Activism in 2010

[drydem]

Originally Posted by snailpoo

There's something about sitting on an uninhabited island that changed my perspective. Why complain about things I do nothing to correct?


How about a new rule?

No more empty ranting about the same useless topic for the five hundredth time unless you actually post a solution or at least a small measure to address the issue. I know that most of us are now older and busy, but how much time does it take to send a quick, angry letter or email and do nudge each other to do the same on an important issue that really matters? I'm not talking about mindlessly harping about a random video posted by some nameless girl with self image problems. How many people actually did something to support the kids in Philadelphia? When was the last time any of us were active in local politics? When was the last time any of us volunteered? (And for those of us that did, kudos, but why not get more people involved?)

How about censoring ranting about empty ranting?

RFOL.

You know
People rant because they don't have the POWER to fix things
or because they don't KNOW THE SOLUTION to fix things

When you work with the public and
the community at large you'll realize that the best way to get
where you want to go is to go there together.

No one person knows everything
and most of us are not jack of all trades type.

But
acting as a group we can know more
and
acting as a group we can sometimes muster the power to do things
we could not do alone.

To get that kind of grass root group strength
you need a certain level of tolerance
that people will be be joining your group
from different levels of abilities.

A community can't
be composed only rock stars.
To be effective and SUSTAINABLE
- a community needs to accomdate everyone.


While
Philadelphia does not qualify for local politics for me
but I've been involved with local politics for the last 20 years.
All of it has been on a volunteer basis
albeit it would be nice if I got paid for it!
Because I've always worked at the grass root level
I was never alone or without the support of
my neighbors and my community.

[snailpoo]

Originally Posted by AngryABCGirl

I honestly think most of the people here don't actually care to get involved as much as to complain about the same things over and over again.

Yep. It's sort of sad that people occasionally raise real issues, but won't do anything but sit on their ass and complain. But then again, there's some here that would hurt more than help, like:

Originally Posted by drydem

How about censoring ranting about empty ranting?

RFOL.

How about a single post from you where you don't look like silly responding to me? Did you finally get around to actually reading the Whaling Convention and UNCLOS? Did you finally get around to figuring out how much tuition is at an Ivy? Do you not understand how funny you sound when you laugh at me for saying that people should actually act and do something and then turn around and say:

Originally Posted by drydem

You know
People rant because they don't have the POWER to fix things
or because they don't KNOW THE SOLUTION to fix things

When you work with the public and
the community at large you'll realize that the best way to get
where you want to go is to go there together.

No one person knows everything
and most of us are not jack of all trades type.

But acting as a group we can know more
and
acting as a group we can sometimes muster the power to do things
we could not do alone.

:biggrin

[MarshalStealth]

Originally Posted by drydem

How about censoring ranting about empty ranting?
RFOL.

You know
People rant because they don't have the POWER to fix things
or because they don't KNOW THE SOLUTION to fix things

When you work with the public and
the community at large you'll realize that the best way to get
where you want to go is to go there together.

No one person knows everything
and most of us are not jack of all trades type.

But acting as a group we can know more
and acting as a group we can sometimes muster the power to do things
we could not do alone.

To get that kind of grass root group strength
you need a certain level of tolerance
that people will be be joining your group
from different levels of abilities.

A community can't
be composed only rock stars.
To be effective and SUSTAINABLE
- a community needs to accommodate everyone.

To collaborate as a team , everyone must cooperate first.

The first step is to define the big picture in terms of the various significant variables. A full comprehension of the big picture usually enables one person or a group to define the end in mind. Everyone usually have a different view of looking at the big picture. ... Take the different views and simplify it to a few essential points. It is vital to keep the end in mind simple in its objective. If everyone agrees with those points, they will cooperate and collaborate in creating the solution.

To find the solution, defining the end in mind is the secondary way of doing things. The key is knowing the big picture first.

When the big picture changes, knowing how to adjust as a team is the key to maintaining team stability.

Reminder: Not everyone is going to be pleased w/ the end in mind. Conclusively, the majority rules (or those who control the majority, usually rules)

[haplesshobo]

After this, maybe we should re-title this thread so it doesn't specifically refer to 2010?

