Texas Student Diane Tran Receives Outpouring of Support, Dick Judge Removes Contempt Order
Diane Tran, the 17-year-old honors student from Willis, Texas (one hour north of Houston) has received an outpouring of support from concerned individuals, activists and nonprofit groups around the nation. According to KHOU.com, Tran was ordered by Judge Lanny Moriarty to spend a night in jail and pay $100 fine after receiving too many unexcused absences due to exhaustion from working a full-time job and part-time job and studying for AP classes. Tran works both jobs to support her two siblings since their parents divorced and abandoned them.
After the press got wind of Tran’s story, the Louisiana Children’s Education Alliance set up HelpDianeTran.com, a site that aims to raise funds and awareness for Diane Tran and her family, and a Change.org petition was created, which has currently received more than 200,000 signatures from across the country.
HuffPo is now reporting that judge has set aside the contempt of court order, meaning that Tran will not have to report a criminal history to any future employers or college admissions offices. Additionally, Tran’s lawyers and many activists in support of her cause are pushing for a expunged record, and some are even calling for Judge Moriarty to be removed from office. It’s not hard to see why. The guy is kind of a dick.
Before you go sauntering down Devil’s Advocacy St. and saying to yourself “Well, Texas has truancy laws, and the judge is simply upholding the law,” I urge you to watch Moriarty’s response to the KHOU reporter (starts at 1:30)
Moriarty: If you let one [student] run loose, what are you gonna do with the rest of ‘em? Let them go too? A little stay in jail for a night is not a death sentence.
Reporter: Do you think it’s a case where justice can be tempered with mercy?
Moriarty: Probably so, yes.
Reporter: Can anything be done to revoke this?
Moriarty: It probably could.
Reporter: Will you [do something]?
Moriarty: I haven’t thought on that issue because it turns me really soft.
And there you have it, folks. That’s grade-A dickage right there. A person who is paid to deliberate on cases involving young people with care, taking into account extenuating factors, and dole out fair punishments revealed that he’d rather appear as a hardass than a namby-pamby, so he threw one of the shiniest examples of hardworking American youth in the slammer. And, so what? It’s not like it was the death sentence or anything. Be grateful for that. Congrats, Moriarty, you just made an example–of how the system continues to keep the optimistic and well-intentioned down.
We as a nation, and my home state of Texas in particular, keep trying to fix the education system by defaulting to the justice system, which tends to do irreparable damage to a young person’s social and economic future and effectively ensure that she will be denied the opportunities for further education, the escape of spectacularly crappy situations and the waning but inextinguishable hope of attaining something better than what you’ve got.
We keep explaining to young people the wonders of bootstrapping, and then when someone dares to try and fails at it, we decide she just hasn’t had enough negative reinforcement, throw her in with “the rest of them” losers, and proceed to force-feed them shit sandwiches. Mercy? Probably could, but it’s no big deal.
Yes, this appeared to be the only way: containment, appearances and the dollar-store Halloween costume of justice. But Diane Tran deserves more than what the school and government authorities have given her. And all the kids out there with their noses to the grindstone as well as the curbside kids who are watching–wondering if the hard work and the bullshit hurled their way is worth it–deserve to know that it is.
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‘Buzzkill’ Ellen Pao Sues Kleiner VC Firm for Craptastic Treatment of Women
Earlier this week, TechCrunch reported on the details of Ellen Pao’s suit against VC firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers. In it, are some very cringe-worthy details about the firm and its senior partners’ treatment of Pao.
In 2006, Pao had gone to Germany with then fellow junior partner, Ajit Nazre, who apparently thought he was on Spring Break instead of a business trip. Nazre allegedly pressured Pao for sex, to which she was like, “Dude, no, you’re gross.” Not a horndog to take no for an answer, Nazre lied about his wife leaving him and got Pao to “eventually succumb” to his persistence a few times.
After Pao swiftly ended things, Nazre got all cryface and played some rather childish retaliation games (for FIVE whole years), which included “excluding her from business meetings, removing her from email discussions, failing to share information she needed for her job, blocking her from interviewing new employees, and more.”
When Pao brought up Nazre’s behavior to the higher ups, she was advised to quit her yammering or transfer to their China office if she didn’t like it. Old-fashioned managing partner Ray Lane advised her to “engage in a personal relationship with” and marry Nazre–clearly the only sensible thing for a fallen, Ivy League-educated woman to do. It’s comforting to know we’re still sending the age-old message to women of color: marry a dude or be effectively deported.
Inexplicably, Pao refused to heed both suggestions and instead suffered further harassment. Such as this incident:
“For Valentine’s Day 2007 Senior Partner Randy Komisar came into [Pao's] office and gave her a book entitled ‘The Book of Longing’ by Leonard Cohen, inscribed with a handwritten note from Mr. Komisar to Plaintiff. The book contains many sexual drawings and poems with strong sexual content. At about the same time, Mr. Komisar asked [Pao] out to a Saturday night dinner, telling Plaintiff that his wife would be out of town.”
