Don't talk to me about the "American Dream"

    When people bring up a tiresome anecdote about how their single mother worked hard, got a job, did night school and was able to obtain a good job or how their father rose through the ranks, explaining the prosperity they enjoy now I typically want to gag. Not because these stories aren't inspiring or heart warming. Mostly because these people typically end the story with a "and that's why the poor need to stop complaining" bit at the end. It's honestly the most disrespectful and ignorant statement to make. My parents are similar to all of these stories. Teenage drop outs, who worked hard and helped raise a family of currently 2 college students (one of them soon to be a college graduate) and the other still in high school. My father has a great drop with one of the most prestigious real estate companies in NYC and my mom has quickly worked her way from a gate agent to the administrative assistant of Terminal 5. The point is that their stories are pretty remarkable, yet I never heard my parents once take it as a sign that they were more deserving of success than anyone else. The reality is that often our success is a result of luck just as much as it a result of hard work. If you are under the delusion that people don't work hard enough, then think again. There is always someone out there who is working hard, if not harder than you are. Yet you're knowledge of what fields are growing or perhaps you happen to pick a company while they are expanding may have been the difference between you getting a great job and the other person remaining stagnant. Furthermore, for those of you who think that working through college entitles you the right to belittle those who cannot make it through college need to grow up. Working through college is difficult and I have so much respect for people who work tons of hours, but that doesn't make you better than those who don't work. Honestly, I can't stand it. I can't stand the hubris and I can't stand the fantasy people live in. Here's a hint for you all.

The American Dream is dead (it's always been dead)

The stories we like to tell ourselves at night  about the poor rising up the ranks are just anecdotes, which represent a minority of the population. While the majority of poor Americans struggle and see the window of opportunity sealed shut. The rich board these windows up with wood and then claim the hurricane known as recession, globalization, government and so on are keeping it closed. I think I know what's going on: old fashion greed. So if you want to argue with someone's socio economic plight by talking about your hard work or even worse (your parents), then shut it. I don't care and you're not helping anyone. 

Latino isn't hot blooded and Latino isn't exclusively seductive

Here is the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBIL2sdfoVc
     It's a TED talk called "The power of seduction in our everyday lives by Chen Lizra. The purpose of the talk is to recast seduction as a positive tool that can be used to improve one's own self confidence and one's ability to obtain their goals in life. I could just critique this talk based on how it shifts the focus from a communal view on the world to a selfish view on the world, but what flustered me more was how she portrayed Cuban culture in an exotic and superficial manner. One might say, "Raymond how do you know, you're not Cuban." Well Cuban culture, while definitely unique, has many ties with Puerto Rican culture and Latin culture in general. The description she gives of Cuba as a hub of self confidence where men "peck" at women with patriarchal dominance as women take the role of well intended succubi is one that glosses over the huge sexist structure that currently exists in Latin culture and also portrays women as being more than happy to engage in a clearly patriarchal system. To think that somewhere in an entire country there aren't women who are tired of men being incredibly forward about their desires to dominate them is ludicrous. This ridiculous conjecture is manifested in Lizra's description of Rumba, which comes off as an aggressive struggle rather than a graceful exchange. She depicts an illusion, where women are in control through the power of seduction, but notice that the woman in the dance is relegated to a passive role, where she serves as a lighthouse garnering ship, only to be reached by a boat that ravages her shore line. Whether this is true for rumba is beyond me, but I can tell you that dances like bachata, salsa, merengue, while all still male dominated (the man typically leads in these dances) aren't violent struggles for dominance, but instead expressions for a range of emotions.
   The reason the speaker is able to get away with this crap is because she has an accent and people are more than happy to accept an image of a Latin American country that indulges in hyper sexualization, feeding the stereotype that Latinos are just hopeless hot blooded romantics who can only express themselves in blunt and candid emotions. In the minds of everyone in that audience who believed her, Cuban women attract men with their flirtatious physical gestures and not their intelligence, kindness, wit, etc. Cuban men are alpha wolves who must convince the woman of his choice to be with him by being unyielding in his affection and his own sexual bravado. In her own words she described this as turning maybe's into yes. But there is an alternative to this that doesn't require this archaic macho courting process. Dating has for awhile given people the opportunity to get to know each other and mutually decide whether their maybe might be a yes or a no. One might argue seduction puts your foot in the door and that may be true, but in the world of the speaker seduction is the entire window of opportunity and you just need to use it to climb through it.
  Finally her explanation that Cubans are much nicer about body image is something I find equally dubious. Sure advertisement has been a source of body image problems in the world, but social expectations of body images still existed before advertisement was widespread and popular. If one thinks for a second that Cubans are accepting of all body types and images, then you are also exoticizing Cubans into some other worldly people. It sounds like that rhetor only heard what she wanted to hear from mothers and friends. Which makes sense she probably only engaged at the side of pools and other leisure areas. But I wonder what discussion she'd find in the middle of a mother combing her daughter's hair or them going out to buy a dress together. I suspect the conversation will not be a million "Que linda's".
    Latino culture is unique and complicated and I would never write a post saying "this is what Latino culture is", but I can certainly tell you what it isn't or at least when someone is removing its depth and instead providing a shallow cardboard cut out. Please stop it with the ongoing trope of Latinos being emotional and sexual deviants, who indulge without any restraint. Latino culture also doesn't have an unlimited well of self confidence, where everyone is ok with their bodies. Latino culture like most other cultures is Multi-faceted. 

