Resolved: the Years to Come

…
there are too many people too broken down to have dreams and risking dreams and visions, yet if we do not have visions, then what is the use of all this.

we must feed the Dream.

-Fay Chiang

A more overtly political post in line next. But as Fay encourages us, I need to share a bit of my vision for myself.

Sometimes a year passes and it feels much longer than one year. How could so much emotion be felt, so much growth take place? And how could it not! I am grateful for the opportunities to develop, succeed, fail, fear, and love. A flurry of experiences in the past few weeks alone have influenced how I want to approach the next year, and by next year I mean the rest of my life. Just six months ago, I feared not being able to continue to grow. When I finished college in May, I wrote to a friend that I was scared of losing the critical thinking I developed and practiced there. Now I imagine her laughing at me from across the country as she responded, “That’s YOU, Phuong. You carry it with you.” As I think of the lessons others have taught me, I understand how this fear represents a powerful contradiction that supports elite academies, which benefit from the popular thought that we cannot learn or think outside of a well-regulated degree program. This is not true and so we must struggle to remember that we can do all of those things (sometimes even better) outside of the academy.

I realize the glaring differences in life lessons during college and post-college. As an undergraduate, I learned to take myself seriously. I learned the power of my voice, written and spoken. I grew to understand that simply being was political and I needed to decide how I wanted to use my being. My own idea about "being" was expanded and questioned. I learned that I fear lack of courage and lack of self-knowledge. Essentially, I became conscious of the world and myself in it.

Recently, I have been taught about how I relate to people personally. There are lessons about what I cannot be, what I am not, and what I am not yet. I enter the next year striving to be cognizant of these last questions: While debates and discussions have their place, am I being inclusive through my words and actions? Am I expressing my love and respect and how? Am I figuring out why people care about the issues they do? Am I too concerned with a final decision or product that I forget to understand or appreciate the process and the emotions, the people, the resistance involved? While ready to question, I need to respect peoples’ experiences and actively learn about others. The work is time-consuming and difficult, but I am less afraid of it remembering our human fallacies, knowing mistakes will be made.

Until tomorrow, folks!

Love & Politics

…
This is about love.
This is about love turning up its volume ‘til we shake,
until our arms and legs move,
until we shout with multiple tongues and whisper in each others’ ears,
I will never ask you to change your name.
I will never ask you to change your name.
Your name is at home on my tongue.
In this land that wants us blind, deaf, asleep, defeated
We have to make our own music because none of these songs have ever been for us,
For the fight inside of us,
Pounding fist of heart against soul, clashing notes inside of our minds
This is to know what it is like fight to love ourselves.
-Bao Phi
“Yellow Brown Babies for the Revolution”

This past month I have been extra aware of my efforts to reconcile the debate between what can be described as “humanity” and “politics.” I use quotations because the difference is a false dichotomy, as I have come to realize. Examples of this debate takes many forms and touches upon many topics: James Baldwin and Richard Wright arguing over the role of literature—is it art for art’s sake or for political reasons; I think of Bao Phi’s interview in which he explains he has made a conscious choice to love and be in love with other yellow people; there are conversations I have had with friends about art, music, film, careers and love—how much are we responsible for making these projects interconnect with our politics? I think of a friend who often reminds me that love is always the ultimate goal. Yet if love allows us to find ourselves, won’t my love be golden yellow-brown? I remember that my choice to love an Asian American partner is political and requires conscious effort.

I realized a few things today as I wandered around the farmers’ market. I go almost weekly now and spend money on too-expensive squash, greens, and even sunflowers. I recognized that I do not go because I insist on organic foods or even because I fully understand the politics of supporting local farmers. Like Kelly Tsai (see 4:00 in the video below), I go and study happy people. I watch them and their families play, eat, and be in love. These strangers remind me of myself when I am not stuck in the world of thoughts.

In a noetic moment, I understood that the debate between “humanity” and politics” forgets that in an oppressive system, every assertion of humanity is political. There are times when our politics and our efforts to humanize ourselves conflict, but that will always be the case in a world that questions our humanity. For those whose humanness is under attack daily, to “eat, pray, love” are political acts.

