About Taz

Taz is an activist, organizer and writer based in California. She is the founder of South Asian American Voting Youth (SAAVY), curates MutinousMindState.tumblr.com and blogs at TazzyStar.blogspot.com. Follow her at twitter.com/tazzystar

Clarke & Goyle: Two Wins Closer to Congress

Last night there was a flurry of activity on the Sepia Mutiny tip line as two Desi candidates won victories in the their Democratic primary election.

Hansen Clarke Wins.jpgHansen Clarke, a fellow Bangladeshi-American (yay!) hailing from Detroit beat out incumbent U.S. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick in a controversial bid for Michigan’s 13th Congressional District. We’ve written about Hansen in the past here, and it’s safe to say that his victory yesterday in a largely Democratic district has secured his Congressional seat on November 2nd’s Election Day.

Michigan Democratic Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick became the sixth incumbent to lose re-election in a primary fight this year when State Sen. Hansen Clarke ousted the seven-term congresswoman 47%-41% on Tuesday.

“The baggage we’re getting rid of is the old political culture in Detroit which is about the politician being entitled to the perks of the office rather than being committed to serving the people,” Clarke said, according to the Detroit News… [wsj]

Raj Goyle Wins.jpgDown to the South of Michigan in the great state of Kansas, Raj Goyle of Witchita won his Democratic primary for the 4th Congressional District.

Goyle, who easily handled underfunded challenger Robert Tillman, drew repeated applause from the standing-room only crowd at his victory party when he vowed to work to end tax subsidies that help corporations outsource American jobs overseas…He also drew loud applause when he promised to hold Wall Street bankers accountable for their actions that plunged the nation into recession. [witchitaeagles]

As a Democrat running for a seat in a predominantly conservative district, it’s easy to assume that Raj Goyle is an underdog. But amid increasingly-negative campaigns run by the Republican candidates, Goyle is in excellent shape ahead of an almost uncontested primary. [kansan]

Congratulations on well fought elections. Here’s to another three months of battle till November 2nd. I’m really looking forward to doing Congressional visits now. Continue reading

M.I.A.: Mommy In Affluence

Oh M.I.A…. How we loved you at The Mutiny when you first came out, hustlin’ like a brown around town. Only five years later…. how far you’ve fallen. (h/t Ateqah)

This video was hilarious while being oddly depressing. It echoes with truths. The actress in it is Lindy Jamil Gomez, a Spanish-Lebanese comedian out of N.Y.C. I hope she’s prepared to get a sternly worded tweet from M.I.A.’s wrath. M.I.A., I still love you tho! I’ll keep buyin’ your music! Um, unless I can get it online for free….you know…! Continue reading

Aisee Taisee Out of Nowhere

This gem was buried in my twitter feed right before bedtime and was too good not to share immediately. Found, of course, through the tweet worthy Manish.

With a west coast sound and a music video on my favorite skating beach, I’m super surprised I haven’t heard of this cat before. Turns out his home base is the Bay Area and he went to SF State, which figures with Bay-ish lyrics like those. His name is Mandeep Sethi, and the above track was produced by Sikh Knowledge. I am diggin’ how in a world of hip-hop pseudonyms, Mandeep Sethi is keeping it real with his name. He’s keeping it real in other ways too.

Representing San Francisco Universal Zulu Nation as well as the global Hip-Hop scene, Mandeep Sethi is a young yet seasoned emcee/DJ from that has shown and proven his ability to rhyme and freestyle with the best. An Afrika Bambaataa appointed member of Zulu Nation, Mandeep was raised by the 5 elements of hip-hop: emceeing, djing, breakdancing, graffiti, and KNOWLEDGE. For Sethi, the microphone represents a catalyst of change, rhyming about social consciousness as well as cultural awarenesss while remaining true to the undefinable essence of hip hop’s versatility. [vivalahiphop]

Follow his twitter @mandeepsethi to get some of that knowledge. Check out the rest of his music too – you can download his latest digital EP The World’s Gone Mad for free (or for a donation.)

<a href="http://mandeepsethi.bandcamp.com/album/the-worlds-gone-mad">Illusion [produced by Povan Beats] by Mandeep Sethi</a>

Here’s an Ultrabrown post on Mandeep. Good find, Vij. I feel like I’m hella late to the game and need to catch up. All the rest of you, what do you think? Continue reading

Not That Kind of Brown

Way to set yourself apart from the pack, Uncle-ji.

