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miss-vortex · 3 years

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Mental Health and Los Angeles' Homelessness Crisis: Why "Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel" Is One of the Most Important Documentaries on Netflix

The series observes the devastating impact of mental illness and the stigma surrounding it and teaches us that the dire problem of homelessness in the city of Los Angeles is only getting worse

SPOILER ALERT: It may be best to only read on if you have already watched the documentary series.

"Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel" is not about a cursed hotel. This documentary series is so much more than that and I personally believe that it is one of the most important documentaries to air on Netflix. So many current issues are covered that are generally brushed under the carpet and left to rot and this is one of the reasons why it must be watched.

Elisa Lam believed that experiencing Los Angeles would change her life for the better. She wanted to discover "La La Land". Instead, what she discovered was not the glamorous city she had in mind - staying only a few streets away from Skid Row in a hotel infamous for its tragic history, riddled with stories of death, drug abuse and serial killer lodgings, Elisa was faced with a gruesome reality - that reality is Los Angeles's gaping wealth divide which is only widening as time goes on.

Elisa's dreamy expectations of LA being heavily dampened by the poverty she found herself in would have no doubt contributed to her worsening mental state during her stay at the Cecil Hotel. Los Angeles is often depicted as the city where people go to find themselves - after all, it's Hollywood's home - but the reality is that the city has many more dimensions that are not represented on holiday websites or tourist leaflets.

I have seen for myself only a fraction of the poverty which adorns the streets of LA when I visited in 2019 and what I saw was shocking enough. People are living in tents only streets away from where millionaires sleep comfortably in their high-rise apartments and mansions. A taxi driver told me "The council are building more apartments in downtown LA but it's only for the wealthy. They won't do anything about the problem of homelessness."

This is brought to light in the documentary also and it is clearly highlighted how much the homeless have been forgotten about in the city - for 100 years they have been shoved aside to make space for rich newcomers. Last year it was estimated that there are about 66,433 people living on the streets in Los Angeles and this increased by 12.7% between 2019 and 2020. The main cause of homelessness in the city is too many underpaid jobs and lack of affordable housing.

The fact that Elisa ended up losing her life in a place where she was looking to escape from her troubles is truly heartbreaking. She was incredibly bright, but severely mentally ill, and I believe that parallels can be drawn between Elisa's condition and the way in which the impoverished are treated in LA. Elisa was the victim of bipolar disorder, a mental illness which is heavily stigmatised like many other mental health conditions. Some people might speculate that Elisa should have been more responsible and taken her medication as it had been prescribed to her - and whilst I agree that we all have a responsibility for our own self care, there can be many reasons why people don't take their medication. These can include the stigma behind being prescribed medication for a mental illness and not wanting to become dependent on medication. In Elisa's case, the fact she strongly believed going to Los Angeles would help her find herself may have made her feel as if she wouldn't need her medication once she got to the City of Angels - she'd be okay without it.

But as the documentary demonstrated, the symptoms of bipolar disorder can become so severe that they cause people to do things that are completely out of character and even lead to a person's death. This is why mental illness needs to be better understood and why Elisa could have had more help - her sister mentioned she had had severe psychotic episodes at home previously, so why didn't her family make sure she was 100% safe and well before she travelled alone? It would be wrong lay the blame on her family though - Elisa was an adult after all and they had to let her travel if she wanted to.

The problem of homelessness in LA suffers the same stigma as Elisa's illness in a society where the elite are catered to and the poor are simply pushed aside. A Los Angeles Times analysis conducted in 2019 discovered that 67% of people living on the streets suffer from a mental illness or substance abuse disorder - a direct result of the city's lack of social care for its poorer residents. Just like those living on Skid Row, Elisa felt rejected by society, misunderstood. Her worsening mental health was a product of the same system which has left millions of Americans deprived - a system which belongs to the billionaire class, a system which wants to maintain a spectacular image at all costs, a system which doesn't want to talk about mental health issues.

The Cecil Hotel, too, is a product of its environment. It is not a cursed place in the paranormal sense - it is cursed in the fact that lives have been needlessly lost there through the lack of resources and funding that are contributed to Skid Row. Although the Cecil Hotel has provided many with shelter, tragedies are bound to happen when people are not given the help they need to battle drug addiction, mental illness and crime involvement. The lack of security at the hotel was also shocking to begin with.

These are the reasons why "Crime Scene: Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel" is so desperately relevant in today's society. With the pandemic taking hold of the world, more people than ever before are grappling with mental health issues and the wealth gap continues to increase worldwide. There will be more deaths like Elisa's if we don't start to talk about mental health and more people will resort to living on the streets if we continue to value wealth over human lives.

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thedreadvampy · 3 years

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On the other hand, and moving away from direct Mechanisms Discourse (which I prefer to not get over involved in tbh but also this ISN'T about that it's just jumping off it) - it absolutely is deeply classist to assume that somebody is illiterate or ignorant because of poverty/assumed poverty, and that's a huge problem. but also I think on a broader social level (at least in the UK) there is an idea in the left that it's classist to acknowledge the connection between poverty and illiteracy, while the truth is that illiteracy is a problem of poverty (poverty not in the sense of just Not Having Money but in the sense of system denial of adequate resources). Poverty doesn't = illiteracy but illiteracy is very much a problem of poverty - not a failure of a marginalised individual but a failure of the system marginalising them.

Adult illiteracy is a surprisingly large issue in eg both rural and urban Scotland, but it's not because poor people are stupid, ignorant or unwilling to learn - it's because schools are inadequate or inaccessible, classes are managed not taught, teachers are stretched thin and schools are underfunded so don't have resources to help struggling students, if you get to secondary school still unable to read and write you're completely locked out of the educational system unless you can access a school with the resources to teach you individually, and because of this, classism and a lack of support, poorer kids are more likely to switch off school as early as possible.

Social geography is also a big issue. In urban areas, schools in poorer areas get bad reputations, so they're underfunded, so they do worse, so they're funded less, etc, until they're a bare minimum of staff just trying to get through the day in collapsing buildings with no resources and five textbooks. Where better-funded schools can afford teaching assistants, 1:1 support for struggling students, decent food provision for kids, follow-up on children in need of support at home, more teachers for smaller classes, maybe counseling and psychological support, maybe Special Educational Needs classes for older kids to work on basic literacy and numeracy to catch up, worse-funded schools have one underpaid unsupported teacher trying to manage a class of 35 kids with wildly different needs. They don't have the resources to help support kids with issues that might affect their schooling, like parental abuse or neglect, trauma, a parent in prison, care responsibilities, hunger, homelessness, neurodiversities that affect their ability to learn in the prescribed way, learning disabilities like dyslexia, physical health issues including visual or auditory impairments...all things that when supported are highly surmountable but when unsupported often end up with children being perceived and treated as stupid, disruptive or evil. The problem then compounds itself because the kids are badly treated which makes them more disruptive and less able to learn, and more and more work is needed to help them which teachers continue to not have any capacity or resources for.

Rural poverty comes with its own schooling issues as well, in that poverty is generally correlated with remoteness. Poor rural communities are often hours away from population centres, so either you have tiny highly local schools serving a handful of families where a single teacher needs to invent lesson plans that somehow balance the needs of 11 year olds and 4 year olds of all abilities, or your kids need to somehow get into town every morning before you get to work, which may mean dropping them off at 6am, having to part pay for buses, taxis or ferries, sending them on their own, or leaving them with friends and family, and realistically the way that often shakes down is that they don't go. You teach them at home, and they may not even exist for the truancy office to know about.

Literacy is also connected to family culture. Both my parents were people with degrees from educated families, and my mum was a full time parent, and the result is that school didn't teach me to read - I was already a confident and enthusiastic reader. Even richer families may hire tutors for small children, pay for extracurricular learning, etc. The poorer a family is, the more likely neither parent is available to spend time reading with their kids, because they're working full time - at that economic level a single income household is almost entirely unviable so either both parents work or there's a single parent working extra hours or they're just exhausted from worrying about the bills and what's sold to them as a personal failure to look after their family.

One thing it's easy to forget is that while people in the UK still do drop out of school in their teens to work, a generation ago it was almost the norm for a lot of communities (especially the children of farmers, miners and factory workers) to have left school well before the end of compulsory education, both because of school being a hostile space and because of the need for an additional income. Now as well as then, a lot of kids drop out to work as unpaid carers, disproportionately in poorer families that can't afford private care or therapeutic support. Literacy aside, generations of leaving school with no qualifications doesn't tend to teach you that formal learning is as important as experience and vocational learning, and you don't expect to finish anyway so why put yourself through misery trying to do well? But it includes literacy. I grew up in a former mining area and a lot of people my dad's age and older were literate enough to read signs and football results, but took adult classes in middle age or later to get past the pointing finger and moving lips. and if you're parents don't or can't read, it's a lot harder for you to learn.

There's a lot of classism and shame tied up in the roots of illiteracy. Teachers and governments and schoolmates will often have vocally expressed low expectations of poorer students; a rich child who does poorly at school has problems, a poor child who does poorly at school is a problem child. They're often treated with hostility and aggression from infancy and any anger or disinterest in school is often treated not as a problem to be solved but as proof that you were right to deem them a write-off. Poorer or more neglected children (or children for whom English is a second language) will often be deemed "stupid" by their peers, and start at a disadvantage because of the issues around early childhood learning in families where parents are overstretched.

Kids learn not to admit that they don't know or understand something, because if you start school unable to read and write and do basic maths when a lot of kids your age are already confident, you get mocked and called stupid and lazy by your peers, and treated with frustration by your teachers. So kids learn to avoid people noticing that they need help. That means that school, which could help a lot, isn't somewhere you can go for help but a source of huge anxiety and pain - more so when you factor in the background radiation of classism that only grows as you get older around not having the right clothes, the right toys, the right experiences, my mum says your mum's a ragger, my mum says I shouldn't hang out with you because you're a bad lot - so again kids switch off very early and see education as something to survive not something helpful.

The same is very much true of adult literacy. A lot of adults are very shamed and embarrassed to admit that they struggle with reading and writing - a lot of parents particularly want to be able to teach their kids to read, but aren't confident readers themselves, and feel too stupid and embarrassed to admit out loud that they can't read well, let alone to seek out and endure adult literacy classes that are a constant reminder of their perceived failure and ignorance (and can also be excruciating. Books for adult literacy learning are not nearly widespread enough and a lot of intelligent experienced adults are subjected to reading Spot the Dog and similar books targeted at small children's interests). Adult literacy classes also cost time and also money, so a lot of people only have the space for them after retirement, if at all.

And increasingly, illiteracy (or lack of fluency in English) increases poverty and marginalisation, and thus the chances of inherited literacy problems. Reading information, filling out forms and accessing the internet in a meaningful way are all massively limited by illiteracy, and you need those skills to access welfare, to access medical care, to avoid exploitative loans, to deal with any service providers, etc. Most jobs above minimum wage and a lot below require a fairly high level of literacy, whether it's office work or reading an instructional memo on a building site or reading drink instructions in McDonalds. Illiteracy is a huge barrier between somebody and the rest of the world, especially in a modern world that just assumes universal literacy, and especially especially as more and more of life involves the internet, texting, WhatsApp, email, and so on - it's becoming harder and harder for people with limited literacy to be fully involved in society. And that means the only mobility is downwards, and that exacerbates all the problems that lead to adult illiteracy.

People who can't read after the age of 6 or so are treated as stupid. People who can't read fluently when they're adults are seen as stupid and almost subhuman. There's so much shame and personal judgement attached to difficulty reading, but the fact that illiteracy is almost exclusively linked to poverty and deprivation is pretty conclusive. Illiteracy isn't about the failure or stupidity of the individual, it's about the lack of support, care and respect afforded to poor people at all stages of their life. Being illiterate doesn't make you stupid - many people are highly intelligent, creative, capable, thoughtful, and illiterate. I know people who can immediately solve complex engineering problems on the fly but take ten minutes to write down a sentence of instruction. It isn't classist to say that illiteracy is caused by poverty - it's both classist and inaccurate to say that illiteracy says anything about the worth, intelligence or personhood of the poor, that it's a result of a desire to be ignorant, or that it's evidence that people are poor because they're stupid, incapable, ignorant or bad parents. The link between poverty and illiteracy is the problem of classism and bigotry, no more no less, and we deal with it by working against the ideas that both poverty and lack of education are a reflection of individual worth.

Illiteracy isn't a problem of intelligence, it's a problem of education, and that matters because education is not inherent. it's something that has to be provided and maintained by parents, by the state, by the community. you're not born educated. you are educated. except more than a quarter of the Scottish population isn't educated, because the system doesn't give a fuck about them and actively excludes them or accidentally leaves them behind.

#idl why i wrote this I'm just very angry about how we as a culture treat adult illiteracy in the uk #which is to say - we don't #we ignore it and think about it as a problem of the past or of other countries #and if we do encounter it we treat illiterate people as uniquely stupid and ignorant #as if it's a personal not systemic problem #26.7% of people in Scotland are either illiterate or have severe issues with literacy #16.4% in the uk as a whole #it's this invisible symptom of deprivation that nobody fucking talks about #less than half of people in prison have basic literacy and numeracy skills #and that's not because only stupid people end up in prison it's because illiteracy is a symptom of the poverty pipeline #and i don't think there's current data on this but I'd guess we're going to see an ongoing dip in literacy rates #correlated with austerity from 2010 on #because child poverty and child hunger in this country has consistently steeply climbed since then #and you don't. learn well. when you're hungry.#and also i anticipate a drop in literacy associated with Covid. it's two years where kids without existing literacy skills #parents who are home and consistent internet access have really been unable to engage with a lot of classes #and teachers have been even less able to offer meaningful personalised support #and two years is SO LONG in early years. being set back two years compared to other students can affect your education your whole life.

