It Could Happen Here - The Lunar New Years Special: Part 2

Episode Date: February 2, 2022

In part 2 of our special Lunar New Years episode Mia is joined by JN and Jane once again to talk about the difficultly of maintaining Chinese leftist principles in broader left organizing spaces and a...lso whether we should rt year of the tiger art before the Lunar New Year   Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Starting point is 00:01:50 We're talking musica, los premios, el chisme, and all things trending in my cultura. I'm bringing you all the latest happening in our entertainment world and some fun and impactful interviews with your favorite Latin artists, comedians, actors, and influencers. Each week, we get deep and raw life stories, combos on the issues that matter to us, and it's all packed with gems, fun, straight up comedia, and that's a song that only Nuestra Gente can sprinkle. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast that recognizes that lunar new year's is not in fact just one day and in that spirit our special new year's episode is going on for a second day
Starting point is 00:02:31 so there's the rest of our conversation with jane and jan you know the other thing i wanted to sort of touch on like this is i think kind of diverting off the topic but i think it's also something that i've been running into a lot which is that like you know you have this kind of like you know you have this kind of bind right because on the one hand you're stuck between you know like a lot of the organizing in sort of in asian communities has all of these problems and then you know okay well you know the other thing that's happening is is the sort of American left. And the mainstream American left, I think the Canadian left has similar problems with this, is that, like, it's a bunch of just, like, it's a bunch of tankies. It's a bunch of people who love the CCP. It's a bunch of just weird genocide deniers and, like, people who think that every
Starting point is 00:03:21 Asian person who, like, doesn't like the government is a CIA psyop. And I don't know, this is something that I've like, I mean, I've, I ran into a lot trying to, I mean, help people doing Hong Kong organizing is something I've run into just in
Starting point is 00:03:36 like every organized, like I've run, I've run into this in anarchist spaces too. Like it's, it's just, I don't know. It, it,
Starting point is 00:03:44 it, it feels really bad because it's like, like it's like you're just sort of caught between, and I guess this is sort of, there's this of reactionary small business owners you have this you know the Chinese community also being sort of split in between like pro and anti CCP factions both of whom have like are absolutely chock full of just fanatical right wingers
Starting point is 00:04:18 it's like well okay it's like the CCP versus the Epoch Times and it's like I don't want any of them to win and then you zoom out and you're caught in the middle of this sort of you're caught in the middle of this sort of i i don't know i think it's sort of like a fox geopolitical struggle but like one of one of the big sort of ideological conflicts being between both the ccp and the us sort of like using the specter of each other to sort of like disturb their bases and i don't know i'm incredibly frustrated by i'm incredibly frustrated by the
Starting point is 00:04:52 way that these groups have like the anti-ccp like the the the the pro-ccp groups have sort of selectively been using and like selectively been using anti-asian violence as you know the to basically making the argument that the importance of anti-asian violence is that uh well this only happens because people say mean things about the ccp and if no one didn't like the ccp then uh there wouldn't be any violence even though like anti-asian violence here predates the existence of a communist party in china by centuries like we like we invaded we'd invaded china like how many times at least twice maybe three i think at least twice and maybe three times like before there was a communist party and so i don't know i i i feel trapped a lot between these dynamics in ways that
Starting point is 00:05:43 are very frustrating. Yeah, I guess I want to open the floor up to talk about that. I guess I see it as like cooptation. Partly. But I guess I also see it as how power works. There's like this local paper, and I was researching, sort of, the history of Chinese diaspora, one of whom is from a newer Hong Kong diaspora. There was, like, a whole spat in the paper about his history, and there's, the history of, like, those tensions are, like, written in the community itself like it's it's
