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A D.C. State of Mind

This post was inspired by a video shot, edited, and sent to me by OnBeat contributor Edgar Lituma (You will find the link listed at the bottom of this page).  It features aspects of a prostest organized against Georgia’s recently enacted House Bill 87 (HB-87).  HB-87, otherwise known as the Illegal Immigration Reform and Enforcement Act of 2011, was created with the intention of aggressively removing ”illegal aliens” from the state.  This bill, at the time of passing, included provisions that would have allowed law enforcement to stop “suspicious” persons and force them to produce documentation; moreover, those caught helping or showing hospitality to these undocumented and suspicious persons would be subject to punishment themselves.  Does this sound like anything else you’ve read about in the news lately?  Did we learn anything from the failures in Arizona? 

The good news is that we have learned a little and both of these provisions have, since the filming of this protest, been halted by a federal court judge on the basis they were unconstitutional… No shit! The bad and frankly disturbing news is that these provisions were passed by elected officials in the first place.  

Before I go any further, I need to mention the purpose of this post is not to tackle the issue of immigration as a whole nor is it to address other aspects of HB 87.  The many variables in these complicated equations could not be justly addressed by this relatively short post, and I admittedly am not qualified for that job.  My impetus for writing about this issue stems from what I feel is a lazy and bigoted attempt by the Georgia House of Representatives to deal with undocumented residents.

I grew up in Atlanta.  I still consider Georgia home in many regards and take pride in telling people where I am from.  I just can’t swallow the fact that the place in which the civil rights movement was rooted, has a ruling body that was able to look at the travesty in Arizona and say, “Hey, great idea, we should try that in our state”.  The aforementioned provisions are analogous to the ones that made Arizona the veritable pariah of the country.  I just can’t believe a group of well educated individuals who were elected to hold the peoples’ best interests would allow something like this to happen.  The fact that these provisions were halted instills faith in the concept of checks and balances, but the fact that they needed to be halted is overarching.  

The bill, regardless of its current status, has already served to promote racism.  A provision that would encourage law enforcement to interrogate “suspicious persons”… come on; The U.S. is the worlds largest melting pot and home to persons of every race and color on the planet, documented or otherwise.  However, I doubt Georgia’s finest would have been told to go after anyone they suspected of being an undocumented Swede.  And punishment for helping someone with undocumented status!?  Did the House want Georgia’s citizens to show them the contents of their attics? (I had a tough time deciding weather I should reference “The Diary of Anne Frank” or “1984″)

The bottom line is that illegal immigration is a complicated issue that must be addressed in one form or another; addressing it properly will require a complex approach, but this approach should serve the sole purpose of improving the state and must not promote fear and mistrust amongst its residents.  The Georgia House of Representatives, in my opinion, took reckless and miscalculated measures in an attempt to solve the “illegal alien problem” with one fell swoop.  The reality is, these undocumented residents are just that… residents.  Whether you hate it, love it, or are completely indifferent to it, they are a significant and integral part of Georgia.  The use of fear mongering and force to quickly rid the state of their presence is analogous to ripping a support beam from the basement of a building.  Would that cause the building to collapse? Maybe, maybe not.  Do we really want to find out?

Thank you for reading – we welcome your comments. 

Jay

P.S. -

Edgar’s video can be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UsNsKll2Nw

If you are interested to learn more about HB-87, and want to know who is behind it:

http://www1.legis.ga.gov/legis/2011_12/fulltext/hb87.htm

Information about the 6 arrestees and their cause can be found here (courtesy of Edgar Lituma):

http://www.thedreamiscoming.com

OnBeat will be presenting the Kaifuku album art on 8×8″ cards along with download cards for the song for sale at the Japan-America Society’s Annual Beer Garden tomorrow, on the rooftop of an office building on K St. All proceeds of card sales will be going to the Red Cross. Come out to support the local Japanese non-profit, support Japan earthquake relief, and enjoy the party! Charlie will be spinning, there is a killer view of the city, Japanese snacks, and Kirin – which I prefer to Asahi and Sapporo actually. Little less dry, has more bite. There is a suggested donation of $15, which is going to support the non-profit and gets you beer, food, a view, and good vibes – I think the value is clear.

Thursday June 9th | 5:30-7:30 | 1900 K St NW Rooftop

JASW Beer Garden

“I got a letter from the DMV/ the other day….”

So if you’ve ever spent a decent amount of time driving a car in DC, you may have had the occasion to locate a parking spot.  And if you park enough in DC, you’re bound to get a parking ticket.  For most people, the inevitable reaction when you spot that noxious little pink and white slip of paper peaking out from under your windshield wiper is either to curse your own stupidity or wish some dire fate on the person who gave it to you (I prefer the latter). But it’s a big city, with a lot of confusing signs (take the contradictory signage pictured in this post, for instance), and sometimes you’re just in a hurry and don’t have time to read every sign on the block.  So it happens.  And since a seemingly innocuous or unclear street parking rule can set you back $25 to $100, DC parking tickets are offbeat.  DC also gets bonus offbeat points for designating every single ticket ever issued as being a proper candidate for towing (honestly, where it says “Towing Required” on the ticket, do they ever enter “No”? It’s always “YES”).

But being the good folks that we are at OnBeat, we’d like to help our loyal readers even the score.  And what a lot of people don’t realize is that parking tickets in DC are actually pretty easy to beat.  It used to be as simple as writing a challenge letter and, where necessary, attaching some evidence with the letter to prove your case.  Now it’s even easier, as DC has set up an online system for challenging parking tickets, which you can find here:

http://dmv.washingtondc.gov/serv/ticket/parking_contesttix.shtm

I lived in the District for almost 4 years, and I probably was able to beat 15 or so tickets through the mail-in method (I haven’t tried the online challenge system yet, but will assume it works).  And even though some of the tickets I got were clearly BS, there were a couple of challenges I sent in that I did not think had a chance of working, yet miraculously I still won.  So you actually don’t even need a good argument to beat a ticket.  Just sending in a challenge gives you a fighting chance at beating it.