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emikochan · 4 years

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I know I requested sth yesterday and I apologize for bothering you. Actually... *coughs awkwardly* I would like to make another request another time ofc if that’s alright so... Do you have any headcanons or maybe a scenario about married Russia with his partner and even their children??So basically marriage and parent headcanons and/or scenario. Thanks once again and I understand it if you can’t/don’t want to write about it. Have a good day（╹◡╹）

Jeez, did I write too much this time? Haha, maybe I got a little too carried away with this request! Enjoy🌸 PS: It's absolutely no problem, love! You guys are allowed to request and ask as much as you like🌸

~~~~~~~

Husband!Russia headcanons:

• a caring husband

• "You're tired, sunflower? I'll call in sick for you; don't go to work and stay home, da?"

• showers you with food, that he made himself

• brings home neat gimmicks that's supposed to make finishing chores easier, like a robot vacuum cleaner.

• he got servants to clean his place up but he wants to show you that he cares about them and wants to make their work easier.

• couldn't be more happy than now. He finally found a person that truly loves him and he can finally settle down with the peaceful life he yearned for for centuries.

• there will be a little field of sunflowers in your shared garden. No questions asked.

• walking with you through it is one of his favourite things to do

• once he lost you in there and almost had an anxiety attack

• abandonment issues hit him all over again.

• he loves sunflowers with all his heart but he was ready to thrash every single one in his way to find you, fortunately you found him just in time to stop him.

• would never, EVER strike you.

• you inspire him to be a better person

• when that one guy hit on you, he was ready to whack this dude's head with his pipe; but you once taught him that violence is rarely ever the answer and he found his own way to tell the guy off without bashing his brain in.

• tries to be the best husband, honestly. He's still very insecure about himself and constantly fears that he'll do or say something that ends up scaring you away.

• learns how to handle himself better by following your examples

~~~

Father!Russia Headcanons:

• dedicated father that surprisingly doesn't spoil his children rotten

• having experienced poverty in his own childhood, his first instinct was to spoil his kids but he knows that this would do them more harm than anything else.

• he wants for his children to be gentle and sincerely good people someday

• encourages them to do sports or other competitive activities, where they can learn ambition and have to work in order to succeed.

• just because you guys are rich doesn't mean that his kids should grow up thinking that their parent's money are enough to live with.

• takes them to charity events

• helping others is a thing in your family, that you often do together wether it may be handing out food or blankets to the homeless at christmas in Moscow or cleaning up a park.

