Dismantling the PIC

[engagedpolitrix-blog]

Designer Babies and Ableism

Though Octavia’s Brood was full of many amazing stories, there was one that stood out to me in particular. Hollow, written by Mia Mingus, is about a population of people with disabilities, called “Unperfects,” who were banished from Earth and sent to a planet called Hollow. The Unperfects end up building infrastructure and start living on their new planet even though the intention of the remaining population of Earth meant for them to die off. The reason that this story stuck with me is because I can see this scenario happening in our near future. With the invention of “designer babies,” parents can effectively pick and choose the genes that will go into their future child. The concept of designer babies is extremely problematic and ableist because as parents elect to design their babies, genes that express Down Syndrome or blindness, and many other traits, can be deemed as undesirable traits, and they will most likely be replaced with “good” and “better” genes. In an already ableist society, further pathologizing those with disabilities can lead to a terrifyingly discriminatory future.

            In this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVMfQNe7U7w) covering the topic of designer babies, one of the news reporters already uses ableist language to discuss genes that carry diseases, “Editing out a ‘bad’ gene and putting in a ‘good’ one.” Though one could argue that diseases are not inherently good, who is to say that someone with a particular disease is any more or less valuable than someone without that disease? As discussed in Trans Bodies, Trans Selves, operating under the medical model of disability is ableist and discriminatory. I truly hope that more choose to embrace the social model of disability so that our society does not end up like the society/societies in Hollow.

Sources Cited

Mingus, Mia. Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements. Ed. Walidah Imarisha and Adrienne Maree Brown. Oakland: AK, 2015. Print.

Erickson-Schroth, Laura. Trans Bodies, Trans Selves: A Resource for the Transgender Community. Oxford UP, 2014. Print.

[sav-blogs-blog]

The thing about media reporting on gene editing and the prospects of designer babies, is that they don’t present it clearly or correctly.  If parents were allowed to use gene editing such as CRISPR cas9 for example, this would largely be used for genetic diseases that leas to either miscarriage or infant death. Because while its easy to extrapolate this to think parents would be able to edit their future child’s genome to make them taller or faster or smarter, the technology and understanding of genetics just isn’t there. This technology would be exceedingly useful for parents who are carriers or afflicted with genetic diseases that they don’t want to pass down to their children, or genes that would be lethal.  Beyond this, no doctor or researcher would have a hope of passing this by an ethics committee. because unless the disease is strictly genetic, and not a complex disorder, gene editing is off the table. beyond this, it would be VERY expensive for parents to be able to access this sort of technology. It’s expensive currently to go in for in vitro, and that’s simply eliminating embryos carrying lethal diseases or those with different chromosomes than what the parents want etc.  However, is it useful to think about why people are so obsessed with designer babies? yes. But will it likely be a reality? no. 

--RX sav-blogs

[engagedpolitrix-blog]

Lost Histories Through Colonization

I find myself repetitively emphasizing the importance and value of education as a solution to many societal problems. The lack of education often is the root of many peoples ignorance and/or misinformation. Trans Bodies, Trans Selves is an outstanding educational reference because it contains ample information that has somehow become lost in U.S. education and common knowledge. When thinking about what I have learned in my G.W.S.S classes thus far it becomes frustrating that this information is hidden and lost.

Not only is Trans Bodies, Trans Selves a guide for understanding the fluidity of gender and what it entails, but it also re-narrates a lost history after a “post-colonial” U.S. construction. The section titled “U.S. History” outlines the difficulties in transgender history as the language we use now is contemporary. I appreciated the author acknowledging how gender is a learned experience, and the way we categorize people into genders did not look the same way in various eras and places; therefore, framing transgender history is complicated. This section correlates with Butler’s idea of gender as performativity, and the way gender was morphed as an identity over time is appalling.

Leslie Feinberg is a theorist who writes about past histories of indigenous communities and other countries that live out gender in ways that the western perspective can not even process. Her work along with the “Claiming our Power” section of Trans Bodies, Trans Selves shows the epistemology of this untold history. Through colonization, many gender identities and the concept of gender nonconformity, especially in Native Americans, has been erased. Today, people believe gender operates as a binary and that gender and sexual expressions are new topics or maybe even trends. Again, this type of mentality is based off of colonial thought and lack of exposure to the truth.

In the 19th century, there was gender diversity among Native American communities, but unfortunately the genocide of these people came with the erasure of culture and history. It is also unfortunate that the European ideals are connected with religious views, perpetuating the binary of religion and acceptance of the “other” many times. In society, this is still very relevant with people feeling pressured to choose between a strict following of religion versus more liberal societal views and acceptance of marginalized and oppressed identities, such as people who identify as LGBTQ. The connection with religion is important when discussing this theme because of the value of marriage in many religious texts stating that it is between a man and woman.

All of these perspectives complicate the lives of people and the understandings of gender. If more people had access to this knowledge provided in Trans Bodies, Trans Selves the ignorance and openness to trans identities would be improved. Overall, it is disheartening how polarizing society is though. As always, we have got to do better.

Feinberg, Leslie. “Transgender Liberation: An Idea Whose Time Has Come” in Feminist Theory Reader.

Trans Bodies, Trans Selves

[sav-blogs-blog]

Not to be rude, but if you’re going to write on Native gender identities you shouldn’t homogenize the hundreds of individual tribes just in North America. It’s a very colonial mentality, as is your statement that gender non-conformity has been erased among native americans. There are many Native folks still alive today, and many two-spirit native folks still alive today. 

[andreii-tarkovsky]

We didn’t have a word for our, as you guys call, gay/lesbian people. So we coined that word as an umbrella for all our tribes. We never said, “Well, you’re transgender. You’re bisexual. You’re lesbian.” We never knew those terms. Those are all from Western culture, you know, LGBTQ and all that. So on some level, it’s about getting rid of labels. Those terms were forced upon us.

