Check Your Privilege.

So, I just saw this article on Facebook and it infuriated me. I know class is over but I figured I would post it to see if anyone had any thoughts on it. I'm literally fuming right now.

Anyways, I will miss you all and I hope everyone has a good finals week and a great summer!


-Gabby Castriota


(Link to article: Yuck.)

Lemonade for Thought.

During the last weeks of class, the main focus and discussion has been  centered around the book Fault Lines. This book opens the door to the voiceless people of Haiti , that society as a whole simply forgot about or pushed to the side. The book too speaks of the destruction that was left behind after the  horrific Earthquake, as well as what the people themselves were left behind with. Also alluding to how the aid that people thought the Haitian nation as whole was receiving, only replenished about 10,000 homes out of 300,000, basically saying how nothing was done. The way I plan to tie this into a recent news scene is by comparing this entire disaster to the newly released visual album by Beyoncé  entitled Lemonade.

Over the weekend Beyoncé released her latest album, which of course sent cyber space into a frenzy of overzealous fans and supporters. Personally I am not a huge fan of Beyoncé , I just never felt the diehard urge to be apart of the "Beyhive" but still I decided to see what the huge uproar was truly about. The video its self is about an hour long I'll attach a link to the bottom. During the visual album Beyoncé begins to release some well kept secrets to her fan base. She begins to expose hidden parts of her life and relationship with her husband that she was able to keep well under wraps. The destruction that relationship brought into her life. This is where I began to think back to class videos, as well as the book and articles we had been reading. Destruction in Haiti of course is ten times as massive as the destruction done by Jay Z's infediltiy issues, but unfortunately this is what society tunes into. As the video continued, Beyoncé seemed to go through some mistrust, betrayal, and problems within herself due to the ways of her husband(the storm). She speaks on how it literally destroyed her for awhile, her pain felt as real as the Haitians to me , still no real comparison as far as situational , but the emotion is what I'm more so reaching for. Mid way through the video her mood shifts from destructed to enraged. Here another strong emotion (rage)the feeling that I received while reading about everything that went on in Haiti as well as the feeling a lot of Haitians felt themselves for themselves. First the Haitian community was destroyed by the massive storm that sent there lives into chaos and destruction, a few months pass and that feeling too turned into rage, because of inadequate help and concern. Coming closer towards the ending of the Lemonade video, Beyoncé feelings yet change again(trying to express how she is truly only a human, just as everyone else) as she begins to pick up the pieces that she at one time thought could never be restored. Relaying this back to the last video we watched in class, in that video I feel the Haitians left behind voiceless finally begin to restore the pieces as well, having to live and make work the best way they could with the destructed but still usable resources. To wrap up the Lemonade video Beyoncé goes into a mood of forgiveness and hope, willingness to look for better days ahead. The way I tied this to the Haitians was by simply realizing that they too are human beings, vulnerable at a time of loss, they really had no one to blame or forgive but my point is the other aspect of how , they had to pick themselves up and simply move forward the best way they could.

Learning about the Haitian nation was a great way to close this semester, because it allowed us to dig deep within ourselves and pull out genuine emotions for the people who were effected and forgotten. In no way does the Lemonade video express how much of a tragic loss the people of Haiti faced but it does tie in when you look at it as a cry for help, in which I did. I think Beyoncé's purpose was too open up and show the world the storm she too had to come out of as a women. Proving my point with the Haitian Nation , it seemed society after the storm recognized the citizens as something other the humans with needs and emotions just as you and I. Her cry for help was given a voice just as the cry from the Haitians was given a voice through Fault Lines. Breaking free from silence and restriction, allows one to enter restoration and I feel the Haitians as well as Beyoncé can now begin that restoration process since the storm is over. Life gave them lemons, now they must turn it into Lemonade

https://goo.gl/wV2OEH — with Beyoncé.

Haitian Survivors

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYGm_VUb_ug
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuRb1vimyqY

