How appalling, how alarming it is that a shocking reminder of an ostensibly invincible figure’s mortality is necessary to pierce through our daily hazes of taking people and lives for granted. This past weekend, I found myself paralyzed, rendered speechless and immobile upon learning of my professor John Delloro’s sudden death of a heart attack. My grief is only a drop in the avalanche of mourning that has reverberated through the seemingly infinite number of communities and individual lives that he touched.

It should be noted that I am the type of person who usually stubbornly refuses to fall prey to the fervor of hero worship, the unequivocal reverence of individual leaders (usually men) placed on a pedestal. In fact, even before I met him, John’s towering reputation bolstered by his litany of accomplishments at first pricked at my cynicism rather than paving an immediate avenue to my approval. But I was floored upon meeting him, realizing how fallacious my assumptions were, as he completely eschewed the heroics and self-glory that I assumed often accompanied such a resume.

What an utterly cruel, morbid irony, indeed, that it was his heart that failed him–because if I were forced to identify the one major impact that my interactions with him yielded, it was his embodiment of the firm reminders that the seemingly Sisyphean movements for social change must be imbued with, and driven by the heart, by love for humanity. It was John who, unwittingly, compelled me to interrogate what I thought was my ossified cynicism, a misanthropy fertilized by what I felt were my personally fruitless efforts to contribute to social change within the non-profit industrial complex.

As such, my experience in his class, I have to admit, was marred by my own residual skepticism, my eye-rolling at students who blurted out less than enlightened comments. But I came to realize that the space he allowed them was born out of the same abundant generosity that he had afforded me in an interaction that I will always remember fondly. Upon first meeting him, I had spoken with John about my own personal, political, and academic passions and my desire to amass more knowledge about gentrification in Los Angeles. Although it was a topic in which he didn’t claim to be well-versed, he drew whatever he could from his own resources to facilitate my own learning throughout the entire year, emailing me connections to organizations and individuals who worked on these issues, often popping his head into the grad lounge to tell me about how certain events and stories had made him think of me and my interests.

One day in the fall, John emailed me to ask if I wanted to go to an event that would include a panel on housing in Los Angeles, which he felt might be pertinent to my research. Although it started at 9:30 downtown, and the class for which he taught and I was a student started at 11:15 at UCLA, he offered to pick me up in the morning and drive me back to UCLA in time for our class. I was bowled over by this magnanimous offer, and took him up on it. When he picked me up, he was driving while also eating frozen yogurt and holding mapquest directions in his hand (until I took them from him)–a perfectly appropriate image that encapsulated John’s legendary multi-tasking, his astonishing roles in so many different spheres.

While he was his usual cheerfully loquacious self as we navigated through exasperating LA traffic, he also evinced a genuine curiosity and interest in my own personal story. We talked about community organizing, about returning to the relative safety of academia, about New York City and east coast schools, about his family and his kids, surely budding freedom fighters. We arrived at the event, where everyone knew him, only to have to return shortly to make it back to campus in time. That day left such a lasting impact on me- I was so taken with his profound warmth, the attention and time that he was willing to spend with me, a mere individual amongst so many others in his life. This, I realized, was part of John’s remarkably holistic approach to social change.

Although my own initiation into Ethnic Studies germinated from a deeply personal and emotional overhauling of the dominant paradigms that I had embraced, I remember Ethnic Studies at Columbia as firmly ensconced in the heady, the cerebral, almost verging on coldness in the ruthless critiques that we embarked upon. This is not to say that my experiences at UCLA have not been intellectually rigorous (I refuse to supply fodder for those gleefully searching for justifications for further dismissing Los Angeles as a vapid, intellectually hollow wasteland.)

