The Social Justice Review: Rising | Summer 2019

SUMMER

2019

|

ISSUE

NO.

6

RISING

THE SOCIAL JUSTICE REVIEW THE

USC

LEVAN

INSTITUTE

FOR

HUMANITIES

AND

ETHICS

DEDICATION "You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time."

— Angela Davis, February 13, 2014

“This time I can stand before you whereas in other scenarios we are at a memorial.”

— Muhlaysia Booker, April 20, 2019

We dedicate the sixth issue of The Social Justice Review to activists Muhlaysia Booker, a trans woman who was murdered May 19, 2019, just weeks after being brutally assaulted, and Angela Davis, a scholar, prison abolitionist, political activist, and former political prisoner. And to all who continually rise in the face of injustice, who demand reform, who risk life and limb for what is right and good, and to those we have lost too soon. Rest in Power.

STAFF ISABELLA CARR JOURNAL DIRECTOR/LAYOUT & DESIGN

KELLY CLARK EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

YURI YIM RHONDAYA FISHBURNE NIKHILESH KUMAR ANISHA ANISETTI HADIYA CULBREATH HAMEEDHA KHAN VICTORIA MARTINEZ EMILY PETRUCCI MILO SMILEY

Copyright 2019 The Social Justice Review

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the express written consent of The Social Justice Review.

Views expressed in this journal are solely those of the authors themselves and do not necessarily represent those of the editorial board, faculty advisors, or the University of Southern California.

Dedication Image Left: "Rest in Power Muhlaysia Booker" By Kendrik Faye, 2019 In April 2019 a Dallas man accepted $200.00 to brutally assault Muhlaysia Booker, a Black trans woman. The incident was filmed and made national headlines. On May 19th, 2019, the same woman, Ms. Booker, was found shot dead in Dallas. At least 128 transgender people — the vast majority women of color — were killed between 2013 and 2018.

Credit: @kendrikfaye Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/04/10/trump-administrations-silence-lgbtq-rights-is-unconscionable/?utm_term=.3c7a940a7ec0

Dedication Image Right: "Libertad Para Angela Davis" by Felix Beltrán; Comite Por La Libertad de Angela Davis-Cuba, 1971 In 1970, Davis was charged with planning a prison revolt by three black prisoners and accused of supplying the gun that killed four people on August 7, 1970 at the Marin County Courthouse. In one of the most famous trials in U.S. history, Davis was charged with murder, kidnapping and conspiracy. In 1972, after 16 months in jail, she was tried and acquitted of the charges. Davis is an internationally regarded writer, scholar, lecturer, and crusader for human rights.

Credit: http://collection-politicalgraphics.org/detail.php?module=objects&type=popular&kv=41141

Cover Image: "Kill for Peace from the portfolio Artists and Writers Protest Against the War in Viet Nam" by Carol Summers, 1967 Organized by artist Jack Sonenberg, the portfolio ARTISTS AND WRITERS PROTEST AGAINST THE WAR IN VIET NAM was a fundraising initiative for Artists and Writers, Protest, Inc, a group that staged anti-war demonstrations throughout the late 1960s. The 16 artists who contributed to the portfolio employed a range of aesthetic strategies, from graphic representations of anguished bodies to abstractions that critiqued the conflict in symbolic rather than literal ways.

Credit: Alexander Ethan Summers Source: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/portfolios/32582?locale=en&page=1&direction= and https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2017/sep/06/a-brief-history-of-protest-art-from-the-1940s-until-now-whitney-new-york#img-11

Copyright 2019 The Social Justice Review

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the express written consent of The Social Justice Review.

Views expressed in this journal are solely those of the authors themselves and do not necessarily represent those of the editorial board, faculty advisors, or the University of Southern California.

Dedication Image Left: "Rest in Power Muhlaysia Booker" By Kendrik Faye, 2019 In April 2019 a Dallas man accepted $200.00 to brutally assault Muhlaysia Booker, a Black trans woman. The incident was filmed and made national headlines. On May 19th, 2019, the same woman, Ms. Booker, was found shot dead in Dallas. At least 128 transgender people — the vast majority women of color — were killed between 2013 and 2018.

Credit: @kendrikfaye Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/04/10/trump-administrations-silence-lgbtq-rights-is-unconscionable/?utm_term=.3c7a940a7ec0

Dedication Image Right: "Libertad Para Angela Davis" by Felix Beltrán; Comite Por La Libertad de Angela Davis-Cuba, 1971 In 1970, Davis was charged with planning a prison revolt by three black prisoners and accused of supplying the gun that killed four people on August 7, 1970 at the Marin County Courthouse. In one of the most famous trials in U.S. history, Davis was charged with murder, kidnapping and conspiracy. In 1972, after 16 months in jail, she was tried and acquitted of the charges. Davis is an internationally regarded writer, scholar, lecturer, and crusader for human rights.

Credit: http://collection-politicalgraphics.org/detail.php?module=objects&type=popular&kv=41141

Cover Image: "Kill for Peace from the portfolio Artists and Writers Protest Against the War in Viet Nam" by Carol Summers, 1967 Organized by artist Jack Sonenberg, the portfolio ARTISTS AND WRITERS PROTEST AGAINST THE WAR IN VIET NAM was a fundraising initiative for Artists and Writers, Protest, Inc, a group that staged anti-war demonstrations throughout the late 1960s. The 16 artists who contributed to the portfolio employed a range of aesthetic strategies, from graphic representations of anguished bodies to abstractions that critiqued the conflict in symbolic rather than literal ways.

Credit: Alexander Ethan Summers Source: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/portfolios/32582?locale=en&page=1&direction= and https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2017/sep/06/a-brief-history-of-protest-art-from-the-1940s-until-now-whitney-new-york#img-11

Dear Reader,

It’s my honor to share our sixth issue of The Social Justice Review with you. “Rising” celebrates those who act in the face of injustice. The fight for social change and justice is as relevant today as ever, and we want to celebrate the art and writing which compels resistance, demands reform, and builds communities. For this powerful and timely issue, we supplemented thought-provoking written pieces with historic and contemporary protest art to juxtapose the social action of today with the chants of those who marched before us.

Pieces such as “Awareness is not Activism” by Jahman Hill remind readers that adversity demands active response, not just the ability to know better. When political action fails, poetry prevails in “An Imaginary Parkland Address” as Francisco Castro Videla dreams of a country where the president aids in healing the wounds of a fractured nation. "Hope and Community Among Migrants in Tijuana" by Bryce Merrill and "A Statue for Our Harbor" by Gialina Morten asks us to revaluate how we define what it means to be American.

The injustices faced across the world are seldom met by the action required to solve them.

Fear and hatred permeate the surface and threaten the rights and safety of citizens. Instead of building walls and marking boundaries, we should strive to stand and shout in the face of inequality. In the United States alone, the past 100 years have seen the women’s suffrage movement, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Vietnam War protests. More recently, Black Lives Matter and the #MeToo movement have come to the forefront of our cultural consciousness. If there is one constant in social justice, it’s the undeniable and inevitable motivation to act.

When injustices seem insurmountable, it’s our hope that you will find solace in the work we hope to share. Moreover, we hope you are compelled to scream, to speak up, to take to the streets and to the classrooms, to call your representatives, and when all else fails, rise up.

In solidarity, Kelly Clark Editor-in-Chief, The Social Justice Review

A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Image: "Vietnam Moratorium" Time Magazine Cover, 1969 An excerpt from the cover story reads: "Now, suddenly, 'moratorium' has become the focus of national attention in its special 1969 sense: M-day, Oct. 15, a movement intended by its organizers and supporters to show the Nixon Administration that large and growing numbers of Americans want out of the Viet Nam war as fast as possible." In 1969, more than 500,000 people marched on Washington to protest U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Despite their cries, the war toiled on for six more years, ending with the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975.

Credit: Time Magazine Source: http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,840217,00.html

Image: "Relocate Destroy, In Memory of Native Americans, In Memory of Jews" by Edgar Heap of Birds, 1987 Part of the series American Policy. Edgar Heap of Birds (Cheyenne name: Hock E Aye VI) is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work acts as a commentary on the Native American experience. The phrase ‘relocate destroy’ appeared throughout many of his works Credit: Whitney Museum of American Art Source: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2017/sep/06/a-brief-history-of-protest-art-from-the-1940s-until-now-whitney-new-york and http://heapofbirds.ou.edu

CONTENTS 2. A STATUE FOR OUR HARBOR | Gialina Morten 4. PANIC BUILDING WALLS | Jessica Mehta 6. THE PHILADELPHIA VIETNAMESE COMMUNITY AND THE FIGHT FOR RESOURCES AND WELLNESS | Melinda Wang 22. AWARENESS IS NOT ACTIVISM | Jahman Hill 26. POEM FOR HANNAH | Alexis Draut 31. I THOUGHT I WAS SPECIAL AND THEN I WASN'T | Devorah Cutler-Rubenstein 33. THE CANDLELIGHT REVOLUTION: REVOLUTION WITHOUT BLOODSHED | Jeewon Moon 44. *AN IMAGINARY PARKLAND ADDRESS | Francisco Castro Videla 47. WHEN WALKING THROUGH A WAR ZONE | Nahal Hashir 49. EMANCIPATION IN 5-PART HARMONY | Jahman Hill 55. DEMOCRACY AND TEAR GAS | Acacia Gu 58. WE ARE AN ECOSYSTEM IN CRISIS | Mary Loehr 61. NO DAPL | Gialina Morten 63. HOPE AND COMMUNITY AMONG MIGRANTS IN TIJUANA | Bryce Merrill 71. A BLACK CRAYON | Alprentice 76. equal share | henry 7. reneau jr.

Image: "End Bad Breath" by Seymour Chwast, 1968 One of graphic designer and illustrator Seymour Chwast’s most notable designs, he created this poster in 1968 protesting the bombing of Hanoi in Vietnam.

Shown is Uncle Sam — the traditional symbol of American patriotism — with his mouth open to reveal planes bombing a small village.

Credit: Poster House Collection Source: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/gabrielsanchez/11-of-the-most-iconic-protest-posters-from-history

1

A STATUE FOR OUR HARBOR GIALINA

MORTEN

2

Image: American Flag [Untitled], 1970 In May 1970, students at the University of California, Berkeley, came together to form the Berkeley Political Poster Workshop, which produced hundreds of silkscreen designs. Under the guidance of Malaquias Montoya, a leading figure of the Chicano Art Movement, the workshop class was the largest of its kind. The posters stem from demonstrations against a wave of militant conservatism in the early 1970s: not only the 1970 massacre of four unarmed students at Kent State University by members of the National Guard, but also the continued Vietnam War and President Nixon’s decision to reinstate the military draft.

Credit: Shapero Modern Source: https://www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/art-2/pictures-protest-art-student-activists-1970s/

3

PANIC BUILDING WALLS JESSICA

MEHTA

Panic Building Walls Walls building panic—we’re corralled calves ready for waiting butchers. We’re virtuous nobodies now, scarred and wounded. Forehead’s bloodied, our fear curdled. Hatred’s fed well—this growing smorgasbord’s run rancid with disease. Spread lies like pigs’ slop. Animal Farm, another ignored prophecy (predictable).

Action dictates character as inaction molds complacency. Leopards laying with goats and babies caressing vipers … is this not our America?

America or not, this is vipers caressing babies and goats with lying leopards. Complacency molds inaction as character dictates action.

Predictable—prophecy ignored another farm animal. Slop pigs like lies spread disease with rancid-run smorgasbords growing. This wellfed hatred’s curdled. Fear our bloodied foreheads, wounded and scarred.

Now nobody’s virtuous. We’re butchers waiting for ready calves.

Corralled panic building walls.

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Image: "Are We Next? Be Aware" by Wes Wilson, 1967 "Are We Next? Be Aware" suggests a parallel between the U.S. government and that of Nazi Germany. Designed by Wes Wilson, an employee at Contact Printing, a small San Francisco press in mid-1965, not long after the first U.S. troops arrived in Vietnam. Wilson originally designed "Are We Next?" in red and white, without the blue field for the stars. Wilson writes on his blog, "when I first laid it out and took it to West Coast Lithograph to have it printed, I showed it to Ivor Powell...When he looked at my design his usual smile faded fast and he said something like this: ‘Wow - Wes you’d better add something else—like maybe “Are We Next?”—or most people just won’t get it!’ My original design contained only the words 'Be Aware.' So after those words were added to the artwork I had several hundred posters printed."