[engagedpolitrix-blog]

Gender Dysphoria, Disability, and Legitimizing Identities

In section one of Trans Bodies, Trans Selves, there is chapter on disability and deaf culture. Within this chapter, the author argues that, “Labeling all trans people with gender dysphoria pathologizes trans identities,” which I can agree with (Erickson-Schroth, 54). It seems that diagnosing someone with gender dysphoria makes it even harder for a trans person to legitimate their identity. Cisgender people are never labeled with gender satisfaction, so this act of labeling/not labeling further pushes the idea that cisgender is the norm, and that being transgender is abnormal. The act of diagnosing gender dysphoria can also be problematic when someone wants to transition. It is often required that gender dysphoria is diagnosed before one can undergo any surgeries. This is just another hoop to jump through in legitimating ones identity.

Later in the discussion around the activism to remove gender dysphoria from the DSM, the author states that this activism is inherently ableist. And this is something that I can also agree with. An individual is quoted, “…What’s SO bad about being mentally ill” (Erickson-Schroth, 56). This person has a point, there should not be any negative consequences to having a mental illness. Unfortunately, a large portion of the population still operates under the medical model of disability, where disabilities must be treated and rehabilitated.

Looking further into gender dysphoria, I found that dysphoria (defined generally as dissatisfaction) is a common feeling to have among trans people. If gender dysphoria very much exists, why does it have to be turned into a medical diagnosis than a simple feeling of unhappiness towards ones body? Kat Blaque discusses her own experience with gender dysphoria in one of her YouTube videos “THE TRUTH ABOUT GENDER DYSPHORIA” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0mrtDRUuhg). Now I guess my question remains, gender dysphoria exists, but I do not understand why it has to be labeled as a medical diagnosis, or why it is required for transitional surgeries. I see the argument for wanting gender dysphoria to be removed from the DSM as much as I see the argument for this activism as ableist.

Source Cited

Erickson-Schroth, Laura. Trans Bodies, Trans Selves: A Resource for the Transgender Community. New York: Oxford UP, 2014. Print.

-firelordkenzai

[sav-blogs-blog]

Seeing as we are blogging on tumblr it only makes sense to bring up truscum in relation to gender dysphoria.  Because while we may be able to discuss in class how there are many ways to be trans or gender non-conforming, the narrative in larger society is much more rigid. Also on the note of Kat Blaque (huge fan here) she has been recently harassed by truscum folks because of her beliefs that how others interpret being trans is their business and doesn’t take away from her identity.  I feel there are a lot of reasons why GID and being Trans is still in the DSM, and mainly that has to do with control and compartmentalizing identities. People like categories and they also like norms-- so the more people that don’t fit the DSM definition of Trans, the more people are by default “cis”.  And while demedicalization of GID seems logical, it’s argument can too easily be read as ableist as you mentioned. tldr: there are lots of ways to fall under the trans and gender non-conforming category. So there are still people who want surgery and hormones and see their experience as the only “true” trans experience-- thereby supporting the need for gender dysphoria.  But I think the sooner we get away from the idea that Trans isn’t one size fits all, the sooner we can deal with promoting healthcare that can benefit trans folks all across the spectrum 

-RX sav-blogs

[engagedpolitrix-blog]

Revolution vs. Institution

            Something that stood out to me, especially in the first few chapters was the incredible emphasis on methods and methodologies. This is usually something, in my opinion, that gets underdeveloped in mainstream academia and overdeveloped by bougie intellectuals. It can be a thin line between too little acknowledgement of methods and too much. In Revolutionizing Education there were whole tens of pages devoted solely to unpacks methodology. This can be and is highly beneficial in activist spaces as these methods ten to develop the importance of community organizing and help the reader understand how sensitive topics were addressed and handled. This said, I very often feel that these elongated methods sections are a form of literary throat-clearing that can often be drawn out far longer than necessary.

              This brings us to the dichotomy between how to do the work and doing the work.  When confronted with this separation is when we can examine the use of the lengthy methods section. If we look at the whole 34 pages of Chapter 3 we can see a prime example of the exaggerated methods laid out. The entire chapter aims to describe the Gateways and Getaways project by its main leaders. However, the seven founders spend their time meticulously narrating their entire process leading up to the actual research rather than splitting their time to focus on methods as well as outcomes. For me, this reads more as a metaphorical pat on the back in respect to how the group approached their work rather than the effect of the work itself. 

          We see this time and again when, intentionally or not, the researcher becomes wrapped up in their own import and/or intellect that they neglect the voice of the subject. This was an issue I had with Uncivil Youth. Kwoon is the main narrator of the research that is supposed to be conducted by and for youth, yet her voice is the dominant narrative. Contrasting this to Black Girl Dangerous we also see a single narrator and yet the subjects voice is also present. The first evidence of this is due to the fact that BGD is a living thing that exists online thus making it widely accessible; in addition, it has a plethora of contributors who make their voices heard through BGD’s platform.

            What I’m questioning here is the validity of highly academic sources that claim to be radical while at the same time being produced within the institution. How can we really embrace forms like Revolutionizing Education if it does not come from the hands of those it purports to serve?

[sav-blogs-blog]

This sentiment I feel has been present recently in many of my GWSS classes, that theory needs to be more accessible that is. But what I think we are forgetting here is that women’s studies had to fight to gain entrance into the academy, and secondly that all subjects/ theories have their own language.  Because, while BGD is more accessible, I would argue that without a foundation in feminist theory, it wouldn’t have been written or published.  And I would argue again that Revolutionizing Education was written by those involved in the organization, and most all the chapters were comprised of accounts from the youth involved and their process for creating the organization. And while it may seem boring to read their methods--the methods and epistemology of the groups are both revolutionary and important.  I don’t mean for my response to come off as harsh or angry, but in order for us to have an outlet for fun to read feminist theory, we need to understand the theories that got us there. For example, we wouldn’t have fun learning programs like Bill Nye the Science Guy, if there weren’t scientists, researchers, and yes--long, boring, theory heavy papers.

