Re: Re: [-empyre-] race, net-art, strategy

[claudia@anat.org.au]

aroha nui ... when i came to australia and started studying computer 
programming at an australian university it was very hard, i was poor, a female, 
i had a 'strong accent' and didn't know any of the things that make students 
life easier ... i kept on going despite the fact that i failed dramatically and 
received a letter from university saying that i might be wasting 'my money' and 
that i should think hard about coming back again ... I CRIED ... i have always 
been a good student and in many subjects a top student ...

i thought over the summer about this issue, and decided: OK this is why it was 
so hard for you claudia: you don't have the level of language you required, you 
had no friends, in fact once i asked a very nice anglosaxon boy for help and he 
looked straight through me and didn't even answer, he stood up and left me 
behind, on top of all this i didn't have money to buy the text books and when i 
asked a couple of lecturers if i could photocopy from their books these men 
gave me a lecture on copyright issues ... all in all i did have a pretty bad 
run ... so i thought the second time will be better ...

i went back and because i didn't have a car and lived very far away from the 
university campus i was LATE for my first lecture ... imagine how lost i was 
that i didn't even know lecture theatres had a back door!!! ... so i debated 
outside the front door what to do and decided: stuff this, i will go in, i need 
to get in and knowing that i will be a bit disturbing for few minutes i open 
the door ...

the lecture theatre was PACKED with over 300 hundred students from computer 
programming, engineering and who knows what else doing this common DIGITAL 
CIRCUITS subject ... i looked around, there were people sitting EVERYWHERE, 
there were students sitting all over the place, including the stairs ... 
everywhere except in front, besides or behind A BLACK WOMAN, she was black like 
the night, and nobody was sitting around her ... i thought, that's my friend!!! 
so i walked into the lecture theatre and sat by her side, i said: hi, my name 
is Claudia, and this is how Beatrice Makani and i became good friends ...

as it turned out Bite is the MOST CLEVER HUMAN BEING i have ever met, she was 
sent by her government from Tanzania to become a computer programmer, today she 
is a senior IT specialist in charge of major IT systems in her country ... she 
educated me about racism against BLACK PEOPLE ... i knew this by intuition but 
being with her for two years taught me about behaviours i would otherwise not 
be aware of by personal experience ...

what i know i learnt by sheer life experience, i do not write about what i have 
not seen or experience directly ... it is easy to think we KNOW about issues, 
but the truth of the matter is that thinking is not the same than living ...

i find it very funny to be perceived as an avant-garde keeper of ideological 
gates, because i do not believe in gates, i do not believe in gatekeeping and i 
am as far away from the avant-garde as it is humanly possible ... i love to 
think that i am a prop-agendist, this is a cool term ... because oddly enough i 
am an ALLENDIST, which is the term used to refer to people that voted for 
Salvador Allende in Chile, the only caring president that we had ever had, who 
was killed on a Tuesday morning on an 11th of September in 1973 by a coup 
d'etat orchestrated and funded by the CIA ... so i am sure i make Salvador 
Allende proud, because he is in HEAVEN, the heaven where good people go when 
they leave their body ... when Salvador Allende was killed I was 12 years old.

i aroha nui all people who has only known suffering in this world, and this is 
the VAST MAJORITY of people that have ever been born on this planet, at least 
for the past HORRIBLE 500 years of european domination of EARTH ... i can't 
stay unmoved when i know we share this planet with children who at 11 years of 
age worked 12 hours a day for 20 cents of an amerikan dollar and who only 
receive one cup of boiled rice which is shared with a younger girl sibling!!!

it is easy to believe we are good when our life has been comfortable ... i have 
heard people saying IT IS THEIR KARMA, well, i also believe in karma, but this 
doesn't mean i cannot be a compassionate person ... i just would like the same 
opportunities to be shared by all human beings, i would love for all people to 
be able like us to have time to write to people we haven't even seen once in 
our lives, i would love for people to be able to grow as big as their potential 
could take them ... and i should say, i love the ghetto song, it talks to me, 
it takes to me about some of my best friends, it talks to me clear and loud; if 
this makes me an avant-garde keeper of ideology well so be it!

claudia {;-)




Quoting aka.leafa@xtra.co.nz:

 I certainly hope that the ghetto quote was not taken to anyone personally...it
 was merely used in order to draw a parrallel with how You or I can close a
 discussion...I am in awe that you Claudia do keep going will not allow issues
 of race or any form of prejudice shape you
  like you I will not sit down where there is need to keep communication open
 and challenging in a gentle way
 ...I will keep showing my face...and I certainly hope I don't bulldoze...I
 believe like you there are basic commonalities in human experience that also
 make me connect with people, love them in their difference...this takes
 courage and aroha(love) 
 aroha nui (that literally means big love)
 to you Claudia and all
 leafa
 > 
 > From: "claudia raddatz" <claudia@anat.org.au>
 > Date: 2003/07/31 Thu PM 02:44:05 GMT+12:00
 > To: "soft_skinned_space" <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>, 
 > 	"soft_skinned_space" <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>, 
 > 	"soft_skinned_space" <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
 > Subject: Re: [-empyre-] race, net-art, strategy
 > 
 > If you ain't been to the ghetto.
 > Don't come to the ghetto.
 > 'Cause you won't understand the ghetto,
 > so stay the fuck out of the ghetto.**
 > from the song Ghetto Bastard
 > 
 > and if you did go to the ghetto ... listen carefully and watch ... if you
 > went to rome do what the romans do ... once you pass this kind of
 initiation
 > you will belong to the ghetto and all barriers are gone ... at least this
 > has been my personal experience ... i have been accepted in many 'ghettos'
 > because i don't go to tell people what to do, what to feel, how to behave,
 > what should not be said and so on ... i believe this is respect
 > 
 > i might not be very welcome in the 'white ghettos' but even then this is
 not
 > true ... i write to nazis, and i state my position as clearly as i do in
 > this list ... but never went as a bulldozer, i realised one of the
 > 'ideologists' just lost his dad and his mum wasn't coping very well, this
 is
 > how i started one and every single one of my emails: i hope your mum is
 > feeling better ... in the next sentence i would argue my Marxist view when
 > it comes to economics ... i believe people defend vested interests and
 there
 > is nothing that will convince me otherwise ... i believe that the synthesis
 > of the female and the male principle at an ontological level is the
 > androgyny and there is nothing that will convince me otherwise ... at the
 > same time a AM A MAGIC-SPIRIT PRACTITIONER and there is nothing that will
 > convince me otherwise because the spirit shows its face second after second
 > and we insist to be consumed by mediocrity ... yeap, i am my own ghetto in
 > many respects, so i you don't like the ghetto, stay away because i do reply
 > {;-)
 > 
 > it has been a pleasure to take part of this list ... i like when people
 > speak their mind, specially if i do not agree with their opinions, this way
 > i am forced to get over "what the fuck is this person saying" to how can i
 > answer in a way that i make my point clear and hopefully not be alienating
 > so that the other person, with an opposite position, might be able to 'see'
 > from where i am standing ...
 > 
 > 
 > claudiahetto {;-)
 > 
 > 
 > 
 > 
 > 
 > 
 > _______________________________________________
 > empyre forum
 > empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
 > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
 > 
 
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