Why most of the criticism levied against TFA is done to maintain the status quo

By Raymond Arroyo, Senior, University of Michigan, New York City Public School Student, Accepted TFA member NYC 2014

disclaimer: This is my personal blog and I do not speak for the Corps in any capacity. My opinions are only my own.

                Many people have a lot of valid criticisms of Teach For America. Many of these students are being implanted into neighborhoods they have basically no experience with (true in some sense). These students are just using it as resume padding (moot point in my opinion, but nonetheless true in some cases). And that many of these kids are just idealist who don't actually understand the gravity of the situation they are entering (very true). But among the most invalid criticisms are these two: TFA corps members are unprepared to teach and TFA corps members are taking jobs from actual teachers. The former is invalid because plenty of studies have shown that TFA corps members either do better than normal first year teachers (http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/publications/PDFs/Education/TFA_snapshot_9_2013.pdf) or do just as well (http://educationnext.org/what-you-should-know-about-tfa-and-the-value-of-experience-2/). So when people discuss how unprepared TFA corps members are, they are making a factually untrue statement. The fact of the matter is TFA corps members are being placed in the toughest schools with the students who need the most help. If someone expects teachers from even the best programs to do exceptionally well in these districts, then perhaps they are the naive one. Secondly, the claim that TFA corps members take the jobs of experienced teachers is partially false. It takes two to tango and the schools need to first get rid of veteran teachers for TFA corps members to "take their positions". Many argue TFA corps come at a cheaper price tag, thus explaining why schools are dumping veterans for TFA corp members. But this is an overly pessimistic view of the system, which doesn't even assign blame to TFA, it assigns blame to administrators. A perhaps more realistic picture is that budgets are being cut drastically due to the slow recovery, causing schools the need to dump veteran teachers who come at a higher price tag. To insinuate that schools simply want to save a buck is overly pessimistic. These schools might have to save a buck. The reason they are taking TFA members over young teachers is because TFA members are out performing these young teachers and are cheaper. 

          So now that I've disarmed some of the harshest criticism let's look at the purpose of TFA. It integrates very successful students from top universities into the education system. The idea is that most of these students are going to end up in other sectors: business, law, policy, engineering, etc., that determine many of the policy decisions and technologies afforded to education. However the massive disconnect between those in power and those working "in the trenches" was wide. Thus TFA provides a bridge, allowing a student who would normally just enter a lucrative job at wall street a chance to see how difficult things really are. The result is hopefully a life changing experience that turns the student into a TFA alum who is devoted to the fight for education equality. This trend doesn't mean that students just resume pad and then leave. Many TFA members stay on as teachers, many of the becoming administrators and opening up their own schools. 

        The valid criticism. Aside from ad hominems (i.e. TFA members are idealistic) there is some actual constructive criticism to be made about the program. First, TFA seems to be very focused on test based success, which some could argue maintains a system of standardizing testing that is outdated and ineffective. Furthermore, the culture gap is a real thing that can be argued to gentrify and culturally invade spaces for people of color and low SES. Also, the large partnership with charter schools also sends a jaded message, but charter schools like TFA are typically criticized with what I dub as "status quo maintenance". This sort of criticism will only argue against change and refuses to admit glaring issues with the status quo first. This approach makes no sense because policy changes take time for reform to get it right (e.g. the ACA), especially if policy changes are largely achieving their main goal such as programs like TFA. 