--RX sav-blogs

[engagedpolitrix-blog]

Science and Social Control

As I read Uncivil Youth, I was grateful for the detailed, albeit slightly long, first chapter that went through the history of community-based programs and “civilizing youth” (Kwon 28). Kwon briefly dives into the impact that science had on the justification for these programs (Kwon 29). They write, “developments in the social and life sciences that focused on adolescence as a topic of inquiry and object of research converged to cement adolescence as a distinct life stage in need of intervention and social control” (Kwon 29). This focus on science struck a familiar chord in my mind. In prior GWSS courses, we have discussed the use of science to advance another form of control: race-based control, also known as scientific racism or eugenics.

It is not a coincidence that social control of youth based on science and social control of racial and ethnic minorities based on science both developed in the early 1900s. Scientists were literally measuring body parts of people of different backgrounds to categorize them at this time, believing that “you could improve the human condition and improve human stock by careful breeding” (PBS). I wish that there could have been space in this chapter to explore the connection between the eugenics movement and the growth of youth programming. Kwon’s outlining of the history notes that there was a racial aspect to social control of youth, but stops short of linking these two movements.

Both eugenics and youth programming were a response to the influx of immigrants in America. One eugenicist and social scientist actually blamed an increase of crime and poverty on immigrants in the early 1900s (PBS). For those looking to maintain their hierarchy and social control, it would be politically strategic to wrap up these discourses together—the immigrants are threatening our social structure with their difference and “inferiority,” so let’s target the youth, who might possibly be able to change. Youth most definitely were implicated in the eugenics movement. One researcher actually tracked the height, weight, and head shape of 18,000 children of European immigrants to prove a point about their development (PBS). I would be interested in learning more about the impact of science and scientific discovery at this point in history and how these two movements intersected and possibly worked together to advance their mission to control society and its hierarchy. What were the effects of research designed to understand difference both at the time and over time? And, more importantly, what steps are researchers, particularly in social science and anthropology, taking today to ensure that they are not making the racist and ageist mistakes of their predecessors?

-aspiringsparkplug 

Sources

Uncivil Youth. Soo Ah Kwon. 2013.

The New Immigrants, Head Shapes, and the Melting Pot: Franz Boas vs. Scientific Racism. PBS.

   http://www.pbs.org/fmc/segments/progseg2.htm. (transcript of TV programming, no date

   given).

[sav-blogs-blog]

Hey! I wanted to reply because last semester in another of Lena’s classes we read “States of Delinquency” and it covers very well the connection between eugenics and youth control. (I still have it if you are interested in the topic--super interesting and engaging). And it tracks boarding schools for black, latino and indigenous youth to public schools, mental institutions and prisons. It also shows the deep connection IQ testing has to eugenics.  I think in Kwon’s book, we do still see the same narrative of programs being there the help “at risk” youth, however homeless or morally “unsaveable” youth didn’t count. As many other people have written in their initial response--this plays not only into the “model minority” for many but also the “respectable” minority. 

Which pushes into the territory of youth of color in “respectable” activism. In order for these kids to be seen as any sort of respectable or high achieving, they have to magically succeed in a society that already has multiple barriers built against them.  And this need to accomplish goals outright is pushed for social justice movements at large--and begs the question of what counts as success? what counts as progress?

--RX sav_blogs

[sav-blogs-blog]

To the White Feminists having an Identity Crisis

[engagedpolitrix-blog]

BGD: Ableism?

While reading Mia McKenzie’s Black Girl Dangerous, I was prompted to think through a myriad of political issues, especially surrounding topics like race, queerness, and gender. As McKenzie is a black, queer woman who theorizes about the identities she holds in their relation to one another, I was very interested to learn and absorb what McKenzie would have to say about her everyday experiences of racialized sexuality – something that I am not faced with as a white queer person and of which I often take for granted. As McKenzie writes on page 23 of BGD, “This country sees race and sexuality as mutually exclusive… .White people are the only people allowed to be complex enough to be queer.” 

I very much appreciated McKenzie’s critiques of multiple social problems throughout her book, including conventional understandings of allyship (“It’s not supposed to be about you” [p. 138]), white liberality (“It is not enough to say, when confronted, that you care. You need to act like it” [p. 101]), and Beyoncé’s incautious reference to Ike Turner’s sexually abusive behavior during her song “Drunk In Love,” a track off of her most recent album Beyoncé (of which has been deemed by many as a “feminist triumph” [p. 143]). Furthermore, I admire McKenzie for her willingness to write in such an easy-to-read manner. But in spite of all of this, there was one essay in particular that stood out to me as possibly problematic in its implications (however unintended). 

In her essay Dangerous, McKenzie claims her intelligence confidently and unapologetically, stating on page 20 “I never forgot that I was smart… . It has been the most important idea of my life …” Down the page she goes on to address numerous tropes that black women are all too frequently placed into: “Every time I turn on the TV, or the radio, I am reminded that black women are supposed to be crack-addicted welfare queens, ghetto skanks, and ignorant, ratchet, violent loud-mouths …” and notes that “Every day, in some way or another, someone assumes I am less than what I am.” Acknowledging stereotypes and the ways in which they disallow complexity is one thing, but I do think McKenzie goes too far to indirectly suggest that drug addicts and people on welfare are people “less than” herself, especially while she so firmly declares her smartness. How might someone who is actually addicted to crack or is actually on welfare feel if they read this essay? This idea of having to prove personal intelligence (even if someone is doing so in order to combat categorization) caused me to recall a blogpost I recently read about respect for intelligence as it is related to ableism. This post, titled “I don’t respect your (or my) intelligence,” came from a blogger named Extranjera, who has a child with down syndrome (url: utterlyunpublishedauthorsdaughter.blogspot.com). They write to their readers: “…I’d like for you to give this concept of intelligence at least as much critical thought as you give beauty, body type, race, height, gender, in regards to what all these ‘say’ about the person, their worth, their character, their self… Intelligence can be a valuable tool. It gives you privilege… so do good looks, white skin, and wealth, but we don’t agree that those should be respected without question and challenge, or deemed as the norm that all others must conform and aspire to. We fight those arbitrary standards. Let’s fight this too.”

