dude you have no quran

just in case you missed it, this small anti-islamophobia act of solidarity speaks for itself. but why not let it speak again & again in a re-mixed club version?

thanks, gg :)

olympic black

olympic gold is over-rated. personally, i'd like to see more olympic black...



**

young, gifted & black : bob & marcia (original, nina simone)



say it loud-i'm black & i'm proud : james brown

Mean Things

Note: it’s not worth it to be a culture vulture. Back in October, James Aurthur Ray, a self-help “expert” (he appeared in the video The Secret) led a faux sweat lodge ceremony that killed 3 people. He was charged yesterday with manslaughter. According to reports, the lodge was covered with plastic (toxic when heated!), and Ray would not let some people out of the lodge when they requested. He also charged participants thousands of dollars for the retreat of which the lodge was a part. Anyone who has been to a Native-led sweat lodge ceremony knows this: the lodge is covered with blankets if hides are unavailable. If you need out, all you have to do is ask. And in a Native sweat lodge you are never charged at the door.

On the topic of racism and tragedy, here is Diné (Navajo) band Blackfire performing a nice cover of Woody Guthrie.

Racist Halloween

I don’t even know what to say about this:

Unfortunately, This "illegal alien [sic] costume" is only the beginning. Amazon also has a host of other racist costumes for sale. Thanks to the good work of CHIRLA (Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles), Target has pulled the above item from its on-line store (yay!), but a whole slew of other websites are still selling it. The UFW has an e-mail campaign to get the costume pulled from Walgreens, Toys R Us, and Amazon (although internet rumors have it that Toys R Us has just pulled the item, too).

An even funner way to join the campaign is to go to one of the following sites and submit a customer review that reads something along the lines of “THIS PRODUCT IS A RACIST PIECE OF SHIT.”

amazon.com

buycostumes.com

If you need inspiration, you can read the mierda in support of the costume here.

pinches racistas de mierda

jaja. you know, (obviously) the u.s. is so racist. but government agencies often at least try to hide it with a bit of veneer. sometimes, though, they just come out and say what they really mean. like: if you are hanging out in the forest speaking spanish & listening to mexican music you must be a dangerous criminal!

the u.s. forest service was recently forced to retract an official warning to beware of campers in national forests who eat tortillas, drink Tecate beer and play Spanish music because they could be armed marijuana growers...



from ap:

Michael Skinner, a law enforcement officer with the U.S. Forest Service in Colorado, said warning signs of possible drug trafficking include "tortilla packaging, beer cans, Spam, Tuna, Tecate beer cans," and campers who play Spanish music. He said the warning includes people speaking Spanish.

The warning signs were included in a slide presentation put together for drug agents in Colorado and the public.

Skinner said this may or may not represent criminal activity, but are indicators and he urged any campers who encounter long-term campers meeting the profile to "hike out quickly" and call police.

...

Marvink Correa, spokesman for the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, said federal officials are painting an unfair stereotype of Hispanics.

"When I go camping, I'll be sure to play nothing but Bruce Springsteen," he said.

**

but really, they could save themselves the trouble of looking for tortilla packages in the forest, if they would just legalize. i mean, come on ¡¡por dios!!


please play the following loudly next time you are in a national forest:

pacas de a kilo : los tigres del norte



we will be burning : sean paul



legalización : ska-p



la guardia : la gossa sorda



mis tres animales : tucanes de tijuana

que onda, carnala

awhile ago, nadeen, wanting to polish up her gangster spanglish, asked me what is the female equivalent of "carnal" as in "que onda, carnal"? jejeje! she made me laugh ;) but that reminded me of the daily texican! to clear up the "carnal" question i pointed her to one of my favorite blogs that isn't around anymore, daily texican, and his cholo word of the day. i highly recommend dt for all those who want to improve their chicano slang :)


this is from one of my favorite posts:

Cholo Word Of The Day - Chota

La Chota is very similar to La Jura a previous word of the day. It seems we have a good number of word to describe the fuzz.

Word: Chota

Meaning According To DT: police, jura, fuzz, 5-O

Used in a sentence: "Meli, si vez a la chota, run porque sino te meten a el bote." "Porque chingados me van a encerrar, si I haven't did nothing."

Translation according to DT: "Melinda, if you see the nation's finest, run because they will incarcerate you!" "Why would those civil servants put me in jail, I haven't done anything?"