During this week’s lecture, we have been focused on Fault Lines—a book revealed the dark side of Haiti after earthquake. Among all the issues we have been discussed, female’s problem was the most concerned issue to me. After reading the book, and watching above videos, it is obvious that the situation of women in Haiti after earthquake is marginalized by its vulnerability and invisibility.
    The most serious trouble regarding Haitian females is the increased rate of rape. After earthquake, Haitians are placed mainly in transit camps consist of flimsy tents, which provides a living condition with no secure and protection towards females. Most females are struggling with sufficiency of food and clothing. Since they are not able to gain any finance after earthquake: no job, no salary, no money. More seriously, their possessions are most likely to be stolen by others with the lack of security in their residential area. They cannot stay at home all day just to watch over their properties, but if they left, they might face the great loss of their remains. Hence, the situation just gets worse and worse, until it reaches an impasse.
    Food and clothing are not the primary concerns of Haitian females. The security of their own body was the most important and urgent issue right now. Some Haitian women mentioned that rape is one of the most common crime in their camps, too often so people would not take it seriously. They even indicated that some rape victims might still live in the same camp as the rapists, because they got nowhere else to go to. Most rape victims are young girls, who most likely lost their families during the earthquake. So they have no one to talk to, or there is no one to help them. They even mentioned some young girl cried for help after the disaster, but no one reaches out, so they turned to sell their own body, in exchange for money or food, to survive. Furthermore, the lack of medical treatment was one of the biggest crisis in the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti. Some females would be forced to sleep with people, who are in charge of medicines. Because they have families who urgently need it to survive.
    Life is crucial, but human beings are cruel. All those Haitian females are survivors of the earthquake, but a twist of fate made them victims of daily life. I almost lost hope on life after watching these documentaries, but still, man’s nature at birth is good. Solidarity with those communities of Haitian camps lead people to organize a security group under self-government to provide protection over females and families. Some outstanding females even started women’s group for females to gain a sense of personal power. I found a global website focuses on defending human rights and defeats poverty for everyone, especially small countries like Haiti. It is called “Action Aid”, if you have time and energy or even a little sympathy, please go check on the website and offer a little help to change someone’s life! The following is the link of this website.
http://www.actionaidusa.org/

Voluntourism: Who Stands to Profit?

This last week, we have discussed the implications of globalization and the far-reaching effects of an exploitative, capitalist system.  In the documentary Life and Death, directed by Stephanie Black, elements of Jamaica Kincaid's text, A Small Place are used to contextualize the plight of Jamaican citizens within a larger and corrupt, economic system.  The narrative style of this documentary places emphasis on the tourist as complicit in a system of oppression which serves to perpetuate Western Imperialism.

When one thinks of a tourist, one might picture a person with a camera slung around their neck, feet clad in socks paired with flip flops, wearing a cheesy Hawaiian shirt and bright red sunburn, eager to get to the nearest beach.  However, in recent times, tourism has evolved and seemingly gained a conscious. These days it appears as though everyone has a friend who has recently returned from a so-called 'Third-World' country eager to share stories of their experiences building orphanages and teaching English. White guilt has a new face and it now goes by 'Voluntourism.'


Don't get me wrong, volunteering is a wonderful endeavor and many communities stand to benefit from the hard work of volunteers. I only seek to call into question the corporatization of what is fast-becoming one of the most popular forms of travel for young people.


In an article for NPR, Theresa Higgs, who heads the organization United Planet comments: "What I think often gets lost is the host communities [...] Are they gaining? Are they winning? Are they true partners in this? Or are they simply a means to an end to a student's learning objective, to someone's desire to have fun on vacation and learn something?"

Under the guise of benevolence (*cough cough* paternalism), one might argue that the popularity of Voluntourism works to disguise and perhaps even perpetuate larger systems of oppression.  What are your opinions on the Voluntourism Industry?  In what way might this industry work to damage the very communities it claims to help?

How Can We Shapeshift America?

This week in class we were faced with an exercise where we had to put ourselves in the shoes of the women in Shapeshifters and write encouraging letters to them, hoping to keep heads high and looking forward to the future. Thursday was an experience where I felt confused and unaware of how to go about writing a letter appropriately, but what even defines 'appropriate'? Every situation defines what appropriate means and in my case, writing a letter to La Tonya pushed me to realize that just because I may be uncomfortable addressing her poem, it’s what her poem means to her that matters. That was La T’s sense of agency, that was her way on owning her decisions, life, and sexuality, and it was a form in which she finally had power to control something on her terms. That is how she stood up for herself and that in itself if unbelievably difficult.

Watching A Girl Like Me was difficult. To think that there are mothers going to such lengths to bleach their skin and maybe their children’s skin is heart breaking but who has been there to tell them otherwise? Who has been there to tell them that black is just as beautiful? Recently, thanks to the Dear Black Girl campaign, people have been spreading the word and reminding little black girls of their worth and potential.  I stumbled upon an article in relation to the Dear Black Girl campaign where a women wrote a letter to a black girl. Stephanie, the women who wrote this letter, didn’t necessarily fit into the guidelines of the campaign but decided to comment anyways. (You can read her letter here). Her words were honest, meaningful and encouraging; setting an example to women of all races that every word of encouragement is another step towards helping young black girls to love themselves!

Unfortunately, young black girls are too often described similarly to “broken” neighborhoods, even though they were brought up generation after generation of family members who initially dealt with the discrimination of the housing market. Yet, people assume that families in poverty “put it on themselves” or “aren’t doing anything to fix it”. Gorski stated, “The myth of a “culture of poverty” distracts us from a dangerous culture that does exist – the culture of classism… The most destructive tool of the culture of classism is the deficit theory”. The deficit theory is lethal due to it’s dependency on stereotypes and not taking into account the systematic conditions in which people live in. By ignoring such circumstances and social influences, we do not understand the real and true picture. Thus, leaving families hindered in more ways than one. The need to understand completely and entirely, the history of every situation is crucial. History is the reason why things are the way they are today. Without understanding the history of different topics, we will never truly understand the issues at hand in today’s world.  So, what steps can we take to reverse the entrenchment of whiteness? How can we spread the importance of understanding interstionality when looking at a situation such as this? (Not sure if there is anyway to truly 'reverse' whiteness, but how do you think we can help?