As I recall, Mia McKenzie chooses to mention ableism as a system of power and oppression a few times throughout her book. But I will argue that she doesn’t hold herself accountable enough to actively fight against conventional standards of intellect or to oppose ableist slurs (she uses the word “crazy” a considerable amount of times, which is a disrespectful term often used directly against people with disabilities). I think she can do better – we can all do better. All in all, I hope that our class will be aware of the language we use and be on our toes, ready to call out ableism when we see or hear it happening. 

http://utterlyunpublishedauthorsdaughter.blogspot.com/2014/02/i-dont-respect-your-or-my-intelligence.html (2014)

McKenzie, M. (2014). Black girl dangerous: On race, queerness, class and gender. BDG Press. 

[sav-blogs-blog]

I love that you brought this up!  last semester Kendall brought up that “ableism” is all too often used as a “buzzword” in activist/ feminist spaces. Beyond this, I also like that you chose the quote “This country sees race and sexuality as mutually exclusive… .White people are the only people allowed to be complex enough to be queer”, because I feel this sentiment can be applied to disability as well: that only white people are complex enough to be seen as PEOPLE with disabilities. I stress this point, because disabled POC are still painted as “violent” or “sexual predators” in the media. 

There is a nuanced representation between disabled POC and disabled white folks, because while the media may use children of color to evoke “pity” etc. It’s generally white disabled children that are posed as worthy of “saving”. 

And with the huge push from multiple communities of color to recognize especially mental illness, it is obviously a problem that people of color are often excluded from the conversation on disability. This leads to missed or incorrect diagnoses of both children and adults, whereas young white boys are immediately tested and treated for autism.  so yes: “ I think she can do better – we can all do better. All in all, I hope that our class will be aware of the language we use and be on our toes, ready to call out ableism when we see or hear it happening”.  This means we ALL need to be aware and actively including disability in our conversations and analyses in class <3 More food for thought: 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dior-vargas/people-of-color-deal-with_b_6471096.html

http://diorvargas.com/poc-mental-illness/

[sav-blogs-blog]

“Borders”  This is my final project on the different physical, social and political forms borders may take.  Enjoy! 

[blackandbrownlivesmatter-blog]

"Something Out Of Nothing"

The story of Jimmy Santiago Baca is one that parallel to so many other young Chicano young boys. With themes of worthlessness, abandonment, rape, childhood trauma, and perseverance it is easy to see that these young Chicanos have a hard life ahead of them. With system after system stacked against them it easy to see, in words of Mercedez Holtry, they are left to build “Something out of Nothing”. This impossible task is often sprinkled with juvenile detention, lack of schooling, and given labels that you never strived for. By not reforming or abolishing our current prison industrial complex we are just furthering. Not unlike Jimmy many young POC, with a critically analysis hear of Chicano youth, have to go through hell just to make baby steps. By critically analyzing schools, juvenile detention centers, and non-violent crimes it is easy to see how all of these systems are breaking our young Chicano students and making them build ‘something out of nothing’.

In the book, A Place To Stand by Jimmy Santiago Baca, you hear of a young Chicano’s testimony of life in school. Much to Jimmy’s effort school was a place he felt as if he didn’t belong because, “I didn’t know anything the teachers were talking about. I couldn’t talk to the kids because they were so much smarter than I was” (Baca, 24). Jimmy was placed into a classroom for his age level, without (to the reader’s knowledge) any consideration for where he was academically. Because of the lack of schooling Jimmy had been able to access he immediately fell behind from day one. This is a common theme for many Chicano youth. They are asked to perform to the ‘standards’ but are given no tools to excel. Mercedez Holtry describes this vividly in her spoken word about her classroom and how broken everything is around them except the children’s spirit (yet).  This is such a telling tale of where our education and resources are being put and then what the ramifications are of that. 

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXHBHdTjkaU>

Moving on to detention centers and discipline, you can almost see a stronger path that is already laid out for these Chicano students to embark down. It is as some people call it, a self fulfilling prophesy. Baca describes it as, “You could see the narrowing of life’s possibilities in the cold. challenging eyes of the homeboys in the detention center; you could see the numbing of their hearts in their swaggering postures. All of them had been wounded, hurt, abused, ignored; already, aggression was in their talk, in the way they let off steam over their disappointments, in the way they expressed themselves” (Baca, 32). It is then this aggression that gets brought to light in school settings where frustration of not understanding or being understood takes over. These incidents were once met with a talk from the principal or guidance counselor but are now being replaced with law enforcement in schools. 

This is so detrimental because it means that there are no real safe spaces for these kids. All their life they take on abnormal amounts of hurt and abuse, from all kinds of systems working against them, and they cannot ever show emotion because they are told that they are scary or interrupting. This endless cycle is what is filling our juvenile halls and jails.

According to the Sentencing Project, “Despite equal rates of drug use proportionate to their populations, Hispanics are twice as likely as whites, and equally as likely as blacks, to be admitted to state prison for a drug offense” (Sentencing Project). It is a crime like this (non-violent) that puts Baca in jail for the first long sentence he serves. At one meeting with his counselor Baca is informed that he is a “menace to society” and that “Because you don’t have a long rap sheet only means you’ve gotten away with a lot of things” (Baca, 162). The idea on which this country’s criminal justice system was founded on, innocent until proven guilty, seems to disappear when the courts are dealing with a POC. By arresting these POC and telling society that they should be feared because they are a ‘menace’ even if they are non-violent offenders is what keeps our stereotypes perpetuating. The same stereotypes that held Jimmy and other kids back from getting the education they deserved and the easy and willingness to send them to juvenile hall. 

All of these events that happen to so many Chicano young people, not just Jimmy, are what continues to force these people to build their whole lives from nothing. Being left out, discarded, and criminalized from a young age is what keeps the wheels turning in this entire system. By not allowing this to be written of as a person to person issue we can start to take apart the gears that allow this system to be so efficient and detrimental to so many people. 

-TheUpliftedUnderdog

Keeping It Grounded With 

-Baca, Jimmy Santiago, A Place to Stand (2001). 

-Mercedez Holtry “Something out of Nothing” (2015). 

