater lake, kings canyon, redwoods, etc) backpacking/camping/road trip…or not to go on said roadtrip. that is the question of my life right now…

racialicious: Oh SNAP!

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:18:59 -0700

racialicious:

Oh SNAP!

sesamestreet: Did somebody say breakfast? ME ME ME

Fri, 24 May 2013 11:12:34 -0700

sesamestreet:

Did somebody say breakfast?

ME ME ME

"It’s easy to be considered a misandrist when men are socialized to feel entitled to women and our..."

Fri, 24 May 2013 11:08:36 -0700

“It’s easy to be considered a misandrist when men are socialized to feel entitled to women and our time. So, if you ignore them, you’re a misandrist. If you insist they leave you alone, you’re a misandrist. If you focus on building healthy female-centered relationships over relationships with men, you’re a misandrist. Misandry is basically, prioritizing your agency, autonomy and fellow women, over men in a society that teaches you that being feminine relies on giving into men’s feelings of entitlement.”

- (via angrywomanistcritic)

annnnnnd BOOM

(via stfuhypocrisy)

I’ve probably reblogged this before, but.
(via feministdisney)

"If were gonna talk about Assata and say she’s a ‘cop killer’, let’s be completely honest and put..."

Fri, 24 May 2013 10:57:20 -0700

“If were gonna talk about Assata and say she’s a ‘cop killer’, let’s be completely honest and put such accusations into perspective. Everyone wants to forget that in the 60s and 70s the FBI and police declared War on the Black community and organizations that formed in the community to end oppression. The police and FBI went all out to destroy Black leaders and these organizations with undaunted impunity. The reason why you had BPP (Black Panther Party), SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) and BLA (Black Liberation Army) was because they responded to police terrorism. They were tired of seeing the police come into our communities and take them over like an ‘occupying army’, if I may quote Black Panther co-founder Bobby Seale. These groups formed because they were tired of seeing police and FBI with white supremacist attitudes, assassinating, brutalizing or jailing Panthers and members of other Black Power organizations left and right for little or no reason..They were tired of seeing government forces foster the killing of Black leaders like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. So if we’re gonna talk about Assata, let’s talk the police and FBI murders of unarmed Fred Hampton and Mark Clark? Let’s talk about the murder of Lil Bobby Hutton. Can we say COINTEL-PRO?”

- Assata Ain’t No Terrorist. She’s the One Who Fought Terrorists (via blackcyborgs)

Watch her autobiography, btw. I did, and the amount of inner peace and joy she exudes is phenomenal and heartwarming to see - that someone so aware of the realities of racial minorities in the US didn’t let the anger run away from her, and kept it rooted in love.

Photo

Thu, 23 May 2013 18:35:05 -0700

Discovery, Animal Planet, and History Channel exposed for killing animals for profit

Wed, 22 May 2013 16:30:36 -0700

Discovery, Animal Planet, and History Channel exposed for killing animals for profit:

kateoplis:

“These channels are failing the spirit of conservationism and education. They are failing inspiring awe in young people. Failing much needed inspiration in a very confused and conflicted world.

These shows are failing their core values, their main purpose, which is leadership in environmentalism and cultural education. Far worse, they are failing millions of young people - millions - who look up to them.

Please join me in asking Discovery, Animal Planet, and the History Channels to stop, apologize, and correct.”

climateadaptation

More from Joe and Michael.

merh.

: grade school sex-education

Wed, 22 May 2013 15:56:50 -0700

: grade school sex-education:

reallyl0vely:

subtitle: what I wish I told my sister before middle school

—

you will get your period one day,
and you will not feel like a woman.
you will feel like your body has betrayed

every promise it ever curled around
your little finger. this is normal.
you will get breasts soon after

or…

G P O Y

Wed, 22 May 2013 13:59:18 -0700

shortformblog: maxistentialist: Tumblr’s new ad sales pitch...

Wed, 22 May 2013 11:00:06 -0700

shortformblog:

maxistentialist:

Tumblr’s new ad sales pitch deck: “Brands finally are front and center.”

Your take, people of Tumblr?

wtf does this mean there’s going to be ads all over my dash? WAT.

also

“Brands finally are front and center.”

“Brands finally are front and center.”

“Brands finally are front and center.”

IS THIS SUPPOSED TO BE A GOOD THING

"Walter Gove (1973) found that “for women the shift from being single to being married increases the..."

Wed, 22 May 2013 08:56:17 -0700

“Walter Gove (1973) found that “for women the shift from being single to being married increases the likelihood of being murdered, while for men the shift decreases their chances.””

-
Dee Graham, Edna Rawlings & Roberta Rigsby. Loving to Survive: sexual terror, men’s violence, and women’s lives. NYU Press. July 1 1994. (p. 7)

"In the encounter in the apartment, something went wrong."

Wed, 22 May 2013 08:54:14 -0700

“In the encounter in the apartment, something went wrong.”

