FAQ

These questions/responses are culled from years of email or comment threads. You may find them simply amusing or personally useful.

What would you say your blog is about today, in 2010?

I’d say it’s a blog that began on May 1 of 2006 as an alternate lens on Mexicans, and Latinos, etc. It served as an outlet for me to push back on the hateful noise I kept hearing and reading in media. It continued on as I educated myself on the nexus of Mexican and US history and shared that with people as I did. It then became a place I and others could engage activism in the immigration reform issue, and served very much as a place to tackle racism in the media and in US culture. It stands today as a means of doing all these things, in addition to enjoying the communities I’ve met online, and a place to share my art. I use my personal life experience as well as my education in film/TV and human nature and psychology to deconstruct and explore the messaging in today’s media on a regular basis. I seek to share an alternate view on myself and my people than the one so often reinforced by today’s corporate media. I offer a safe place for those who exist in a world where the loudest and most powerful voices seek to continue the myriad systems of dehumanization and oppression against so many who do not fit into the positions preferred by mainstream and even much “independent” media.

What is your blog most definitely not about?

My blog does not exist to “win over” people to a “cause” or to cater to the standards, derision, or imaginations of any random passerby attempting to manipulate my voice or actoins with implications that I should behave a certain way in order to appease (for example) racists, white supremacists, or willfully ignorant people. That would be centering my agenda on outside and generally antagonistic forces, which is just silly.

Are you a US Citizen?

Yes, I was born in the US. In Los Angeles, in 1969. That means I win the golden ticket, having landed en la planeta a bit north of a bloody rumor that winds through the desert and carries barbs and sometimes bullets or sunbaked bones as reminders. However, this does not mean I am better, above, more worthy, or somehow superior to someone without the golden ticket of US citizenship. I simply connected from the womb of a human woman to the skin of the planet earth in Los Angeles, in 1969. That happenstance bestowed certain ideas that were crafted by others upon my self and my life. I never agreed to those ideas.

Are you “Racist Against Whites?”

As a group, the notion means nothing to me. As individuals, I love and befriend a fair amount of “whites.” But when it comes down to it, it really doesn’t matter how I personally feel about “whites.”

What I am concerned with are powerful systems (banks, police, companies that employ, insure, protect, or don’t) operating half-cloaked in a concerted manner with individuals that have historically served to target certain communities of which I am either a member, or not. (E.g.: Mexicanos, Jews, Women, Gays, Intersexed people, children….and so on.)

I have plenty of feelings and personal reflections upon whites, Mexicans, Irish, indigenous, urban, rural, East coast, West coast. But when I speak and act out here it is not a personal issue on your end, unless somebody makes it personal.

I’ve read online that you are “a well-respected Anti-Racist.” Is that true?

I greatly appreciate the positive things people have said about my writing and actions. I do not think of myself as an “Anti Racist.” No. Nor, really, as an “activist.” I do think of myself as a writer, and an artist, and a person with generally strong feelings about my experience on Earth so far, and I spend time thinking about what that means to me as I go on, as I always have. And I act on those feelings.

A few things impressed me as I grew into the world. It felt to me that some things needed to be confronted, changed, or destroyed while other things were yet to be, and needed to be imagined, explored, created. So that’s what I try to do. Make the world a little bit more as I think it should be in various ways. This will mean different things at different times.

Are you a an Anarchist? A Democrat? An Independent? A Communist?

I changed my voter registration to “Democratic Party” in order to vote for Barack Obama in the 2008 primaries. But I am not a member of any of these parties listed above. I could never be, at least not permanently. It is entirely possible that in Glenn Beck’s world, I might be an anarchist or a communist. We would do well to remember that in Glenn Beck’s world, Vicks Vapor rub equals soul-power, however….

But your blog header claims this is “The Revolutionary’s Rag.” What about all the red? What about the references to Communist artifacts? Weren’t your parents actual “DFH’s” for real? Hippies who even practiced Eastern spirituality? Are you at least a Radical Leftist? Give me something to work with.

I like red a lot. It’s one of my favorite wavelengths. It has less to do with politics than it does with chroma, with photo-kinetic energy, with emotion.

Sociologically and ethically, I do think once a group of people cluster together and call themselves a group and fashion a tribal identity and borders as the US has, then the social body owes a degree of consideration and protection to the poorest and most vulnerable of that group. That, to me, is common sense and common morality, if ever there could be such a thing.

I grew up in communal settings and households and I do think there is much to be said for that, over the haunting isolation that so many practice in a heavily individualist society. But I do not owe allegiance to, nor am I interested in instituting any political paradigm nor religion, specifically.