-The Sentencing Project, “Hispanic Prisoners in the United States”

[sav-blogs-blog]

To follow your spoken word lead here are two more poems touching on schools as huge influences in the PIC

https://youtu.be/RHSqUyi6GUU

https://youtu.be/8z4lB9j6ryk

and to push this beyond looking at race or class, in light of Karma Chavez’s talk on HIV/AIDS--we also need to look to rural spaces and how the PIC is functioning there as well. Because even in midwest rural spaces, there are many poor POC who are targeted and streamlined towards prisons.  I think another area to expand on here would be the idea of mobility, or to play off Jimmy’s title a place to stand. For many kids who become wards of the state or because they get pushed on different family members, where they live and where they are moved is never stable. This also impacts school life, because if you are constantly switching schools you are likely to be behind in course work and are less likely to find friends and where you fit in.  And again this isn’t just a rural issue, poverty, homelessness and familial cycles of abuse and incarceration are present in rural spaces as well. Which goes back to our talks in class about how pervasive the PIC is and how much that affects family and relationship dynamics.  So basically, this is an issue with many more complexities, which makes it even harder to address how schools can cater to “highly mobile” or homeless or foster kids. I feel like if we had mentors in schools from these types of backgrounds, people who look like them who could potentially provide safe spaces, or even school clubs where they could more easily make friends would make school so much easier.  And I know staying in school is so much harder than many assume it to be, especially kids who are dealing with emotional/mental health issues or family issues or monetary issues. I feel like even educating middle school/high school kids on these facts broadly would help bridge an understanding. Because if your “average” high school student doesn’t grasp why their classmate has to work 30 hours a week or why they always wear the same clothes or why they showed up in their school in the middle of the year--there is a binary built.  So I’d definitely say this is a community and a peer issue that needs to come from within each community. 

[blackandbrownlivesmatter-blog]

Whose Diversity? and Crime Alerts: Mapping Violence Project

http://campusviolenceproject.weebly.com/

Fall 2015: Chican@ Studies 3900/5920: Chicana/os Latina/os, Police Violence and Mass Incarceration In September, 2015, Dr. Lena Palacios handed out the syllabus for this class. For 20% of our grade was some kind of story map about violence in Minneapolis/St Paul. A what? Story map? There were a few silent groans throughout the room. I think most of us shied away from the idea, and hoped that this experimental pilot class would allow us to maybe find a different project to do in its place, something that was maybe a little more straight-forward, a little more familiar. But what would be the purpose of paying tuition if we weren’t challenged, weren’t learning something new? Learning is not about comfort. Our group chose to focus on the actions of the Whose Diversity? collective, which has been particularly significant for the preservation of the Chican@/Latin@ Studies Department and movements toward expanding University “diversity” beyond the cosmetic. Speaking up against racial profiling, the collective sought to improve the content of “crime alert” emails to students, faculty, and staff of supposed criminal activity on and around campus. Many of the email reports were vague descriptions of men that could describe the majority of the masculine population. The descriptions typically consist of a person between 5'8"-6’, 18-40 years old, wearing jeans and a hoodie. Most were decidedly racialized, and tended to provide more specific descriptions or markers of black men, but were still too vague to identify an individual. The WD? collective raised concerns about the racial profiling and resulting stigma or fear of black men on campus. Whose Diversity? Formed in 2014, coming out of a previous campus group, Whose University? WD? has since put forth demands to the University surrounding racial profiling in crime alerts, decreased spending in ethnic studies departments, removal of Post-Secondary Teaching and Learning classes for first generation college students and the lack of diversity and representation both in the student body and faculty at the University of Minnesota. After multiple protests by WD?, U of M students received a formal reply from Kaler on February 25, 2015, stating, “To that end, today, Vice President [of University Services] Wheelock is announcing a change that will reduce the use of suspect descriptions in Crime Alerts when there is insufficient detail to reasonably aid in individual identification. To be clear: Where there is sufficient information to aid our community in identifying a suspect who presents risk, we will continue to include that information. Where the information is too general to advance that goal, we will note that only a limited description of the suspect(s) is available."  Though the University was "committed to reallocating $4.1 million to public safety infrastructure such as cameras and lighting” on March 28th, 2013, the next change in public safety on campus was the switch from Crime Alerts to Timely Warnings, the changeannounced on February 25th, 2015. The change in emails seems to reflect the requirements of the Clery Act, signed in 1990, which dictates that “timely warnings” be given regarding crimes that represent a threat to the safety of people on campus. The act was mentioned in an email from August 13th, 2014, but was not invoked in change until the 2/25/15 announcement. Another email on March 5th, 2015, indicated that the Timely Warnings would not provide a description of the suspect unless there are enough details to identify a specific person. If there is insufficient information to identify an individual, the Warning reads “No detailed information is available at this time.” However, the choice to include this information remains at the discretion of University of Minnesota Police Chief and Vice President of University Services, Pam Wheelock. The collective’s movements to change the way Crime Alert/Timely Warning emails from the University of Minnesota Police Department is documented on this website,  along with crimes, Alerts/Timely Warnings from 2014 and 2015, GIS mapping and interviews with members of Whose Diversity?, in an attempt to show the change (or lack thereof) in crime reporting by the UMPD.

[blackandbrownlivesmatter-blog]

Governments are ???

Governments are often portrayed as a strong central lead that helps people interact with one another and also keeps peace. This is an illusion that is often portrayed by many working parts and almost always if not all the way at least a little false. In both the film El Norte and book Paper Cadavers: The Archives of Dictatorship in Guatemala we examine how the Guatemalan government has hurt the people by killing off its indigenous peoples with little to no ramifications and also ignoring and actively making sure that history is not recorded. Both these sources tell a tale of how people have had to cope with such a corrupt government.

One can see just how violent Guatemala’s history was in the movie, El Norte the film which was about two young siblings that were forced to leave their home in their Mayan village because of fearing their lives, which was really brought to life when their father was murdered and their mother was taken. 