• Ivan thinks that's good for his kid's character

• sometimes has Toris or Eduard watch over his darlings when he's going out with you

~~~~~~~~~

❄️Little scenario because I felt like it❄️

"Alex, would you like popcorn or chips?", you asked the little boy that inherited Ivan's hair.

The little one was conflicted, with the wheels in his head visibly turning. He bit his lip in deep thought as he looked up to read the sign with the prices over and over again in hopes to decide very soon what he actually wanted.

"They both sound good..." he concluded. "Can't I have both?"

"You know that would be too much sugar, Alexander", Ivan responded and layed a hand on his son's head. Though he must admit that this day was kinda special and that the two siblings were really really good when it came to eating healthy food during the last weeks...

"You know what we're gonna do?", chirped his daughter. "Mama and I are gonna share some popcorn and you two get some chips."

A mischievous spark flashed in little Katinas eyes as she looked over to Alex and he nodded in agreement.

Did they honestly think Ivan would fall for that? Obviously the siblings each get chips and popcorn and use the dark of the cinema to secretly trade the snacks between each other, so that they had both at the same time. Clever little six year-olds.

Before Ivan could kindly expose their little plan his wife spoke up.

"That sounds like a pretty good idea, let's do this!"

While the kids cheered and ran to line up at the register you raised an eyebrow at Ivan and took his large hand into yours.

"We got to spoil them once in a while, honey. They've been so good during the past weeks" you said and he let out a content sigh.

"When they suffer from a sugar rush, it's your problem to deal with." he joked and you giggled as you joined the kids in line, waiting to begin a wonderful evening

#hetalia #imagines #aph russia #ivan braginsky #request

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uncloseted · 3 years

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tw: transphobia😭 hi I'm a radfem cisgirl (I hate using "cis" and "trans" words but here I need to for the sake of the story) I've got a friend from ny highschool (we're in college now) who's also a radfem and is always sharing great feminist stuff. Yesterday, she shared the comment of a girl saying "this fight for abortion (it is illegal in my country) is for men/people with vaginas too!" and mocked it. I preferred not to make up any opinions about her because of one single post. But today, she shared a picture of Miss Spain 2019 (a trans girl) who talked about her experience with sexism, and mocked her too. This time, it was obvious to me she was just being transphobic trash. She received lots of backlash and deleted the post, but instead made a new post complaining about people caring about transphobia but not about sexism (a very stupid post, if you ask me). This time, along with some comments from other girls respectfully telling her to stop being cruel and mocking towards trans women, she received a lot of support from other TERFS (although these TERFS said they hate being called TERFS just for being honest and brave lmmfao). They said that transwomen don't belong in radfem because they just suffer from discrimination, not oppression, and listed some reasons why: according to them, trans girls don't suffer: obstetrician violence, forced pregnancy, feminicide, child marriage, genital femenine ablation, glass ceiling barriers, being implanted "maternal sense" while kids, getting their ears perfored while babies, among other stuff, and that differentiate ciswomen biological reality from trans women biological reality isn't transphobia. Other girls said they knew transwomen who were mean to them, using derogatory terms to refer to ciswomen and they were mean and cruel, using this argument to generalize about all transwomen smh.

I'm just so stoned that people could be so cruel to transwomen and set them aside from the feminist fight when they suffer from already being excluded from so many things. It sickens me that some people don't belive trans people exist and treat them that bad, specially trans girls. I wish I could debunk the info this TERFS are spreading because it's so dangerous and enables transphobics to keep harming transpeople and I find that unbearable, but I am not as informed as I should be to debute all their lies at once. Could you help me?

So starting with the question of transwomen in radfem spaces, I don’t think many (if any) transwomen would say that they experience the exact same type of discrimination that cis women do. There’s often this idea that “trans people don’t believe in biology”, but that’s a bad faith argument. Trans people understand biology very well, often more than their cis counterparts do, because it’s such a big part of their identity.

Yes, transwomen don’t suffer obstetrician violence, forced pregnancy, child marriage, genital feminine ablation, etc. (I can’t even find any articles on the ear thing). They do experience femicide, at way higher rates that cis women do. Transwomen are women, and they’re discriminated against in their own way; sometimes that’s because they’re women, and sometimes that’s because they’re trans. Transwomen are largely supportive of fighting with cis women to rid the world of discrimination for all women, cis and trans alike.

By contrast, TERFs seem to think that because transwomen sometimes suffer a different type of discrimination than cis women, they can’t be “real women”. But that argument makes no sense to me. The vast majority of affluent, white, straight, cis women will never suffer the violence that is apparently so central to the cis female experience. They’re extremely unlikely to experience femicide, child marriage, genital mutilation... and yet they can acknowledge that those issues are feminist issues, even though they’re not universal to all women. Why shouldn’t the discrimination that transwomen face also fall under that umbrella? And if they can accept that women who have had hysterectomies, or women who have chromosomal differences, or women who are intersex, or women who present butch are all women, why shouldn’t transwomen also fall under the umbrella of womanhood?

Further, is that really all that womanhood is to TERFs? Experiencing the trauma and discrimination that so often accompanies being a cis women? I don’t think inclusion to a group should be predicated on the amount that one has suffered or how many “oppression points” they’ve amassed. And I don’t think being a woman should be predicated solely on biology, especially given that we never really know what kind of biology a person has just by looking at them. What “being a woman” is is a metaphysical question that derails the discussion of trans feminism, and it’s a question that I don’t think a lot of TERFs actually have a good answer to. It’s just an easy way to put the burden of proof on trans people and trans allies and waste our time (but if you’re interested, I do have an opinion on this. I just think it’s best saved for a different time).

In terms of trans people being oppressed, there’s all sorts of data to suggest that trans oppression is very real. In the US, trans people were banned from serving in the military under the Trump administration, a decision that was only overturned a few days ago, and the Trump administration also reversed the Obama- era Title VII policy that protected trans employees from discrimination. Trans people are overwhelmingly lacking legal protections- there are no federal non-discrimination laws that include gender identity, and in some states, debates over limiting the rights of trans people to use public bathrooms are ongoing.

About 57% of trans people faced some type of rejection from their family upon coming out. Around 29% of trans people live in poverty (compared to 11% in the general population and about 22% in the lesbian and gay populations), and that number is higher for trans people who are Black (39%), Latinx (48%), or Indigenous (35%). 27% of trans people have been fired, not hired, or denied a promotion due to their trans identity. 90% of trans people report facing discrimination in their own jobs. Trans people face double the rate of unemployment that cis people do (about 14%) and about 44% are underemployed. This is despite the fact that a reported 71% of trans people have some level of post-secondary education- actually higher than the general population, which is about 61%. It’s often cited that women earn 77 cents on the dollar compared to men, but that statistic doesn’t even exist for trans women.

54% of trans people have experienced intimate partner violence (compared to about 24.3% of cis women), 47% of trans people have been sexually assaulted (compared to about 18% of cis women), and about 10% are physically assaulted in a given year.

About 22% of trans people and 32% of trans people of color in the US have no health insurance (compared to about 11% of cis women), and 55% of trans people who do have insurance report being denied coverage for at least one gender affirming surgery. 29% of trans adults have been refused healthcare by a doctor or provider because of their gender identity. In one study, 50% of trans people said that they had to teach their medical providers about trans care. Trans people are four times as likely than the average population to be infected by HIV. 41% have attempted suicide at one point in their lives, compared to 1.6% of the general population.

20% of trans people have been evicted or denied housing due to their gender identity, and trans people are four times more likely than cis people to be homeless. Only 1/5 of trans people report that they have been able to update all of their identification documents, and 41% have a driver’s license that does not match their gender identity. 22% of trans people report that they have been denied equal treatment by a government agency or official, 29% reported police harassment, and 12% reported having been denied equal treatment or harassed by judges or court officials.

75% of transgender students feel unsafe at school because of their gender expression, 60% are forced to use a bathroom or locker room that does not match their gender, 50% were unable to use the name and pronouns that match their gender, and 70% of trans students say that they’ve avoided bathrooms because they feel unsafe. 78% of trans students report being harassed or assaulted at school.

And these are all statistics that focus on trans people at large. The discrimination is worse for transwomen and especially transwomen of color. All of that certainly sounds like systemic oppression to me.

Every person who chooses to be a TERF perpetuates this discrimination. It’s just bigotry towards trans people, plain and simple. And for what? A reactionary fear that all transwomen are secretly sexual predators and all transmen are confused girls who don’t know better? Unfortunately, men can be sexual predators just fine without having to jump through the convoluted hoops trans people go through to be recognized as their true gender identity, and transwomen are way more likely to be sexually assaulted than they are to be sexual predators. There are no reported cases at all that transwomen are dressing up as men to assault women in bathrooms. There aren’t even statistics on how frequently trans people are sexual predators. And transmen are just as capable of making informed, thoughtful decisions as cis women.

TERFs shouldn’t be pitting themselves against trans people. There’s just nothing to be gained from doing that. They should be working alongside trans people to fight the patriarchy and the discrimination that cis and trans women both face, regardless of what that discrimination entails.

Last thought. Not to be a stan or anything but if you’re interested in learning more about these issues, Contrapoints has a number of really good videos on the topic of TERFs (including one that just released today!). They delve a bit deeper into the actual questions that TERFs often bring up and provide some nuanced answers.

youtube

#Anonymous #effys-closet #effys closet

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simplelittlebrowngirljae · 4 years

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What being a black student at a PWI taught me

I grew up in working class family. My father was in the military and my mother was a civil servant. Neither had went to college, but they did have job training. My sister was a first generation college student of our immediate household, although I had an aunt who had her PhD and her daughter had gone to college and had her Master’s and was officer in the Air Force, we didn’t speak much about college in my family until it was time for my sister to graduate. I went along on college tours, financial aid nights and many other things associated with getting ready for the college experience. It was very exciting to see what this was all about because this was not anything we had ever experienced. My mother became ultra-educated and an advocate for my sister and wanted to get the most for our dollar and the best experience possible for my sister’s college years. My sister ultimately landed on attending Norfolk State University, and urban Historically Black College and University or HBCU for short. She also received a prestigious scholarship. When the time came, we dropped her off the short 30 minute drive and wished her well. She came home virtually every weekend or we went over there to attend events and football games and I got to see what it was like to be in college too. And I learned what things I wanted in a school and started to think about if I even wanted to attend college.

College was a foreign concept because many of my peers came from these legacies of college graduates from specific schools and that is all the spoke about, even when I was in middle school. They pretty much already knew where they were going because their parents graduated from a specific school, and their grandparents graduated from there and their great grandparents graduated as well. I was not so lucky and had to do so much research about degree programs and campuses and what I actually wanted in a school because well, college just didn’t run in my family like that. While yes my sister went to college, and I had an aunt and a cousin who attended school, we just didn’t openly discuss life after high school except that you had 3 options: get a job, go to school or join the military. I knew I couldn’t join the military because I was flat footed and had asthma so it was get a job or go to school. If I wanted any type of future, I was told going to school was the path I should take. So I started exploring colleges and then I took the SAT’s and ACT’s and school brochures started flooding my mailbox. I started making a list of schools I wanted to see because of what they offered. I attended local alumni events of schools to chat with past students and get a feel if that school could be for me.

The summer before my senior year I took a road trip to visit several schools in South Carolina and North Carolina. I loved them but then my mom broke my heart and told me if I go too far away from home I wouldn’t be able to come home like I want. So I started to factor distance into my choices. As my senior year began, I started looking at schools close to home and there was one school in particular that was just AMAZING and I fell in love with. Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) was just different. It was in an urban setting and just yelled ‘’Hello Opportunities”. I went to the campus many times, worked hard and applied. I received acceptance letters from so many schools and waited anxiously for my decision from VCU. The day it came I was beyond elated I almost hit the roof! I was ready to start this next chapter of my life.

Now, I applied to a variety of schools, to include HBCUs and PWIs or Predominantly White Institutions. I didn’t even think about if a school was an HBCU or a PWI. I just applied based on how their programs ranked. I wanted a good education. And honestly when counselors were working with us, that did not even come up and my counselor was black and graduated from an HBCU. So why does it matter? I will tell you why. In this day in age, it is almost as if you are judged about your blackness by where you went to college or the things you did while in college. HBCUs do provide a very unique experience and are the pillar of the black community, I will say that. There is a magic and wonder that is unparalleled, especially at their sporting events and homecomings. I will say I did not have that where I attended college. And HBCUs were there when White schools would not allow us to attend. I respect them. However, it was not for me. I visited several and did not feel at home. When I walked on VCU’s campus I felt at home. And that is why I chose to attend. But because I chose to attend a PWI does not mean I do not support HBCUs. I 100% do. And because I did not attend an HBCU does not mean I am any less of a black person. I am still very black, please remember that. I have been made fun of and criticized for my choices, or told I am not really black because I went to a PWI and didn’t pledge as well ( meaning join a black sorority during my time there. That is not true either. Newsflash: you can attend a PWI and be black and not join a sorority or fraternity and maintain your blackness. My choice to attend was to grow myself and learn things and well, all of that happened. Let me share what I learned during my 4 years there:

1. I can hold a diverse conversation- While at VCU, I came across some unique individuals. And for that reason I have had to adapt and adjust my conversations and ways of talking to many situations. I am grateful to have been in an environment that allowed to experience such because it has made me more aware of the population I am engaging with and tune into sensitive to topics of conversation, in addition forcing me listen to understand and not just respond.

2. I am very cultured – VCU is one the most diverse schools in the world. We actually have a campus in Qatar! We have so many countries represented it is just overwhelming! I remember checking into my dorm and seeing people from India, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Laos, Israel, Nigeria, Puerto Rico among other countries and it just blew my mind. Where I am from, we had some diversity, but nothing as rich as this! With so many diverse cultures I learned about different traditions, their food and other great things. Around campus we had food from these different cultures as well. I remember tasting Indian food for the first time, and then Thai and then Venezuelan. It was like “whooooaaa… what have I been missing my whole life?!?!”

3. I know how to network- now, not saying I would not learn this at an HBCU but I had many an opportunity to attend so many events at the State Capital and with other officials which has made me learn to network and engage with others. These opportunities have been unparalleled and I am beyond grateful to have attended this institution and to have had mentors who worked hard to present these opportunities to us students.

4. I have refined my public speaking skills- this is self-explanatory. I had to give umpteenth presentations and take God knows how many classes on public speaking, but I am thankful for the rigorous curriculum that was provided to me that made me refine these skills. With my public speaking skills also came great research skills so I am grateful for that as well.

