The X-Word

I wrote this at work when I should have been doing something else more productive. A white co-worker was having a conversation about ethnicity with a black co-worker. I started listening around here:

White: I'm full Polish on both sides.

Black: Oh, so you're Polack

White: Oh, um I guess. Isn't that the bad word for us? Like isn't that like the N-word for Poles?

For some reason, the black guy and eye looked at each other and then looked at her and silently shook our heads as if to say, "No, sweetie. You don't have one of those. You're white."

But afterwards, I thought, why is that? Thus the inspiration for the following incomplete piece.

The X-Word

Do I, or rather do we have an N-word?

Because, say nigga to a black person and you risk alienation, injury, or even death.

"What'd you say?"

"Oh hell no!"

"This cracka..."

I get it.

There's a history there.

But more importantly, it has been a visible, nationally observed and recognized history.

A history of slavery, abuse, murder, and systematic oppression.

The black man in America is unappreciated by a country that was built on his people's whip-scarred backs.

But...I wonder,

What's the difference between them and I?

I know that people give words their power, so if we just stop being offended then it won't be so offensive.
We so often forget that words also get their power from history,

And people don't know our history here, hell no one does.

And I can't blame them:

In school we can learn about Rodney King but not Vincent Chin,

We learn about the Atlantic middle passage and the Amistad but not the Pacific voyage and the Libertad.

We learn about Auschwitz and Dachau, but not Topaz and Manzanar.

We too have suffered forced labor, abuse, murder, and systematic oppression.

We too live in country whose foundations are soaked in our blood.

So NO.

I won't "get over it."

In fact, this is an open call.

A call to all of my yellow, brown, and otherwise hyphenated-Americans

To all of my fellow model minorities!

To all of us perpetual foreigners!

I say let's NOT get over it!

In fact, let's get under it and lift the issue of our collective respect up to national attention.

Next time you hear someone called chink, wetback, sand nigger, coolie, A-rab, Charlie, towelhead, or even "exotic looking," let's fucking say something!

Don't bow your head, walk away and cry about it later. Remember colonialism is over.

So stand tall, step forward and scream NOW!

Make some noise, rock the boat, hell fucking rock the vote!

We are not our parents.

No offense to mom and dad but we're better than that.

We were born and raised here and we belong here.

We have a voice and no, it doesn't have an accent.

There is nothing to be ashamed of when it comes to demanding respect in your own home.

Remember, inalienable rights apply to aliens too.

Lost

I don't know what to do.

I'm as lost as you.

Everyone says I have all the answers but this time I don't.

I don't know what to say, how to feel, or what the rules are.

I just want to fix it.

I just want you to know that I trust you. With everything I have.

Please be careful.

Please take care.

It's never been broken, but I can feel it starting to crack.

If that's what needs to happen for you to feel good, then I gladly take that burden upon myself, I'll gladly wait, and I'll gladly waste away in silence.

Know that, to me, you mean more than me.

My inaction is not a sign up apathy, in fact it's the opposite, it's me showing you I care.

I hope you get. If not to day, then some day.

Just remember that I'm just as lost as you.

But I trust you.

I trust you.

I trust you.

I trust you.

George Watsky- Go Robo

Crushing stuff!?

Ga-man

The Japanese have a word.

Ga-man

"...a code of silent suffering and ability to stand pain."

It's a prized virtue in Japanese culture, and arguable shared with many Asian cultures.

Asians brought this value with them to America

From the Manilamen of St. Malo

To the first Cantonese immigrants chasing gold and laying track

To the sugar cane workers of Hawaii

The refugees of countless American wars

Through racism, prejudice, segregation,

Internment camps

The repeal of Filipino veteran's rights

The murder of Vincent Chin

We stayed quiet.

More accurately, our parents did.

They felt obliged to take these obstacles in stride because they felt they owed this country at least their silence.

It was still better than the old country.

But we know better.

We have had the world equality beat into our psyches from grade school.

And yet we watched our parents suffer countless injustices.

It's time to reclaim this generation's rights.

As Helen Zia proclaimed, "It's time to stop being so fucking polite!"

Let's rally.

Throw our firsts up.