     In the end the criticism doesn't hold much water for grounds of boycotting the program similar to what this haughty Harvard student suggested in this biased article http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sandra-korn/why-i-said-no-to-teach-for-america_b_4151764.html. There are definitely changes that should be made to prevent TFA teachers from "replacing" veteran teachers, but that cannot come from the program itself, but from the government who needs to stop cutting budgets. Furthermore, we can see a trend in new policy and reform being resisted in almost all history. It doesn't surprise me that there is such harsh criticism being levied against TFA because TFA is actually trying to be bold. TFA rejects the culture of poverty and inserts a strong belief that kids can be taught and their recruits can teach them. A TFA member enters expecting to fight a war for their students and many of them do so successfully. I can't say anything for certain about my experience that's upcoming with TFA, but I do know I refuse to give up and to accept that my students can't learn till the very last day of the year. People might think this is arrogant talk but as someone who went through the public education system in NYC (which is where I will be teaching at), I think I have pretty good handle on how difficult and how bad things can get in schools.

Questions that should be asked about the status quo:
Why are veteran teachers who outperform all incoming teachers being dumped?
Why are TFA members outperforming incoming teachers with formal training?

Why when you think about it, you realize Elysium is idiotic

I hate lists, but I know most people won't read things unless it is a list, so to stoop down to the average medium of choice for college students, I decided to list this off.

1. Appropriation- There's a fine line between careful political allusion and out right appropriation. Elysium is the latter. Honestly, if anyone could say Matt Damon didn't look out of place, speaking spanish, living in a predominantly latina/black/people of color neighborhood, while also claiming the very same plight as the people around him, then you are buying into the color blind future the movie wants you to believe in. Also, the hot button they are clearly pushing on is "illegal" immigration, which is an issue predominantly faced by latinos. The main love interest is Latina. The best friend is Latino. In fact everyone in Matt Damon's world, who's on his side seems not to be white, so why on earth is Matt Damon white? And when I say white I don't simply mean skin color, I'm also asking why you couldn't get a light skin Latino to play the role. I mean if you're gonna white wash the cast that's the the least you can do. Some of you might be up in arms, crying out "why does it matter if he is Latino or not". Welp because immigration laws and policy in the United States is a very real issue for many Latinos. To see it shamelessly thrown into a movie for a predominantly non-Latino audience is kind of a jerk move. Also, if he doesn't seem out of place, then I think you might believe society is colorblind too.

Two clearly Latino men discussing the deets with Matt Damon

2. Technology Dues ex Machina hurts more than helps- 

The entire time the movie explains the disparity via cool technology and asshole robots. I mean there's even a machine that changes your atomic structure to cure cancer. The efficacy of these machines are astounding. They can comprehend verbal orders, carry out complex tasks and are physically and intelligently smarter. So if this is the case, then why do we see this?

Instead of having robots make robots, we'll just have humans do it for low wages

Honestly if technology is so advanced, then why don't they just have machines do most labor. Especially for something as technical as machine building. Yet you see Matt Damon work in the factory as if it were an assembly line... you know a rote action that could be easily taught to a machine. We could even have some human supervisors (oops I meant white human supervisors, because that's all we see in the movie). Did they expect me to believe that a society that has cured cancer and pretty much lives in complete lackadaisical bliss can't come up with a way to compensate for their poorer citizens? This is never addressed. The movie seems to just want you to believe that this is the new normal and if it isn't happening today, then it will soon. The issue is the technology doesn't align with the policy. 

3. We'll give you a bad white character, but we need to distinguish him- Did you notice that the main bad guy has a bit of an accent (unsure if it is Irish or Scottish, but I guarantee you it doesn't sound English. This just continues the racial stratification. You have the latino/people of color community at the bottom rung of importance. Then you have the clearly ethinically distinguished baddie enter into the fray. With Matt Damon as the White anglo saxon savior to save the day. 

Verdict: Elysium is fun to watch, but if you're sensitive to this kind of stuff, you might think it's a bit dumb. 