The movie then follows these two young people’s lives as they go to Mexico and try to cross the border into the US, or El Norte (The North) as they call it. It traces just how grueling the everyday life can be because of prejudiced against indigenous peoples and also how systems are in place and enforced in the US (El Norte). Looking back in the film the father of these two young people, Arturo, gets killed because he, among other workers are trying to form a union. At one point he says to his son, “to the rich, the peasant is just a pair of strong arms” (El Norte). It is these thoughts that many governments, especially Guatemala’s, that causes this violence to ensue when the 99% try to stand together and take back some of their power and agency. A similar situation can be seen today with the Black Lives Matter movement in the US and especially in Minneapolis MN. Black Lives Matters has tried to take back some of their agency that has been taken away from Black people; and give Black people the piece of mind of being able to wake up in the morning without the fear of being shot by the police. Because the government is nervous about the power that this movement is building they are watching everyone very closely and are also very hesitant to work with the leaders of the group. For example Adja Gildersleve has been a Black Lives Matter leader from the beginning of the movement in Mpls, after coming home from a rally she looked out her window to find a police car sitting outside. 

It is this kind of surveillance that is policing the lives of people who work on building power that can still be seen in the US today. Even though it is not as deadly as it once was like in Guatemala, the same fear tactics are being used. 

In Paper Cadavers: The Archives of Dictatorship in Guatemala the author, Kirsten Weld, looks at the process of finding over 80 million ‘lost’ pages of evidence that contain police orders, records of killings torturing, and many other dreadful accounts. 

Weld works through with other local activist uncovering and documenting all of this information in hope of, “clarifying the history of the war, rescuing historical memory, and promoting justice” (Weld, 70). In doing this the group of archivist was met with no help, financially or otherwise, from the government or surrounding community. At one point there was even a urinal installed that drained right by the archives, so archivers were forced to walk through urine in order to get to their work. A director said it was as if, “people were pissing on their own history” (Weld, 51). This example just shows how hostile the climate was and how unsupported the project to bring light of all these injustices was. Even though there were some people who recognized the need of this work, like one Guatemalan journalist wrote, “Castrated in history we are a people without knowledge of ourselves” (Weld, 51) many others did not see the need to review and examine these injustices. This was thought was often brought on and broadcasted by the government who wished not to relive what dreadful things they had done to their own people. 

Governments contain much power to help the people of their nation or to extremely hurt and kill their own people. By looking at Guatemalans history it is easy to see that they have a had a very violent history that many people choose to forget. This forgetfulness doesn’t help anyone however, because even though the government can choose not to help discover 80 million pages of history they do and will be held accountable of their actions that are listed in them. By crossing examining cultures and movements we can come to the conclusion that overall most governments fear when people rise together and uncover injustices and demand justice. 

-TheUpliftedUnderdog

Keeping it Grounded With: 

- Weld, Kristen Paper Cadavers: The Archives of Dictatorship in Guatemala (2014). 

- El Norte (1984).

[sav-blogs-blog]

I like that you brought up Black Lives Matter as a direct connection, because in reading Paper Cadavers the connections to US governments (and many others worldwide was apparent). Because sentiments that POC in the US should just “get over” historical and even ongoing tragedies is all too common. It’s also very common that the American public will use “sad” images of people from third world or “undeveloped” countries to contrast with how they see and experience America. The latter especially makes it hard to address issues within the US, or even make people see that they’re happening.  The erasure and classification of government documents worldwide makes it hard for the US public to even start to address social and political issues. This is why the internet, hacking and even video recording of officials are all very important for social movements. This is also why hackers and people who have recorded police brutality have routinely been arrested or had their phones confiscated.  Beyond this, I feel like the use of technology will be infinitely important for future movements because of the government’s inability to completely control or monitor it. 

[renaissancepalette-deactivated2]

Justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women

[blackandbrownlivesmatter-blog]

Deviant self-concept, huh? Yeah, I get that. And when you have a defiant self-concept, you have a deviant identity, and then you’re just straight up deviant. And there’s something wrong with you. And they don’t take you seriously. And you’re Other. So they get it in their heads that you need to be punished, and then corrected. But sometimes they don’t as far as at, and they stop at punishment. But then shame goes on all by itself. Shame on you for what you’ve done, not for what they’ve done to you. I get that. I got a deviant self-concept too.

They tell you what you are. And then you start to believe it. Rios talks about the labeling hype, how it starts so young and gets in your head. You internalize it the same way you internalize a gender, an age, a skin color, based on the way you’re treated for the label they gave you. It starts before we’re able to think for ourselves. It’s all around us, and we understand how it works through the way it hurts us. “In the context of punitive social control,” writes Rios, “some marginalized boys are fostered by punishment, at every stage in their development, encountering a social world that, in their account, treats them as suspects and criminals” (p. 52). But you believe it. You believe it until someone tells you you’re wrong, you’ve been wrong all along and you understand why. You believe it until something else finally makes sense to you.

But you’re still accountable for your actions. Even though you’re someone else’s product, you somehow still in ownership, responsible your programming. We’re all expected to have that control, even though that may not be among the aspects of our actual realities. Rios describes the self-blame they teach us to exert greater control (p. 72). So you have to own it, and take the blame, or play “dummy smart” and hope they’ll let you off because by some good or bad or dumb ol’ luck, you didn’t know better. God help you if they find out you did. God help you more if you’re Catholic too, because no matter how many Hail Marys on too many rosaries, your Original Sin is in your soul and in your skin. Sometimes we punish ourselves. I think Rios maybe forgot about that part, how we carry our supposed sins a little differently than others. It’s even in names, given and taken.

Tybalt’s (John Leguizamo) very Catholic gun and vest in Romeo + Juliet (1996) I’m tempted to reference the balcony soliloquy (that which by any other name may be as appropriate). The question of obliged identities constructed by violence is particularly salient. I could talk about deviant identity in Romeo and Juliet all day, but I’ll spare you this time. I promise.