Vijay Kumar.jpg

Just in case it wasn’t clear from the billboard, Vijay Kumar may be brown, but he’s not one of those other kinds of brown people. Don’t get confused, Tennesseans. He’s just like you. But not me.

vijay kumar 2.gif Vijay Kumar is one of eleven Republican Congressional candidates running for office in Nashville, TN (5th District). The primary elections are coming up soon, August 5th. From his site:

Vijay was born in 1954 in Hyderabad, India, to a conservative middle class family…. In 1979, Vijay emigrated to the United States because he felt uplifted by the values and possibilities inherent in the American way of life. In 1983, Vijay married Robin Minix, a native of Bowling Green, Kentucky. In keeping with his conservative family values, Vijay and Robin have been married for twenty-seven years. The Kumar family attends Bellevue Community Church in Nashville, Tennessee.[kumarforcongress]

So he’s an immigrant, he married a local, and he converted. Ok, fine, just like almost every other candidate we’ve blogged about here. But the kicker is just how much the “Islamization of America” is a part of his campaign. He talks about “Universal Jihad” “The Islamist Challenge” and “Sharia Law” on his site. He states he doesn’t believe there is an “Indian-Pakistani problem… just a universal jihadist problem.” He further expounds by basically saying that being Muslim and being American are inherently antithetical and for the sake of the American Constitution we need to get rid of people that follow the Quran. You can’t make this kind of political messaging narrative up. He says some other hateful anti-Muslim rhetoric on his site, but I don’t want to give him more blog space here on Sepia Mutiny than I have to. But you get my point. Continue reading

It’s That Time Again: 2010 Candidate Profiles

voting_booth.gif In three months, the nation will be heading to the polls to vote on congressional, gubernatorial, and local candidates. For the first time, we will have the chance to vote for more South Asian American candidates than we have ever had before. No longer will it just be Dalip Singh Saund and Bobby Jindal that have roamed the Congressional halls, there is a good chance that there will be another Desi to join the ranks. I like to call it the Obama-effect; all of a sudden there are younger, more diverse faces that are taking the electoral chance and running for office.

We’ve always blogged about candidates during election season here at Sepia Mutiny. But this year, in the vein of creating voter guides, we’d like to the candidate profiles on each candidate using the same criteria for each candidate. The 2010 Candidate Profile will have questions that we submit to all of the candidates and we will blog their response. Hopefully, we will also be able to get the candidates to respond to questions posted in the comment thread.

These are the candidates that I know that are potentially going to be on the ballots on November 2, 2010.

It’s a long list, but I’d like to know if there are there other candidates that we are missing. Is there anyone running for a local race, such as city council, county or state races? Anyone else we should keep on our radar? Link to them in the comments.

Also, do you have a particular question you would like for us to ask all the candidates? Write it up in the comments and we will take it into consideration as well. Continue reading

Desi Say What?!

From the folks at Cherry Sky Films, here is a video for you. There’s a cameo at the end by a Desi (Neil Sehgal) (h/t to Salil).

Cringe-worthy, no doubt, this short video reflects an inter-racial sub group struggle in self-identity versus external community identity monikers. In other words, the use of the word “nigger”. I thought the video was smart in that their use of the word “ninja” as replacement word and Asians as the replacement community really shifted the perception of the use of the “N word.” Plus, the video was hella funny.

What I loved most is when a brown kid saunters up on the basketball court to a group of Asian dudes and says, “What’s up my Ninjas!” The guys look like they are confused as to whether to accept him or not. But after a quick look to each other, they give him the bro-man hug and you hear “It counts.” As a South Asian, he may not be accepted immediately, but he can be accepted into the “in” group since South Asia is kind of Asian, if you stopped to think about it. Marginalized, a little bit, he can be accepted in the end. It was a simple interaction, but reflective so much of society’s deeper of inter-racial issues I’ve seen in the Desi meets East Asian communities.

As an activist in the Asian American and Pacific Islander movement, this attitude is something I see often, though a lot less brash and satirical as seen in the video. The South Asian community is often accepted into these AAPI space as an after thought, or even worse, as a token. Continue reading

Boney M, Kutty-fied.

I’m not one to really open the FW-ed e-mails, but I got this in my inbox this week and couldn’t wait for the next #MusicMonday to share. I realize as far as memes go, this may be a little outdated, but funny desi-fied music video covers are timeless (h/t Zaida).

Lola Kutty, the bespectacled woman in the front, is a VJ on Channel [V] and the alter ego to Anuradha Menon. Ultrabrown linked to some kitschy posters of Lola Kutty back in ’07. I’m surprised I hadn’t heard of Lola sooner. Then again, maybe there’s a little part of Lola Kutty that exists within all of us and I’ve always known her.

Lola Kutty is a bespectacled Keralite lady who speaks English with a heavy Malayali accent. Unlike other VJs, she has curly oily hair sporting a gajra and wears silk saris. Unlike Jassi of Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahin, Lola has no plans for a makeover[3]. She is a huge fan of Abhishek Bachchan[9]. Her assistant is Shiny Alex, who wears fluorescent shirts, matching slippers, and mundu folded up. [wiki]

And of course, Boney M needs no introduction. Right? Riiiight? Continue reading

But Is It Racist?

There is a mutiny afoot in the Sepia Mutiny bunker. About half of us think that Joel Stein’s piece published in Time on Edison NJ was ill-humored garbage. The other half thinks it’s RACIST ill-humored garbage. I’m of the camp that thinks it’s racist. In the past few days the Desi blogosphere, twitterverse and facebookdom have been in uproar over this piece but what I find the most striking is the debate – “Is it or isn’t it racist?” What is it about the “R” word that makes us recoil and run to words like “stereotype” “bigot” or “xenophobic”? Why are we scared to call things racist?

