POC in NYC – Protect yourself from Police Violence
23 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
Please forward widely
Please note: this series is open to Latin@s and other people of color who are concerned about police violence in their communities.
*Workshop 1, March 24, 2012, 1-3pm*
*at the Domestic Workers United Office: 1201 Broadway, Suite 907 (N/R to 28th St.)*
*Staying Safer During Police Encounters**Will include *Tools for de-escalating police encounters * Safety planning in case of arrest * Protecting yourself against police brutality (falls and guards) * Know your rights and exercising them effectively * How to get involved in the movement to end police violence*
Workshop 2, April 28, 1-3pm: Police Violence, Trauma and Healing
Workshop 3, May 19, 1-3pm: Legal Strategies and Legal Clinic
Workshop 4, June 30, 1-3pm: Taking Power Back – Organizing for Justice
* To rsvp email Justicecommittee (at) gmail (dot) com and indicate which training(s) you’d like to attend. (It’s not necessary to attend all trainings.)*
The Justice Committee is a Latin@-led grassroots organization dedicated to building a movement against police violence and systemic racism in NYC.
TheJusticeCommittee.org
KONY 2012 is a load of self righteous, racist, misinformed crap.
10 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in "Liberal" White People Are Crazy, Hey! Let's Exploit African Suffering For Profit!, Racism, Sit Down And Shut The Fuck Up.
http://boingboing.net/2012/03/08/african-voices-respond-to-hype.html
This is a GREAT page. And everyone who has spread that “KONY 2012″ video and doesn’t spread this with the same urgency is a hypocrite. I am SO TIRED of the western world using the supposedly “sub-human, war torn, famine and AIDS ridden hellhole called Africa” myth to line their own pocketbooks. It is racist tripe and and only helps fuel the collective Oblivious White Western Ego. “Oh look at us! We’re SAVING them. Aren’t we GRAND!” But it never addresses the issue of actually HOW and WHY many of these countries are in the position they are in in the first place. Here’s a hint, it ain’t Kony. Here is one of my favorite quotes from Teju Cole: “From Sachs to Kristof to Invisible Children to TED, the fastest growth industry in the US is the White Savior Industrial Complex,” Cole writes. “The white savior supports brutal policies in the morning, founds charities in the afternoon, and receives awards in the evening.” Until the west finally admits to it’s own hand in the brutality that has taken place on that continent and decide to rectify THAT, they have nothing to say to me or any other African about anything.
How quickly did everyone forget about Bono and the ONE foundation/ Project RED campaign and how it came out that they made about 9.6 million pounds a year and BARELY 1 PERCENT of it went to actual charity. And when questioned they pulled the same Invisible Children “It’s not a charity, it’s just to raise awareness”. Since when do you need millions of dollars to make a viral video? Who knew that 7th grader in Iowa who made a youtube lip sync vid to Katy Perry that got 600,000 views had that big of a budget to work with…
Here is a link to many videos, tweets and blogs from *gasp* ACTUAL AFRICANS (many Ugandan) and the actual truth about the matter that should actually be the focus of this entire propaganda firestorm because…um…the video is actually about an African conflict? So it would make sense to um…maybe talk to some Africans?
And TMS Ruge: “We, Africans, are sandwiched between our historically factual imperfections and well-intentioned, road-to-hell-building-do-gooders. It is a suffocating state of existence. To be properly heard, we must ride the coattails of the self-righteous idiocy train. Even then, we have to fight for our voices to be respected.”
And our voices are not respected. Never have been and certainly aren’t now. So if you want to change something that’s actually within your control, maybe you should start with that.