I wonder, then, what would truly be humanizing—to forget the politics when those conflicts arise and strive for the pinnacle of humanity OR to recognize the politics and be driven by it? I assume the answer is somewhere in between.

I need this voice

“This is the oppressor’s language, yet I need to talk to you.” –Adrienne Rich


I remember sitting on the wooden bed. The U.S. army fatigue blanket rested upon a straw mat. Another decade had passed and I was finally back on the land where my ancestors have lived. Vietnamese swirled around me. I would smile awkwardly at guests. Sip tea to keep my hands busy and my mouth silent. Wear long pants to cover up. Take notes on Vietnamese words. Hide my eyeglasses so I looked like a lady.

I was finally home. Yet no words could fix the problem. In my pixie cut, they joked I was a boy. When bored, they said I was too American. As I ate everything lovingly forced-fed to me, they remembered my blood. Unable to communicate with elders and unwelcomed by peers, I took to myself. I did chores. I visited the guava tree that no longer stands. I would occupy myself with words—English words. I asked questions, trying to recount a past life. And I cried, ashamed and frustrated at my disjointed self for not belonging. Then I hid those tears, ashamed and frustrated because Vietnamese women have learned to cry without tears.

The Vietnamese have a sacred bond with their ancestral lands. So I selfishly prayed for my father to be relinquished of his burden. I traveled into the homeland with him. I left alone.

Andrew Lam reminds me that the Vietnamese are fatalistic. We celebrate death dates, stopping by cemeteries annually. We light incense at relatives’ graves as well as for those “neighbors” nearby. “Have your visited your grandmother yet?” they ask me about my grandmother who has already passed. Vietnamese headstones do not mention individual achievements but rather list the names of one’s children. Filial duties run deep.

With this pain, I still sit here ready to romanticize. I smell the sweetness of ripening rice fields. I imagine myself pedaling into the countryside under a beating sun. I remember my hysterical uncle’s rants and foggy old eyes. I can taste the fresh banh uot as I watch the sidewalk symphony of Honda Dreams and hungry dogs. I listen for lullabies wafting in on a cool evening breeze along the Song Huong.

* * *

I left Vietnam ready to contrast it to the U.S. I thought about James Baldwin's argument: “The necessity of Americans to achieve an identity is a historical and a present personal fact and this is the connection between me and you.” The Vietnamese seemed to have figured it out and I was not it.

Yet, tonight, I am beginning to understand the issue is much deeper. bell hook’s term “self-recovery” helps me to explore this. hooks quotes Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh as having said: “In the Buddhist tradition, people used to speak of ‘enlightenment’ as a kind of returning home. The three worlds—the worlds of form, of non-form, of desire—are not your homes. These are places where you wander around for many existences, alienated from your own nature.” Hanh argues that “forces of domination fragment, estrange, and assault our innermost beings, breaking us apart.”* To counter oppression, we must restore ourselves to a condition of wholeness. hooks compares this idea to an experience she calls “self-recovery;” through thinking and writing, she began to reclaim and recover herself to become whole.

I recently concluded a personal experience panel by telling the audience (my colleagues) that I often feel like I have no home. I am many different people fighting for the occupation of one body. I am colonized. Few people ever see who I am as a whole person. While teachers must embody a specific persona, the spaces I occupy demand that I remain just various personas. My personhood has been under attack.

I am realizing now that it has never been about destroying the oppressor. Rather, my work and my life are about being able to re-claim my wholeness.



*Andrew Lam calls this estrangement a “psychic disconnect,” but I like "self-recovery" because it focuses on an active response.

I'm WHITE!

"You're Chinese. You're white!!!" Ashake yelled at me like I made no sense. I wondered if she pitied me for not understanding my own identity.

"How do you know?"

"Look-- They are Chinese," she pointed at a few Chinese boys hanging out across the yard, "and you look just like them. You're white!"

