Read 'em: "Who Runs The World?: On Beyonce, Sampling, Race, and Power" by Isaac Miller

Very recently, I posted Beyonce's video "Who Runs the World (girls)" - praising it. I was a bit hesitant of my praise because the little Berkeley activist voice inside me was like "this video is problematic"

But I decided to "fuck it" and post it anyways from the mere naive exhilaration I felt from the video. Explosions! Beyonce dancing! Mainstream pop music focusing on what seems to be girl's empowerment! AMAZING.

Note: I was also experiencing American pop music and culture for the first time in a long time. After a long period of watching teeny bopper Vietnamese and Korean music videos, this stuff was mind blowing.

I overlooked the problems of the video, being that I have taken on the "absorb and listen (and ignore) instead of critique and attack immediately" stance since first studying abroad in Hong Kong years ago. (This is my way of dealing with stupid people and enjoying myself.)



Hyenas on chains! Whatever!
A girl crawling out of a cage? I...I didn't see that.
Militant like theme of the video? What? Her outfit is awesome!


Anyways this article by Isaac Miller a fellow Berkeleyian and CalSERVEr puts it together so well that it's mind blowing! Read it here.

He goes beyond talking about "Who Runs the World" video, but dives into diplo, sampling, and provides just an in depth look at music, race, and all the things I love to critique all rolled into one.


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"This seems like it wasn't originally written in English" - a fellow volunteer on a case story I wrote originally in English.

I am going to make a conscious effort to reduce my grammatical errors and passive sentence structure on this blog. The combination of speaking Vietnamese and being surrounded by Vietnamese locals who don't speak English 95% of the time, translating Vietnamese to English, and not writing anything else outside of my blog and factsheets has led to the demise of my writing ability.

Unfortunately this frequent and careless dismissal results in the attenuation of my ability to write eloquently and well.

Also, apologies in advance for my superfluous use of annoying "difficult" words. I'm trying to practice for my gre's - bear with me.