Time Capsule
06 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
in Nostalgia
So I came across a journal entry from my cousin from almost 10 years ago. It had me loling so I had to share. The funny thing is I don’t even remember this encounter. But I guess growing up in NYC, after a while, your crackhead encounters tend to blur together:
Monday, March 17, 2003
So Ife and me had just finished watching LOTR:TT in the crapiest theatre in the world-Chelsea Cinema-, and we went to catch the “Q”. So while standing on the platform, this lady crack head kept pacing up and down, and when the train came she got on. She asked the whole car for money, and no one gave her any (cause they knew she was a crack head), so then she walked up to me as I was the only standing person on the train. She started to recite some sort of speech, maybe it was from a play, or something she made up, or was making up. It was really crazy. She talked about television characters, and civil rights movement people, and made up some story about how I came to a party, or someone’s house and she was there w/ like Malcolm X or something and I kept trying to sell drugs to kids. Also for some reason she kept asking me to take off my hood. All the while I was trying to move to the opposite side of the pole from where she was (and of course she’d follow me). I just kept looking at her hands, and making sure that if she reached for something I would be able to lift my leg up and kick/push her in the face w/ my foot, hopefully sending her to the opposite side of the car where I would disarm her, and try and get off the train. Thankfully the train stopped before she tried anything more crazy, and me and Ife got off the train. Then I saw her move to another car, and Ife and me got back on the train. If she had stabbed me, nobody, except possibly Ife would’ve even helped me on that car of death.
Thank You New York!
A Move to Stillness
07 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
So I’m back in Berlin and have been back for a bit. It is so dreary and rainy but at least not freezing. My first German winter was horrible. I felt like I was dying. Not having any sun affected me so much. Now it’s calm. But for how long?…
I’ve been staying with my friend Mary. We’ve spent days just talking about being disappointed in men and art and music and being strange. I feel like it kind of sucks for strange girls. Especially when you are nearing 30 and not very much a girl anymore. Even as a girl I lacked that “girlishness” that made a female cute and innocuous. I had it at first but then after awhile it was always “she scares me sometimes…”
I don’t mind being scary. I actually quite like it. But it’s just so disappointing to always have to…it’s like walking around in an unmarked box with the lid on. It’s so easy to find out what’s inside. Just open the lid and see. But that’s too much of a problem for some people. They’d rather just take a glance, make their deductions based on NOTHING of relevance and then move on; clinging to their shallow judgements as if it were actual fact.
I don’t like wearing everything on my sleeve. I think it’s boring. Or it can be. I like reservedness and propriety. I enjoy choosing not to do things and not saying other things. I feel power in silence and being in control of myself is thrilling. And choosing to let go of or give up that control is just as thrilling. I dunno. I’m always much more impressed with people who could but don’t. Not because they can’t, but because they’d simply prefer not to. I used to not be able to. Now I can and more. And sometimes I do. But as a general state of being? I’d just prefer not to. Yes, it’s cleaner. Safer. You only get your hands dirty when necessary, but also, it’s my defiance. I was always surrounded by people that just compulsively do everything all the time. Compulsively say everything all the time. Everyone always sees those people as confident but I always saw them as the most frightened people in the room. I didn’t buy it.
I still don’t. I will walk into the room, neatly and conservatively (yet colorfully and stylishly) dressed. I will sit down in the chair, straight-backed, cross my legs and neatly clasp my hands on my lap. I will say hello, maybe with a smile, maybe with a nod, be polite and say excuse me, please and thank you. I won’t get drunk, I won’t get high. I won’t even raise my voice, if I choose to even say another word. And the seas will crash and the tornadoes will come and I’m not worried. Straight-backed in my chair. Eyes ahead. Maybe a smile, maybe not. With a heart on fire, prose in my pocket and eyes as wide as the first day.
THAT is my defiance. And I will not move.
We’re moooving….
23 Sep 2011 Leave a Comment
in News
I am transferring my old blog from myspace over here, little by little. I care about writing and exchanging ideas so I feel this would be the best format for me to do such things. There’ll still be news about my band posted here but there will also be news about any other projects I am a part of as well as posts about any topic that I feel like expressing thoughts about. The whole “BAND OFFICIAL SITE” thing seemed too impersonal and limiting. And I really hate having 28,000 links to update. So this site will be the hub.