Starting point is 00:06:49 it's not a new thing that people argue about what happened on June 4th it's not new that people are really mistrustful of each other and that there are actual like government forces that infiltrate and create a like basically deny other people's struggles like um when that the that government is themselves perpetuating it and I guess it just is really hard when fellow organizers that you otherwise really like want to get along with are are like uncritical of the state that has oppressed your family. Because you're just kind of like you're kind of like, wait, so are we have we had a conversation about this? Like we clearly haven't talked enough if this is what you believe in. And it's just a little bit hard because it's like community building is not assuming that we're in solidarity. Community building is actually doing that hard work. experiencing and what is my community experiencing how are we being like weaponized against each other like yeah how are these governments like manipulating like communities but that's like really hard when trust has been probably broken like immediately yeah i think you're so right
Starting point is 00:08:22 that it's it's really about co-optation and a lot of it like what i've witnessed is really so much about um and this is like like you're saying jane this is a much older dynamic than you know just the past couple years is like uh states being able to use this kind of home and diaspora framework to um demand loyalty through like targeting diaspora people's guilt yeah um and so there's so many like guilty diaspora people i know who are like you know usually from usually from a class perspective right because they had the reason their family had the resources to leave or uh they were not born in the home country or whatever because of their family background, that type of thing. And they want to subsume that by taking this radical,
Starting point is 00:09:11 you know, anti-US, anti-Canada stance, which is fine. Like, obviously being anti-US and anti-Canada is a good thing. But the thing that's really kind of frustrated me the most is seeing these kind of like radical folks in North America, especially queer folks who are like, they'll take the most reactionary positions against women and queer and, you know, LGBT folks in China, for example, by supporting a state that is repressing them right so it's it's such cognitive dissonance to me like i don't understand why these folks can't see um that they're kind of perpetuating this violence in in the service of this kind of overarching imperative of not ever saying anything bad about china because it'll help it'll it'll bolster the u.s. propaganda war machine, which is like, there's absolutely a way that, I mean,
Starting point is 00:10:07 that absolutely happens if you do that, uh, uncarefully, right. If you just kind of repeat, um, U.S. media narratives and stuff like that. But I think there's absolutely a way to do both, right. And, um, to me, the way to do that is to not support the state discourses that demand loyalty from the diaspora, but to actually, you know, it's the grassroots thing, right? It's just kind of like, we support queer folks around the world who are struggling under repression from their governments and that type of thing. And being able to very carefully say that with nuance um and to be against both at the same time for example um but that's really really difficult right um and people have very kind of vitriolic reactions when you try and do that um as you know she said up top uh chris so i don't know this this is still the conundrum
Starting point is 00:10:59 for me because i i tend to take the more rigid stance against against these folks but I know people who are very kind of they take a more compassionate stance which is like these these are newly plus politicized youth um they're just coming to a lot of these politics and positions um and you know being anti-us is better than not being anti-us is what a lot of folks say. And, you know, I agree to a certain extent, but then it's also like, if they're being miseducated in these histories, that's okay to a certain point when you're exploring and discovering these things and becoming radicalized. But, you know, like Jane said, there's also these kind of material direct impacts that you have on people that you work with, that you uh work with that you
Starting point is 00:11:45 organize with but that are your friends or loved ones um that you know that kind of explanation of like oh they're just learning is like it's insufficient in that kind of individual way because you're still hurting people and threatening people around you right so i think there has to be a balance and like being able to steer folks in into these non-Stalinist, non-statist directions, even while they're discovering. I hate how we're even having to be like steering people into a non-Stalinist perspective. I'm just like, I'm not horny for Stalin. The thing that pisses me off about this is they're not even Stalinists. This is the thing that's frustrating.