I thought the article “My Own Private India” was racist – but then again, I come at things from a Critical Race Theory perspective where racialization is an inherent part of our history and narrative. It permeates through every aspect of living in the U.S., whether in how public policies and laws are implemented, healthcare is accessed or in a simple Time satire article. I think a lot of things are racist, more so than the average brown person, whether it be internalized, institutional or blatant. I think implicit biases are real, and people can be racist without intentionally doing so.

But instead of dissecting the Stein piece again, I wanted to highlight another racially controversial piece in the news. Today is the official premier of the M. Night Shyamalan movie The Last Airbender. The movie is based on the Nickelodeon anime-styled cartoon series “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” which is a cartoon heavily influenced by East Asian philosophies, there’s martial arts in it, and the cartoons are brownish Asian looking kids. But the controversy has been around the casting process of the movie. White kids were cast as the main three roles, and the evil people? Why they were cast as the Desis: Dev Patel (as Prince Zuko), Summer Bishil (Princess Azula), Aasif Mandvi (Commander Zhao) and Persian actor Shaun Toub (Uncle Iroh). Question is, is it racist?

Floating World had a fantastic piece on their blog about the history of face painting in the industry, and the use of white people in the entertainment industry to play people of color.

…”The Last Airbender” offends even more [than “Prince of Persia”] with its casting of newcomer/lesser known White actors over equivalent Asian actors to portray its starring Asian characters. The marketing reasons attached to famous actors does not apply here; instead, the marketing assumption is that White actors are more “capable” than Asian actors for pulling in viewers, with a possible secondary assumption in their “superiority” in acting abilities. This overarching assumption is the basis for an institutionalized racism innate to Hollywood’s long, long history of ethnic narratives. [floatingworld]

Continue reading

Free Summer Music Monday

With news that King Khan’s band has broken up, I understand if your Alterno-Desi musical heart is a little crushed. Never to fear, Sunny Ali and the Kid have just dropped their first EP with enough songs to heal the pain away. You can download the full album for “pay what you can”. Or free. Your choice.

<a href="http://sunnyaliandthekid.bandcamp.com/album/try-harder-ep">Try harder by Sunny Ali &amp; the Kid</a>

This Philidelphia based low-fi-cowboy punk duo of Hassan Ali Malik (that would be Sunny) and Abdullah Saeed (aka “The Kid” aka The Pork Adventurer) have just released their first EP, Try Harder. The band is relatively new having just started late last year but they already have a strong following. The EP has a fresh sound, reminding me of Texan deserts and dusty mirages. Recorded in a tiny 10×10 room on a “crappy program,” the album has a certain raw quality – but they guys are excited to share their music. You can check out my Q & A with the band a few months back on the Taqwacore Webzine.

What is odd to me is how this band is using a “pay what you can” model of distributing this album. Radiohead did this in 2007 when they ended their contract with EMI label. The idea is that even though most people will download the album for free there will be hardcore fans out there that will make a contribution to the band because they are invested. Takes costs benefits analysis to a whole new level. In Sunny Ali & The Kid’s case, people have been making donations for the album and the band has been fully appreciative.

Sunny Ali and the Kid aren’t the only ones dropping entire albums online for free. The Das Racist mixtape Shut Up, Dude can be downloaded off of their MySpace page entirely for free. Ridiculously surprising that after all their internet fame, their music is still not available on iTunes. You can download the album at this link if you haven’t yet.

A couple of weeks ago, another band also just dropped their new EP online for free, The Kominas. You can download mp3s off their album Escape to Blackout Beach for free OR for $7. I’m still confused as to what the $7 fee gets you, but I guess the hardcore musicians understand the differences in formats that the $7 gets you. Continue reading

Desi Pride

SALGA Roopa Singh 2.jpg

This Sunday marks the 41st Anniversary of the Gay Pride March in NYC. With rainbow flags waving, the streets of NYC will be covered with people taking it to the streets. And unlike the 2009 Indian Independence Day parade in NYC where queer desi activist groups like SALGA where denied from partaking, Desis this weekend will be marching.The SALGA float will have Bollywood music, of course.

NYC based pop cultural aficionado Rohin Guha had this to say about the duality of being queer and desi.

I’ve always been fascinated by the strange overlap between Indian and gay cultures. They’re like spurned aunts at a cousin’s wedding, each giving the other the iciest cold-shoulder. But once in a while, they might thaw enough to cast a wary side-eye to one another. And then they’ll return to ignoring each other.[thisisfyf]

Rohin goes on to write about this unlikely “fusion” via this Spice Girls video that he ended up watching with his parents as a kid.

But, when the Spice Girls–dressed in saris and salwars–stormed the stage on auto-rickshaws: Epiphany! It wasn’t an explicit epiphany, though. This performance of the Spice Girls lip-synching “Wannabe” simply made clear that my coming of age wasn’t going to be as neat as a joint effort co-written by Jhumpa Lahiri and David Sedaris might be.

[T]his is one of the earliest instances I can recall of my two identities being able to put aside their differences and play nicely. [thisisfyf] Continue reading