This week we grappled with the controversy of 紅姐 and the debate on same-sex marriage in Hong Kong to think through gender, sex, and desire in a repressive regime. @samuelchan.bsky.social youtu.be/3crPGuPtpcg?...

Congratulations @radicalcatalyst.bsky.social for publishing their first issue! Immensely grateful that the editor includes my poem "So You Want to be a Colonizer" as the very first piece. Read it here: radicalcatalystjournal.org/issue1_1.html

I joined @kennedywong.bsky.social and @samuelchan.bsky.social on a podcast by and for HKers. In this episode, we talked about the unique loneliness of diasporic/displaced people in feeling like "affect aliens." open.spotify.com/episode/6IPt...

Looks like China Labour Bulletin data has a full backup! Amazing work of preservation.

6 years later, Hong Kong protests and repression are back on the radar. Authoritarians across the world think and act alike. open.spotify.com/episode/0KaV...

I try to live by a few straightforward principles in times of upheaval, when those in power try to confuse and daze us with endless cruelty. One of which is 擇善固執: choose what's good, and be stubborn about it.

While not from the 12th June... this graffiti from two weeks later speaks to the awakening & realisation HKers had. "It was you who taught me peaceful marches are useless.”

Michael Lechuga: “The Mexican flag at this week’s protests is a symbol of resistance,” he said. “When ‘Mexicanness’ is the target of this administration, holding the object that’s seen as the quickest reference to it is rebellious.” #teamrhetoric www.huffpost.com/entry/mexica...

Avoid the violence/nonviolence debate. It’s a trap. The only thing that matters is what actions lead to more justice and less harm. Inaction and complicity in the face of brutal oppression is the worst form of violence. Never forget it.

Debates on whether anti-ICE protesters should be waving the American flag center so much optics. But what we really need to ask is: who gets to write the dominant narrative about the uprising? Whose and what narratives get traction, and why?

Being an immigrant in the US, especially those of us who fled state violence back home, is like being a fresh kind of hell right now. To lose your home, safety, and potentially life over and over again.

This weekend we saw thousands of people in LA and Minneapolis standing up against unchecked government power. Just like six years ago today, over a million Hongkongers took to the street calling for freedom. Never underestimate the will and rage of the people.

[𝐍𝐄𝐖 𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐖] @sharonyamsy.bsky.social‬ on @jwassers.bsky.social‬’s 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑀𝑖𝑙𝑘 𝑇𝑒𝑎 𝐴𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 (@columbiagr.bsky.social‬): "Wasserstrom is interested in the quiet resilience embodied by youth activists as they resist authoritarianism & cultivate cross-border solidarity." ⧉ chajournal.blog/2025/05/28/m...

I don't read a lot of book reviews... but @sharonyamsy.bsky.social reviewing @jwassers.bsky.social upcoming book "𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑀𝑖𝑙𝑘 𝑇𝑒𝑎 𝐴𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒” in @asiancha.bsky.social ... seemed kinda in my wheelhouse & is worth a read as it gives a good taste & draws out some key points in it.

My interview with Mari on her new book is now out! It was a beautiful conversation about queer(ing) families for a more livable joyous world. newbooksnetwork.com/queering-fam...

My new article on multispecies justice and rhetoric just dropped! I focused on wild boar activism in Hong Kong to argue for cross-species solidarity. #TeamRhetoric www.tandfonline.com/eprint/GU2HC...

“One young man sobbed when a guard pushed him to the floor. He said, ‘I’m not a gang member. I’m gay. I’m a barber.’ I believed him. *** He “began to whimper,” as his head was roughly shaved, “folding his hands in prayer as his hair fell.” He “asked for his mother & cried as he was slapped again.”

What shocking to me is how many US citizens found this surprising, that agents can take and go through your phone. Aliens (whoever isn't a citizen is legally an 👽) always know how much power border agents have. That's why borders, a liminal space where rights are suspended, are so dang scary.

State sponsored genocides racism, immigration crackdown, and attacks on higher ed are always linked. And now we are very clearly seeing that connection.

Rubio’s position seems to be: - We get to say who is a terrorist. Our decision is final. It can’t be challenged. Just trust us. - Once we decide you are a terrorist, we can immediately deport you. No judges. - After we deport you, we can make you rot in a foreign prison. No criminal charges needed.

Authoritarianism is a transnational networked enterprise: Hong Kong journalists who worked for @radiofreeasiapr.bsky.social face not just unemployment, but persecution by the HK gov for the human rights reporting they did.

This world is so darn much sometimes. While in the US we witness the kidnapping and silencing of pro-Palestine activists here and suppression of speech, a social worker in Hong Kong was sentenced for rioting because she dared urge cops to keep their cool and not open fire at unarmed people.