Holla.
Dear Morrissey
06 Sep 2010 Leave a Comment
in Racism, Sit Down And Shut The Fuck Up.
Dear Morrissey,
I know your busy schedule of scowling at babies and glaring at others whilst exhaling deeply must be incredibly time consuming, but maybe you should take 5 and examine the subhuman atrocities that the English have and continue to commit against the rest of the world through colonialism/imperialism and the same structures of institutionalized racism that have raised you to believe that in your race, nationality and gender, you are superior enough to publicly declare an entire people as less than human. Ironically, for the mistreatment of animals, who happen to be just that.
One of the many ways I differ from you is that in addition to loathing the abuse of animals, I also find it quite loathsome when human beings are enslaved, beaten, shot, raped, beheaded, quartered, stretched, impaled, disemboweled, flayed, boiled in oil, castrated, burned at the stake or whatever unfathomable barbaric treatment to which the English have subjected any humans who dare challenge the omnipotence of the “great” British Empire or any “God” they decided the rest of the world must worship, most often against their will. Or is abuse of power and the brutal extinguishing of a life only unacceptable to you when the perpetrators are not Anglo? Or only when the tortured are not human?
Maybe you should evaluate whether your own “English heart” should qualify as belonging to the human race before you go questioning another’s place as a part of the species. Because if you can judge a people by the actions of those in power over them, you might as well just sashay right alongside the Chinese back into the primordial ooze, for your hands drip with blood just as theirs.
With utter disgust,
Iféoluwa B.
THE RULES OF BEING A WOMAN:
12 Jun 2009 Leave a Comment
in Sexism and Misogyny Suck Balls
As I stand here, having been giving this a go for about 3 years now, I can honestly say it’s harder being a woman than being Black when it comes to doing what I do. I feel like though it still might suck being a Black man making rock music in this city sometimes, much of the “wtf” moments I’ve had have come from dealing with men who have no clue how to deal with a woman as an equal. They just expect you to not be good or to not know what the fuck you’re doing or to just generally put up with their shit. There was a sound guy at a very popular Brooklyn venue that was known for simply HATING women. Every female musician that played there said he was an absolute demon when it came to them, going as far as making some of the more sensitive ones burst into tears because he was so awful. So if it’s not the sound guy being a dick or the booker being a dick or the guy at the bar being a dick, it’s the people in your band being dicks. Which happens to everyone but not for the same reasons that it would happen to a woman. And anything racial you experience will be amplified as well because they feel that they can get away with more because you’re a woman and you’re more likely to just take it rather than shank them in the kidneys (they’ve obviously got the wrong woman).
A manifesto of sorts
28 Oct 2007 Leave a Comment
God I am so disappointed in everyone. Can’t I have a hero? Why’ve you gotta fuck it up?…
It makes me wonder what these people are responsible for. These actors and musicians. An actor is different. I don’t have to know anything about you. I don’t have to care about you. It’s what you do after they say “action” that makes you someone to take notice of or not. But with music, you give of yourself. It’s a part of you, isn’t it? So how can I like your music but hate you? And if I think you’re a cunt, should I burn all your records? I own Desertshore. granted I bought it before I found out that Nico was a monstrous junkie twat. But I kept it and still listen to music she is a part of. I made that decision. But what am I supporting?
I resent that I am put into that position where I have to fucking delve into the past and practically become a private detective whenever I discover a new band or artist I like. Or maybe I am just taking it way too seriously. People who make movies and music are fucked up. I mean, as long as you are not a fucking child rapist like Polanski I mean who gives a fuck what you do?
I do. God forbid I champion a sexist or a racist. I don’t know what to do about Bad Brains’ homophobia. I mean if a person’s just a twat, well that’s one thing. I can just listen to records and pray that the person who makes them never opens their mouth within earshot. But when it comes to things that I find fucking morally reprehensible…who’s responsibility is that? Especially these older acts…what if they were alcoholic wife beaters or racists or whatever? Should I still care? I’d like to see Nico come at me with a broken bottle now, the creep. But does it invalidate good music?