5. I learned about topics I would have never imagined to include veganism, Islam, Celiac’s disease, and various holidays- this is pretty self-explanatory. Being around so much diversity and around many unique persons allowed me to learn about many different things. So many things I had not been exposed to and I was beyond thankful to have been in an environment to learn, experience and understand.

6. I met my best friend who is from a totally different county and culture than myself- my best friend is form Sudan and is Muslim. She has taught me so much it’s unreal. Like I learned about different foods, about Africa, about Islam, the Quran, and not just learned about these things but have developed a strong respect from African culture and Islamic culture. She is one of the best things to happen to me and I swear I learn so many things from her every day…yes you read that correctly, I learn something new daily from her.

7. I was presented with many opportunities to travel and participate in conferences and events- many of my professors belonged to many organizations and would speak at many conferences, they would have spaces available to take us to conferences with them and we would get credit for it! So I was able to travel to several conferences and meet amazing people and learn about various career paths and how to integrate what we were learning into the real world. All of that was invaluable.

8. I learned it is okay to ask for help – this was a big one. I found myself in many a situation where things were not going as planned and I was epically failing. And my pride would not let me ask for help. But then things got so bad to where I had no choice. The crazy thing is, I should have asked for help sooner because I would have been better off. Like, those who were providing the help were more than kind and more than gracious and wanted to help. So the moral of the situation, don’t let your pride stand in the way of you getting what you need.

9. I learned that therapy is great and not a bad thing- in Black culture, therapy is shunned. And we often suffer in silence. I was very stressed out one semester and it came out as anger. So I went to the Student Counseling Center and go help. It was the best thing I ever did. At VCU, they publicize and encourage students to use counseling services. It is a beautiful thing. Never feel ashamed of needing therapy. It is there to help you, not harm you.

10. I learned a lot about poverty and its effect on communities and America- VCU is an urban campus. The downfall of that is that there is a large homeless population that roams around the campus. Many of these persons have mental illness, and in a few of my courses we learned about whey people are homeless and how the resources for those with mental illness are almost nonexistent once they are discharged from inpatient care. We also learned how community mental health is a joke as well and many families often disown their family members who have mental illness because it becomes too much. We also learned that there are some homeless people who are actually not homeless and who have a lot of money and who just sit on the corner asking for money for fun. It was quite interesting to learn about such. On the flip side of all that we learned about the ‘working poor’ which are folks who may be working and barely providing for themselves but they live in substandard housing but cannot afford much else. We learned about the implications of such on public health and it taught me so much and guided my whole career essentially. Because of where VCU is located we actually got hands on service learning in such topics and it made our education worthwhile.

11. I learned about drugs, alcohol, their distribution and economic impact in society – so many men would hang out on campus during the day trying to pick up women. And the sad part is, many were drug dealers and these young innocent girls did not know. After a while one would pick up on such, however we wouldn’t engage them to the point of a relationship. I would say I would engage theme enough to learn about drugs, and how they system worked and that was enough. Ladies, just know everything that glitters isn’t gold and you should respect yourself enough to walk away from situations. Know better, do better.

12. I learned that self-care is imperative – we all take on so many things and it can get overwhelming. I learned in my 4 years it is essential to take breaks and set boundaries in order to protect your peace. People may get mad but you cannot pour from an empty bucket.

13. I learned it is okay to not have it all figured out- college is supposed to be the best time of your life. However, as you get closer to graduation things get a bit scary. And there are some people who expect you to have it figured out. Well guess what, it is okay to not have it figured out. VCU had a great internship program and Career Services department. And it was mandatory for me to have a 700 hours of an internship to graduate and go to the Career Center 3 times before I graduated. I learned that it was okay not to have a concrete plan during these times. I learned that sometimes the plan you had will change direction because of circumstances. And that made me feel great.

14. I learned to hold my own- because there were so many races and cultures, I had to hold my own. I had to ensure my voice was heard among the other while still portraying a positive image. I broke stereotypes and learned to outshine others. I learned to be loud without saying a word. Sometimes I was the only black female in a class but I learned to be comfortable with that and how to contribute in my own way. I learned from my professors who looked like me and who didnt look like me and it made me a stronger woman...it molded me to be the woman I am today.

15. I became comfortable in my own skin- this is the biggest lesson I learned. I have always been judged for how I look and how I talk. I have been called white girl, told I talk white criticized for how I dress among many other things. But being in this unique setting at VCU taught me it was okay to be me. There was nothing wrong with how I dressed or spoke or the music I listened to or any of that. I am fearfully and wonderfully made and all of these things make me who I am. I am no blacker because of my likes and dislikes or how I talk or because of my hobbies. And that alone is worth gold.

Now, am I saying that I could have only learned these lessons at a PWI? No. But I know that my experiences at my school made me who I am and even made me more comfortable in being a black female in today’s world. I feel more prepared to handle certain situations because of my situations which caused me to learn certain things. My experience was amazing. Now, if giving advice to a young black student trying to choose I would tell them this: explore your options, do your research, pick the school that feels most comfortable to you. It can be an HBCU or a PWI. But don’t ever think that going to a PWI makes you less black. You are black regardless of your choice.

#awareness #hbcu #pwi #educated #melaninated #blackgirlmagic #melaninmagic

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72crowe89 · 5 years

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Kids’ WB! and Diversity

“It’s so great to see a black superhero.”

This is a direct quote from one of my middle school classmates regarding Static Shock. Even as an eleven-year old girl, I realized the significance of that statement. In a world full of Supermen, Batmen, and Iron men, to have a hero like Static who looked like us and wasn’t a jive talking best friend or an aggressive criminal or a lazy bum was uplifting. Over fifteen years later, seeing diversity within cartoons wax and wane throughout the years has led me to revisiting Static Shock and the cartoon block it was on, Kids’ WB! In its 13-year history, WB has had several cartoons that are diverse in both their characters and their stories. I will go over the ones I’ve seen briefly, then discuss why the shows (mostly) were positive representations of diversity.

Waynehead (1996)

Waynehead was a 13-episode series that centered around Damey Wayans and his friends as they experienced life in their inner-city poor neighborhood. The series was created by Damon Wayans and based off of his own childhood (hence the name of the protagonist). Although the show never had a home release, reruns ran on Cartoon Network in the early 2000s.

Jackie Chan Adventures (2000)

Created by John Rogers and produced by Jackie Chan, Jackie Chan Adventures stars a fictional Jackie Chan who, in his job as an archaeologist, uncovers magical artifacts that make him a target for different natural and supernatural enemies. Luckily, he has the help of his mischievous niece Jade, his magic-using Uncle, and Uncle’s apprentice and reformed villain Tohru, as well as his own martial arts skills. The series was able to last five seasons before ending in 2005.

Static Shock (2000)

Static Shock was created by Dwayne McDuffie and based off of his Milestone Comics series Static. The cartoon follows Virgil Hawkins, a teen who gets caught in the middle of a gang war when chemicals in a nearby building cover all of the participants, given them unique powers. Virgil gains the power to control electricity and, as the superhero Static, protects Dakota City from other empowered individuals like himself. Static Shock ended in 2004 after four seasons.

¡Mucha Lucha! (2002)

¡Mucha Lucha!, roughly “a lot of fighting” in Spanish, was about life in Luchaville, a city were everyone was a Lucha Libre- style wrestler. The series follows main character Rikochet and his best friends Buena Girl and The Flea as they go to school to learn how to be the best luchador they can be, while using and developing body-morphing signature moves along the way. ¡Mucha Lucha! was created by Eddie Mort and Lili Chin and lasted for three seasons with a direct-to-video movie, concluding in 2005.

Xiaolin Showdown (2003)

Created by Christy Hui, Xiaolin Showdown was about four children from different parts of the world training to become Xiaolin warriors that protected objects of power called Shen Gong Wu from various enemies. The children were Omi, the arrogant Dragon of Water from China, Raimundo, the laid-back Dragon of Wind from Brazil, Kimiko the tech-savvy Dragon of Fire from Japan, and Clay, the calm Dragon of Earth from the United States. Using different Shen Gong Wu and their own elements, the Xiaolin apprentices challenge their enemies to contests called Xiaolin Showdowns for control of the Shen Gong Wu, developing their skills and personalities as the series goes on. Xiaolin Showdown ended in 2006 after three seasons, although a spinoff named Xiaolin Chronicles that lasted another two seasons ran from 2013 to 2015 on Disney XD and Netflix.

Analysis

These five shows boasted widely diverse casts, but many shows during this time did. What makes these shows different, however, is that people of color were either the protagonists or the main focus of these shows. Other shows with diverse casts still usually had the male white lead who was the most developed character. So what are the benefits and drawbacks that come from having a mainly minority cast?

Positives

One of the biggest positives that comes from a POC-led cast is the variety of personalities. In white-led diverse casts, minority characters are often given one personality trait that they never deviate from. This is especially true if the trait is a common stereotype for the minority: Asian nerd, Black athlete, etc... In shows that multiple minority characters, each of them are given widely different personalities such that a stereotype is rarely establish about a particular minority in that particular show. Jackie Chan Adventures, for example, has Asian characters that range from smart, kooky, annoying, strong, evil, and more. Static Shock have African Americans that are outstanding citizens, criminals, and everything in between. This shows illustrated how varied POC are in real life.

Beyond a multitude of personalities is genuine character development. Throughout these series, POC characters who would often be reduced to static characters were allowed to grow and change throughout the series. In Xiaolin Showdown, Omi was humbled many times throughout the show, while Raimundo went from laid back but rash to a smarter and nobler warrior. Jackie and Jade’s relationship in Jackie Chan Adventures actually evolved throughout the course of the series. In these shows and more, the creators were not afraid to show their characters as imperfect-- this in turn leads to greater character development.

Given that the casts were mainly POC, these series often discussed topics that affected those communities. Both Waynehead and Static Shock discussed living in the inner city, homelessness, poverty, and violence, with the latter also discussing racism and black identity. Jackie Chan Adventures used both Chinese mythology and literature as inspiration for its stories as did Xiaolin Showdown to a lesser extent. Finally, ¡Mucha Lucha! is a celebration of the Mexican lucha libre tradition. Not only are the characters valued in these series, but so are their cultures as well.

Finally, seeing a POC as the main character at a time where most main characters were white was empowering for young POC like myself at the time. We got to see ourselves as heroes, martial artists, warriors, and more.

Negatives

Because the main focus of these series are POCs and their stories, many people may perceive elements of these shows stereotypical, from the strong Hispanic accents in ¡Mucha Lucha! to the exaggerated features of the characters in Waynehead to gang violence in Static Shock. Stereotypes in of themselves, however, are not bad-- reducing especially minorities characters to those stereotypes is. None of these series do that; all of the characters and situations are well developed in spite of the risk of stereotypes. It helps that most of these series were created and/or produced by people of the same ethnicity as the characters, which led to a more nuance portrayal of stereotypical issues rather than an exaggerated portrayal of them.

Caveats

Of course, there are many white-led cartoons that had well-developed POCs, including both X-Men and X-Men Evolution, Codename: Kids Next Door, As Told by Ginger, Gargoyles (although that was more creature-led) and many more. Minority characters were often just treated like another character rather than significant because of their minority, so they were just as developed as their white counterparts.

Furthermore, Kids’ WB! was not the only company that had cartoons led by diverse characters. From Nickelodeon’s Hawaiian-led Rocket Power, to Disney’s Black-led The Proud Family and Asian-led American Dragon Jake Long, to Cartoon Network’s Asian-led The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, many companies were creating cartoons that celebrated a variety of different backgrounds. What makes Kids’ WB! stand out is that it was a basic channel that everyone could watch rather than a cable channel that many could not pay for. Kids’ WB! also had relatively more diverse series than its basic channel contemporaries like One Saturday Morning or Fox Box/4Kids TV. However, although ethnically diverse, Kids’ WB! was not diverse in other ways.

All of the shows I discussed in this essay have male leads. Even though several of them have well-rounded female characters like Jade in Jackie Chan Adventures and Buena Girl in ¡Mucha Lucha!, Kids’ WB! have only a handful of shows that starred females, which were either cancelled early, borrowed from Cartoon Network, or, in the case of Cardcaptors, edited to give more attention to male characters. The studio wanted to attract more boy viewers rather than girl viewers to sell toys; ironically, this is the same excuse that many studios use for not focusing on ethnic characters-- that white children will not resonate with them.

Another diversity issue is the lack openly queer or genderqueer characters. Now, this is more of a industry-wide problem than just a Kids’ WB! problem. Even today, when we’re getting more queer representation in children’s programming like Steven Universe, Adventure Time, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, The Legend of Korra, and even Arthur, there is still a lot of pushback from “moral” guardians about this type of inclusiveness. Kids’ WB!, however, has a specific example of this. Ritchie Foley, Virgil’s best friend in Static Shock, is a reimagining of Rick Stone from the Static comics. Rick is gay in the comics, and McDuffie revealed after the show was over that Ritchie was too, which would have been an uphill battle now let along in the early 2000s.

Conclusion

Rightfully, more people are demanding more diversity in their media. People want to see shows and movies that are led by ethnic, religious, gender, sexual, and other minorities because that reflects the world they live in. It reflects them as people. Two decades later, it is amazing how Kids’ WB! had ethnically-diverse series that portrayed Black and Asian and Latinos as both heroic and flawed, noble and cruel, intelligent and foolish, and everything in between. Rather than having one minority character to fill a quota, Kids WB! had a multitude of minority characters that accurately illustrate how varied and complex real-life ethnic minorities are.

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furthernotes · 4 years

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On Spaces and Lines (Or the Things That Connect and Separate)

In her essay A Hero is A Disaster: Stereotypes Versus Strength in Numbers, Rebecca Solnit talks of our preoccupation with lone victors that often leads us to make light of the potency of collective action. She writes of her friend, legal expert and author Dahlia Lithwick, who was laying groundwork for a book on women lawyers who have argued and won civil rights cases against the Trump administration in the past two years. Her goal was to diffuse the spotlight from famed individuals—such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, about whom many advised her to write instead—and onto lesser known lawyers. Elsewhere in the book, in City of Women, Solnit writes of the names which we give to our built environment: The rivers, roads, statues and colleges named after prominent, often white men; generals and captains whose shadows drape over their armies. One essay over, in Monumental Change and the Power of Names, she writes of the demolition and renaming of such monuments; changes that have shifted narratives and righted histories. She declares: “Statues and names are not in themselves human rights or equal access or a substitute for them. But they are crucial parts of the built environment, ones that tell us who matters and who will be remembered.”

