change

5/26/05

the largest problem is that we as people have been conditioned by society to believe that the way things are is natural. that the way the world is is the way that it has been, should be, and always will be. we must challenge ourselves to search for a better way, to continually question, and to continually be critical of ourselves in every aspect of our lives.

Magkasama '05 (unfinished?)

i frankly don't remember if i got around to finishing this piece but i did use a substantial amount in my performance at Magkasama

i gaze upon flag draped balikbayan boxes filled with the fruits of their labor
bullet ridden corpses
as they're unloaded off the plane
my hand rests along side the brow of my eye
and i ask myself
how did we get this far
how did we get to a point where we can no longer communicate
where flags and banners are placed higher than truth
where our innermost feelings must be buried deep in secret
trapped in a so called land of freedom
we're forced to repress ourselves
or lay open to the slings and slander
backed by the thunderous applause of the whole
a society where we seek to better only the self
to ignore the thousands, with thousands of stories themselves
whose daily interactions shape our lives
they say no one is an island
yet we're forced to be alone
to hide ourselves from the truth
why do we keep doing this?
why must we live not by our passions
but by what's practical
why must practicality be linked to dollar signs
and our lives be consumed by our own consumerism
hip hop stop
you are no longer the her i used to love
you have long since been engendered with a masculinity that abhors biyuti
abhors the female within, the mother to your mother
the lola, the abuela,
your misogynistic homophobic ways have enforced a patriarchical society that worships phallic shaped tombs rather than wombs
through your strive you've lost your strength
you are no longer concerned with the daily travails of the masses
but instead concerned with conforming to complacency
you have dropped what's hot in favor of a more simple path
you have allowed yourself to be consumed to a level where even the mos def of us have once again painted our faces black to sell cars and clothes
your so called underground has been driven above to the mainstreams and rivers of a commercialized globe
you were once a revolutionary movement that now merely revolves in circles
you have been removed from the concrete streets and beats that are your source
and have now been trapped and packaged in a form that can be felt from the confort of your very own suburban home
as the cyclical course of time repeats
it is now time to turn to the radical
the root of the source the mother of all
where art thou o queen of life
fresh flowers bloom in your wake
while the flesh is born anew
and the soul transcends to plains shaped by you
bathed in hues unseen to the naked eye of the storm
seen only by the heart and felt by the ear
suffering under the discriminilization of our bodies

not done

May 21, 2005

i'm friends with a/have a partner that's "so and so" so i can say whatever i want about them

i have a (insert oppressed group) friend so i can talk as much shit about (insert same oppressed group) people as i want.

response:
intimate relationships/friendships are not mutually exclusive to discrimination: racism/sexism/homophobia/classism; they offer no insurance against any discrimination. in fact there may be a tendency to "excuse" that factor from acknowledgement and take that person as an exception; to declare them more human in spite of the dehumanization towards the rest of their group. another response could be the objectification of a person based upon their identity; to take (their 'rightful') ownership of said person due to their own superiority within the matrix of domination.

this isn't to say that relationships and friendships with others are wrong and/or cannot be forged. however if they are forged on bad faith: as a means to escape ones reality (to subjugate or be subjugated) or taking an ahistorical perspective towards past oppression, then such a relationship is healthy to neither party. we cannot ignore how our present has been forged by past oppression, nor can we ignore the social contexts which we live in.

Rewriting a Rewritten Past

The Modern Era was the age which had laid the foundation for the present, one could argue this had begun with the age of enlightenment. However the exact starting point is irrelevant, more importantly this age was embodied as giving birth to scientific method as a result of the classical revival, the revival of the so called great civilization of Greece. As Gordon points out with his quotation of Hegel, Western Modern thought was deeply rooted with Anti-Blackness, as well as failing to discuss issues of gender and sexuality. Using Antonio Gramsci’s definition of hegemony, the consolidation of rule through coercion and consent, Modern thought with its emphasis on scientific truths combined with the underlying theme of Anti-Blackness has served to promote Western if not White Supremacy in the vast majority of the world, thus generating consent of rule. Many works have come out as a critique of Modern thought such as various writings by Michel Focoult, Jaques Derrida, and Franz Fanon. These writings have been labeled as Post-Modernist works, though Fanon would mainly fit into the Post-Colonial category as it applies Post-Modern thought to a critique of colonialism. Martin Bernal’s Black Athena rekindled a long standing debate about the significance of Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece because it deconstructs the Modern notion of the conception of civilization.