"But what is white?"

A Cambodian middle-schooler chimed in, "Their skin. You know based on their skin."


Ashake and Jason continued to chat. So I left the conversation there. "I am white?" I asked myself. Did she mean it in the "honorary white," "model minority" sense? If she did, what experiences taught her this? Shit, does she and the other black and Latino students see me as white? What do I do as a "white" teacher? Later, I decided maybe she meant that literally my skin can be compared to white Europeans' skin tone. If so, both Jason and her have a strong grasp of what is whiteness, at its basic level. They reminded ME of that.

Nothing like a conversation with middle-schoolers to remind you that you don't what you studied for 4 years and you don't even know yourself.

Heartache

Teaching is heavily tied to the heart. I almost want to purge the love from my body.

Today I walked around unable to undo a discomfort in myself, feeling tense and pubescent in my ability to pinpoint my emotions. Only now, as I plan for tomorrow, do I realize why I still feel like vomiting my heart.

It shakes my soul how I worry about my students. Today in particular, I am concerned if they really believe that money is more important than culture. "Without money you can't do ANYTHING," said Monica. Too much the truth, with too little understanding of its meaning. Will they get it by the time I leave them? Will they get what they deserve? Will they understand their human worth? It scares me that the answer is no, no, and no.

This is not cynicism, nor is it a plea. No one will write a book or make a movie. I hope it is simply the beginning of courageous recognition. Tonight, I go to bed with fear. Tomorrow, we face it and learn.

Street Art 3: trucks, bikes, books

Trucks:
I've been wanting the capture these trucks for years. Here's a pair that I chose to post. I'm a bit bothered by the caricature of the Asian faces. Yet what's more interesting is what I see as the orientalization of the sexual images of the black women in the second photo. Black hair = Chinese queues? Gives "chinky eyes" another layer of meaning.









Bikes:
I learned today that a bike lock costs double the price of the bike my mom bought. So much for an environmentalist alternative...

Bike culture is evolving in Oakland. Driven heavily by the growing white hipster population of the city. These images are from outside a cafe, which did not exist a year ago and is frequented by young white middle class folks. I did not think much about the use of the word manifesto when I first saw it. I assumed it was from a community org but alas, it's a bike shop. Nothing wrong with that inherent concept. However, who is driving this "urban bike culture" and who has more access to "self-expression," a value claimed by Manifesto Oakland? What happens to activism when terms like "manifesto" and "movement" are appropriated by whites uncommitted to radicalism? This is a set-up that heavily resembles the position of white hippies during the 60s and 70s. How do radicals of color then engage with "anti-wealth" whites (for lack of a better term)? It's an issue Huey Newton considered but I don't know if he found an answer...








Books:
Went into Berkeley for some books to supplement the shitty state textbook. And realized what I already knew-- teachers pay to teach.

But that's ok... Anthony Hamilton told me:

We don't have to worry bout no groceries/ we can fill up on love alone...
Quit your crying lady/ we can conquer the world

American Lens into Vietnam: Artistic or Voyeuristic?

A quick post to share this recent New York Times article and slide show on the risks Vietnam faces from rising sea levels…

The photos in the slideshow disturb me and strike me as voyeuristic. From the creative point of view, these are some gorgeous photos. From more of a critical cultural studies perspective, the slideshow embodies America’s mystification and romanticization of a former “enemy.” No one’s face is shown clearly. Some figures are hunched or look tense and fearful. The figures physically and emotionally recall the American War in VN, particularly slides number 1 and number 3 where male bodies are distraught, splayed apart. The women make me think of departure and disapora: the woman with an umbrella taking in a last glimpse, the woman walking away from the dog, the woman paddling with her back turned from us. And why would a journalistic photographer capture a veiled view of water? Of all the articles for which slides could have been included-- why the Vietnam article? Too beautiful to pass up? Or too easy to romanticize? Thoughts?

Misplaced Nativism?

