if bollywood is a sponge, then so is hollywood: on slumdog millionaire and the academy awards

dear readers,

soundtrack to my post: t.i.’s “too long”, and lil wayne’s, “dying.”

the academy awards were unexpectedly poetic, in moments mind blowing (jai ho!), but please believe they were also blase, more of the same, the sea of white has not loosened its hold much on the u.s. senate or on “american” cinema. although cuba gooding junior did hand robert downey junior his ass on a platter for taking a black part.  what a post-obama moment.

still, let’s be joyous and be clear. here’s the political poet breakdown:

intro

i’m on the 41 bus up flatbush avenue from church to the library. i score a single seat. two young black men are catching up with each other in front of me. tossing convo back and forth across the aisle like tennis balls.

“that movie, its these two brothers and even as kids, how they had to make decisions, take their lives into their own hands, and, how were they playing cricket on the landing strip, man?!”

“word?”

[a few convo tosses later]

“you what?”

“i ran man, i wasn’t trying to be there once the police stopped us, period. no thank you on getting searched, no thank you on getting stopped. soon as we slowed down i pushed the door open and was out.

act one

tonight poets listened for poetry
globalization would like to thank the academy
elegantly disheveled
breathless
scores india stage
rush warriors flushed
bright pink

a.r. rahman and john legend
resul pookutty, a tamil muslim
shouts out allah in malyali
white man after white man
accepts the award on behalf
of brown cast
the ancient civilization
tantalizingly relevant
leading
quiet
we.

act two

i’m a south asian blogger who grew up in southern cali on bhajans and snoop dogg. these days i’m bearing witness to what i never thought i’d see. south asian visibility. snoop dogg goes from whispering “bitches aint shit” in my teenage ear to piping in on a bollywood track with, “singh is king, singh is king.”

i know he’s in it for the money but here’s what i’m feelin: i learned his language, now he’s learning my sound.

act three

mia sweeps the hip hop stage, its the grammys, its a sri lankan female rapper. more records than the cia under her belt and she gets to be the hook on a song with the big dogs. im glad she got to be on stage, cause she got no credit on the “swagger like us” video.

there’s a blackout in hip hop. turn on the lights, peep the female legends bound and gagged in the corner. when i grew up radio played women singers and rappers. blackout + silence = no women rappers and no ones talking about it.

act four

robert deniro is fine as fuck but he def gets the gas face for his backhanded complement for sean penn’s amazing performance in harvey milk with, “how did he ever get cast as a straight man?” ha, ha, ha. closeted hater. i wonder if this kind of peer response had a chilling effect on penn’s acceptance speech, which was flashy, “you commie, homo loving sons of guns,” but not poetic. thank goodness for dustin lance black (best original screenplay). dustin brought the milk message home with artistry, we are beautiful and deserve love. plus the cheekbones. new “it” boy, anyone?

act five

heath ledger’s spirit hung bright. where ledger’s presence was felt, mickey rourke’s presence was seen. rourke, i heard, was getting up during commercial breaks, sitting on the edge of the stage, getting shooed off by the stage manager. rourke was the physical reminder, the slightly uncomfortable reminder, that hollywood can kill you. or, you make your day by day comeback. and live.

act six

was it just me or was the jennifer aniston comes face to face with angelina jolie moment excruciating? jenn was *so* palpably uncomfortable, eyes straying to brad, even leaving the stage too early in her rush to end the moment. i’ve been on the other side, an angelina of sorts, finding true love in an inopportune moment. so i say this, jen, girl, why are you still so caught up? your life is dope. be a bigger woman, and stop calling the foul on another powerful, gorgeous sister. reach out to her, and keep it moving already.

act seven

micky rourke on barbara walters

i’m

uneasy he’s saying too much

she’s saying too little

do you mean….you considered….suicide?

i feel like dying, raps lil wayne

i’m jumping out the window with this one, autotunes ron browz

you’ll have me suicidal, croons sean kingston

hip hop, we can speak so honestly

walters is a bleached stone

plotting on a free lap dance from hugh jackman on tv

what if it was a man interviewing a woman

bitch couldna paid me.

