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March 10, 2019 at 1:28 pm #4775John VangParticipant
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One of the things I was particularly interested in about Standing Rock and NoDAPL was the involvement of youth activists. The photo I want to share this week is about the One Mind Youth movement, a group of youth activists behind the Standing Rock movement. Reaching out to Tribal Council officials, the group was able to organize actions such as a relay run to Washington DC to bring concerns directly to federal officials. This drew more national attention to the issue and within months, thousands of protesters from around the world gathered to demonstrate with them at Standing Rock.I also want to share this short video about Jasilyn Charger, one of the first youth activists to join Standing Rock.
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March 3, 2019 at 3:33 pm #4604John VangParticipant
“Bike Theft Culture” by Kevin Yang
For this week’s focus on #MeToo I want to share a spoken word piece, “Bike Theft Culture” by Kevin Yang. In this piece, Kevin Yang analogizes sexual assault and rape to bike theft. The majority of the poem is a list of tips of how to avoid “bike theft”, in which it is a direct monologue to womxn on how to avoid sexual confrontations. It addresses the sexualization of womxn often used as justification ( phrases such as “she seemed like she was asking for it…) for assault. Rape culture has become normalized and it promotes behaviors such as sexual objectification and slut shaming which only adds to the demoralization of womxn. At the end of the poem, Kevin delivers that instead of teaching people how to avoid “bike theft”, maybe they should teach people to not steal bikes.
- This reply was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by John Vang.
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February 23, 2019 at 11:49 pm #4277John VangParticipant
For this week’s topic on Black Lives Matter, I want to share this photo of Stephon Clark and his family. Stephon Clark was shot and killed the night of March 18, 2018 in his front yard by police officers that had mistaken his cellphone for a gun. I personally knew Stephon for a couple years growing up in the South Sacramento area and this was an event that really struck me. Although I’ve lost many close friends growing up, the death of Stephon Clark impacted me the most because I just never expected these things (police brutality) to happen in my own hometown. I was very glad to see that my community was able to gather and show support for the #BlackLivesMatter movement. (This is all still very fresh to me so I don’t want to get too detailed it.)
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February 10, 2019 at 11:31 am #3861John VangParticipant
Mos Def Debut Studio Album – Black on Both Sides (Released 1999)
Yasiin Bey, born Dante Terrell Smith and better known as Mos Def, is one of the greatest All-Time Rappers and MC’s in my opinion. His debut studio album – Black on Both Sides (1999) – is widely considered to be one of the best albums of all time. In his album, he merges old school with new school poetics to shed light on Afrocentric realities in America, specifically his hometown Brooklyn, New York. Many of the tracks on his album (ex. Mathematics) focus on blackness, discrimination, and marginalization from social, economic, and political standpoints. After his debut album went Gold, Mos Def gained popularity and began to involve himself in a number of social justice projects such as Hip Hop for Respect, a project that spoke out against police brutality. I consider Mos Def a pioneer of new school Political Hip Hop because he constantly uses it as a platform for speaking out against racism and sharing his left wing political views.
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February 3, 2019 at 2:53 pm #3699John VangParticipant
Asian American protesters march in solidarity with Black Lives Matter in New York City in July. (Photo Credit: Unknown / Twitter)
One topic we discussed this week that intrigued me was the idea of Asians as the model minority. This generalized idea has labeled Asian Americans as successful, assimilated immigrants and pushed conflict with other marginalized ethnic groups. This also made me think about where Asian Americans stand in solidarity with other groups. For a long time, I’ve always asked the following question: “Where is Asian America in the face of oppression? If they’re not at the front lines, then where are they?” Asian Americans do stand in solidarity with other groups, sometimes in the front lines of protest but also through other platforms such as media.
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January 27, 2019 at 3:28 pm #3496John VangParticipant
Gold medalist Tommie Smith (Center), Bronze Medalist John Carlos (right), and Silver Medalist Peter Norman (left) during the National Anthem at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City
Photographed by: John Dominis
This week’s theme of Beyond the Civil Rights Movement made me think about some significant events in sports history. In the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, two African American sprinters (Tommie Smith & John Carlos) won medals for the Track and Field event. During the National Anthem, Smith and Carlos bowed their heads and raised black-gloved fists in solidarity with Black Power and Civil Rights. Silver Medalist Peter Norman decided to remain standing on the podium with them and displayed solidarity by wearing an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge during the ceremony. Though millions of Americans were outraged at this action, countless people around the world were shocked to see these two men, unafraid, expressing disappointment in their nation, a nation that always falls short of what it promises: freedom & equality. This major accomplishment inspired many future athletic feats and allowed athletic competitions to become a platform for demonstrating solidarity for civil rights.
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January 20, 2019 at 1:41 pm #3218John VangParticipant
Donald Glover a.k.a Childish Gambino – “This is America”The image I chose for this week’s topic is the final scene from the music video of “This is America” by Childish Gambino. In this scene, Childish is running away from a group of white men as Young Thug sings the line “You just a Black man in this world/You just a barcode, ayy.” depicting how African American slaves had to literally run to save their lives. A black person running for his/her life has been seen as part of American culture for such a long time. Even after abolishing slavery, African Americans continued to face discrimination and injustice from social and political aspects. In a way, they were continuing to “run away” from all these things that dehumanized them. The Civil Rights movement was the first significant opportunity that allowed African Americans to stop running and stand for themselves. Civil Rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X took on important roles in empowering African Americans and instilling Black Power and self-love.
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