Starting point is 00:12:28 If they were merely 20th century Stalinists, we wouldn't be having this argument. Because 20th century Stalinism is like, well, yeah, okay, 20th century Stalinists are anti-market economy. And it's like, no, they've somehow found a way to take literally the worst aspects of stalinism and then be like okay but what is what if what is stalinism but also capitalism good at the same time and it's just like how how did you do this like how how did you come up with an ideology that like i don't know i i mean i i think i think also a thing that's been frustrating to me about this is like, it's a way of sort of, it becomes this way of channeling, you know, you have the diaspora guilt on the one hand, then you have just random sort of like white leftists sort of white guilt and and it becomes this way of like channeling that into this sort of fall anti-racism where you know you get you get people who are like actual professional like hacks right like roger day for example being like uh you know doing things like well if you if you if you
Starting point is 00:13:40 criticize this time you say it all it's xenophobia and like you're directly leading to people getting killed and it's like no that's not how this works and there's this kind of it's it's it's it's this problem of they have this this fundamental inability to see chinese people as people and not a sort of undifferentiated mass that can be sort of rallied behind an ideology and i don't know that's been i think weird to deal with because you know like yeah like you you're always just in in chinese communities like you're always you're just you're just gonna have like you know there's going to be a few people who are just sort of like pro ccp right-wingers right that's just that's just their sort of
Starting point is 00:14:34 default political position but there's there's this way in which you you get this you know people adopting i mean just things that like if you said this about any like white american for example if you if you argued that any like a white american making a thousand dollars a year wasn't in poverty right like you just couldn't do it you like you know it's it's it's literally impossible like you'd be laughed out of the room or you know like you're you would you'd be like you'd be laughed out of the room or you know like you're you would you'd be like ratioed until the cows come home but you can just but everyone and people just say this constantly like this is just a thing that was like well if you look at poverty reduction it's like well chinese china has eliminated uh absolute poverty it's like yeah
Starting point is 00:15:19 okay a thousand dollars a year is outside of this now and i think there's these ways in which it becomes hard to to intervene in this stuff because like every every asian person specifically every chinese person just becomes a sort of token that like you know you just sort of like throw at each other as just like oh well yeah uh here's a Chinese person who says the CCP is good it's like well here's another Chinese person who says that it's bad and it's like you never it's like
Starting point is 00:15:51 on both sides whether the pro-CCP people realize it or not it's their agencies being sort of stripped by them and they've been turned into this sort of instrumentalized like you know in the same thing that they're also doing to us they're turning this sort of these instruments that you can use to like back your own sort of political agenda and this
Starting point is 00:16:13 i don't know i like this has gotten me to just i i just don't work with these people anymore like we tried it it was a disaster they screwed us over and so i don't know but but i think that's that's that's a lonely stance in a lot of ways like you know if you take this kind of like hardline position you're not gonna most people even other people who don't support it probably won't follow you there I don't know it's weird because I find a lot of organizing is really lonely it's like it's it's not like like I want to boast around being like why aren't you all donating to this but that's not that's also guilt right that's like projecting guilt onto other people um and that's not an effective tool and I think that like like we're so right in addressing both the white guilt
Starting point is 00:17:13 but also the diaspora guilt and also just how frustrating it is to organize against the state when it's like two people like three people doing it in a little group project for lack of a better word but it's sort of like how do we make this sustainable when it's so lonely and how do we use the resources that are available to us to not replicate these systems yet again and I guess when it comes to the lefts or progressives in Canada it's like so frustrating because it's like there isn't actually a lot of community outreach to like racialized communities. There's no translation. There's a lot of like nonprofit work that is frankly very draining and co-opted themselves.
Starting point is 00:18:19 Like it's, it's a bunch of social service organizations and a trench coat and a bunch of political organizations that don't work together or talk to each other in a trench coat. And so I understand why youth would join like leftist, like radical organizing, but it, it's just really heartbreaking when it's your, they end up reading in reading groups where they're reading historical, or so-called historical texts that erase your histories. Like, it's just such a, like, like, reading is great.
