The Train is Entering The Station

It's hard to believe this is the last blog post I will ever have to write in my high school career. It seems like just a couple months ago I was starting school as a reluctant and terrified freshman, and now here I am, a senior, a legal adult, and about to graduate in 17 days. My last year of high school has been marked with some of the most exciting and fulfilling moments of my life so far, but it also brought some of the greatest sadness I have ever known. After being rejected from nearly every school I applied to and having to settle for a school that went against everything I had said I’d wanted, I slipped into a state of being unlike any I’d experienced before. In order to stop myself from dealing with the incredibly intense amount of self doubt and sadness I was feeling, I simply shut off. I stopped caring about things, and what had made me happy before began to only feel like nuisances. Since then I have managed to come out this state, but the most frightening part of the experience was that my overwhelming feeling during it was not sadness but rather apathy. Instead of being actively upset, I just stopped feeling anything.

So, what does this have to do with my blog? Well, as it is probably quite clear, I have devoted the last nine or so months to discussing social movements and the points at which change can occur. It has taken me 18 years to realize that change, of any kind, will be good in the end, and I truly believe that all things happen for a reason. Or more so, I believe there is something to be learned from from everything that happens in life. But that learning process takes time and effort, and if someone has fallen to the point of pure indifference, there can be nothing they’ll take away and no possibility of alteration. After experiencing what I did, it has become clear to me that apathy is the enemy of movement. Anger and sadness are driving forces, they cause people to do things, even if they are negative. But apathy? No, apathy doesn’t make anyone do anything.  

In order for the world to continue progressing we need people who are willing to feel something. If no one cares then nothing will get done, and society will be stuck in a never ending loop of intolerance. I urge everyone to fight whatever makes them feel apathetic, indifferent, or lethargic and to raises their voices against the injustices of the world. The people and communities I have written about in this blog, from trans youth, to pregnant women, needs people to speak for them and carry on in their battle. Even if you’re fighting against them, at least you’re fighting for something, and no one can fault you for the effort it takes to have an opinion.

Finally, I leave everyone who happens upon this blog with some of the things I have always found inspiring and exciting. Perhaps they will be enough to make someone stand up, and stand firm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOV7RyHjl5c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6wJl37N9C0  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnKZ4pdSU-s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_yBGQqg7kM

Back to Basics

Today I am going to try something a little different. Rather than talking about a current social movement, I thought I would start at the foundation and analyze what a social movement really is by discussing a TED talk I found called "Social Movements- a primer"  by Toby Chow.

This TED talk was very interesting, and it made me question a lot of what I have been writing about here on this blog. It was a little intimidating actually, because I began to doubt the content of which my blog is based off of. I felt as though for the past however many weeks, I hadn’t actually been writing about social movements, but rather things that resemble social movements.

The speaker starts out his talk by touching on this subject. He pulls up this poster

 

and states that the definition of movement needs some brushing up. Chow feels as though too many people are misusing movement and don’t actually know what it means. Often people use the word to describe things which resemble movements but can not actually be defined as one, such as the unity “movement”.  

Now, I’ll be honest. I watched this whole talk and was still a little bit confused about what it means to really be a movement, rather than just have the elements of one. To be fair though, I was watching the video while wearing an incredibly itchy wig and the sounds of someone singing about groundhogs blasting through the speakers under the stage. Nevertheless, I believe the speaker articulated that the most basic and necessary element of a social movement was the process of the oppressed turning around and banding together to face their aggressor. He used this image to demonstrate the type of relationship he referenced.

   

I think the hardest part of this talk for me to grasp was the so what. Why does it matter that some people are confusing the difference between movement and faux movement? Even after watching the video in its entirety I am still unclear on this question. I understand where the speaker is coming from in terms of the radio station ad, that is a very obvious butchering of the word. But it seems to me, that if someone is taking the time to start a “movement” in the first place then something must be wrong. Some injustice must have occurred. I believe this unrest should be honored and discussed rather than being shut down as not really a movement, just something that resembles one.

