I Love LA: Part 1: Venice

Today, I spent the day with my wonderful and very good friend TaRasha at Venice, Los Angeles; which is a sort of mecca in LA. Most people don't go to Venice Beach to enjoy the water but instead go to see the street art; graffiti and live circus-like performers; shop and eat. I bought two pairs of earrings for $23 at Gonzo Africa which has a lot of cool ethnic jewelry. Fred, whom I believe is the owner was really cool and gave us both discounts on our purchases.

Venice is home to many cool restaurants like famed taco truck Kogi BBQ which makes Korean tacos, you also find them at this event tonight. TaRasha and I ate a cool little Mediterranean restaurant called Cairo Cowboy, which is known for its Kabob N' Roll food truck as well but the owners just opened up this restaurant in Venice. Despite the corny name of the place, the food was really good, the portions were small but adequate for the price. I had the vegetarian version of the Mediterranean pizza, I think it was called Zatar. It came with a puree-like sauce of herbs, sesame seeds, purple onions, and tomatoes. TaRasha had fried banana nutella bites which were like pupusas filled with....you guessed it, nutella and fried banana. They were really good too.


Check out the earrings I bought today below:

Los Angeles

So after spending the majority of my time in Riverside for the past four years, I am back in LALAland and appreciating the hell out of it. So I'm making a effort to learn more about the city that I grew up in, specifically focusing on history/historical sites, events, and cool places. I'm starting a new series where I talk about places that I've been and cool events coming up in the Los Angeles area. In addition to blogging pictures and stories about the places I'm visiting, I'll post Things To Do in LA every Sunday. Stay tuned!

DivaCup Review

After I stumbled upon much research on the ills of menstruation products such as tampons and pads, I became disgusted. But not because of menstruation, but because like everything else in this world, capitalism had gotten a hold of something as natural as blood from a cooter. Why was I surprised, of course companies at the forefront of menstrual health were male-centric, capitalist and were least of all concerned with women's well being; that's why most of these products contain harmful chemicals like bleach. There had to be a better way, I thought. (And!) there is! I settled on the DivaCup, a resuable mentrual cup. My first cycle, it was to die for. Conveinent, clean, and safe, I worshipped the dear DivaCup. But from there, it all went down hill. The damn thing wouldn't stop leaking, and you know what a bother that can be. Frustrated, angry, sad, and heartbroken were not overly dramatic reactions to my DivaCup demise, they were true from the soul. Anyway, I sought help from online forums and even the company itself to no appropriate avail. Now I'm back to regular, unsafe methods, but I'm thinking, I may try this next.

Song of the Day

to all the wack rappers...these are called LYRIIICS. :)

As a Woman

As a woman, I am tired of feeling the need to look perfect every time I go outside so I won't be criticized for how appealing I don't look.
but also, as a woman, I am tired of feeling the need to dress down so as to lessen the amount of leers and jeers I get from disgusting men.
As a woman, I am disgusted that I am never not aware that men want to have sex with me.
As a woman, I am even more disgusted by the violences that I and my sisters face daily; the rapes against my body, against my sexuality, against my sexual orientation, against my womanhood.
As a woman, I am tired of having to defend my position as intellectual, as a person of having a viable conversation with any person!
As a woman, I am disgusted that I am positioned as a victim in every situation.
And as a woman, I am tired of having my thoughts, beliefs and knowledge questioned because you don't think that I am smart enough to know things about this life and about this world.
As a woman, I'm frightened about what this world will look like if this behavior continues.
As a woman, I'm thoroughly annoyed by the fact that men are given privilege solely based on the fact that they were born with a penis!, a penis that some of them don't even know how to use properly.
As a woman, I'm tired of feeling the need to live up to standards of men who do not even have a relationship with me.
As a woman, I am sickened by the fact that there are womyn who oppress other womyn just as much as men oppress womyn.
As a woman, I am tired of being ignored!
As a woman, I am tired of having to hide the fact that I enjoy sex, very much!
As a woman, I am discomforted by the idea that my body is used to sell products in a capitalist system that oppresses me more than it does a man.
I am not a ho, I am not a bitch, I am not a slut, I am not a whore, I am not a prostitute, I am not a chick. I am woman, I am a girl.
I am beautiful no matter what anyone says.
I am smart.
I am capable.
Its not easy to love being a woman with all this and more to deal with it, my only solace is to sit up and speak about these injustices, to notice that this is not right and to do something about it! I have a big voice and I will use it for change until change comes because my vagina said that I should. :)