The badge of inferiority known as Affirmative Action

                  Affirmative action is the tool of much of society to undermine the achievements of many minority students on campus. Often times when a minority is successful or if their presence is even acknowledged in an institution of higher learning, people can't help but bring up affirmative action. It's funny because people say minorities would stop being tokenized if affirmative action didn't exist. While I find that to be unlikely, my rebuttal to that is "why does the minority need to be tokenized in the first place." Implicit in the statement that minorities wouldn't be tokenized if affirmative action didn't exist is that every minority didn't earn their way into the University. You can even make this a weaker statement, but at the very least for their rationale to be solid you must think a considerable amount of minorities or at least a simple majority of minorities got into their institutions (we can assume minorities in top institutions, if that makes the conversation more amicable towards naysayers) because of their race/gender. This is an unfair assumption. Regardless of what your opinion of affirmative action is, it does not give anyone the right to decide which minorities deserve to be at an institution and which don't. To even engage in that kind of behavior is despicable.
                But Affirmative action is being employed in a more subtle way. It's being used to hijack conversations concerning minorities. This can be seen in the #BBUM thread, where articles concerning the twitter trend are riddled with affirmative action debates. These debates are not the message of #BBUM, but when we discuss only affirmative action on their pages (which is what tends to happen when affirmative action is brought up) a multitude of experiences are lost due to the selfish tendencies of a few individuals. Why is affirmative action the favorite talking point of many white and asian students? The discussion of affirmative action typically reinforces notions of white superiority and asian superiority over other groups such as black and latino students. Constantly the message that is given is that blacks and latinos are lazy individuals, who don't work hard enough, which is why they don't get into top universities. It is masked behind fake good intentions such as arguing that getting rid of affirmative action would help black students, it won't (as evidenced by current statistics of black enrollment here at the University). People will claim it will end the tokenizing of minorities. Unfortunately they don't realize that minorities aren't tokenized by affirmative action, but by people. People assume minorities couldn't get into their universities without the help of affirmative action and treat the program as poison that taints even the brightest of minorities. Instead people could stop passing judgement all together and only judge minorities based on the merit of their actions, but that is a foreign concept for individuals who want to feel like they've been cheated in the world.
        I'm not saying we shouldn't discuss affirmative action. I'm just saying that we need to stop bringing up affirmative action where it is not warranted. If a student of color brings up affirmative action in a value based framework (i.e. affirmative action is good or bad), then feel free to engage in a conversation about your thoughts. If you want to discuss affirmative action on your personal site or publication, go ahead, knock yourself out. But if affirmative action is mentioned in passing or as a historical context for some larger point, then you only serve to make the conversation about you when you decide to prattle on about affirmative action. Minorities don't have time to argue affirmative action every time someone decides they want to discuss it. Some minorities don't even care about the program. The point is that when people bring up affirmative action in contexts that have very little to do with it (or where affirmative action is one of many points being discussed) they typically only do so to degrade the minority they are talking to or to make the conversation about their needs, rather than the minority's needs. It's selfish and childish. Please stop. 

White allies exist

            BBUM# is trending and race conversations are beginning to bud everywhere. The response from many non-black students: feelings of isolation, rejection and unfair criticism. Regardless, there are some non-black students, specifically white (other non-black allies exist, this post just speaks specifically to white allyhood), who have respected and listened to what black students on campus are saying. However, this has brought back murmurs concerning the genuine nature of white allies. In the minds of many minorities, white allies are fraudulent and unable to ever be there for minority students. These murmurs need to stop.
           I cannot speak for all minorities. Hell, I can't speak for all Latinos. All I know is that I don't see an end game in an isolationist mentality. I don't see a possible world where we excise the White in our life. Nor do I ever want to see that kind of world. White can be a beautiful shade and while that goes without saying (White typically is considered to be beautiful), to think that we don't lose anything meaningful by denying white experiences in our lives is a bit short sighted in my opinion. The opportunity cost is high when we allow the majority of the unchecked white privilege flood into our lives, but our allies don't do that. Our allies are mindful of their privilege and work hard to learn more each and everyday, just as we work hard to learn each and everyday. Our allies understand the distance, but don't let the distance prevent them from engaging with us holistically. Our allies don't only see black, but aren't color blind. Our allies sing with us, dance with us, cherish us, live with us, love us. We are apart of their lives and they are apart of our community. They aren't Latino to be sure, but they aren't complete strangers. If you wish to take the route of nationalistic hubris, where you section yourself away from constructions of whiteness in general and as a result regrettably disassociate yourself with many white allies, then that's your prerogative. But I believe that to fight inequality and to build a better society we should make no compromises. This means my white friends won't be necessary causalities in my struggle against oppression.  