But John’s class really drastically shifted how I have come to view Asian American studies. Although he did not shy away from persistent critiques of societal inequality, he also called upon us to recognize the immense significance of personal stories, of emotions, to understand that the emotive power of these human stories should not be summarily dismissed but rather could move mountains. And so John’s class, about the individual narrative, about the story of us, so perfectly captured what John was about as a person. As an individual, he  tirelessly fought in the movements for sweepingly broad, widespread, drastic change in a brutal world, the ambitious hope for a utopian future. But at the same time, he accomplished this too on the case by case, molecular level, in the time and energy that he invested in so many individuals.  I will forever be heartened by his boundless faith that people have the capacity to learn, to grow, to change, that minds and hearts can and should and will be transformed. And he performed this everyday, a countless number of times with an unimaginable number of people.

But the impulse to celebrate John’s incredible life should not elide our recognition of the harsh fact that this is an unjustifiable, unconscionable, reprehensible, unforgivable act by the universe. The surges of grief come flooding back over and over again– on campus on Tuesday, I saw his students tearing up as they dropped off their final papers at his class. I met with another beloved professor who wept as she recalled teaching him in 200A many years ago and helping him develop his syllabi to return to UCLA as a teacher. At a meeting, we were forced to discuss the logistics of commencement, as he was supposed to be the keynote speaker. If this is unbearable for us, then I can’t even fathom what his partner and children and family are going through. I can’t help but think of how much he had suffered recently upon learning the deaths of Tam Tran and Cinthya Felix. And how emotionally devastated we all are by the brutal dehumanization that is waged in multiple ways each day, but on such a blatant and egregious level in, for example, the recent laws passed in Arizona. That John was so tireless, so consumed with the epic battle speaks volumes about how it is all too easy for us to be battered, through and through, by the movements for social justice, and how much, too, we need to take time, to take care of ourselves, to heal, to be human. And again, it is a grim and somber reminder that it shouldn’t take someone’s death to remind us of these truths.

In the end, my memories of John will not rest upon his tome-worthy CV, his epic resume. I’ll remember how he’s challenged me to approach individuals now with love, with faith and belief that they can change and grow and become part of this surging movement that creates a new world–and that that is a process that I, too, am undergoing, and that other people have generously offered me the space to do so. And it is a reminder that not all of us must feel pressed to “accomplish,” to rack up points in the game of social justice, but that we have our own personal missions, contributions to offer in fashioning a new, just, loving world. John, you restored my faith in humanity. That is not an exaggeration. I will remember the lessons that you taught me forever. Thank you.

-May

For more about John:

A letter to his children by Traci Kato-Kiriyama

Press Release from UCLA Asian American Studies Center

APALA Mourns the Loss of National President John Delloro

So the big election news today is that Guv’nah Richardson endorsed Obama today, but can I just note that he swings towards Obama as his skin grows darker? I’m sure Richardson’s advisers were trying to keep him out of the sun during his run (and okay, I guess Iowa wasn’t particularly balmy at the time), but now it looks like he’s been enjoying post-campaign life by playing frisbee on the beach for eight hours a day.

Still, I’m confused: Why didn’t Richardson give his endorsement to Obama before the Texas vote, where there would have at least been some possible sway on the electorate? Then again, this is a contest about superdelegates now anyways, so I guess he can start making those phone calls now.

Race was also on his mind. His comments on Obama’s race speech:

“[Obama] did not seek to evade tough issues or to soothe us with comforting half-truths. Rather, he inspired us by reminding us of the awesome potential residing in our own responsibility.”

Okay, so there’s the quasi-creepy invocation of personal “responsibility,” but he could have done the politically pragmatic thing and play coy (or endorse Clinton). At least Obama is inspiring other politicians.

~e.a.

Obama’s silence on race was a sticking point for me, and I eyed his upcoming “speech on race” with trepidation. Fortunately, low expectations can breed sleeper hits. His address on the issue of race in America was more than I could ask for from a politician running a national campaign for the presidency.