My Favorite Slum Village song: Climax

"The concept is a menage a trois really, a guy's fantasy. We're trying to break the monotony and relax the stiffness of sexuality because it's so suppressed. We're trying to tell everybody it's okay if you wanna have a menage a trois. Do your thing, it's alright. Sexuality is freedom and we support that. I don't suppress my sexuality and we don't do it in our music, so we're sharing it with the world - something that another group probably wouldn't do." ^-Baatin

Ugh.

You know what I'm tired of?, the phenomena from people within activist circles to pant relentlessly about their disgust and astonishment with our country that we aren't as "progressive" as we seem, or apparently should be, just because we are *cue the national anthem* Americaaaa, the beautiful. Shit, tell me something I don't know... and why isn't this something that you already knew? The worst part of it is when they put such statistic as; "What does the United States of America have in common with the African nation of Somalia? Answer: They are the only countries to refuse to sign Article 37 of the 1989 UN document entitled, "Rights of the Child."; against a largely undeveloped country like Somalia in this real-life example to emphasize how "primitive" (her words, not mine) and "third world" this country truly is and juxtapose it with heightened surprise, complete with raised eyebrows. Like, Oh! My! God! My Beautiful, superior country has something in common with this ravaged and destitute country??! How could it be? There must be some type of mistake! Not Americaaa... the beautiful. Gosh! We must do something about this, and quickly!... so we can further widen the gap between US and THEM, privileged and underprivileged, progressive and unprogressive. We cannot possibly in the same pool as them and therefore doomed to the same fate. Nevermind the REAL needs of the subject or issue we're speaking about or the country we're persecuting. Sigh. Will it ever end?

Sara Tavares--->J.Cole

Marvin---->G-Unit

I fucking love this song and I love Marvin.


& this used to be my song. :)

The Police Institution

Think about it, when you have a problem like domestic violence or robbery, who do you call? It goes without saying, the police. Yet we are all aware what the police institution has done to our communities. Oscar Grant, Sean Bell. Everywhere we look people are calling for the arrest of someone, the extension of prison time for another person. Even activists rely heavily on the police institution to end the problems that speak about. Police officers are found most often in poor, communities of color, the police institution was specifically designed to be a type of watch dog mechanism for these communities. We forget the violence done to us by the police institution, something we should never forget. Abner Louima. Duanna Johnson. They keep us in tact, whenever one of us steps out of line they send us to prison, no matter the circumstances. Entire communities are criminalized, which results in the overrepresentation of Black, Chicanos, and Natives in the prison system. Being a person of color is a criminal offense in this country. Driving while black, longer prison terms for crack than cocaine, the three strikes law, the criminalization of poor mothers of color, the criminalization of prostitution; all these issues disproportiantely affect people of color. Prison, police and the military are branches of the same oppressive tree. We cannot forget the racism and sexism inherent in the police institution. Kathryn Johnston. Amadou Diallo. We think that the police are inevitable, that they are needed. Indigenous communities, before conquest praticed community accountability. Communities that have love and respect within them do not need outsiders to maintain "order and peace."

Immigration and Race Relations

Most people assume that all Raza people are illegal immigrants. However, the majority of Raza persons in the US are legal citizens. Because of this, for the most part all Raza people get treated like illegal immigrants, as taking advantage of the system, as dirty, and as stupid. Being an undocumented person is racialized as being Raza. However, there are many more immigrant populations that are not apart of La Raza; mainly European and African. However, La Raza is targeted for the racism that comes along with discussion about immigration issues.