A Minority politic and the rejection of Neo-liberalist co-option

                       The term minority is a problematic one because it typically refers to all who aren't white male heterosexual, Protestant. However minority in the way I'm going to employ it, is going to refer only to racial differences. So a minority in the sense of this article is essentially only someone who isn't white. White is another term that's problematic because white can mean a whole host of things. Perhaps we can designate according to skin color or using heritage. For the matter of this article I will not construct some prerequisite. If you don't consider yourself white, then that's good enough for me. I feel that most minorities don't openly state they are white because it's a falsehood. White culture and white people don't have ties to them, except for that of the oppressor. Forcing them to take on that identity for the sake of their skin color would be inappropriate.
                     But the term minority even in a racial sense is a problematic term. Minorities do not coalesce well politically, making the "minority agenda" a complete fantasy in terms of actual political capital. Instead we often operate within our own particular racial groups (i.e. latinos, blacks, asians, etc). These political groups have an easier time realizing policy goals and demands, then the blanket bloc "minority". I am here to suggest a few things that will make the minority coalition much more tangible and also to warn minorities about the threat of white Neo-liberalist co-option.
                     Neo-liberalist go under many names. Typically they'll regard themselves as "bi-partisans" or even try to approach minorities through an age group such as "millennials". Neo-liberalist are the bastion of moderate politics, which will never recognize true racial difference. The Neo-liberalist agenda is one that subordinates the minority, especially people of color, for the sake of compromises that in the end help whites disproportionately more. The Neo-liberalist only acts in tandem with the minority when it benefits them, which is why their policy goals typically have huge economic pay-offs attached to them. I'm not asking to reject the policy goals of the Neo-liberalist. Instead I'm asking for a rejection of their coalition as one that we can be apart of. We cannot ever share with their political coalition because they are blind to how their coalition is still dictated by white leaders and white voices. Furthermore, no amount of token minority leaders within the group will change the fact that normative policy goals are oriented with whites in mind. It's not that they are brainwashed into believing a white normalcy is normal, it's that we are all brainwashed into believing that white normalcy is normal.
                    When we reject the white normative framework, we become self aware of how we were being duped and are allowed to make policy that is truly in our own best interest. But as I stated before, minorities don't coalesce. This is because most coalitions work within an affirmative framework. Most coalitions work within the context of what they want, not what they don't want. Latino's typically emphasize immigration legislation, while African Americans argue for structural changes concerning their neighborhoods. In an affirmative framework we have different policy goals, which leads us to not realize any particular policy suggestions as a minority bloc. However, if we move to a negative framework, then it becomes possible for us to collude and make unilateral demands. This comes via a "if it happens to them, then it can happen to me rationale". Policies like stop and frisk are damaging because they unfairly target minorities, specifically people of color. Once this is allowed, then the bar for what is unacceptable is moved and can easily move further. While I'm not suggesting that we will return to the days of Jim Crow, where cops had the social backing to call out people of color with loud voices (now they just do it with whispers and ambiguous language), I am suggesting that the problem will only become more pervasive. We can agree that disproportionate application of laws are also bad (e.g. drug sentencing laws). These are all issues as minorities we can put our foot down and make demands to end.
                 Our racial coalitions will compete from time to time (e.g. affirmative action is typically supported by African Americans and Latinos, but not by some Asians). That's fine. The political process is supposed to be one of competition. However, we cannot allow competition be the wedge for a Neo-liberalist co-option. A Neo-liberalist agenda would probably take the policy goals of a certain group and herald it as their own in order to break the impermeable minority bloc. For example, making affirmative action so that it's based completely on income. This will seem like it will take away stigma from Asians, when in actuality it will only serve to allow poor whites to be allowed into University at a much higher rate. The Neo-liberalist bloc isn't a conniving bloc that aims to hurt minority goals. If that's the characterization you're getting then you fail to recognize that the normative policy goals of white culture are inherently at odds with that of people of color. They are inherently appropriating and subordinating.
              Minority blocs will serve us well in the coming years as the political capital of the country shifts from a white majority to a minority majority. It's time we create a political group sophisticated enough to represent our goals, while not accidentally undermining our own goals by supporting a white Neo-liberalist agenda. Our individual coalitions can bicker and compete, but not at the expense of our group as a whole. Until we've dismantled the normative white super structure, the minority voter must be vigilant and cast their ballet only when they have a clear shot at equality.