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avrg-whyt-f3mm3-photos-blog · 4 years

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Spoopy

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avrg-whyt-f3mm3-photos-blog · 4 years

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This cute boii around my studio made by (imsta:@midrell.fitzgerald)

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avrg-whyt-f3mm3-photos-blog · 4 years

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Some things I've made

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avrg-whyt-f3mm3-photos-blog · 4 years

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Found this tag had to get a pic with my angel numbers ❤

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avrg-whyt-f3mm3-photos-blog · 4 years

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Sunday

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avrg-whyt-f3mm3-photos-blog · 4 years

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Capstone; lie of linearity

(I only mention my interactions with sexual violence I don’t describe them in detail because I was presenting this out loud to my peers thus wanted to keep the tears to a minimum because I didn’t have all the time in the world)

My name is Kathlene Stinson and my goal is to deconstruct the white cis capitalist heteropatriarchy. However in order to do so I must understand myself, my relation to societal structure as a whole and enact change within myself before I can undertake such a lofty goal. I am graduating from UGA with a BA in Art History. As I have deepened my understanding of the dynamic nature of history I have created a framework of understanding my own history. Conversely my individual understanding helps me create connections which are against our cultural understanding of time/history as a linear progression. This course along with therapy (which I began in January) have helped me realize how I think differently from others. I can understand how the cultural past affects the cultural present because I understand how my past is implicit in my present.

I was both molested as a child and raped as an adult. I can see in my own life how molestation taught me to devalue my personhood, and how this negative cycle of thought negated any report of later sexual violence. Trauma does not disappear and if you try to box it away it becomes PTSD; through which the pain reoccurs in the same intensity as the original trauma. Our culture attempts to hide historical processes of oppression in linearity leaving America with PTSD. Just as I can connect acts of sexual violence to who I have become; I too can understand how historical processes of oppression create our context of 2016. Therefore I know that trauma like slavery, Jim Crow segregation, internment camps, and colonization shape how we live to this day. This ability to understand myself, my herstory, and the dynamism of cultural contexts leads me to create a web of connections which reveal the static nature of our white supremacist culture. Most of the connections I have made are focused in the discipline of Art History.

Often times these connections do not make sense to my Art History professors. For instance in the capstone course for my degree, Greek and Roman Sculpture with Dr. Abbe, I collected research on gender in antiquity out of my own volition. I found medical rhetoric which buttressed patriarchal power. When I brought up how Ancient views of women as inherently inferior, only pleased through male penetration and necessarily aesthetically false relate to contemporary American gender roles my professor didn’t understand. Since Dr. Abbe believes in the linear progression of history he negated that something from so far in the past could still be shaping the present. This was further revealed when I inquired if the status of ancient artisans of as dirty menial laborers of no real importance could be related to our contemporary monetary devalument of physical labor, or if our contemporary conception of physical labor affects the portrayal of the past. To deny these connections through time is to deny the reality of cultural evolution and blind yourself to the present. For example the fact that my mother ran the in home day care where I was molested and later denied my experience as real has led my mother and I to have a shallow relationship. It also means that I haven’t and may never tell her that I was raped. Just because trauma occurred in my past doesn’t mean it’s not affecting my present, and I blind myself by ignoring the shit that weights me down.