outro

super duper desi pride. bollywood was accessed throughout the academy awards, with the “return of the musical,” and the nod to movie stars of multiple era’s, it is safe to say that *both* hollywood and bollywood are sponges.

stay tuned for more, from the political poet, roopa singh.

peace,

rs

student occupation and protest at nyu: 411 + photos + editorial

dear readers,

[update as of 2.24.09: the occupying students were physically removed and expelled.  let see what impact the occupation makes on the constituency known as new york city students.  guess its up to yall to chose your own ending.]

under the slogan, “take back nyu,” approximately 70 nyu students and community activists are illegally occupying the 3rd floor of nyu’s kimmel center in effort to spark good faith negotiations with university administration officials regarding a host of hot button issues such as students rights and institutional support for palestine. actions such as this are impactful and rare at elite educational institutions.

at a 5pm press conference from the broken into 3rd floor balcony of kimmel, protestors and their numerous supporters below, chanted: “the students/are justified/nyu is occupied!,” “whose school? our school!,” and “disclose it/get off it/put students over profit!”

two street worn onlookers from washington square park (who were overheard declaring their own right to the space with, “the police around here know us by first and last name, socially security too, probably”) replied, “disclose it/get off it/we’re shooting dope in public!”

one young man in a small but loud group of student non-supporters (who booed with gusto when the protestors shouted out solidarity with students at cuny, no accompanying boo for students at columbia u) yelled, “just because you have a bullhorn doesn’t make you right.” which prompted one young woman to remark to her companion, “hey, at least it’s uniting the campus.”

cameras pointed upwards, the student occupiers rallied the crowd, a couple students walked by selling frosted cupcakes for a dollar, cops stood in their wide legged stance, plastic handcuffs ready, just in case.

this was the scene on the street today at new york university.

2.19.09, cops prepared at nyu's student occupation (image: r.singh)

2.19.09, 5pm press conference crowd (image: r.singh)

2.19.09 kimmel center, site of 3rd floor student occupation (image: r.singh)

2.19.09 stencils around nyu's urban campus (image: r.singh)

in the latest news, takebacknyu.com (the official website of the campaign), reports that administration officials have shown a willingness to begin negotiations. (this has changed, see above).

i was at nyu this afternoon and evening, shot the photos in this post, interviewed folks, and generally got the word on the street. a few questions emerged: what is this action for? is the action strategic? what are the best and worst case scenario’s in terms of the action’s outcome?

2.19.09, take back nyu press conference from occupied kimmel center (image: r.singh)

“take back nyu,” is a coalition of 21 left leaning student groups. what are their demands?

2.19.09 takebacknyu student demands (image: r.singh)

the take back nyu demand sheet above states,”We, the students of Take Back NYU! declare our solidarity with the student [sleepovers] in Greece, Italy, and the United Kingdom…We stand in solidarity with the University of Gaza, and with the people of Palestine.”

there are 13 demands in all. generally they break down into the following categories: students rights, labor rights, transparency of university money trails, support for palestine and palestinian students, and divestment of israel and coca-cola

here’s what the protestors are asking for, in greater detail:

1. immunity for all student occupiers and back pay for nyu campus employees affected by the action

2. transparency on NYU’s budget and endowments

3. fair labor practices: between nyu and all employees, including renewed labor negotiations between nyu and gsoc/uaw local 2110 (grad student union)

4. responsible spending: the addition of a new “socially responsible finance committee (srfc),” to nyu’s board of trustees, with equal voting rights.

5. divestment: the srfc will investigate nyu investments in war and genocide

6. money and goods to gaza: 13 full scholarships to palestinian students, and that nyu donate excess materials to help rebuild the university of gaza

7. equal access to nyu buildings: including public access to nyu’s main library (one onlooker said, “um, thats what the public library is for”) and priority given to student groups trying to reserve space at the kimmel multi-use, performance center.

