Thoughts on Punk and Race, from the Editors of White Riot

In an interview with souciant.com:

"MT: I think the agental moment is very important. But one thing that occurred to me just now is that there are complex networks of privilege informing that agency as well. Particularly when you think about black punks, for instance. “Punk” is something they are hailed as, a homophobic slur. And so I wouldn’t want to make it seem too hunky dory — “I can identify as punk and everything’s great!” — because “punk” is very a complicated term that people in various margins of racial outsiderness have to negotiate, especially when it does take on that poisonous valence.

SD: The thing is, a lot of punks of color will talk about the fact that as they slipped their given identity and took on the mantle of punk, they’d get crap from people asking, essentially, “What, are you trying to be white?” So punk is identified as white and therefore it becomes very complicated for them. Here’s this way that through their agency they can adopt a race-less identity — at least that’s the ideal — which is, “I’m punk,” yet it is seen both by people from their own ethnicity and, unfortunately, white punks as being white. And that gives them a lot of anxiety. Now what James Spooner has done with Afro-punk and a lot of the folks in the Race Riot zine."

(White Riot, out on Verso).

October 30th, 1950; Puerto Rico's Nationalist uprising

Text from Nothing to Be Gained Here:

"On October 30th of 1950 a Puerto Rican woman by the name of Blanca Canales led an uprising in the mountain town of Jayuya. Under her leadership the Nationalists took Jayuya and Blanca Canales declared Puerto Rico a free republic. At the same time in the town of Utado Nationalists were fighting the US National Guard and other Nationalists were attacking “La Forteleza” the governors mansion in San Juan and the Federal Court House in Old San Juan.

Blanca Canales and the Nationalists were successful in holding Jayuya for three days until the US military bombed them from the air and sent in ground troops

[...]

The Nationalists may have failed to free Puerto Rico but they succeeded in keeping the US from hiding it’s colonial possession with semantic Orwellian double speak like “Free Associated State”… The Nationalists succeeded in making it be known all over the world that Puerto Rico wanted to be free and was willing to fight to do so"

(image of National Guard invading Jayuya)

2nd Accident, Hateful Insurance Companies

After being hit by a car earlier this summer I was still resolved to commute around Pittsburgh once the fog of the concussion lifted and I had the opportunity to adjust and build up a spare bicycle I had purchased from a friend a year before. 


Needless to say the accident before made me much more careful of how I conduct myself on the road, the risks I'm willing to take, and the attention I pay to others on the road. 


On one such careful commutes to school from my home I was sitting at a red light in a very busy intersection (actually approximately 2 blocks from the previous accident) and preparing to cross. This red light is particular because it is on a very busy road that is also between two university campuses. In order to allow pedestrians the ability to cross said road without having the potential threat of being struck by a turning vehicle the pedestrian walk sign lights up 10 seconds before the green light for vehicles headed in the same direction. 


At one such moment, sitting at the red light, I looked at each light in turn making sure all reds were illuminated as with the pedestrian light. I saw no vehicles in the intersection. I started pedaling into the intersection. I hear the roar of acceleration coming from my left turning just in time to see a red Suburban slamming into me and the tanned, chubby, blonde-hair ringed face of the driver staring down at me as she attempted to brake. She failed to run me over, and I looked up at her weepy face and yelled, "not another time this fucking year!" I limped to the corner dragging my bent (steel frame bicycle) behind me.


The driver parked and ran up to me weeping and shrieking to see if I was ok. Other drivers and bicyclists stopped and circled around checking on me, calling the police, and helping get the driver's insurance information. The Pittsburgh police did their usual bang up job by insisting that they were not going to write a report, nor were they going to issue the driver a citation for running the red light and hitting me. They were instead much more interested on whether or not the driver who was helping me was properly respecting their authority. (This is no shock as the Pittsburgh police are known to have a hefty history of violating resident's constitutional rights) 


The driver continued to hyperventilate and since I didn't detect immediately any broken bones and any real emergency, I was surprisingly lucky, I limped to my office to call the driver's insurance company and start the claim process. During the call I notice my left ankle swelling more and more, turning blue. The student health center determined that I had no significant bone breaking, mostly soft tissue damage, and eventually an injured tendon. 


Although I know I probably could have sued this woman's insurance company I didn't really have the time and emotional energy to get into a legal battle. So I gave the insurance company my statement expecting at least some sort of minimal recompense besides the medical costs associated with the accident. That was a semi-delusional attitude, as I later learned, moreover, NEVER GIVE AN INSURANCE COMPANY A STATEMENT IF YOU EXPECT THEM TO GIVE YOU A DECENT RECOMPENSE FOR THE SHIT YOU GO THROUGH, OR DESTROYED PROPERTY. First, speak with a lawyer, that is if you are certain you are not at fault. 


The insurance company gave me the run around offering me at the end around $500 for future medical costs, and for my destroyed bike because the frame was older. Little did they know or care was that the frame was a very sturdy 30 year-old frame which I had augmented with newer parts. I had to argue with them and suggested a much higher amount of a few thousand dollars. After hearing my objections they tacked on another couple of hundred dollars which frustrated me, and I started to object to which the agent, replied by insulting me. She insisted, "I know you got in another accident earlier this year and this makes me wonder..." Because I didn't want to hear the bullshit insurance company logic that dictated this incredibly soft-voiced, soprano midwestern woman I suggested that I would seek legal action and then hung up. I was in a rage for hours following that interaction, the notion that I would just liberally ride my bicycle in the way of cars only to wheedle money out of insurance companies had to be the largest deposit of feces I had ever been asked to ingest. Why the fuck, I thought, as a PhD student just recovered from a concussion would I ever risk my brain like that again? For a few hundred bucks? That is insane.


In the end I gave in. I have a prospectus to write, mounds of grading, and at the time a controversial argument to write for a panic inducing bilingual conference. I took the money so that I could eventually get a new bicycle and get on with my life and not endure anymore of the insults leveled at me by this woman, who for a second, almost got me to question my recollection of the collision itself. Fuck insurance companies. 


(Part 2, coming shortly, discusses the uselessness of university administrators in cases like these).

"Just Gathering Statistics," Alabama's Kristallnacht for the Undocumented

I grabbed this story from Tex(t)Mex blog,which points to a similar logic behind the recent changes to Alabama's racist new citizenship laws. The response by many undocumented families in the region was to flee:

"Hispanic students have started vanishing from Alabama public schools in the wake of a court ruling that upheld the state's tough new law cracking down on illegal immigration.

Education officials say scores of immigrant families have withdrawn their children from classes or kept them home this week, afraid that sending the kids to school would draw attention from authorities."

 While panicked administrators have "distributed to schools sample letters that can be sent to parents of new students informing them of the law's requirements for either citizenship documents or sworn statements by parents.

In an attempt to ease suspicions that the law may lead to arrests, the letter tells parents immigration information will be used only to gather statistics."

Mass deportation is not a new story when it comes to undocumented laborers in the United States. It is a standard means of producing labor control even if the move is garnered by grossly nativist sentiments (see "Operation Wetback" for example). At the same time, their rate is accelerating and expanding, additionally seeding a set of subcontracted companies of incarceration and control that are exorbitantly profitable.