There Goes the Neighborhood!

Lured in by click bait titles, short running time, and quirky video editing, I’ve always turned to Buzzfeed’s videos in my times of need (and by times of needs, I mean when I’m procrastinating really hard.) Recently, I fell into a rabbit hole of videos and came across this one, and I was surprised when it fell quite nicely in line with we have been exposed to so far in class. Most people will happily discuss issues and the intersections of race and gender but often leave out class, a very essential and defining factor in someone’s place in society. America values the bootstrap theory, the myth that class mobility is possible for everyone and that there is nothing holding them back. America is “classless” by nature; however, the reluctance and exclusion of discussion about the socio-economic state of American’s citizens, especially those face with more than one oppression, just perpetuates the vicious cycle of poverty.

As we watched in the documentary “Race the Power of an Illusion: Part II: The House we Live In”, racist housing practices along with white flight and urban migration, also known as white flight into the suburbs, helped to uphold de facto segregation. Many of the housing projects, with the loss of capital, jobs, and reputations, began to deteriorate, and the property values fell. However, in came gentrification! Huzzah! (Not really) As seen in the Buzzfeed video, it’s when usually upper-class white people come into neighborhoods that are viewed as deteriorating with the hopes of reinvesting and renewing the “undesirable” neighborhoods. However, this only benefits those who belong to the upper-class not the residents who already live there. In the video, Kai mentions that his family used to live in his house for $800 a month, but due to the Ellis Law, were kicked out and had it sold for $1.3 million with no benefit to them. The rapidly rising cost of living leaves so many unable to afford or even recognize the neighborhood that was once theirs.

It was very hard for me to understand this assumption of space and belonging under the guise that the new people were trying to make the neighborhood better, not for those already there, but for the new upper-class neighbors. Gentrification is not something natural and necessary, but just the way in which classist and racist systems intersect in order to maximize profit, serving a higher class while alienating the supposed middle class and excluding the lower class fully.

These new residents come in and make assumptions about the people and practices of the neighborhood, and while all are not at fault, there is a sense of privilege and entitlement. They make no efforts to learn the history of the neighborhood, and a whitewashing of the neighborhood begins. These marginalized people have created a community out of their exclusion from society, and yet once again, they have been displaced. As seen in Aimee Meredith Cox’s Shapeshifters, if you devalue the neighborhood, you also devalue the people who live there and easily transfix the descriptions of the neighborhood onto the people who previously lived there. Poverty easily distorts people's visions and expectations of those steeped in it.

Have you seen gentrification in neighborhoods before? Do you feel it is necessary? If you have personally been affected or had a hand in gentrification, what do you think you can do to alert everyone to these practices and possibly better/eliminate them? What other intersections of race and class are not as obvious in society?

Immigrant Minor: Ace Attorney?

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-immigration-toddler-lawyers-videos-snap-html-htmlstory.html

The topic of "illegal immigration" is a heated one in this country. Just looking at a Google News search of "immigration" (the results of which changed almost completely after only a few hours) revealed articles on the current political races, protests defending immigrants, governmental action against immigrants, and more. Texts like The Latino Threat, films like 9500 Liberty, and articles like "Alabama's Shame" point out this passionate debate and, especially in the lattermost example, note the troubles many immigration policies force on immigrants. Such stories are common and, therefore, already directly addressed by the above readings, so the link above leads to a Los Angeles Times story discussing a particular judge's opinion that three-year-olds can adequately defend themselves in immigration court.

I am unashamedly biased on this: no, they cannot; they are three. The aforementioned judge tries to argue that he had taught toddlers immigration law, but, as far as I am aware, gave no evidence to support this rather ridiculous claim besides his word. On the other side sits numerous immigration lawyers who decided to video "trials" of their toddlers to show just how lost children are when faced with the questions and demands of immigration court. Sure, YouTube videos might not have the same kind of credibility as an article in a peer reviewed journal, but they have more than assertions of the capability of three-year-old children in a courtroom.

As The Latino Threat discusses, the general attitude toward Latin American immigrants (and anybody thought to be a Latin American immigrant) is not good; this is a particularly extreme example of it. Some people would deny toddlers legal counsel, something that already is not assured for non-minors in immigration cases. This is, quite frankly, yet another blatant attempt to force Latin Americans out of this country regardless of how it would impact their lives, as well as those of everyone else involved, by targeting the defenseless.

What is your opinion on the idea of toddlers as competent in the courtroom? Is there any case you can think of in which a three-year-old would be able to adequately defend themselves legally?