Starting point is 00:19:02 Like, political education is incredible. like, reading is great, like, political education is incredible, um, but I'm, like, it's hard not to grow resentful when the guy at the top is a university educated white dude, and they're reading texts that literally erase your entire family, and it's, um, that, like, yeah, for me, it's Like yeah for me it's like just really personal That way it's like There are people who Are suffering In the present and you're reading A text by a white
Starting point is 00:19:35 Sociologist from the 80s Like not Like I'm like it's not that like I Don't think that we should do that political education. It's just that, like, at a reading group, will you listen to me when I call you out? Yeah, I definitely, you know, both of you saying that this work is really lonely, especially if you take, if you up for yourself or you you really kind of stand by your principles it's i think that's so true and um you know not to speak for everyone in laosan but just my experience has been like you know everyone just
Starting point is 00:20:16 everyone hates us yeah like it's you know we get hate from the right we get hate from the left um and from hong kong diaspora from hong kong like it's, it's just sometimes it's really hard to see, you know, because we're trying to stay true to our principles. But it's hard to see sometimes whether there's an impact or whether we're just kind of like in a little echo chamber with 20 other people, you know what I mean? just kind of like in a little echo chamber with 20 other people you know what i mean and um it's hard to find that balance because i don't want to become more and more pragmatist where i'm just like all right well you know i'll work with these people but i don't agree with them on these fundamental issues just on this one campaign or whatever happens to be i don't know i know that's a part of like building power quote unquote like that a lot of uh certain socialist groups like to do or they really focus on that kind of thing but
Starting point is 00:21:10 uh i don't know if it's too much of an academic view to be like if you're gonna do it that way you're you're you're changing the outcome already right because you're not addressing these kind of fundamental issues from the start um and i think that view can sometimes lead to like a lot of non-starters where you're just like things don't ever get off the ground because you insist on whatever fundamental principle that you that you want to stick to uh like anti-nationalism for So, yeah, just kind of reiterating and commiserating with you all on the loneliness of that. Welcome, I'm Danny Threl.
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Starting point is 00:24:51 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast,
Starting point is 00:25:12 Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. People think that like not working in these sort of united front things is this like sort of pure ideological position.
Starting point is 00:25:38 But like, you know, I mean, so when Occupy ICE was happening, right, Occ right occupy ice wound up being a kind of big friend thing and one of the groups involved with it was the was the party for socialism liberation who are this sort of like very much sort of like the the base the tanky cult like they've there's not a lot of other horrible stuff that we'll talk about at some point but i mean one of the things that happens in occupy ice is that they you know in philadelphia they they destroy the encampment uh like they they they convince enough people to just leave and do this completely pointless like march they can do a photo op of like people in front of the mayor's office and they do it and the camp collapses because suddenly there's not enough people you know they don't even get a
Starting point is 00:26:22 majority of people but it doesn't matter because they pulled enough people out that you know that the camp couldn't be held against the cops anymore and i think that in some senses is this kind of microcosm of what they of what these people actually do which is that you know these people will never have any actual institutional power right you know they're they're never going to create their like salient state or whatever like they're never going to get this they're never going to hold any power what they can do is there are enough of them they can they can siphon off enough people from actual leftist movements into this sort of just like white room pro-capitalist stuff that they can they can cause movements to collapse and i mean they've done this
Starting point is 00:26:58 they did a lot of this during the uprising in 2020 there is a lot of them you know intentionally leading people on pointless marches there's a lot of them you know intentionally leading people on pointless marches there's a lot of cooperating with the police and stuff like that and i think that you know it's it's it's like having seen that like multiple times right i i you know it i'm i you know for me like not working with him as a practice is an incredibly pragmatic position because like not working with them is an incredibly pragmatic position because we tried it and they blew it up. But it's this problem, especially, you know, you have people who are radicalized in like 2020 and it's like, well, yeah, I mean, I don't know, like a lot of them never saw this
