CICLI PINARELLO + NARUKO SHOUKICHI

A lot of folks are posting about the Tiananmen Square massacre today, of course. I thought we should share it too, but I wanted to write a little bit about what was explained to me about what happened in the spring of 1989 that the western media often overlooks.

I am a 1.5 generation Chinese American leftist. I was two when the massacre happened. My sister had just been born. My father, who immigrated from China to Hong Kong when he was a toddler to escape the Cultural Revolution, and then Hong Kong to the United States to go to college, tells me he was seeking work in China around this time.

Several summers ago, when we were traveling together in China, he told me about what he understood about Tiananmen Square from his perspective as a young, newly naturalized American citizen who still had deep ties to the motherland. He told me the sense of unrest was not just about state control of the media and politics, but a sense that the state was also imposing capitalist reforms on the Chinese economy without input from the people, and with clear preferential treatment for party cadres and others who had an “in” with the powers that be. Students were upset and anxious about what looked like unilateral decisions about the future that weren’t just about opening markets, they were about neoliberalising the country.

When I think about what’s happening in Istanbul, Turkey, I can’t help but think about this. When we remember Tiananmen Square, I hope we remember that this wasn’t necessarily about the struggle of democracy versus Communism, but that it was about people who wanted to take part in determining the future of their country, and who rejected nepotistic neoliberal reforms. Just like with the media narrative around Gezi, American audiences risk being turned around. A million people don’t turn out and go on hunger strikes against their own self-interest. There’s more to this story than meets the eye.

Remember Tiananmen, but remember it for what it was: young Chinese students and workers resisting their country “modernizing” in the age of Reagan, the godfather of neoliberalism. This is the same ideology that young Turkish students and workers are resisting in Istanbul. It’s the same ideology that has decimated the U.S. economy and that we resist when we say “another world is possible.”

When we ask why the Chinese government still hasn’t admitted that Tiananmen even happened, we should remember that China today is just as cutthroat and capitalistic in some ways as the United States is. They have delivered on neoliberalism, but in the style of an autocratic state, where nepotism and party connections had more to do with business success than anything. Students and workers in China in 1989 were emphatically saying no to this system.

So reblogging because this, because still relevant. Thank for sharing this reflection because the…capitalism-washing (?) of Tiananmen Square still grinds my gears.

田所っちと巻ちゃん

somebody DO SOMETHING

i’ve added this before but this is the most important story that i have

this was published in the vancouver sun like 2 years ago, and i remember reading the paper after class while my sister was watching tv or something, and i burst out laughing when i read the headline. and so im tell her to look, and show her the article and she says “what’s a rim job” and my dad looked up at me and we held eye contact for like. a whole minute and we just had a terrible moment where he knew that i knew what a rim job was, and i knew that he knew what a rim job was and now that’s a reality that we have to face together

this is it. this is what all my time spent with makeup and cosplay has amounted to

This powerful image is from one of the memorials last night for 16-year-old Maren Sanchez.

Maren was stabbed to death in her high school stairwell on the morning of the prom. She was killed for allegedly turning down a young man’s invitation to be her prom date.

Her classmates paid tribute by dressing up, and bringing out the gown she would have worn to the prom. Even though this memorial was a sorrowful and traumatic event, the students smiled through their tears for the camera because… Maren would have wanted them to be happy on their prom night.

I grew up in Milford, CT, and I live about 15 minutes away from Jonathan Law High School. My partner attended JLHS and I have friends with family members who currently attend.

With the Sandy Hook shooting in December 2012, I can’t believe that here we are again, just a year later, with another tragedy in a Connecticut school.

My heart goes out to all of those affected.

Sharing memorial images for a young woman that never should have died.

She was killed for allegedly turning down a young man’s invitation to be her prom date.

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? YOUNG GIRLS GETTING FUCKING KILLED BECAUSE MEN A MAN CAN’T HANDLE REJECTION. 

FUCK THIS WORLD.

That lone dress on a rack where she would be standing. My God.

thank fucking god people are still talking about this. Maren was killed on Friday and after that first day, posts about her vanished.
she was sixteen.
she was sixteen and was supposed to spend that day getting ready for junior prom, but instead was dead by the time the first bell rang.

don’t forget maren sanchez. don’t let her become another name you vaguely remember in twenty years. do not fucking forget maren.

「キスしていい？」

ITS HERE

John Oliver explains why net neutrality is really important, as only John Oliver can

Maybe John Oliver has found his post–Daily Show niche: Explaining boring or uncomfortable subjects in a way that makes sense and makes you laugh. 

This is so fucking good.