No one gets to choose who they are and no one deserves the right to humiliate someone for being themselves.

You hear about it every day. In high school around the country, instances of bullying. Now, I graduated some time ago, but last night, I felt like I was walking through the halls again. After a long night out and a long ride home, I finally arrived to Queens-borough Plaza to catch my last train home. When I stepped on the platform I noticed that the 7-train was halted. This is across from the N-train that I had to wait for. There was a commotion going on with some teenagers and a conductor had to stop the entire train.

I noticed some kids were laughing as another young man exiting the subway car and proceeded down to the end of the platform. There was no reason for him to go this way so I knew something was wrong. At first i thought he was just trying to get on another car. He continued past that point. I followed him to see everything was okay. After living in New York City for almost ten years you learn to ignore many situations. This was an instance where I knew it needed a little attention.

The young man, probably in his early twenties was crying as he stood on the edge of the platform. I approached him knowing that he needed some help. He was hysterical as i tried to calm him down. This is when I figured out why the 7-train was temporarily shut down. He was a small asian kid with glasses and a soft voice. Apparently, while quietly trying to get home, some kids had noticed that he was gay. They began to taunt him, tease him, and one teenager even spit on him. He was so frightened as the on-lookers ignored the whole situation that he pulled the emergency cord that is located on every car on every subway train. This is when they got to Queens-borough Plaza.

He only had two stops to go until he could get off and walk towards his home. Terrified that no one was coming to his aid and frightened that these kids would follow him to his destination, he found himself with no other options. As I stood there with my arm around his shoulder, trying to comfort this poor young man, I knew that it wasn't going to make his journey home any easier. I imagined how he had to deal with this every day.

I'm still not sure why he walked to the edge of the platform, but a part of me knows what he was thinking about doing. We talked for a few and finally I convinced him to get back on that train and not let these kids prohibit him from getting home. We walked back on to the last train in the car and we told conductor that he was the man who had pulled the emergency cord. I looked around at the crowded train and knew he was still scared.

As the police arrived to hopefully give those nasty teenagers what they deserved, the train was about to start moving again. On the other side, my N-train was pulling into the station as well. In a heated moment, as I knew I had to leave this man on his way, I spoke to all the people on that train who  looked frustrated because their ride had been slowed down.

"The reason why this train has been stopped is because some assholes, four cars up, decided it would be funny to humilate this man here. They spit on him, and teased and no one did anything." My new friend looked up, still with tears in his eyes. "Please make sure you don't do the same thing and make sure he gets home okay."

The whole situation sounds crazy and it happened so fast that it felt like it was a surreal dream. But when I finally caught the train, and was heading back to my apartment, I realized how real it actually was. How real it feels to be bullied so bad that you fear for your life, or worse, want to take your own because of it. It may not happen to you on a daily basis, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't continue. And next time you see it going on, don't look the other way. No one gets to choose who they are and no one deserves the right to humiliate someone for being themselves.

The Legal (But Unethical) Take Down of Zuccotti Park : OWS

                It's two days before the two month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, and Zuccotti Park is at rest with many missions ahead of them. What they didn’t know was that night they were about to get raided by the NYPD. While visions of sugar plums danced in their heads, roughly 1000 police officers in riot gear stormed their quiet protest. Mayor Bloomberg “allowed” them to stay there, only once threatening to take over the park due to sanitary reason. On this midnight, however, they were woken to pepper spray and blinding lights, and told to leave immediately. Unwilling to put up a violent fight, they bound to each other and peacefully resisted. They lost the fight that night.

                What took them close to sixty days to build was quickly destroyed. City council men were arrested along with six certified journalists. Some people say there were more cops on this night than there were during the blackout; all because 400 people were sleeping inside a park. The mayor had successfully ended the movement. Or at least so he thought.