Politically, yes, I would admit that on the typically discussed “Left/Right” continuum, I am often (but not always) to the left of mainstream Liberal conversation. Radical? No.

The subhed of the blog (as well as the comic book font it is rendered in) is both a signifier as to what type of political frame to expect as well as a bit of a laugh at myself to keep the head in line.

I think humans (overall) have yet to learn how to take care of themselves and the world, and it is especially clear that Capitalism (as practiced in the US, at least) has not worked out so well for 99% of its own populace, and is collapsing in the nation that has most proudly extolled its benefits. So something needs to be rethought. But what it is, I have no name for.

So, what, you think you are better than others with all the moral argument? I remember you from that list-serv. You are part of the Pious Sect who thinks its views are holy.

Well, I think I’m better at dancing than a few people. Maybe. I know I am better at playing guitar than some others. Some people are better at practicing law than me. Some are better at running long distance, or creating software. I don’t think, for example, my friends in the transgender or disabled or gay communities are “better” than those petitioning the White House for FOIA or Pressuring the Blue Dogs…but I do think the former struggle requires more courage, yes.

Though I should add, I do not think of my arguments as “moral” ones. I just make arguments from a simple and personal place, usually. A place that resonates. That is, I feel most comfortable fighting strongly for these arguments. Conversations about pie charts, political expediency, and/or compromise with the blatantly amoral operators in our nation do not move me to type much, let alone stand up to defend.

I think this “pious” charge that is leveled at some of my friends and me from time to time is projection, and sort of crummy. People ought not to feel burdened by shame because some of us were sounding alarms early on about the undocumented and Latino communities being ignored or persecuted in various ways while many Liberals were telling us those were “pet issues.” It can sting to be wrong when you’ve donned labels like “Liberal” and “Progressive,” but end up needing the word of Rahm before engaging an aspect of social injustice…but you know what? We all end up there time and again. We are all learning out here. This is part of the danger of overidentifying with a political category. Let’s move on.

I don’t like your tone.

Yeah. This part is neither original nor interesting.

Why do minorities expect some special embrace from everyone? Isn’t blogging or talking continually about oppression just using some kind of victim shtick to get ahead?

My journey has always been not just to improve upon the world as I feel I must, it has been at the same time, to better myself. Here and now, I engage both friends and fights to certain ends. Together, as we twist and tumble, we are an alchemy of beauty as well as instability. We are the world reshaping in better ways, and it is not a peaceful process at all times. Even if that is where we aim our feet. We meet now on the stone steps of a gorgeous midnight pavillion. This time next year, the moon will have moved on, and so will we have moved on. Throughout it all, I seek to be truer to myself and the world, both. For that, I need not look for a stranger’s approval nor mark of redemption.

You’ll notice there is no talk of victimhood in that paragraph. For further understanding on the distinctions between individual feelings and larger purposes, see the third paragraph on this page.

How can I work with you to get to this place you describe? This better world?

You tell me. Or show me. I’ll be paying attention. Or better yet, let’s find out together.

Why are you so singleminded of purpose?

It’s like asking someone why they use pencils so much if you only see them at their drawing table. Don’t make the mistake of thinking this blog is Who I Am. It is a place and an energy, and I come here to do certain work. It is hardly capable of communicating the entirety of my being. If you are curious as to what other shapes I take, please do visit the other places I make words or art. You can find those places linked at the top right of the sidebar or around.

Seriously, though…you write on this stuff a lot. I have a question on ethnicity/race. What’s wrong with being “white”? Am I just stuck in a “bad guy” role if I’m white?

Really, I don’t have answers to these kinds of things. I write from my own experience, not from some desire or ability to help any other person necessarily with their identification. Tim Wise seems to be able to talk to those who identify as white most successfully. It’s hard for whites to hear me talk about these things sometimes. It unsettles the mind, especially a mind used to thinking of a “Mexican” voice and stance a certain way.

Further, they suspect what is true: I have Something To Gain, which casts doubt on my words. Being Mexicano talking about Mexican immigrants or Latino community issues, well—to some, this means I have an agenda. And they are right.

What is my agenda? It is to bring a little more respect to the idea of Mexican; to see brown people treated as well by politicians, doctors, police, people walking down the street, and systems of law as they would if they were fair and light and European in all appearance and cultural signifiers. I don’t need anyone else to suffer for this to happen. But resistance to inevitable change breeds suffering, this I know.

The fact that this one simple goal poses me as some kind of radical to more than a few people says so much more about the US culture and typical mindset than anything else I can add!

What is XOLAGRAFIK?

It is my art company.

How do you pronounce it?

“Holographic.”

Why did you spell it with an X?

Because X marks the spot.