The Dictators by Pablo Neruda

The Dictators

A stench sticks in the canefields:

A mix of blood and body, the permeating

foulness of a petal.

Among the coconut palms the tombs are full

of pulverized bone, of hushed rattles.

The delicate satrap chats

with wine glasses, chokers and cords of gold.

The little palace shines like a watch

And the quick puffs of laughter

pierce the corridors

gathering voices of the dead

with blue mouths freshly buried.

The weeping is hidden like a plant

whose seed falls ceaselessly on the ground

which, without light, makes the big blind leaves burgeon.

This rancor has been crafted scale by scale,

blow by blow, in the terrible swamp waters

with a snout full of silence and slime.

from Canto General 
(translation my own)

On 'diversity' and 'quality' in higher ed

"... a commitment to hiring is often lacking, such that minority faculty remain underrepresented in the most secure, highest-paying and most influential tenured and upper-administrative positions -- those that have the potential for changing institutional norms and cultures."

Let me write that last part again: "those that have the potential for CHANGING institutional norms and cultures." viz. "conditional hospitality" (fr. Sara Ahmed), i.e. not just changing the face or diversity count, but the norms, values, and culture of an institution. That means broadening and complicating the standards of quality, i.e. not just the same old emblems of excellence in scholarship, teaching, and service, but innovative, bold, sometimes even disruptive forms—forms that are not legible to traditional academic culture and not compatible with "standard" benchmarks and rubrics. One small example: I can't tell you how many times I've heard scholars say that a Fulbright to Europe is more impressive than the same fellowship to Asia because the European ones are "harder to get". Even more of a concern, at every level, faculty of color risk opening their mouths if there is even a hint of dissent. Meanwhile, they continue to produce high quality publications, while ALSO having to acquire vocabulary and skills that translate to the existing, long-standing culture why their work is equal to (though often more valuable than) the work deemed excellent by traditional standards. That's twice the work and I haven't even mentioned service. 

Check out this essay by Adia Harvey Wingfield in The Chronicle https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2016/09/09/more-faculty-color-can-and-should-be-top-ranks-universities-essay

An appeal to Filipinos from an Ilokano-American son on the eve of the presidential elections

I haven't said anything publicly about the elections in the Philippines. Though I feel deeply tied to the country and my family and friends there — especially in the Ilokos region — I'm a US-born citizen. I have to say, however, I've been quietly filling up with incredible sorrow and dread. I'm anti-Marcos. I've said this in my mom's city, just 20 minutes from Marcos' hometown of Batac. I was laughed at for saying such. And posting this might even alienate me from people I love and who mean the world to me. But I have to say this.

You cannot wish for a better life or a better nation by simply replacing one tyranny with another. Death squads? Torture? Extrajudicial violence? Disappearances? These acts are nothing but the failure of our resourcefulness as Filipinos. They are the murder of our very capacity for invention and imagination and gathering. For hundreds of years this is how we've made a community — despite the invasions by the Spanish, the Americans, the Japanese — by honoring our humanity, our mutual genius.

The history of the Philippines (and of the US for that matter) wasn't given to me by an institution. It wasn't taught to me through some formula or by some power structure. I had to seek it out on my own -- I continue to do so. I study it. I don't get paid to teach it or write about it. The Tagalog and Iokano that I speak (however broken) I learned not in classrooms, but from people and from songs. The history that I study (and its millions of stories that align and contradict) serves no allegiance or flag.

All of our colonizers portrayed us as savages. If we enter this new era of state-condoned violence, we make a case on behalf of the colonizers who set out to annihilate us in the first place. Even more tragically, we abdicate our greatest, most humane gifts as a people. When I think of the vision that my ancestors as recent as my own mother had for a family and our place in the world, it wasn’t murder and torture — even though she survived a war herself. She held on to love. When my mother gained some access, she made space for other people. Those of you who knew her, think of the bus loads that came to her funeral — so many colors and walks of life. She was an incredible leader, an Ilokana from Balacad, Laoag City.

A dictator like Duterte does not make it more possible for more Filipinos to lead like that, with independence and strength and graciousness — especially women like my mother. A dictator like Duterte and a sidekick like Marcos impress upon a culture a bullshit version of brutish and deadly selfishness. To me, that is not Filipino at all. It is not what I inherited.

My plan was to go back to the Philippines this summer for a short stretch to see friends and family, but if Duterte and/or Bong Bong are elected I won't go. I still believe in a democratic process. But I think these two characters will quickly destroy the very process that will have given them their titles.

I say this to my family and friends in the Philippines, especially those in Ilokos. I say it with great affection and gratitude and humility. Don't surrender our history. There is a more tender, more vibrant wish inside of you. I've seen it. I’ve been its beneficiary time and time again. I hope you find the strength to invoke that tenderness and grace right now.

Prince's Style

Like a lot of folks, I've been playing a lot of Prince, thinking about his music and his art. A few months ago, I got asked to write an essay about class for a forthcoming anthology, which also ended up being a meditation on style. I don't think I'm giving too much away if I leave some of it here. I went back to the essay after Prince died. It made me think how his style made a way for so many.

"The word style is cousin to stylus. It comes from the Latin to etch. Or to engrave. And so, style is a way to inscribe oneself upon the world, but also a way to dig, to delve into, to investigate. Style is, then, an inquiry. Style, furthermore, because it is a way to engrave, is also a way to carve a place into some landscape, a hole. That is, style is a way to prepare the earth for the body."