This also means that other races get left out of the immigration conversation. Anti-immigration rhetoric relies on the slaveability of Blackness and also as seeing La Raza as a threat to US empire building. Privileged persons who have high paying jobs and are able to successfully navigate the job world know that blacks will still be here to do the slave labor. They and anti-immigrant blacks are ignorant of the fact that undocumented persons do necessary labor for this country. With documented labor out of this country, all those people with jobs will see an decrease in the lure and viability of their position. In fact, Blacks have benefited largely and gained privilege in the job market because of mass immigration. Blacks, in the long run, are largely in a better economic position. We hold better jobs and live in more affluent areas than ever before.

Immigration can also be seen as threatening to an individual's personal privilege of being a legal citizen. Undocumented persons are seen as taking advantage of healthcare, welfare, and public educational services. This logic also seeps into the conversation when anti-immigrantion people accuse undocumented persons of taking American jobs. There is especially tension between Black Americans and La Raza. Black Americans have typically been situated as slaves in the American labor force, however, now more undocumented workers hold lower level positions; which can be interpreted as "taking jobs." However, when we complicate the notion of capitalism and white supremacy, we see that immigrants are not to blame for this. La Raza also has issues with unemployment. However, corporate entities will take cheaper labor, which is immigrant labor not black labor, because undocumented workers do not possess the means to fairly negotiate the workforce because they are without legal citizenship status. They are also pawns in a capitalist state, they take what labor is available to them out of necessity to feed their families.

The Racialization of Music: Part 2: The Power and Criminalization of Hip Hop

The following post is part two from this post about the Racialization of Music.

One area where the racialization of music is particularly evident is within hip hop. We can all agree that hip hop perpetuates stereotypes, such as black people being thugs and ho's. However, we have to make the distinction that hip hop is not to blame for these stereotypes. These defining images were created by the system of white supremacist capitalism and was unfortunately adopted by commercial areas of hip hop, which is the same area that record companies choose to propel to the forefront of the media. For example, it is incredibly evident that ideas of black womyn being hypersexual, circa the spectacle of Sarah Baartman, are also seen in commerical hip hop music through the sexed out personas of rappers. We must realize the evident agenda in this, the furthering of stereotypes sustains the purposes of white supremacy.

Hip hop, in its present commerical state is being used to promote a capitalist, white supremacist agenda, while simultaenously being scapegoated for the world's problems. For example, remember when 2pac was persecuted becuase a guy listening to his album shot two cops? Another example is how society continuously blames hip hop for sexism and misogyny. However, the ultimate reason why Hip hop is criminalized is because blackness is also criminalized. Andrea Smith, in her article, "Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy: Rethinking Women of Color Organizing" says, that "we can actually look at the criminalization of Blackness as a logical extension of Blackness as property." Thus we can say that even though hip hop is a entity that is multicultural, it is criminalized and commodified at the expense of black bodies. I think we deserve much more as the creators of hip hop, however, white America always has the power and privilege to twist and distort good intentions.

Hip hop is a billion dollar a year industry and is also the most popular musical genre to date. It has surpassed being a part of media to become a media itself. Much like the news and also other forms of art, hip hop, as an entity of mass media, has the power to influence pop culture. No wonder why white America hijacked and now owns it. It can influence people to dance and dress in provacative or fly ways, it can inspire people to become more aware of social justice issues, and it also has the power to dumb people down. Hip hop is used to sell everything from cars to cell phones. White Corporate America has stolen hip hop to further its capitalistic purposes, however, this offers no real agency for the black people whose music is being abused. Hip hop was created as an organic, anti-colonial tool of expression and what was particulary beautiful about that expression was that it was used as a tool for black Americans, particularly black men, who had been shut up, marginalized, stigmatized and deemed invisible by dominant society. Now, commercialized hip hop is used to further ideas of black hypermasculinity, capitalistim, and violence against the female and queer; which in turn only fuels a corporate agenda for white America. Black men and black women have once again been shut up and we don't have hip hop as an outlet for mainstream expression any longer.