**




pachucas & police (east l.a.: 1940s)


and in honor of the pachuc@s, who left us a great & rebellious legacy (and a lot of excellent slang), a little maldita vecindad...

pachuco : maldita vecindad



The pachucos are youths, for the most part of Mexican origin, who form gangs in southern cities; they can be identified by their language and behaviour as well as by the clothing they affect. They are instinctive rebels, and North American racism has vented its wrath on them more than once .... Their attitude reveals an obstinate, almost fanatical will-to-be, but this will affirms nothing specific except their determination . . . not to be like those around them.

octavio paz : the pachuco and other extremes (the labyrinth of solitude), 1950

daily texican, come back que te extraaaaño!
nadeen, carnalita, ay te wacho ;)

frederick douglass day

coincidence has had me out of the country on most fourths of july the past several years, a distance from u.s. patriotism which i always truly appreciate. this year finds me just a hop skip & jump from the tijuana border crossing, with spanish spoken all around as the default language, pepe aguilar & angeles azules on the radio, and carne asada & tortillas on the parilla, but i'm definitely still in the united states (gigantic mexican flag waving to us from the other side notwithstanding). oh well.

i did get an email from ayoka wishing me a happy frederick douglass day, though;) a-ha! now that's more like it!!


from frederick douglass' (in)famous address of july 4th, 1852:

...What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.

¿verdad que sí? ¡eso!





speaking of ayoka, we were sitting in her car on san jose ave in the mission the other day, eating mitchell's ice cream (macapuno, chocolate-dipped x2 of course), and she played for me on the car stereo a song performed by bettye lavette. oh, it's just gorgeous (sigh)... and has been in my mind ever since.

i'm walking through the desert
and i am not frightened although it's hot
i have all that i requested
and i do not want what i haven't got


i do not want what i have not got : bettye lavette (original, sinead oconnor)



thank you, ayoka, ms. lavette, & frederick douglass!
happy frederick douglass day to everyonel!!

feliz cumpleaños, malcolm x

You haven't got a revolution that doesn't involve bloodshed. And you're afraid to bleed. I said, you're afraid to bleed. As long as the white man sent you to Korea, you bled. He sent you to Germany, you bled. He sent you to the South Pacific to fight the Japanese, you bled. You bleed for white people. But when it comes time to seeing your own churches being bombed and little black girls be murdered, you haven't got no blood. You bleed when the white man says bleed; you bite when the white man says bite; and you bark when the white man says bark. I hate to say this about us, but it's true. How are you going to be nonviolent in Mississippi, as violent as you were in Korea? How can you justify being nonviolent in Mississippi and Alabama, when your churches are being bombed, and your little girls are being murdered, and at the same time you're going to get violent with Hitler, and Tojo, and somebody else that you don't even know? If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it's wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it's wrong for America to draft us and make us violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country.

: malcolm x (message to the grassroots, 1963)

**

on revolutionary nationalism:



on the price of freedom:

la misma porquería iii

tomorrow the obama administration is to name alan bersin as border czar. ¡pero que carajo es eso! i don't approve of czars of any kind, and especially not a czar to police the perimeters of this land that's stolen anyway. the expansion of the drug wars, the taking of more lives, the diverting of more weapons to the corrupt & murderous mexican army & police. ugh. also alan bersin, during his time at the u.s. attorney office, is responsible for operation gatekeeper, which is responsible for the militarization of the us-mexico border and an ever-multiplying number of immigrant deaths. vete al carajo, alan bersin.



foto : 3 mil corazones. between 1994 & 2004, the first 10 years of operation gatekeeper, more than 3 thousand immigrants died or were killed trying to cross the border between mexico & the united states.

**

los de abajo : la fuga



buscando el chivo expiatorio
te van a buscar en el directorio
si no copartes sus ideas
te has metido en un gran problema
encuentra la forma de correr
no importa si eres inocente van a proceder
en plan chingativo
llegan provocando buscando un motivo

lumumba

leili sent me a link to this documentary, death colonial style : the execution of patrice lumumba, which is a dissection of events leading up to the assassination of lumumba, the pan-africanist anti-colonial leader and first democratically elected prime minister of the congo. the coup d'etat that deposed him just 10 weeks into office & his subsequent execution were orchestrated covertly by belgium & the united states. incredibly this documentary contains interviews with a few of the actual asesinos de mierda who took part. i'm the last person to have any kind of faith in any international "justice" system, still i was kind of taken aback. i mean how are these guys just sitting there?! there's a belgian asshole that still has lumumba's teeth as a souvenir. it's disgusting. pinches imperialistas. que se chingen.

