Articles by Super User

Source: Al Jazeera

After my family immigrated to Maryland, I internalized the racism that could be turned against me

In February 1968 the Kerner Report, commissioned by President Lyndon Johnson to examine the causes of urban riots, warned that “our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal.” The report was duly ignored, even as its predictions were borne out just a few months later, when riots broke out in hundreds of cities after the murder of Martin Luther King Jr.

My family emigrated from India to Baltimore in 1969, the year after a week of deadly and destructive riots swept through the city’s poverty belt. Over the next 20 years we lived in Baltimore County, which envelops the city. In the 1970s, we were the only nonwhite family for blocks, except for two other Asian households. Because my father was an engineer and my siblings and I excelled in school, we were able to benefit from the model minority stereotype. While early on we had to confront open racism, we were accepted into white culture over time. This contradictory experience meant I internalized the racism that I could be subjected to. read more

Source: Atlantic

Rioting broke out on Monday in Baltimore—an angry response to the death of Freddie Gray, a death my native city seems powerless to explain. Gray did not die mysteriously in some back alley but in the custody of the city’s publicly appointed guardians of order. And yet the mayor of that city and the commissioner of that city’s police still have no idea what happened. I suspect this is not because the mayor and police commissioner are bad people, but because the state of Maryland prioritizes the protection of police officers charged with abuse over the citizens who fall under its purview. read more

Source: The Guardian Unlimited

For a whole year, a Chilean artist using the name Fried Potatoes (Papas Fritas) planned his revenge. Saying he was collecting material for an art project, the 31-year-old visual artist sneaked into a vault at a notorious private, run-for-profit university and quietly removed tuition contracts.

Fried Potatoes – whose real name is Francisco Tapia – then burned the documents, rendering it nearly impossible for the Universidad del Mar to call in its debt – which he claimed was worth as much as $500m (£297m). “It’s over. You are all free of debt,” he said in a five-minute video released earlier this month. Speaking to former students, he added: “You don’t have to pay a penny.” read more