Sure there was the hokey and grandiose invocation of our supposedly great forefathers engaged in this grand experiment of “democracy.” There were moments too, when he clutched at a multiculturalist angle for why issues like health care affect all Americans (which of course, it doesn’t impact them in the same way). But there also was an acknowledgment that black anger is rooted in something real and legitimate. And he followed it with the politically savvy, but incisive point, that working class white people get lost in the shuffle of black versus white, a resentment that conservatives have long exploited.

There was not, in the way of policy prescriptions anything that made Clinton and Obama very different from each other. What each promised now would have to be hammered out and refined later anyway. The difference was in style and messaging, where I found neither to be inspiring. But perhaps this speech was what I had been waiting for: where Obama moved from race-silent to race-conscious. And as a mainstream politician, he has shifted the paradigm, if ever so slightly, in a significant way. Yes, Obama threw his mentor Reverend Wright under the bus. But at least he picked him up and dusted him off afterwards.

I still do not believe that an Obama presidency will dramatically change the lives of people of color and queer people either at home or abroad. But I do now believe that there is more of a possibility for communities to create a spaces for themselves under him than they would they could under Clinton or McCain. Maybe I’m getting a touch of Obamania after all.

~e.a.

The full YouTubed speech begins here:

Forty-two years ago this week Malcolm X was shot to death as he addressed an audience at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights. 

In his memory — and as the nation pays unprecedented attention to the voting habits of people of color — here’s an excerpt of Mr. X’s powerful and still timely speech, the Ballot or the Bullet.

“You’re in a position to determine who goes to the White House and who goes to the dog house….You put them first and they put you last.” 

 –paloma 

Call me Ebenezer Scrooge, but I just gotta bah-humbug all this blissful basking in the sun of our future salvation as orchestrated by the Democratic presidential candidates–particularly Barack Obama. (Sorry for my unseasonal allusions. Are you as depressed as I am about the long, frigid months between the marathon consumer-mas season and the glory of drinking outside in the summertime? Well, now you are, I bet.) Although the simmering tensions over the racialized and gendered realities of the candidates and what they represent have finally begun to bubble through the surface, liberals are still fawning over the idea that supporting Barack Obama absolves them from the guilt of their complicity in white supremacy. I’m particularly irked by the idea of a President Obama as a beacon of colorblind goodness who would whitewash over our historical and contemporary reality of institutional, systematic, deeply embedded, pervasive racism and provide the ultimate justification for falsely declaring racism as effectively dead and buried.

There have been some refreshing blips in the overwhelmingly fawning portraits of Obama. Kenyon Farrow blogged about his own conflicted feelings as a Black radical. Ari Melber wrote about the significance of Obama’s candidacy in relation to persistent educational inequalities. Grace Lee Boggs straight up says: “Neither Obama’s ethnicity or Hillary’s gender is enough to earn my support. Neither is calling on the American people to confront our materialism and militarism or challenging and proposing alternatives to corporate globalization.” These opinions shine light on the devastating gulf between the symbolic value of Obama’s potential presidency and the realities of the immensely complex formulations of oppression waged in our country. I do believe we’ve got to be informed about and engage in electoral politics in some way or another. But what bothers me is that all the noise created by presidential candidates who spout the rhetoric of change further squelches, muffles, silences the multiple ways in which people have fought, and must continue to fight, for change.

Throughout this mess, I see change being relegated, confined within the pens of the almighty in power. Change is being defined not by the collective movements and sacrifice and unglamorous, steadfast, daily organizing by people who have had no choice but to do so in order to survive, but by policies assigned and imposed from above. In following the race, there’s a mix of excitement and fear that we are constantly being trained to believe our role, as citizens, in making change is limited to that moment within the voting booth (or, if you’re really proactive, stumping for the person whom you would eventually vote for in the booth. After all, one of the anti hunger-strikers at Columbia seemed to see voting as the ultimate opportunity to express one’s voice, making other methods unnecessary.)