2.19.09, this dude was good people and his sign was The Truth (image: r.singh)

i received this text last night: “nyu kimmel center is now occupied by students to call for divestment from israel.” so i trekked over to nyu today. initially i was confused. there was one sign hanging off the balcony of the occupied floor, and it spoke to financial aid concerns. i talked to local activist and cuny grad student, shadia. she told me the nyu students were fighting for their own rights as students and were also, at the very least, bringing attention to the worldwide student “sleepovers”/institutional occupations in support of gaza. shadia was one of the only active muslim community members i saw at the nyu action today .

i asked to take a picture of her sign, she let me, and informed me that she was unsure how to incorporate the “occupation” language on her sign without inadvertently signaling support for the israeli occupation of palestine.

2.19.09, the homie shadia, representing for community groups at nyu (image: r.singh)

does it make sense to include palestine under this broad sweep of demands? yes and no. yes, to the extent that the nyu action raises awareness about the student actions happening around the world right now in support of a peaceful, sovereign palestine. no, to the extent that the nyu action leans heavily towards students rights and neglects to engage with community based palestinian rights efforts, thus potentially diluting the already oft-adopted national sovereignty struggle.

2.19.09 for financial aid (image: r.singh)

the broad sweep of take back nyu’s demands works for it and against the actual attainment of their goals. its not that i don’t peep the potential for a real, symbiotic connection between student rights and a sovereignty struggle. i see how divestment from apartheid south africa, for example, was related to student empowerment. it meant students learned about where their money was going. then those same students helped decide to where their money would and would not go.

but it doesn’t strike me as symbiotic for the students to demand nyu take responsibility for rebuilding the university of gaza AND demand nyu form a student committee with powers equal to the board of trustees AND demand nyu provide financial aid for all, to name just a few demands.

but i could be wrong. i’ll keep you informed on what happens next with negotiations between take back nyu and the institutional administration.

[update as of 2.20.09 (3pm): students from "take back nyu" are still holding the 3rd floor of nyu's kimmel center, where they have staged an occupation since 10pm wednesday night (2.18.09). this morning university officials cut internet access. the administration is not agreeing to negotiations or even immunity from expulsion for student participants. in a recent, smuggled email, take back nyu organizer ian chinich states, "Unlike any of the other 26 or so [student] occupations I have heard about in the last 3 weeks, this is the only one where the university is refusing to negotiate at all.”]

until then, power to all the people. enjoy the photos.

peace,

political poet = roopa singh

2.19.09, for gaza (image: r.singh)

soul tool: ask yourself questions

dear readers,

i was just in the bay area, and in the midst of rolling from clubs to orgs to malls to the empowering women of color conference and viks chaat house, i reignited a tool to help me ground. like to hear it? hear it go.

check this out: write down a series of questions for yourself. the kind of questions that you wish someone would ask you. then take a little time to write/draw out your answers to the questions. don’t get too caught up in how you answer, poetry, paragraphs, an image, a sentence or two, its all good as long as you create a record.

why not give yourself that time today, to be an explorer of self. i will guarantee you, the discovery channel has nothing on the distance you can run within your own being. not that i’m hating on the discovery channel.

are you all good?  copacetic, no need for support, life ain’t nothin but a thang, you got this? that’s dandy. now ask yourself some questions and see if you can’t scratch your own armored surface.

i have a personal practice of asking myself questions. it works.

been doing it for some years now. i love creating the questions. i adore the indulgence of knowing im going to listen to myself. can’t lie, sometimes i get bored answering my own questions. lol, ain’t that some shit, getting bored of ones own self. but even that is a priceless gem of truth. i started doing this because i like it when my lover asks me questions, or when the homies ask me about myself, and i have actually paid people to ask me questions in a healing context so i figured, shit, if this is so great that folks get paid to do it, i may as well start doing it for myself.

suggested questions:

what’s on my mind?

how is my body doing?

what do i need to say no to?

what do i need to say yes to?

how can i be better to myself?

how can i be better to those around me?

what is the best thing about these days?

what is the most challenging thing about these days?

if you do it, let me know how it goes. peace, from political poet, roopa singh.

peace,

rs/N