I was helping translate at a financial aid workshop today for an organization I was a part of in high school. We were wrapping up a short informal discussion with parents: quelling their fears about sending their high school seniors away to college, reiterating that there is money for them (these are all low-income families), and reassuring them that the organization would be there to support families in the financial aid process.

After the Cantonese alumna and I translated information, a mother said half-jokingly but firmly, "Ok, English now!" Yet Victoria and I had only clumsily translated what had already been said in English, which was much more detailed than our explanations. A few minutes later, another mother angrily shushed a pair of Vietnamese parents whispering about something, possibly financial aid. It strikes me that both were black mothers and there was a sentiment of dislike in their actions. These moments may have passed in the eyes of others, but- as someone concerned about the state of black - Asian political relations-- I wonder, was there dislike or even distrust coming from either of these parents?

It frustrates me that these families share similar backgrounds yet there is push-back against non-English speakers. Is this at all connected to the English-Only movement and the gradual decline of bilingual education? It is tough to appreciate English as an asset in America when one may have few others. Are language rights being used to further divide working class peoples and people of color? It wouldn't surprise me.

Will be back with longer posts soon (November?)

Street Art 2: Amandla Awetu in Oakland

Listen to his, revolution of syllables
Scoping lightning from his pores
Keeping time, with his hurricane beat
Asking us to pick ourselves up and become, THUNDER.
-Sonia Sanchez on Talib's "Everything Man"


Take 2- a moment to look at the murals surrounding one half of Oakland High School. These were all done by OHS students, led by teachers Jackie Marston and Keith Williams, known as K-Dubb. Williams has been spearheading the efforts to create a skate park in West Oakland's deFremery Park. Some of the murals below are works in progress but I'm proud to have them displayed. I remember being so happy when I drove by and saw K-Dubb setting up paints for students on a Saturday morning. I see the man around the community all the time, which is still powerful as an alum.




Amandla Awetu! Power to the People!




Aung San Suu Kyi, bold leader of Burma (Mayanmar).




It's too ironic that the line on the left reads: "The Youth must educate themselfs to elavate themselfs."





The continuous struggle...





is a Beautiful Struggle. I would argue the phrase is from Talib Kweli's alubm. Some of our heroes Chavez, X, Marley, Ms. Broussard (a VAAMP teacher), Ali, Guevara, Kahlo. Ms. Broussard was my art teacher. She painted high tops... and had cancer.

Third World Women’s Rights— tinged with Imperialism

Last week one of New York Times’ most shared article was “The Women’s Crusade” by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, a philanthropist. While I was pleased that the piece raised the issue of women rights, the tone of First World benevolence bothered me. Does anyone else see it too?

A few examples include that while the article is entitled “The Women’s Crusade,” the subtitle is the first thing you see in larger print reading: “Saving the World’s Women.” This places the writers of this essay and their audience in the position of those doing the “saving” of women, not the women themselves.

Kristof and WuDunn highlight the story of Saima Muhammad, who turns her life around with a $65 microloan to start a business. Great news. Yet her present life seems to a reification of sexism. I think of women’s “double shift” as I read her obligation to support her family and community while running her business.

When economist Esther Duflo is quoted saying, “When women command greater power, child health and nutrition improves,” I fear this portion of the article reinforces ideas that women are inherently better caretakers than men. The idea that men and women are born innately different undergirds sexism.

The discussion of the illogical spending of (brown/Third World) men, who are portrayed as the enemy, led me to recall Gayatri Spivak’s essay, “Can the Subaltern Speak?”, in which she discusses at length the British abolition of the Indian practice of widow sacrifice. She writes, “The abolition of this rite by the British has been generally understood as a case of ‘White men saving brown women from brown men.’” Spivak points out the paradox of anti-sexist work in the Third World. While she regards the abolition of widow sacrifice as admirable, the British law pre-determines the women’s Indian cultural self (as Subject).

And finally, the desire to do “good” in “Western intellectual production is, in many ways, complicit with Western international economic interests,” tied to our capitalism and imperialism. This line is fitting considering how women’s rights is becoming a new approach to US foreign affairs, particularly as a way to fight terrorism. Is it wrong?