On the opposite end of the spectrum I have had Art History professors who may not completely understand my logic, yet encourage me to make unconventional connections. For instance within Modern Art and Dance I was encouraged to explore the connections between racism/racial domination, primitivism, colonialization, modernism, and the performance of Josephine Baker prior to WWII. Furthermore I researched phenomenology, and cultural construction of identity to enhance my argument about the reason Baker was so popular in France but not in America. Her popularity in France was tainted by a Racist public who exoticized, and primitivized her art. I learned that the connection between Baker’s perceived “Africanness”, primitive nature, and naked black form stemmed back to Sartjee Baarman (infamously known as the Hottentot Venus) who was paraded around Europe in the early 19th Century. Unlike Claude McKay’s Harlem Dancer Baartman had no ability to control her body, her location, who touched her, or her portrayal because she was kept in a cage for the “ethnographic tittilation” of a European public. Baker on the other hand like the Harlem Dancer created her own performances, choreography, and after a short while her costume design. Though she could not control the reception of her art she felt personally freed through her dance. This places emphasis on the artist as an autonomous individual and how, even though racist mythologies attempted to define her, Baker was able to feel empowered through her dance. While I was doing this project Nicki Minaj’s Anaconda music video came out. This is when I realized that our contemporary obsession with butts, specifically black women’s butts is nothing new and I could see a cultural thread which tied together Baker, Minaj, self-definition, and oppressive master narratives. My ability to understand this lineage and white supremacist cultural evolution as a whole stems from how I recognize whiteness as effecting my childhood educational opportunities. Therefore my contemporary graduation from the University of Georgia. My parents fought hard to keep me out of special education program my first grade year because my test scores indicated developmental retardation. However the reason for my nill schore was that I am dyslexic and at the time was a mirror writer thus all of my bubbled answers were inverted. Had my parents not had the jobs they acquired aided by white privilege (no college education) we may have never known what was wrong with me due to lack of insurance. If my parents hadn’t been white they might not have been taken as seriously by the faculty of the school. If I hadn’t been white with non-white parents perhaps the school would have placed me in Special Ed. regardless because they believe that students of color have inherently less intellectual capacity. I also suffered from Severe Optical Migraine’s which kept me out of the class room most days of the week if not for weeks on end. Due to the fact that my parents obtained an Americans with Disabilities status for me my teachers were forced to work around my consistent absences. However lack of time in the classroom along with the mental exhaustion of my chronic illness means that I am missing some foundational knowledge. I know that these unlearned skills are affecting my academic output to this day. Therefore I understand how my past greatly informs and shapes my present, because of this I can more easily see the effects of cultural history on contemporary context.

I have been able to recognize my whiteness through my education at the University of Georgia. In Fall 2012 I took my first Women Studies course with Blaise Parker. I have a mother who has always been the bread winner and authority. She is an Atheist and a Feminist thus She brought me up to treat everyone as equal. However it is in Blaise’s course that the world my mother constructed for me was shattered, because I was able to recognize the colorblindness I had been enculturated to accept. Further adding to my understanding of whiteness was Peggy McIntosh’s “Invisible Knapsack” which flipped a switch of consciousness in my brain. I began to notice whiteness, white privilege, unintentional racism, and discrimination as the monsters of contemporary oppression that they are. I asked Blaise how to stop white privilege, but I realized that the answer was inside of me. I became from that moment on hyper-concious of my whiteness in relation to social interactions, my surroundings, and how fellow whites perpetuate harmful master narratives (later I learned that recognizing my intersectionality is called positionality and being conscious of positionality is a sociological methodology called reflexivity). Being conscious of my whiteness didn’t help me gain the friendship of people of color but it does allow me to protect the friends of color I have and make. First I protect and deepen relationships by deconstructing master narratives within myself. Secondly I bring my self-awareness outside myself and do so most passionately when oppressive ideologies are vocalized. This leads to many arguments with fellow whites; some are constructive but most feel hopeless. I don’t understand how a white person can live with themselves when they are an active tool of oppression (intentional or not). Although I know that unintentional racism or discrimination is not the fault of the individual but a symptom of a broader cultural illness, but I have a hard time believing it isn’t the white individual’s fault because recognition of white privilege is the responsibility of the individual.

This course on African American Literature has greatly aided my communication skills, which are essential to deconstructing oppressive master narratives. Furthermore this course has impressed that racial domination has not stopped thus must continually be addressed. Last but not least this course has taught me that African American Literature is both an art form to be respected as such, and a tool for the creation of a truly free America. Where do I go from here? Currently I work full time as a kitchen manager at Grindhouse Killer Burgers. I plan on staying in Athens post-graduation for one year while I work to save up for graduate school. In addition I still need to take my GRE and find an academician I wish to study under. I also plan on continuing to do the hard work of healing the trauma of rape and molestation. As I continue on my journey of healing I will also continue to fight against the white cis capitalist heteropatriarchy as an educated autonomous conscious woman.

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avrg-whyt-f3mm3-photos-blog · 4 years

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