I’m taking a short break for the Fourth of July holiday. For those reading this outside of the United States, the Fourth of July is a big deal in America. We celebrate the original thirteen colonies and colonizers (more often called the Pilgrims) signing the Declaration of Independence and separating from the Brits. We celebrate by blowing things up, specifically fireworks, and although illegal in Seattle people still do them and others complain on Facebook in the neighborhood groups. We also have cookouts as it is known on the East Coast, or picnics as we call it in the west, or in Hawaii we say “ehhh, you like go beach? Auntie and Uncle goin’ be there. We got grinz; mac salad and poke,” or “ehh come over to da house, uncle stay making pig roast.” (Before you have a dirty mental image, grinz means eat or food in pidgin English.)

For this week’s Fakequity blog post I’ve compiled a list of things we are reading and talking about. Please leave a comment, Facebook post, Tweet, or email to tell us what you’re reading or talking about. I love hearing from others and hearing what is going on outside of my bubble.

As much as possible I shared news and articles by people of color. However, some of the articles are by white authors because I couldn’t find any other articles by poc writers on the same topic. I’ve starred the ones that I think are must reads, in some cases I really want you to read them because they are from smaller publications deserving larger audiences or the story is just damn good.

Police Shootings

King County Officers Shot a Pregnant Woman on the Muckleshoot Reservation. Here’s What We Know., The Stranger, October 2016 – Even though this is from October 2016, I’m sharing this because we need to bring visibility to people of color who are systemically killed by the hands of people who are supposed to protect all of us.

Man Killed By a King County Deputy Last Week Was Armed With a Pen, Seattle Weekly—Tommy Le, an Asian American, was fatally shot hours before his high school graduation.

Her Name Was Charleena Lyles, Huff Post

Sacrificing Black Lives for the American Lie, New York Times

 

Arts and Food

My Sister’s Keeper: A Q&A with Laylah Amatullah Barrayn, Roads and Kingdoms “To show that women are underrepresented in the field of photography. Women of color: underrepresented. Women of African descent: underrepresented. Let’s highlight the work that these women are doing all over the world.” Additional article about her work: The World According to Black Women Photographers, Lens blog, New York Times

Why We Can’t Talk about Race in Food, Civil Eats

Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrors to open at Seattle Art Museum, NW Asian Weekly

What local chefs think about food appropriation, KUOW interview with Edouardo Jordan and Rachel Yang, chefs and Seattle restaurant owners

* #SEAHOMELESS: Immigrant Business Owners and Homeless Share Unspoken Camaraderie, Ethnic Seattle

 

Education

* Read this: To understand white liberal racism, read these private emails, then listen to this On being the only black man on the Seattle school board, KUOW

Voters Must Turn Out For Seattle’s School Board Election, South Seattle Emerald

 

Other

Japanese cemetery is Oxnard’s latest vandalism target

White People Will Always Let You Down, The Establishment

Native Americans are getting cheated again by a white president, LA Times Opinion, Letter to the Editor by a Japanese American who was interned at Manzanar

 

Voices of Native Americans

Since we opened by talking about colonizers we’ll close by focusing on our Native American communities and their views and voices.

* Confronting settler colonialism – Faith Spotted Eagle, Longhouse Media – The camp Faith Spotted Eagle is referring to is Standing Rock

* An Honorable Way of Being, talking about the importance of the canoe, Longhouse Media

Posted by Erin Okuno