Green Up Our World

What does it mean to go green? Is it simply recycling and carpooling to work, or is it something more than that? In recent years there has been a greater push from scientists and the environmentally minded to address the issue of climate change and face it head on. I remember when I was a kid channels like the Disney Channel would run commercials asking everyone to take shorter showers and drink from fewer plastic bottles. Whether or not they still do that I do not know, but as a little kid I was really moved by those ads and wanted to help the earth as mush as I could. However, during my adolescence I felt the charge to save the planet die down. I didn't know what happened, but looking back I believe it was because I became more involved in school and social activities. This I feel is a universal truth, as soon as someone begins to move deeper in to activities, they withdraw from the outside world and focus on how those extracurriculars dominate their life. In essence, people become selfish and stop thinking of anything other than themselves and how busy they are. 

But not all hope is lost, I promise. I felt this trend start to come full circle, and people are once again looking outward rather than inward. More of the population is starting to address and accept, because there and continue to be a lot of skeptics, climate change as the reality of our world. This is the movement that needs to keep growing, we can't go back to the way things were. We as a people must stand together and help save the world if we can ever hope for a better and cleaner future. 

This earth day, Wednesday April 22, please consider doing something nice for the planet. Bring a couple of friends along too, I promise you wont regret it.  

Rolling Black Outs Sweeping The Nation

I waste a good amount of time on tumblr. It really can't even be dignified with a "spend", the reality is that a great deal of the things on the website are honestly just a waste of time. Case in point the picture I saw this morning of a dog seemingly standing on water with the caption "the lord is my Shepherd" However, for as much stupidity as there is on tumblr, there is also a great deal of social discussion which, most likely, could not exist to the same extent on any other forum. One of the best examples of this was the recent "black out". To briefly explain, the day was devoted towards giving representation to black men, women, and everyone in between. The event was founded on the heels of the growing criticism towards modern media, which typically only shows attractive white people. This black out was a way of giving faces and voices to those who have gone without seeing people who look like them on tv, in movies, really in almost any sector of the entertainment industry.

People participated by posting pictures of themselves to any social media outlet they favored, but I saw the majority on tumblr. Overall the day was a great success, but there were some who tried to dampen the event's effectiveness. White champions of "equality" called out against the black out day and cheered on a white out day instead. These are the same people that change things like #blacklivesmatter to #alllivesmatter.

The most frustrating part about people like this is how oblivious they seem to be about the reality happening all around the globe. Yes, of course all lives matter, but that's not the point. The point is that for many people, and not just black people, anyone who isn't white has probably felt this too, they have not been given the opportunity to understand that their lives matter. In the same way that a little girl may look at a poster of US presidents and feel like she could never achieve their position, a person of color simply has to turn on a tv to feel as though they do not belong in the artificial world created by media sources. This is why things like black out days are so important. They enable the minority to feel represented and to feel like they matter. Obviously one day isn't going to solve racism, but it's a step in a powerful direction. The movement has been put in place, it's rolling, but it is going to need a serious push if this stone can ever hope to evade all the moss coming its way.

Oo Girl, You've Got She-Mail

As I have mentioned before, I am a big fan of RuPaul’s Drag Race. I think it is a phenomenal show and has helped rocket forward the acceptance of drag as an art form, but, like most things in life, it is not without fault. During season 6 (season 7 started on Monday and I could barely contain my excitement) the show came under serious heat from the trans community for presenting a mini challenge called “Female or She-male”. I tried to find a video of this segment, but to no avail, I am assuming all traces of it were removed from the internet after it caused so much controversy. To give a brief explanation of the challenge, the contestants were shown close-up photos celebrity body parts and had to guess if they belonged to a biological female or someone who identifies as female (she-male). After the episode aired there was enormous outcry from people who identify as transgender and found the segment insulting. In reaction to this, the channel the show is aired on, Logo, the self proclaimed gay network, banned all uses of the term she-male. However, this caused further controversy because, for as long as I’ve been watching the show at least, within the first few minutes of every episode RuPaul pops up on screen and delivers a video message to the remaining contestants with the phrase “Oo girl you’ve got she-mail” (click here for a soundbite).