- Former FBI assistant director and CBS News senior correspondent John Miller • Discussing the violent confrontation between the agency and Ibragim Todashev, a Florida man who was friends with Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev and got into a violent confrontation with the FBI early this morning. Todashev, who was being questioned by the agency over his ties to Tsarnaev, was killed. An FBI agent was injured in the encounter. “He had been interviewed along with a number of other people in the apartment complex, but the interest in him was higher because of a couple of factors: He was in contact with Tamerlan Tsarnaev, he had been to Boston to visit him, and he was planning a trip to Chechnya,” Miller explained. (via shortformblog)

I’m going to add something that’s been bugging me for weeks since the Boston marathon bombings.

I hate - I hate - how what happened in Boston is being used as a prop for politicians and their bullshit agendas. I hate how Boston is being used by racists around the country as an example of “Moozlems trying to take our freedom”. I hate how much violence and violent language is being directed at the perpetrators and the other suspects.

I hate - from the very bottom of my heart - what all of these people are doing to a tragedy. OUR - Boston’s - tragedy. Everyone I’ve talked to in Boston about the bombings is just trying to move on. We’re just trying to heal. And everyone has said that they do not want the same or similar violence to be committed on or against the perpetrators, other people involved, or any of their families.

Can we just STOP with the violence? WHO is actually asking Bostonians what we want? It just feels so awful, so inhumane, so disgustingly disrespectful when I hear people around the country appropriating this tragedy to validate their own violent ways of thinking or acting. Everyone and ANYONE who does that has sunk to the lowest of the low and I - and many other people who call Boston home - have lost any and all shreds of respect we may have had for you at one point. Just…STOP. STOP. STOP.

"Be of service. You are taking your degree into a society dominated by concentrated poverty and a..."

Tue, 21 May 2013 22:11:57 -0700

“Be of service. You are taking your degree into a society dominated by concentrated poverty and a vulnerable middle class, a society where it is harder to pay for education, harder to find a job, harder to buy a house and harder to hold onto those things even if you manage to get them. You are entering adulthood during a period of mass incarceration and near constant war. There is a lot for you to do. Service is the rent you pay for the space you take up on the earth, and as a relatively privileged American you take up a lot of space. We are the most consuming, polluting, wasteful nation on earth. So your rent is steep. Pay it with service.”

- Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry’s advice to Class of 2013 (via bitchwhoisyou)

No, you're not respecting my culture

Tue, 21 May 2013 16:03:56 -0700

piinboots:

(TW: the Sri Lankan civil war and atrocities that were inflicted on Sri Lankan Tamil women during the war)

So apparently brown folks are taking back the bindi and desi tags. I’m so down with this, particularly because of my own personal and cultural history as a Canadian Tamil by way of Sri Lanka. I figured I’d repost a comment I made a while back about why it’s so important to me that people realize that these things aren’t just a fashion choice, they’re woven into our histories and cultures and mark battles fought and lost and wars won and people alive and dead and thriving and barely surviving.

They mean so much.

First off: Not all women who wear a bindi (or, as it’s called in Tamil, a pottu) are Indian. South Asian women wear bindi. In my specific case, I’m a Sri Lankan Tamil (which is very different from Indian Tamil, as you’ll see later) woman who wears a pottu/bindi when I go for certain events or functions or sometimes just cause I feel like it. Women who wear pottus on a day-to-day basis are generally Hindus (if I’m wrong about this please call me out on it), although in South Asia many women of all faiths wear them as part of a larger cultural history.

The reason I bring this up is not (just) because I want to point out that Indian =/= South Asian. We are not a monolith of peoples who live on the subcontinent. Our cultures, our languages, our beliefs, our practices, our religions, our clothing, our ways of life, within India and across South Asia, are incredibly different.

No, it’s not just that. But to explain why I have to give you a little bit of history on my motherland. (An island off the southern coast of India, for those who are playing at home.)

See, Sri Lanka is made up of various ethnic and religious groups. (That whole incredibly different thing.) Sinhalese folks, Tamils, Muslims, Burghers, Malays etc. While within different groups there are a variety of religious beliefs and practises in general the Sinhalese majority (who make up 74.9% of the population according to 2012 census) is largely made up of Buddhists and the Tamil minority (who make up 11.4% of the population) are largely Hindu.

So. You have colonization. You have the Portuguese and the Dutch and the British coming and fucking things up. You have the British bringing in Indian Tamils to work as indentured labourers. Give or take a century or two and these Indian Tamils now firmly identify as Sri Lankan Tamils, having mixed in with the Tamils that had been there throughout Sir Lanka’s history. Because they migrated to Sri Lanka as labourers many Tamils are seen as being lower class, uneducated field workers with an indecent religion. (Over simplifying, but stereotypes tend to do that anyway, so.)

