From One Survivor to Another
Except he hasn’t done anything..
I’m sorry! To the person who said that he hasn’t done anything. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
Here is a list of 108 things that Obama has accomplished during his presidency so far.Disclaimer: I am not myself in full support of Obama but it is very hard to say that he has made no progress. Especially with such a strict and stubborn congress.
#16 isn’t a positive in my mind, but this is an epic list and ought to be reblogged. Obama isn’t perfect but considering he’s been hamstrung by a Republican-controlled Congress, he’s achieved a fucktonne of awesome stuff.
http://whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com/ is good too
(Source: rjoop)
AMERICA HAS SPOKEN! Time to get big business out of our government.
Public Opinion and the Occupy Movement
The Occupy Wall Street protests continue to spread around the country, highlighting grievances some Americans have about banks, income inequality and a sense that the poor and middle class have been disenfranchised. A recent New York Times/CBS News poll found that almost half of the public thinks the sentiments at the root of the movement generally reflect the views of most Americans. What are your thoughts about the movement? Do you agree with the protesters’ methods? Please note you must be logged in to post a comment.Oh hey, look at that.
Watching the Occupy Wall Street live feed.
And I cannot believe this is America. This is not the America I was raised to love.
The America I was raised to believe in is a figment of history’s imagination. I have known this for years.
Yet the shock is overwhelming.
Okay, you obviously aren’t a Person of Color then, because this has been happening for centuries.
There was a woman screaming about throwing away the books. Five thousand plus books thrown in the garbage. All that knowledge.
People of color, poor people, people with disabilities, and other groups have never even had said books in the first place. And even if they did, those books rarely ever mentioned them.
The police are taking the food, throwing it away, blockading and arresting the press, closing the airspace above the park so news helicopters can’t film.
The fact that the occupiers even have food and news helicopters interested in filming them says quite a lot about their whiteness and their class privilege.
An NYC councilman was beaten about the head and face. He is bleeding profusely.
Residents near Zuccotti Park are locked in their buildings per the NYPD’s orders.
Just another night with an 8pm curfew in a poor black or latin@ neighborhood.
Streets and bridges are barricaded. The counter-terrorism force is on scene.
Over 4 Years, Nearly 52,000 Police Stops in a few Brooklyn Blocks
There is a sound cannon capable of blowing the eardrums of onlookers.
I could link to a million different articles on people of color, genderqueer people, etc., who faced excessive force (and little to no public outcry) here.
My fellow citizens are bloodied and battered.
And the music I’m listening to in the background as I watch this horror unfold just shuffled to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.
And now I feel I am watching a funeral.
And a birth.
I am okay with the rest of this, but your shock and surprise is pretty side-eye
Igorot Village in “Dreamland”
Filipino Americans in NY Not-So-Fun Fact: Did you know that Filipinos were put on display as “Sideshows” in Coney Island in 1911? -Jodee
Filipino American History Month Fun Fact: There were Filipinos on Display in Coney Island in 1911
In a recent email inquiry about the Filipinos at the Saint Louis Fair in 1904, someone had asked me about the Filipinos in Coney Island. As I had never heard about this before, I just started to do some research online and found that there was indeed an “Igorot Village” at the amusement park “The Dreamland” in Coney Island circa 1911. From some preliminary searches, I found that this was documented in the book “Coney Island: The People’s Playground,” as well as this website http://www.coneyislandhistory.org/index.php?g=hall_of_fame&s=gumpertz.
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Sports Illustrated in 1967 even described these Filipino “sideshows”:
Sideshows were another unforgettable aspect of the old Coney, and they proliferated to the extent that they replaced the broad lagoons, esplanades and tree-lined walks. Barking and spieling and ballyhooing became flamboyant, raucous and artful. “Yes, look well upon this group of savages, ladies and gentlemen! They are the dread Igorots, fierce headhunters from the Philippine Islands! And what you see before you is but a miserable tithe of the vast anthropological, educational, thrilling, and altogether unimaginable sights that will unfold before you as you pass through the Igorot Village!”