Stop bowing, stop covering our mouths when we laugh

There's nothing funny going on here.

Incomplete

Was hanging out with a friend a few weeks ago and he was talking about his ex and naturally there was a lot of hating going on. Had to reflect on it. Never finished, I was interrupted and never got back to it.

It's interesting that those so seemingly enamored of each other can so quickly come to spite each other so completely.

What is it about lost love that makes it so easy for us to hate?

I can't say that I know this feeling personally, for I've yet to lose love,

But I've seen friends torn apart.

I've seen tears,

Heard screams, cries, rants.

I've seen the pain and hate in their eyes.

But why?

They were strolling on the shore hand in hand yesterday

Today they struggle to keep hands to selves, for different reasons.

They couldn't stand each other's absence.

Now they can't stand the sight of the other.

Ping Pong

Again written in GHIST discussion while not paying attention. This is totally for shits and giggles.

Obscure in the West.

Well known in the East.

Asian male sexuality?

No.

Ping Pong.

A sport in which balls are not merely struck

But spun.

Up.

Down.

Sideways.

And every combination in between.

A game?

A hobby?

Perhaps

But at the highest levels: a true sport.

Chess at the speed of light

Tactical, aggressive, thoughtful, instinctive

Everyone has an ego about it

But as MTV told me

"You think you know..."

But you're wrong!

Physics barely holds water in this game

Magnus himself would doubt his own calculations

Serve. Push. Loop. Block. Smash. Fish. Smash. Lob. Smash.

Miles from the table.

Behind barriers.

The impossible made possible.

It's not your grandad's basement pong.

This is Table Tennis.

I'm proud of it...

I've been up for over 18 hours reading A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo. I've just finished my opening paragraph for a paper due in seven hours. I think it's pretty tight.I might post the rest later upon request.

America’s “police action” in Vietnam has been, to date, the longest armed conflict in U.S. history. Caputo initially began writing A Rumor of War as an autobiography, but his personal project soon evolved into a memoir in which he chronicled not only the events of the war but, more significantly, the way the war changed him and his brothers in arms. Though significantly less deadly than previous American wars, Vietnam was a reaction chamber in which climate, combat, and untold numbers of atrocities served as the catalysts that transformed the hearts and minds of an entire generation. For those young men unlucky enough to be thrown into the steaming jungles and rolling hills of Vietnam, the ideals of war as a glorious endeavor so valued by their father’s generations were shattered by the grim realities of guerilla warfare.

Attention White People:

White privilege exists!

Racism exists!

Having a black president has changed nothing!

Telling a minority "Obama did it, why can't you?" is the most ignorant thing one can say.

Hmm...I don't know...where to begin?

Maybe because employers see me and already have no on the tip of their toungues.

Store owners follow me from rack to rack and shelf to shelf while white customers roam freely.

White women lock their cars when I walk past and clutch their purses in elevators.

Maybe because I will forever be a "boy" to cops to matter my age.

Because my English is always be "surprisingly good."

Being "color-blind" is bullshit!

I'm brown and proud of it.

For you to ignore that is just as racist as belittling it.

On the opposite end:

If i tell you I'm Filipino, don't tell me about your love affair with Asia groomed over many a pan-regional tour/vacation,

How much you "LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE Thai curries."

Or how the Pho is just not the same here.

Don't ask me to "Say something in your language!"

I was born here, so how about this:

FUCK YOU!

Bland

Written while not paying to attention to my GHIST professor in discussion. His name? Literally, no fucking joke: Dr. Bland.

Lacking flavor

When referring to speech, lacking intonation or emotion.

But his man

This professor

This doctor of American history

is beyond the mere definition of the word.

He is indescribable

Bland would have been a compliment

His lectures weren't just droning, they were slow!

S - L - O- W type slow

he spoke and you already knew what he was going to say a quarter of the way through

His drawl, delightfully southern but unbearable smug

Clean & Educated sounding

But it's the tone at the end of every phrase that begged for a pencil tracheotomy

Smug is the word that comes to mind.

That "Everything I say is gold" tone

And the facial to boot.

That's it.

Voltron Girl!

http://www.angryasianman.com/2010/03/voltron-girl.html