Credit: Gary Westford Collection Source: http://www.wes-wilson.com/blog and https://muse.jhu.edu/article/717854

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THE PHILADELPHIA VIETNAMESE COMMUNITY AND THE FIGHT FOR RESOURCES AND WELLNESS MELINDA

WANG

Introduction After the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War, Vietnamese refugees sought refuge in the United States. As refugees, they did not have many resources available to them, and often faced difficulties adapting to their new life. The lack of resources caused refugees to encourage the more collaborative nature of their culture, fostering the development of Vietnamese communities. The interviews I conducted focus on the Vietnamese community in Philadelphia. In Philadelphia, the fight for the limited resources available to refugees, immigrants, and other marginalized groups has made it difficult for the Vietnamese community to heal from the trauma of war, to build meaningful connections with other communities, and to find areas where they could express their culture and heritage. This is why VietLEAD (Vietnamese Leadership and Advocacy), a 1.5-year-old community-based grassroots organization, works to provide direct services and healing opportunities for the community, while also advocating with youth for bigger change in the community. Â

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Methodology For my research, I conducted interviews with the Executive Director of VietLEAD, Nancy Nguyen, as well as two youth in VietLEAD’s youth engagement programs. I interviewed two young women because I had been able to create the strongest relationship with them. This led to more honest and communicative interviews and a clearer look at the Vietnamese community. In addition, it would also be very important to note that a) almost all of the leadership in VietLEAD is female, and b) all of the Youth Apprentices (facilitators) in VietLEAD’s VietRoots youth engagement program (a program specifically for Vietnamese youth) are female. So, because I wished to interview resource-providers and advocates in the community, my interviews naturally became female-dominated.

The two youth I interviewed provided different perspectives. One youth, Michelle,* grew up in Vietnam and moved to the United States when she was 12. Michelle is an active participant in VietRoots and has also served as a Youth Apprentice for the program. The second youth, Jane,* is from Mexico, and became very involved with the Vietnamese community. Jane is a member of PhillyRoots, the youth program for students of other marginalized identities. While Michelle and Nancy were able to speak more about the Vietnamese community, Jane’s interview provided more insight into students’ mental health and school pressures, as well as the lacking ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) support in Philadelphia.

Economic Drivers of Community Development and “Saving Face” When the waves of Vietnamese refugees arrived, the United States government attempted to break refugees into smaller, more "sponsorable", groups (Zhou and Bankston 73-74). This was done in hopes that refugees would assimilate more quickly. However, refugees faced many other challenges in addition to cultural assimilation—they struggled greatly with finding both material and psychological support, as well as a community where they were able to speak Vietnamese and express their culture. Employment was difficult to find, especially for later waves of refugees, where refugees were less educated, of lower-income status, and mainly from rural areas. The 1980s recession, combined with refugees’ lack of English, resulted in immigrants working in the informal economy, in factory jobs or textile jobs. The available low-level work was poorly paid, often part-time and unstable, and lacking employment benefits and opportunities for advancement (Phua 265). Especially for adult refugees who arrived in their 40s and 50s, economic resources were again limited by the structures and policies in place—adults were less likely to receive social security benefits and work-related pension income, as they would not have worked for a long enough period to receive or maximize these benefits.

To increase the number of available resources, Vietnamese refugees aggregated in areas with better social services, education, and employment opportunities. The uncertainty of resources led refugees to merge and share resources with different relatives and extended kin (including friends). This encouraged the traditional Vietnamese value of collectivism, where the needs of the family and group are prioritized over the needs of the individual. As mentioned in Thai’s article, kinship and collectivism caused people to aggregate into communities and begin identifying collectivism as part of the Vietnamese identity in America (72). Additionally, according to Nguyen, it takes good city policy (food policy, resettlement policy, etc.), a welcoming city, and strong community ties to develop a community. “And Philadelphia has been a welcoming city, [although] you’re always fighting anti-immigrant rhetoric,” Nguyen stated, explaining the draw to Philadelphia’s Vietnamese community.

Michelle recalls moving to Delaware with her mother and older sisters after her parents’ divorce. “My mom had a few friends in Delaware,” Michelle explained, “A friend said she should come here and work. The nail salon [the friend] worked at was in a suburban area. And in

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Image: "Wars Will Cease When Men Refuse to Fight" The Peace Pledge Union, circa 1960 This poster is updated from a similar one released by the Peace Pledge Union (PPU) to protest WWII in 1940. PPU is a non-governmental organisation started in the late 1930s that promotes pacifism, based in the United Kingdom. Its members are signatories to the following pledge: "War is a crime against humanity. I renounce war, and am therefore determined not to support any kind of war. I am also determined to work for the removal of all causes of war," and campaign to promote peaceful and nonviolent solutions to conflict.

Credit: Pledge Peace Union Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/PropagandaPosters/comments/7kakcp/wars_will_cease_when_men_refuse_to_fight_poster/ and https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1500110029

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the suburb, white rich people lived there, so [the friend] could make more money.” Similar to Michelle’s mother, several refugees moved to areas with other established Vietnamese populations. Michelle’s mother later moved to Philadelphia to work in other nail salons, relying on the local Vietnamese community to find jobs. Michelle’s two older sisters also worked in nail salons to pay for expenses and their own college education. The popularity of nail salons in the Vietnamese community is also deeply tied to resource access. In 1975, a Hollywood actress named Tippi Hedren persuaded beauty schools to train Vietnamese refugee women for manicurist licenses (Eckstein and Nguyen 651). To be manicurists, Vietnamese refugees did not need to know much English or be educated, and so were able to succeed in this field. As a job with the opportunity earn decent money, it became very popular among Vietnamese refugees to work and start these businesses. Additionally, as many nail salons and training schools became Vietnamese-run, it became much easier for other refugees and immigrants to find training in Vietnamese and find work in this field.

As Michelle explains, “Vietnamese people don’t know what else to do [for work], so people do nails.” Most of the nail salons Michelle has seen have been in concentrated Vietnamese neighborhoods, owned by Vietnamese people, and have had Vietnamese workers. As government aid and local community support decreased, later waves of refugees increasingly relied on their intraethnic connections, or connections within the Vietnamese community, to find support from earlier arrivals and established organizations and businesses. Intraethnic connections also became increasingly important through the 1990s, where family reunification brought more Vietnamese immigrants to the United States.

While it is difficult to determine the financial and social capital brought by refugees and immigrants, there is a different sort of capital brought by all new members—“human capital.”

According to Nguyen: When people come with their families, I think that what happens is that they bring human capital…

Like if there is a family business, and now they have an aunt or uncle working there and that can help the family, or you have an aunt or uncle that now rents out the house to help support the family that was already here. So I do think that this human capital is important to immigrant success.

As ethnic communities formed, Vietnamese people aggregated not only to better support themselves, but also to support those in Vietnam as well. Refugees often maintained contact with relatives in Vietnam and provided material aid. In addition, for the immigrants who came to America to chase the American dream, there is pressure from family in Vietnam to succeed.

“People think, ‘You came all the way here, you should make more money than us,’” explains Michelle. Because of this pressure, many refugee and immigrant women began working, going against traditional Vietnamese Confucian values where women were expected be housewives.

When it came to finding work, men were periodically or chronically unemployed, while women were able to find more work in the informal economy (Kibria 85). Men experienced downward occupational mobility, leading to increased feelings of uselessness, depression, and anxiety. This weakened the economic basis of male authority, and created conflicts between men and women. In this environment, those who were traditionally less powerful gained new opportunities to challenge authority, often leading to martial conflict – many men reacted in self-destructive, antisocial, or violent ways, including alcoholism and spousal and child abuse (Marino 93). In response, although more economically independent, women sacrificed some of gains by deciding to maintain a semblance of the patriarchal structure, giving up increased economic independence to rebuild a sense of community, identity, and stability away from Vietnam.

Though Vietnamese refugees and immigrants continuously sought better support and resources, the resource deficiency pushed the community to finds way to provide resources for themselves. In particular, churches and Buddhist temples worked to support the community, and

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also encouraged the formation of an ethnic identity.

In fact, churches and temples were the first Vietnamese mutual-aid associations in the US. They were places that provided services and support for new refugees and immigrants, and were a place where people would go to seek information. Churches and temples were the first to promote and organize cultural events (Nyugen), provide space to interact with other members, and give people the opportunity to use their language and express their cultural identity. These religious institutions were a way for people to feel connected to the community and to better adapt to US life.

However, the development of a Vietnamese identity also came with the continued practice of “saving face” Michelle recounts times when she recognized her mother’s prevalent fear of being judged by others within the community: “‘You should walk like this, eat properly…’ [my mother] would say, ‘Or else they will think that I don’t know how to raise you properly!’” As Nguyen adds, “The things I’m used to working on like… domestic violence, deportation and detention… violence in the family, violence in the community, mental health—these things, a lot of adults are ashamed of… So sometimes it is hard to learn about what’s going on through adults, because there is a lot of shame and people want to save face.”

When it comes to facing issues such as domestic violence and mental health, the Vietnamese community has been severely lacking in these resources. The tradition of saving face, the pressure to succeed, and the cultural practice of shaming has made it difficult for people to speak openly about the problems they face, and has instead made the definition of success equate to succeeding economically. The association of economic success with wellness has continued to make it especially difficult to bring up mental health issues and other challenges people face.

Nguyen emphasizes the lack of resources dedicated to this problem, stating that:

Healing has not been part of our vernacular as a whole community. Now, becoming economically successful has, if that counts as healing, which I don’t think it does—but if that counts as healing, there are Viet folk who have definitely done that… In our community, I think we’re really afraid to touch on it. I mean, because what you’re talking about is mental health issues, PTSD—let me tell you, there are two Vietnamese therapists that are available for the entirety of Philadelphia, and they are only available 2-3 days a week at two centers. I know because I’ve tried to look it up.

In addition, the continued growth of the community has made it difficult for healing and discussions to occur. As a community that has continued to expand due to influxes of refugees, and now, immigrants, discussing mental health and trauma has not been a priority. “When people talk about the community—like, true, we have been here for 42 years,” states Nguyen, “but not everybody has.” For new arrivals, the priorities are focused more on finding employment and becoming self-sustainable, making it difficult for the community to shift focus as a whole to matters such as voter registration and mental health.

Interethnic Tensions It is important to note that these communities did not develop isolated from other communities—as a matter of fact, many relationships and tensions with other ethnic communities can be traced back to the fight for limited resources. Many interethnic tensions, or tensions between the Vietnamese community and other ethnic communities, arose because of the government’s disrespect towards other marginalized groups. Refugees were often relocated to lower-income or resource-poor areas, displacing local residents. Their relocation was interpreted as favorability—local residents often felt like the government was favoring refugees and providing them with resources that the locals were not given.

In Denver, the city administration directed Vietnamese refugees to a Latinx-designated

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housing project. However, the project had been a source of pride for the Latinx community, who had long felt that the city ignored the needs of their population. Resentment towards the new refugees arose, and reconciliation could not be reached between the two groups (Rutledge 107108). These tensions solidified misunderstandings and ethnic labels, and were carried over to future disputes between the communities. Because marginalized groups often felt that Vietnamese refugees were receiving preferential treatment, feelings of resentment arose and language barriers prevented full understanding. In addition, once established, these interethnic relations were hard to repair, and often were carried on through later generations.

A similar experience occurred in Philadelphia as well. The racial redlining by the government in the 1940s forced black people to live in sectioned residential areas. Then, the government resettled Vietnamese refugees in these areas, causing the black community to react to the displacement with great hostility (Duong). Tensions escalated and resulted in the 2007 South Philadelphia High School incident, where 30 Southeast Asian students were beat up by their peers, resulting in the hospitalization of several students. Nguyen discusses her experience as an organizer during this time, working to redirect the anger of Vietnamese students. Nguyen particularly wanted to emphasize how this was a resource issue, not a racial issue:

They [the youth] were pissed at the students who attacked them, majority of whom were black—they were pissed at black students—and they were ready to retaliate… So, as organizers, we basically had to redirect that anger. And then that Monday we had to talk about racial justice. We had to talk about like—yes, it’s true, absolutely, those students attacked you—but let’s talk about the environment of the school, and let’s talk about why those students are mad at you—like why would they target your anger at you. And that was a racial justice conversation—to say that the target is not the students that attacked you, the target is the school district and the school that let decades of the school wallowing in not having enough teachers, counselors, books, you know? Decades of that. And students, instead of being pissed at the school, became pissed at the Asian students who they thought were getting unfair treatment because they had ESOL classes—special classes. So it was actually a fight about resources. Like these students are like: “Why do these Asian students come here, like they don’t do anything in Philly and they have special teachers that care about them more than our teachers care about us.” That’s an issue about resources.