The king of the freak shows was Samuel Gumpertz who liked authenticity. “It was 1905,” wrote Edo McCullough, “when he whisked them past an astonished immigration official; in the next quarter-century the number of freaks, oddities and outlandish human beings he similarly escorted was to rise above 3,000…. Gumpertz was constantly on the prowl for new grotesques. Five times he went to Asia, with side trips to Java and the Philippines; five times he went to Africa….” There were Zip, the What-Is-It, 19 wild men from Borneo, a succession of bearded ladies and fat ladies. He was inordinately fond of midgets. “Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you please, step over here and see the world’s tiniest people. Note the yardstick—an accurate, an exact, a perfectly calibrated instrument against which to measure the height of these minuscule humans, some of them members of the foreign titled aristocracy! (Step forward, Count, and you, too, Baron, and stand by the yardstick.) Each and every one of these little people, ladies and gentlemen, is a full-grown human being! Thank you, Count. Thank you, Baron.”
from http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1080222/5/index.htm
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It is also described in the novel “Blown in by the Draft” (1918) in which there is a character named Amok- a Filipino who was once in the Coney Island “Show.”
Amok is described below:
A short, stocky, copped coloured rookie in dusty, blue store trousers and a celluloid collar and bearing the marks of some strange distant land was certain running amuck in the company street in front of the Barrack R5, where Company I, 307th Infantry, holds forth. Round and round in ten foot circles he was prancing, eighteen inches on braided horse tail hair shooting straight from the nape of his neck with every prance.
“Who-o-o-o! Whee-e-e-e-e! Wow-w-w-w! Wow-w-w!” Bent almost double and prancing in short two step prances every three or four seconds the strange young man would lift his head high and bay his call to the feeble October sun.
“Know what that are?” asked a Kentucky Regular Army corporal with company pride registering in his voice. “That thar’s a Feelypino practising up fur his dance. You couldn’t see the likes o’ that nowhere less’n 10 cents. He’s in my squad.”
“But what’s he doing and why is he practising this dance- going to have a company show?” a timid observer asked.
“Somethin’ worse than a company show. He’s jes’ gettin’ a tuned up for the big dance when he gets a German’s head. Say, that feller’s a head hunter- you know, he cuts off the heads of his enemies. Somethin’ like a caneybal, I reckon. His name’s Amok- he usta be in a show at Coney Island.”
- from “Blown in from the Draft” by Frazier Hunt and Theodore Roosevelt, pp 325-326.
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Finally, there are photos are found here:
http://www.asiafinest.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t224246.html
![[image description: shoddily drawn MS paint political cartoon: A Black man (labeled “the new black man across his chest” with red eyes, exaggerated lips, and an afro (bearing the label, “The new Adam”) is holding a green snake by its neck and tail. The snake has an apple in its mouth with the label, “free doom”, and then several labels along its body: gangs, women’s liberation, drugs, school shootings, break down of the family, men in jail, and gay rights. The black man is saying, “You won’t trick me like you tricked eve!! I’m going to make you eat that damn apple yourself!!”]
praisethelorde:
realsmurk:
The black man in America has failed just like Adam of the Bible failed to obey God.
Adam of the Bible was destroyed because he allowed the snake to trick “naieve Eve”, his woman.
And likewise, modern black men have allowed the snake to trick black women with the philosophy of Women’s Liberation. And this is why the black family and the black community is retarded and dysfunctional.
Oh.Kay.
First I saw this I thought, oh my goodness, for real ?
No. this had to be fake. But then I remembered that I knew people like that. and they didn’t help improve my mental health.
I’m not going to talk a lot because this hurts me a lot and I don’t necessarily have the resources to deal with that. Plus this talks about the black men in America, so maybe I’m not in a postition to talk about this but still.
Okay.
You know that part of the bible is a myth, right ? A myth that has been used by the people who got your ancestors in America and turned them in to slaves to demonize the woman, because in their ideology, she’s less than a man, always a minor, always dependent on some man for all her life, be it her father, her husband (chosen or not), and even her son.