Is it my responsibility to walk the straight and narrow in public like mainstream acts do, desperately? Should I not swear and call people twats and smile more and “network” and all that nauseating shit? Why? Maybe I’m an asshole. Does that have anything to do with my music?
I really don’t know. We love thse artists. Like, LOVE them. Sometimes they are the only people we care about. The only people that understand. The only people that can make us feel…anything. They are gods and godesses, right? So if they fall from grace in our eyes, should they be held accountable? Or is admiring a rock star sort of like an ornery senior citizen yelling at the t.v. set?
I think about this because I intend to do this professionally. But where do I stop and where does the creation begin? Do I give of myself and take the responsibility? Or do I corner myself off, give you what you need to see, be elevated, then feel free to take a big shit on the top of your head?
I am no God. I am ridiculous. I know this. But why can’t I say it? Why can’t I wear my ratty jeans and not make eye contact and sing these beautiful songs that blow your fucking soul wide open then go home and eat a sandwich and go to sleep? Why do I have to put on a fucking act and namedrop and take pictures and look ridiculous trying to get you to believe that I am not ridiculous? Which I am?
I make music for people who see the infinite in flesh and bone. You don’t have to be spectacular to create spectacular things. I don’t wear leather pants or sequins. God help me if I ever do.
I’m just tired of having to keep up appearances. I don’t want to be what you think I have to be. I want to be who I am.
I’m going my way. Follow if you’d like.
Lets all be thieves
29 Jul 2007 Leave a Comment
What is it that makes the past so much more interesting? What has the future brought us? We’re not smarter. Not kinder. Hell we don’t even dress better. Everyone that dresses well nowadays looks like someone that came before. I am of the belief that everything great already happened. But we’re just too egomaniacal to admit it and we think we’re “evolving”…no we’re not. Everything I say, someone’s already probably thought. The music I make, I steal. The styles I love, I steal. The stories I write, are just other’s experiences I’ve adapted. And everything on this planet is so universal. Everyone knows what a smile means. Or cocking your head questioningly to the side…but we’re all to good to be thieves. Right? You were the first. Right? Just a bunch of Columbuses “discovering” America…I think if we all just admitted we were thieves, it would free us up and in turn make us more creative. I’ve sat down with a blatant goal of writing a song like Bob Dylan. Or Sam Cooke. And you know what? It’s never worked. Cuz I’m not them. But what I’ve come up with is something neither of them have ever written. And that’s good enough. If you repeat someone’s words, it’s still going to be in your own voice. That’s why everyone sounds/looks/thinks alike nowadays. Because no one’s using their own voice. Everyone’s afraid to. So they’re all just a bunch of corpse impersonators. It’s just as entertaining as it sounds.
So lets all be thieves. I mean, we could read 5 books a day and listen to 100 records a week. Watch 300 films a year and travel the world looking at every painting/sculpture that’s ever been created. And we’d still die without an original thought in our head. But it’s all about mixing colors. If your favorite artist uses red exclusively and you decide to do the same, well your source is obvious and your execution not very imaginative. But if you have two favorite artists and one uses red while the other uses white, and you copy them both, your art will have hints of each but be in a completely different hue.
I’m too big a fan of art to look down upon stealing it. If you don’t consume, you can’t create. Every teacher was once a student…nothing wrong with it so long as you respect where you came from. And god that ol’ gray and crackle moves me every time.
*sigh* Imus…let me spell it out for the fucktards…
13 Apr 2007 Leave a Comment
in Racism, Sexism and Misogyny Suck Balls, Sit Down And Shut The Fuck Up.