However, healing these tensions is a difficult task. For youth like Michelle, they grow up with adults voicing negative stereotypes about other communities. Michelle recalls stereotypes that “African Americans are violent, bad, and they hate us [Vietnamese people]. I’ve heard my mom say that black folks dislike Asian folks.” Additionally, for the elder population, it is especially difficult to heal interethnic tensions. Nguyen touches on this, elaborating, “Vietnamese elders, they were refugees of war—they came to Philadelphia, and then they felt that they were under attack by their neighbors. They don’t know how their neighbors got to where they are, they were not given an instruction to American slavery, you know what I mean? Like, 300 years of American slavery, decades of Jim Crow—like none of that, right?"

Jane also feels the tension between the Vietnamese community and other communities of color. When she began her work at VietLEAD, her parents were upset that she was focusing on helping the API community instead of the Latinx community. According to Jane, because her parents struggle with English, they have not been able to easily build connections with other communities. In addition, Jane’s work with VietLEAD has also caused her parents to harshly criticize her, viewing her involvement as “hypocrisy because [Jane] was helping the Asian community instead of [her] own.”

The Importance of Youth and Advocacy However, an important resource in healing these tensions and further building the Vietnamese community is the youth. As youth attended school, they became more skilled at dealing

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Image: "Amerika is Devouring Its Children" by Jay Belloli, 1970 In May 1970, students at the University of California, Berkeley, came together to form the Berkeley Political Poster Workshop, which produced hundreds of silkscreen designs. Under the guidance of Malaquias Montoya, a leading figure of the Chicano Art Movement, the workshop class was the largest of its kind. Students created vivid and colorful images of resistance in response to the increasing political tumults, from Nixon’s ordered bombing of Cambodia to the Kent State shootings that occurred just days before the workshop took root. Jay Belloli created the political poster while a student at UC Berkeley during the strike to oppose Nixon’s bombing of Cambodia in 1970. The poster borrows from the painting "Saturn Devouring His Son" by Francisco Goya.

According to the traditional interpretation, it depicts the Greek myth of the Titan Cronus, who, fearing that he would be overthrown by one of his children, ate each one upon their birth. The posters were silk screened on scrapped computer program printouts. This street art was meant to be ephemeral and the cheapest medium was used; the point was to make these posters quickly and disperse them quickly. America with a 'K' is an allusion to the fascist Nixon administration.

Credit: Collection of Merrill C. Berman Source: https://artblart.com/tag/jay-belloli-amerika-is-devouring-its-children/, https://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/249074-uc-berkeley-iconicamerika-is-devouring, and https://www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/art-2/pictures-protest-art-student-activists-1970s/

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Image: "Bring Us Together" 1970 In May 1970, students at the University of California, Berkeley, came together to form the Berkeley Political Poster Workshop, which produced hundreds of silkscreen designs. Under the guidance of Malaquias Montoya, a leading figure of the Chicano Art Movement, the workshop class was the largest of its kind. Students created vivid and colorful images of resistance in response to the increasing political tumults, from Nixon’s ordered bombing of Cambodia to the Kent State shootings that occurred just days before the workshop took root.

Credit: Shapero Modern Source: https://www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/art-2/pictures-protest-art-student-activists-1970s/

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with American society than the elder members in their community, learning English and cultural skills (Haines 5). However, both Michelle and Jane noted difficulties learning the language, influenced by lacking ESOL classes. Jane reported that her elementary school only had one ESOL teacher for all students in 1st through 8th grade, and that there was not enough support for youth to learn and progress. Even with limited English ability, their roles as translators were not lessened, and they were expected to interpret school forms and parent-teacher meetings—even when they were not secure in their own English skills.

This pressure also continued to feed into the culture of saving face, where students feel shame from themselves, friends, family, and the community when they do not perform well in school. According to Jane, even though she feels at home with the Vietnamese community, she is not completely comfortable with seeking support. As Jane elaborates, “When I don’t understand what we’re learning in class, I don’t ask for help because I feel embarrassed or ashamed that I can’t understand it… No, I don’t [ask my Vietnamese friends for help]… I always think they’re going to have a bad perception of me so I feel ashamed asking them.”

Limited English ability often leads to other problems, such as bullying. Michelle experienced harsh bullying in middle school, and teachers did not interfere with student interactions. She felt that she had little support, and so responded by trying to become more “Americanized.” She began to hate herself for being Vietnamese and began to hate her identity as a whole. She felt that if she continued to act like a “FOB” (someone who is Fresh Off the Boat, or an outsider immigrant), she would continue to be bullied for her accent and would be continued to be harmed. So, she chose to attend a predominantly white school to improve her English and learned about hoagies, different names for pastas, and American culture. While doing so, she disconnected from her Vietnamese background and culture—she would only speak Vietnamese to her parents and family and would only use English with her Vietnamese friends. She felt that if she kept speaking Vietnamese, her English would continue to be accented, so she tried to avoid speaking Vietnamese at all.

While VietLEAD helped Michelle learn to stop blaming herself for the bullying, and helped her feel less ashamed about her Vietnamese identity, she still sometimes feels isolated from the other Vietnamese youth, but for a different reason. Michelle has noted that she occasionally feels “othered” by the more recent immigrant youth, who always speak Vietnamese and often only talk to more recent Vietnamese immigrants. Because they view her as “too Americanized,” Michelle notes that sometimes it is difficult to grow close with these youths.Additionally, because she is from North Vietnam, jokes are often made about her northern accent, which makes her feel uncomfortable.

Michelle’s treatment is not usual. The “otherized” communities—including Northern Vietnamese people, Cambodians, and Amerasians (children of Vietnamese and American soldier descent)—often face discrimination within the Vietnamese community. As a person from the north, Michelle fears the stereotypes elders apply to her. In the past, she has heard elders say that she is untrustworthy, that she is not good, and that other youth should not engage with her because she will do bad things to them. Similar things have been said about those who were ethnically Chinese in Vietnam. As a Vietnamese merchant in Oklahoma city once stated, “A Chinese [merchant] will cheat you…. I do not like the Chinese. They think they are better than Vietnamese.

If I could, I would send them all back” (Rutledge 7-8). However, while Michelle may feel hurt from these comments, they do not stop her from engaging in advocating for the older generation.

In this way, Michelle is using the resources she has received from her education in America—her ability to speak English, her understanding of American culture—to help provide resources to other members in her community. As Michelle states:

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Image: "Let the People Vote on War!" by Vietnam Referendum ’70, 1970 The Vietnam Referendum ’70 was a Cambridge-based anti-war collective that pursued an immediate Vietnam withdrawal vote. This poster was one of their many tools to promote that agenda.

Credit: Whitney Museum of American Art Source: https://whitney.org/collection/works/56529

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Image: “War Waste Energy” by Masuteru Aoba, 1981 In the 1970s and ’80s, Japanese artist Masuteru Aoba created a series of protest posters focusing on nonviolence and environmentalism.

Credit: Poster House Collection Source: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/gabrielsanchez/11-of-the-most-iconic-protest-posters-from-history

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I’m involved in advocacy because I do it for my generation and for future generations—because we deserve more than that. But I do it for older generations especially. They don’t know how to speak their voice, and I help their voices be heard and get resources for them. They went through a lot, and since I had VietLEAD for mentor support, we should also get support for elders to heal. Adultism makes them think the adult is always right, so elders will not come to youth to talk about problems.

So I try to find a space for them to heal and relieve their stress [in community gardens].

For the elders in the community, gardening and growing is especially important.

VietLEAD’s survey last year found that 60-70% of the 50 surveyed households already grew within their household. For the many Vietnamese refugees that came from rural areas, growing has always been a daily part of their lives. Additionally, when community gardens are formed, they not only provide a space for elders to grow, but also a space for elders to connect with other members of the community—a place where they could speak Vietnamese and practice their culture outside the space of their home. As Nguyen explains:

Yes, the older generation is different from the younger generation in a variety of ways… Yes, I think it is harder to have conversations about racial justice, LGBTQ issues, anti-blackness with the older generation. But the reason why I hesitate is because sometimes you find these elders, and they are just amazing. When we had an elder go to one of our retreats… And when we explained to her the story of the Underground Railroad and people touching this tree, she got so emotional, because of her own journey as a refugee—so I don’t want to make any blanket statements about what the older generation is or isn’t like, because a lot of times it’s because these conversations haven’t been happening. And sometimes when you open these conversations, the possibilities for healing and the possibilities for racial justice and racial solidarity is crazy, even more possible because of all the trauma they went through.

To tackle the larger issue of resources, VietLEAD engages in advocacy in order to help resolve larger resource issues within the community. In making systemic change, VietLEAD hopes to be able to tackle the problem at the roots—as Nguyen states:

They’re [the problems in the Vietnamese community] are just getting worse. And that is going to continue to happen unless we have larger systemic changes. So, at VietLEAD we try to meet people where they’re at, we do direct services, like ESOL classes, citizenship classes… but that can’t be all that we do. If we don’t push for policy changes, the very individualistic changes—like how much someone gets out of an ESOL class—it’s going to be very small, minor changes until we get a bigger win. Language barrier is an issue, and it is not because people don’t know English. Language barriers are an issue because there are no interpretation and translation services for house-sitters, or even polling places. Like why should I wait until I can speak perfect English until I can be recognized as a full human. So that’s why we try to do advocacy.

To improve the resources in the community, and to increase Vietnamese access to resources, VietLEAD encourages advocacy and youth engagement to create change. Michelle also believes the community needs to focus on getting more resources, as current resources already are not enough to support the community. If more resources are not found, then current resources will only continue to decrease as the community grows. “The Vietnamese community only gets ‘this much’ resources,” states Michelle, pinching her fingers together, “So there needs to be change.”

Since their arrival in Philadelphia, Vietnamese immigrants and refugees have struggled to provide enough economic resources for both themselves, their relatives in America, and their relatives in Vietnam as well. As a result, the community has tended to focus on achieving economic success, and has not been able to find resources to heal or to build strong connections with local ethnic communities. This is where VietLEAD steps in, working to create spaces of healing for both youth and elders in the community while driving forward large-scale change through advocacy.

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Image: "Your Son Next?," 1970 In May 1970, students at the University of California, Berkeley, came together to form the Berkeley Political Poster Workshop, which produced hundreds of silkscreen designs. Under the guidance of Malaquias Montoya, a leading figure of the Chicano Art Movement, the workshop class was the largest of its kind. Students created vivid and colorful images of resistance in response to the increasing political tumults, from Nixon’s ordered bombing of Cambodia to the Kent State shootings that occurred just days before the workshop took root.

Credit: Shapiro Modern Source: https://hyperallergic.com/272933/the-urgent-protest-art-of-the-berkeley-political-poster-workshop/ and https://www.huckmag.com/art-andculture/art-2/pictures-protest-art-student-activists-1970s/

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References

Eckstein, Susan, and Thanh-Nghi Nguyen. “The Making and Transnationalization of an Ethnic Niche: Vietnamese Manicurists.” International Migration Review, vol. 45, no. 3, 2011, pp. 639–674., www.jstor.org/stable/23016207.

Haines, David W. “Kinship in Vietnamese Refugee Resettlement: A Review of the U.S. Experience.” Journal of Comparative Family Studies, vol. 19, no. 1, 1988, pp. 1–16., www.jstor.org/stable/41601404.

Jane. Personal Interview. 22 Apr. 2017.

Kibria, Nazli. “Household Structure and Family Ideologies: The Dynamics of Immigrant Economic Adaptation among Vietnamese Refugees.” Social Problems, vol. 41, no. 1, 1994, pp. 81–96., www.jstor.org/stable/3096843.

Lee, Eun-Kyoung Othelia and Keith Chan. “Religious/Spiritual and Other Adaptive Coping Strategies Among Chinese American Older Immigrants.” Journal of Gerontological Social Work, vol. 52, no. 5, 2009, pp. 517 — 533.

Lý, Dương Nghệ. Personal Interview. 20 Feb. 2017.

Marino, Katherine. “Senior Division Winner: Women Vietnamese Refugees in the United States: Maintaining Balance between Two Cultures.” The History Teacher, vol. 32, no. 1, 1998, pp. 90–117., www.jstor.org/stable/494424.

Michelle. Personal Interview. 23 Apr. 2017.

