Resistance II: Art as Resistance

Dear Young Man of Color - Fong Tran

Dear Young Man of Color,

I want to say that I’m sorry

I’m sorry because statistically speaking….

you will become a statistic

that numbers about you and your kind

will run off

like the dates, names, numbers, and descriptions

of newspaper Obituaries

Latino males 10-24

19 times more likely to be murdered than White counterparts

2.1 million inmates in prison

41.1% of them are African Americans

39.6% of Southeast Asian Males drop out of high school

You will be America’s most wanted

because you will be America’s most hated stereotype

Thug, Thief, Delinquent,

murderer, criminal, hoodlum, Ex-con, Etc.

you will be every policemen’s profile description

They will use everything about you, against you

first it was the eugenics and they said it was in your genes

then they blamed the hip-hop culture and not the crack dope fiends

but the music, it was to liberate us

Then they took control of it

now all it does is break our trust

man, we used to believe in it

then Miley Cyrus appropriated everything

and just started twerking on it

And you’re probably thinking

What does this Asian guy know

Why is this model minority

telling us about oppression

but trust me when I say

there has been nothing model about my life

Aside from the section 8 housing that family was put in,

Welfare checks and food stamps

Became my family’s helicopter-dropped foreign aid

And trust me when I say

that there is nothing more gangsta

than having parents that hustle loaves of bread

in destitute Filipino refugee camps

Funny enough poverty doesn’t discriminate

But they still try to pit us against each other

They force us to play this oppression Olympics

but this stuff, this stuff is more like the hunger games

and people are looking to assassinate you

that even though you bear the historical scars of slavery

and messed up immigrant policy

you will be hunted down

they will be coming in packs

and you struggle with minimum wage rags just to hold back the bleeding

they will be coming like the angry villagers

and you will be their needle in their haystacks

And the prison industrial complex is the testament

Of how they will burn the whole house just to get to you

I wish the school to prison pipeline was just a scary metaphor

But unfortunately it is our reality

Our new Jim Crow

Our Internment camps

Our sanction, deportation

Our militarized Ferguson

But you are destined beyond the statistics that bind you down

It is all a machine made to hide your greatness

You, we will be resilient

And we will overcome

And even though everything will be against us

We are exactly what this world needs

'Cause you see, they put us behind bars

just so we wouldn’t raise it

let me make it clear

That we started from the bottom

But we weren’t given bootstraps

So we’re coming up on our own here

you must be the unexpected

the underdog

the unforeseen

the unruly

We will break the molds

Shake statistical status quo,

deconstruct the powers that be

And even though we’ve had way too many innocent fallen soldiers

like Trayvon Martin, Fong Le, Andy Lopez, Mike Brown

You will follow the blood lines and legacy of

Cesar Chavez, Richard Aoki, and Nelson Mandela

And just like them, you will be a champion,

You will not let this world change you

You will change this world

Sincerely,

Brother from another Mother