On April 8th, 2011 the Midwest Asian American Students Union (MAASU) hosted their annual Spring Conference titled “Empower Ourselves, Empower Others” in Minneapolis, MN. They invited hip-hop "artist", Timothy Delaghetto, also known as Traphik, as the celebrity guest. During Traphik’s opening performance he grossly degraded and objectified women, making statements about “choking a slut”, statutory rape, throwing women away, and repeatedly referred to women as “bitches”. A female student in the audience stood up in the middle of Traphik’s performance, called him a sexist, and asked him to rethink what he was saying, to which he laughed leading some of the approximately 1000 student audience members to laugh with him, disregarding the girl’s stance against misogyny (see video).  We believe that immediately following the performance, MAASU’s leadership should have stood behind the female student in her protest against Traphik by either making a public statement or dismissing Traphik from the conference.  It has been three weeks since Spring Conference and MAASU has yet to issue a public response to this incident despite being contacted multiple times by concerned professors and student organization leaders whom were in attendence. Traphik was even present at the closing banquet of the conference on a separate evening, and once again allowed access to a stage.

According to the Midwest Asian American Students Union mission statement MAASU strives:

          To assist and encourage all APIA students to work toward social change, by providing a forum for social consciousness

          To unite all communities and strengthen the APIA community’s stance against all forms of oppression

Here is a video of the performance, which as of 04/30/11 12:02 AM EST had 75,409 views (with 828 likes): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1368koEEFAA

In sponsoring an artist that vocalizes such extreme sexist ideals, MAASU has not only failed the APIA community in it’s mission to stand against all forms of inequality but has also created a larger arena for oppression.

          “If you get offended by what he said, it means you're a slut” (370 likes)

          “The main question is what was this slut doing outside the kitchen” (274 likes)

          "That bitch needs to get back to the kitchen and make me a sandwich" (193 likes)

Given the breadth of MAASU and the universities and student organizations that MAASU represents, we are hoping to uphold the organization, as leaders of the APIA community in the Midwest, accountable to their mission statement. Given MAASU's previous record it can be assumed that they do not support sexist ideals, however in order to be effective in their purpose towards fighting for equality all their actions must reflect that. We need to know that MAASU is taking serious steps towards ensuring that similar situations such as this one do not occur again in the future. We ask that MAASU speak out, and let us know how they are ensuring that MAASU conferences will continue to be socially conscious communities. In order to look forward to MAASU's continued leadership in guiding young Asian American students across the Midwest,

WE DEMAND THAT MAASU:

1.     Release a public statement apologizing for allowing the public degradation of women.

2.     Restructure the organization to ensure that future conferences will only hire guest performers and speakers whose messages reflect not only the MAASU mission statement, but also stand against all forms of oppression.

3.     Make commitments to hold workshops at future MAASU conferences addressing women's issues such as sexism and its correlation to racism within the APIA community, the need for women’s empowerment, reconstructing attitudes towards gender equality, domestic violence, and human trafficking.