Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Stop Dying for My Sins

What we want are allies, not saviors.

Allies stand along side each other as equals in their own regard while saviors stand up for people.

If we as people of color really want to achieve liberation from oppression under a white supremacist society, we need to learn to stand on our own two feet and fight for our own liberation. We need to do this ourselves. If we continue to ask and rely on the white man for our own liberation, all we're going to get is bureaucratic red tape and hand-outs. We'll never achieve liberation on our terms because the white man can't see liberation on our terms, but can see liberation only on his terms and as long as we're playing by the white man's rules, we'll always be fighting an uphill, bound-for-watered-down-failure struggle.

White liberals who don't check their privilege, in my opinion, are worse than the white person who is out-right racist. As people of color, we have to understand that white liberals aren't doing us a favor with their single-issue non-profits going to save Africa bullshit. They're crippling us because they're confining us to single-issue non-profit crutch reform in lieu of real revolution - once again, this is liberation on their terms which translates to our continual oppression.

Real liberation means divesting from whiteness. This means revolution - not reform - because the system itself is the problem. The system serves the interest of the White capitalist, therefore, we need to do away with the current system and as a community - white allies included, envision a society that we want to see that serves the specific needs of the community where everyone has an active say and everyone has access to visibility.

Friday, November 13, 2009

On Dependence on the State to Solve Problems


So my car window got smashed last Tuesday night while I was in Irvine (of all places, right?), and we ended up calling the pigs, not necessarily because my car window was smashed, but because a line of other cars also got their windows smashed

When the cop showed up, he did the usual run-down, collecting my ID, contact information, where I lived, etc. In regards to filing a police report, he said the function of a police report is to 'get the guy who did this'. First, I don't want to send the person who broke my car window to jail or to face any sort of run-in with the 'justice' system/court. I want to dialogue with the person. I have no desire to fucking punish the person. The cop also told me I wouldn't get to meet the person or nothing - they were going to deal with the suspect directly. The cops didn't do shit about my window - they didn't offer to fix it or give me money - no, they were solely fixated on getting the suspect who did this. Clearly, their job wasn't to help me out with the window, but rather, to find some way to expand and serve the prison industrial complex.

There are no alternatives and police presence in community affairs is hyper-polarizing and operates on a strict dichotomy. It's their way or the highway. What's fucked up is that either I don't get any help, or I let them do it their way which often lands people in jail who didn't do anything wrong at all. Who are they going to target when they look for the suspect that broke these car windows? Poor people of color.

Relying on the justice system to distinguish between 'guilty' and 'innocent' is bullshit too. A study by Northwestern University estimated that around 25% of jury sentences wrongly convict innocent people and that 37% of rulings by judges wrongly convict innocent people. I wonder how many of these incorrect rulings were done to people of color? Why do we have to go to court to prove our innocence in the face of racial profiling and to be judged by predominantly white juries? They are not our peers. The community and our peers should be involved in conflict resolution, not some self-righteous motherfucker with a shiny JD degree who doesn't know shit about community problems but is more than fucking trigger happy to help in the expansion of the prison industrial complex at the expense of people of color. Not some motherfucking pig in a uniform and badge who doesn't know who I am, where I come from, or my fucking story but whose job is to serve and protect through forceful brutality of the people in order to protect the rich.

The problem is that we as a community no longer are self-empowered or have the means to solve our own problems. They eliminated programs that did that. Black Panther Party, Brown Berets, I Wor Kuen, etc. Now we have 'reform' based non-profits who don't relate to the community and the State. In fact, I don't see too much of a difference between the State and the non-profit industrial complex - only difference is that white yuppies are mad in love with the latter. Why was it that I couldn't fucking solve my own issue about who broke my window?

The deeper issue is also that we've been so fucking colonized into allowing ourselves to be reliant on the same State that brutalizes us to solve our problems. We need to rid ourselves of the knee-jerk reaction to call 9-1-1 when shit goes down. Fuck a police report. We need to band together as a community to lay the groundwork for community conflict resolution which has the welfare of every individual of the community in mind, not the welfare of the prison industrial complex. Only by doing this do we materially and mentally divest ourselves from the State and the prison industrial complex as well as challenge ourselves as a community to envision a society where justice doesn't involve prison time, but rather, constructive dialogue and growth.



Friday, November 6, 2009

Thoughts on Love

This is mainly food for thought (haven't had time to really think about it yet, but I will soon):
1) What does it mean to give love?

2) What does it mean to receive love?

3) What kind of work does love require?

4) What are the intricacies of power dynamics in love? Especially in relation to patriarchy? How do these power dynamics keep us from love?

5) How does one use love as a tool for liberation and personal transformation instead of a passive drug?

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Hey, we are all swimming in this soup. Remember, you're brave!

Sweet, reassuring words that kept me going through the night. That plus a few drinks too many accompanied by far too many incoherent conversations and dialogues.

Genuine love is rarely an emotional space where needs are instantly gratified. To know love we have to invest time and commitment... 'dreaming that love will save us, solve all our problems or provide a steady state of bliss or security only keeps us stuck in wishful fantasy, undermining the real power of the love -- which is to transform us.' Many people want love to function like a drug, giving them an immediate and sustained high. They want to do nothing, just passively receive the good feeling.


I couldn't have said it better myself. Love, I've concluded, is the process in which people become mutually committed to building a meaningful and critical relationship - to be invested and accountable to the welfare and growth of your partner and of your fellow human beings. This means maintaining commitment even in the presence of hardships and tribulations rather than severing ties. This means allowing room for individual differences but uniting over commonalities to foster the growth of something mutual - the two don't have to be exclusive and shouldn't be.

Until this is achieved and understood, there can be no room for revolution. In order to combat our socialization and institutions of oppression, we must first master how to love one another and how to love ourselves.

Love must become the language of growth for revolutionaries with militancy and self-defense as the language of resistance. The two cannot be mutually exclusive - it is through love of yourself, of others, and of community that must compel one to use any means necessary prevent harm or further oppression of that which you love, and you must use love to simultaneously create a better world and to prevent yourself from being stuck in a cycle of constant resistance and destruction as opposed to construction.

How do we combine the two to create a comprehensive language of revolution?