I live in a quaint old neighbourhood in Singapore known as the Cambridge Estate. The vicinity is made up of roads named after idyllic English counties: Kent, Dorset, Durham, Norfolk, Northumberland; all a few minutes of walk away from the Farrer Park subzone—named after Roland John Farrer, who presided over the Singapore Municipal Commission, a body tasked to oversee local urban affairs and development under the British colonial rule. My block, an old building owned by the Housing Development Board, along with the streets that surround it, have seen some construction and renovation work in the past months. As Singapore went into lockdown at the start of April (which they prefer to call Circuit Breaker, God knows why, I’d say it’s some kind of a performative attempt at benevolence), most of the work have ceased. The roadwork at the intersection of Dorset and Kent, however, continued up until a week back. I eyed the workers, many of them migrants, from behind my mask as I crossed the street. They toiled away under the blistering sun, and I was reminded that elsewhere, on the outskirts of the city, the outbreak has reached the foreign workers’ dormitories; making prisons out of their rooms.

***

“Singapore Seemed to Have Coronavirus Under Control, Until Cases Doubled,” read a headline on the New York Times. When the city was first hit by the pandemic, its efficiency in controlling the spread was lauded as a model response. Now, its cases total to over 8,000, the highest number reported number in Southeast Asia. The number of infections climbed rapidly as the virus reached numerous foreign workers’ dormitories across the state—housing about 300,000 people—which are notoriously overcrowded and ill-equipped. The pandemic has gone on long enough, I think, for all of us to recognise that its effects have carved our social divides deeper than ever before. “The outbreak doesn’t discriminate, but its effects do,” is a sentiment that has been widely spread across social media and news outlets, inviting incisive criticisms on an array of issues, from capitalist policies to eco-activism and celebrity culture. A dominant theme, however, runs through their veins: the far-reaching power of privilege; and how it pervades even the smallest units of our lives. As “social distancing” and “stay home” were made law, it became clear that space is a luxury few share—at least, fewer than we thought. Instructions such as “stay home” and its varieties, writes Jason DeParle for the New York Times, assumes the existence of a safe, stable and controlled environment. DeParle notes that inmates, detained immigrants, homeless families and, I would add, victims of domestic abuse, are some of the discrete groups facing a dilemma amidst such instructions. He asserts: “What they share may be little beyond poverty and one of its overlooked costs: the perils of proximity.”

Close quarter is the very calamity confronting Singapore’s foreign workers community during this outbreak. Contagion hit a record high on 20 April, with over 1,426 confirmed cases, a vast majority of which coming from numerous dormitories across the state. Since early last week, active testing has been carried out since in the dormitories—which might explain the figures—but the City had been glaringly unprepared, which made for a peculiar sight. Immediately, I found myself questioning its renowned vigilance and extraordinary prescience; qualities that I often contrast with my hometown of Jakarta and its outrageously lethargic response to the pandemic. But the dorms had always been “ticking time-bombs”, Sophie Chew writes on Rice Media, and the City had turned a deaf ear to forewarnings from activists and NGOs that went back as far as February. The dorms are overcrowded, she reports: a single dorm can house over 10,000, and up to 20 people are pushed into a space the size of a four-room flat. A resident of S11 Dormitory located in Punggol, one of the first to be gazetted as an isolation site, says he shares the same shower facilities as about 150 others. The dorms are unlivable, Chew says; detailing that they are “notoriously filthy”, and some workers told The Straits Times that toilets were not regularly disinfected. This condition makes the concept of safe distancing “laughable”, writes the NGO Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2) on their website. To Chew, it is clear that Singapore’s “celebrated, ‘gold standard’ response had a citizenship blind spot.”

The blatant ignorance to the livelihood of the migrant populace is inexcusable, but it is hardly a shock for anyone from the outside looking in. The racial divide is patent; and—in the case of foreign workers—the tension is heightened by a system that enables the production of precarity and abets exploitation (Chuanfei Chin from the National University of Singapore wrote a concise paper detailing the network complicit in producing the social vulnerabilities experienced by temporary foreign workers, which you can read here). Yet, when news outlets started reporting on the crisis, they had been either clinical or deeply prejudiced, and the comment section only compounds the horror. These have not only mapped public opinion, but also reiterated the value that is given to the lives of foreign workers, and delineate further their standing in the Singapore society. The lines on this map are both psychological and structural: Yong Han Poh, writing for the Southeast Asia Globe, reminds us that their dormitories are built in isolated areas far from the public view. They are, quite literally, segregated from the wider population. The kind of treatment we afford them, the lines we draw, brings to my mind a passage from Solnit’s essay Crossing Over, where she talks of territories and migration: “The idea of illegal immigrants arises from the idea of the nation as a body whose purity is defiled by foreign bodies, and of its borders as something that can and should be sealed.” The concept, when taken in a literal manner, is eerily familiar: Almost immediately after the outbreak reached the dormitories, Facebook comments became unbearable, with an alarming number of people pointing fingers at the foreign workers’ habits and personal hygiene; insinuating that the contagion rates has more to do with their insanitary culture than the ill-equipped and overcrowded dorms (of course, they would not be the first to be at the receiving end of such narrative, which has shifted throughout history to serve the interests of those in power. Pan Jie at Rice Media offers a succinct chronicle of this.) Solnit calls this the “fantasy of safety”, where “self and the other are distinct and the other can be successfully repelled.” We are seeing, right now, that fantasy wielded by those with power; one they enforce out of suspicion and out of fear of losing security and authority. But all who have been subjugated, too, understand and yearn for this fantasy: To be liberated from the constant invasion of freedom and autonomy.

Image courtesy of Sumita Thiagarajan via Facebook. Taken on Keppel Island.

It is critical to examine, Rebecca Solnit writes, who is meant by “we” in any given place. One way to do this is by looking at the lines drawn by the semantics of names and categories. The term “migrant” has come under scrutiny in recent years: What separates the group—defined as “a person who moves from one place to another, especially in order to find work or better living conditions”—from expats, for instance, could be only a matter of nationality and skin colour. As Indonesian author Intan Paramaditha states in her essay on LitHub: “We can read the map, but the map has read us first.” Further in her essay, she continues to say that these categories determines how one experiences mobility, whether one would “encounter bridges or barriers, hospitality or displacement.” Making the distinction even more severe are neoliberal policies that have turned lives into pawns and commodities and made decent livelihood a due owed and never paid (while “errant employers” is often cited as the reason for foreign workers’ exploitation and abuse, research have shown that the legal framework protecting them, while comprehensive, is flawed). This points to the central criticism against the term “worker”, which, as Yong writes in her essay, reduces them to factors of production and labour units. Recently, online platform Dear.sg, which describes themselves as a “media conglomerate steeped in culture and grounded in locality”, befouled this already murky waters: With an article titled We Need Foreign Workers More Than They Need Us—a headline that might deceive one into thinking it’s an innocent op-ed designed to galvanise empathy by tugging at one’s guilty conscience—they concluded that migrant workers are valuable because they are essential to our material needs. “Construction sites might have to be abandoned for a while and projects will take a longer time to be completed,” it says in one passage. It then implores its readers to “think of your Build-To-Order flats…the new airport terminal, street repairs and maintenance…”, and reminds them that now, “we have to wait even longer.” What is meant by “we” had never been so grossly exclusionary. The article has narrowed migrant workers into tools of prosperity, and never once suggested that they be a beneficiary (they have received a number of backlash on Instagram, and as of yesterday they are still actively deleting comments). At the end, under a heading that says Modern Slavery Or Not (sans question mark), they ask if we should start ringing the alarm on exploitation of cheap labour. Does all this leads to the so-called modern slavery, it asks, grammatical error intact. “Maybe,” it answers, aloof. “Forced contracts and bonds, who knows.”

Evidently, this pandemic is not “the great equaliser”. If anything, it has magnified privilege and heightened insecurities. Solnit offers us hope in what she calls “public love”: collective action; a sense of meaning and purpose that belongs to a community. She refers to the 1960 earthquake of San Francisco, and outlines a shared sentiment of loss among the people, that is “if I lose my home, I’m cast out among those who remain comfortable, but if we all lose our homes in the earthquake, we’re in this together.” Perhaps the nature of this pandemic bears little resemblance to a natural disaster, but we experience collective loss all the same: Much of our freedom and flexibility—to work, travel, or to socialise—have been suspended for the foreseeable future. But they are losses felt more profoundly by vulnerable groups, and let it not be forgotten that they were cast out before any disaster—the precarity of their livelihood a disaster in its own right—and they bear distress many of us are precluded from. These inequalities have been laid bare in the weeks following the outbreak in dormitories, and there had been no shortage of care from the ground: Comedian and YouTuber Preeti Nair ran a fundraising campaign to aid two NGOs, TWC2 and HealthServe, in meeting the urgent needs of migrant workers that have been put under quarantine. As of 21 April, they have raised over S$316,000—more than triple their original goal of S$100,000. There are spreadsheets detailing efforts of different organisations and how we can contribute (Yong included one at the end of her essay, and a local community library, Wares, published a Mutual Aid and Community Solidarity spreadsheet). Many Singaporeans who are able and secure have donated their Solidarity Payment to non-profit organisations working with vulnerable groups. Corporations, too, have started partnering NGOs to raise funds and distribute masks at affected dormitories. It’s not just in Singapore: Worldwide, the pandemic has fostered record numbers of philanthropic donations and vast networks of mutual aid—a new map, if you will, with unmarked territories and nameless seas. There is a growing recognition of mutual dependence, a survey by the New York Times shows, and while there is no guarantee that the shift in moral perspectives will last beyond the crisis, there is hope in knowing that we are re-examining—if not redrafting—the map that we were given.

Yet I still find evidence of a divide: I have heard more and more that we need not need to worry; most of the cases are from the dorms, I hear, there are less in the community, I hear, directly from the official WhatsApp updates, and I recognise once more the gulf that has yet to be bridged. Between the lines, I find the seeds of amnesia, which—Solnit writes in her essay Long Distance—holds us “vulnerable to experiencing the present as inevitable, unchangeable, or just inexplicable.” She talks then of the term “shifting baselines”, coined by marine biologist Daniel Pauly, and stresses the importance of a baseline; a stable point from which we can measure systemic transformation before it was dramatically altered. This pandemic, one can hope, will alter how dormitories are managed and equipped for the better. Beyond this pandemic, Manpower Minister Josephine Teo said in a statement in early April, “there’s no question” that standards in foreign worker dormitories should be raised, and appealed for increased cooperation from employers. Meanwhile, measures taken to manage this crisis—particularly with the issue of overcrowding and hygiene—have been widely criticised; prompting authorities to move residents of the dormitories to vacant Housing Board flats, military camps and floating hotels to reduce crowding. The Prime Minister further addressed these measures in a live address to the nation yesterday—in which he also announced the 4-week extension of the Circuit Breaker—promising stricter safe distancing measures, increased on-site medical resources, closer monitoring of older workers, and distribution of pre-dawn and break fast meals for Muslim workers who will start fasting on Friday. “The clusters in the dorms have remained largely contained,” he says, and pledges their best effort to keep it that way. When this crisis is over, I tell myself, we must not forget the baseline of their predicament, or be too quick to acquit those in power from any wrongdoing—if only to preserve a benchmark of assessment. Without a recollection of the past, Solnit warns us, change becomes imperceptible, and we might slip to “…mistake today’s peculiarities for eternal verities.” Nevertheless, the Prime Minister sounded assured. He even wore a blue shirt—that must have meant something. I, for one, am hopeful, as I always try to be. There’s still much reason to be.

***

I stopped at the traffic light at the intersection of Dorset and Kent. I glanced at the street sign, green as they’ll ever be. Solnit writes: “Pity the land that thinks it needs a hero, or doesn’t know it has lots and what they look like.” Indeed, we do not know it. I wondered then if the crisp white paint will ever spell a different name. For all the transformations construction workers have made to our built environment, will there ever be a monument in their name, like the kind we have bestowed our tycoons and presidents and—oh God, I groaned as I realised this—counties of former occupants? In a few weeks’ time, this intersection will be vacant once more; the deafening drill and temporary fences suddenly vanishing from sight. Their mark will go undetectable and nameless; swallowed whole by the scorching sun and the picturesque imagination of the Dorset and Kent of another continent. The light turned green. As I crossed the street, I remember Solnit saying that the truest lines on this map are only those between land and water. “The other lines on the map are arbitrary,” she says, they have changed many times and will change again. One can hope.

Whose Story Is This? Old Conflicts, New Chapters, Rebecca Solnit, 2019.

POSTSCRIPT

As I am finishing this essay, I wonder how big of a role I play in this equation, and if I tip the scale further towards inequality. I realise how small we all are; how powerless we might all be without the aid of top-down political action. I am not under the delusion that individual responsibility counts a great deal in this narrative (David Wallace-Wells calls accusations of personal responsibility a “weaponised red herring”), but I also refuse to trivialise the weight of our own actions (the great Gloria Steinem reminds us that “a movement is only people moving”). This being so, you will find below some spreadsheets and relevant, verified fundraising campaigns where you can extend your care. Every dollar counts, and every hand have the power to soothe.

Fundraising Campaigns

Preetipls x UTOPIA for Migrant Workers NGOs

Support migrant workers through Covid-19 and beyond, a campaign by Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics (HOME)

Vulnerable Women’s Fund by AWARE

Donate Your Solidarity Payment. Funds will be channelled to Boys’ Town, Hagar Singapore, Singapore Red Cross, AWARE and HOME

Entrepreneur First supports The Food Bank - Feed the City #Covid-19. Funds will be channelled to the Food Bank. You can also donate food to Food Bank Boxes available island-wide.

Spreadsheets

Mutual Aid and Community Solidarity – Coordination by Wares Infoshop Library

COVID-19 | Needs in the migrant community as included in Yong Han Poh’s essay

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fiti-vation · 5 years

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Is Eating Healthy Really More Expensive & Time Consuming? (A heartfelt post)

Hey guys,

I noticed that a pressing debate has taken place under one of my posts (Healthy Lunch Recipe Ideas); some people have been debating about healthy eating and I’m happy to see many people share their point of view! That being said, while I am happy to see many thoughts being shared, it is important for me to emphasize that I never want the comment section under any of my posts to become a battleground for nasty arguments.

As someone who studied in criminology and completed numerous undergrad law courses, I have always been open to intelligent debate, as long as it is conducted with respect and diplomacy. Always remember it is rain that grows flowers, not thunder, so don’t raise your voice, but improve your argument instead.

When I post content on my blog, it is never intended to create tyranny, but always to educate. Simply put, my blog is an educative space. The comment section under my posts is not a place for radical ideologies, shaming or pointing fingers at others. Someone who truly advocates for healthy eating on a budget will never shame or point fingers at those who can’t. On that note, here’s my 2 cents on the entire debacle.

Before I start, I’d like to stress that everything written below is from my perspective as a Canadian! I live in the National Capital Region, so there are many places where one can get nutritious food at affordable prices. Canada has for the most part some good places where healthy foods can be purchased while on a budget. Obviously, for people who live in the Territories (Yukon, Nunavut and NWT) that’s a different story…

P.S. I will be counter-arguing many of the points stressed by @nerdgul • Time • Availability • Seasoning

SO, WHAT DO I REALLY THINK ABOUT HEALTHY EATING ON A BUDGET?

Before I begin to present my counterarguments, it is important as always for me to stress the importance of healthy eating. For those of you who have been following me for years, you know how much I advocate for taking good care of our body. Our body is our temple. It is a gift, and it is the only one we will be given in this life. I believe that fitness needs to come from within you. You need to respect your body. Only then will you have the zeal to maintain it. No one should ever downplay the importance of eating healthy simply because of their financial/socio-economic situation.