Do we really want to support the commercial hip hop that perpetuates stereotypes about us and therefore furthers our own oppression? We must constantly be aware of the power we have as black American consumers to dictate trends as far as what is being sold to and bought by us. We cannot allow white America to continue to own hip hop and dictate what parts of it we see, use and listen to. We must be concious consumers and seek out alternative hip hop music that uplifts, enlightens and empowers us. Nothing that you get from commercial hip hop on the radio or in the mainstream media will be good for you and definitely not good for the black American community.

Rappers and producers: Quit making music if you love money and fame more than you love the people.

"Come on baby, light my fire, everything you drop is so tired, music is supposed to inspire, how come we ain't getting no higher?" -L.Boogie

Lessons from M.X.

So as I have said before in a previous post, I have been trying to make a point to read speeches from those deemed leaders in liberation movements. So far, I have only read Malcolm X's "After the Bombing" speech, because I've been busy. Anyway, for this post I wanted to highlight that speech and specific points that he makes about social justice organizing in this country. I don't think that most people of my generation know how smart Malcolm X was, all we know is the name "Malcolm X." We don't know any of his words or what he really stood for. Or that he was pretty funny too.

One point that he talks about is oppressed people becoming enlightened and aware of the colonial situation in this country. "The newly awakened people all over the world pose a problem for what's known as Western interests, which is imperialism, colonialism, racism and all these other negative vulturistic isms. But the internal forces pose an even greater threat only when they have properly analyzed the situation and know what the stakes really are." So we can see here that Malcolm is emphasizing education and knowledge about the oppressed situation, which I totally agree with. He goes on to say, "the man knows that if Negroes find out how dissatisfied they really are -- and all of them, even Uncle Tom is dissatisfied, he's just playing his part for now -- this is what makes them frightened. It frightens them in France, it frightens them in England, and it frightens them in the United States." So we see that knowledge really is power, as corny as it sounds. That there is no hope for ending your oppressive situation if you don't even know what oppression is and that it is designed to be seen as invisible.

Another important point is alliances among struggles. "They'll do it to them today, and do it to you tomorrow. Because you and I and they are all the same." I think this integral to remember. Above all, we are all one people. If they do it to them, they'll do it to you. He continues, "and one of our first programs is to take our problem our of the civil rights context and place it at the international level, of human rights, so that the entire world can have a voice in our struggle. If we keep it at civil rights, then the only place we can turn for allies is with in the domestic confines of America. But when you make it a human rights struggle, it becomes international, and then you can open the door for all types of advice and support from our brothers in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and elsewhere." Oppression is never faced in solitude, the oppression of one community is also the oppression of every other community. We must create alliances and solidarity among our communities.

With the election of Obama, people, mainly oppressed people seem to have a lot more faith in the political system with no factual basis supporting this faith. "Some of these liberals who grin in your face like they're your best friends, they have money tied up in the Congo." Liberals are not angels, and they are not anarchists. They have a hand in the capitalist oppressive system that we live in as well. Don't allow yourself to be fooled thinking that Democrats are so liberal and great, that they aren't oppressive to your situation. In actuality, most Democrats know that they have to somewhat liberal for the preservation of their party and ideals, Republicans are just more bold with their marginalizing.

Elsie's Business

I just gone done reading "Elsie's Business" by Frances Washburn. Pretty good book. Check it out if your looking for a book outside of the European spectrum. Its about a Native woman's murder. Kind of eerie but the storytelling is really good.

