#apaac2014

The first workshop I went to was "#notyourasiansidekick: women of color and feminism" and it was hosted by Dr. Andrea Smith and Suey Park and it was kinda amazing to have these pretty well known people talking to us, and I was low key fan-girling. Good thing I took notes because I wouldn't be able to remember anything =.= super long day. From this workshop I learned more about the politics of inclusion and we need to develop an approach that doesn't primarily rely on the state because there's state violence so the answer isn't working with the state more but rather the community. 

The main point I got from this was about how we as organizers, though I shouldn't use general comments, sooo rather me I tend to have the attitude where if someone where to slip up I wouldn't be the most willing to hear them out after because I feel like the person didn't get the issue, which is unfair because not everyone has access to the language I'm using and like it's a sense of violence in itself so I really need to watch myself on that and like I shouldn't look out for people who make mistakes and think that they can't contribute to the space, which is kinda this individualistic American culture we live in...and I shouldn't be so short tempered and yea well not that I really yell at someone but I internally kinda give up on them if I feel I dont' want to really explain something, sooo instead I should be "calling people in" Which brings up a good point of if we didn't have this logic of banishment, what would accountability look like 

but then there's the other point where I don't need to be the person's source of education or their learning person, where they can just educate themselves and I shouldn't have to take on this and just move on or else it'll be the same convo over and over and I wouldn't get anywhere, not like I'm really talking about this really. 

not here to fulfill your neoliberal dreams 

and one thing I've been having trouble with is bringing this back home. I don't really know where I would even start, like how would I explain something like this to my sister, where she thinks if I ask her to not use the word "retarded" that I'm being overly sensitive, which btw is what the system wants everyone to believe not that feelings are bad or anything and like with my family, I don't have the language to even talk about these issues, I don't even know it that well in English welp 

Then we had Beau Sia as our keynote, which he also performed some of his poety for us later, it was awesome and he had amazing pants. I'll see if I can find some of his works online, though I doubt it since it's in a book?? idk 

Second workshop! "Anti-Blackness and Asian Americans" this was the one I was looking the most forward to and it didn't dissapoint. It was done by Dr. Jared Sexton and Dr. Claire Kim, both amazing professors at my school. One point that Dr. Kim brought up was the question that is API itself founded on Anti-black ideals and she argues as yes, and can one be Asian American without being Anti-black. We also went over some more works and the history of anti-blackness and the black/nonwhite color line. It was just super insightful and yea, even though this happened a few hours ago it gets blurry =.= I tried to take notes but it was so difficult/I was super tired by then 

Third Workshop! I went to the "Intersections of AAPI Greek and LGBT Experiences" because it wasn't super crowded and I saw my friend in there soooo. It was two AAPI males who identified as gay and in their intro they already told us that they were only going to speak on their experiences etc. What they said wasn't anything super ground breaking in my opinion, and one person kept on asking like what can Greeks do now and like the end goal and they didn't have super solid answers just that we need to work from within, and later after talking to one of them after I found out it was like a super small chapter they were talking about and how they were trying to do more workshops etc, but like 

it's going to be hard to work from within when the whole greek system itself was built on white supremacist ideals, which is like what i struggle with getting a whole of myself and who I am. Yeah I'm a part of the greek system and like half the time I don't like what the Greek system stands for because it's SOOO problematic and we need to be accountable and like it's just sooo bad like soooo bad but the other half of me is thinking about the community my sorority provided for me and all the different aspects it has done for me, and like I don't want to go into the thinking of oh it's not me, it's the OTHER bad Greeks and yea sure we're part of the Multicultural Greek Council and it's not as traditional we still are problematic and like..to solve something we don't just try to replicate it if that's the problem but of course when I did replicate it I wasn't aware of this knowledge i was still naiive so what do we do from here

originally AAPI Greeks were made because they were excluded and they needed a community and that they were a large portion where they did take political action, but can you even imagine if Greeks were to take a political action against anything now. but ehhh i guess for mine own experience we try to do all these different workshops and stuff but I know it's not sufficient and honestly once I graduate and no one is as strong about this as I am like it won't continue even the little progress we did make and it's going to just be kinda blehhh wheee multicultrialism and not really thinking critically about all this stuff so yeah idk 

it's always a difficult thing critically thinking about one's like...part of the super problematic system and like how to go from there is also kinda difficult to answer, along with everything else I do that's terrible 

and then it ended with Sumun Pendakur, she was AWESOME great ending and I'm glad I stayed the whole time, though it was running WAY later, but yeaaaaa and made me think about what I want to do in the future and how I would take my activism to whatever I'm doing, once I figure out what that is, not too sure what I would do 

WRITE??? my random thoughts, I wish I were more collected and knew how to form my thoughts better but it's there just like a slight disconnect from my mind to words