Resistant identities are the next step. It’s the dummy smart, and acting stupid. “Excluding the excluder,” according to Manuel Castells. You play the part of the criminal because you’re coded as a criminal. So you realize how to play the system. But I have a problem with “resistance” in this context. Resistant. It doesn’t work. Because I was a resistant kid, I was a deviant kid, sometimes I was a dangerous kid. I didn’t conform, I demanded change. Someone once suggested I was “oppositionally defiant.” (Good). But I had to be, or I’d have lost my mind. Resistant is like defiant, defiant sounds like deviant, and deviant gets coded as criminal. Rios talks about resistance as defiance, and reminds us that defiance is only “temporary success” associating with the maintenance of dignity. It’s not really that resistant. It’s for survival. We must first survive the trials and tribulations of childhood, we don’t necessarily resist them. Resistance implies that you can be resistant or even immune to the effects of your circumstances, so it doesn’t affect you. But it does affect you. It shapes your behavior as you’re just trying to live your life. At that point, you’re only playing the system, not actually resisting involvement. It’s only resistant if you “get away with it,” and the system is not set up so that anyone gets away with anything. A lot of the time, these boys are just trying to survive. They’re doing it in the best way they’ve identified possible, using the resilience skills or organic capital toward short term gains, because they’ve been conditioned into living in immediacy as the only option.

In Gun Hill Road (2011), Enrique has adopted what Rios would call a resistant identity. He’s been situated in the life of a “thug” and has become that person, validated by his peers, despite the harm he’s doing to his family as a result. All he is, and all he knows how to be, is the hypermasculine “thug” he is on the street. Maybe it was adaptive at one point in his life, but it’s pretty clear that it just isn’t really working anymore. But he’s internalized it so deeply, how he thinks he has to be for whatever reason (we don’t really get much of his backstory), that he’s socially incapacitated. It’s not for survival anymore. He’s not a kid, he’s got a family and he got a job – he’s just so damn involved in resistance–>criminality, the temporary dignity, that there is nothing else. But he survived, didn’t he? Survived to still be accountable for his actions.

So is that really resistant? That’s not the word I’d use. Without the means to define yourself by your own terms, without the ability to actively oppose and succeed, I don’t think so. Maybe oppositional identity. I know resistant sounds a lot better from a social justice perspective, I’m just not sure it’s realized, especially in the practice and the actors’ situation within the system. But I’d really rather know what they think, what the labels look like to them.  You believe it until something else finally makes sense to you. That’s the gap. Self-determination – that’s the out.

and if you want to talk about r+j in this context, let me know.

-thirdsnake

Sources:

Gun Hill Road (2011). Dir. Rashaad Ernesto Green.

Rios, V. (2011). Punished: policing the lives of Black and Latino boys. New York: New York University Press.

Shakespeare, W. (1597). The tragedy of Romeo and Juliet.

Luhrmann, B. and Martinelli, G. (Producers). Luhrmann, B (Director). (1996). Romeo + Juliet (motion picture). United States: 20th Century Fox

[sav-blogs-blog]

“But you’re still accountable for your actions. Even though you’re someone else’s product, you somehow still in ownership, responsible your programming. We’re all expected to have that control, even though that may not be among the aspects of our actual realities.” This really stuck out to me, especially in light of the shooting of Jamar Clark and the respectability politics that ensued. Every time another unarmed citizen (likely POC and/or Queer folks) is shot or killed you always get the “well they should have just listened” “just don’t break the law” “you need to give respect to earn respect” comments. And I think you point out this flaw perfectly in a way I haven’t been able to put into words nicely. That even if the kids Rios interviewed or someone like Jamar were acting “deviant”, “criminal” or “violent”, what other real and accessible options were available to them?? Because even respectable black boys and trans folks (like in Gun Hill Road) are always first seen as a problem, not human.  This is why American Individualism is such a lie, because who is a “real” individual if we have all these premeditated and planned out expectations given to all of us? Whether these are dictated by capitalism or any of the identity binaries or systemic racism, there are already boxes lined up for us to fill. And it’s hard not to fall into these identities, especially if you are consistently told, treated and reminded that THAT is how society is reading you and calling you in. So much so that these Althusserian calls to being make us all turn in recognition. So “thug” begins to fit better and easier throughout these boys lives. So we all resist, or try to reject, or try to disidentify--but is resistance really possible? and what counts as resistance? (To echo our conversations on what counts as success in a movement)

[micdotcom]

Adidas will give money and designs to any high school  willing to drop its Native American mascot 

Approximately 2,000 of the more than 27,000 U.S. high schools use mascot symbolism that is widely seen as offensive to native tribes. During the White House Tribal Nations Conference in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, Adidas announced it will provide financial and design assistance to any high school teams willing to change their imagery. Now if only the NFL’s Redskins will agree, instead of defending themselves.

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Illegal Israeli settlements explained. 

[donanananana-deactivated2018012]

Send everyone this video, tag all your friends.

[blackandbrownlivesmatter-blog]

As I write this paper, news media is still uncovering the death of 36-year-old Mexican American transgender woman Tamara Dominguez who was brutally ran over twice by a black SUV in Kansas City, Missouri. Tamara is the 17th transgender woman killed this year in the United States (Naasel, 2015). Her death as well as the death and mistreatment of other Latina women are cases of state-sanctioned violence against Latina/os in the United States. You might be asking yourself how this case of transphobia is related to state-sanctioned violence against Latina/os as the perpetrator of the crimes is not a government authority. State-sponsored violence against Latina/os does not operate one dimensionally; it happens through multiple forms of physical and psychological repression that function to silence, invisibilze and obliterate brown bodies. The United States continued problem with transphobia against women of color is rooted in a racialized and heteropatriarchal history that has done very little to bring to justice the perpetuators because it places little value on the lives of Latina and black trans women. Racialized heteropatriarchal violence is thus, sanctioned by the state and a very part of the fiber of this nation. Since the founding of this nation (and even prior to that, during colonization), privileged citizens of this country have been protected by the state in inflicting violence and death on people of color, the poor, gender non-conforming people and queers. Yet, both the silence and violence inflicted on trans women of color is only one faction of state-sanctioned violence against Latina/os. It is however representative of a larger societal issue, the silence and dehumanization of Latina women across the board, in and outside of the United States-Mexico borderlands. In this essay I would like to highlight the shifting nature of Chicana/o and other women of color scholarship in complicating, visibilizing and transforming the lives of Chicana and Latina women.

