Our Liberation Is Tied Together

(Originally Published on The Gran Varones Website on Jan 2015)

 

In my 23 years of life, never did I imagine living in such historic times in this country. In fact, where I find myself is smack dab in the middle of a social justice movement, surrounded by friends, family, and people who are part of these historic events with me and our community.Let’s start with the events of November 20th, 2014. On this day, President Barack Obama made, what could be considered by some, the biggest announcement on immigration issues in the U.S. since Ronald Reagan gave amnesty back in 1986. That evening I was with my community in South Philadelphia at a local taqueria waiting for the President to make his long awaited announcement. I emphasize “long awaited” because this was something he promised my community, the immigrant community, during his first term as President. Going into this moment, I knew that the most optimistic estimates said only about half of my community would be able to benefit from whatever was to be announced and the rest would be left with nothing, potentially being driven further into the shadows. I was prepared for this. I was prepared for balancing the extreme feelings of joy and pain that would be coming from my community, those directly affected by the presidential announcement. And my preparation was warranted, because once again we were labeled as those who are deserving and those who are not. We were divided and categorized by a system that time and time again has done everything in its power to force us to throw each other under the bus when reform is enacted.

Flash forward to the events of November 24th 2014, just four days after Obama’s Executive Action on immigration. A grand jury in Ferguson, MO came to the long awaited decision of not indicting Officer Darren Wilson. Here I say “long awaited” because it took over 100 days for the community to get a response to the shooting subsequent murder of 18 year old Michael Brown back in August of this year. First let me say that my heart goes out to the friends and family of Michael Brown, I am sorry that there is no justice in the murder of your son and loved one. I am sorry that it took so long to even get to this point, and I’m sorry that we have to live in a system that allowed this to happen. I am appalled, pissed off and saddened that once again Black America has been told that their lives do not matter. People are out marching and protesting not only because of Mike Brown, but because of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Vonderrit Myers Jr, Yvette Smith, Eleanor Bumpurs, Tarika Wilson and countless other Black lives who don’t matter in the eyes of the judicial system.

I see them as two symptoms of a long afflicting system that criminalizes, demonizes, profits from, and destroys communities of color in the U.S. The system that divides and criminalizes immigrant communities is the same system that makes it ok for Black lives to be devalued and taken without any consequence. We are talking about a system that got it’s start when Native Americans were raped and pillaged as their lands were being colonized. We are talking about a system that was built on the enslavement of African people taken from their land and homes, and brought here to be put in chains to cultivate land to bring profit to their oppressors. We are talking about a system that made it possible for our very own government to incarcerate Japanese American children, families, and babies in internment camps under the guise of “public safety”. We are talking about a system that has dehumanized LGBTQ communities, and a system that has exploited migrant labor for centuries and refuses to acknowledge that immigrants are forced to come here because of US militarism and US economic imperialism. We are talking about a system that for years has looked at our communities and told us how we must act and behave in order to be considered “worthy” of being able to live without fear. This system has pitted us against one another and divided us so that we are made to think that we are each other’s enemies. This system has intentionally practiced destroying our collective liberation movement by dividing us.

It is because of all of this that I call out to you who are reading this, all of you who are pissed off, all of you who are sick and tired of injustices. I call out to you to cast aside the labels and the categories that have been placed on us. I call out to you to march, rally, protest, organize and fight back as a community. All of our fights are connected and are symptoms of an infectious system that has been plaguing us for far too long.

So I want you to rally, I want you to protest. I want you to be angry but I want you to be safe, I want us to be safe as familia. I want us to come together and look out for one another in solidarity.

To the immigrant community, in particular the Latino-immigrant community that I myself am a part of, we must stand together with the people of Ferguson and with Black communities everywhere. We must recognize that racism exists within our community and that anti-Blackness is a real thing, but we can not change it until we address it. During these times we cannot afford to be divided any longer. Our liberation is tied together, but the process towards liberation is recognizing when and how we must show up for each other as allies.