So I’ve been watching this circus and it has ended with Imus being terminated “effective immediately”. Good. No one should be paid to be a racist asshole. But there has been one argument I’ve heard over and over: “Well how come white people can’t call black people n—ers and hos and those black rappers can?” So I just have one question for white people: Why do you even want to? Because a black person has done it? And you don’t want to miss out on how fun it is degrading Black people?
Is it really that hard for you to understand? Those women were going about their lives. They were in school, on a sports team, made it to the final 4 and were damn happy about it. And they couldn’t even enjoy it for 30 seconds before some white guy comes around and smacks them “back in their place”. White people don’t understand because to them being an individual is understood and taken for granted. You are responsible for your own actions and you are judged by your own actions. Case in point: I have never met Paris Hilton. I have never met Lindsay Lohan. I have never met Britney Spears. But in the course of a year, I have discovered what all three of their labia look like. I would rather not have that knowledge but I do. And so does most of the world. The most famous young white women right now are, for all intents and purposes, coked up anorexic hos. But has anyone made the connection: white woman= drug addled ho with an eating disorder? No, because that would be silly. Just because Anna Nicole was photographed nude and took drugs and lohan, spears, and Hilton have and a lot of other white women do does not mean they ALL do. Common sense right? Sure, if you’re white. But if you’re not, all of a sudden, you are responsible and should suffer for the actions of those that share your color. So because some rapper who is black had some naked dancing strippers in his video who were black and called them hos, then that means that all black people refer to all black women as hos and we all love it and have no problem with it but just get mad at being called such things to get back at whitey and ruin his fun. Riiight. Are you serious?
Newsflash, black men are MEN who are black. And if you haven’t noticed, men of all colors tend to be fucking arrogant, macho, misogynistic assholes. So they, like a lot of men of all colors, believe that the more women you have sex with and the louder you talk about it, the more of a man you are. So they make a video and say, “oh I want naked dancing girls in it”, call them hos, and wrap for the day. Are they the first men to have naked dancing girls in their videos and have degrading lyrics in their songs about them? White men have never done that? They do the same things that most men in popular music do. Degrade and objectify women. Why bring their race into it? Rap is only about as old as I am. When did it become the sole signifying representation of all black people in the world ever? So before 1979 Black people just sat around staring at each other? We had no identity? These mainstream rappers are just dim-witted, insecure pawns for the racist label heads that make the real money and the suburban white teenagers who buy over 80% of rap records in the United States anyway. And I didn’t make that number up. That is a truthful figure. So why should black women in general suffer for what a few sexist black guys decide to say and do in a video? What the hell does that have to do with me? What did it have to do with those girls? Because some self-hating Black guys sold their soul to make music for young white suburbanites who think that being shot and poor with a 5th grade education is “cool” and “gangsta”, it should be okay to denigrate me? Really? Is that the deal I have going with the rest of the world as a Black woman?
Women of color are reared in a culture of white men who were raised to believe that white women are for dating and marrying and non-white women are for fetishizing and fucking. But only behind closed doors, of course. This is a country where within the previous century it was actually thought that it was impossible for a Black woman to be raped because we were naturally so “highly-sexed”. That is the context in which we are viewing Imus’ words. That is the society we exist within. Imus’ slurs were race specific. In his mind, he saw black women and immediately went “nappy headed ho” and “jigaboo”. But I shouldn’t be offended and he was just kidding? Fuck off. I mean is that what white people want? To be able to say shit like that about other people and have them be so broken down and used to it that we don’t even protest anymore?
When I was a teenager, I used to be a Lenny Bruce fan. Then I saw the movie Lenny. Mostly because of Dustin Hoffman. Who’s fucking incredible. So I was like “hey two awesome people. can’t lose.” I got as far as halfway through the movie before they got to Bruce’s famous N-word routine. Basically, in his warped white male mind, the problem isn’t that the word is so hateful and vile and atrocious and represents the torture and murder of Black people for literally CENTURIES; the problem is that Black people are just too dern SENSITIVE about the whole thing. And the rest of the world helps that by making the word taboo. So basically we should use the word as much as humanly possible to “strip the word of its power” and rid the world of racism. I hated him after that. And I couldn’t watch Dustin Hoffman in anything for a long while. I still to this day have never finished the movie and I have no desire to.