Many have gone back and forth on whether this part of the show should have been cut, and it is interesting to hear people’s differing opinions. I’ve watched a few videos online of people expressing how they felt about the words ban and the two most interesting ones to me were this one, which is from the point of view of a transgender woman, and this one, which is from the point of view of a gay man. The woman in the first video said she found the challenge and use of the term she-male personally offensive, but had no qualms with the phrase she-mail. She admitted she actually enjoyed the play on words and thought it a fun joke. The man in the second video echoed the woman’s view that she-mail rather than she-male was a complex use of satire, rather than a direct attack on someone’s identity. He also raised an interesting point about what it means to reclaim a word and destroy it’s power to cause harm. To quote the video, “In the gay community it’s the F word, and in the black community it’s the N word, and in the trans community I personally don’t know”. This led me to question if she-mail could be the word the trans community takes back. It certainly seems like they are taking the necessary steps to do so, but I am curious to see how far this movement can actually go. Furthermore, I’m not so sure this is the word that causes the biggest impact. If indeed it is the intention of the trans community to take back a word, it seems to me like the T word would back a bigger punch. However, that being said, I am simply glad that there has been movement of any kind towards greater trans inclusion and I hope to see even more in the future.

Dude This is so Gay

This is a topic that frustrates me to no end. So often I hear people, especially teenage boys, refer to things as gay. I can't count how many times I have been walking through the hallways of my high school and heard "Ugh man that test was so gay" or "God these shorts are so gay, I hate them". Really? Was that test you just took a man who is physically attracted to men? Do your shorts want to be in a relationship with someone of the same sex? No? Well then stop calling them gay! I honestly find it utterly baffling why things are even described as gay. Unless you are describing the sexual orientation of someone who is actually gay there is no need to ever use the word in casual conversation.

Really the only thing the mutilation of the word gay shows is how engrained homophobia is in modern society. People calls things gay in a negative way, as if the worst insult you could give someone or something would be to say they like people of the same sex. To use a phrase that describes an unchangeable trait a person has no choice in inhabiting as a derogatory insult, is terribly upsetting. Especially when people who belong to the LGBTQIAP community use the term themselves to degrade or downplay someone of something. They are literally using a word that describes their own people to inflict pain or discomfort. How are they ever supposed to accept themselves if our language refuses to accept them? What an uncomfortable environment to exist in; to know that at any point someone, even someone you thought identified with you, could hurl a term across the room that simultaneously pinpoints a key part of your being and tears it to shreds.

Hopefully, with a little effort, we can move towards ending the awful misuse of the word gay. We can all do something small and stop the proliferation of the term in tracks by letting people know when they have used it derogatorily or incorrectly. Yes, you might get some frustrated looks. But is that really such a hard price to pay for a better, more accepting future?  

Meninism is For Real

Recently, a new, and incredibly stupid, social movement has cropped up all over the Internet. These new marauders of social justice are fighting for the obviously “lacking” rights of men, and they call themselves meninists. I’m not sure what exactly has sparked this development, but perhaps it is because there has been a greater push in the last couple of years to break down the stereotypes surrounding female behavior. It is becoming more “socially acceptable” to be a feminist, or at least more people in the public eye are coming out of the closet, so to speak, and labeling themselves as feminists. Obviously this is a problem for any self respecting man, because clearly in order for a woman to be secure in herself and self reliant would mean she will have to stop believing that men are superior, and we just can’t have that now can we? It is simply unacceptable to allow a woman to see herself as anything more than an object for men to posses. These meninists have therefore selflessly taken it into their own hands to cure these blasted women of the silly idea that they can be their own person.

I promise I’m not actively trying to attack the idea of meninism, but it is hard because the whole concept is just so horribly mistaken. These men, and women too I suppose, although I have yet to see a woman supporting meninism, have taken the idea of feminism and mutilated what it actually stands for. A feminist is someone who believes in the complete and utter equality of all genders, that includes trans and non binary persons as well. People who believe in feminism are not trying to strip men of their rights or force a matriarchy on society, as I have seen some feminist haters argue. They are simply striving for equal opportunity for everyone and seek to break down the negative stereotypes surrounding femininity that hurt both men and women alike. What it boils down to, is that meninism is for people who honestly just don’t know what feminism really is and have not made the effort to become informed.  

For anyone interested in learning more about the need for and power of feminism, I encourage you to watch Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED Talk “We should all be feminists”. I promise it is worth the 30 minutes. But don’t read the comments, they may make you want to hit something out of sheer frustration.