Black people we were not about this. We had different myths on which we built our civilisations.
Black men don’t own black women, we’re not your property, we are ourselves. Women’s liberation is not the reason why things go wrong. There are other things than that, like you know, capitalism, whiteness, patriarchy and all that.
A man who feels threatened by the desire of freedom from all that white bullshit that has been imposed on us (also in Africa) is just as bad as a white man to me. You just want to take his place, and have the power he has on all of us.
Gay rights and women’s liberation are not the “evil snake” that is trying to corrupt the Holy Black Man (tm) and destroy him. Stop wasting that energy around here on focus on the actual threat. There are white people killing you in America, buying Africa piece by piece and destroying the planet with their bullshit, you might want to look over there. in the meantime, please show yourself to the corner and please, have a seat.
This is so ridiculously bad, I had to reblog it.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ls8sy5OK6i1qifcxeo1_500.gif)
[image description: shoddily drawn MS paint political cartoon: A Black man (labeled “the new black man across his chest” with red eyes, exaggerated lips, and an afro (bearing the label, “The new Adam”) is holding a green snake by its neck and tail. The snake has an apple in its mouth with the label, “free doom”, and then several labels along its body: gangs, women’s liberation, drugs, school shootings, break down of the family, men in jail, and gay rights. The black man is saying, “You won’t trick me like you tricked eve!! I’m going to make you eat that damn apple yourself!!”]
The black man in America has failed just like Adam of the Bible failed to obey God.
Adam of the Bible was destroyed because he allowed the snake to trick “naieve Eve”, his woman.
And likewise, modern black men have allowed the snake to trick black women with the philosophy of Women’s Liberation. And this is why the black family and the black community is retarded and dysfunctional.
Oh.Kay.
First I saw this I thought, oh my goodness, for real ?
No. this had to be fake. But then I remembered that I knew people like that. and they didn’t help improve my mental health.
I’m not going to talk a lot because this hurts me a lot and I don’t necessarily have the resources to deal with that. Plus this talks about the black men in America, so maybe I’m not in a postition to talk about this but still.
Okay.
You know that part of the bible is a myth, right ? A myth that has been used by the people who got your ancestors in America and turned them in to slaves to demonize the woman, because in their ideology, she’s less than a man, always a minor, always dependent on some man for all her life, be it her father, her husband (chosen or not), and even her son.
Black people we were not about this. We had different myths on which we built our civilisations.
Black men don’t own black women, we’re not your property, we are ourselves. Women’s liberation is not the reason why things go wrong. There are other things than that, like you know, capitalism, whiteness, patriarchy and all that.
A man who feels threatened by the desire of freedom from all that white bullshit that has been imposed on us (also in Africa) is just as bad as a white man to me. You just want to take his place, and have the power he has on all of us.
Gay rights and women’s liberation are not the “evil snake” that is trying to corrupt the Holy Black Man (tm) and destroy him. Stop wasting that energy around here on focus on the actual threat. There are white people killing you in America, buying Africa piece by piece and destroying the planet with their bullshit, you might want to look over there. in the meantime, please show yourself to the corner and please, have a seat.
This is so ridiculously bad, I had to reblog it.
![[image description: black and white photo of a white man standing in front of capitol hill, holding a large sign which reads, “American Nazi part vigil on behalf of America’s white majory / AGAINST the civil rights bill / Which is communistic, minority tyranny! / Free literature”]
wtfwhiteprivilege:
This isn’t familiar at all or anything.
The “free literature” part strikes me as ironic somehow.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ls6relWPS11qd79nno1_500.jpg)
[image description: black and white photo of a white man standing in front of capitol hill, holding a large sign which reads, “American Nazi part vigil on behalf of America’s white majory / AGAINST the civil rights bill / Which is communistic, minority tyranny! / Free literature”]
This isn’t familiar at all or anything.
The “free literature” part strikes me as ironic somehow.
(Source: sharky-redux)
Liberation or Assimilation? How the Struggle Against Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Further Marginalizes Women, People of Color, and the Occupied/Colonized. Written by activist ahlam mohsen.