Starting point is 00:27:34 stuff, right? Don't know who these people are. And their first introduction to the left is this like incredibly well-financed like media blitz. And I think that has, you know, I think that has consequences both for us as sort of like people on the left doing
Starting point is 00:27:51 Chinese people on the left doing their own diaspora organizing, and it has consequences for the broader left. You can see other sort of versions of this, right, where you have a sort of right-wing movement infiltrating leftist bases and destroying them like they're like there was a thing like d-cream resistance basically blew
Starting point is 00:28:10 up a uh like an anti-lithium protest in the u.s by just like going there and just hammering transphobia constantly and so i don't know i i think there's there's this sort of dilemma because fundamentally they will say a lot of the same things we do but we have fundamentally different goals and that manifests itself at you know on the level of of organizing individual campaigns but it's something that's really hard to get people to see i think we've lost a lot of movements because of it yeah not to be you know not to pile on the cynicism or anything but i think i i honestly do think uh you know as all this new cold war stuff ramps up which is like completely independent of what a lot of folks like grassroots folks are even thinking or advocating it's all just kind of up to the the two uh you know chinese and u.s governments
Starting point is 00:29:13 as they ramp up their own tensions i think it's really going to start like people are going to start these people who are um you know tankies or whatever are going to start narrowing our choices further and further right like you know soon it's going to be anathema to to not you know take the anti-us position and that's it you know what i mean and i think that's really scary i to me i don't i last year i thought there was still room for intervention, but things are closing so quickly. And, you know, my personal opinion is that a lot of these kind of bigger groups like No Cold War and others like Code Pink are definitely being, you know, that they have much more funding than a lot of uh other groups who are forwarding more nuanced positions and so like you're saying it's just like these media blitzes these shiny uh events and all those different things are very appealing to to newly radicalized folks right
Starting point is 00:30:16 because they think that this this is where the power is and this is where we can actually make a difference um and yeah things to me things look pretty bleak in the near future uh yeah i mean it just takes one yeah yeah i i will say i think i think they they they made one major strategic mistake which is they tried to do the new the push the giant like new cold war with china thing at the exact moment that the u.s and russia were like heating up an action and this left them like kind of off balance because they'd been for the last two years the whole thing's been the u.s is going to accelerate tensions with china u.s is going to sell attention with china and then it turns out
Starting point is 00:30:53 that they're not doing that and in fact like they're gearing up for just more proxy war stuff with russia which is the thing they've been doing for the past decade so i think like i don't know like i think they their problem essentially is that they run into reality and there are certain points at which like you know you you can lie a lot right but when when when the lie that you're pushing is about what the mainstream media is going to say and the mainstream media just pivots and is just completely about something that's entirely unrelated like i think i think that hurts and i think everything that the other problem they have that that makes me hopeful is that the way their their base is getting split by
Starting point is 00:31:35 just the anti-vax grifters because so many of their media people just you know are are just are just full-on grifters and you know and you're you're seeing splits right now in gray zone about like basically between pro and anti-vax factions and i think that also will help us in the long run because you know say say what you want about most leftists and even most tankies like anti-vax is like a bit far even for them and because you know and the other things like the it's it's hard to do anti-vax without beginning to take positions that just like it's been baked into with just sort of anti-chinese racism in in so many ways that like you can't really like you know like you you can't simultaneously be pro incredibly CCP.
Starting point is 00:32:28 And then also be talking about how the U S is trying to implement social credit. Right. You know, these, these are, these, these positions are just contradictory.
