Untitled

[mhuber1]

Actor Seth Rogen gives his opening statement before a Senate hearing on Alzheimer's Research. From C-SPAN3 coverage, watch the complete hearing here: http://...

This is the video of Seth Rogen’s testimony in support of increased funding for Alzheimer’s research that I brought up in class today.  His testimony is much more appropriate for the setting and context than Stephen Colbert’s.  Any viewer can clearly understand Rogen’s point of view and the goal he has for his testimony.  Rogen makes jokes, but the jokes are at his own expense and not at the expense of the issue of Alzheimer’s research.  Like Colbert, Rogen has community authority in his testimony because he is an established actor and comedian.  Unlike Colbert, Rogen is not known for commentating on political issues; however, it can be argued that to Rogen, the Alzheimer’s research funding is more personal than it is political.  Because he has a personal connection to the issue at hand, Rogen also acts as a proximate authority.  He has personal experience in observing his mother-in-law’s struggles, and he clearly has been personally effected by her life, which is why he came to testify in the first place.

[mhuber1]

Transgender Panel

One of my other classes today was ironically scheduled to meet with a transgender panel.  The information I received from the three panelists was extremely helpful and relatable to the topic we also discussed in C209 class.  The panelists fully agreed with Eliza Grey’s note about the discrimination that trans people face from the LGB community.  They said that many LGB people see trans people as actually lesbian, gay, or bisexual, but instead of coming out as such, trans people undergo gender reassignment surgery to change themselves in order to fit society’s mold.  The panelists also noted that sexual orientation and gender identity are much more different than people typically think. Trans people can also identify as LGB. When the term “LGBT” is used, it seems like someone must pick one of the letters, and that identifying with multiple letters is impossible.  Lastly, an important note from the panelists that was not discussed in Grey’s article was that we should view the transgender identity as a spectrum.  Some trans people know from birth that they were born in the wrong body, but it takes others a much longer time to come to the realization that they are trans.  Further, many trans people choose to be non-operational and do not undergo reassignment surgery but still receive hormone therapy.  Because of this, we should not always assume that someone who identifies as trans is not anatomically male or female.  There is much more flexibility than people like to think about, especially because it’s easier for society to fit people into categorical boxes.  The panel I attended definitely helped me to be more conscientious about other’s identities and know that the last think I would want is to be discriminated for who I truly am.

[mhuber1]

Such willful ignorance should not still be so rampant in our society. Punishment should be doled out for those insensitive and immature enough to participate.

This IDS article analyzes the way in which Martin Luther King and his legacy became joke-worthy of a group of students at Arizona State University.  The incident of the ASU “MLK Black Out” party gives evidence of Bostdorff and Goldzwig’s claim that Reagan fundamentally changed the King’s intentions for civil rights and cultural equality.  It occurred to me that the students may not have viewed their party theme as racist or culturally insensitive and may assume, like Reagan would have liked them to, that civil rights equality has been achieved.  To them, dressing up in jerseys and drinking out of watermelons may not seem any different than wearing sombreros on Cinco de Mayo, which of course can be argued to be just as culturally insensitive.  However, it is ironic that on the day to celebrate Martin Luther King’s legacy (a day created by Reagan too, albeit reluctantly), that these students acted in direct opposition to King’s dream and further perpetuated the post-Reagan viewpoint of a façade of racial equality in the United States.  

c209class