The body is amazing, and if you’re not healthy and do not take care of it, it will affect many aspects of your life. The body can heal itself of anything if it is given the tools that it needs and the conditions it requires for natural healing to occur. If we take responsibility for our health, we will develop a desire to accomplish our exercise and fitness goals. The body is your temple. Keep it pure and clean for the soul to reside in.

Minimizing the importance of healthy eating is so prevalent in North American society that obesity, which is linked to many chronic diseases, has become a pervasive and critical issue that many people turn a blind eye to. In Canada and US alone not to mention the other parts of the world, we have far too many people suffering from obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, hypertension and stroke. Studies after studies have shown that we can reduce the risk of these diseases, and maintain our good health by eating properly, getting enough regular exercise, avoiding stress and breathing clean, fresh air. While it may not always be possible to avoid stress and breath clean air, it is indeed possible to control what we eat by choosing the right kind of foods.

The idea that healthy food costs more than junk food is something I hear far too often. People generally believe that ‘healthy’ equals ‘expensive, but as I’ve come to find out over the years from personal experience this is not completely true. One part of the problem is that many people confuse “healthy” with other labels that do increase costs, like “organic” or “gluten-free.” However, unless you have a diagnosed medical condition, you can have a nutritious diet without worrying about those extra labels. I personally don’t buy organic or gluten free food, I just buy heathy food periodt. They key is to eat more whole foods and fewer processed ones. The other part of the problem is where one shops.

My definition of healthy eating, as stated in Body, Mind, & Mouth...Life's Eating Connection is: "Eating food that is enjoyable to you, in the quantity that is good for you." This means the fruit and vegetables you find enjoyable can be eaten in a larger quantity than the chocolate cake you find enjoyable that should be eaten in a much smaller quantity. It means that you don't deprive yourself, but you learn to make choices congruent with your desired results. It also means your grocery cart is full of the food that nourishes you, and less or none of the food with no nourishment. In the grand scheme, it cost you less.

My food philosophy is: Embrace gorgeous greens, beans, legumes, nuts, seeds, grains, sea veggies, fruits and vegetables galore. It is good to eat foods that keep your body alive, but it is better to eat food that keep your body healthy; it is best to regard your body as a temple and eat appropriate food. The point is you have to invest in your health - it is your biggest asset in life!! Feed your body only best quality food, you deserve it! You eat better, you perform better, you feel better, you look better. It all ties together.

Now that I am done rambling about healthy eating here are my counterarguments.

Money – Responsibility

As someone who has been on both sides of the socio-economic spectrum, I can say with certainty that eating healthy while on a budget isn’t impossible. I have experienced poverty, homelessness and financial stability. That being said, when I experienced financial instability, it never stopped me from eating healthy.

Over my 25 years of existence of this earth, I have never let my socio-economic situation define who I am and what I can accomplish. When I hear people say that they can’t eat healthy because of their financial situation (e.g. my family is on welfare), it strikes a chord in me. To me, asserting that poor people cannot eat healthy simply because of their financial status perpetuates and reinforces the stigma and representation of the unhealthy lower-class individual. It insinuates that eating healthy is only for rich people – this couldn’t be further from the truth.

The circumstances of our lives, especially when they seem stressful or intense, do have an impact on us, for sure. However, all too often, we give away our power to these circumstances and situations. At some point, you have to take control of your existence. You cannot keep on blaming your parents or your circumstances forever. You are totally responsible for your life.

Like discipline, responsibility is one of those words you have probably heard so many times from authority figures that you've developed a bit of an allergy to it. Still, it's one of the most important things to grow and to feel good about your life. Without it as a foundation nothing else really works. Not taking responsibility may be less demanding, less painful and mean less time spent in the unknown. It's more comfortable. You can just take it easy and blame problems in your life. But there is always a price to pay. When you don't take responsibility for your life you give away your personal power.

Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult, is the high road to pride, self-esteem and personal satisfaction.

The fact of not having the financial means does not necessarily mean that one cannot eat healthy. Everyone can rise above their circumstances.

Note, I’m not referring to homeless people here, but to people who either live on financial assistance or a modest salary. Also, keep in mind that again I am sharing my 2 cents as a Canadian. I perfectly understand that in terms of social benefits, Canada and the US cannot be compared (I’m assuming that @nerdgul, you are American).

At the beginning of my last year in high school, my mother developed a mental illness. Eventually, she ended up not working anymore and we started living on social assistance. If you’ve been following me since I started my blog, you know that at that time I was obese type 2. Fast forward, when I graduated high school and entered college, that’s when I really turned my life around and took responsibility for it. Despite being almost broke, buried under college assignments and dealing with personal life issues at home (taking care of my mentally ill mother), I managed to lose 70 pounds on my own, going from 220 pounds to 150 pounds – by exercising and starting to eat healthy while on a budget.

I didn’t have the time, but I made the time. I didn’t have the knowledge, but I did what I knew. I didn’t have the support, but I learned to support myself. I didn’t have the confidence, but the confidence came with results. I had a lot going against me, but I had enough going for me. I had plenty of excuses, but I chose not to use any of them.

When I look at my old pictures, all I can see is what I used to be, but am no longer. I think what I can see is what I am not… It's not my story anymore: whenever I speak about the past now, I feel as if I were talking about something that has nothing to do with me. All that remains in the present are the voice, the presence, and the importance of fulfilling my mission. I don't regret difficulties I experienced; I think they helped me to become the person I am today, I feel the way a warrior must feel after years of training; he doesn't remember the details of everything he learned, but he knows how to strike when the time is right.

I wasn’t in the best shape of my life, but I wanted to prove to myself I could do something that seems insurmountable and inspire others by showing them no matter where they are in their fitness goals, they can do it, too. “You just do it. You force yourself to get up. You force yourself to put one foot before the other, and God damn it; you refuse to let it get to you. You fight. You cry. You curse. Then you go about the business of living. That’s how I’ve done it. There’s no other way.

One thing that college and university have taught me is how to be resourceful. RESOURCEFUL! One more time for those in the background: RE·SOURCE·FUL! Resourceful in terms of money, time and sources! Having the ability to find quick and clever ways to overcome difficulties will get you far in life! Not having much is not a reason that should prevent someone from realizing greatness. As a post-secondary student, I learned to make the most of the little money I have, I never let my lack of money prevent me from being healthy. Obstacles don't have to stop you. Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.

There are so many great places where food can be purchased at affordable price. Stores such as Dollarama, Dollar It, Dollar Three, Walmart and Giant Tiger (a.k.a GT Boutique) have so much to offer. As of late I’ve most of my grocery shopping at GT. Y’all postsecondary students in Canada need to stop sleeping on GT boutique!

10 Healthy Things You Can Buy at the Dollar Store [X]

What's VEGAN at Dollar Tree? Frozen Foods Edition - ON A BUDGET [X]

Never Pay For Food Again In NYC [X]

Why Do We Waste Perfectly Good Food In The U.S.? [X]

I purchase most of my fruits and veggies at Giant Tiger. As you can see in the images below:

Mangoes are ¢79 each (60 cents USD) – Third pic

A bag of 5 avocadoes $1.99 on sales ($1.51 USD)/Regular price $3.97 ($3 USD) – First pic

A bag of apple $1.97 ($1.49 USD) – First pic

A bag of oranges $2.97 ($2.24 USD) – First pic

A pack of 4 bell peppers $1.97 ($1.49 USD) – First pic

Cantaloupe $2.47 each ($1.86 USD) – First pic

Cucumbers ¢97 each (73.17 cents USD) – Second pic

Mushrooms $1 (75 cents USD) – Fouth pic

Pasta ¢79 (¢60 USD) – Fifth pic

Here’s a list of stuff that I regularly purchase at these stores.

When it comes to meat I always check for specials. When the meat is on sale I stack up my freezer. In the image below you can see I grabbed on some chicken at $1.91 CAD and $5.55 CAD + Pork ribs $4.72 CAD.

Essentials

Since many cooking commodities such as herbs, spices, flour and oil can be purchased in dollar stores, it seems a little misleading to say that these products are expensive. It’s $1 per seasoning at Dollar Tree [X]. That being said, they sell flour at many dollar stores, Walmart, Target, Giant Tiger.

Availability

Unless you live in a remote area, Dollar stores, Walmart, Target stores, and many similar stores are everywhere. That being said, there are numerous blogs and websites that give great advices on how to eat healthy while living in a remote area. While it may be difficult to have access to affordable, healthy and nutritious food in remote regions, it still isn’t impossible.

In consideration of the foregoing, it should be emphasized that very few people in North America live in remote areas. Today, the most urbanized regions include Northern America (with 82% of its population living in urban areas in 2018), Latin America and the Caribbean (81%), Europe (74%) and Oceania (68%). The level of urbanization in Asia is now approximating 50%. In contrast, Africa remains mostly rural, with 43% of its population living in urban areas [X].

Time

Time, don’t we all wish we had more of it. As I have indicated above, one of the most important things that college and university taught me is how to be resourceful! As a varsity athlete I work out 4 HOURS per day, go to class, work, and still manage to make time to prepare healthy meals. It’s not about having time, it’s about making time. Many things aren't equal, but everyone gets the same 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We make time for what we truly want.

Prior to being on social assistance - before developing her mental illness, my mother worked 12 hours a day as a cleaning lady; from 8 am to 4 pm, then from 5 pm to 9 pm. Despite her 12-hour shift, she still found time to cook. Now that I’m older and thinking about it, that wild…

There’s a difference between interest and commitment. When you’re interested in doing something, you do it only when circumstance permit. When you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.

Healthy eating doesn’t have to be fancy. There are so many healthy recipes out there that require very little time to prepare. Sometimes I end up preparing my lunch right before leaving for work. These below are all meals that I prepared right BEFORE leaving for work in like 15-20 min.

It's not the will to win that matters - everyone has that. It's the will to prepare to win that matters. The will to win is worthless if you do not have the will to prepare. By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail...

Here’s a chicken salad I made in 30 min.

I bought a whole cooked chicken for $6 which I boned and then seasoned

Boiled some pasta for 10 min – then put in the freezer for 15 min

Cut some broccoli and cherry tomatoes

Mixed the pasta with the broccoli and cherry tomatoes and some extra seasoning + Mayo

P.S. Here are a few more of my recipes:

Tuna Alfredo Pasta

Cranberry Tuna Salad

Creamy Garlic Shrimp Alfredo Pasta

As a final word

Although, I have much more to say, this post is definitely longer than I expected, so I will stop here. That being said, before closing this post, I would like to emphasize here that we all have our own struggles and by no means I am trying to invalidate the struggles of others with this post.

If someone is tired after working 5 hours and you worked for 7, it doesn’t mean that they’re not allowed to be tired. It doesn’t mean they can’t feel what they’re feeling just because you’ve had it worse.

It is true that there’s a lot more to the price of being healthy than just money, but in the end it all comes down to responsibility. Our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are, but we are responsible for who we become. Nobody chooses to be broke; nobody wants to be broke, and nobody likes to be broke, but again —our financial status doesn’t have to define us. Your financial situation does not have to dictate how you live your life – rise above adversity. As stated in one of my previous posts, the moment you leave your future in the hands of things outside of your control, is the moment you place it in the hands of circumstance. And, circumstance doesn’t much care about your success. Circumstances are beyond human control, but our conduct is in our own power. Your present circumstances don't determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start.

Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it. If you do not have money, time and resources to eat healthy, do not give up, figure out ways to change your lifestyle. You can’t change the direction of the wind, but you can adjust your sails to always reach your destination.

I am a firm believer in the law of attraction.

“Watch your thoughts, they become words; watch your words, they become actions; watch your actions, they become habits; watch your habits, they become character; watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

If you constantly say that you cannot eat healthily because you do not have money, time and resources, it will become a habit. You won’t make an effort to eat healthy because you think you can’t – you will have this misconception in your head that eating healthy is out of your reach. But if you start to change your mind and think more optimistically, you will change your actions. If you start telling yourself “you know what I don’t have much but let me see what I can do with the little that I have”, you will improve your eating habits. Will it be easy? Absolutely not. The path to a healthy lifestyle is never easy, but the road to it is always rewarding.

Thinking that you can’t eat healthy because you don’t have money, time and resources is a detrimental way of thinking. It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters. Everyone is a victim of circumstances they accept. If you decide not to eat healthy because you don’t have money, time and resources – well you have let your circumstances win. Never let your circumstances prevent you from achieving greatness.

A positive attitude gives you power over your circumstances instead of your circumstances having power over you. Your mind is the most powerful force you will ever face. It will tell you lies— it will tell you: you can’t do that – you’re not meant for that; you’re not good enough for that, you can’t go on anymore – you don’t have the energy. You must thank it for its opinion and carry on. The only locked doors that exist are in YOUR own mind. The doors in reality are open and all you have to do is walk through…

Don’t be that person who thinks that because they cannot eat healthy, they are not going to eat healthy.

#me #Fitblog #fitblr

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skippyv20 · 5 years

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Thank you😁❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Princess Diana: How her legacy lives on 22 years after her death

HER CHILDREN: Her boys are all grown up now, but Diana’s children were her life. Princes William and Harry have gone on to do their mother proud, following in her footsteps by supporting charities she championed and having families of their own.

HER GRANDCHILDREN: If she were alive, Princess Diana would be a grandmother three times over.

HER NAMESAKE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE: William and Kate’s second child, Charlotte, is named after her grandmother. Her full name is Charlotte Elizabeth Diana. lt also pays tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and Kate’s mother Carole Middleton, whose middle name is Elizabeth.

THE PERCEPTION OF AIDS: In the 1980s many people believed you could catch AIDS from shaking hands. But Diana changed the way millions across the world saw the disease when she was pictured shaking hands with a HIV patient in 1987 without gloves. Later that year, Diana opened Britain’s first AIDS ward in London and continued to help HIV and AIDS charities until her death.

Prince Harry has also actively continued to fight the stigma through his work with the Terrence Higgins Trust.

The non- profit new services center for akt (the Albert Kennedy Trust) in Hoxton, East London serves members of the LGBT community who are experiencing homelessness and other housing issues.

CHARITY WORK: Recently, Prince Harry and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge co-founded the Heads Together campaign to open up the conversation around mental health. Prince Harry also revealed the struggles he has had with his own mental health, saying he sought therapy after bottling up years of grief over his mother’s death in an interview with The Telegraph. He was praised by mental health experts for the honest admission.

William and Harry have continued their mother’s charity work, bringing attention to such issues also as homelessness and HIV awareness

Both Prince William and Prince Harry support charities in Africa. Prince Harry famously spent some of his gap year in the continent and later set up his charity Sentebale which cares for child victims of extreme poverty and HIV/AIDS in Botswana and Lesotho.

Prince William is a royal patron of the Tusk Trust, which helps protect wildlife and conservation efforts across Africa. Before her death, Diana was a patron of the Chipangali Wildlife Orphanage in Zimbabwe which rescued and cared for orphaned, injured and abandoned wild animals.

Another area Diana devoted her time and resources to was looking out for vulnerable children. She was the President of the charity Barnardo’s, whose services include counseling abused children and supporting child victims of domestic violence, from 1984 to 1986.

Prince Harry attended an event to celebrate 40 years of WellChild—a charity which supports sick children, where he is patron.

