PrernaLal.com

Odds Jobs List

// January 29th, 2010 // 1891No Comments »http://prernalal.com/2010/01/odds-jobs-list/Odds+Jobs+List2010-01-29+08%3A50%3A48Prerna // Human Rights

Inspired by Gabe

You won’t find these on my resume. They are lost to history.

First paid job ever: Taco Bell at the age of 16.

Best moment: A $20 tip from a guy who ‘liked’ me.
Worst moment: Too many to recall right now. Maybe some rude customer asking me if I knew how to count (while I am doing Calculus II), or the management keeping me beyond my paid hours to wash down the place. It helped gain the necessary experience for janitorial services later on though.

Second semi-paid job: High School Assistant Policy Debate Coach

I occasionally got some pocket money for teaching marginalized urban youth forensics. Then the program shut down.

From there, I was promoted to a part-time janitor and then full-time janitor by my mother, who brought me to this country for “greater opportunities.”

(I can safely bet that I would have never been a janitor in Fiji).

You can see all about how your janitor is probably smarter than you: Part 1 and Part 2.

Payment was in the form of free food and shelter, with occasional clothing. Worker’s compensation was out of question. This continued throughout my undergraduate years, graduate school and even after graduation with my Master’s Degree, till I broke my wrist in April 2008. Now I help on occasion but tasks like lifting garbage or vacuuming are much more difficult with my weak hand. Yes, now you know my weak spot.

Fanbases: This is not an ‘odd job’ but it was something I did as a hobby that felt like a job after a while. Most people have no idea, but I have actually created thriving online communities before DreamActivist. They were completely apolitical though and fan-bases for some Indian television celebrities. Do you know how I can record and rip videos at lightening speed? Or use video-editing software and photoshop? A lot of practice from this era.

I let it go as a hobby and have not updated in several years. See VluvAnita for one of my remaining forays into celebrity obsession. I had 5 others like this that got more hits per day than DreamActivist does today.

Yes, she knows who I am and I have her cell-phone number and we have spoken, text-messaged and I just grew up and out of it. Her posters still adorn my walls though.

Brave New Films, Jan 2008-June 2008 – Yes, how can I forget these exploitative fools? I heard they are now hiring a blogger for Afghanistan? Make sure to get them to give you a contract and not exploit you like they exploited DREAM Act students a couple years back. They were supposed to pay us but never did and let the ‘program’ go without any sort of communication.

I am lucky. This is it. I applied to Taco Bell again just two weeks ago but have yet to get a call back. But then everything happens for a reason. A friend says to hell with it, and I’ll get a much better gig than the crap I have been vying for the past month.

Odd is out. It’s time to get even.

Lessons from MLK

// January 18th, 2010 // 18751 Comment »http://prernalal.com/2010/01/lessons-from-mlk/Lessons+from+MLK2010-01-18+21%3A51%3A46Prerna // Human Rights, Racism

My middle-order MLK and the DREAM for Immigrant Rights was posted earlier today at Change.org but I will use my space here to share with you two more great lessons from Martin Luther King Jr., that guides my daily life and philosophy. The source is Letter from Birmingham Jail and this time, it is the “white moderate” under attack:

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
-Martin Luther King Jr, Letter from Birmingham Jail

I have already once blogged this quote here, while deriding people in the ‘immigrant rights’ movement for holding the DREAM Act hostage. It still holds true today when ‘immigrant rights’ people are quick to blame and judge ‘anarchists’ for creating an atmosphere of violence when it is simply PIC who feel that pepper-spraying children is a necessary action when it comes to “crowd control.”

But it is not our ‘allies’ that I am too concerned about nowadays. We know how to use them and they know how to use us–it is an exploitation based on a symbiotic relationship. I am more concerned about those in our ranks who choose to do nothing.

(more…)

Report: The State of Freedom of Religion in Fiji

// October 27th, 2009 // 97No Comments »http://prernalal.com/2009/10/report-the-state-of-freedom-of-religion-in-fiji/Report%3A+The+State+of+Freedom+of+Religion+in+Fiji2009-10-28+06%3A20%3A40Prerna // Fiji Coup Coverage, Human Rights

While Fiji does not have the best record on ‘freedom of religion,’ the U.S. Department of State report is overwhelmingly balanced on the issue even though it notes instances of persecution.