Nguyen, Nancy. Personal Interview. 28 Apr. 2017.

Phua, Voon Chin, et al. “Strategic Adjustments of Elderly Asian Americans: Living Arrangements and Headship.” Journal of Comparative Family Studies, vol. 32, no. 2, 2001, pp. 263– 281., www.jstor.org/stable/41603747.

Rutledge, Paul James J. The Vietnamese Experience in America.

Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992.

Thai, Hung Cam. “Formation of Ethnic Identity Among SecondGeneration Vietnamese Americans.” In The Second Generation: Ethnic Identity Among Asian Americans, by Pyong Gap Min, 53–83. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press,U.S., 2002.

Zhou, Min, and Carl L. Bankston. Growing Up American: How Vietnamese Children Adapt to Life in the United States.

Russell Sage Foundation, 1998, www.jstor.org/stable/10.7758/9781610445689.

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Image: "Gender Equality" by Faith Ringgold, 2019 As part of their 68th edition, VISIONAIRE magazine has created a special open-source issue featuring ten original protest posters designed by key artists and activists. Faith Ringgold, a self-described “black woman in America,” is well known for her poignant storytelling through painting and quilting. Born 1930 in Harlem, New York, is a painter, mixed media sculptor, performance artist, writer, teacher and lecturer.

Credit: VISIONAIRE 68 NOW! issue Source: https://visionaireworld.com/collections/all/products/visionaire-68-now-opensource and https://www.faithringgold.com/about-faith/

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Image: "Palestine, BLM and Boycott In the Arts" by Kyle Goen, 2016 This work is a re-mix of an original poster, "Revolution Until Victory" by Mohieddin El Labbad, 1975, which marks the tenth anniversary of the launching of the Palestinian revolution in 1965. Published by the Palestine Liberation Organization Credit: Decolonize This Place (NYC) Source: https://www.palestineposterproject.org/poster/palestine-blm-and-boycott-in-the-arts

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AWARENESS IS NOT ACTIVISM JAHMAN

HILL

Awareness is not activism Action is activism Action is the thunderclap of alabaster columns toppling The tower of Babylon disintegrating into an American melting pot Integration taken with a grain of salt, stirred by a wooden spoon laced with assimilation I refuse to give up my culture You refuse to give up your culture Note the array of colors The accents from the Amazon sprouting like jungle canopy Silk as far as the I can see being transported and turned into gold rush The crack of the whip building the back of a nation Sugarcane sweet tooth danishes laced with Shoofly pie remnants Rainbows raining letters like LGBT and forming words like PRIDE From Selma to Stonewall The road beat with feet of a million peoples from a billion different origins alhamdulillah andy wasta These cultures paint a picture of acceptance so accept this gift America, Land of a forgotten native tongue replenished with foreign nutrients Know these cultures were meant to nourish Create the splendor you see before you today— Now imagine we are all blind That diversity took a day off Decided that Things are just black and white That culture is something that shouldn't be explored That we have all settled at the bottom of the melting pot In our separate compartments

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Separated by prejudices and preconceived stereotypes Imagine if we turned this into an oppression olympics And I refused to hear my neighbor's struggle because I was too busy tending to my own I understand this mixture of flavor may be hard to swallow But diversity isn't an ego tripping solitary confinement Kanye West claiming Yeezus in a secluded studio Diversity is the gray hair of Barack Obama Rising from a melding of Africa and Kansas with a middle name from Middle Eastern kings improving relations in Asia, legalizing same-sex marriage, and picking up the Latino vote Intercultural means being unapologetically black and unapologetically open Intercultural means we can establish justice together Intercultural means remembering my roots while at the same time branching out What we leave behind is a something to nest in If we plant a seed It will grow to be phenomenal

Image (next pages): "Ignorance = Fear / Silence = Death" by Keith Haring, 1989 During the 1980s and 1990s, AIDS and complications from it killed nearly half a million people in the United States, a disproportionate number of them gay men and people of color. AIDS became one of the most searing issues in American life and politics. The artistic community lost thousands; still more friends, lovers, and family members faced lives transformed by grief, fear, indignation, and illness. Often adopting the visual strategies of previous protest movements, artists mobilized against AIDS by deploying a sophisticated understanding of media culture, advertising, and product branding. Their widely distributed posters, artworks, and graphics were often used at marches and rallies or were posted on the street. Keith Haring was diagnosed with AIDS in 1987 and two years later, he completed one of his most widely recognised posters. He was determined to give a voice to those who felt silenced during this period and used the pink triangle that had been reappropriated by the LGBT community after being used in the Holocaust to identify gay people.

Credit: Keith Haring Foundation Source:Â https://whitney.org/Education/ForTeachers/TeacherGuides/Protest

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POEM FOR HANNAH ALEXIS

You have turned sharp, not a knife but paper cut, ripping apart expired lies like dead skin and replacing them with significance and meaning and restoration for those who suffered at their presence.

Don’t ask questions, and don’t ever pretend to know the answers, but give permission to speak, as you have finally given yourself.

You are the best feminist I know, and you know what the term actually means.

Seek truth and justice, don’t let your past control your emotions, only you can determine how exact your words will be and who you speak them to.

Power. Don’t let the world make you sit still on your hands, but jump behind the microphone and let them stare as you yell from the pit of your lungs

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DRAUT

Image: Women’s Day March, March 1975 International Women's Day was celebrated for the first time by the United Nations in 1975. Then in December 1977, the General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming a United Nations Day for Women’s Rights and International Peace to be observed on any day of the year by Member States, in accordance with their historical and national traditions.

Credit: See Red Women’s Workshop Source: https://www.thecut.com/2017/02/see-striking-posters-from-feminist-see-red-womens-workshop.html

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Image: Gay Liberation Front Poster, circa 1970s On June 27, 1969, a routine police raid on a gay bar in Greenwich Village ignited unprecedented rioting among its patrons. Throughout the weekend gay men and lesbians converged on the Stonewall Inn to protest the police and their abusive tactics. Although homosexual rights activists had been organizing for two decades, the sudden explosion of the Stonewall riots ushered in a new gay militancy that soon became known as gay liberation. A few weeks after Stonewall, gay and lesbian activists organized the Gay Liberation Front (GLF). Drawing on the principles and rhetoric of many other radical movements of the 1960s, GLF saw its mission as revolutionary and set its sights on a complete transformation of society. GLF groups quickly spread to other cities in the United States and in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. As an organization GLF was short-lived. It effectively ceased to exist in 1972. Fraught with internal division, GLF was unable to negotiate successfully the differences among its members. Many GLF activists remained committed to working on a broad spectrum of political issues, while others wanted to prioritize issues directly related to homosexuality. GLF's legacy informed gay and lesbian activism throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s when groups such as ACT UP and Queer Nation formed to fight AIDS and homophobia. Many of the leaders of these two groups had been either active in or heavily influenced by the ideas first promoted by GLF. Source: http://www.glbtqarchive.com/ssh/gay_liberation_front_S.pdf, http://78.media.tumblr.com/80aa0ea93c7b5a47659cd6191b7c45ec/tumblr_or39ucGFz51qazntyo1_1280.jpg

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Do not let these waves settle on the shore of ancient oppression

Change. You can bring change as you hold yourself with the loose hands your mother gave you and the patience you inherited from your father. I don’t know if you got anything from me or if you ever needed to, or if you ever wanted to because, you see, you are a beautiful being all on your own, standing with the leg muscles built over years of consistent learning and borrowing the knowledge of prior generations

how many times will they tell you you’re too young, too loud, too small, too innocent to have a voice, too female to actually stand up for females, too proud, too confident

don’t be ashamed to scream your anger into the ears of those who hate you and don’t feel burdened if they push you away

but speak back and make them listen to carefully plucked words from the dictionary of One Strong Woman.

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¡

Image: " Viva la Huelga!

¡Viva

la Causa!" circa 1966

The United Farm Workers of America, or more commonly just United Farm Workers (UFW), is a labor union for farmworkers in the United States. It originated from the merger of two workers' rights organizations, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) led by organizer Larry Itliong, and the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) led by César Chávez and Dolores Huerta. They became allied and transformed from workers' rights organizations into a union as a result of a series of strikes in 1965, when the mostly Filipino farmworkers of the AWOC in Delano, California initiated a grape strike, and the predominantly Chicano NFWA went on strike in support. As a result of the commonality in goals and methods, the NFWA and the AWOC formed the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee on August 22, 1966.

Source: http://amadeusmag.com/blog/viva-la-huelga-art-united-farm-workers/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Farm_Workers

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I THOUGHT I WAS SPECIAL AND THEN I WASN'T DEVORAH

CUTLER-RUBENSTEIN

Exploring the immigrant experience, I look at being a second generation “Litvak” whose family came to America with two cents in their pocket. Suffering anti—Semitism, my father and his brothers came to Hollywood, California. They all got teaching jobs, nose jobs, odd jobs and eventually built a hospital and raised us girls in the bohemia of the 1950s. The day of our country’s first space flight, my sister and I were interviewed by the LA Times. My sister, then a Brownie in braids, made the front page, and I, a fourth grader, was quoted: "I think I am not supposed to tell you this, but my class designed a big project, and we made a version of Cape Canaveral and everything, you know, to celebrate our launch into space. Debbie Cutler, Hollywood, California." In a collage of collected images over the last half century (1963-2016), this memoir painting explores the feelings of identity and self-worth, and the loss of identity and discounted worth that our country currently faces.

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Image: MIXED MEDIA; 48"X24", Affixed memorabilia, acrylic, pencil, pen, watercolor and collaged paper elements.

Credit: ART PHOTOGRAPHY Dennis Paul + ColabART

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THE CANDLELIGHT REVOLUTION: REVOLUTION WITHOUT BLOODSHED JEEWEON

MOON

Introduction On March 10th, 2017, the judges of South Korea’s Constitutional Court brought their final verdict: the impeachment of President Park Guen-hye. President Park, now with the dishonorable title of the first South Korean president to be impeached, stepped out of the presidential palace, awaiting future trials for her charges on bribery, corruption, extortion, and more (Choe). President Park Guen-hye was not the first corrupt government official, but unlike other social movements which have struggled for change, let alone, peace, South Korea’s first presidential impeachment was the result of an especially effective and unprecedented civil democratic overthrow. A Harvard professor, Paul Chang, replied in his interview with the Harvard Political Review that “what stood out most, other than the incredible scale of course, was how civil the protest was...There was not even a hint of possible violence” (A. Kim, 2017). Here, he refers to South Korea’s Candlelight Revolution in which tens of millions of people protested by holding up candles and marching to remove President Park Guen-hye from power. The Candlelight Revolution is unique and notable for its nonviolent nature and successful results, which required factors like unification of citizens, practice in history, and the widespread usage of media to happen.

The Protest The Chief Justice, Lee Jung Mi, described President Park’s actions as one that “betrayed the trust of the people and of the kind that cannot be tolerated for the sake of protecting the Constitution” (Choe). The cause of Park Guen-hye’s scandal dates back to her youth. Her father, Park Chung Hee, ruled over South Korea as a dictator for 16 years. After losing both of her parents

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Image: Protestors wearing masks of South Korean President Park Geun-Hye (R) and her confidante Choi Soon-Sil (L) pose for a performance during a rally denouncing a scandal over President Park's aide in Seoul on October 27, 2016. Credit: JUNG YEON-JE/AFP/Getty Images https://www.vox.com/world/2016/11/30/13775920/south-korea-president-park-geun-hye-scandal-prison-sentence

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by assassination, Park Guen-hye became increasingly close with a woman named Choi Sun Sil. Choi was a daughter of Choi Tae Min, who founded the cult of Eternal Life Church in the 1970s.

Taking advantage of Park’s parents’ passing, Choi began establishing her control and as Park became a political force and was elected as the president in 2013, Choi amassed a substantial amount of wealth and political power herself. Such facts, however, weren’t revealed to the public until the summer of 2016 (Griffiths).

In July, 2016, a news platform called TV Chosun broadcasted about Mir Foundation and K Sports Foundation, which were reported to have gathered about 80 million dollars as a donation from various business companies and corporations. However, it was the suggestion that the Korean government might be involved with its financial funding that really began controversy in the media. Later in November, Choi Sun Sil was outed for her connections to the two foundations. As controversies around Choi intensified, her daughter Chung Yoo-Ra’s admission into Ehwa University, the most reputable women’s university in South Korea, also came to attention. Chung Yoo-Ra’s admission was revealed as a preferential decision stemming from pressure from Choi.