Here’s my theory on DC’s dirty little secret: they don’t have the resources to deal with every ticket challenge. Denying a ticket challenge can give you the option of appealing it, which then requires a hearing.  There’s no way DC has the resources to handle people challenging every single ticket.  Another factor of course is that, as most people no doubt suspect, DC tries to use parking tickets to increase the cash flow.  So its meter maid minions are encouraged to write a ticket whenever possible.

Lost your faith in the ability of bureaucracy to give you a win?  Au contraire mon frere.  Recent statistics show that nearly three-fifths of all DC parking challenges are successful.  And even when people lost their initial challenge, 1 out of 3 were able to reverse the tickets on appeal.

Think it’s too much trouble? It’s not. In fact it’s pretty easy. Many challenges just require a common-sense assessment of the violation, which will be indicated in short-hand on your ticket. For instance, I challenged a recent $100 ticket for parking during rush hour.  But the sign was at the other end of the block and was not visible from my parking spot.  I took a picture of the street view in both directions from my car to show that the sign was not readily visible, sent it in with a brief explanation, and several months later, got a letter back saying my ticket challenge had been upheld.  Other common reasons to challenge tickets: conflicting signs, wrong infraction listed, invalid enforcement hours, incorrect license plate number. And you should always provide evidence if possible, preferably with a photo, and also preferably of conditions as they were at the time of the offense.  Luckily, so many cell phones have cameras these days that the photo part is pretty easy.

Too much trouble?  Most tickets are between $25 and $100.  This should take you about 30 minutes to an hour tops to challenge. That’s not a huge amount of trouble to save that money.  And hey, it’s the principle of the thing man.

Another advantage of challenging your ticket is that, even if you lose, it delays when you will have to pay by 3 to 6 months. Just make sure you challenge it within 30 days of your ticket, otherwise the ticket penalty will double.

So the next time some meter maid tries to steal your shine, don’t let it ruin your day. Take the time to challenge the ticket.  There’s a good chance you’ll win.

As my mom and I were waving “goodbye”, or rather “see you later”, I turned to look at her face. She was happy and sad. She was happy to see her brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, aunts, and parents after ten years since the last time she had been back; she was sad to depart once again. This trip was the greatest vacation I’ve ever had by far. And I’m glad to have had the opportunity to share it with my mom.

We landed at Phnom Penh International Airport around 1030pm on March 3^rd. The total flight time getting to Cambodia was about twenty hours and the time difference from Washington D.C. was exactly twelve hours (layover in Seoul, Korea). As I greeted aunts and uncles for the first time ever, they couldn’t help, but tease me that I could barely speak Cambodian. They slowly found out I was a pretty good listener though.

The food was excellent, perfect to the tongue, and cheap! I think I ate about 100lbs of mangoes during my entire trip. Angkor Wat was beautiful, architectually amazing, and mysterious. The streets were filled with traffic flowing every direction; some ways you could imagine and others you wouldn’t think were possible.  My cousin’s wedding, which I was tricked into participating in for the second part of the ceremony, was perfect. Went to refreshing and clean beach that got me sun burned so badly I couldn’t sleep for 3 nights (which caused me to shed for about two weeks).

After being jet lagged for five days, I finally found time to practice by myself on the top floor balcony of my Aunt’s house. However, I had to get up at 7am to practice because it was too hot and humid during the day to even want to set foot outside.

Now that we are on topic with hiphop and breakdancing….

Before I got to Cambodia, Ryan, a volunteer from Tiny Toones emailed me about an album release event at Meta House (a German Cambodian Cultural Center). I got there late, but just in time for their last performance and enjoyable music with kids dancing in a small cypher.

Two weeks later, after all the travelling within Cambodia with family started settling down, I went to Tiny Toones to meet with Romi the General Manager. The center for Tiny Toones is a house turned into a school full of kids and mentors. The vibe was all positivity, the operation Tiny Toones had going on there was nothing I’ve ever seen or experienced. Every day twice a day (Mon-Fri/morning and afternoon), Tiny Toones picks up kids who are less fortunate from different parts of Phnom Penh to bring them to their center. Throughout their time there, the kids are taught English, music production, drug/HIV awareness, and breakdancing.

Before I left for Cambodia, I got in contact with Izze the owner of Wild Style Technicians (learn more about them at http://www.wildstyletechnicians.com/about.htm). I’ve been an avid supporter of Wild Style Technicians for several years now.  When I contacted Izze, I told him my intentions of donating shirts to the staff at Tiny Toones and he was more than happy to lend a hand. A week later I had a total of 33 shirts and 5 hats to bring with me to Cambodia for the folks over at Tiny Toones.

It was funny trying to explain to my mom and relatives why I brought so many t-shirts over. Eventually they understood what I was trying to explain to them as what Tiny Toones is. In fact, they were so interested that they wanted to help themselves. Whether it would be financially or any other way, my family there appreciates and supports organizations such as Tiny Toones.

I had another chance to visit them and practice a little. Though I was sun burnt and hurting, I attempted to practice despite my skin peeling off of me. These kids practice hard, I’ve never seen so much devotion to dance. I’m glad that they have the support that they receive to become what they have. Tiny Toones, has OnBeat’s support and we are looking forward to collaborating in the near future on projects.

The experience I’ve gained from this trip to Cambodia will live with me for the rest of my life. It’s a great country filled with hard working people. I highly recommend that you go and enjoy the view yourself.