West Coast Hip Hop: Part 5: Dom Kennedy

I don't even remember when I first heard of Dom Kennedy or downloaded his most recent mixtape, From the Westide With Love. He was kind of annoying to me at first. It was probably because of that, that it took me forever to listen to it. But when I did, I loved it. I've been meaning to write this post for a long time, even though I'm sure most of yall already know about Mr. Kennedy.

I really like Dom Kennedy's videos. He's smart enough to know that riding down Crenshaw in a low rider dressed in your choice or either red or blue is straight played. He chooses to show different parts of LA in a interesting way. He also has dope beat selection and unique rap style.




& his newest official video from the mixtape:



Download Dom's music here.

Womyn

I recently read a book review for “Click: Young Women on the Moments That Made Them Feminists” that inspired to write about my own moment. Now, I don’t call myself a feminist, since I don’t particularly believe in labels. However, everyone who knows me, would probably identify me as such, knowing that my ideals line up almost exactly. Well the moment that made me a feminist was being a co-founder to a womyn’s organization, Great Womyn in Progress, on my college campus. In the beginning, I was sexist and misogynistic as most womyn, in my opinion, are, especially the ones I knew. Its pretty hard to plan events for the empowerment of womyn when you hate the fact that you are one. Its even more difficult to present yourself as someone who hopes to unify womyn when it’s a pain to you to come up with something positive to say about the womyn you know. It was the researching and hearing about womyn’s issues that prompted my change. It was also the fact that I needed to be someone of love and understanding, things that were always, inevitably deep inside of me. Its so easy to conform to the ways of the world and not so easy to be yourself, the person you should be. The three decisions that I credit, during my college years, with helping to make me the person I am today, would be deciding to attend UC Riverside, changing my major to Ethnic Studies, and helping to start GWIP. All my energy and time goes into being a person who seeks the liberation of all people, which was prompted by those decisions. A friend once told me to keep the good work with GWIP because it was important to love yourself, that she had never thought about loving herself before, because she had always focused so much on her family. That meant a lot to me, still does. What keeps me going through all the struggle, is the possibility of the chance I could be opening a person’s mind to the beauty and plight of the woman, or that I can teach someone about the structures in our society that make it hard for equality flourish, that a woman might not have the feelings that I once had of being confused as to why I should love mysef.

I love women, I love myself as a woman. That is something that I live and take with me, everyday in every way, its who I am, at the very core, at the most important part. The way we dress. Our quiet delicateness and fierce strength. Our bodies and the power we possess in them. Our beautiful faces, all the ways we can dress ourselves up. The French tipped nails, the make up and heels. I love it all. We’re so smart, booksmart, and we always know just what to do in every situation. Mothers. I can’t imagine the strength and patience it takes to give birth and be a mother to a child? Its amazing. We’re survivors. Womyn inspire me.

Unity?

When I was young, I was all for unity. I remember often having conversations about what Black people needed to do in order to be viable citizens within this country; to stop being ignorant, to stop being poor, etc. I was right along with everyone else when they answered that the solution to the “Black problem” was unity, unity among all Black people. In those years, I said a lot of things that I didn’t know the meaning of. This was one of them. I can’t even tell you what I felt unity meant during that time and I definitely couldn’t have told you then what it meant in the context of the Black community. Now I have different ideas about what unity means, if its even possible among entire populations/communities, and if it is necessary for the Black community to acquire full rights in this society. Recently, I have taken on the task of reading the speeches of some great leaders. So far, I’ve only read Malcolm X’s “After the Bombing” speech. Specifically, this is the speech where he speaks a lot about unity. “So we saw that the first thing to do was to unite our people, not only unite us internally, but we have to be united with our brothers and sisters abroad.” I have to disagree with X on the subject, but not conclusively. Is it possible for an entire community containing millions of people with different belief systems, economic statuses, worldviews, backgrounds, etc. to be united? All that we can assume that really have in common is a history with specific oppressive system. What would unity look like within the Black community? How important is unity in the Black situation? If you ask 10 different people who the problem is with Black people, you will get 10 different responses, each tailored to the individual person’s experiences, education,  and belief system. All of our answers are biased. The same goes if you ask about any other underprivileged community. Very rarely do you hear discussions on how people with power in this country can become better citizens or how they can help those who suffer under their oppression. I don’t believe the betterment of any community depends on that community solely. If we as people of color, or womyn, or poor people want to talk about the betterment of our communities and how to make our lives better then we first need to, in my opinion, find out ways to successfully interrogate white and accompanying privileges. Nothing that we can do on our own as a community can free us from oppression, we have to fight against the core of oppression. To tell the black community that their freedom lies in the hands on unity or education, without regard to what has made this community uneducated or excessively divided in the first place is to blame us for our own marginalization.