The widespread tensions that were gradually building finally erupted into a mass protest in October, when another news media outlet, JTBC, found Choi’s abandoned computer containing President Park’s classified and secret documents (Han). The collection of documents, coined the “Choi Files,” contained various government and legal material, from presidential speeches and personal schedules to human resources and diplomatic records, proving suspicions that President Park was merely Choi’s puppet (Chung). On October 25th, President Park released a televised apology to the public in which she admitted giving those files to her “friend,” Choi. However, it wasn’t enough to subdue the anger of citizens. For weeks, hundreds of thousands of South Korean citizens came out, lighting up the streets with candles in their hands. The protest continued on for ten weeks, recording 1.5 million people on the fifth protest, and ending with a total number of 10 million protestors (Yoo), a large feat for a country with a population of 50 million.

Significance of Nonviolence Many scholars described the 2016 Candlelight Revolution as a significant movement, the most prominent reason being its nonviolence especially at its unprecedented scale. Nonviolent protest is closely associated with specific behaviors described as, “civilian-led action in which unarmed persons confront opponents using coordinated, purposive, sequences of nonviolent methods” (Day, Pinckney, and Chenoweth, 129). As such, a nonviolent protest is not a vague or arbitrary term. Indeed, nonviolent protests are significant in two primary ways: First, they have a shared moral ideology—they represent right to speech, but also the protection of human life and safety as “an indication of ‘human development’...and…‘human empowerment’” (Dalton and Welzel, 213). Second, are their efficacy. Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan, the authors of the book “Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict,” demonstrated that of twenty-five of the largest resistance campaigns between 1900 and 2006 nonviolent protests were 70% successful, whereas for violent protests, only 40% were successful (Chenoweth and Stephan, 33). Chenoweth and Maria suggest that nonviolent protests appeal better to the public, thus bringing out greater participation and mobilization. The lack of physical risks and/or costs motivate more people to join, and there are less physical and financial barriers for women, elderly, or teenagers (Chenoweth and Stephan, 35). Compared to violent protests, nonviolent protests have larger memberships, but require less training and resources when recruiting and organizing members. Non-violent protests do not require experience in using weapons or military tactics, nor do they require the need to gather equipment or substantial amount of financial funding (Chenoweth and Stephan, 37).

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South Korea’s Nonviolent Protests: The Candlelight Revolution The history of South Korea’s candlelight protests goes back to 2002, when thousands of Korean citizens held up candles in vigil for two teenage girls killed by American soldiers. When the court trial acquitted the soldiers, the vigil turned into a protest for a fair verdict. Since this incident, mass civil movements in Korea have taken the form of candlelight protest that signifies the opposition to injustice (S. Kim). Later, another major candlelight protest occurred in 2004 when citizens protested against the impeachment of President No Mu Hyun. More than 200,000 people took to the streets, consisting of both groups who agree and disagree about the impeachment, and ended in peace with no casualty. Again, in 2008, thousands of people protested against government’s reactions to Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, also known as the Mad Cow Disease, as well as its approval of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA). Again in 2014, people gathered to mourn for the 300 lives lost during the Sewol Ferry accident and demanded a quick and thorough investigation of the incident. Candlelight was thus engraved in people’s mind as the symbol of justice and a tool of change (Sim).

On October 29th, 2016, the first candlelight protest of the Candlelight Revolution against President Park broke out. At first, the protesters voiced for President Park’s resignation. When the president refused, however, the citizens began to advocate for impeachment. On December 19th, the National Assembly of Korea passed the bill to move on to voting procedure for the president’s impeachment. For 134 days, people continued to protest in large squares, like the Gwanghwamun Square, until finally, on March 10th, the president was impeached.

As a whole, the protest incorporated an extremely diversified group of people ranging from elderly, adults, and students, to children, families, and celebrities. There was no individual political party that dominated or led the protest, and the high participation rate of ordinary citizens was noted by foreign media. Despite the diversity—ideological and otherwise—the protest was completely nonviolent, but even more noteworthy was that it was the citizens themselves who overwhelmingly pushed for nonviolence. For example, when a group of protesters tried to engage themselves in a fight with city police, everyone around dissuaded both the police and the protesters from making violent actions. In another incident, when a protester fainted, doctors and nurses who were protesting nearby ran to aid. Strangers brought hot packs, water bottles, and towels from their nearby homes to help. The recurring civility of protestors shows their deliberate goals for safety and non-violent action. The communal atmosphere of the Candlelight Revolution is often compared to that of a festival. Jungyoon Choi, a high school student who participated in one of the candlelight protests in October, described her experience as, “uplifting, feeling overwhelmed by an indescribable wave of emotion by just being there at that moment.” Famous Korean celebrities and singers performed during many of the protests. Large stages, lights, and sound facilities were set up in the streets. People created satirical shows, posters, and art, mockingly dressing as Choi, or using humor to criticize the president. These protests were broadcasted on live shows throughout Korea. Donations accumulated to over 600 million dollars.

Why South Korea?

South Korea’s Candlelight Revolution's success did not happen in a vacuum, instead three traits specific to South Korea enabled a smooth transition from public outrage to peaceful protest: stable unification of the public, culture and history that provided preceding practices, and the common usage of the internet. The cause of this revolution was so widely agreed upon that it brought about strong unification. Commonly, political issues, such as government-passed bills, or new diplomatic relationships, tend to polarize constituencies. For example, the deployment of

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Image: "Chol Soo Lee Benefit Concert" by Chol Soo Lee Defense Committee, Undated A poster for a concert to benefit Chol Soo Lee, a Korean American immigrant who was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1973. (Lee was released from prison in 1983.) Chol Soo Lee was arrested and convicted of murdering San Francisco gang leader Yip Yee Tak in 1973. Lee was convicted of the crime after two witnesses testified that they witnessed the killing. He was sentenced to life in prison. Asian Week reported in 2008 that it was K.W. Lee’s more than 100 articles on the case that led students, activists and others to take up the cause. The Free Chol Soo Lee Defense Committee was formed in the late 1970s, and the K.W. Lee Center calls its formation “one of the earliest pan-Asian American movements for justice.” Lee was granted a retrial of the killing of Yip Yee Tak in 1982 and a judge overturned that conviction in September of that year. The following year, his conviction in the death of Morrison Needham was also reversed and he was released from prison in 1983. Lee spent more than three decades after his release working as a union organizer and an advocate for Asian Americans.

Credit: The California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives Department of Special Research Collections UC Santa Barbara Library Source: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/asian-americans-have-been-woke-for-a-long-time_n_588947f1e4b061cf898cc2dd and https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/spark-pan-asian-justice-movement-chol-soo-lee-passes-away-n262376

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Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) in South Korea was one of the most debated issues in 2016. The population was split distinctly in two, with 46.3% of citizens supporting, and 45.7% opposing the deployment (Son). Such occurrences of controversy are typical of almost any political issue, as diverse cultural, social, and educational backgrounds lead to different perspectives.

However, President Park’s scandal was different. By November, Park's support ratings plummeted to 5%, which meant that almost 95% of the citizens, an extreme majority, opposed President Park (“BBC Asia”). The specifics of this scandal were intolerable to people regardless of their backgrounds, as was shown through the consistently decreasing support rate for President Park during the protests. People were united against one figure, so the goals and agendas for each protest was clear and definite, and decision makings were quick and efficient. This almost unanimous agreement on an issue was a rare occasion, but because it was so rare, it proved to be a powerful stimulus for South Korea’s Candlelight Revolution.

Compounding with the unanimity of the cause, the history and culture of South Korea provided citizens with practice and training for nonviolent protests. When the scandal broke out, it was implicitly agreed that holding candles was the key to representing public opposition.

Previous incidents in history, like the protest against FTA or the vigil for the Sewol Ferry Accident, served as a guideline for action. For example, people immediately created organizations, like ‘Bisang 2016’ which was responsible for informing protestors of specific venues and dates, and also led fundraisers for the protest (“Bisang16”). If it wasn’t for more than 10 years of the Candlelight Revolution’s history, citizens would not have been aware of efficient means of organization.

In addition, South Korean society and culture are more collective than individual. Dr. Tan Soo Kee, in her International Journal of East Asian Studies, states that South Korea’s collectivist atmosphere is “contributed by its national education system and compulsory military training program” (Kee). National education systems like Membership Training (MT) gather college freshman students on a mandatory trip, doing teamwork-building activities and games to “promote friendship and community spirit” (S.S. Kim), and have become a vital part of college culture.

Similarly, Chul Joon Moon, a sophomore who finished his two year military training— mandatory for all men in Korea—in May, said he was “grouped into military units and lived together, facing consequences and accomplishing tasks as a whole.” Even though this collectivist culture is often criticized for its overly oppressive discipline, it was a helpful factor in South Korea’s Candlelight Revolution as working as a group was not a new concept to most citizens, and control and discipline contributed to successful organizing of a large scale revolution.

The usage of internet is one of the most important factors that led South Korea to its successful revolution. Because it is supplied to almost all households, there were fewer gaps between generations—it was used from kindergarteners and teenagers to adults and elders.

Therefore, a larger number of people were able to participate in using this online media to share information on candlelight protests. According to the Korea Social Research Center’s report on “Online-Mediated Mobilization: Revisiting the Candlelight Demonstration and its Theoretical Significance,” the venue and time for each protest was uploaded on websites, and Social Network Services (SNS) broadcasted the protests in live videos. Such live broadcasts made people witness the climactic atmosphere all around the country, being able to recruit more members which then resulted in raising the number of participants in each protests (Choi, 84). The report also reveals how people contributed ideas to the protest through the internet, sharing new slogans, poster designs, and activities that were physically brought out to the protests. People celebrated and praised the results for each protest by sharing statistical data, photos of clean streets, and inspirational quotes of personal experiences, which encouraged the continuity of nonviolence

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and civil order (Choi, 98). In addition, the report concludes that online debate forums or free discussion websites also contributed to creating a collective emotion and public sentiment; this, with the common tendency of citizens to be swayed by public opinion, resulted in unifying Korean citizens’ causes (Choi, 73). Even among More Economically Developed Countries (MEDCs), universal internet utilization is uncommon and, therefore, an important and unique feature of South Korea.

The most direct and evident result of this candlelight protest, as mentioned several times above, was the impeachment of President Park. However, this protest holds more meaning and implications than its democratic and political success. It created a new sense of pride and civil order among citizens by eliminating negative stereotypes on mass protests. This, then, resulted in the diminution of political indifference and political pessimism, as Byung Ik Kim reveals in his opinion column for Hankyoreh newspaper (B. Kim). Other researches have also revealed that candlelight protests through year 2000 to 2008 have a direct correlation with the rise in voting participation rates of citizens in their twenties (Koo and Sung, 2).

Despite such successes, however, the Candlelight Revolution did not bring a complete upturn in public’s support of political parties. In the new presidential election in May, 2017, 24% of the public still voted for the candidate from a conservative party, Hong Joon-pyo, who demands full amnesty for President Park (Song). The protest did not succeed in pacifying extreme conservative groups, the most prominent one being People Who Love Park, also called the ParkSa-Mo. South Korea’s Candlelight Revolution, and the unique features of the country that enabled such protest, serves as a political protest model to countries around the world. Various scholars, professors, and foreign analysts have praised South Korea’s Candlelight Revolution for exemplifying successful political reform through nonviolence. This complete lack of violence, along with the diverse group of participants and festive-like atmosphere, was one of the three most important features of the revolution. This revolution, without a doubt, is one of the most appropriately fitting examples of a contemporary nonviolent protest. It was only possible because South Korean citizens had easy cause of unification, were trained to previous incidents of Candlelight Revolutions, already lived in a collectivist society, and had easy access to online media. Its success has both surprised and inspired citizens around the world of the possibility and potential of nonviolent protests, as it has proved that such protest can not only be described theoretically but actually be done and led by the citizens.