                 He never wanted any part of this occupation. Lets face it, the whole mission was aimed at him. Many people in the protest attempted to make good by not ever using his name; even though he was inherently the symbol of the 1%. Apparently, Mr. Bloomberg showed up at one of his nightly gatherings and found out his friends weren’t so sympathetic of this growing movement. As mayor, he wanted to make his citizens happy and let them continue on in public favor. As a businessman, he knew these people were going to eventually start to cause some trouble. What side do you think he chose to listen to?

                As two months have passed, most of the country is still scratching their head to figure out what Occupy Wall Street is all about. It has stretched throughout the nation and even spread into many other countries, but the general public still is indecisive on the message.  They know it has something to do with corporate greed and Wall Street corruption. They know it relates to free trade and equality, and something about the 99% being mastered by the 1. Yet they still want to know, what is it you people are trying to say?

                What they are saying is that we are all blind. That is the message. Right now, there is a Super Committee that is made up of six Republican and six Democrats. They have been meeting on a regular basis for a half a year now. In their latest conference, they came out of in a heated debate, deciding to end their discussion. These are our elected officials, including one man who almost became our president, who don’t know what they center point is. In two months, the Occupy movement has actually made more change than the government has done in the last ten years.  And, apparently, you don’t give two shits.

                I wrote a blog three months ago about how people need to start waking up and stop being so apathetic. I thought things were about to start changing. Yeah, there are a lot of people who have taken their heads out of their asses but we continue to not care. In a world of attention deficit disorder we remain oblivious as ever. It turns out that the power-that-be had a pretty good plan. Let it run its course for a few and then slowly diminish it . Guess what? It worked.

                It turns out that we are that easily manipulated. I don’t want to come off as condescending, but I will. Hundreds of thousands of human beings marched the streets, slept in parks, and got themselves arrested to change the evil of the society we live in. We watched for little while and then we became bored. It’s hard to fault us. We can’t just go quit our job and camp out in the park. That would make us nuts. But thanks to the ones who did, some family has opened their eyes and sees the danger that is lurking on us every single day.

                On the eve of a huge protest tomorrow, I imagine that some of our citizens will be annoyed by the huge crowds that block their traffic, or the loud chanting that disturbs their morning jog. This could be last time our generation is permitted to sleep in parks, and if we let them, this may be our last time to speak our voice. In the end we don’t necessarily need to occupy anything to make our message heard, we just need to clear our throats and let a little air out.

Christmas in July

                  It’s one week before Halloween and I already start noticing the ads being placed on the TV and in the newspapers. Literally, people still have their houses decorated with ghosts and cob webs and Santa Clause is already crashing the party. Now, in mid-November, we are on a rampage of Holiday ads and the elves are everywhere. The question I have is, where will this all stop?

                When I was a kid we put up the tree on December 1^st and that’s when it all would start. Mind you, we were a Christmas loving family and a little pre-mediated with our festive joys. Back in the day, people wouldn’t even decorate until two days before Christmas. I understand that we really need to boost the economy, but this is really a big turn-off. In fact, in my family, we stopped giving presents last year. It was the most stress-free holiday season I’ve ever experienced. If I really wanted to get someone a gift I could just make it for them.            

Now you might say that this act is just slowing down the economy, but maybe we need to do a little mathematics before we make this assumption. First off, yes, we aren’t buying any products, which means we are hurting the capitalist regime, and in turn, many families. But, you must be reminded that if we didn’t force ourselves to spend thousands of dollars on presents for people we didn’t even know, then we might have a little cash left in our pockets when December was over.

                Now I know your once removed second-cousin deserves that Elmo you bought their baby, or that you deserve that ugly scarf that your great-aunt Lola got for you, but is it all really worth it? Is this really what Christmas is all about? I love all the semantics that go along with the holiday but it’s getting over-done. Haven’t we seen every possible Kris Kringle movie, or elf tale, or reindeer novel that was written? Santa is rolling over in his grave, and Jesus is pretty sick of it too.

