i love my boo

love, love, love the new campaign out of gmch called "i love my boo." if you live in new york, you've definitely seen the posters all over the subways. love is a beautiful thing. support it.

they're asking people to make it their profile picture for a week to raise awareness. will do. 

and please put an end to all this homophobic nonsense. let your people know it's not cool. don't let shit slide.

tumblr

here's my thinking:

where my blog is a place where i write and share. i made a tumblr account - live from noel - as a place where i can store things that i think about but don't really belong anywhere else.

there's also a live feed on the link above. though not as nice as the real thing.

check it out if you're interested.

love,

khl

anger misdirected

so, first, two personal vignettes to frame this post.

- i was riding the metro north train from new york to new haven on a friday evening after work. i had a business suit on because i, at the time, still worked at a corporate firm. the train was very pretty full, but i found a seat in a 3 person row where there was only an old white woman sitting there. to put it lightly, she looked pissed and uncomfortable when i sat down. i framed this by what i looked like, in other words, professional-looking asians usually don't even get noticed by anyone, nor are they really the target for racist white people because of our model minority status. but this woman was not feeling me sitting next to her. i could just feel her discomfort and there was something telling me it was because of my race. not surprisingly, a couple minutes later she got up and walked throughout the (crowded) train to find a new place to sit. i felt like shit. and i have to admit that i cried. it was cruel. it was racist. and i ended up being really angry with myself for even caring.

- yesterday, i was supposed to go out with this man i met. he seemed cool and i thought the little time we spoke at the bar, we connected. apparently not. anyways, day of he starts texting me comments that i felt were sexually inappropriate and disrespectful. it's funny odd fucked up how a man can make a woman feel objectified and, frankly, dirty through a couple of choice words. even worse, he feigned being offended when confronted. and he insinuated that i was just a non-sexual person because i refused to respond to his sexual advances. it was fucked up. and i was upset. i felt dirty, used, gross, and objectified. i wanted to cry. and i ended up being really angry with myself for even caring.

so, i was talking to my boss about how i had been having a bad day and was just ashamed that this worthless man was able to make me feel any kind of way about myself. at the time, i had immediately discounted his words as worthless and sophomoric, but i still was affected. i still felt bad. and it made me sad that i couldn't control my feelings enough to not let insignificant people effect them. but she told me that my anger was completely misdirected. why would i be mad at myself when the only person i should be mad at is him. it was just another example of gender imbalance, when i should be blaming a man, i end up blaming myself for not being able to brush off his disrespectful de-feminizing comments. it reminded my of my first vignette and how i was so angry with myself for even being upset, when really i should've been angry with that woman for making me feel like i was worth less because of the shape of my eyes and the color of my skin.

why do we so often turn back social injustices that occur because of power differences on ourselves instead of critically examining the power dynamics working behind the scenes? will the eventual disruption of these imbalances change how i would feel? or am i just too sensitive? (which would be another example of blaming myself for the deliberate actions of others... ugh a habit that's difficult to break.)

Event: Back to Brazil: Transnational Mobility and Education Among Japanese-Brazilian Migrants

Hi All-

Just wanted to mention an event that I'm planning on attending tonight hosted by the Forum on Migration at Barnard. One of my intellectual topics of interest in college was identity politics in Asian-Latino communities. Although the Asian population is huge in Spanish-speaking countries, there is little discussion or acknowledgment of them in popular context. There, at point, was not an unsubstantial community in New York. If you're from the city, you must have seen a couple of the Chino-Cubano spots like Flor de Mayo - a lot of those are owned by Chinese Cubans who immigrated to Cuba in the 19th century. Cristina Garcia's fictional novel called Monkey Hunting is a cool portrait of multiple generations of Chino-Cubanos and their struggle to fit in.

 *********************************************

FORUM ON MIGRATION

BACK TO BRAZIL
Transnational Mobility and Education Among Japanese-Brazilian Migrants

A PANEL

Thursday, 09/23 6 PM
Sulzberger Parlor
3rd Floor Barnard Hall

Home to the largest Japanese community outside of Japan, Brazil has again become a destination for migration from Japan. Once privileged with high wages, now struck by the economic crisis, thousands of Japanese-Brazilian immigrants in Japan have suddenly been forced to return. Professors María E. Torres-Guzmán and Christian Münch discuss the social and cultural consequences of return migration, focusing on children born and raised in Japan and their position within the educational systems of Japan and Brazil. Torres-Guzmán is professor of bilingual/bicultural education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Münch, visiting assistant professor of bilingual education at Teachers College, Columbia University, is a linguist trained in French, Spanish, Catalan, and Portuguese.
Sponsored by Forum on Migration

************************************************

UPDATE:

 

as planned, i attended the talk. a bit disjointed and some parts more interesting than others. here are my thoughts:

- never really considered circular migration (does this just make sound stupid? oh well) in this context up four generations of japanese-brazilians have moved from brazil to japan to brazil yet again, while consciously deciding to keep options open should they want to move back to japan.

