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It's been a v long day full of grief and frustration. I'm saying this shit cuz I'm upset that all of our academic "OGs" in the Filipino community rallied to defend their own instead of taking the moment to reflect and have a fruitful convo. This is how I choose to process it all:
My young sis, @liaamelissaa you have every right to question the elders because contrary to what these academics have been defending in their tweets, THAT IS WHAT OUR ANCESTORS FOUGHT FOR. EMPOWERMENT OF OUR PEOPLE AND OUR VOICE. NO MATTER WHAT AGE.
Whether or not her take was not reflective of @kevinnadal work, his reactions to her statement are what are most concerning to me. I don’t doubt his work, and I respect his research and learned from a lot of it, but I will always look out for my young Pinays.
The fact that the same academics who I look up to (I see your likes on twitter) didn't immediately defend the youth and instead went up for a man who put a young girl on blast on twitter instead of engaging in dialogue, is baffling, and telling of the separation of generations.
And then for Kevin Nadal to gaslight the community and say that the critiques against his actions are "crab mentality" (when he started it) is baseless & manipulative. We can critique each other and still have love. I haven’t given up on you or my people just b/c of frustration.
Love doesn't mean unconditional/unwavering support through kindness, it means I'll let you know when you fucked up because that's how we learn and get better. That's why we can't move past a lot of our shit but I'm glad the young people want to dialogue and hope more OG's follow.
What baffles me is KEVIN NADAL WROTE VOLUMES OF BOOKS ON FILIPINO PSYCHOLOGY AND WOMEN'S TRAUMA BUT LITERALLY PUT A YOUNG WOMAN'S MENTAL HEALTH IN HARM'S WAY AND MADE HER FACE THE SAME GENERATIONAL TRAUMA OF BELITTLING YOUTH AND WOMEN THAT HAVE PUT US DOWN FOR CENTURIES.
How do you break generational trauma when you perpetuate it instead of assessing how to unlearn it? Who do you choose to learn from? Who/what do you dismiss? What do you wish our youth would take away from your work? because they are clearly listening.
His partner infantilizing this girl and proudly establishing that he is elitist and commenting about this girl’s lack of education as if our Manongs and Manangs who "walked so we can run" didn’t face the same type of discrimination on education when they came to this country.
You all are supposed to be representing our young people in higher ed PWI’s who will already tear them down and make them feel invalidated in their existence, instead you took an empowered youth, who clearly was paying attention to your relevant work, and invalidated her.
This is how I know higher education isn’t the only way, and why I trust grassroots organizers more than institutionalized researchers because at some point a lot of the fight becomes about ego and power instead of community but that’s my hot take.
Trivialized her critique as personal beef with "are you okay?" are YOU ok? b/c she didn't @ you but you're projecting so much. are YOU ok? b/c a tweet has you trembling instead of reflecting. are YOU ok? Because you took a tweet about Black solidarity and made it about yourself.
You can most definitely mourn in private. You are also a person on twitter with feelings and I acknowledge that and am sorry for your frustration, but people on the TL have been expecting the same energy from our leaders when it comes to other groups' struggles and that's valid.
I’m disappointed, and really hope that we can come together. I hope these men apologize to this young sister, and our community can be proud that our youth are powerful enough to question the status quo, even if our people are the ones holding it.
I’m proud that our sister stood up. I’m disappointed that the same academics and educators whose research I read, forgot that their place in academia would be nothing without the same type of energy that youth like @liaamelissaa brought to the table.