Starting point is 00:32:35 And I think that's something that plays to our advantage. And I think is weakening them to some extent because they've, they, they tried to have their cake and eat it too some extent because they've, they, they tried to have their cake and eat it too. And now they're sort of, I don't know their, their, their conspiracy theory base is,
Starting point is 00:32:53 is interfering with their like left base in ways I think are helpful for us. It's just so interesting how like the anti-vax position is literally rooted in racism and ableism. Like, there's an article in The Conversation called The Inherent Racism of the Anti-Vax Movement that has, like, really good history around white settlers being afraid of African medicine. And then there's also just the ableism of assuming that your kid will get autism. If you get vaccinated, that's been a huge thing before the pandemic and that was part of how this was effective in the first place and um yeah and obviously the anti-chinese um like
Starting point is 00:33:58 uh anti-asian like scapegoating as well, but, um, I guess that also ties into, like, just how broadly ableist the left is, and how, like, disability justice is not something that a lot of people know about, um, or care about, and it's, yeah, I don't know. It's a huge problem for me as a disabled person. Yeah. I wanted to add really quickly too. I mean, I totally agree with you. And, you know, I think one of the pernicious things that I've noticed though, is like these kind of big, you know, quote unquote, anti-imperialist accounts like on instagram for example um they they take this anti-vax position precisely by saying that it's anti-racist to take that position which is like it sounds that sounds very counterintuitive it's not that does not reflect
Starting point is 00:34:58 reality but they will point to instances of you know anti- anti-Black U.S. medicine, for example, you know, like the Tuskegee experiments, and then say, this is why we shouldn't trust the U.S. government on any of this, right? Because look what they've done in the past. And it's like, that logic makes a lot of sense in a lot of ways, right? But but you know they they obviously ignore the impacts that you know anti-vax uh and covid has had on you know black and other uh poc populations right so i think i don't know if it's exactly like i don't know if it is appearing as hypocrisy to those people and then their audiences too right because i think they're able to spin it in this in this way yeah but i i think i think my my argument here is i i don't think those are the same i
Starting point is 00:35:49 don't think those are the same bases like i i don't i don't think that the majority of the tanky base are people who are anti-vaxxers and you know you you can see a line of this right of of you know like one of the big things that like they're obsessed with sort of like with the Cuban health care system. Right. And like Cuba's Cuba's vaccines. You see this stuff from them a lot. And, you know, and they also talk about like, yeah, like China's doing really well at getting COVID. think those people are the same people who are also turning around and then talking about how like you know talk doing the katsuki experiments the vaccines are actually like racism thing i think i think there's some overlap between them but but i don't think that those bases line up
Starting point is 00:36:39 enough for it to you know not have the effect of just kind of like tearing them apart as their media people flip into into one of the sort of camps and i think the other thing like you know if you look at what's happening with like uh like max blumenthal right now is that he's just like full-on like like he's just full-on touring with like just straight up right-wingers to an extent that even like even people who've been habituated by the sort of like syria false flags stuff into sort of working with right-wingers like you can't look at these people that you know it's just these actually just like republican operatives and be like, well, okay, we're, we're on the side of these people and also like support Cuba.
Starting point is 00:37:28 I just, I don't know. I, I, I have, I have some faith in these groups being separate and they're being, they're being a point of cognitive dissonance where the system breaks. I guess I've seen people who have gotten out of tankyism by having to interact with the actual CCP.
Starting point is 00:37:50 And that gives me hope that there's a point of cognitive dissonance at which it falls apart. And I don't know, maybe I'm just sort of like hopiuming here, but... Maybe I'm just sort of, like, hopiuming here, but... I feel like it's so interesting how, like, there are a lot of people for whom politics is a parlor game. Yeah. And not their everyday, like, lived experience. Like, I would not be so... Like, if I see my communities struggling
Starting point is 00:38:23 and when people are dying or people are really, like, struggling with intergenerational trauma, I'm not going to sit here and pontificate and theorize about, like, things that don't impact my communities. my communities. And yeah, like, the angle about class is so important here, because it's, like, a lot of people can't insulate themselves from, like, the broader communities around them. Like, if you're going around saying untruths in the media and your communities are like hey that that makes no sense like um if you're actually connected to people like like you would hopefully unless you're just a big asshole um you you would hopefully take some accountability for what you're saying um and i yeah i just i just worry because this pandemic has also like really isolated people. Yeah. Like they, people are not like talking to each other and that makes it more easy for people to, to be like, oh, I'm, I'm just right.