But in talking to my youth and residents of Sunset Park during anti-gentrification/pro-low income housing organizing efforts, this emphasis on change from above enforces the lack of agency that most people (of color, LGBTQ, young, female, poor) feel crippled by in terms of making change. It kills me that my youth and others are so convinced of their inability to transform the situations that cause them, their families, their communities pain. It kills me that they believe the only way to change things is to become wealthy and use money and capitalism and consumerism as a bandage. That’s why I’m rejuvenated by Grace Lee Boggs’ view of change and active citizenship. It reminds me that we can’t be silenced by all this hullabaloo over candidates who will only continue to champion the forces that attempt to dehumanize us and shackle our communities.

-May

Check out this interview with Grace Lee Boggs:

After watching the democrats debate in New Hampshire, I am convinced that out of those four candidates, Clinton would make the best president. Her responses were the most substantive and she actually presented specific strategies for dealing with the issues that were brought up. Obama, Edwards, and Richardson didn’t “wow” me much. Obama is charismatic and speaks with great conviction, so I do understand why he is the front-runner. I also don’t deny that he genuinely believes in and wants the change he is talking about, but I think Clinton’s knowledge of Washington and global political issues would make her a much better president than any of the other three candidates. Watch the debate and decide for yourself. I myself was surprised at how impressed I was by Clinton. I really thought that I would have a hard time choosing between her and Obama, but I didn’t. Clinton’s political positions and solutions cannot be reduced to a sound byte, and I guess that’s a negative in our country.

I agree wholeheartedly with Gloria Steinem in her op-ed in the NYTimes today about Obama and Clinton. She says:

But what worries me is that he is seen as unifying by his race while she is seen as divisive by her sex.

What worries me is that she is accused of “playing the gender card” when citing the old boys’ club, while he is seen as unifying by citing civil rights confrontations.

What worries me is that male Iowa voters were seen as gender-free when supporting their own, while female voters were seen as biased if they did and disloyal if they didn’t.

What worries me is that reporters ignore Mr. Obama’s dependence on the old — for instance, the frequent campaign comparisons to John F. Kennedy — while not challenging the slander that her progressive policies are part of the Washington status quo.

What worries me is that some women, perhaps especially younger ones, hope to deny or escape the sexual caste system; thus Iowa women over 50 and 60, who disproportionately supported Senator Clinton, proved once again that women are the one group that grows more radical with age.

If you haven’t seen A Shot At Love With Tila Tequila, this is what MTV has this to say about their show:

Going where no dating show has gone before, A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila pits men against women in a number of romantic challenges, all in an effort to win Tila’s attention and affection. But just because Tila can’t decide which sex suits her best doesn’t mean the girl doesn’t know what she wants. In fact, she knows exactly what she’s looking for in a partner, and she’ll keep kicking out potential suitors one by one until she finds Mr. or Ms. Right.

I am going to overlook the show’s blindingly blatant heterosexism and bi-phobia for the moment because a) I totally have a crush on one of the two remaining finalists and b) and some of the shit people say on the show is so ridiculously sexist, homophobic, etc. that you can’t help but laugh at how bigoted they are.

Dani Campbell is a firefighter from Florida and describes herself as “futch” – both femme and butch. (way to collapse binaries! – and that’s not to say that femme and butch are negative terms in any way – i’m glad she claims them both.) And as you can probably tell, she’s reason a. Bobby, the other finalist, is unremarkable and uninteresting. I’m not sure what Tila sees in him. Though, she did say that she wanted to teach him about the world because he’s from the country (AKA upstate New York) and hasn’t had much life experience. If I were Bobby, I wouldn’t really take that as a compliment.

Anyway, back to Dani. She comes off as genuine and earnest – qualities that are never found in reality TV contestants. And also, she’s super cute. Plus, her grandmother has to be the coolest grandmother ever. In this clip of Episode 8, Tila visits the firehouse where Dani works and then goes to Dani’s home where grandma gets a lapdance from Tila.