Leaving and links

“Not home but… Home” – Bourdain on his No Reservations trip in VN

I’m taking off for a month to Vietnam and am feeling more and more ambivalent. It scares me that French American Anthony Bourdain can articulate my feelings about returning home. I realized whatever reasons I made up for needing to go to Vietnam were just that— pretend. I wanted to fit in there as if the word immigration never existed. But the image of myself as a clumsy, arrogant outsider (a Westerner, in particular) makes that impossible. I would be lying to act as if that was my life. I am frustrated at my own audacity of calling that snake-shaped country home. And further frustrated that I must be frustrated… I am scared that I might simply have to make peace with my difference, my disconnect from relatives. Blood thicker than water? It may not be thicker than the salt water that parts us. Maybe I will finally accept that my ragged American-ness tangles with tradition, causes too many arguments, leaves behind people... Maybe this will be good.


Be back in a month. Until then, some links and ideas that I did not have time to write posts about:

Koreatown Label Irks Some Residents
A tricky line to walk: Oakland needs business revenue but people need to be respected and acknowledged in that endeavor. These developments scare me. I don’t think riots will start over it, but I think if the label of Koreatown stays and more Asian businesses move in, black flight from Oakland will only increase. When will “development” include all poor people of color?


Obama and "Africa Speech":
Most problematic line for me: "But the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants." (emphasis mine)

Victor Goode defends Obama’s “Tough Love” and boils it down to holding policy accountable:

The point is will the Obama administration change the neo-liberal economic policies of the Clinton years? Or is his promise to support development that “enriches people’s lives” and partners with Africa in “new ways” going to be a new direction for American policy? As with so many of the lofty promises of this new administration, the answers remain to be seen.

While Goode presents a significant point, I want to highlight Aisha Brown’s take. Brown reminds us of the existence of neo-colonialism in Africa by writing, “President Obama's speech to Africa, although imbued with hope, still reflected the same arrogance, blame shifting, and paternalism Western leaders have shown since the continent's independent nations began to emerge.” If we are pushing for a “new direction,” we need to understand the role the U.S., IMF, World Bank, and specifically Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) have played in the (under)development of Third World countries.


Obama’s NAACP speech
I am more satisfied with this one. He implicitly counters post-racial claims by publicizing economic, health, and education disparities between blacks and whites. His ideals are still solidly resting on problematic American ideas of meritocracy, but at least he doesn't outright lie about history like in his Ghana speech. So bravo big O on the balancing act. “Yes, government must be a force for opportunity. Yes, government must be a force for equality. But ultimately, if we are to be true to our past, then we also have to seize our own future, each and every day.”

O, thee with privilege (or how shall you light the world?)

Terras irradient
“Let them give light to the world.”
- Amherst College motto

I feel better this past month about the issues I'm going to raise below. But I wrote this because for the last year, I have been returning to a personal debate of what I should be doing and what I should be thinking of doing. Some of you know that I chose to not do Teach For America because I do not want to support the organization. I believe one voice makes a difference in challenging America to truly educate its citizens. So here I am taking out a loan for just my credential program and unsure if I even want to complete my masters in education because I do not know how long I want to teach. To complete the masters program is expensive and not necessarily sought after by the Oakland Unified School District.

Then I think about professorship. One day, I can’t imagine anything better to do. Worse, I get excited thinking about how I want to push and expand how the world understands history, culture, and race. Then the next day, I picture my soul being suffocated in a isolated ivory tower office. The lingering question in my mind is how much of my interest is about prestige? Is that the driving force of my desire to pursue more education? If I am such a big believer of working with the people, then why am I leaving them?

And why do I want to leave? Some days, I feel like I am gasping for air in Oakland. This will always be my (second) home, but I want more. The world has shrunken and I have lengthy arms that could work toward change in faraway places if I chose. This is the privilege of having the opportunities that I’ve had. Is it right to follow the path I believe I need, for now? What about the long view?

What do I owe?

