SONG OF THE DAY: Orosi

There’s a lot of talk about the removal of dumbass Confederate monuments that suggests if you don’t have shit like that around, you’ll forget history. The obvious flaw in this is most folks supporting Confederate monuments already don’t remember the actual history of the Confederacy. On top of this, the histories we’re told are so often skewed from the perspective of the victors, even in the context of progressive histories. As an example, until digging deeper into the things this “Orosi” song talked about, I had no idea about the Filipino farm workers who initiated the grape protests back in the ‘60s, for better working conditions for farm workers. Now Orosi is central California, but mostly populated with Filipino people who have resided in the area after migration related to farming jobs. The small city is actually majority Filipino. The Delano grape strikes happened in the same region, about an hour south of Orosi, back in the ‘60s, and were started by a group of Filipino farm workers, who eventually called on Cesar Chavez to aid in their movement. Chavez initially refused, because he didn’t think they had the money to support their own movement’s goals, but other members of the group Chavez was head of forced him to take part, and he led a long distance walk to the California state capitol in support of the grape workers. I knew about Cesar Chavez, but only recently realized he was involved in outing people as Communists, that he wasn’t supportive of outside movements too easily that didn’t support his own image, and had quite a cult of personality that grew up around himself, which he used to his benefit. Nothing is simple and straightforward, not even resistance to obvious bullshit like the current American empire as it holds itself up in the highest positions. But even dissecting the patriarchal elements to black resistance or the inequality involved in white women’s feminism is necessary shit, because we’ve got a whole slew of shit woven into our society that fucks people up and holds them down. Many people we’d prop up on pedestals, literally, even by right now’s standards, are gonna end up flawed down the road. Cesar Chavez is a good example of that. Doesn’t mean what he did accomplish wasn’t good.

The same is true of individuals. I’m a white dude. I also do not necessarily have the economic benefits born to me the average white dude would have. But I also do benefit from outsider perspectives judging me as a white dude in many situations, and probably wouldn’t have the good job I have now if I wasn’t a white dude. I’ve done fucked up shit in the past, far from perfect, and have done a lot of work to try and be a better human being. I’m still not perfect, and still got shit I need to be better about, and past bullshit I need to try and heal myself over so it doesn’t keep coming back up as a negative ripple in my here and now. But ain’t nobody perfect that’s truly human. I’m gonna allow others the room to grow, gonna try my best not to judge nobody unless they’re so over the top in militantly enforcing their beliefs on others that don’t seem right that I have to judge them, and either keep a distance or stand against as protection for myself and others. It’s a lot of shit shifting rapidly right now, which is such a good thing to see, and be a part of and experience. It’s historic. But if we keep growing as humanity, I’d expect sixty years from now, even some of what we’re seeing today is gonna seem like bullshit in retrospect. That’s good. That’s hopefully gonna be a sign of continuous growth towards betterment.

By the way if you don’t know by now, you should support Bambu on Bandcamp. Dude’s one of the top political MCs there is. I’m anxiously awaiting Exrcising A Demon: Article III, even if it don’t exist yet.