Originally Posted by sandra

so as most of the og's know, and i think it's rather apparent, in the last few years, participation on yw has declined substantially. much of it has to do with the fact that the former regulars were mostly students or young, young professionals with time to kill and now, having grown a bit older, have responsiblities that don't necessarily allow us to be on 24:7 like before. then there's also the issue of burnout. after discussing the same old topics to death, some of us started to feel like we were just repeating ourselves like robots.

that's just speculation, of course, and the question remains - with yw so quiet nowadays...what has happened to asian activism? i would dare to say that at one point - maybe years and years ago - for a brief period of time, yw was at the frontline of the battles, catching and nailing each issue that affected the api communited as soon as it emerged. those days, which i recall fondly, have come and gone. so where has the energy moved?

i think the greater community was intrigued by yw in the early 2000's (is that how we should refer to the beginning of the decade now?) when they featured us on prime time and many major newspapers as an example of the "new face of activism". and certainly, it wasn't just us back then. there was us, modelminority.com, the fighting44's, etc.

but with facebook/twitter came the end, at least from my observations, of forums. things just haven't been quite the same anymore. in any forum - not just yw. while we used to easily have over 20 regulars on at any given time, now it's strange to see over 5.

your thoughts?

Rather than look in the mirror and ask the hard and difficult questions why nobody comes to this forum anymore, its a mistake to comfort yourself with easy answers that absolves this forum of any responsibility because posters got older and too busy or all forums don't generate any activity anymore.

I also check up on another forum, and yes, it probably doesn't get generate quite as many threads as it used to. But, there's still a lot of activity on that forum even though posters include editor of a major newspaper, person that worked in White House, IBankers, etc.. Those posters have busy lives and they continued to post so I don't buy this whole excuse that this forum declined because posters got too busy or older.

Yes, posters on all forums burn out or get less involved and some even leave. But, that's why you always need new blood- new posters to join to replace the old posters that leave.

But, I'd argue that this forum never really wanted to get too popular or bring in too many new posters. When I joined, I got a couple of PMs from other posters who told me to leave because this forum was only for certain AAs with a certain political outlook. I'm sure I wasn't the only person who got such warnings, but I was too stubborn to get pushed out like that.

There were opportunities for this forum to become more popular or attract new posters, but which it steadfastly refused to. Why weren't that any Q+A with AA celebs, where fans of that celeb could have discovered this forum? It would have been interesting to read an interview with chef David Chang, from an AA perspective. Instead, the Q+As would be with some anonymous professor in Utah nobody's ever heard of. Did the students at the university even know who that professor was? And, when a minor celeb AA joined, the celeb got chased out of this forum.

certainly asian american issues have not disappeared, racism is not obsolete, and there are many greater issues, such as health care reform, that affect our communities. where is the forum for those discussions now - if not in forums such as yw? i see no substantive discussions on other social media utilities such as facebook, and certainly none of twitter, where we are limited to 140 characters.

is it not a disappointment that college students no longer use forums such as ours to engage in the debates and discussions that we used to? or even to try their hand at campaigning like we used to?

After 08, when college students played a major role in Obama's win by doing a lot of groundwork and campaigning, you're going to argue that the problem is college students' lack of debates or campaigning?

But, I do see substantive discussions in some forums including the earlier one I mentioned. For substantial debates, you need intelligent people with different viewpoints in a framework of respectful disagreement where they will attack ideas but not the person.

But, was there a lot of substantive debate here? If this forum is only for people with a certain ideology, then you don't get a lot of debate as everybody already agrees with everybody else. When I would interject with a different perspective, I'd get posters basically wail, "why are you being so mean by not agreeing with everything I say..."

I'd try to do a little research into what I posted, but I didn't get a lot of substantive responses in return a lot of times. Instead, I'd get negative karma points and people would call me names like 'shit for brains', 'half-wit', 'nazi', 'house nigger', etc... all because I didn't agree with everybody else. I always thought there was a bit of a double-standard as I knew I would have been rightfully banned for saying similar things about other posters.

And, its a bit ironic you mentioned twitter since as its being currently utilized isn't what the company originally intended it for. But, the company accepted this change instead of fighting it. Instead of bemoaning the lack of debates in today's activism, you should be asking how AA activism should be harnessing the power of the internet- activism in the internet era is about reaching a wider, larger audience with the drawback that the recipient has weaker ties and participates less.

Everybody thought I was being facetious when I said I believed a movie like Karate Kid did more for AA issues than a forum like this, but I was being serious. This forum obviously delves much deeper into AA issues, but the problem is its just preaching to the choir. If an issue comes up here, it reaches such a small number of people even when this forum was more popular. Even then, most of the people it reaches are so hardcore that they probably would have already heard about the issue.