Remember that “an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

 

 

Is there room for “Feminism” in Video Games?

I love video games. Ever since I was little there has always been a video game system in my life from an atari to a PS4 & WiiU. I’ve always loved playing games, imagining that I was the guy shooting everything in Contra, or that I was doing all the acrobatic moves that Ryu did in Ninja Gaiden or that I was in the party with Cloud as we went on a quest to save the world from Sephiroth.  I’ve always loved feeling fully immersed in the story and action of a game and I always had an avatar that made that possible for me. I didn’t know it as a child, but I was privileged in the fact that most video game characters catered to my gender identity. There are men everywhere when it comes to video games and as a shy nerdy boy it wasn’t really hard for me to find the video game characters out there that I embraced and identified with.

As I got older I started to see that there were a lot of different parts of me that weren’t necessarily being shown in my preferred art medium. I wasn’t seeing a lot of Latino lead characters in video games, I wasn’t seeing a lot of Gay lead characters, I wasn’t seeing a lot of non-macho muscled up male lead characters in games and that was annoying and frustrating. But I was still seeing a lot of Male lead characters in games. Even if I wasn’t being fully represented, I could grasp at what was there and could find some content in that. Now you may be wondering why it’s a big deal that lead characters in games aren’t full representative of all the many facets that make up my identity. Well….it’s because I’m human, and I like seeing people that look like me in the media that I consume. When I see Latino Gay Males portrayed in a positive light I feel like society kinda values me. I definitely don’t gain all my self worth from media portrayals, but it does feel really good when it happens, and we all like to feel good don’t we?

So let me name off 10 strong positive male lead characters in video games, im not gonna google them. Just off the top of my head. Ready….GO!
Mario, Link, Fox, Cloud, Ryu, Pacman, Sonic, Megaman, Donkey Kong, Ezio
That was kinda easy, 10 male lead characters without even thinking and the list goes on.

Now let’s talk about Female lead characters in video games (Why? Remember that thing I said about us all liking to feel good, and how it feels good when we get portrayed in a positive light?)
So let me name 10 strong positive female lead characters in video game. Same rules as before, off the top of my head and no googling. Ready…Go!
Lara, Samus, Lightning,…Bayonetta…..Chun Li…..Shantae….The red haired girl from that ps3 game……..
Crap….this was harder then I thought….I really had to think and I can’t think of any more off the top of my head….heck, not sure if Chun Li counts….she’s not the “lead” of Street Fighting (even though I pick her all the time.

Also, notice how I was looking for “strong positive lead characters.” I could have opened it up to just any female video game character, but we go back to that “feel good because of positive portrayal”. I could have listed the many damsels in distress, over sexualized , one dimensional female characters but they aren’t (in my opinion) empowering or representative of women in the world.

You mean all women don’t look like this?

It’s only been a couple of years since I’ve started to self identify as a Feminist. For a long time I either had no idea what that meant or was under the impression that because I was a man there was no way I could be a feminist, you know, because feminism is all about hating men and burning bras and it’s a bit scary for a young boy.

I googled “Feminism” and this came up

My favorite definition of a Feminist comes from Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie which states, “Feminist: a person who believes in the social political, and economic equality of the sexes“

Flawless

Men and Women are equal and deserve equal representation in all forms of media, including video games. The fact is, the video game industry is dominated with male representation and at times a lot of sexism and misogyny. We have a long way to go in ending the tropes that female characters get stuck in and in stopping at seeing women as only sexual objects. If I as a young boy felt good about seeing male characters in the games I played, don’t young girls deserve the same? If I can still see tons of male lead characters should girls who play video games see the same?

For more info and videos on this topic check out Anita Sarkeesian’s FeministFrequency Youtube channel as well as PBSGameShow’s video “How I Became a VideoGame Feminist” (which prompted this blog)

And remember, if you think gender,race and sexual orientation representation in video games is perfect the way it is……I’m