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Image: "Democracy! We are running out of blood for democracy" by Hong Song-Dam, 1983 Woodblock print calling for blood donations during the Gwangju Uprising. The Gwangju Uprising was a mass pro-democratic protest against the South Korean military government that took place in the southern city of Gwangju between May 18 and 27, 1980 with nearly a quarter of a million people participating in the rebellion. The roots of the Gwangju Uprising may be traced to the authoritarianism of the Republic of Korea’s first president, the anticommunist Syngman Rhee. After the country was governed for a brief period by a parliamentary system, a military coup led by Gen. Park ChungHee displaced the government in May 1961. As president, Park repressed the political opposition and the personal freedom of South Korea’s citizens and controlled the press and the universities. In December 1972 he introduced the Yushin Constitution, which dramatically increased presidential powers and created a virtual dictatorship. When Park was assassinated on October 26, 1979, a power void resulted that was filled by Chun Doo-Hwan, a brigadier general who had taken control of the South Korean military through an internal coup. Once in power, Chun persuaded the new president, Choi Kyu-Hah, to name him chief of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency in April 1980. The military, under Chun’s leadership, declared martial law the following month. The situation soon escalated with a series of nationwide protests against military rule that were led by labour activists, students, and opposition leaders, who began calling for democratic elections. With the approval of the United States, which had maintained operational control over combined U.S. and Korean forces since the end of the Korean War, Chun’s government sent elite paratroopers from the Special Forces to Kwangju to contain the unrest. When the soldiers arrived, they began beating the demonstrators. As the uprising continued, protesters broke into police stations and armories to seize weapons.

They armed themselves with bats, knives, pipes, hammers, Molotov cocktails, and whatever else they could find. They faced 18,000 riot police and 3,000 paratroopers. By the early evening of May 21, the government had retreated, and the citizens of Gwangju declared the city liberated from military rule.

Hong Song-Dam (born 1955) is a South Korean artist who works with woodcuts. He was born on the island of Hauido and raised in Gwangju, where he took part in the 1980 uprising against Chun Doo-hwan's military dictatorship. He became well known for making prints and helping to try and spread the news of what had happened inside the city at the time and made many controversial pieces of art. After the uprising he became politically active, and in July 1989 was arrested for allegedly breaking the National Security Act (he had sent slides of a mural he had created, along with around 200 other South Korean artists, to North Korea) Amnesty International adopted him as a prisoner of conscience and he was released from prison in the early 1990s.

Source: https://www.britannica.com/event/Kwangju-Uprising https://www.reddit.com/r/PropagandaPosters/comments/bhhsaj/democracy_we_are_running_out_of_blood_for/ https://www.wikiart.org/en/hong-song-dam

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Image: Official Olympics Police State (1984) by Fireworks Graphics “This poster directs attention to the intensified militarization of the LAPD and the coordination of many branches of law enforcement, both local and federal, that took place prior to the 1984 Olympics. This was allegedly in response to later discredited reports that Los Angeles faced a threat of terrorist action during the games. But the primary reason was to suppress potential domestic unrest during the Olympics due to poverty, unemployment, and displacement. Police militarization accelerated the mass arrest and incarceration of African American and Mexican-American men that continues to this day. The militarization of law enforcement was never reversed and the proposed 2028 Los Angeles Olympics will provide another opportunity to expand the use of military weapons and tactics against the civilian population.” —Carol Wells, director of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics Credit: Center for the Study of Political Graphics Source: https://www.lamag.com/culturefiles/powerful-political-posters-called-police-violence-l-beyond/

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Image: "Dark Flag" by May Stevens, 1976, from the series ‘Big Daddy’ Paintings, 1967–76 May Stevens is an artist and activist who critiqued patriarchy and racism with her work. Her 'Big Daddy' series was filled with attacks on the administration that led the US into the Vietnam war Credit: Courtesy of the artist and RYAN LEE Gallery, New York Source: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2017/sep/06/a-brief-history-of-protest-art-from-the-1940s-until-now-whitney-newyork#img-11 and https://whitney.org/Exhibitions/AnIncompleteHistoryOfProtest?section=2&subsection=3#exhibition-artworks

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*AN IMAGINARY PARKLAND ADDRESS FRANCISCO

CASTRO

VIDELA

*AN IMAGINARY PARKLAND ADDRESS (WASHINGTON D.C., MARCH 24TH)

PRESIDENT of THE UNITED STATES of AMERICA:

“My fellow citizens no preamble is necessary to determine or relate the meaning and the reason of our gathering here today.

during the last few hours during the last few days during the last few years there have been words in abundance, images in abundance, and voices in abundance to detail, thoroughly, our presence upon these sombre fields;

words, images and voices;

we have had plenty of those; we have grown tired of those; we have grown indifferent of those.

standing here, no longer beneath the calm blue vault of vast Floridian skies

44

but in the bleak mid-winter

I say it is ripe with the sorrow

of our grieving hearts

of our mothers and fathers.

we proclaim and we call

undeterred by misery and loss:

I say it is ripe with the future of our children.

now is the time for deliberate action;

now is the time for fearless determination;

therefore I avow

now is the time for passionate enterprise.

therefore We The People avow

let us be rid of this cruel weed

action,

that has snarled itself

determination

around the good seed of our Nation.

and

enterprise;

my fellow citizens

a choice must be made:

three simple words that would baffle

this land of plenty

and utterly and irrevocably perplex

this vale of life

any mortal man or woman we dare

cannot hold both Violence and Freedom

call our representatives upon that Hill.

as its driving Principles

too long have they averted the People

both have grown together

with their resounding pledges,

but now it is time for the Reapers

and their echoing promises.

to burn the one

and gather the other.”

too long have they deflected the People’s honourable demand with empty declarations

'It's coming from the feel/ That this ain't

and splendidly financed speeches.

exactly real/ Or it's real, but it ain't exactly

there.'

and the People have been believing

L. Cohen, 1992

and the People have been patient but the People have never been forgetful.

the Old Book puts it wisely:

‘there is a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted.’

I say the fruit is ripe.

I say it is ready for the plucking.

I say it is ripe with the blood of our brothers and sisters.

45

Image: "I Gerald Ford Am the 38th Puppet of the United States" by Emory Douglas, 1974 As revolutionary artist and minister of culture for the Black Panther Party, Emory Douglas illustrated and designed the group’s newspaper. His visuals document the party’s use of art to inspire self-determination and social change through the economic, political, and social empowerment of oppressed peoples. Douglas was born May 24, 1943 in Grand Rapids, Michigan and grew up in the Bay Area. As a teen, Douglas was incarcerated at the Youth Training School in Ontario, California; there he worked in the prison’s printing shop. He later studied commercial art, taking graphic design classes, at San Francisco City College. In 1967 Douglas became Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party. In 2007, The San Francisco Chronicle reporter Jessica Werner Zack reported that he “branded the militant-chic Panther image decades before the concept became commonplace. He used the newspaper’s popularity to incite the disenfranchised to action, portraying the poor with genuine empathy, not as victims but as outraged, unapologetic and ready for a fight.”

Credit: Emory Douglas, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Source: http://www.overheadcompartment.org/emory-douglas-and-the-visual-language-of-the-black-panther-party-for-self-defense/ and https://walkerart.org/magazine/emory-douglas-black-lives-matter

46

WHEN WALKING THROUGH A WAR ZONE NAHAL

HASHIR

This city will not make itself a home for you These buildings will not construct a canopy of concrete to shield you from the rain These streets will not try to spell shelter in the spaces within the sidewalks These people will not flinch when the footsteps behind you turn out to be less than friendly or when you scream for help in the silence of the night

I know this, like I know the sound of wolf-whistles in the wind; like I know the touch of unwanted fingers on my skin; I know this like I know the hot-metal taste of blood in my mouth from the years I spent biting my tongue over and over I know, because the people around me taught me well.

God help me if I ever let myself forget that God help me, if I ever decide to stretch out my limbs, straighten up my spine and step out into the fray

The city would snarl and rise up on its haunches, The streets would start to spill over with bloodthirsty hounds until all they heard from me was the ear-splitting sound of surrender My surrender is supposed to be suffering with grace My surrender is supposed to be enduring in silence In reality, My surrender sounds a lot like a goddamn battle cry

47

Maybe we, the women, Have destruction woven into our destinies Maybe our bodies break to become battlegrounds, When we run through the streets and are seen; Maybe our voices invite the onslaught upon us, When we stroll by these houses and are heard; Maybe our presence in public means we become The property of the people;

When we exist within these spaces, When we walk within the walls of this city Our city Are we, our bodies, carving out some kind of cataclysmic atrocity into the concrete you have claimed for yourselves?

Are we, our bodies, etching out some kind of unholy monstrosity into the asphalt you have marked as your own?

What I mean is, Why is it such an unbearable kind of lawlessness, To have an aurat welcomed into the world with open arms, if it comes with the simple, somehow completely inconceivable, promise of safety?

What I mean is, Sorry I took too much of your space as I swerved from stall to stall trying to ignore the way hungry eyes traced my movements in the middle of a crowded marketplace What I mean is, I’m sick of every single marketplace feeling exactly like this.

When you speak out against centuries of systematic oppression reinforced by societal norms Your words might be woven into the wreckage of reality, But your mouth will always be committing the most insufferable of sins

This must be resistance then: when I race through these streets in a sudden burst of speed, and try to seize the city as my own.

This must be rebellion then: when I let myself run wild, despite all contention, and make sure they carve out home for me within the concrete.

48

EMANCIPATION IN 5-PART HARMONY JAHMAN

HILL

1 When my chains were unshackled my hands shot

up

In the air, My veins, Injected with helium, They floated, Like carnival balloons, The air, Smelled of fresh popcorn and kids playing, Petroleum jelly being slathered onto a dead thing, Hiding the ashes of sardine packed corpses, Floating coffins carrying the dead, The auction block, A paradox of negrophobia and necrophilia, My bill of sale was the obituary of my former self, Emancipation, The word crept on my body like a scratchy wool blanket, Became an itch at the small of my back, Left me confused, Breathed life into a dead thing, And then left it for dead, When massa took off the chains It was the first time we realized freedom wasn’t physical

2 The man asks me for my name The words get caught at the tip of my tongue, I struggle to find something of meaning, My throat dries like slobber on cheek after long sleep, Clanks like rusting shackles, My lungs expands like the skin of the back at the crack of a whip, My massa Moses, my body the Red Sea, Grip fence post as he delivers me from insubordination, Skin parts, I pray my posterior be a door for this Passover feast, Massa Moses be Ramses reincarnate, That snake is why we are understaff/ed, When this is my everyday, What then to me is a name but a broken identity?

What is a name, But the knot that forms my noose the way it ropes around my tongue, What am I but a being, Wading in the water, That God has already troubled

3 Emancipation don’t heal cuts Every clutch of the purse or hateful glare is a wound reopened The whites only sign at the grocery store, The black letters stand out, Do they even realize that they still had to use black to make white?

50

Image: “An Attack Against One,” distributed by the Robert Brown Elliott League, circa 1970 Created by a member of the Black Panther Party around 1970, at the peak of the Panthers’ popularity, this is one of the more lasting images from the period.

Credit: The Collection of Merrill C. Berman Source: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/gabrielsanchez/11-of-the-most-iconic-protest-posters-from-history

51

The man has traded in rope for police batons And they are still using rope I wonder if God troubles the fire hoses And if that’s why I wade in them They’ve started burning crosses and churches My existence exists in my defiance This body refuses to die on your terms Jim Crows and I remain turtle dove The slowest form of peace My mind drifts to revolution Red cascading from a wound reopened The potemkin village America exposed Knees buckling under the weight of rope undone I pray the Lord lets these scabs finally become scars

4 Marshawn Lynch saying I’m here so I don’t get fined Sounds a lot like I’m here so I don’t get lynched Cam Newton lost the Super Bowl Look how he hangs his head Notice how they say he deserves this The NBA Draft has become my favorite auction block The police have traded in their batons for new police laws that allow them to use batons And they are still using rope Funny how white people always wanna hang with black people Tolerance is the newest defense of racism My freedom has not yet been defined, because it does not yet exist We are still searching for our ancestors We have been stripped of their names Stripped of their greatness Lying naked in the wake of devastation Slavery ended the moment we started pretending we were free I hope we don’t believe it I hope we keep pressing, ascending towards something greater than this

5 Kanye Heard from Nina Heard from Billie Strange fruit hangin Hangin Present tense

53

Image: "Silence = Death" by Avram Finklestein, Brian Howard, Oliver Johnston, Charles Kreloff, Chris Lione, and Jorge Soccaras, 1987 Created by a group of six gay men in New York City who formed the Silence = Death Project and began plastering posters around the city featuring a pink triangle on a black background stating simply ‘SILENCE = DEATH. In its manifesto, the Silence = Death Project harkened back to the pink triangle’s use in Nazi concentration camps to identify homosexual prisoners, declaring that ‘silence about the oppression and annihilation of gay people, then and now, must be broken as a matter of our survival.’ The slogan thus protested both taboos around discussion of safer sex and the unwillingness of some to resist societal injustice and governmental indifference. The symbol was reclaimed by the LGBT community beginning in the 1970s as a symbol of pride, shortly after the poster was adopted by the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, or ACT UP, after its formation, when several of the original creators joined the group, and remains an iconic emblem of the movement.