It's a question I will ask, always. I’ve rationalized over this plenty, of course. For now, I am thinking that while one person makes a difference, I am a human being (which is saying a lot but not much) amidst the workings of a much larger and deeper imperfect set-up. I am no martyr. People of color, working class peoples, and other people from disadvantaged backgrounds cannot be to only ones working to change this oppressive structure. So while I am a person who feels the responsibility of improving the lives of the disadvantaged, I refuse to existentially restrict myself to that load. I want to inspire and educate others to become Subjects of history. At the end of the day, I KNOW this. But some days, I don’t FEEL this. I feel guilt and uncertainty; the dual and reciprocating burden and freedom of my experiences.


“Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.” –Ellison in Invisible Man

Street Art 1: the town to the sco

I love street art. I decided I’m going to try to post at least once a month photos that I take of Bay Area street art, guerilla art, graffiti, stencils, whatchamacallits. From huge bombs to small whimsical posters, it’s all fair game.

Why street art? On an aesthetic level, graffiti is a branch of hip-hop. Graffiti is beautiful! I’m just calling it street art because of the methods, legality, and acceptance that has evolved over time.

On a personal level, I grew up in a city that is famous in its own rights for graffiti. An odd thing to brag about, no? Also, for many many reasons, I love discovering, exposing and learning about subjects that are untold and marginalized.

So on an academic level… street art is a forum for people to claim their space by altering that space, particularly people who lack other means to do so. That’s one of why graffiti often involves trespassing. If we don’t own property, we can’t paint on our own property. So instead, we’ll paint on yours and make you recognize that we exist. Noticing street art is like having my finger on the pulse of marginalized popular opinion.



Consider the first two photos I’m sharing this month:

1) This was written on a Fruitvale BART bench a few days after Oscar Grant was killed by BART police, at this same station.



I just noticed today the inverted exclamation marks. The exclamation marks suggest that either the tagger was Latino, a Spanish speaker and/or supporting black and Latino solidarity. I love it! It demonstrates how this medium represents human change and cultural evolution. (It may help to understand that the Fruitvale district houses Oakland’s largest Latino population and readers should keep in mind historical black and Latino conflict as well.)



2) I took this today, a piece done by the corner of Kearney and Post in SF. This exemplifies the theme of making noise where one is not wanted. In the opposite corner stands a Ralph Lauren, down the street is Burberry, DeBeers, Cartier… Need I say more?




I should also mention that street art relies on context. If you are not from the area, some aspect of the piece will be hidden to you, whether it be the locale, the image, the letters, the artist, or current events. It harks again to the issue of access and ownership. Artists select their audiences by referencing restricted themes and locations. Of course this is not a strictly controlled method of selection, but the element of choice is there.


Some other pics from the day:

I ate this today, imported to SF from one of Oakland’s taco truck. My first this summer...




Learned a lot about myself, America, and Robert Frank through the SFMoma’s exhibit on the photographer.



The curators wrote that the fourth section in his book The Americans presented a critique that implied

that the American political system drowns out the voices of it average citizens; that Americans worship false idols, such as cowboys and movie stars; that their work is restrictive and unsatisfactory; and that their rich are arrogant, their poor are meek, and their middle class are lulled into quiet submission by a consumer culture.

It was a free museum day. Lots of people of diverse class, age, and race that you don’t see often in museums. Good stuff.




Then I found Waldo.




Does that count as street art?

Reflection: Said and oppression, part II

After writing about Edward Said and how Americans view information from Iran, I wanted to conclude with what I often end up thinking about oppression and the challenges to overcoming it. Those with privilege ultimately build the box in which they operate that privilege, separating them from the oppressed. Even in cases when the privileged sincerely desires to struggle for liberation for the underprivileged, there is reason for those lacking in power to distrust those with power. The distrust and inability to destroy the internalized stereotypes people form builds a difficult trap for everyone.

