iona rozeal brown
Rocky Shi-I Wang, July 31, 1974 -
VP candidate for People's Ping Pong Party (2012)
Running mate with nominee: Iona Rozeal Brown (b. 1966)
Popular vote: 0 (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538
The campaign:
The People's Ping Pong Party was actually more of a "party" in the real sense rather than a political organization as it was the name of a few art/ping pong happenings in the fall of 2012.
In July 2012 Iona Rozeal Brown and her running-mate Rocky Wang registered with the FEC as the nominees of the Party. Brown filed under the name Iona Rozeal Brown Diamond. Wang included his name in Chinese characters as well as in English. According to their filings they were both residents of Brooklyn, NY.
Brown is a painter and printmaker who creates images based on multicultural sources. Wang is a ping pong champion and coach.
Wang's reputation is international. It appears he retired from the table tennis world in 1995 but returned in 2007 while living in Alabama. Shortly after that he became a coach in the sport.
The People's Ping Pong Party event included the following advertising--
A collaboration between artists iona rozeal brown (WuWeiWoo) and Rocky Wang (LiL Big Wong), PPPP serves as an artistic and proto-political paradigm based on the Venn intersections of the radical politics of the Black Panther Party, Ping Pong Diplomacy of the 1970’s, the ethnic stereotypes of not only Chinese and African Americans, but a host of other offbeat characters and the B-movie antics of Kung Fu Saturday Matinee.
Brown.Diamond|Wäng2012 presents an PPPP performance in honor of the Black Panther Party's visit to China in 1970. (The BPP actually visited China before the US Ping Pong team.) In celebration of this visit, and, patterned after the BPP's "Free Breakfast Program," PPPP is offering free coaching to all who want to learn or to improve their game.
PPPP will be appearing Friday, 14 September 2012 at Comet Ping Pong to celebrate these 2 historic events ...
PPPP has combined forces with iNiCEiTUP (a clothing design company started by iona rozeal brown that takes already owned clothing and accessories and adds designs to them, thereby creating a whole new used item). Guests are encouraged to bring their t shirts (for example) to Comet and get a 3 inch PPPP screen print on their sleeves. in the future, participants can bring in their worn tshirts and donate them in trade for a new PPPP screen printed shirt.
PPPP donates much of it's gently used clothing to Bread for the City in Washington, DC.
Artist and DJ iona rozeal brown has received critical acclaim over the last decade for her paintings, which have been the subject of extensive national and international exhibitions. More recently, her projects have shifted to also include performance, dance, and music. Rocky Wang is a professional Ping Pong player, coach and artist who began his Ping Pong performances in 2006 with “Challenge a Chinaman”, which included him challenging audience members to matches while dressed in traditional Chinese garb. Last year, while contemplating the 40th anniversary of U.S. Ping Pong Diplomacy with China, Rocky began to collaborate with Iona and the People’s Ping Pong Party was formed. Considering the fact that a trip by the Black Panthers to China had preceded the U.S. Table Tennis team, this forum seemed like an obvious marker within the framework of the Afro-Asiatic-Allegory that has steered rozeal brown’s work since 2001.
The PPPP selected the tortoise as their symbol, predating Jeb Bush by four years when he handed around little turtle figurines during his 2016 quest for the Republican nomination. It is possible the tortoise was selected because Wang had a van called "Myrtle the Turtle" that was featured in a documentary film about his ping pong travels entitled Pong Road.
In the event of their victory, the fact that both candidates were residents of the same state would have posed a problem with the Constitution.
Election history: none.
Other occupations: artist, table tennis coach
Notes:
Attended the University of Maryland