Whereas, despite the goofiness and silliness of Karate Kid, I thought the movie did more because it reached such a larger, wider audience with how wrong the Japanese Internment was as it put a face on that issue.

Wouldn't this forum have been more effective about activism if it had been more about generating a bigger, wider community of AAs instead of it being geared for hardcore activists? That way, when something wrong or racist really did break out, it could have reached a wider audience of people who might not have otherwise heard about it and were originally just here for cars, asian food, etc..? Somebody might have just come here cause there was a interview with David Chang, but might have stayed and read about healthcare debate.

[drydem]

When I was posting on the soc.culture.asian.american newsgroup one accepted that along with it open and un-mediated newsgroup came some people who had with nasty tempers and bad manners - the standard advice was to ignore the trolls. However, when people stop playing with trolls and avoid flaming - SCAA started getting spammed. If SCAA was not being disrupted by trolls - it was destined to be clogged up with spam. As an un-mediated newsgroup this was a problem and probably the death blow for SCAA. Hence, IMHO for embattled interest groups which face actively hostile outside forces - a monitored/member-only forum/social network/email group is the only way to go.

I'm much older now and my energy and time is waning so I must budget my time and efforts accordingly. I not interested in fighting or debating - I am interested in learning something or doing something constructive and useful/relevant to me. Today's public debates on TV seem more staged than anything else. Money now buys more influence than it ever has before - and often seems to steer how public debate is formed and how it will end. FWIW - I do post comments up on Yahoo! or other websites for the world to see... .

I've noticed that it is much easier for people to be more tolerant and constructive on a forum when everyone has the same goals. Activitism means having a plan and a doable/obtainable goal. A plan means there are definite roles and things to do, e.g. voter registration campaign.

[drydem]

With respect to local politics, I have written letters, submitted written and oral testimony in public hearings, appeared in court, canvassed community, help with video production, and done all sorts of community based activitism. However, the closing thing to public protesting I've done are my postings on SCAA...LOL... I guess its not my modus of operandi.... If I'm going on the offensive I like to precisely identify my target.

In politics - identifying friend and foe can be a tricky thing. You need friends because in politics numbers do count and can turn the tide to help your cause so you dont want to attack potential friends. At the same time your adversaries/foes - may not always identify themselves as such - and can and often do hinder you and your cause. So when you are outlining your political advocacy not only is it important to identify trusted friends but also to positively identify known opponents/adversaries to your cause. For example, when the USA went to war in Iraq - some American were for it and some Americans were not for it and some Americans sat on the side-lines and stayed apolitical about it. If you blamed the Iraqi war on Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld - you'd be on target. If you blamed the Iraqi war on Dennis Kucinich - you'd be off target and attacking an ally/friend. If you blamed the Iraqi war on a U.S. permanent resident from the Solomon Island - you'd be likely attacking a neutral party/innocent bystander.


With the economy in really deep do do - most people are too busy just trying to stay above water. Unless - the issue is directly connect to their purses and survival - most are not going to get out there for the *cause*. I have a part time job with a charity - and I can tell you that donation levels are at a real low - there is alot of apathy all across the nation. Can you blame them? I personal know people who are now unemployed or underemployed - and yeah the job market in general has gone sour across the board - it is kinda of scary too.

Any socio-political activism is more effective when there is money and organization behind it. Much of the current 2012 election campaigning activity appears to be big money and it does not appear to be broadbased from the voters themselves. So you might say this coming election will not be lacking wrt to the glitz and $$ - however - what the voters will say in the voting booths is another thing though....

[drydem]

for 2012 here are is an example of possible asian american issues

Problem: Blaming asian countries (e.g. China, Japan, Korea) for American economic woes will like inflame/incite/promote racial discrimination against asian american.

Solution: Identifying blaming other nations as wrong and then identify the real culprit for American's economic woes - economic globalization and the lack of global protection of labor markets. While setting up economic zones to useful in attract capital investments, it should only be done if there are adequate safe guards to protect labor from predatory employment practices and abuses.

Problem: blaming our economic woes on immigrants. Non-asian american start harassing and discriminating against asian descent americans - regardless of their citizenship status.

Solution: Identify how blaming our economic woes on immigration is wrong and then identify then identify the true cause of our economic woes - abuses by the financial sector. Show how immigration flow mirrors economic demand and how our economy benefits from immigration.