                               The Sleepy Lagoon case of 1942 marked a period in time where Los Angeles began to harass Mexican American youth particularly Pachuca/os also known as Zoot Suiters; working-class Chicana/os dressed in high-waisted, wide-legged pants and long oversized padded coats. The violence against Chicana/os was not exclusive to this incident as they were continual victims of unprovoked attacks by local authority however it did escalate with the Sleepy Lagoon case.  It began with the death of José Gallardo Diaz who was found dying on a road near a reservoir in rural Los Angeles, the Mexican American community had named reservoir the Sleepy Lagoon. In response to his death, the media and local government targeted Mexican American youth by frequently describing Mexican American communities as gang infested and violent neighborhoods. By August 10th, police had rounded up 600 Latinos and charged them with various crime offenses. Twenty-two members of the 38th street club were charged with criminal conspiracy and 9 were convicted of second degree murder (Mirandé, 1987). 

    Perhaps one of the most significant outcomes of this event was the unveiled racist and prejudicial attitudes that led to media framing of the Mexican American community as innately violent and inferior as well as within the procedures of the United States legal system. Media consistently sensationalized the stories by referring to Mexican American youth as “Delinquents,” “zoot-suit gangsters” and “pachuco killers.” In large respect, the Sleepy Lagoon case proved to be an important case that brought to light the injustices that Chicano men faced at the hands of governmental authority but what it didn’t do was fully acknowledge the role and experiences of Chicanas in the hands of the state. In States of Delinquency: Race and Science in the Making if California’s Juvenile Justice System Miroslaya Chávez-garcía further describes the role of young Chicana women:

The Chicanas caught up in the court case were similarly characterized, though justice system impugned their sexuality and morality in particular. Police and judges as well as members of the media and public identified them as female gangsters and prostitutes. When arrested in the Sleepy Lagoon affair, they faced harsher consequences then the males. For their involvement in the case, a handful of girls ended up in the Ventura School for Girls, California’s only female state reformatory, where they endured indeterminate sentences under repressive regime. The males, whose convictions were later overturned on the appeal, gained their freedom after two years of imprisonment, but the girls languished behind bars until their maturity, twenty-one years of age. (p.2)

    Similarly, the “National Security” and the violation of Women: Militarized Border Rape at the US-Mexico Border by Sylvanna Falcón interrogates the way the militarized United States-Mexico border has been a location of rape against women crossing the border. Her goal is “to make visible a form of military rape which has not been previously considered in the range of military rapes by feminist scholars” (p.120). Undocumented Mexican and Central American women crossing the United States border face multiple forms of injustice, due to their status as “illegal” they are identified as innately criminal already. Therefore, they are never fully recognized as entirely human and worthy to the state. Bringing into light the issues that undocumented women face is vital in transforming the lives of all Latina women in and outside this country. Rosa Linda Fregoso additionally recontextualizes and decenters the popular narrative that the murders and disappearances of the mujeres de Juárez from individual acts of violence to “politically motivated sexual violence” rooted in patriarchy” (p.130). She claims that these injustices are products of globalization. Indeed, the lives of Latina women have been undeniably linked to the systematic structures of racism and heteropatriarchy. It is for this reason that the work of Martha Escobar and Anannya Bhattacharjee are also important in historicizing and shifting the terrain of immigration, undocumented women and violence. Whether it’s situating Latina women with the lived experience of black women (Escobar, 2010) or examining the parallels and difference of immigrants and communities of color in establishing new strategies to combat violence (Bhattacharjee, 2002), women of color scholarship is establishing and formulating innovative ways of challenging the state. And while this scholarship has been vital to challenging and interrogating the status quo, I am left to think about how the work of Latina and women of color has materialized into concrete action. To what extent has scholarship been successful in intervening in state-sanctioned violence against women of color? 

References

Falcón, S. (2006). “National Security” and the violation of Women: Militarized Border Rape at the US-Mexico Border. In Incite! Women of Color Against Violence (Eds.), Color of Violence: The INCITE! Anthology (pp.119-129). Cambridge, MA: South End Press.

Fregoso, R.L. (2006). The complexities of “Feminicide” on the border. In Incite! Women of Color Against Violence (Eds.), Color of Violence: The INCITE! Anthology (pp.119-129). Cambridge, MA: South End Press.

Mirande, A. (1987). Gringo justice. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.

Nassel, K.R. (2015, August 20). Tamara Dominguez is 17th U.S. trans woman killed in 2015. Colorlines. Retrieved from http://www.colorlines.com/articles/tamara-dominguez-17th-us-trans-woman-killed-2015

Additional Article: More then half of Central American women crossing the border are raped. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/12/central-america-migrants-rape_n_5806972.html

[sav-blogs-blog]

I love that you brought in issues of trans women, and especially trans women of color and the violence they face. Because this brings in multiple intersecting issues of race, sex, gender, citizenship and passing.  And I think you make a good point, that while these issues are being consistently discussed in academic literature, how is the public perceiving this?  http://transgenderlawcenter.org/equalitymap

I mean if we want to look by laws, trans folk are largely unprotected by hate laws or non-discrimination laws. And although laws often don’t lead to changes in actions, they can provide context to social perceptions and opinions. And when looking at needed protections for trans folks and immigrants or undocumented workers-- the public largely doesn’t see their humanity. These are multiply oppressed people who the laws and society don’t care to protect. 

Looking back at miroslava chavez’s book, the girls spent their lives in prison and weren’t deemed able to be reformed, while the boys still had potential to reintegrate into society. And this is still present today, we see women going to jail for being deemed bad mothers  http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/07/18/3682181/mom-gets-arrested-abandoning-kids-nearby-food-court-job-interview/

or for trying to protect themselves against abusive husbands, as in the Marissa Alexander case, or in Mona Ruiz’s story we’ve been reading in class. 

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/marissa-alexander-may-be-released

these women are still being policed based on their ability to be “good” women. And I think this is why queer folks and trans folks are even further marginalized because they are automatically deviant. A trans woman has a hard time in larger society as being read as a woman, much less a “good” woman. 

But I do think scholarship and books and media have played a HUGE role in bringing these marginalized folks voices to the public. But we do need more crossover between the great work happening in academia and the public’s ability to digest it.