“Feminism, queer liberation, anti-racism and economic justice require us to challenge power—not access it. The fight for gay rights has evolved from the stonewall riots and physical confrontation with the violent agents of the state—the police, to a fight for equal access and opportunity to participate in the violence of the state. This struggle made a local appearance when The Alliance of Queer & Ally Students at Michigan State University invited openly gay american infantry soldier Lt. Dan Choi to speak about his discharge from the military after coming out on The Rachel Maddow Show. Though scheduling conflicts ultimately killed his planned appearance, The Alliance made sure to drop an e-mail, praising and admiring Lt. Choi for his “passion and devotion to service (sic) his country and opposing the oppressive Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy”.
It’s unclear who the “we” are that admire and praise Lt. Choi’s “service”. It’s certainly not the Iraqis, Afghans and Pakistanis being bombed, killed, tortured, impoverished and displaced as a result of Lt. Choi’s “service” to the american empire. The Alliance retweeted the following Nancy Pelosi tweet: “While our troops fight for the American ideals of freedom and equality, no senate R(epublican)s voted for fundamental fairness”. Queer Iraqis, Afghans and Pakistanis may have a thing or two to say about the “fundamental fairness” of Lt. Choi’s “human right” to join a woman-hating institution that has devastated millions upon millions of people worldwide at the expense of brown peoples’ human right to a life of dignity. Lt. Choi can now prove to the larger racist, homophobic american public that queers can kill too. See, no need to hate us fags, we’re just like you. We hate bad people, we can drop bombs on Pakistani civilians operated by robot planes from computers at a military base in Nevada as good as the next guy. Sure, we fuck a little differently, but what’s a little deviance among friends?
Rather than extend solidarity to other oppressed and exploited groups, the struggle to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell attempts to win (largely white, male) gay rights on the backs of people of color around the world. Just as the feminist movement has learned (and is learning) that woman cannot be liberated in a vacuum irrespective of other racial, economic and sexual categories of identity, we must simultaneously fight all systems of domination because oppressions like racism reinforce the hegemonic power of the status quo. Just as racism reinforces male power, war also reinforces patriarchy and sexism; women disproportionately suffer from the violence and impoverishment of war, even facing rape as a systematic tool of war.
If The Alliance of Queer & Ally Students wants to publically praise and admire American ideals like war, racism and sexism against the millions of people living under american military occupation and rule, there’s still the queer people of color on campus to consider—a demographic The Alliance at least feigns concern for. Has it dawned on The Alliance that there are queer people of color at this school, in their classes, living in their dorms who come from countries being devastated by american imperial policy? Are queer Arabs and Muslims suppose to check their national and religious identities at the door?
Queer youth, particularly queer youth of color face violence, homelessness, inadequate access to healthcare and high rates of suicide. Rather than fight for universal healthcare, shelters, resources for educational opportunities and counseling, The Alliance and gay rights groups across the country are focused on access to the patriarchal institutions of marriage and the military. We can’t win queer liberation without defeating war, racism, sexism and capitalism which reinforce white, heterosexist, male power and privilege.”
I totally agree with this— ending DADT is only a symptomatic thing, not a real solution at the most basic level. At this moment in time, however, our country is firmly grounded in a military-industrial complex. This is not to say that it’s an okay thing— it is definitely not. And this is a sad fact, but military service is also a really important avenue for success and social power that has not been available for many groups.
I’d also argue that part of the reason we have such a large military culture is precisely because it has been extremely homogenous. The more diversity you have, the more variety of viewpoints you will have— which I think will ultimately lead to a more compassionate, holistic perspective on war.
(Source: facebook.com)
John Stewart’s opening monologue for the first Daily Show episode after 9/11.
I watch this every year and I can’t stop myself from tearing up.
Full text below:
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Opening monologue - 9/20/01
Good evening, and welcome to the Daily Show. We are back. This is our first show since the tragedy in New York City, and there’s no other way really to start the show than to ask you at home the question that we asked the audience here tonight and that we’ve asked everybody that we know here in New York since September 11th, and that is “Are you okay?” And we pray that you are, and that your family is.