As well as Harry’s candid interviews about grieving for his mother, Prince William has used the heart-breaking event of losing his mother at such a young age to support other children going through a similar thing. As the royal patron of Child Bereavement UK, William has spoken of grief being "the most painful experience that any child or adult can endure.“

As patron of Great Ormand Street Hospital for Children and The Royal Marsden Hospital, known for treating cancerous children, Diana was often pictured comforting sick youngsters.

Speaking about her work with the Royal Brompton Hospital, London, she said: “I make the trips at least three times a week, and spend up to four hours at a time with patients holding their hands and talking to them. Some of them will live and some will die, but they all need to be loved while they are here. I try to be there for them.”

Prince William continues the legacy today, as president of the Royal Marsden Hospital, the same renowned cancer institution his mother represented from 1989 until her death in 1997.

WORK ON LANDMINES: In 1997 Diana caught global attention when she walked through a live mine field in Angola to call for an international ban on landmines. That iconic trip brought about a global landmine treaty which was signed later that year and came into force in March 1999. Unfortunately, Diana didn’t live to see it.

THE DIANA AWARD: The Diana Award was set up in the Princess of Wales’s name to honor young people who carried on her work to change the world for the better. There are currently 47,000 people around the world who have received the accolade and it continues to be handed out to those making a difference.

THE DIANA MEMORIAL FOUNTAIN: This public memorial to Diana was opened in London’s Hyde Park in 2004. The design aims to reflect her life, with water flowing from the highest point in two directions as it cascades, before meeting in a calm pool at the bottom. The memorial is also said to symbolize Diana’s quality and openness.

DIANA MEMORIAL GARDEN: In 2017 the ‘white garden’ at Kensington Palace was dedicated to Diana to mark 20 years since her death. The garden, said to have been one of Diana’s favorite places, is filled with Forget-Me-Nots and white roses, her favorite flowers. The garden is open to the public to visit. Tickets cost around $25.

TV TRIBUTE: William and Harry spoke about their mother publicly for the first time in a TV documentary 20 years on from her death. 'Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy’ shared their memories, regrets over their last phone conversation with her, and how they have struggled to cope with their grief at times. But it also showed what well-rounded, caring, fine young men she brought up and how determined they are to keep her legacy alive.

ENGAGEMENT RING: When William and Kate announced their engagement, he proposed with Diana’s sapphire and diamond ring, one of the most coveted in the world.

DIANA’S TIARA: The Duchess of Cambridge is also regularly spotted wearing Diana’s jewelry. The diamond Cambridge Lover’s knot tiara was a gift to Diana from Queen Elizabeth back in 1981. Kate has since worn it to important state events, including the Queen’s State Banquet for President Donald Trump.

PARENTING STYLES: Kate and William’s parenting styles often draw comparisons with the way Diana raised her sons. The couple are keen to keep the children out of the public eye so they can enjoy as normal a childhood as possible, but the children are educated outside the palace walls, as William and Harry were. The young Royals are dressed similarly to Diana’s boys at that age, the family are publicly seen having fun together, and pictured in relaxed photographs, with Kate famously taking official snaps of the children herself.

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matildainmotion · 4 years

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An Encouraging Blog about Despair

Recently I have been in despair. I notice as I write this that despair is like love – it’s a feeling that you do more than feel – you are in it. In love. In despair. Something larger than you, in which you reside, an atmosphere, a weather.

I am not good at being in despair. At Halloween I wrote a blog about fear, about being good at feeling afraid. I’m experienced at fear, paradoxically comfortable with the discomfort of it. This is not true of despair, at which I am terrible. Fear is energetic. It makes my heart go fast, ready for fight or flight. Despair makes me want to lie down and never get up again, and I don’t know how to manage this, how to carry this wish for an absolute lack of action, a kind of anti-wish, a wish for no more wishing.

I had an afternoon of despair in John Lewis in Kingston. It was one of the last shopping days before Christmas – crowds of people, multiple storeys of multiple mounds of stuff. I had to steer the children past the gold-wrapped chocolate boxes and giant gingerbread men, walk them through glossy, mirrored aisles of carefully coloured lipsticks and nail varnish. We made it to the lifts. We were headed for the bed linen department: displays of patterned duvets covers; shelves of fitted sheets; a choice between foam, feathered and other kinds of fluff-filled pillows. My son and I had a disagreement about which duvet cover to purchase for my husband. My son wanted the blue, stripy one. I wanted the one in black and white with a pattern reminiscent of trees. I thought I should get to choose what I bought for Daddy. He was okay with that, he said, as long as I agreed with his choice. He got angry and tried to kick me. His little sister meanwhile was running up and down the shiny floors and veering off to press her nose against the glass of the balcony that looked down over the many other departments. In that moment, for many reasons, I wanted to lie down and never get up again. Not on one of the display beds. Right where I was on the department floor, between the balcony and the start of the shelves of sheets. It was not because of the kids – they were my best reason to keep standing. But I couldn’t do it, because I am not good at despair- I’d rather be scared or angry. So I got more angry with my son, which wasn’t fair, and we all ended up in tears, and Daddy got more sets of duvet covers than I had intended.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine, writes Mary Oliver, who died this year, in her poem Wild Geese. Let me try to do that, to tell you about my despair, in an attempt to get better at it. This is the time of year for writing lists – lists of things achieved in the last year, lists of things to get done in the next. Hopeful lists. Lists are generally hopeful – they imply possibility. I don’t think, out of all the lists I have written in my life, I have ever made a ‘To Despair List.’ Let me do that now.

Here are some things about which I am in despair:

- My impatience with my mother, which comes from not wanting her to be nearly 80 and ready to sit down sometimes, or to focus on the small things – what kind of wood to put on the stove- when I am screaming quietly about the big things (the melting ice, rising seas) which I know she cannot fix but still, like a little girl, wish that she could.

- How often I do not stop to give someone who is homeless money, either because these days I pay for everything by card and so have no change, or because I am not brave enough to get over the awkward, uncomfortable gap of me, upright, walking past, and the man or woman, sitting, propped up outside Tescos with a paper cup.

- How when I do have the courage to stop and give money a part of me believes this makes everything okay.

- The election result and Boris Johnson. How I do not allow the children to call each other names but do allow them to call Boris Johnson “a stupid idiot,” even though I know this solves nothing and, long term, makes the deep divisions, that are the real problem, worse.

- Climate change, of course, but also how I am too cowardly to read the literature that would make my despair better informed.

- Consumerism, how many duvet covers I could choose, how gross are the inequalities of rich and poor, and the many ways in which I participate in the system that creates this disparity.

- The number of emails I get every day from people doing good work and asking for money to support their work and how I do not know to which to give or how much because it is all good and all critically important.

- How often I end up shouting at the children or making threats to them despite having read numerous conscious and alternative parenting books.

- My ability to sleep soundly through the night.

- Brexit, what it will mean and how I keep on putting off getting my daughter a passport.

- My children staying seated at the kitchen table and eating a wholesome supper I have made them – an image of motherhood I daily fail to fulfil.

- The big things – racism, poverty, refugees, rape, war, starvation, environmental destruction - and knowing that under all the big things are a million little things, specific people, animals, habitats, details, and a million moments of exact and awful loss.

I could go on, but that will do, for now, because writing this list has reminded me of when I was 7 and rather religious, and the lists I made back then. I used to go in secret to my room every day after school and pray. I felt simultaneously embarrassed about this- too shy to tell even my mother- and yet also that it would be shameful not to do it. I had decided that to be a good person it was necessary for me to list, on my knees, every day, all the people and troubles that I knew – it took me a good hour and I remember worrying about how to explain my absence to everyone during this time. Even back then I felt furtive about despair, about my sense of inadequacy in the face of all that is troubled and all that needs care in the world.

You do not have to be good, writes Mary Oliver. You do not have to walk on your knees/ For a hundred miles through the desert repenting./ You only have to let the soft animal of your body/ Love what it loves./ Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine./ Meanwhile the world goes on…

Meanwhile the children, those soft animals, are growing up. My son turns eight next week. What to do? How to go on, caring for him and my daughter, whilst despairing? I can’t lie down and weep whenever I wish. Punishing prayer is not the answer either, but I do find myself coming round to a word that has religious connotations: faith.

I am finding that being a mother requires me to have faith in the future. I realise as I write this that faith is different from hope. I can feel hopeless but be faithful. Hope has expectations. Faith does not. Hope involves trying to guess what the future might look like. Faith involves embracing genuinely not knowing. I am in despair, I can live in hope, but with faith, I am not ‘in’ it – rather it is something I must actively put into other things no matter how I am feeling: I must have faith in the children.

When my husband and I got married we wrote our own wedding vows. The ending of my vows to him went like this:

I don’t promise never to have crazy crushes, or even fall in love with other men, women, books, landscapes, ways of life….but I promise to be faithful to you, for you to stay as my centre, my home. A final word on being ‘faithful’ - not sleeping with anyone else seems like the least of it. Faithful, full of faith - faith is a belief not based on proof: I promise to believe in you and in our togetherness for the rest of our lives, even at the times when there is no evidence, no proof that it is a good idea.

Rereading this vow helps me now. I hope my children may live long and joyful lives, but I often despair that this is possible – there is no proof that it will happen. Meanwhile, I can still have faith in them and in my act of caring for them. I can believe in this process – the process of them growing up and me witnessing and supporting them to do it, however imperfectly it unfolds.

As has become my practice, I find it useful and affirming when I align my mothering and my making. I am writing a novel. I have been writing it for a long time, for the same length of time as I have been a mother. I hope it will be brilliant. I hope it will get published. Some days these hopes seem ridiculous. However, every day I have faith that it is worth my writing it whatever happens.

The first gift my husband ever gave me was a book called The Gift by Lewis Hyde. In it Hyde describes the act of making and the act of giving as inextricably connected. You make something, then you give it away so that you can make something else, and then you give that away too, and on and on. When you make and give in this way it is an act of faith because you have to let go entirely of whatever you have made – you do not know and cannot control what will become of it. Like being a mother to a child. And maybe this is what despair has to teach me, because being in despair, like being in love, involves a kind of letting go, a relinquishing of control – no wonder I’m not good at it.

Meanwhile, as the children bounce on the bed, with its new duvet cover, I read others online discussing how much to share or not with their children of the woes of the world that are present and coming, and of climate change in particular – do we bring them up to be aware? Or protect them from the anxiety of it for as long as possible? It is a good question but there is something in it that, for me, is often missing from the conversation. It is this: the future is theirs, not mine. My son learnt to read by studying danger signs and the exact instructions to be followed in states of emergency – I suspect he and my daughter both understand more about the future already than I do. To quote from another poet, Kahil Gibran, “Your children are not your children…For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.” I can tell them what I know about climate change but my knowledge is necessarily limited, no matter what I have or haven’t read. I can’t tell them about the future – I can’t even visit it in my dreams. But I can continue to have faith in them and in their tomorrows. I can continue the process of mothering and making, of giving away whatever I have made, including them.

“Meanwhile…” Mary Oliver says again, “Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,/ are heading home again./ Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,/ the world offers itself to your imagination,/ calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -/ over and over announcing your place/ in the family of things.”

Meanwhile, the world keeps on offering itself to you, whoever you are – the world, the geese in it and everything else, carry on gifting regardless. Isn’t that amazing? And my job, I think, in despair or in love, has to be to keep on offering my imagination back to the world, regardless. I will do that, even if all I can offer right now is a blog about despair.

One thing I offered to the world a few years back is a thing called Mothers Who Make. It is a grass roots, peer support network, growing across the UK and overseas. It is about announcing the place of two activities- mothering and making - in the world, over and over, keeping faith in their value no matter what, no matter how lonely or despairing any mother may feel.

If you are a mother and a maker, of any kind, you can come to a hub meeting and tell the other women there about your despair, and they will tell you about theirs. You can also tell them about what you love. And you do not have to be good. You can find out if there is a meeting near you here.

And if you cannot make it in person to a group, you can connect online - we have a lively Facebook community.

Mothers Who Make is currently unfunded and so if it feels like a good kind of gifting to you, an act of faith you can make, you can give us £3 per month, so that we can, meanwhile, go on – go on making and giving, making and giving, for now and for the future which we cannot visit, but which our children will.

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bbclesmis · 5 years

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Playbill: 5 Reasons We Can't Wait to Watch the Les Misérables Miniseries on PBS

Dominic West, David Oyelowo, Lily Collins, Olivia Colman, and more star in the epic new dramatic adaptation from MASTERPIECE.

Great stories demand to be told and retold, generation after generation finding fresh relevance in stories of love and redemption. And certainly Les Misérables, Victor Hugo’s epic novel of love, revolution, and crushing poverty, is among them.

And though you may think you know the story of Jean Valjean, Javert, Fantine, and the rest from the blockbuster stage musical and its film adaptation, there’s so much more to Hugo’s story. And much of it will be on display in PBS’ new six-part miniseries, premiering April 14 as part of MASTERPIECE.

Here are five reasons we can’t wait to see the sumptuous new version.

The Cast The Wire star Dominic West (who has been seen on Broadway in Design for Living and in the West End in Les Liaisons Dangereuses) serves as executive producer and stars as Jean Valjean, whom he refers to as a superhero: “He’s tougher than everybody, he’s kinder than everybody, he’s more generous than everybody and a bigger heart and a bigger hero in terms of what the personal demons he’s trying to overcome.”

Joining him is David Oyelowo, who wowed New York audiences in 2016 with his Othello, and brings a fresh perspective to Javert, who mercilessly hunts Valjean over decades. Also an executive producer on the miniseries, Oyelowo was delighted to explore more the complexities with which Hugo imbued Javert in the original novel.

And that’s not to mention a stacked supporting cast, starting with Lily Collins as Fantine, newly minted Academy Award winner Olivia Colman (The Favourite) as Madame Thénardier, Ellie Bamber as Cosette, and Josh O’Connor as Marius.

The Brand-New Adaptation Freed from the constraints of staying within a classic two-act structure, screenwriter Andrew Davies was able to dig deeper into the characters and situations, bringing to life aspects and scenes from Hugo’s novel that even diehard fans of the musical won’t know.

As MASTERPIECE executive producer Rebecca Eaton puts it, there are moments in the miniseries that go even deeper into the characters audiences have long loved. She pointed to one specific moment, after Fantine is pregnant, where her lover and his friends take Fantine and hers out to lunch on a beautiful day. At the end of the meal, the men stand and simply abandon the women. “The contrast of a beautiful day, beautiful young women and these guys leaving them, and leaving them to a tragic fate, to me is just a brilliant use of drama and lighting and production design to highlight an emotional moment,” Eaton said.

A Fresh Look at Old Favorites We all know and love Fantine, her daughter Cosette, and the Thénardiers—but there’s so much more to their story than those unfamiliar with the novel might know.

“What’s wonderful about the musical is the characters and the love stories that exist between the characters,” West said, “and so we go into more depth into those love stories and those relationships. And I think you get to see… where the Thénardiers are coming from. I particularly love the Thénardiers in our production.”

Plus, as many involved with the miniseries point out, Fantine’s time in other versions is often quite short. Here, the grinding down of her spirit that leads her to sell her hair and teeth is a much more gradual process, making it even more painful to experience with her.

