Today's post is brought to you by Youth Outlook and WireTap as a part of the official Youth Media Blog-A-Thon. Ooooh yeah, holla!

Peep the last 20 or so seconds of the video:


Dear Senator Clinton,

Hello, I hope you are well. My name is Adriel and I am a person who has been thinking about you lately. No, not in that way, surely I am not grooming myself to be your Chinese male Monica. And no, not because I am part of the "Asian" contingent who apparently voted for you 3 to 1 over Obama--a statistic that, I must admit, I'm quite impressed by. It seems that the 70+ ethnicities that your ancestors grouped together as "Asian"--most of which have been at war with each other, colonized each other, disputed over democracy and communism--have finally found eternal harmony in agreeing to support you, 3 to 1 (and I bet that 1 didn't vote for you just because he/she couldn't speak English). Damned immigrants (luckily, you have THAT taken care of).

(I hope you're reading the sarcasm in all the right places)

(Also, I've realized that so far 75% of the statements in this letter have been side notes)

(That's 3 to 1, Hillary!)

Alas, my recent attention to you doesn't really have anything to do with my Asian-ness, but rather, my Spoken Wordedness. You see, I am a spoken word artist. And as much as I hate to mix business and politics, I couldn't help but be intensely hurt by your February 14th speech about how ineffective speeches are, in which you explained that words don't make change, and that "words are cheap." Now trust me, I'm not new to getting my heart smashed by a woman on Valentine's Day. But in the past these offenders have been girls I had a crush on in pre-calculus, or the cute waitress at P.F. Chang's. But a potential President of the United States? Oh Hillary, you's cold blooooded!

Now given that I'm an independent, unsigned, quite undiscovered artist, which puts me a few notches lower than the blue-collared pool of upstanding citizens whose votes are apparently much more important than mine, that doesn't mean you have to completely shit* on the very asset I base my career on. I'm sure your precious working class voters wouldn't be very flattered if you delivered a speech about how steel or oil or agriculture are cheap (in the same way that your grandparents wouldn't appreciate someone telling them that cotton and tobacco are cheap). Then why, oh Hillary why, would you say that words--the words I craft upon daily to make my living--are empty and don't "produce results?"

Obviously, you haven't read The Secret.

Not to worry, neither have I. But Hillary, what's NOT a secret is that most of us are exhausted by a president who has made a tradition of ignoring the voices of millions throughout the world who speak against his selfish ways. Perhaps your years in Washington have jaded you. Perhaps the "experience" that you have used as the fumes to run your campaign on have shown you that in today's world of policy words go ignored, unanswered, and ineffective. Still, as a poet, I can only shudder at the thought of a president who makes a campaign strategy of denouncing the power of words.

But of course, you didn't make that statement to attack me, or any other poets, or singers, or authors, or teachers. You made that statement to attack Obama (just days after he beat your husband to the Spoken Word Grammy, may I add). And of course, how could you not be infuriated, flabbergasted, offended that a BLACK MAN, of all people, has figured out a way to use the language of your people better than you? How could you not attack, denounce, devalue the vital asset of language once you've realized that a MINORITY has found grounds to improve on it? Gee, if only you had been president back in the day, your immigration policy would've nipped that little problem in the bud (at least Barack's dad wouldn't have been able to get a driver's license to pick mama Obama up on their first date).

Sigh Imagine.

Unfortunately for you, Hillary, words do make a difference, and words do make change. Luckily, right after watching your speech I was able to take the disheveled pieces of my heart to band rehearsal, where our keyboardist Nikki was so overwhelmed by the music and words that she broke down on the floor in tears, speaking in tongues while the rest of us could do nothing but hold on to her and each other in silence. See, Hillary, sometimes one needs to concede to the fact that what another person has to say may be more important for the moment, and it might be a good idea to take the time to listen instead of belittling language as a whole just so that you can feel like you came out on top.

In conclusion, please understand that this is not as much a letter to defend Obama as it is a letter to defend words. From the crowds of people who raised their fists together this past weekend at the iLL-Literacy shows to the high schoolers at my workshops who use poetry to break years of silence with their parents, I must insist that words, Senator, do make change--and a world of change, at that. And with that in mind I will continue to listen to your speeches, watch your debates, and read your articles, doing my best to be open to be moved. In the meantime, I suggest that if you're truly convinced that words are as unimportant as you've announced to the nation that they are, you consider reevaluating not the words themselves, but rather the mouth that they come from.

Word to your mother,
Adriel Luis

*I'd apologize for the foul language, but I'm sure that wouldn't change anything.