**

these lines are translated from patrice lumumba's speech on 30 june 1960, congolese independence day. it is said this speech sealed his fate, classified him permanently as an enemy of the imperialists...

Men and women of the Congo, Victorious fighters for independence, today victorious, I greet you in the name of the Congolese Government...

We are proud of this struggle, of tears, of fire, and of blood, to the depths of our being, for it was a noble and just struggle, and indispensable to put an end to the humiliating slavery which was imposed upon us by force. This was our fate for eighty years of a colonial regime; our wounds are too fresh and too painful still for us to drive them from our memory. We have known harassing work, exacted in exchange for salaries which did not permit us to eat enough to drive away hunger, or to clothe ourselves, or to house ourselves decently, or to raise our children as creatures dear to us...

We have seen our lands seized in the name of allegedly legal laws which in fact recognized only that might is right. We have seen that the law was not the same for a white and for a black, accommodating for the first, cruel and inhuman for the other. We have witnessed atrocious sufferings of those condemned for their political opinions or religious beliefs; exiled in their own country, their fate truly worse than death itself. We have seen that in the towns there were magnificent houses for the whites and crumbling shanties for the blacks, that a black was not admitted in the motion-picture houses, in the restaurants, in the stores of the Europeans; that a black traveled in the holds, at the feet of the whites in their luxury cabins. Who will ever forget the massacres where so many of our brothers perished, the cells into which those who refused to submit to a regime of oppression and exploitation were thrown? All that, my brothers, we have endured...

But we, whom the vote of your elected representatives have given the right to direct our dear country, we who have suffered in our body and in our heart from colonial oppression, we tell you very loud, all that is henceforth ended. The Republic of the Congo has been proclaimed, and our country is now in the hands of its own children. Together, my brothers, my sisters, we are going to begin a new struggle, a sublime struggle, which will lead our country to peace, prosperity, and greatness. Together, we are going to establish social justice and make sure everyone has just remuneration for his labor. We are going to show the world what the black man can do when he works in freedom, and we are going to make of the Congo the center of the sun's radiance for all of Africa...





**

y éstas, leilita, son para ti... dedicadas con mucho cariño :)


patrice lumumba : yuri buenaventura




vive patrice lumumba : vicky longomba

now!

now!, i think, is agit-prop at its finest...



it's a 6-minute film by santiago álvarez from 1965. álvarez was a cuban journalist and left-wing cultural worker who was jailed a few times during the batista dicatorship. with the triumph of the 26 de julio movement & the cuban revolution in 1959, icaic was established and he was placed in charge of the newsreel division. the camera equipment he was given had been recently expropriated from private newsreel companies; it was antiquated and didn't record sound. undeterred, álvarez improvised an experimental style of noticiero, quite distinct from the kind that was common at the time in the u.s. and elsewhere. they would film silently, then add music or sound effects in the studio afterward.

santiago álvarez worked on the weekly icaic newsreels for years. he also created and collaborated on many films, including the well-known 4-hour la hora de los hornos (the hour of the furnaces), with fernando solanas & grupo cine liberación, about imperialism in south america. alvarez' 6-minute now! draws most directly from his work at noticiero icaic. utilizing cleverly edited newsreel interspersed with pirated images from u.s. magazines like life, it's set to the urgent vocals of lena horne. her single now was banned in the u.s. on many radio stations, and she gave the song to álvarez to use in this film...


now! : santiago álvarez

nina simone

damas y caballeros: the lovely... the incomparable... ms. nina simone!!

revolution : nina simone



aahh, just beautiful, ms. nina...

and this from her interview in the french-made film nina simone : la legende :

...i could sing something to help my people. and that became the mainstay of my life, that became most important to me ... civil rights movement music. if i'd had my way, i'd a been a killer, ok? that's true. i would've had guns and i would've gone to the south and i would've gave 'em violence for violence, shotgun for shotgun, if i'd had my way. but my husband told me i didn't know anything about guns, and he refused to teach me, and the only thing i had was music...