                Before you know it, we will be advertising during the summer and putting up Christmas lights for Memorial Day. Just remember that we still celebrate this occasion for one reason and one reason only. A man (or son of man) was born on this day (or somewhere around there),and he preached about giving to others (especially the poor). We shouldn’t have to go broke during December to show our love for the people who surround us. We don’t need material objects to prove our grace towards each other. All we need to know is that Christmas doesn’t start in July.

Angry America: My First Blog

                        Welcome to the land of opportunity, the envy of the rest of the world, or at least that’s the way they used to look at us.  In our defense, we still have control of this planet. Maybe that is why we need to start changing who we are, rather than trying to imperialize other countries with our unorganized ideas. We sit on our asses watching Jersey Shore, oblivious to whats going on, and now complain that our leaders aren’t doing their jobs.  Maybe we should have been paying a little more attention the whole time.
                       
                       Now we live in an Angry America where we believe there’s only two points of view. The reality is that it’s a bit more complicated than that. Maybe too complicated. We argue on both sides about social issues like abortion and gay marriage, while ignoring the actual things that are key to our survival as a nation. The sad part is that as mad as we are, most of us are to apathetic to do anything about it.  I guess that’s a perfect set of curtains to blind us from what’s really going on.
                     
                        Let’s face it, while we argue with each other, many people are getting rich on your ignorance.  This includes our elected officials. While the salary for a congressman is $174,000, more than 50% of them are millionaires. And why not? When you affect the policies, then in turn you affect Wall street. This being said, you could find another thousand wrong doings of government and corporations, but most of us are more in tuned with Angelina Jolie  and Brad Pitt.
                      It may seem like we can’t do anything about anything but we can. Our first priority is to take our fingers and turn them away from others and point them at ourselves. Watch one less show a night and spend that time reading into what’s going on in your country. Until you do that, then we can’t be angry.

We are Human Beings

I originally wrote this to be read as a spoken-word piece. My other computer, that was capable of making this video, crashed. This poem can't breathe another day without being let out of its cage. Enjoy!


"We Are Human Beings"

We are human beings
With misguided thoughts and infinite feelings
With beautiful thoughts and beautiful minds
Too great to fail even when times are...

beating on us like a bully
Picking us up like a pulley
We still do not understand fully
but we know SOMETHING IS JUST NOT RIGHT

Through the night we sleep with our dreams
of owning a house and much simpler things

and we still find it hard for anyone to pay attention

Stuck in a detention without a crime
you bail yourself out by stealing our dimes
you sell your nickels back for a penty
while you sit on your yacht and vast in your plenty

You cut all the jobs and tell us there's none
you have control of the resources so..
WHY DONT YOU CREATE SOME?

"Work harder" you say
"We do, we pay"
Even for the goods that a ten year old makes

Because before we made laws, we made bridges
and we figured we were fed up with being your bitches
So now we don't make wishes, we make change happen
while you sit behind your fancy desk laughing

We make a movement
you make a dollar;
We make a statement;
you beg and borrow...
from people who you make us believe are our foes.
...you are the pimps, but we are not your hoes.

This is not a game, and no, we will not play
some are still asleep, but they will soon be awake
When the snooze button doesn't work anymore
or when what you feed us leaves us tired and bored

The alarm that you hear will not be turned off.

We've burned off our hopes, our future, our patience
we are done waiting and waiting to see how you make us...

...BECOME...

We haven't won yet but we are getting strong
don't take a nap now cause' this could take us long
We're not pawns in the Devil's game of chess
we don't cheat and make moves and use humans to test...
your unethical theories of mass population,
genocide and greed led to our restoration
and the revelation
That WE ARE HUMAN BEINGS
fighting against the horsemen
and all of their treason

You can buy your politicians
you can buy your media
propoganda is just a method we learned from encyclopedias

You forgot to take our books
Because you bank on our best sellers
and forgot that we read
from what real scholars will tell us

We are the 'wronged' but we are not on our own
as sit in your gated fences alone

We don't attack with weapons,
we strike with our voices
Our words and our mouths and our message makes noise

Boy and girls,
please don't make the same mistake we did
There's not a real war going on-
it's all he said,
and she said.
And now,
100 million are dead.