There was some concern the religious crusade instituted by the Police Commissioner resulted in coercion within the police force to convert to Christianity. There were isolated reports of societal abuses or discrimination based on religious affiliation, belief, or practice. According to police statistics, reported incidents of sacrilege decreased from 39 in 2006 to 22 in 2007. Of the 21 reports of robbery and/or desecration of places of worship in 2007, 12 involved Christian churches, seven involved Hindu temples, and two involved mosques. Police surmised that many incidents had more to do with theft than with religious intolerance.

Several Hindu temples were attacked during the reporting period. In August 2008, a private temple in Ba was reportedly destroyed by arsonists. Following a string of temple desecrations in October, Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama ordered a special investigation. Bainimarama stated that ending racism against Indo-Fijians was a priority for his administration.

There were isolated problems for religious groups viewed as outside the mainstream seeking to establish congregations in some villages and outer islands. In a few cases, local traditional leaders prevented groups from proselytizing or holding meetings.

I think it is fair to say that coupster Bainimarama respects freedom of religion even though his administration is not exactly capable of handling persecution. Freedom of expression, especially speech, is another matter altogether.

Amnesty International Report: Media Censorship in Fiji

// September 10th, 2009 // 1506No Comments »http://prernalal.com/2009/09/amnesty-international-report-media-censorship-in-fiji/Amnesty+International+Report%3A+Media+Censorship+in+Fiji2009-09-10+10%3A17%3A15Prerna // Human Rights

Fiji’s military-led government is using systematic human rights violations, including beatings, arbitrary arrests and media censorship, to control the South Pacific island nation, according to an Amnesty International report, Fiji: Paradise Lost.

Amnesty International expressed concern about about widespread human rights violations which followed President Ratu Josefa Iloilo’s abrogation of the Fiji Constitution on 10 April 2009. These include violations of the rights to freedom of assembly, opinion, expression and movement, the right to a fair trial, and freedom from arbitrary detention.

The full report is here.

Obama is a Liar

// September 9th, 2009 // 13811 Comment »http://prernalal.com/2009/09/obama-is-a-liar/Obama+is+a+Liar2009-09-10+02%3A26%3A39Prerna // Human Rights, Immigration

Crossposted at S4FC and The Sanctuary

It is sad that all our social networks and media blitzes are about how disrespectful Congressperson Joe Wilson was rather than how centrist and inappropriate Barack Obama is with his assertion that all human beings don’t deserve equal access to health care. He has to reiterate twice using the hateful discourse of ‘illegal.’ That’s just an all-new low for a President who once said that we have to take the hate out of the immigration debate.

I wish Joe Wilson was right and Obama was lying about the fact that undocumented immigrants would not be covered. But Obama is a liar. Just not in the way that Joe Wilson meant it. Once upon a time, Barack Obama used to be a proponent of single-payer healthcare — “Everybody in, nobody out.” Alas, that came with an asterick. *Illegals and people without proper government documentation need not apply.

That list also includes citizens:

I am effectively an “illegal immigrant,” since I do not have gov’t papers. Yes, this is because I am trans and a woman. (via @nueva_voz)

If the President had pursued immigration reform before healthcare, we probably wouldn’t be seeing this hateful fear-mongering heckling. Yet, President Obama has continued to pursue the same failed immigration enforcement policies of the Bush-era like 287g that is ripping apart communities of color.

Anything less than single-payer universal health care is a dismal failure when it comes to providing everyone with equal access to health care. Anything without a public option is not close to tolerable. I wish people were as outraged at Obama’s centrist and hateful otherization of human beings as they are at Joe Wilson being an idiot.

Fiji Suspended from the CommonWealth. Again.