Fanon argues that Anti-Blackness arises from the “sociogenic” dimension of the situation, which refers to the role of human institutions in the constitution of what human beings regard as “natural” in the features of social life. In the denial of Africa as the cradle of civilization and instead the promotion of Greece and the West as the birth of civilization, there is an implication of White/Western Supremacy as being natural; that it always was this way, that it was meant to be this way, and that it always will be. In another contemporary context this sociogenic situation fuels attacks on Cultural Studies by feeding claims that the West is the only place where anything that mattered occurred. Thus Black Athena aims at the crux of the argument posed by the Western Supremacist.

A point was made in the film by a critic of Bernal that his work has the opposite effect of promoting Whites rather than Blacks by arguing Bernal favors Western thought though merely wishes to give credit to Blacks. By implying the superiority of Western thought, Bernal’s work leaves an impression of the goal of Blacks laying claim to what is considered Whiteness. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire writes that an oppressed people’s ideal is to be human, but their sociogenic situation leads them to believe to be human is to be what their oppressors are, which could also be described as the poststructural parlance of the black chasing the signifier in hope of becoming the signifier. However, Fanon writes: “A total retreat from Western rationality as rationality leads to a glorified blackness that inevitably realizes its self-deception: An essentialized blackness that intensifies white hegemony.” Fanon goes on to say: “Let us decide not to imitate Europe but combine our muscles and our brains in a new direction. Let us create the whole human being, whom Europe has been incapable of bringing to triumphant birth.” Therefore, the goal of a true Anti-Racist is to seek liberation not just for the oppressed, but the oppressor as well and ultimately create that whole human being.

4/26/05

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comments from jollene:

1) are we living in a time where Western Modern thought is no longer deeply rooted with Anti-Blackness?

2)here is where i think post-modernism is basically impossible. how are we to start right at the beginning w/o a past? i dont think that erasing the past is the answer to creating a just future. i think revolutions are contingent on the fact that peoples are able to finally write and interpret their own histories. i think "moving beyond the modern era" is impossible materially at this point when we are barely realizing our own past and ignorant of our present (outside of our own experience in an imperialist country). what do you think?

i've written far too many words to last a lifetime
yet not enough to reach eternity
help me catch it
for your pulse has left me breathless
my thoughts meander endlessly
as they search for ways to convey their meaning
please
help them simply be

4/27/05

is it possible for "God" to actually be the antithesis of beauty?

in our imaginations we always assume that "God" is something beautiful beyond our imagination. but "God" doesn't necessarily have to be so as it encompasses creation itself, so in essence "God" is everything or anything it wants it to be. but more importantly what if "God" truly was ugly? is it possible for people to accept it as such? it would take a true believer to love "God" even if "God" was not the way we imagined. also if you believe in the contrast to "God," the "satan," being a deceiver of souls it would make sense for it to appear beautiful in order to appeal to the weakness of people in wanting a beautiful "God."

also, if you take Revelations and the End of Times seriously the Anti-Christ is a similar figure. he will appear to be a savior when in actuality he is not. if the notion of only 144,000 out of the whole world (including the people long gone) being saved is true that would mean he would decieve a large number of people, given the "foretold" pressence of an Anti-Pope, even the so called faithful will be tricked as well.

all objects are matter and all matter is objective to me

scientifically speaking, thoughts are merely electrical impulses that travel through your brain no?
and in a sense, thoughts are energy right?
so in thinking about the law of conservation of energy, energy can never be created nor destroyed...
so in essense, there can never truely be an original thought
in reflecting about how i learned and how people learn
it's really us borrowing ideas from other people
of course this does ignore the aspect of creativity
but returning to the aspect of energy being impossible to destroy
this can also be interepreted as thoughts and ideas being everlasting
there is no lost thought...and it can never disappear...

another concept/idea i've been toying around with

music, voices, tone, can all have an effect on someone
when you hear a song...or someone singing =)...it can make you "feel" a certain way
now i'm going to argue that we actually have no sense of sound
sounds are merely vibrations right?
they're received by the eardrum and through the magic of biology are interepeted into electrical impluses
so lets return to the aspect of the eardrum
these vibrations are felt, correct?
now, when someone touches you
depending on a many things this causes you to react a certain way
to "feel" a certain way
so i think it can be argued that the sense of sound
is essentially an extension of someone's sense of touch

but if anything we are merely beings of sound

4/05/05