Starting point is 00:39:36 Like, this is my perspective. Yeah, I think about that, the conditions in which we come to certain conclusions, like the conditions under which we become more vulnerable to cult is a very, like, manipulative, like, argument. are like about neglect and are about um deliberately deliberate ongoing genocide and how like it's completely understandable for for people to not trust the government but but like when the vaccine is actually a tool of protecting people like there's not a lot of like campaigns other than people who are uh rooted in disability justice saying hey vaccines are like here to protect us and how can we make how can we make like a like how can we resist the medical industrial complex enough such that we can make people feel safer taking a vaccine? How can we bring people in as opposed to fear mongering? Because I think that fear is so powerful. It's like once you're afraid, you're not going to even look into the research.
Starting point is 00:41:23 Right. So I don't know for me i just think of all of this as like manipulation and human psychology on a on a like broad social basis because it's like the the stage is a big cult and these little groups are little cults yeah cults yeah welcome i'm daniel won't you join me at the fire and dare enter nocturnal tales from the shadows presented by iheart and sonora an anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural
Starting point is 00:42:18 creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel.
Starting point is 00:43:00 I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian.
Starting point is 00:43:09 Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story,
Starting point is 00:43:40 as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry,
Starting point is 00:44:25 we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons?
Starting point is 00:44:53 Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Starting point is 00:45:18 New episodes every Thursday. Yeah, do you have any other things you want to say before we head out happy new year yeah year of the tiger i'm looking forward to retweeting art like actually okay not january 1st yeah yeah we should. I think my okay. Okay, close closing less depressing question. Yeah. What do you think is the etiquette on retweeting? Like, yeah, retweeting like you're the tiger art before the actual before like Lunar New Year's.
Starting point is 00:46:01 I've been torn on it because I just I like the art. But also I'm like, it's not the years yet I haven't seen any I guess I guess I'm lucky I have been either guilty or just not guilty depending on how you see it like I have retweeted all of the tiger art on January 1st because I did not care I wanted to see the tigers um but I hope that I see more tigers like in the coming days because if the tigers aren't coming or if we aren't retweeting it that that is an issue like there needs to be like a second like a like a like a like like to be a second wave of the tiger art. No pressure to all of the artists.
Starting point is 00:46:54 All right. So if people want to find you or work that you have that you want people to find, where can they do that? Or if you also do not want them to find uh where where can they do that or if you also do not want them to find you that is completely also valid uh the internet is terrible and a mistake yeah i'm mostly in do not perceive me mode um completely valid if you want to check uh out lausanne stuff feel free uh lausannecollective.com That's good work. My social media is pipagalpoetry On Instagram
Starting point is 00:47:31 I have this graphic that I've turned into a sticker and it's it raises funds for families who were affected by the fires and floods um it's a sticker that says immunocompromised people are worth protecting and it went viral multiple times so
Starting point is 00:47:58 i guess i cannot help but be perceived at this point despite objections. So yeah, I don't know. Fuck all poetry. This is what happens when you create things that are both incredibly politically powerful and also gorgeous. Be cursed with the reward for good work, which is
Starting point is 00:48:19 also being perceived. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you can find, uh, you can find us at happen here, pod on Twitter and Instagram.
Starting point is 00:48:31 There's the cool zone. You can find it. Uh, yeah, go, go, go, go retweet tiger arts.
Starting point is 00:48:36 Uh, go throw a brick at your sheriff, uh, non-actionable and yeah, destroy the American and Chinese States. Happy new years. non-actionable and yeah destroy the american and chinese states happy new year's it could happen here is a production of cool zone media for more podcasts from cool zone media visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever
Starting point is 00:48:59 you listen to podcasts you can find sources sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturno on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jacqueline Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit. The podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while running errands or at the end of a busy day. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Listen to Black Lit on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app,
Starting point is 00:50:06 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T. Connecting changes everything. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions.
Starting point is 00:50:24 Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at
Starting point is 00:51:04 the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from.

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