According to the suit, when Pao complained, “she was told that it was unfair, that it would never have happened to a male partner, but that she should just accept it.” To add insult to injury, Pao got to watch Nazre, who had two years less experience than her ascend to senior partner while she was stuck in the back office, failing in her attempts to convince people of what a douchebag he was.
Pao’s suit claims that KPCB regularly discriminated against women, citing a 2011 conversation with Randy Komisar, who told Pao that “the personalities of women do not lead to success at KPCB, because women are quiet.”
That’s right, we are. I dunno how Joan Rivers ever won Celebrity Apprentice. Everyone knows she’s quiet as a botox-injected lab rat.
Also in 2011, KCPB partners organized two Boys Club dinners from which women employees were excluded due to the incontrovertible, well-known fact that they “kill the buzz,” according to partner Chi-Hua Chien. Oh, Chi-Hua. If you think that a beautiful, smart woman like Ellen Pao would kill your buzz, then you are probably just a social reject who shits his pants a wittle bit when forced to converse with a woman. Get a grip.
Anyway, Ellen Pao doesn’t deserve any of this bullfuckingcrappery (new word, kids). I really hope she wins the suit and shows the boys club exactly how “quiet” women are. And all of you VC firms out there who think you can get away with gender discrimination, consider whether you’ve got an Ellen Pao in your ranks, ready to expose you for the wankfaces you are.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Ashton Kutcher in Brownface for Popchips Commercial
So this is neat. Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) did a promo video for a faux dating website called WorldWideLovers.com–in BROWNFACE. Calling himself “Raj” and pretending to be a Bollywood producer, Kutcher does the Indian-est accent he can muster. He points to a bag of Popchips and goes, “This is the Bombay!” Bah-dah-bah-psh!
If the product placement wasn’t clue enough, a visit to www.worldwidelovers.com takes you to a Facebook app page, presumably launched by Popchips as a clever marketing ploy.
I didn’t laugh once during this video, but maybe you’ll find it funny. You know, if you’re kinda racist. I wonder if Fes would’ve thought this was funny…
Popularity: 1% [?]
On the Oakland Shooting + Friday Muse-Sick Fix
Oakland Shooting / One Goh
This past Monday, a former student at Oakland’s Oikos University shot and killed seven people and wounded three others. According to Reuters, “the attack was the deadliest gun violence at a U.S. college since a Virginia Tech University student killed 32 people and wounded 25 others before taking his own life in 2007.”
For all involved, and for everyone watching, the shooting is a tragedy. Unfortunately, it’s also an opportunity for the media and netizens alike to speculate on possible motives and complicated factors like race, mental health and gun control. For the Asian American community, it’s a bitter reminder of past tragedies that we’d sooner forget–a looming specter of angst, shame, self-reflection, fatigue and other shitty feelings.
Because yes, like at VT the shooter is Asian. Korean, to be specific. And because we’re not living in a post-racial America that one fact means a helluva lot more than it should. Yes, One Goh was bullied and othered–which is HORRIBLE AND SHOULD NEVER HAPPEN TO ANYONE. But in this case it doesn’t excuse him from taking SEVEN LIVES.
Anyone who condones either bullying or murder is part of the problem–and we all know (or should know) that.
So, please, I beg the media and you netizens to write and talk about about this issue with awareness, sensitivity and respect. And I hope we all keep the victims in mind as we try for the nth time to figure out what this means for the AAPI community–if it means anything at all.
Muse-Sick Fix
It’s Friday. And there are a lot of shitty, terrible things happening in the world. And sometimes when I feel like there’s no end in sight for the uphill battles that marginalized people have to fight, I put on pop music. Because that’s what you gotta do.
Today I’m listening to Korean rap star Yoon Mi Rae (real name: Tasha Reid) kill it (both literally and lyrically) in her latest single, “Get It In.” Check out the official music video below, which I’d describe as Kill Bill + ill rhymes and beats.
Yoon Mi Rae is an American performer of mixed race (Black and Korean) who moved to South Korea and rose to fame as “Korea’s best female rapper.” She first debuted as “Tasha “or “T” and was highly regarded for releasing a song called “Black Happiness,” in which she discussed the difficulties of having a mixed heritage.
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Daily Texan Posts ‘Apology’ for Racially Insensitive Trayvon Martin Cartoon
The University of Texas at Austin is my alma mater, so it thoroughly disappoints me when something like the racist Trayvon Martin cartoon is born in our hallowed halls, is published in The Daily Texan, is pulled off the site (not due to the public’s reaction but due to server issues), is put back on the site, continues to spread a crappy message and be a failed attempt to make the students and faculty of UT think about the media and racial issues.
What’s worse is that Daily Texan student adviser Doug Warren, who has spent 30+ years in journalism posted an “apology” on the site today that has been swiftly removed, though the page still pops up on the Interwebs if you search for it. I’ve taken the liberty of making some marginal notes. Just “take a deep breath” before you click on this thumbnail…
The newly minted journalists and self-appointed judges of racism might want to ask themselves what is more “yellow”–actual journalists using neutral language to relay facts, or cartoonists who use racial slurs that drive traffic to their online newspaper?
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