- the idea of the trying to claim a geographic location as home. torres-guzman claimed that in a way the japanese brazilians were home in both places, but i disagree. really, they aren't home anywhere, and i guess in that way they can be thought of as home everywhere. 

- the japanese government's accomodation of japanese brazilians. this was shown most poignantly through signage. for example, many of the station signs and other directional signs in public transportation were written in both japanese and portuguese, even though japan is a heavily monolithic culture. i always (maybe mistakenly) think of the japanese government as proud and exclusionary, so it really came as a surprise that there were any efforts at all to transition this population into japan.

- i was also surprised to see how proud the japanese-brazilians living in japan were of their brazilian identity. they were really repping hard. i figured that since they left brazil, they were kinda over it. i also assumed that the brazilian-asians were very insular in brazil, so the transition to japan wouldn't be much of an adjustment. but, the community seems a lot more integrated and a lot more brazilian than i thought. (side note: the reason i thought this was because i have done a bit of research on asian latinos and some communities living in south america are quite insular)

- what i wasn't surprised at, however, but still want to mention is that japanese-brazilians are thought of in japan as somehow dirtier, louder, etc. because of the "stink" of brazil

anyways it was cool. i felt like i was furthering my ed-u-ma-ca-tion. holla.

Event: Does Race (Still) Matter? Reconsidering Affirmative Action in the US and Brazil

The U.S. and Brazil appear to be approaching a temporal crossroad on race and affirmative action. While the myth of racial democracy has loosened its grip in Brazil and opened up unprecedented opportunities for Afro-Brazilians, post-racialism is becoming a powerful force in the US, undermining the future of social inclusion programs.  What can advocates for racial equality in the two countries learn from each other?  How can transnational cooperation between governments and civil society advance racial justice in the two Americas?  Come hear leading voices in the Joint Action Plan to Eliminate Racial discrimination (“JAPER”) in the US and Brazil.

A panel discussion with:

Daniel Teixeria
Staff Lawyer and Projects Coordinator at the Research Center on Labor Relations and Inequality; former Co-Chair for the Civil Society (JAPER)
“Demystifying Racial Democracy in Brazil”

Maria Aparecida Silva Bento
Executive Director of the Research Center on Labor Relations and Inequality; Associate Researcher at the University of Sao Paulo;
“Quantifying Employment Discrimination
in Brazilian Banks”

Clarence Lusane
Professor of Political Science in the School of International Service at American University; Co-Chair for the Civil Society (JAPER)
“Afro-Brazilians and the Continuing Struggle for Racial Equality”

Kimberlé Crenshaw
Professor of Law at Columbia & UCLA Law School; former Fulbright Chair for Latin America; Co-Chair for the Civil Society (JAPER)
“Framing Joint Action in the Matrix of Colorblindness and Racial Democracy”

Monday, September 27^th, 2010 ∙ 6pm
Columbia Law School ∙ Greene Hall, Room 103
Reception to Follow: Columbia Law School ∙ Case Lounge ∙ 7:30pm

Sponsored by: African American Policy Forum ∙ Institute for Research in African American Studies ∙Center for Brazilian Studies ∙ Latin American Law Students Association

feeding illusions of grandeur

so this man-boy proclaims himself to be the "best unsigned rapper alive" and blames others for not recognizing his talent...

yeah, yeah, we all know people like this.

blaming others, when they should simply be blaming themselves. even with more specificity, we all know some boy who is really trying to pursue a music career without talent.

but, after he ranted on his facebook wall about giving up and how he knows he is the best, a number of women responded to him. I said some typical semi-condescending remark typical of our relationship. but, the other women continued to feed his illusions and allowing him to continue with his self-centered bullshit about no one getting it except for him when really everyone got it except for him. why do women do this? why do we build each other up and feed our disillusions when we know damn well that the person is really fat, untalented, mean or not that smart? why can't we just shut up?

and, really, it's not just women. because, thinking back to the first time I heard this man's raps back in 2006, I remember thinking "wow this dude is wack" and asking my boyfriend at the time why he told the "greatest unsigned rapper alive" that he was good. why insist on the myth?

(I considered mention the above little vignette in a facebook comment back to him to prove that no, everyone who heard him couldn't deny his greatness or whatever he said. But, I felt a little bad...)

the point of the story is, i would rather my friends either shut up or just tell me that I'm not as great as I think I am at something. all the time I would've spent pursuing something that was just never gonna happen could be spent pursuing something that will or even just leisure time.

so, let's pretty please stop being polite, and start being real. (thank you mtv.)