With the example of videos from Iran, we witness the trap that first-world bloggers face when they feel excitement and even envy about protests in Iran as they try to learn and be in solidarity. Others criticized writers who hinted enthusiasm because of their problematic privilege. Since to fight oppression means one is oppressed, celebrating conditions that require protest forgets that third world situations are not ideal. (Not to suggest that first-world situations are ideal, either.) If we take for granted that the bloggers wanted to contribute somehow to Iranian democracy, it is tragic that their attempt further highlights their privilege. It is a reflection of how difficult it is to develop solidarity.

Here’s a different, small example that could be more relatable. When I make eye contact with people on the street, I always find myself wondering what the person thinks I think of him or her. If I saw a person of color, his double consciousness* may lead him to analyze the impression he gave off. He might decide he is an invisible man. At the end of the day, I, the person of privilege, cannot recognize who is this person really. (Ok, this is not a perfect scenario. The power dynamics of an Asian American female isn’t exactly one of white male privilege but, considering the history of tensions between Asians and Latinos and blacks, some assume that we are of privilege. I think Asian Americans need to be cognizant of this.) Also, if I was a person of privilege, I would be less likely think twice of this person on the street. Even if I wanted to acknowledge him, I am trapped in the lack of consciousness of my assumed position and he is influenced by his consciousness. I may have looked scared when I wanted to come off as respectful, or any other number of mis-construed and mis-read facial expressions. Furthermore, the effort made by the person of privilege marks their relationship as unequal to begin with. Both the oppressor and the oppressed are restricted in their acknowledgment of each other as people (read-- both as oppressed).

I hate to end on this depressing note so I’ll leave with something from Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, probably the best text on the humanistic dynamics of oppression that I’ve read. Among other points, Freire argues that the oppressor can only end his dehumanizing role through true solidarity with the oppressed. Straight to the heart.

Solidarity requires that one enter into the situation of those with whom one is solidary; it is a radical posture. If what characterizes the oppressed is their subordination to the consciousness of the master…, true solidarity with the oppressed means fighting at their side to transform the objective reality which has made them these ‘beings for another.’ …True solidarity is found only in the plentitude of this act of love, in its existentiality, in its praxis.

Reflection: what Edward Said brings to the discussion of Neda Soltani

No doubt many of you have read about the death of Neda Agha Soltani, who was killed during Iranian protests over the country's recent election. (Like other bloggers, I will leave you the choice to go Youtube the graphic video yourself.) The blogosphere has led me to consider points of views I would not have otherwise and, after stumbling upon YouTube clips of cultural theorist Edward Said, I wanted to include him in this conversation.

The debate surrounding Soltani (as far as I have read) has been about American viewers' reactions to the video. Some have reacted negatively to Kate Harding’s article “I am Not Neda.” One commenter satirically “translated” Harding's word:

' Her death touched and horrified people. Although, to be honest, I much rather that people revolt and die more *sniff* discretely. Also, I've seen people die in movies and so I'm not shocked, which shows the underlying problem with reality itself, not me. But more importantly, how can I take all these things, from sweeping historical events to a personal, public death, the special providence in the fall of a sparrow, if you will, and turn it into a discussion about me?'

While I do believe that Harding does come off as lacking empathy, I give her credit for explaining,

we should be awfully wary of enjoying a frisson of self-congratulation when we do [watch the video], or getting so swept away by the emotional momentum of someone else's fight -- I've seen several bloggers express excitement and even a twisted sort of envy while watching the intensity of the Iranian people's passionate political engagement -- that we lose sight of just how much we don't know and are not actually experiencing.

If we take her seriously, Harding is attempting to push viewers to recognize their privilege of not being in Iran and-- due to that privilege-- their disconnect from it.

Tami’s post on Racialicious and “Pilgrim Soul” at Pursuit of Happyness both challenge readers to ask if using Soltani as a martyr is right. I also agree with PSoul when she argues that martyr status dehumanizes people: “Either human beings are human beings, or they are ciphers for grand ideas. And when someone is demoted to the status of stand-in for Progress or Democracy or Liberation, however laudable those goals might be, I don’t think you can call what you are doing anti-oppressive work.”

