Edgar Bolivar

I first came across Shalemar Coloma’s documentary work at “Reclaiming the Past and Rallying the Present,” an A/P/A BRIDGE (Asian/Pacific/Americans Building Relationships to Inspire Diversity, Growth, and Empowerment) activism installation held in April. A sophomore at Tisch, Shalemar has been exploring intersectional identity through her filmmaking. (She also wears an amazing hot pink fur coat that I want to cop.) Because it was finals week, we met Shalemar in the lobby of Bobst, where we were lying on one of the black couches, staring up into the abyss of failed hopes and dreams, to talk about London Tipton, being Filipinx, and her recent work. -Elaine

13th (2016)

“Lesser evilism assumes that certain communities are disposable. It apportions people into rigid hierarchies. It judges who is worthy of safety and security.  It asks us to voluntarily defer liberation. Lesser evilism may sound appealing as a practical metric, but it comes with severe human costs. […] Lesser evilism is possible only because we’re so accustomed to seeing certain people as lesser human beings.”

– Steven Salaita | Palestine and Hillary, ‘the lesser evil’ The moral gymnastics of trying to make Hillary Clinton a “lesser evil” does in fact have material consequences. It usually comes in the form of a dichotomy: American lives versus non-American lives. In that scenario, the decision is not just a dichotomy, it is a hierarchy too, because American liberals, progressives, and conservatives alike usually place American lives – especially white, cis, able-bodied ones – above all others. 

Twitter user Laura Silverman is right to point out privilege, she just doesn’t understand what it means, apparently. It is an enormous privilege for Americans to hide behind loosely constructed concern for people of color within U.S. borders, Muslim peoples within U.S borders, differently-abled people within U.S. borders, and LGBTQIA within U.S borders, while playing Russian roulette with everyone else.

It is a privilege to thrust a limited political imagination that can only conceive of liberation if it involves two imperialistic parties onto others who are trying to conceive of something freer.

It is a privilege to ignore the work a person does on the other 1,460 days of every 4 years to make filling out a bubble on one day a matter of their morality.

It is a privilege to pressure those for whom violence will rain down unimpeded, regardless of who occupies the mansion at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, to do something that may benefit you but won’t do anything for them.

It is a privilege to disregard those whom both parties have no problem bombing, locking away, and dehumanizing; those in Haiti and Honduras and Palestine; the poorest of the poor, the Blackest of Black, and the margins of the margins, just so you can defend the scraps thrown to you in screeds written on thousand dollar laptops at jobs that allow you to keep from worrying if you might die tomorrow because of policies Democrats have upheld.

It is a privilege to erase the history of Black thinkers like Assata Shakur, James Baldwin, and W.E.B.  Du Bois, who have questioned the validity of voting for the liberal party for numerous well-thought out reasons, just so you can continue the lie that their thoughts are wrapped up in whiteness.

It is a privilege to call not voting a “privilege” while 5.58 million people and counting are disenfranchised because of a racist criminal justice system, and neither party intends to do anything about it.

While the masses having little impact on this country’s governance is  obviously something the “privilege” of whiteness desires, divesting from the political system is not.

In neoliberal times, it is important that our government retains the façade of democracy and fairness while maintaining oppression at all costs. This is why conservatives will never own up to the true purpose of voter I.D. laws and why the question of felon voting rights is hardly taken up with any seriousness. But part of this illusion is encouraging everyone to believe they have a fair and important role to play in this system when they do not, and things of importance to gain when, likewise, they do not.

Yes, keeping some people from voting has kept many oppressive systems in place, but we must recognize how those systems have evolved to the point where you hardly have to keep someone from voting to keep their vote from having effect. The system evolves to protect itself, and privilege is the opposite of giving up on the belief it will self-rectify.”