Pronatalist policies like this encourage only people the gov seems "good" to have children. Case in point: Single fertile women in HK still cannot legally use their own eggs in IVF.

My alma mater is one of the latest schools to pause PhD admissions from all depts due to the NIH shortfall. This will have immense consequences on the future of research and higher ed www.wesa.fm/health-scien...

The lawmaker who reintroduced the anti-DEI bill in KY yesterday said it was built upon U of Kentucky and NKU's preemptive closure of DEI offices last year. Complying in advance only leads to more suppression. kentuckylantern.com/2025/02/12/r...

"I just want to be clear about what's going on here." - @warren.senate.gov www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIHN...

"You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time." (Angela Davis)

they are mostly targeting black employees so this is quite literally just a repeat of woodrow wilson’s segregationist purge of the federal government

The cruelty of this administration knows no bounds. We are socialized to be individualistic and have a scarcity mindset. In moments of precarity, we may want to double down protect only ourselves and our immediate circle. But this is exactly when we need to expand our circle of care.

You say: they shutdown USAID. You mean: they illegally broke in to a secure facility over a weekend, hijacked sensitive data on vulnerable people and US businesses, destroyed property Americans paid for, cut off resources for sick and hungry families, and fired Americans across the country.

According to a senior CDC official, some of the pages that were removed on Friday have been reinstated due to backlash from the scientific community and the public. Keep speaking up, it matters!

Authoritarianism aims to make us feel powerless. Because if we believe that we are powerless, we will eventually resign, comply, or worse, actively collude for self-preservation. Doone thing a day that reminds you of your power. Draw inspiration from histories of resistance outside the US.

Hong Kong Teachers have had their teaching license revoked for participating in protests and for using "one-sided and biased teaching materials." This is what could be coming in the US.

Weird how not a single one of the newspapers and magazines that have been breathlessly churning out "cancel culture" thinkpieces for the past four years have managed to use the word "censorship" at all to describe the most rapid and comprehensive campaign of mass-censorship in recent US history.

Yesterday I searched for "social movement" in Hong Kong's public library historical archive, and got 0 results. The two authoritarian govs may be in a trade war, but they surely deploy the same strategy to stifle dissent.

Shameful and murderous www.propublica.org/article/trum...

It's true that mass deportation will drive up grocery prices and hurt the economy. But if we only care about immigrants because of what it means to our wallet, we are only playing further into this neoliberal capitalist hellscape that hurts us all.

There's already limited research on trans health and medicine. Community led studies are now more important than ever.

California DOE fires back against Trump's executive order: "It does nothing" "It is against federal law for the White House to dictate what educators can and cannot teach" Will not comply.

Remember that sex and gender binary has a colonial racist origin. It was used by white colonizers to animalize Indigenous, Black, and brown folx (they were too "primitive" to have sex differentiations). Anti-trans and anti-DEI policies work hand in hand to advance white supremacy.

BREAKING: UVA Health has also decided to comply in advance by suspending all gender-affirming care for patients under 19 years of age, per an internal communication sent to medical providers employed by UVA.

Check out Resilience Innovation Lab, an org founded by Asian human rights activists and researchers that advance archival activism as a way of civil resistance. resilienceinnovationlab.org

People are understandably feeling scared as Trump unleashes his torrent of attacks on vulnerable populations. But some in the grassroots are fighting back, piece by piece. @rebeccaburns.bsky.social burns and I documented one such effort in Chicago disrupting Trump’s mass deportation plans.

🧵Grassroots tactics Hongkongers used during the 2019 protest that may come in handy now: 1. Privacy and security: Use apps like Signal, Telegram, and Jitsi. In semi-public organizing chats, develop a protocol to suss out infiltrators from the government.

Another feature of living under authoritarianism is that records would be erased at an alarming rate, while most of us are too overwhelmed by explicit repression to even notice. Think of any materials you find valuable that are publicly available now. Back them up.

It makes me sad that so many of us have given up political imagination and have lost the ability to believe we deserve better from leaders. It’s just sad.

A USAID HR director sent out this email today to staff letting them know he was placed on administrative leave. “Today, representatives of the Agency's front office and DOGE instructed me to violate the due process of our employees by issuing immediate termination notices to a group of employees.”

Meta is renewing its threats against employees, telling them today that they will hunt for leakers and tolerate zero leaks. Want to know how that is going? Three Meta employees who I’ve never spoken to before just cold messaged/emailed me offering me to be sources.

This. Corporations don't love us back. And neoliberal higher ed institutions are like corporations.