We the people, have taken enough
We worked and we worked just to pay for this stuff
But was it worth it
The Earth is taking a toll but have we grown further
Animals go extinct but was it just murder

We don't listen to science
but we listen to faith
or did God make us understand what we make?

Fight for your cause but open your eyes
God made us wise while Man made us blind

Can you see past the illusion?
The intrusion into your soul
you know what is right
but continue to go...

Down that Long...Hard... Road.

The Awakening is upon us so be honest with yourself,
and know that soemthing is just not right.

The plight of man is doomed in silence,
violence is not on the agenda in the new age of construcion,
destruction will never help and neither will corruption,
be easy with your wants,
your needs,
and your consumption

The assumption is that we are animals doomed to extinction

But we have human thoughts.

We have human feelings.

Because, we are in fact...

Human Beings.

October 2nd 2011; My first time at OWS

                   Last Thursday I headed down to Wall Street to see exactly what was going on down there with all the protests. I was nervous; expecting to run into a bunch of crazy hippies and far-out stoners looking for an excuse to get together. What I found was a very tightly run, organized group made up of everyone from families to veterans, grandmothers to college students, professionals to professors such as Cornell West.  The plan was to get interviews and footage and make a somewhat of a news piece about the movement.   However, I was so overtaken by all the interesting people I was meeting and everything going on, that it didn’t take long for me to get just as involved in the process as everyone else.

                It was around 3:15 p.m. when I arrived. I wasn’t sure where to go when I came up from the subway but was instantly greeted by a guy who led me to scene. There were nearly 500 people in Zucconi Park on this weekday afternoon,  but all eyes were on Cornell West. He gave a statement to press with a large crowd around him. It was interesting but I wanted to find some people that I actually could have a personal conversation with. There was a group of older women called Grandmas for Peace. They explained that they were there because they were worried about their grandchildren becoming trapped in an economically dysfunctional world. 

                Before I could even finish my interviews with the kind ladies I noticed a gathering at the front of the park. Apparently, I had gotten there just in time for one of their daily marches.  Unfortunately, the sky was growing dark and a hint of rain was in the air. A couple of the organizers were telling the crowd how to keep it peaceful: no masks, stay with the group, basically, don’t do anything stupid. As we began our circle around the Wall Street area, the clouds let loose. I didn’t have a poncho or umbrella like the others, and it didn’t matter to me. This is what democracy looks like I thought, and that’s exactly what we chanted.

                We marched for about a half hour, heavily protected ( or surveillenced) by police officers. People took pictures of us and we took pictures of them. Not knowingly, I became one of the chant leaders, keeping the crowd going. For many this is a new and unfamiliar outlet. To some its their first time marching in a protest so everyone needs a little motivation and guidance. And for others, even if they were scared to open their mouths they knew what drove them to be there that day.

                When we finally got back to the park, the sun came back out, and the crowd had grown about 200 people stronger.  People were still cheering so I headed to a quieter to ask people some questions. What made you come here today? Why is this so important to you? What are you trying to accomplish? The answers were all different but similar in ideology. If their votes weren’t going to be listened to, then maybe their raw presence would.

                In the end, my experience made me a supporter of this movement. While there are still many skeptics and naysayers, the entire force of these people is getting bigger every day. There’s something wrong and they’re not just going to sit around and wait for something to happen. They want to make something happen. I want to make something happen. Instead of pointing our fingers at just the corporations or just the government, they are pointing their fingers at both sides, and ourselves as well. When things aren’t going well, they don’t want to pretend to ignore it; they want to do something about it.