Credit: Poster House Collection Source: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/gabrielsanchez/11-of-the-most-iconic-protest-posters-from-history

52

Image: "Crimes Against Humanity" by Birgit Walker, 1977 The June 1976 Uprising that began in Soweto and spread countrywide profoundly changed the socio-political landscape in South Africa. When the language of Afrikaans alongside English was made compulsory as a medium of instruction in schools in 1974, black students began mobilizing themselves.

On 16 June 1976 between 3,000 and 10,000 students mobilized by the South African Students Movement's Action Committee supported by the BCM marched peacefully to demonstrate and protest against the government’s directive. On their pathway they were met by heavily armed police who fired on demonstrating students. This resulted in a widespread uprising against the government which lasted several months. It was finally put down by force, with over 1,000 people killed. The poster is based on a now iconic photo by Sam Nzima, of protesters carrying Hector Peterson, the first child shot dead in the 1976 Soweto uprising.

Credit: American Committee on Africa, and the UN Centre Against Apartheid Source: https://images.northwestern.edu/multiresimages/inu:dil-631210eb-7b25-43fc-a6c9-4f87383099d6, https://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/june-16soweto-youth-uprising, and https://issuu.com/centerforthestudyofpoliticalgraphic/docs/cspg_catalog__english_/58?ff

54

DEMOCRACY AND TEAR GAS ACACIA

GU

The police had us surrounded. I looked around at the grim faces, and for the first time in my life found myself at odds with the law. Turmoil surged within my mind, but I strengthened my resolve, shouted at my fellow classmates to stand firm, and continued to fight for a democratic Hong Kong. This was my participation in the Umbrella Movement and was a moment which would forever define my life. We live in a world where race and identity are defining some of the world’s greatest conflicts. Racial violence in the United States, turbulence in the Middle East, and migrant problems in Europe all serve to highlight the importance of one’s identity. So where should I stand and who should I consider my own?

Before the Umbrella Revolution, I never knew where I stood on the political spectrum.

At home, I spoke Mandarin Chinese, while at school my classmates spoke Cantonese. In class, we are taught traditional Chinese characters, but the first character I ever wrote was a simplified one.

I am of mainland Chinese descent, but my passport says I am a Hong Kong citizen. My roots were deeply planted in The Red Chamber, but Hong Kong showed me the possibility of a fusion between East and West. However, the hostility in Hong Kong against the mainland Chinese “locusts” and the government has deepened over the last few years and finally, I had to choose between my identities. The Umbrella Revolution in 2014 cleared my identity struggles for me—I realized that the issue wasn’t about Hong Kong vs. China. It was about right and wrong. My identity was and always will be Chinese, but it was the hope of social justice that I was fighting for.

The end of the Umbrella Revolution was not a defeat in my eyes. It made me realize that Hong Kong and mainland China are inseparable in essence. Like myself, my identity is made up of many components, each inseparable from the other. Hong Kong’s economic development largely depends on China: the Individual Visit Scheme between Hong Kong and China brings Hong Kong significant profits from tourism and boosts Hong Kong’s economy. Trying to achieve social justice through the Umbrella Revolution was an impossible dream from the very start—the ties between Hong Kong and China run too deep for this movement to truly achieve anything. To this day, I like to think of my identity as a multicellular organism, where the whole of my identity is larger than the sum of its parts. It is the interaction and differences between various elements that make me who I am, and this “failure” to achieve social justice simply encourages me to keep fighting for what I believe in.

55

Image: "Continental Day of Support to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, October 15–21," by the Continental Organization of Latin American Students, 1971 Part of a series of posters calling for solidarity between young Cubans and an array of peoples from other countries, each was created in support of human rights and the fight against globalization, imperialism, and colonialism. Here, Nixon is shown with the dead bodies of faceless Southeast Asians on his mind.

Credit: EPW Studio Source: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/gabrielsanchez/11-of-the-most-iconic-protest-posters-from-history

56

Image: "Bring the Monster Down, End the Air War," Doug Lawler, East Bay Media, 1972 This 1972 poster was probably the most successful poster printed by East Bay Media. It was the policy of East Bay Media not to identify the artist, or even itself as the print shop. They were an early Anonymous. Collective members included Peggy White, Harold Lucky, Doug Lawler, Stephanie Jones, Suzanne Korey, and others.

Credit: Collection of Oakland Museum of California http://picturethis.museumca.org/pictures/bring-monster-down-end-air-war and http://quirkyberkeley.com/red-sun-rising-posters/

57

WE ARE AN ECOSYSTEM IN CRISIS MARY

LOEHR

The Mother is submission and resilience spun together like wool.

Earth — She is not hollow.

She is not machine.

Listen if you want to catch the glimpse and realize that this is neither spreadsheet nor seduction.

This is Spectrum.

This is Warning — Our people need to stretch

There are two paths to rebirth.

Extinction or Transcendence.

Our own denial birthing our destruction As we continue to create new materials out of the raw in order to convince ourselves that this is our habitat.

We need space for — Rotation of Language.

The word factory becoming a slur.

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Seeing the at-risk as at-promise!

Letting old doors fall off their hinges

For We have reached the point where the words : Green And Change

make my stomach turn as much as words like: Population.

Temperature.

Emissions.

I tell myself don’t listen to — them They say “make yourself comfortable” They don’t tell you they are robbing that pleasure from your own children.

And their hands can never Be forgiven by prehistory

But WE are no longer sick.

WE are awake and WE have begun

to count the casualties in rivers.

We saw them make the 10,000 mistakes.

We saw smoke stacks in Kentucky.

We saw brahma barred in the box trucks We felt the war all around us.

But they hid it so that we wouldn’t see...

Their reason (simply put) :: is not to distract economic drive.

The karma of the poison in our carpets is waking the sun to wrath

Accept the word crisis.

Let it settle into your chest.

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Image: "Science or Extinction" by Josh MacPhee, 2017 This was a commission from The Amplifier Foundation, initially for use in the 2017 March for Science. The T-Rex skull image is a 1912 photograph from the American Museum of National History Credit: Josh MacPhee via Justseeds Source: https://justseeds.org/graphic/science-or-extinction/

60

NO DAPL GIALINA

MORTEN

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Image: "Honor the Treaties" by Ernesto Yerena, 2011 In 2011 Photographer Aaron Huey started a street art project with artists Ernesto Yerena and Shepard Fairey called Honor the Treaties, now evolved into Amplifier Design Labs, that collaborated with Native artists and Native rights organizations to visually convey the issues most vitally impacting the land, resources, and cultures torn apart by American imperialism and colonialism. This poster by Ernesto Yerena focuses on one of the principal concepts: honoring the Native treaties outlined in the Constitution which the United States government has violated for centuries. It is based off of the poverty, violence, and oppression the Lakota people face in the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, also referred to as Prisoner of War Camp #334. Huey began the project with a photographic documentation about the Lakota people and the Pine Ridge Reservation. Then, Huey, Yerena and Fairey created images and spread them all over the web and cities. Ernesto Yerena Montejano was born in El Centro, CA, a mid-sized farming town bordering Mexicali, BC, MX. Fueled by his cross-national upbringing, his art practice reflects his observations of the views and interactions between the Mexican communities living on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Credit: Amplifier Design Labs Source: http://www.posterposter.org/honor-the-treaties/, https://amplifier.org/portfolio-posts/yerena-honor-treaties-indigenous/, and http://www.hechoconganas.com/bio

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HOPE AND COMMUNITY AMONG MIGRANTS IN TIJUANA PHOTO

SERIES

BRYCE

MERRILL

BY

In December 2018, journalism student Sydney Zuckerman and I went to Tijuana, Mexico to learn about and document the status of the Central American migrant caravan residing there in hopes of gaining asylum in the United States. While there, we heard about the conditions (mostly in Honduras) that led them to join the caravan, the journey so far, and their hopes for the future. This migrant movement as a whole impressed me as extremely brave, struck powerful cords of human commonality, and demonstrated the arbitrary nature of political borders.

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Image: "Immigrants Are Welcome Here" by Micah Bazant, 2017, in collaboration with Centro Legal de la Raza, New American Story Project and Forward Together.

Since 2014, over 340,000 unaccompanied immigrant children and families have fled their homes in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. After centuries of brutal colonization and decades of destructive U.S. interventions, this region has become one of the deadliest places in the world. Organized crime, extortion, murder, and sexual violence are rampant. It is not safe to be a child or a woman there. This poster shows one of these migrants, an Indigenous Guatemalan woman who fled for her life, traveling thousands of miles with her children, to seek asylum in the U.S. Although they may not be recognized as refugees, a huge number of immigrants are forced to migrate by violence and economic conditions. Intensifying climate crisis is expected to create as many as 2 billion refugees worldwide by 2100.

Micah Bazant is a trans visual artist based in Berkeley, California, who works with social justice movements

to make change look irresistible. They create art inspired by struggles to decolonise from white supremacy, patriarchy, ableism and the gender binary.

Source: https://www.micahbazant.com/#/immigrants-welcome/ and https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2018/mar/03/you-can-stick-itprotest-posters-in-the-age-of-trump-in-pictures

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Top image: Always Time for Play I’d like to start by sharing this capture of two young boys fully enjoying a moment, regardless of the tension-filled and controversial situation going on around them. I was amazed and inspired by the abundant positivity of the people residing in this camp (both adults and children) and believe that this side of the story should be shared alongside the conditions of the camp and political status of the movement.

Bottom image: Life at Benito Juarez Sports Complex As the caravan arrived in Tijuana, the local government decided to use the Benito Juarez Sports Complex as a temporary shelter for the influx of migrants. This photo depicts the haphazard nature of the camp, which was much less regulated than traditional (indoor) housing shelters, but the communal attitude of the migrants seemed to ease interaction among the shelter’s temporary residents.

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Image: An Expression of Faith After photographing the emotional reaction of this man, José Acosta, to a hope-filled sermon at the migrant shelter, Sydney and I had the pleasure of interviewing him about his experience as part of the caravan. José informed us that he left behind his wife and his five children in Honduras when he joined the caravan in search of better work. He explained that, like many others, any job that he worked in Honduras paid so little that he was unable to support his family even while working long hours. When asked ask if he had a message to share with citizens/residents of the United States, José responded (translated by me): “Please listen to your conscience. The truth is that we [Hondurans] are people that want to do the right thing. We have been struggling, working, walking because we have no choice. If you have humanity, please help us cross the border. We are really just honest people that want to work, we are not criminals.”

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Image: "Close the Detention Centers" by Josh MacPhee, 2018 A reworked poster based on one of a series of French May 1968 Uprising posters originally designed by the Atelier Populaire. The posters of the uprising were all anonymous, the result of collaborations between idealistic students and striking workers. The original poster reads, "A Bas Les Cadences Infernales" or "Down With The Infernal Cadence," and condemns the long hours, work speed-ups, low pay, and general exploitation of industrial workers on the shop floor.

Credit: Justseeds Josh MacPhee Source: http://art-for-a-change.com/Paris/paris2.html and http://art-for-a-change.com/Paris/paris2.html

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Top image: Setting Up Bottom image: Passing Time

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Top image: Community Support Although some Tijuana residents seem to resent the abrupt influx of migrants into their city, many members of the community were very supportive of the bold members of the caravan. This picture shows two Tijuana residents that dedicated hours each day (since the caravan arrived a week ago) providing hot food (purchased and cooked out of their own pockets) to migrants. These individuals felt grateful for their good fortune and the support they had received from their community throughout their lives, so they saw providing these hot meals as a way to pass along that goodwill.

Bottom image: Apoyamos This photo shows a migrant caravan member as he departs on a bus for another shelter. While living conditions were reportedly much better in these secondary shelters, they were also more distant from the Mexican-American border (up to 45 minutes by bus). In this light, many migrants refused to leave the Benito Juarez sports complex due to its location in sight of the border. This bus is marked with the short message ‘apoyamos,’ which means ‘we support.’ I took this to mean that the migrants support each other, which was a theme I saw constantly exemplified during my short time at the camp. This migrant movement as a whole impressed me as extremely brave and struck powerful cords of human commonality and the arbitrary nature of political borders. I hope that this movement inspires international compassion in the coming years.