Dani’s OBVIOUSLY the best contestant. You all had better be rooting for Dani tomorrow night during the finale of the show. I mean, really, how often is it that queer women who aren’t glamorous a la the L Word get representation on TV?

Now let’s take a look at my second reason for watching the show – the ridiculous shit people say that makes me simultaneously laugh and cry at the sorry state of our world.

Ryan was the most moronic (in Episode 4 when the women beat the men in the “Bi-Athalon,” Ryan said, “I feel like crap. Losing to a bunch of he-she’s is not something you like to do.”) of the four remaining finalists in Episode 8. Below are some stellar quotes from his family in response to Tila’s visit.

Ryan’s sister

My family definitely was shocked when Tila came in because she’s very cute. She’s exotic in many different ways.

Ryan’s mother after she found out that Tila is bi

At first I honestly felt like I would just throw up.

Ryan’s father

For him to bring something like this home is not right.

They should totally be the poster family for the Aryan Nations. And I bet the father is also a closeted frequenter of male prostitutes. He does fit the profile.

-and on that note. GO DANI!!!!!! (i just HAD to post another pic of Dani!)

You can watch full episodes online here. The final episode of A Shot at Love will air tomorrow (Tuesday) night at 10pm on MTV. WATCH IT!

-anna-

“At any given time an agent can track the movements of a parolee. They can also tell where they have been if there is an issue about there location at the time of a crime,” said Roy Chaney, district administrator for California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

There is no real voice of opposition in the article (a quick call to the ACLU might have been in order) but there is this gem:

“This is where we are going when it comes to crime prevention and monitoring. This is going to change the way offenders behave,” said George Tita, a professor of criminology at UC Irvine. “I would not be surprised if this has a deterrent effect with gang members.”

p

I wrote a news brief for AlterNet about the recent report by the U.S. Human Rights Network, which gathered over 250 organizations to collectively respond to the U.S. government’s report to the U.N. Committee on Ending Discrimination (CERD).

The U.S.’ report is obviously distorted, but the philosophy underlying it is one that needs to be properly addressed. The U.S. report only mentions Katrina once, presumably under the following logic:

Concern has been expressed about the disparate effects of Hurricane Katrina on housing for minority residents of New Orleans. Recognizing the overlap between race and poverty in the United States, many commentators conclude nonetheless that the post-Katrina issues were the result of poverty (i.e., the inability of many of the poor to evacuate) rather than racial discrimination per se.

The argument is a permutation of the familiar form of colorblindness of “class not race” – that it wasn’t their race that made the U.S. government indifferent, but their class. How about we try a class and race analysis. After all, how did low-income black people get to be low-income in the first place?

The statement highlights a defining tension between de jure and de facto discrimination: the former meaning racial discrimination that is directly written into U.S. law as it was during the Jim Crow era, and the latter meaning a law that effectively segregates or undermines specific communities. Colorblind law in effect, perpetuates historical inequalities between people of color and whites in the U.S. So while on its face a law may not “say” the word color, but only negatively impacts people of color, then it is a white supremacist law because it maintains the hierarchy of white supremacy.

And even if the “law” could be colorblind, law enforcers are not. This results in, for example, more black youth being tried and sentenced as adults, than white ones. This is not just about “class” as hard as white liberals wish it were.

One other musing I had was the whole framework of “human rights,” of which I am admittedly skeptical. The phrase conjures up images of well-meaning white liberals running around Africa or Asia saving the ignorant brown, black, and yellow people from their misinformed cultural practices. But speaking to Professor Lisa Crooms, Professor of Law at Howard, she offered me another perspective: human rights as a framework where people of color assert their status as “global citizens in a global community.” Such a strategy would also require uniting the oppression experienced at home with the oppression perpetuated abroad.

~e.a.

If you know me, then you probably know that I derive a (borderline creepy) sense of enjoyment from hating on Justin Timberlake. I mean, it’s no big deal. It’s just that underneath all that slick popstar packaging, I can’t help but see him as an agent of the deeply pernicious force of white supremacy seducing our ears, minds, and hearts into cultural submission.