// September 1st, 2009 // 1505No Comments »http://prernalal.com/2009/09/fiji-suspended-from-the-commonwealth-again/Fiji+Suspended+from+the+CommonWealth.+Again.2009-09-02+07%3A39%3A42Prerna // Fiji Coup Coverage, Human Rights

Fiji has been suspended from the Commonwealth after the military regime of Bainimarama failed to respond to a demand to begin restoring democracy.

Fiji has twice faced the lesser sanction of being suspended from its meetings due to earlier suspensions of democracy but the new sanction goes further. It mrans that Fiji cannot attend any Commonwealth meetings, including taking part in the Commonwealth Games in 2010, or participate in training schemes and other technical aid.

Fiji joins Nigeria in being the only countries to be suspended from the Commonwealth. The suspension is largely symbolic since the Commonwealth is not a huge donor to Fiji. It makes little difference to the regime and only hurts our athletes.

Fiji Water: Spin the Bottle

// August 12th, 2009 // 1504No Comments »http://prernalal.com/2009/08/fiji-water-spin-the-bottle/Fiji+Water%3A+Spin+the+Bottle2009-08-13+05%3A24%3A52Prerna // Fiji Coup Coverage, Human Rights

There is a great piece in Mother Jones about Fiji Water and how it is benefiting from the Fiji Islands while plenty of Fijians live without access to clean drinking water. The journalist describes how the illegal junta government of Bainimarama threatened her, which really raises suspicion about what the government gains from allowing Fiji Water to exploit the country. The one thing that really irks me about Fiji Water is that it has trademarked the word ‘FIJI.’ How do you trademark a name that belongs to a country?

What Mooney didn’t say is that though Fiji Water may fill a void in the impoverished nation, it also reaps a priceless benefit: tax-free status, granted when the company was founded in 1995. The rationale at the time, according to the company: Bottled water was a risky business with uncertain chances of success. In 2003, David Gilmour said that his ambition for Fiji Water was “to become the biggest taxpayer in the country.” Yet the tax break, originally scheduled to expire in 2008, remains in effect, and neither the company nor the government will say whether or when it might end. And when Fiji has tried to wring a bit of extra revenue from the company, the response has been less than cooperative. Last year, when the government attempted to impose a new tax on water bottlers, Fiji Water called it “draconian” (a term it’s never used for the regime’s human rights violations) and temporarily shut down its plant in protest.

While Lynda Resnick has called for “very public conduct” by private companies, she seems to appreciate that, as she wrote in her book, “transparency is a lot easier to talk about than it is to realize.” The closely held company won’t disclose basic data about its business (such as total charity expenditures), and it’s gone to some length to shelter assets in secretive tax havens: The Fijian operation, according to court documents filed last year, is owned by an entity in Luxembourg, while its American trademarks are registered to an address in the Cayman Islands.

At the moment, Fiji’s government certainly seems in no mood to confront Fiji Water—quite the contrary. “Learning from the lessons of products, we must brand ourselves,” Fiji’s ambassador in Washington told a news site for diplomats in 2006, adding that he was working with the Resnicks to try to increase Fiji Water’s US sales. A Fiji Water bottle sits at the top of the embassy’s home page, and the government has even created a Fiji Water postage-stamp series—the $3 stamp features children clutching the trademark bottles.

Fiji Water, for its part, has trademarked the word “FIJI” (in capital letters) in numerous countries. (Some rejected the application, but not the United States.) It has also gone after rival Fijian bottlers daring to use their country’s name for marketing. “It would have cost too much money for us to fight in court,” says Mohammed Altaaf, the owner of Aqua Pacific water, which ended up taking the word “Fiji” out of its name. “It’s just like branding a water America Water and denying anyone else the right to use the name ‘America.’”

Fiji Water says that Fiji is ’screwed’ without it but we were doing fine before they ever came to our country.

Shackled By Our Own

// July 14th, 2009 // 11973 Comments »http://prernalal.com/2009/07/shackled-by-our-own/Shackled+By+Our+Own2009-07-15+00%3A39%3A44Prerna // Human Rights, Immigration

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
-Martin Luther King Jr, Letter from Birmingham Jail