This is the official blog of Northern Arizona slam poet Christopher Fox Graham. Begun in 2002, and transferred to blogspot in 2006, FoxTheBlog has recorded more than 670,000 hits since 2009. This blog cover's Graham's poetry, the Arizona poetry slam community and offers tips for slam poets from sources around the Internet. Read CFG's full biography here. Looking for just that one poem? You know the one ... click here to find it.
Showing posts with label Iran. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iran. Show all posts

Thursday, December 4, 2014

"Brown Boy. White House" by Amir Safi


Performed for the Austin National Poetry Slam Team during semifinals at the 2013 National Poetry Slam in Boston, Mass.

"Brown Boy. White House"
by Amir Safi

I once asked my father,
If it was okay not go to daycare anymore.
He smiled and asked, "Why?"
and I still have trouble giving him straight answers.
So he watched one day as a group of white children pulled his son from the monkey bars.
Screaming.

I still have calluses on my hands.
I still have a hard time letting things go.
The teachers explained to my father that this is how children play.
Twenty years later and this is still how we play.
So he pulled me from their care and put me in a church,
where I learned that Jesus still has calluses on his hands.
He still has a hard time letting some people go.
Growing up in Texas,
One learns to practice patience,
Practice repetition patience,
Patience makes perfect.

The best birthday present I get every year is a telephone call from my grandmother.
I remember walking with her through department stores as people would stare.
I remember getting very angry because I was taught it was impolite to stare.
I was taught that was not the purpose of a hijab.
I believe this is why people have stopped wearing their faith,
Unless it can be conveniently concealed under their shirt.
Maybe if people don't stare then God won't either.
Growing up in Texas,
One learns to practice patience,
Practice repetition patience,
Patience makes perfect.
I was made fun of for being Mexican, until 9/11. Then it was Arab or terrorist. I'm not Persian that country no longer exists. Iranian- American is an oxymoron Muslim-American a paradox.
A girl asks me, "Where are you from then, Amir?"
I answer, "Well, I was born in Iowa."
She then says, "Oh really, is that in the Middle East?"
A boy approaches me in a high school hallway and says,
"If you were from Afghanistan, I'd beat your ass."
The three words I should've said were "I love you."
Instead I said, "Wish you would!"
It was then I understood how your Patriots' Act. If the French gave us the Statue of Liberty in 2003, we would have given it back because they didn't go to war with us in Ee-rock/Eye-rack.
When the French did give us the Statue of Liberty,
we gave her back.
At first,
she was black.

Save diversity for a skittles package,
but even then we all pick our favorites.

We like our borders like our picket fences. WHITE WASHED.
A red boy is given a white name.
Black slaves paint a white house.
Public schools teach that it is important to assimilate,
so a yellow girl's parents do the same.
But, how will they ever learn how to pronounce our names if we keep changing them?
Do you think people naturally know how to pronounce Cry-stal or Chris-top-her?
English is neither phonetic nor forgiving,
That's why I find comfort when a boy named Cassius molds his last name into Ali in an attempt to salvage his identity. The ring is the only time he faced a fair fight.
If black is the culmination of all colors, then why do we keep trying to stir this melting pot white?
My name is Amir Safi. I still have calluses on my hands. I still have a hard time letting things go.



Amir Safi © 2013


Amir Safi’s poetry is the result of a collision between his Iranian culture and his Texan upbringing. He is a graduate of Texas A&M University where he received a degree in Biology.

“What better subject to study than the science of life?”

While in school, he co-founded 501(c)(3) poetry nonprofit Mic Check and the Texas Grand Slam Poetry Festival.

Upon moving to Houston, Amir founded Write About Now Poetry, a weekly poetry slam and open-mic that meets every Wednesday at 7:30 PM at Avantgarden. Amir is the 2013 Southern Fried Poetry Slam Champion, a 2013 National Poetry Slam semi-finalist, a featured artist on Upworthy, and he has performed at shows and concerts featuring performers ranging from Anis Mojgani to Stalley.

For more information, contact or booking, like Amir on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amirsafipoetry

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Is Iran facing the world's first "Digital Revolution?"

What's going on in Iran?Read information about the 2009 Iranian election protests or see live updates.

The Iranian government has forbidden Western journalists from covering the election or the subsequent protests in the streets of Tehran and elsewhere in Iran.

Police and a paramilitary group called the Basij have violently suppressed the protests, firing into crowds and using batons, pepper spray, and other weapons. The Iranian government have confirmed the deaths of twenty people during the protests. Iranian authorities have closed universities in Tehran, blocked web sites, blocked cell phone transmissions and text messaging,and banned rallies.

The shooting death of Nedā Salehi Āġā-Soltān (ندا صالحی آقا سلطان) was broadcast around the world within hours. On June 20, at around 6:30 p.m., Āġā-Soltān, a student of Islamic philosophy, was sitting in her car in traffic on Kargar Avenue in Tehran, near the Amir-Abad area, accompanied by her music teacher and close friend, Hamid Panahi, and two unidentified others. The four were on their way to participate in the protests against the outcome of the 2009 Iranian presidential election.

Having gotten out of a subcompact Peugeot 206, whose air conditioner was not working well, in order to escape the heat, she was standing and observing the mass protests when she was allegedly targeted and shot in the chest by plain-clothes Basij paramilitaries who were attempting to subdue the protesters. Āġā-Soltān was pronounced dead en route to Tehran's Shariati hospital.

Several undated amateur videos depicting Āġā-Soltān collapsing to the ground, being tended to, and dying as her lungs filled with blood from the wound, were uploaded to Facebook and YouTube, and spread across the internet virally.

Reza Pahlavi, the son of the late Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, produced a photograph of Nedā Salehi Āġā-Soltān from his jacket pocket, as well as photographs of his family, at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on June 22, and stated: "I have added [Nedā Salehi Āġā-Soltān] to the list of my daughters. She is now forever in my pocket."

On June 22, 2009, U.S. Sen. John McCain announced to the Senate that "She (Nedā Salehi Āġā-Soltān) had already become a kind of Joan of Arc" and "Today, I and all America pays tribute to a brave young woman who was trying to exercise her fundamental human rights and was killed in the streets of Tehran."

On June 23, 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama paid tribute to Nedā Salehi Āġā-Soltān, saying that "[we] have seen courageous women stand up to brutality and threats, and we have experienced the searing image of a woman bleeding to death on the streets."

The news of the street protests is being reported by Iranians on the streets using Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and MySpace, cell phone camera and cell phone videos. Sociologically, this could be the first 21st century revolution in which government statements, television cameras and formal news outlets are not the major means of communicating about the events, but average people using the Internet.