His role in the Great Super Bowl Scandal of 2004 just about says it all: JT, in action, unleashed indecency upon America by exposing Janet Jackson’s tasseled boob. But it was Ms. Jackson’s body on the line, not his, and ultimately she shouldered all the blame for disgracing America. After all, it was her Black female body that radiated sexual transgression and libidinous temptation, whereas JT was absolved of any wrongdoing because it was completely “unintentional” on his part.

But his supposedly unwitting involvement also came at a perfect time. This was the era in which he was extricating himself from the womb of Disneyfied, boy-band sexless fame and establishing his image of cool, sexy masculinity. After all, the male pop star should make everyone (including “straight men”) want to offer him their panties. But he can’t look like he’s trying too hard. Or appear too overtly or threateningly sexual, like he might want to try the panties on or something weird while romancing you.

This is where the pawn of Blackness comes in. Rather than being blamed for scandalizing the nation, his innocence allowed him to gain sex appeal and naughtiness points through boob association–at Janet’s expense, of course. Later, JT even had the gall to diss Janet Jackson, thus earning the wrath of one Jermaine Dupri. (Dupri is Janet’s lover and best known for saying “Y’all know what this is” in the beginning of his So So Def produced songs. What is this, Jermaine? I don’t know! Please explain.)

This unabashedly skillful manipulation, exploitation, and abuse of blackness on JT’s part really rankles me. He comes from a long legacy of white cultural thievery in which white artists have called upon blackness to produce their success while simultaneously asserting their white male supremacy by degrading Black masculinity and femininity.

I present now my favorite case study: “My Love,” featuring T.I. and produced, of course, by Timbaland. Let’s consider the lyrics as isolated from their hip-hop packaging. “If I wrote you a symphony/ Just to say how much you mean to me/ What would you do?” “This ring here represents my heart?” These queasily romantic lyrics presented in any other form would probably make teenage girls barf. They sound like something your parents would show you in a note that your father wrote when he was desperately and adorably wooing your mother. And nothing says “unconscionably uncool” like Mom & Dad romance.

That’s where Timbaland and T.I. come in—to ratchet up the cool factor exponentially with their hip-hop produced beats and a requisite guest rap spot. (Hey, even Jojo utilized Bow Wow to mitigate her blinding whiteness.) But JT must also negate their sex appeal in order to sell his own. Note Timbaland’s sociopolitical location in the beginning of the video. Now, he’s not much of a threat to JT—he doesn’t offer competitive sex appeal. But he still stands behind JT in the video—he’s rendered sexless, mateless while JT grinds all up on an attractive female.

But TI does offer a threat in terms of sexiness. Note how shockingly incongruous his rap is in the context of such a shamelessly romantic song—whereas JT practically begs for the female’s love (even if it’s all a front), TI treats his object of lust with cruel standoffishness, telling her that “I’m patient, but I ain’t gonna try/You don’t come, I ain’t gonna die”; he’ll “forget your face” if you dare to turn him down. In doing so, he occupies white America’s worst fear about Black masculinity that they see as defined by misogyny, objectification, even brutality and violence toward women. But JT then plays upon one of our favorite tropes of man saving woman, especially white man saving brown, yellow, black, red woman: he sweeps into T.I.’s rap and whisks his woman away with the safety of his fantasies of walking down the beach hand in hand and other such nauseating romantic activities. Sick.

I realize that by now, I’ve probably earned your disgust for attacking one of America’s favorite pop culture heroes. I will readily admit that I have a few JT songs on my ipod–what, they’re good jogging songs! And I downloaded them illegally! There are probably other things I should spend my time whining about. But let’s just say that I think pop culture is also covered Marx’s suggestion that we ruthlessly critique all things in existence. Let the unshackling of the mind continue!