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Image: "I Am a Man" by the Memphis Sanitation Workers, 1968 Memphis sanitation workers, the majority of them African American, went out on strike on February 12, 1968, demanding recognition for their union, better wages, and safer working conditions after two trash handlers were killed by a malfunctioning garbage truck. As it dragged on through March, with the Memphis mayor refusing to negotiate, the strike gained national attention. As they marched, striking workers carried copies of a poster declaring "I AM A MAN," a statement that recalled a question abolitionists posed more than 100 years earlier, "Am I not a man and a brother?" Martin Luther King, Jr. joined the cause, speaking to a crowd of 6,000 in late March and returning on April 3rd to deliver one of his most famous speeches, "I’ve Been to the Mountaintop." King placed the strike in a larger context, declaring, "The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee—the cry is always the same: ‘We want to be free.’" King was assassinated at Memphis’s Lorraine Motel the next night, just one day before a massive rally was planned. On April 8, four days after King’s assassination, his widow, Coretta Scott King, led some 20,000 marchers through the streets of Memphis, holding copies of another poster that read, "HONOR KING: END RACISM!" The strike ended on April 16, with the city agreeing to union recognition and raises..

Credit: National Museum of American History Source: https://www.gilderlehrman.org/content/civil-rights-posters-1968, http://www.typeroom.eu/article/how-iconic-typographic-picket-signs-becameour-eternal-cry-justice, and https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1461248

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A BLACK CRAYON ALPRENTICE

I DON’T KNOW HOW LONG I’LL BE HERE I SUPPOSE NONE OF US REALLY DO WHAT I DO KNOW IS THAT BEFORE I LEAVE SOMEHOW SOMEWAY I HAVE TO MAKE MY POINT, LEAVE MY MARK, SCROLL MY TAG YOU KNOW WHAT I AM SAYING I HAVE TO PROVE THAT MY MISTAKES, MY KNOWLEDGE MY WANTS AND HOPES WERE OF VALUE AND ENOUGH TO PAY THE FEE FOR MY HUMBLE EXISTENCE I MUST SHOW MY MOTHER NJERI ALI THAT THE CLAY WAS WELL WORTH THE MOLDING I WILL NOT NOW OR EVER BE A DO OVER I WILL NOT NOW OR EVER BE A LET’S START AGAIN I WILL NOT NOW OR EVER BE A BACK TO THE OLD DRAWING BOARD I WON'T BE CONFINED BY STREET SIGNS AND WHITE OR BLACK NEIGHBORHOODS WITH NAZI SKIN HEADS DOWN THE BLOCK, AND SPRAY PAINTED “DIE NIGGA WALLS” THAT YOU WANT ME TO EXIST IN I WILL NOT BE UNRECOGNIZED BECAUSE OF THE HUE OF MY ANGELIC SKIN I WILL NOT BE LEFT TO BREATH IN A BOX OF YOUR CHOOSING ONLY UNTIL A PLACE FOR ME YOU HAVE COME UP WITH YOUR 4 WALLS OF HATE, AND YOUR BARS OF UNEDUCATED, UNREASONABLE, UNSUBSTANTIATED, UNACCOMODATING, UNPARLIAMENTARIAN, UNRIGHTEOUSNESS, AND “OH MASTER MAN,” YOUR UNDEVELOPED MIND WILL NOT NOW OR EVER SLOW MY PACE TO THE GLORIOUS WISDOM I SEEK AND THE PEACE I WISH FOR MY SOUL I DON’T KNOW HOW LONG I’LL BE HERE I SUPPOSE NONE OF US REALLY DO WHAT I DO KNOW IS THAT I WON'T HAVE THE BAPTIST PREACHER AND JOHN OR PAUL THE POPE, HAVE MY RIGHTEOUSNESS IMPREGNATED BY YOUR MALICIOUS RAPING OF YOUNG FAITH TO WHOM YOU HAVE KNEELED BEFORE YOU FOR MORE THAN BODY BREAD AND BLOOD WINE YOU WITH YOUR BEAUTIFULLY DECORATED ROBES OF LIES, DECEPTION AND CLOSET PEDOPHILIA I WILL NOT SUPPLY YOUR GOLD COLLECTION PLATES TO FUEL YOUR BULLET PROOF GOLF CARTS AND ASSORTMENT OF FRIED CHICKEN HATS ACCESSORIZED WITH AUDREY HEPBURN WHITE GLOVES

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Image: "Victory To The Freedom Fighters of Southern Africa" by Rachel Romero, 1977 This poster is among hundreds of designs posted publicly by the San Francisco Poster Brigade and supporters 1975-1982. The artist, Rachael Romero, was a cofounder of the SFPB (briefly known as the Wilfred Owen Brigade after the Anti-WW1 poet) and its principal artist. The 1976 Soweto riots ushered in an era of increased confrontation between the state and political organisations fighting for liberation. The year 1977 saw heavy fighting in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) between black freedom fighters and the white minority government and the death of Steve Biko, leader of the Black Consciousness Movement, at the hands of the police on 18 August 1977, which increased tension in the political landscape in the country. Biko was detained in Port Elizabeth, tortured and in a state of semi-consciousness, taken by road to Pretoria for further interrogation. He later died in custody in Pretoria as a result of his assault by the police.

Credit: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Source: http://www.sfposterbrigade.org/press/4553539113, https://www.loc.gov/item/2015647490/, and https://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/massdemocratic-movements-1976-1983

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I WON’T LET MEDIAS FEAR SITCOM SCARE TACTICS LEAD ME TO PARTAKE IN ANY SO CALLED INTELLECTUAL BULLSHIT CONVERSATIONS OF BORDERS OR WALLS I WON’T DETERMINE THE OUTCOME OF DIVISION FROM THE APPEARANCE OF A HOG FROM A HOLE IN THE GROUND MY THOUGHTS WILL BE MORE INFORMED SO AS TO NEVER GIVE PRECIOUS TIME TO UTTER NONSENSE MY LIFE’S JOURNEY IS FAR MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR GROUND HOG’S DAY I DON’T KNOW HOW LONG I’LL BE HERE I SUPPOSE NONE OF US REALLY DO WHAT I DO KNOW IS THAT I WON’T MR. LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD LISTEN TO RHETORIC YOU VILIFY TO DEHUMANIZE MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS FROM ACROSS YOUR BORDER, WITH USE OF VILE DESCRIPTIONS OF THEIR BEING, ONLY GANG MEMBERS THIEVES, PROSTITUTES, CRIMINALS, LAZY UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS, NEIGHBORHOOD EYESORES, AND ILLEGAL VOTERS A COUNTRY WHOSE SOLE EXISTENCE IS BUILT FROM THE SWEAT AND ACHING BACKS OF IMMIGRANTS, YET WITH EVERY SPOKEN WORD FROM YOU, WE HEAR AND SEE YOUR UNEDUCATED IGNORANCE REIGN SUPREME I WON’T EMBRACE THOUGHTS OF TIMES ARE BETTER AMERICA FAKE REALITY SHOWS PRETENDING THAT THINGS HAVE CHANGED, MY LIFE IS NOT A LIFETIME MOVIE OR SOME MTV REAL WORLD FULL OF SHIT OBSTACLE COURSE I WILL NOT GIVE PLASTIC TECHNOLOGY AND CARTOON MEDIA THE POWER TO DILUTE AND DESTROY MY INTELLECT, IMAGINATION, AND THOUGHT PROCESS I DON’T KNOW HOW LONG I’LL BE HERE I SUPPOSE NONE OF US REALLY DO WHAT I DO KNOW IS THAT I HOPE MY LITTLE BROTHERS, AMEER AND ALI, THINK THAT LOOKING UP TO ME WAS WORTH THE DIZZINESS I HOPE MY CONVERSATIONS AND ACTIONS WERE MORE THAN JUST A WASTE OF TIME FOR THEM I HOPE THAT THEIR LIFE’S VEHICLE TAKES THEM TO THE RIGHT, WHERE MINE TOOK ME TO THE LEFT AND BOTH OF THEIR MAPS' EXITS ARE NOT LOST IN THE WRINKLES OF THE TRIP I HOPE THEY WON’T LET ONE UNIMAGINATIVE CRAYON DICTATE THEIR WORLD'S PICTURE AND KEEP THE TWO STAYING BETWEEN THE LINES I HOPE YOU ALL NEVER FORGET THAT THERE IS BEAUTY IN THE BOX AND THAT RAINBOWS ARE THE COLOR OF MAN IF I COULD TELL YOU ANYTHING…. I TELL YOU THAT ME…….

I AM THE BLACK CRAYON!!

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Image: Black Panther newspaper, August 18, 1970 by Emory Douglas, 1970 Credit: Emory Douglas, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Source: http://www.overheadcompartment.org/emory-douglas-and-the-visual-language-of-the-black-panther-party-for-self-defense/ and https://www.aiga.org/design-journeys-emory-douglas#slideshow-0-7

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Image: "AIDSGATE" by The Silence = Death Project, 1987 AIDSGATE was the second poster by the Silence=Death collective, designed specifically for the third ACT UP demonstration, a June 1, 1987 action in Washington DC. It was the first national civil disobedience addressing AIDS, which we saw as a unique opportunity to formally indict Reagan for his lack of response during the early days of the crisis, and its disproportionate impact on women and communities of color. The text crawl across the bottom of the poster reads: “54% of people with AIDS in NYC are Black or Hispanic… AIDS is the No. 1 killer of women between the ages of 24 and 29 in NYC… By 1991, more people will have died of AIDS than in the entire Vietnam War. What is Reagan’s real policy on AIDS? Genocide of all Non-Whites, Non-males and Nonheterosexuals?… Silence=Death.” When collective member, Oliver Johnston (1952-1990), was finalizing the mechanical for the printer, he unilaterally decided Reagan didn’t look evil enough, and made his eyes hot pink.

Credit: Avram Finkelstein Source: https://www.ucpress.edu/blog/31456/behind-the-iconic-protest-posters-of-the-aids-activist-movement/

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equal share henry

7.

reneau

jr.

blackfolk chalk outline splayed arms-spread-wide as selective hope

share your suffering your poverty that be patient . . . waits

share covet & hoard that kills from the inside out a reciprocal charity

the bitter dirge of spilled tears & abrasive frustration like silent anger’s muddied howl

share dumb existence & mute perishing give Amerikkka some legislated slavery, the collateral damage that keeps on giving

share suicidal blue-eyed Jesus &

pariah-hoods molded from the clay of massa’s plantation & the dope sack virus stackin' big-head dead presidents &

shots fired in a crowd & everybody ran

but

5-year old Tyrone on his trike victim of drive-by reputations with blind-folded aims

the grad school honors student:

Jane Doe Jackson

once honing the cure for the 21st century plague: HIV/AIDS

share them penitentiary chances them lock-down police-state blue(s) & cha-ching bling-bling / mo-money cell block dreams

share your urban addictions gangsta 40-ounce chuggin’ & ya-yo gorilla-gotta-grip them “stuck” moments of boo-yah! paranoia

there’s plenty to go around,

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them big-booty bitches with cataract eyes coveting welfare dead-end lives & shittin’ bay-bay’s kids like bad judgment

share marginalization under the “Veil” constant cryin’ like a church on Monday

share & share alike—

'cause whitefolks got politician mafia-clout & Mayflower blue-blood entitlement & the manifest destiny of ICBM nuclear fire & corporate mentality

share & share alike—

the fork-tongued reservation treaties the clear-cut deforestation displacing native tribes the whiteman burdened 3rd world Shock & Awe the fossil-fuel-at-all-costs bottom-line profits the Operation Enduring Freedom like Jim Crow Mississippi

share disenfranchisement livin’ free & unequal Indian-given Affirmative Action

the false hope last-resort hashtag: Burn this bitch down!!!

blackfolk share good as dead, but still wanna live your life

‘cause mama told me: FREEDOM & EQUALITY DON’T SHINE, UNLESS IT IS SHARED

(house-niggers need not apply)

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Image: "Black Women Will Not Be Intimidated" Founded in 1974, by See Red Women's Workshop, 1977 In 1974, a group of London art students founded the feminist print collective See Red Women’s Workshop. They taught themselves plumbing and carpentry skills while transforming a derelict building with no electricity into a fully functional screen-printing studio and meeting space. For the next 16 years, the more than 40 women organized consciousness-raising sessions, designed graphic posters railing against the division of labor, and educated youth groups about sexual and reproductive health.

Credit: See Red Women's Workshop Source: https://www.thecut.com/2017/02/see-striking-posters-from-feminist-see-red-womens-workshop.html

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