Who am I? I am a journalist yes, a writer yes, an activist yes.
But none of this work would be possible without human experiences within this criminal system of capitalist oligarchy and imperialism. Here's some of my story and hopefully you will consider supporting my work:
My mother is an unemployed yet highly educated Viet/Chinese woman who has struggled with untreated mental illness all her life (agent orange suspected). My father was a federal worker. He died at 69 due to overwork and inherited trauma from a family that struggled with addiction.
As a young person I navigated anti-Asian racism and the economic impact of debt. Shame was a common feeling. I didn't want to be seen, and I poured all my anger into the game of basketball. Here I learned of the widespread suffering afflicting the entire working class.
I witnessed peers become displaced from the community and Black peers die at a young age. I witnessed blatant race and class discrimination in schools. We fought race wars as kids because we didn't know who our real enemy was. We thought it was each other.
In college, I snapped when an Afro-Dominican peer was charged with a hate crime after getting into a fight with a white person in town.
I campaigned for him, and began writing about racism. But it wasn't until Occupy Wall Street where I learned of the centrality of class.
I moved to NYC for a semester to intern for a labor union and participate in Occupy. But Occupy avoided foreign policy, and was having issues with addressing race. That's when I found Black Agenda Report. BAR expressed solidarity with Occupy, talked about race, AND opposed wars.
The US-NATO war on Libya was happening at this time. Glen Ford and Bruce Dixon directly called out Obama for war crimes. BAR taught me that Democrats were the more effective evil and held the movement in captivity which allowed them to bomb an African country with impunity.
I began to study Marxism and participate in the anti-war movement and the labor movement. I developed a love for the written word, and began submitting to Black Agenda Report weekly starting in 2014.
Since then I've written a book on top of my column and started a YouTube podcast. I've directed a lot of attention to China as US aggression toward the country has a deeply personal and political significance. More than 90 percent of this work has been pro bono.
Now I am moving to more full time journalism and want to make this sustainable. I don't come from inheritance, connections to corporate media, or any other donor but my audience. Thanks for listening. You can subscribe to my work here: patreon.com/dannyhaiphong
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Racism is not just about hate. Racism is about exploitation, it's about oppression, and it's about war.
Racism is a key element of privatization and the Race to the Bottom. It is an economic policy just as much as it is an ideological framework.
Racism prevents universal social policies such as Medicare for All by creating undeserving and deserving poor people.
Class struggle is the weakest in the United States because capitalism here is not organized along class lines alone. Racism is a material problem.
There are material differences between how white workers live in the aggregate and Black workers. The same goes for Mexican workers and indigenous workers, not to mention the workers of the world targeted by imperialism.
THREAD: this pandemic has taught me a lot. One of the biggest lessons I've learned is to not expect to be respected, but to demand it. Respect is an essential quality of dignity.
And in activism and journalism, we don't always get it.
There is a lot of mistreatment that goes on in our circles. We are all fighting ostensibly for the same thing, but we are human too. The lack of resources that we have as left journalists and organizations doesn't help matters either.
Respect starts with the self. For years in this struggle and in media work I internalized the notion that sacrifice without reciprocation was noble. Now I've realized that labor contributed should also be labor compensated, within reason of course.
Truly humbled by all the new subscriptions since I announced that I will be quitting from my full-time job in social work to focus more on people's media.
I am now in need of less than $300 per month until I meet my goal.
Reminder: I publish weekly, run the YouTube channel The Left Lens, and co-edit Friends of Socialist China.
This transition will help me build The Left Lens through the relaunch of my interview series: the Internationalist Transmission.
The Internationalist Transmission will include interviews with antiwar voices from around the world. The goal of the program is to engage in internationalist politics within the independent media sphere.
I also hope to co-author another book on China and socialist countries.
I quit! Well, given notice. This move allows me to focus more on independent media work. It wasn't an easy decision, but the correct one.
I hate self-promotion but I'll be doing a lot more as my media work is now my primary source of income. Here's what you can do to support:
I publish weekly for Black Agenda Report, CGTN, and other outlets on issues of imperialism. All of the work is public, and most of it is pro bono, for the movement.
I ask that you donate to my Patreon to make this work sustainable. The link is in the bio and pinned tweet.
I also co-edit Friends of Socialist China and host a YouTube program The Left Lens. I also do audio versions of articles and livestream commentaries on pressing issues of imperialism and class struggle
My transition offers more time to focus on this work.