Day: September 29, 2019

I chose this song for the guest speaker’s lecture because of her zine on Asian American feminist movement. “Girl Gang” is one of my favorite female empowerment songs because of its beat and its lyrics. It’s a song about pride and camaraderie amongst women. The zine talks about needing to revive feminism for people of color (including not only women, but nonbinary people and others as well) and avoiding constant fetishization. The zine is about the intersectionality of feminism and I really love how it uses visuals to get across its bold statements. “Girl Gang” is very much the same to me as it has a really bold message combined with powerful words and rhythm. I also like how the art style on the cover of Leikeli47’s single and the zine are very similar.

I had some difficulty thinking of a song right away for our “And China has Hands” reading–I thought a lot about themes of loneliness and love and identity. I searched up “songs about Chinatown”, as I associate Wong Wan-Lee’s life with this New York City neighborhood and this was one of the first song that shows up. It’s a happy and soothing song that I found myself really enjoying.

The Mills Brothers were an African American band, which is why it was interesting to hear them singing about Chinatown in light of our class being one on Afro-Asian intimacies. The song itself is dreamy and light. To me, the tune could reflect how Wong feels when he meets/thinks about Pearl Chang, the woman who defends him from white boys.

In this article, Rachel Kuo shows the importance and the power of the use of Hashtags in contemporary social justice struggles.
Focusing on Asian-Feminist movements practices, the article proves at the same time the intersectionality and solidarity allowed by these tools. It also underlines the trap of the « Model Minority » shaped by White Supremacism to create and maintain intra and inter-racial fractures, calling for a « #ModelMinorityMutiny » : « An article published in Ms. Gazette quoted Tin Myaing Thein in discussing how the myth created tensions between “Asians” and “Pacific islanders”:“Asians are thought of as the goody-good, exotic, sexy, real smart, never rock-the-boat types, while textbooks portray Pacific islanders as the good-natured but not very smart people”.”
Furthermore, « it creates juxtapositions and racial binaries; as Stacey Lee (2005) states, “the achievements of Asian Americans are used to discipline African Americans … the success of Asian Americans proves that the United States is free of racial bias and inequality”. »

Kuo reminds us that if the use Hashtags is very recent, their content is not : this is a way for her to advocate the specificity of Hashtags, while inscribing them into a historical dynamic : « Rather than looking at hashtags and digital media activism as a brand new moment, I situate this work within a historical and ongoing narrative arc, wherein the politics of solidarity, community, and identity are constantly being navigated and negotiated »
It also goes with the Hashtag spreading itself, which allows anyone to express their singularity, and at the same time gathering all these specific voices under the same umbrella. Hashtags also allow vast accessibility, both to others’ discourse, and to self-expression. In this way, it can be seen as an important emancipation and empowerment tool, joining Catherine Squire and Nancy Fraser ideas of « subaltern counter-publics » : « Hashtags can also serve to disrupt dominant ideologies. Mainstream media cultures have repetitively constructed people of color into racial stereotypes. Hashtags can be used by racial justice movements as media counterpoints, offering different representations and perspectives that disrupt harmful racial logics. »
If I agree with that, I think it’s also essential to keep in mind that the Internet is a massive space of surveillance, and a « privileged » space for harassment, especially for social justice activists. I can’t help thinking of the TWWA Security Protocol, and thereby the necessity to apply it in a way to Cyber-Activism.
Besides visibility and empowerment, Hashtags allow a kind of intersectional gatherings between several groups facing the same kind of oppressions and discriminations, without erasing their own particularities. As bell hooks defined it, “Solidarity is not the same as support.To experience solidarity, we must have a community of interests, shared beliefs and goals around which to unite”. I see here a parallel with the difference between the notion of « ally » and the one of « accomplice » I encountered once in a zine written by First Nation feminists struggling against extractivism on their lands : for them, it’s too easy and not enough to proclaim yourself as « ally » or « pro-something » : you have to get involved.
So, concretely, what means that Solidarity ? That means making loud the voices previously muffled ; don’t let yourself be fooled anymore by dominants illusions ; and as oppressed people, refusing the crumbs offered by these oppressors, but gathering as minorities, creating and producing new recipes, as showed the #BlackLivesMatter or the #ModelMinorityMutiny.

“Black Lives Matter affirms the lives of Black queer and trans folks, disabled folks, Black-undocumented folks, folks with records, women and all Black lives along the gender spectrum. it centers those that have been marginalized within Black liberation movements.”

To conclude, even if Hashtags seem genuinely effective, a long-term struggle still needs other forms of commitment : « While hashtags function as gestures of solidarity between both individuals and communities, they are also just a small piece of a movement. As such, they must be used alongside a variety of tools as well as on-the-ground action. »