You have independence. You have the Sinhalese thinking about how this is their island, their home. The Tamils have India, they can go back if they have a problem with this. The Sinhalese have always been here, they must have a place to call their own and thrive in, a place where they can protect their culture and religion. You have the Tamils, descendants of those who lived in the Jaffna Kingdom in the north. The children of queens and kings and poets and warriors our sweat and blood and tears and hope are sown into the earth. We belong here too. This is our home as well.

You have the majority oppressing the minority. You have the Sinhala Only Act, passed in 1956 so soon after Independence it made Sinhala the official language of Sri Lanka. You have largely Tamil civil service see a wave of resignations as folks who aren’t fluent in Sinhala are made to leave. You have government services and forms made inaccessible to Tamil peoples. You have a government that standardizes university entrance exams, only available in Sinhala and English. You have the burning of the Jaffna library by the police, home to 97,000 books and manuscripts some of which are centuries old, our history, our stories, so much gone. You have pogroms against Tamil people for decades. You have Black July. You have calls for peace drowned out by angry, desperate voices. You have a civil war. You have violent retaliation, suicide bombs and child soldiers and the horrors of a people who feel they must fight or die. You have a government attempting genocide against Tamil people, against its own people.

And, what, does all this have to do with pottus? Well, remember, pottus are worn mostly by Hindu women. Guess how Sinhalese soldiers, how government officials, how angry mobs with guns and machetes in their hands and murder and hate in their hearts, how men who knew that in Sri Lanka certain kinds of women were to be taken and used and thrown away, guess how they identified Tamil women?

Women were quiet literally killed for wearing pottus. Were killed on the suspicion of rubbing off their pottus before they were caught. Captured and raped and tortured and abused and blown up and killed. I have heard stories, horrifying, keep-me-up-at-night, punch to the gut stories, about what women who wore pottus had done to them.

I imagine a soldier standing above little schoolgirls saying they could try and wipe off that pottu but the dirt of their skin remained the same. Those girls who have already lost fathers and brothers and sisters and mothers and friends and limbs and dreams to landmines and gunfire and desperation. Photos of dead siblings and cousins laid out with offerings of flowers and pride. Tamil families trembling in a hidden room, closet, nook, cranny, praying that the soldiers believe the Sinhalese person at the door when they say they are not hiding anyone, that they aren’t secretly Tamil themself. Tamil women with scars on their bodies and hearts and souls reborn as tigers, untouchable and clothed in fire they find revenge and retribution the only way they know how.

You have women dying and dead and broken and missing and blown up and ripped apart and gone gone gone gone gone gone gonegonegonegonegone because of that dot on their head.

That pottu, that sari, that goddess with her many arms and flaming eyes, those are not toys to be played with. Not a simple thing to take on and off. Our pottus were burnt into our skin, invisible until a soldier or a man or a mob decided that they were a beacon, an excuse, a justification.

So, that is why you can’t wear pottu.

It marks my third eye, marks where my rage and heartbreak and wrath flow out burning brutal bright. In a society where my dark skin marks me as different, as not belonging, (because, it seems, we are not allowed to belong anywhere) it is a single mark of light, seen on the faces of strangers and loved ones it tells me that we are not alone, we are not floating on that endless sea of the trauma and pain made up of our shared communities, languages, cultures, histories.

It reminds me that we are not all gone.

Amazing.

“I WILL CRITIQUE EVERYTHING YOU LOVE” bahahaha

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:01:27 -0700

“I WILL CRITIQUE EVERYTHING YOU LOVE”

bahahaha

"[M]any nations of the third world are described as ‘underdeveloped’. These less wealthy nations are..."

Tue, 21 May 2013 11:56:56 -0700

“[M]any nations of the third world are described as ‘underdeveloped’. These less wealthy nations are generally those that suffered under colonialism and neo-colonialism. The ‘developed’ nations are those that exploited their resources and wealth. Therefore, rather than referring to these countries as ‘underdeveloped’, a more appropriate and meaningful designation might be ‘over exploited’. Again, transpose this term next time you read about the ‘underdeveloped nations’ and note the different meaning that results.”

- Robert B. Moore, “Racist Stereotyping in the English Language” (via wretchedoftheearth)

list of things: -south asia -environmental justice -nature -food -design how do i take all these...

Mon, 20 May 2013 21:31:22 -0700

list of things:

-south asia

-environmental justice

-nature

-food

-design

how do i take all these things and channel them into a job at mother jones (because that is my new life goal)? i think it would be so incredibly awesome to do journalism work on the environment and climate change and intersections with race, ethnicity, gender, econ systems, etc - but i’m an idiot and only figured out how much i like the idea of doing environmental journalism now. which means i have a lot of reading to do.

unimpressed2chainz: i’m just gonna start fetishizing white dudes i’ll be like cat calling them “you...

Mon, 20 May 2013 20:59:45 -0700

unimpressed2chainz:

i’m just gonna start fetishizing white dudes i’ll be like cat calling them “you looking like a fine aryan prince’ will they be german who knows who cares