In PSoul’s comment thread a discussion between the writer and "BeckySharper" leads Becky to counter, “I don’t think there’s anything self-congratulatory about bearing witness, at least, not what we’ve been talking about in this thread. There’s relatively little I can do materially to help protesters in Iran. I can, however, be aware and speak up about it on my end of things. I have free speech, and I can use it.”

And to this, I also say, right on! ...Wait. What? Am I just being agreeable today? No. The truth is that these writers all are touching on significant and complementary angles of privilege and politics. Viewers of the video would benefit from awareness of their privilege (and shoot, anybody of a privileged position or background for that matter), which is what Harding struggles to raise. Those working towards anti-oppression might also want to resist turning Soltani into a martyr, as PSoul and Tami write. In addition to all this, the video and its audiences exist in a larger historical discourse that raises the stakes of this video and so-called "citizen journalism" (Twitter, YouTube, etc) throughout these Iranian protests. For that matter, "bearing witness" should be taken seriously too, as a limited first step.

Let's consider now the YouTube clips of Edward Said speaking about the themes in his seminal work Orientalism (1978). (I've posted clip 1/4 of his discussion below and the rest is great as well). He speaks about how the U.S.'s orientalism has equated the Middle East with Islam, terrorism, the exotic—essentially stereotyping and dehumanizing the Arab world. This leads me to say that Said could provide an answer to Tami’s question: “...why does the Western world (and here I refer mostly to the dominant culture, not marginalized groups) have to see these things to be shaken from its complacency?” and specifically, “Why must we see an Iranian woman die on a city street in order to understand the gravity of the country’s political upheaval?”

Well, Said may suggest that we (the Western world/dominant culture to which Tami refers) have demonized the Middle East for so long that we in turn tragically need something so shocking to stir us into recognizing Iranians’ humanity. If seeing this video pushes viewers to thinking of the Middle East as a diverse and complex region, if it aids people in resisting stereotypical portrayals of Middle Easterners, then this media has extreme significance in combating a historically oppressive orientalism. Yet if viewers forget the ultimate humanizing goals of anti-oppression work, then it is all for naught, as PSoul raises. And moreover, readers must develop consciousness of their own privilege in order to recognize that the real test remains for citizens to take action in issues we can affect, such as speaking up in the face of racism or even advocating for sincere and fair negotiations over Israeli and Palestinian statehood.

There is a bit more I want to say to conclude, but I feel this is mental overload for one post. Part II, coming shortly.

Houston, we're back

If you've been invited to this blog, I would dare to say that we have some level of mutual commitment to each other's life, love, and growth. So hello again, buddy.

Earlier posts below were written during my semester abroad in the Dominican Republic. I want to deliver in this blog's continuation some documentation of my personal development, which hopefully advances rather than dragging in circles-- but no guarantees here. I am not promising perfection. This is still a personal blog at the end of the day. I am striving to be honest and thoughtful while expecting that some people will be turned-off by my personal, political, academic statements. And sometimes I will be arrogant, poorly-worded, and/or just plain wrong. I hope you stay tuned.

A note on the title. At first I chose a title that seemed to place politics at the forefront of the blog, though that was not the main purpose of my writing. In this current title, "Flo" is both the mispronunciation of name and my chosen "Starbucks" name (the name I give to baristas and delis). "Funk" also can be interpreted in multiple manners- style, music, stench. All of those are relevant. "Funk" also funktions (hehe) in relation to the social theorist Cornel West's lexicon:

"This funk is neither a skill nor an idea, not a worldview or a stance. Rather, it is an existential capacity to get in tough with forms of kinetic orality and affective physicality acquired by deep entrenchment in-- or achived by pretheoretical styles owing to socialization in-- the patterns of Afro-American ways of life and struggle."

West's idea of Afro-American life speaks to the courage to struggle in the face of hate; the courage to face the truth; the courage to both laugh and cry. As an Asian American, I work in solidarity with blacks and other people of color... And strive for some funk.