Channing Kennedy

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Here’s a video that I produced back in 2010 with Mou Khan, for SAALT’s An America For All Of Us campaign. SAALT’s been using it for trainings for a while, and just posted it to Youtube. It’s about how South Asian, Muslim, Arab and Sikh communities have been affected by post-9/11 laws and attitudes; we hit four different cities and interviewed something like 17 people from as many organizations. I talked to DRUM’s Monami Maulik again in April for a Colorlines piece about the end of NSEERS, a jaw-droppingly racist program that led to mass deportations and the economic collapse of a lot of Arab and South Asian neighborhoods.

My big takeaway from working on this project (which shouldn’t have been that surprising, but you know) is how similarly the system works in any community of color, in Queens and in Bushwick and in Chinatown and in Arizona and in Navajo Nation. I know, intellectually, that the government’s racially biased immigration/anti-terror/stop-and-frisk laws laws are keeping communities of color poor, and it’s that poverty keeps them vulnerable to such laws. But realizing how this is happening with literally every non-white group in America, without exception, was an oh-shit-duh moment that I value.

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When I testified before Congress against the AETA in 2006, one of the primary concerns I raised is that the law could be used to wrap up a wide range of activity that threatens corporate profits. Supporters of the AETA have repeatedly denied this, and said the law will only be used against people who do things like burn buildings.

So how do we explain that such a sweeping prosecution was being considered in 2003, under the law’s somewhat-narrower precursor?

One possibility is that FBI agents lack training, education, and oversight. They are spying on political activists without understanding or respecting the law.

Another explanation is that this document is no mistake, nor is it an isolated case. It is a reflection of a coordinated campaign to target animal rights activists who, as the FBI agent notes, cause “economic loss” to corporations.

FBI Says Activists Who Investigate Factor Farms Can Be Prosecuted as Terrorists, Will Potter.

First they came for the vegans… 

(via susie-c)

Susie, you should post your old comic of how to spot the undercover agent in your environmental activist organization. (Spoiler: his potluck contribution is a block of tofu on a plate)

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‘Yo, Is This Racist?’ Andrew Ti’s Tumblr Has Your (Hilarious) Answer - COLORLINES

asiansnotstudying:

“”What I would like to have, the resource that seems most needed based on the questions in general and the hatemail from indignant white people,” says Ti, “is just an examination of white privilege, and of all privilege in America. That’s what I try to bring to the table, without being too serious about it: an examination of privilege. Because at the end of the day, I’m making jokes and making fun of people, and if that sting of embarrassment can make one in a hundred people think, ‘why is that? Why do I feel this way?’ That’s what I can bring.”

I wrote Colorlines’ first feature of 2012, and it’s already getting blown up on Asians Not Studying! This year is going great. If you need an extra reason to click through, I also made the accompanying Photoshop collage of Andrew surrounded by questionably racist objects.

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lorenzoforspiritualreasons:

I don’t know what to say about this…  you’ll just have to see it I guess

“5 minutes of my life vanished without I even notice it. No regrets, my ears ask for more x).” — MyHonorQuest

“Every fucking song I hear…is just nuts, it takes me to another plane no music has ever done!!!!” — Ultradeth5

(via lorenzoforspiritualreasons-deac)