“I'm taking a character that everyone seemingly knows and loves but at the same time showing a new side to her,” Collins said. “So that was an exciting twist on it for me.”

Collins pointed out that audiences are used to encountering Fantine after she’s taken work at the factory, and so they’re unfamiliar with the carefree girl she was.

“To take a character further into their back story and show people that, I think it creates a bigger amount of empathy for them throughout their character arcs,” she said. “So for me, specifically, you really get to see Fantine at her youngest, most vibrant, which is a perfect comparison then to when she’s dying and at her worst, because you can only have empathy for someone to a certain extent if you haven’t experienced the higher notes with them.”

The Scope Les Misérables the musical is certainly not a chamber piece, but it is fairly streamlined in terms of storytelling compared to Hugo’s novel. Davies, however, brings a whole new scope to the work with this adaptation, one that finds fresh emphasis on the lives of the poverty-stricken in the 19th century.

“I read the book [and] I just thought it would be great to put this on the screen,” Davies says. “And what I initially thought was how much it spoke to us today, with London full of homeless beggars sitting in the rain while rich people step over them on their way to the opera. I was thinking, ‘You know, Hugo’s world is very similar to ours.’ I guess the difference is we don’t seem to be about to have any kind of revolution, even an unsuccessful one.”

The Production Values No expense was spared in recreating life in 19th-century France, and the results are stunning. Not just for the audience—the performers have spoken about how easy it was to slip into another world when they arrived on the set in full costume.

“What’s great about acting in these shows on an epic scale is you get to time travel,” West said. “I love history and I love trying to imagine the past and it’s very easy when you’ve got great artists who have created it all for you.”

Oyelowo points out how evocative the visual storytelling is. “Thomas Shankland, our director, did a brilliant job of making the show have an energy and a kinetic, visceral feel to it that it’s not your sort of chocolate box period drama,” he says. “It’s got real teeth, it’s got real dirt, it’s got real grime, an edge to it."

Les Misérables on MASTERPIECE premieres Sunday, April 14 at 9/8c on PBS. The show will also stream on PBS.org and on the PBS Video App.

#les mis bbc #bbc les mis #articles #Interviews #playbill #pbs

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newx-menfan · 6 years

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(I wanted to do a Three Part post about Surge-Noriko Ashida; because much like Julian, Noriko is often heavily criticized by readers. Those two characters tend to be the ones that come under fire the most by fandom…)

Part One: Surge in DeFilippis and Weir

Out of all the New X-Men Surge is probably the most mysterious; because where we get a pretty clear picture of the other X-Kids lives BEFORE becoming a mutant, Nori doesn’t really talk much about her past life…

We know Noriko was born in Japan and was very close to her brother Keitaro. Her powers manifested when she was thirteen and she managed to immigrate on HER OWN from Japan to America, since her father rejected her.

That takes some pretty big balls in my opinion! To immigrate at thirteen, ALONE, to a country that’s both very different in culture and language. Yet, Noriko manages to survive on her own.

Noriko DOES accurately represent homelessness, in the fact that almost 34% of the homeless in the United States are under 24, according to HUD’s 2014 Point in Time Report. 80% of homeless youth (age 12 to 21) use drugs or alcohol as a means to self medicate. (Studies on homelessness CAN be really difficult to do, because homelessness tends to be a temporary circumstance, there’s less push for these kinds of studies in the psychological and sociological communities, and because of the stigma around this issue…) Noriko story also touches on the fact that MANY illegal immigrants come to the United States to escape circumstances such as abuse, poverty, political or economical upheaval in their home country, persecution for their identity, ect…

She ends up stealing and using pills (never specified what they were) to control her powers, by sedating her body enough to control the outbursts of electrical power.

The one attempt to reach out for help by going to Xavier’s goes horribly wrong, when she runs into Julian; who at the time has issues with classism and a prejudice around homelessness. (In Julian’s defense- American culture does cultivate this narrative that the poor are somehow at fault for their own poverty heavily. This ties back into the American Dream being represented as widely attainable and America being represented as ‘not having a class system’. We have essentially gaslit the poor into believing they are at fault for their own poverty, instead of admitting that our social systems are inadequate and structured in a way to promote some groups more than others. This ends up being a learning moment for Julian…).

This experience validates Nori’s beliefs that people will NOT provide any kind of help, that the only person she can rely on is herself; so she decides to do what she knows will work-steal and self medicate with drugs. (It also leads to Julian and Noriko having bad blood for a period of time until the Nimrod battle).

Nori accidentally hits ‘the Grind Stone’ coffee shop owner with an electric bolt when robbing the store, and fearing that if she reports it she will end up imprisoned, (keep in mind Noriko is homeless, most likely an illegal immigrant, a person of color, a drug addict, a mutant, and she was actively committing a crime- so she’s probably right in her assumption that she’s not going to get treated sympathetically at all by the justice system…) so she takes the money and runs.

Josh remembers seeing Noriko asking for help and hanging around the Grind Stone, and puts two and two together. Josh convinces the other students to track down Nori; and when they find her Noriko looses control over her abilities, and the students bring Noriko back to the mansion.

Even pre M-Day; the X-Men aren’t all that sympathetic to Noriko. Beast essentially tells her you can either wear the gauntlets I designed for you or get out, where you’ll essentially be put in jail. The only people Noriko really connects with are Cyclops and Dani Moonstar; I’ll come back to this when talking about Kyle/Yost’s run…

David is the other person who tries to connect with Noriko; and while David MEANS well, there are moments that he does come off a little condescending. While David has absolutely faced racism, David has also grown up in a middle to upper class caring family in Chicago; leaving him somewhat struggling to understand Noriko’s experience with homelessness.

While David IS a really great person, he does sometimes struggle with socialization, empathizing, and accepting that people MAKE MISTAKES . This makes sense, because David looks at things from a more logical than emotional place; David DOESN’T DO gut feelings. It’s why the dream around his powers scares him so much, because LOGICALLY it could happen and David knows he prioritizes knowledge. It’s also why Sofia ends up being co-leader of the New Mutants, because David just isn’t very good with understanding the emotional side of things and needs Sofia to handle that side of leadership.

Noriko chooses to stay at the school and takes responsibility of her actions by working at the Grind Stone. This is a common theme with Noriko; no matter what mistakes she makes, she always takes full responsibility for them. She also slowly becomes friends with her fellow teammates.

Noriko’s role on the team in this book was always secondary; in the fact that she had no interest in being leader. She’s perfectly fine with Wind Dancer and Prodigy taking up that responsibility. Noriko acknowledges that her personality ISN’T a good fit for leadership. (This will become important later).

This makes sense, since Noriko is very independent; she doesn’t like to feel like a burden to others and sees herself as ultimately the only person she can rely on. This is because for a long period of time, that WAS true: Noriko had to rely on herself for all care.The idea of working as a team and supporting each other is an extremely foreign concept for her, because her survival for years relied on focusing on the baser needs (food and shelter over emotional health and building emotional connections) and her being her own support system. Essentially, it’s Maslow’s hierarchy of needs; if you’re Physical needs are unmet or inconsistently there day to day, you’re not going to be as focused on needs around Social, Ego, or Self Actualization.

Noriko HAS a tendency to lash out at others; this is used as a defense mechanism-shun others before they shun you. This comes up every time Nori feels threatened or insecure; she’ll lash out or get defensive at the person SHE VIEWS as attacking her.

One of the big complaints people bring up with Noriko is her interaction with Dust; and yes, Noriko’s views ARE problematic.

But no one is born out of the womb a perfect feminist; because we live in a patriarchal society, we all subconsciously take in problematic views that we may need to deconstruct LATER.

This series was written in the 2000’s, when the Iraq war was in full swing and Islamophobic propaganda permeated the news; one of the favorite narratives was ‘their women are oppressed, our women are fine!’ The fact that DeFilippis and Weir subtly commented on the problems with this narrative, IS pretty DAMN impressive, in my opinion.

The truth is, is many teenagers when starting to learn about feminism, START OUT with problematic views. It’s only when they start to learn more about intersectional feminism, that they start seeing the problems with feminism fixating on western culture being the ‘correct way’ and essentially what’s been labeled as 'White Feminism’ (Feminism from the lens of White, Upper Class, Heterosexual, Cis Gendered Women- often times ignoring other POVs and avoidance in addressing the issues around white privilege). Noriko MAY have internalized a lot of these beliefs.

There’s also a possibility that Noriko had faced harassment while living on the streets on her own; 92% of homeless women reported severe physical and/or sexual violence at some point of their in their lives for example, in a 1997 study. In a survey of homeless youth between ages 13 and 21, 23% of women had experienced sexual victimization on at least one occasion since being on the street, in a 2004 study.

While Sooraya is simply trying to explain her side, this could be bringing up memories for Noriko and an internalized belief that IF something happened, it was somehow her fault. As previously stated; Noriko’s feminism has it’s problems, so internalized victim blaming COULD be part of that.

Nori does kind of apologize in her own way, and while still coming off as crass; does accept that her and Sooyara have different beliefs and that both are valid.

Another complaint lodged at Nori is her reaction to Jay’s suicide; and yes, suicide and mental illness is heavily stigmatized. Nori DOES react badly to his admission, which can have negative affects for the survivor of a suicide attempt.

Nori handled this BADLY, but you can understand why. From Noriko’s point of view- Jay comes from a loving family that accepts him mutation and supports him. While her opinion IS invalidating Jay’s experience around depression and that’s not okay; Jay has things Nori didn’t in her own life (Jay also kinds of invalidates Nori’s experiences as well, by saying things like “You wouldn’t understand”, when Nori herself comes from a background of trauma…). Essentially what is coming up is jealousy.

Noriko and Jay later talk it out, and understand that their reactions in this conversation came from trauma; Nori from being homeless and rejected by her family, and Jay from losing his girlfriend and not being able to cope, and from the stigma that comes from being a survivor of a suicide attempt.

They also notice things disappearing/moving on their own in the school. This turns out to be a dead X-student named Jeffery. Surge bonds with Jeffery, partially because he reminds her of her younger brother and partially because she can relate to the child’s anger at his situation. This is one of the examples that despite Noriko’s tough persona, lies someone deeply hurting inside.

Another example, is her reaction to David’s little sister, Kim. Noriko deeply wants Kim to like her, because Noriko likes David. It’s one of the few times Nori goes OUT OF HER WAY to get someone to like her, and is deeply hurt when she is rejected.

Throughout Noriko’s childhood she has been rejected by her parents and other people she turned to for help. David is the only person to genuinely show concern for her (this will be REALLY important later….)

So while Noriko does HAVE problematic views in this series, a lot of it traces back to Noriko’s history being homeless. Nori is in my opinion, a character who gets unfairly hated on for simply struggling to get close emotionally to others, because she’s been repeatedly hurt in the past…

(I’ll post my sources at the end together, like I did with the post around Julian and disability.)

Next is Part Two: Surge in Kyle and Yost, which will be posted either today or Wednesday!

#Surge #Noriko Ashida #Part One of 'Why Noriko is misunderstood'...#Noriko may look tough #but deep down is a mushy caring center #new x men #Nunzio DeFilippis #Christina Weir #Marvel #academy x #bring back the new x men

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brendalenay · 5 years

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Theorizing Intersectionality❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🖤

“Intersectionality is a theory of interlocking oppressions that states that those who are most marginalized in society are those who fall under multiple forms of minority social stratification, such as class, race, sexual orientation, age, religion, creed, disability, and gender” (Wikipedia). This term was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw and is important when trying to understand the multiple ways in which someone may be a “victim” of society. In Demarginalizing the Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politic, Crenshaw discusses the struggles of being both black and a woman. “The boundaries of sex and racial discrimination are defined respectively by white women’s and black men’s experiences. Under this view, black women are protected only to the extent that their experiences coincide with those of either of the two groups”. Meaning that you can either face the issue as a black person or as a woman, but never as both. A good example of this was when Crenshaw’s used a piece written by Sojourner Truth called “Ain’t I a Woman”, where Truth speaks about being treated different from other women, simply because she is a black. Truth overhears a man saying, “women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere”, but no one gives her these things, even though she is a woman. She gave birth, something only a woman can do, yet she is still not treated the same as the white woman are. This is because the men compare her to a black person, someone who (to them) is of less value than everyone else rather than a woman who deserves the same treatment as all the other women. See the conflict?

Crenshaw was not the first to point out all these overlapping problems that black woman face. In 1863, there was a group formed called the Combahee River Collective which was led by Harriet Tubman. During its six years of existence, members worked on a variety of issues affecting black women, including sterilization abuse, reproductive freedom, and violence against women. The author of this piece stated that “we also often find it difficult to separate race from class from sex oppression because in our lives they are most often experienced simultaneously” (Smith & Smith). This reminds of a TED talk I watched called, 3 ways to speak English. The speaker uses almost a free flow, rap style, spoken word piece to prove a point that she (as a black person) is tri-tongued orator”. She try to say that depending on who she is talking to, whether it be her friends, her classmates, or her parents the language changes a little.

Black people are taught to change their dialect at a young age to sound “whiter”, because that is what is considered professional. I personally have been accused of “talking like a white girl” and I’ve always taken offense to this because of what it is insinuating. Just because I’m black doesn’t mean that I must speak improperly or act “rachet”. This is separating race and class, because an upper-class white person sounds more proper than a lower class one; just like an upper-class black may sound more like an upper class white then a lower class one.

The final problem I am going to discuss comes about in Vivyan Adair’: Branded with Infamy: Inscriptions of Poverty and Class in the United States, that affected both black women and white men. This reading talks about the fact “that the systems of power produce and patrol poverty through the reproduction of both social and bodily makers”. This mean this that if you are poor, you will look the part and be deemed a “bad”/” unfit” person. One quote from an African American woman who grow up in public housing said “poor was all over our faces. My glasses were taped and too weak. My big brother had missing teeth. My mom was dull and ashy. It was like a story of how poor we were that anyone could see. My sister Evie’s lip was bit by a dog and we just had a dime store stuff to put on it. Her lip was a big scar. Then she never smiled, and no one smiled at her cause she never smiled. Kids call(ed) her “Scarface”. Teachers never smiled at her. The principle put her in detention all the time because she was mean and bad (they said)”. It’s sad that this family was demonized for simply not being somewhat wealthy and the saddest part is even though they were fed, had clothes, and a roof over their head, their mother was still probably shamed by society for living in public housing and being somewhat dependent upon the government. This problem goes beyond mothers; homeless people are looked down on in society as well. They are treated like the scum of the earth and often go to jail for made up crimes like staying in the same spot for too long. Instead of helping people in poverty we tend to turn a blind eye towards them, because society has us believe that it is their fault they are in that situation, when in reality they are just victims of their circumstances.

References:

Adair, V. C. (2002). Branded with Infamy: Inscriptions of Poverty and Class in the United States. Signs, 27(2), 451-471.

Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Policies. The University of Chicago Legal Forum, 139-168.

Frazier, D., Smith, B., & Smith, B. (1977). Combahee River Collective: A Black Feminist Statement. Off Our Backs, 9(6), 6-8.

“Intersectionality.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 22 Feb. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality.

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