It’s so easy it seems for white people to give non-white people advice about dealing with racism. It’s funny how it’s always our fault for being offended, not yours for being hateful and ignorant. So the cure for racism is not for white people to just stop disrespecting and discriminating, torturing and murdering others for not being white, the cure is for non-white people to just not take offense to it. Okay. So why stop there? Lenny Bruce said that if we use the word incessantly, soon there won’t be some Black kid coming home from school crying because some white kid called him that name. So maybe white people should start using that logic with their kids. If your kid isn’t a good reader and the kids call him stupid, don’t teach him to stand up for himself and not tolerate being mistreated. Just tell his teachers to call him stupid. His siblings. Hell, you can join in. Then after awhile, he’ll become so used to the fact that everyone thinks he’s an idiot that it wont even faze him anymore. The word “stupid” will be *~*~stripped of it’s powers~*~* Same with fatties. Your kid’s a fatty? Well don’t even call him by his name. Try lard-ass. By the time he’s 10, He’ll be filled with pride. And hey, white adults, your husband hit you? Don’t get mad, get the shit beat out of you so often, you don’t even feel it anymore. And hail the end of domestic violence. White guy, your gf shits on you and bangs all your friends? Don’t be so SENSITIVE. Learn to deal. Being royally fucked over is a part of life. Your only defense is to shut up and get used to it. What? Not appealing? Well that’s funny considering it’s so easy for white people to tell non-white people that they should lead such a fucking pathetic existence being the silent butt boys and girls for evil, self-aggrandizing assholes with an inferiority complex coupled with out of control feelings of entitlement.
If you want to be a racist, be a racist. Just don’t expect me to shut up about the fact that I think you’re a pathetic asshole who should rot in hell. And if you work for a multi billion-dollar corporation with sponsors up the wazoo, don’t be a racist on air. Cuz you could get fired. Keep it for after work and office meetings like you usually do. I mean really, let’s cut the crap – if you really believe Imus was fired for being racist rather than for fucking with Les Moonves’ wallet, you are surely deluded. They were under pressure, they lost HUGE sponsors, there were protests, TONS of press…it didn’t look good for CBS’s rep. You don’t get canned for being a racist. If that were true, 99% of the entertainment industry would be out of a job. You get canned for fucking with white people’s money. Imus’ fucked with a big white guy’s cash flow. And he got what was coming to him. Deal.
There are double standards in this world because IT IS AN UNFAIR WORLD. People benefit because they are white and male and rich and people suffer because they are not white and not male and are poor. I don’t mock the homeless with wads of cash, I don’t moonwalk past paralyzed individuals, men should not hit women, and white people should not use the n-word and call innocent black women out of their name. We are not handicapped but this world is not made for us to flourish and feel beautiful and proud. It is made for us to feel ashamed that we were not born looking like you. Why would you want to bask in that? Flaunt that? Be proud and nonchalant and unapologetic about that? White people, you are the only group of people IN THE ENTIRE WORLD who have the “luxury” of being judged by who you are individually. So take advantage of it, stop being whiney hateful bitches and actually accept your responsibility for the things you think, say and feel. It’s not “that Black rapper’s fault” if you choose to be racist and use slurs. IT’S YOURS. So ask yourself, why do I need to say these things? Why do I need it to be okay to say these words and put down these people? If you are white and you really can’t understand why your using racial slurs against others WILL NEVER BE OKAY, then I guess you are just not fit to live in the world with human beings. So just fuck off to a red state, buy a big mac, put on your God hates fags t-shirt and swallow your deer-hunting rifle. And while you’re at it, you can take those mainstream, corporate house slave rappers with you. You deserve each other.