I’m sorry to do this to you. It’s another entertainment show beginning with an overwrought speech of a shaken host, and television is nothing if not redundant. So I apologize for that. It’s something that, unfortunately, we do for ourselves so that we can… drain whatever abscess is in our hearts, and move on to the business of making you laugh, which we haven’t been able to do very effectively lately.
Everyone’s checked in already. I know we’re late. I’m sure we’re getting in right under the wire before the cast of Survivor offers their insight into what to do in these situations…
They said to get back to work. And there were no jobs available for a man in the fetal position under his desk crying, which I *gladly* would have taken. So I come back here, and tonight’s show is not, obviously, a regular show. We looked through the vault, we found some clips that we thought might make you smile, which is really what’s necessary, I think, right about now.
A lot of folks have asked me, “What are you going to do when you get back? What are you going to say? I mean, jeez, what a terrible thing to have to do.” And I don’t see it as a burden, at all. I see it as a privilege. I see it as a privilege and everyone here does see it that way.
The show in general, we feel like, is a privilege. Just, even the idea that we can sit in the back of the country and make wisecracks – which is really what we do, we sit in the back and we throw spitballs - but never forgetting the fact that it is a luxury in this country that allows us to do that. That is, a country that allows for open satire. And I know that sounds basic, and it sounds as though it goes without saying. But that’s really what this whole situation is about. It’s the difference between closed and open; it’s the difference between free and… burdened. And we don’t take that for granted here, by any stretch of the imagination. And our show has changed, I don’t doubt that. What it’s become, I don’t know… “subliminible” is not a punch line anymore. One day it will become that again, and Lord willing it’ll become that again, because it means that we have ridden out the storm.
But, the main reason that I wanted to speak tonight is not to tell you what this show is gonna be, not to tell you about all the incredibly brave people that are here in New York and in Washington and around the country, but… we’ve had an unenduring pain here, and… an *unendurable* pain, and… I just, I wanted to tell you why I grieve – but why I don’t *despair*.
…
I’m sorry… luckily we can edit this.
One of my first memories is of Martin Luther King being shot. I was five. And if you wonder if this feeling will pass… When I was five and he was shot, here’s what I remember about it: I was in school in Trenton and they shut the lights off and we got to sit *under* our desks, and we thought that was really cool, and they gave us cottage cheese, which was a cold lunch because there was rioting, but we didn’t know that. We just thought, “My God! We get to sit under our desks and eat cottage cheese!” And *that’s* what I remember about it. And that was a *tremendous* test of this country’s fabric, and this country’s had many tests before that and after that, and…
The reason I don’t despair is because… this attack happened. It’s not a dream. But the aftermath of it – the recovery – is a dream realized. And that is Martin Luther King’s dream.
Whatever barriers we put up are gone, even if it’s just momentary. And we’re judging people by, not the color of their skin, but the content of their character, and…
You know, all this talk about “these guys are criminal masterminds, they’ve gotten together their extraordinary guile and their wit and their skill…” It’s… it’s… it’s… it’s a *lie*. Any fool can blow something up. Any fool can destroy. But to see these guys, these firefighters, these policemen, and people from all over the country, literally, with buckets… rebuilding… that’s extraordinary. And that’s why… we’ve already won! They can’t… it’s light! It’s democracy, it’s … we’ve already won. They can’t… shut that down.
They live in chaos. And chaos, it can’t sustain itself – it never could. It’s too easy and it’s too unsatisfying.
The view… from my apartment… was the World Trade Center. And now it’s gone. And they *attacked* it. This… symbol, of American ingenuity and strength and labor and imagination and commerce and it is *gone*. But you know what the view is now? The Statue of Liberty. The view from the south of Manhattan is now the Statue of Liberty.
You can’t beat that.
So, we’re gonna take a break, and I’m gonna stop slobbering on myself and the desk, and… we’re gonna get back to this. And it’s gonna be fun and funny and it’s gonna be the same as it was, and I thank you. We’ll be right back.