Vacation in New York

So as some of you know I'm on vacation in New York right now. Ugh. I'm writing this lying in bed after a long day painting the town. Lol. I haven't made up my mind yet about whether I like NY or not but I know that I at least don't hate it. I couldn't see myself living here, I'm used to the more laid back vibe of LA. A lot of what I've seen of New York thus far fits all the stereotypes and a lot of it doesn't. For instance, I haven't met anyone with a distinct accent yet, I haven't seen any noticeable signs of poverty and I haven't seen anyone with a crazy fashion sense. However this place has hellla people and the streets are just as crowded as what you see in the movies, its very fast paced here. So today I went to lunch at this place called Lucille's, which is totally different from the one we have in SoCal. Let me tell you, it was the worst food and service I have had in a long time. Our waitress was rude and stank, the fried shrimp looked like a plate of vomit, and the rest of the food took forever (Sandlot voice) to come. When it finally did come, both me and my aunt's potatoes were cold and the sauce was nasty, bland and even gave me a stomach ache. Once we told the waitress that we didn't want the food she called her manager. Now, I've been to a lot of restaurants where I didn't like the food and I never had to report to the manager, they usually just take it off the bill automatically. When the manager came he looked at my food and told me there's nothing he could do because I had eaten the salmon (I order BBQ salmon.) Smh. I had taken maybe three bites of it, I was so shocked that they tried to pass that off as BBQ. He did let my aunt get her ribs for her though. I felt it was a slap in the face, as if me eating three bites makes me paying for this nasty ish justified. Smh again. Lol. And guess what? Gratuity was included! I hate when I get bad service and the tip is already included. I was going to give her a tip anyway, because I always give a tip and hate when people don't give a tip but just that she gets a non deserved generous tip grinds my gears! Lol. Well that was just my short vent/review of Lucille's Bar & Grill in Manhattan. Had to let the people know.

Zine: Updated

It is my belief and the belief of many others that those abused, used and marginalized (or even those not) by mainstream media must take back the media by creating their own and seeking out alternative forms that are not racist, sexist and abusive. Buy a digital camera and record videos about positive events in your community, start a blog about fighting against beauty norms, or start a zine, like me!

zine-an organic magazine, made for us, by us

Starting today until the 19th, I am accepting submissions for a zine that I will be publishing and giving out at UCR. It will feature articles inspired by my time as a summer student at UCLA as well as combine my passion for writing and researching ideas surrounding social identities. I will be including several articles written by myself as well as other authors, therefore, I am also asking for submissions from my peers. Submissions can include but are not limited to articles, poems, essays, advertisements (not for products however), drawings, etc. Of course, anything you submit has to have some type of connection with humanity issues, whether it be about feminism, racism, AIDS, childbirth, whatever. It has to be about people! Please email submissions to mwils008@ucr.edu All submissions will be edited for grammar. Everyone can submit! I am looking forward to reading what you all have to say. Make your voice heard!

Once the zine is published a copy can be sent to you if you do not attend UCR.

The Isley Brothers--->Dilla, Common, D'Angelo

*also check out common's version of "so far to go", couldn't find a link. lol :P*