**

backlash blues : nina simone




mr. backlash, mr. backlash
just who do think i am
you raise my taxes, freeze my wages
and send my son to vietnam

you give me second class houses
and second class schools
do you think that alla colored folks
are just second class fools
mr. backlash, i'm gonna leave you
with the backlash blues

when i try to find a job
to earn a little cash
all you got to offer
is your mean old white backlash
but the world is big
big and bright and round
and it's full of folks like me
who are black, yellow, beige and brown
mr. backlash, i'm gonna leave you
with the backlash blues

mr. backlash, mr. backlash
just what do you think i got to lose
i'm gonna leave you
with the backlash blues
you're the one will have the blues
not me, just wait and see

a revolution in 4-part harmony

i posted about this film amandla! once before. but now, the entire thing is on youtube. i think it must have just recently been posted because yesterday the views were at about 400 and now almost 64 thousand. it seems like it's some corporate-sponsored black history month thing. never mind, cause it's a really beautiful film with some amazing archival footage... if you haven't ever seen it, you really should!!

this is the text from the opening sequence :

in 1948 the white government of south africa began creating one of the most brutal systems of racial segregation the world has ever known... apartheid made africans of color aliens in their own land. millions were forced to leave their homes and live in impoverished townships where they were denied the most basic rights of african citizenship... for over forty years africans fought back with non violent protest. eventually some turned to armed struggle... throughout the struggle, there was music.


amandla! a revolution in four part harmony : lee hirsch




go well comrade,
you are a spear of the nation
we, the comrades are ready to kill...

: mk song

death to apartheid! everywhere!!

update : speaking of death to apartheid everywhere, cosatu (the congress of south african trade unions) and the palestine solidarity committee have released this statement...

In a historic development for South Africa, South African dock workers have announced their determination not to offload a ship from Israel that is scheduled to dock in Durban on Sunday, 8 February 2009. This follows the decision by COSATU to strengthen the campaign in South Africa for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Apartheid Israel.

The pledge by SATAWU members in Durban reflects the commitment by South African workers to refuse to support oppression and exploitation across the globe.

¡¡abajo el apartheid¡! ¡¡viva viva palestina!!

strange fruit

southern trees bear a strange fruit
blood on the leaves and blood at the root
black body swinging in the southern breeze
strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees

**

the state is set to execute another innocent black man.

today is the international day of action for troy anthony davis, who was convicted in 1991 of killing a white police officer at the age of 17. no physical evidence linked mr. davis to the case, and to date seven of nine witnesses against him have recanted their testimonies. all requests for a new trial have been rejected and his legal appeals have been exhausted. the execution has been set for october 27th.

this can really only be described as legalized lynching. send an email to the georgia state board of pardons & paroles here.

update: the 11th circuit federal court of appeals has issued a(nother) stay of execution. 140,000 signatures in support of mr. davis have been delivered to the georgia state board of pardons and paroles.


strange fruit : billie holiday

still

... thinking about the immigration raids.


de que me sirve el dinero
si estoy como prisionero
dentro de esta gran nación

cuando me acuerdo hasta lloro
que aunque la jaula sea de oro
no deja de ser prisión


**

what use to me is money
if i'm like a prisoner
within this great big country

to remember it i almost cry
even if the cage is golden
it doesn't cease to be a prison




la jaula de oro : versión julieta venegas (original, los tigres del norte)

la jaula

on monday this week, the u.s. immigration and customs enforcement agency terrorized a small town in mississippi with the biggest workplace raid in u.s. history.

¡a la mierda, reaccionarios!



july 2008. protest against the minutemen, sf city hall.
august 2008. protest against raids & deportations, sf i.c.e. building.




a la mierda : ska-p


but don't worry, guys. we will get this land back. palestinian-style! and ahead of schedule!!

will the real rebeldes please stand up?

eso, pachuquita! such ridiculousness, that rbd :(

anyways, here's to the freedom fighters de verdad ... past, present, & future!!

1963, baltimore. students jailed for protesting a segregated theater.

i ain't scared of your jails
cause i want my freedom
cause i want my freedom
cause i want my freedom

i ain't scared of your jails
cause i want my freedom
cause i want my freedom now

**

for an excellent archive of civil rights movement photographs, documents, and testimonies see: www.crmvet.org