Last Blog Post 11: Teens Talk Back

Lost Count: A Love Story

This is a spoken word piece written by two young adults "teens" raising awareness on the critical issues that are mis/not represented throughout all dominant institutions. The issue of black youth and their frequent encounter with death. In main stream media the stories that are portrayed never cover stories on black youth and their individual experiences. We never see or hear about young black youth and their contact with daily murderous encounters and the fear of being a target of police violence. The only portrayal of black youth is only of "criminal activity" and negative representations that perpetuate racial stereotypes to maintain this violent western culture. These young men "teens"stand up against the murderous systems that play a part in these young black deaths and they expose the system by giving a voice and identity by naming the victims that were murdered due to these forms of violence. Violence be it black on black violence or police violence against black youth. They call for remembrance, the reality of black suffrage among young adults, and representation of these young individuals in a positive light so that we do not leave their stories untold.

Ambiguous: Classification & Identity


These two beautiful human beings (teens in reference to western context) speak in opposition to racial identity. They want to make it clear that these questions that they are asked on a daily basis are only used as a means to satisfy the questioner, a need for this person to connect dots to their phenotypical characteristics. Therefore whatever is lingering beyond that they can therefore understand where they come from what their heritage is, this can also determine how that person or institution will treat them based on racial identification which leads to oppressive practices through classification. They talk about the need to look beyond that because they are not alien life forms they are human beings. Human beings with substance made with brilliance, creativity, and depth below the surface of their "race,gender, class" that you so desperately need to place them into what YOU HAVE LEARNED from the western culture. These connections that have you so desperately judging by skin color and what goes with what has you blinded to the true person that they are.

EVENT MONDAY NIGHT.

SPOKEN WORD EVENT HOSTED BY FEM U ROOM 307 IN SU @ 7pm COME READ SOME POETRY AND EAT FOOD.

"Glee" Episodes: Post 10- Reflection

REFLECTION:Write about your personal connections to this text.  What does it make you think about?  How does it relate to you? Be sure to draw directly from the text so that the author’s themes and issues are clear.

These Glee episodes covered so much of the material that we have had the opportunity to learn over the spring semester. Homophobia, masculinity, femininity, bullying, stereotypes, gender roles, and identity issues can be seen in all three of these Glee episodes. I can relate to "Kurt" "Never Been Kissed" when he was getting bullied on by a Jock who secretly had a crush on him and I could definitely relate all of the emotional issues that he had faced. It does put fear and worry into your mind, yes I was once a high school student I had to deal with bullying as a "teenager" I would get followed home everyday and called names from these girls that lived right down the street from me. They would threaten me and call me ugly constantly, I never reacted in those instances but yes it did cause some emotional strife. Rachel in the first episode I watched "Pilot", when she was being cyber bullied online, when the cheerleading squad had wrote nasty messages on her video of her singing "Please get sterilized" and If I were your parents I would sell you back". I got all of that and in certain instances I still have to deal with some forms of bullying at the age of 24. These instances reminded me of you "stereotypical mean girls" that everyone encounters in high school, it seemed as if instead of getting to know you, and who you are as a person, but they would rather feed off of the disliking you without even knowing you. 

I could relate to the "teenage roles" "high school stereotypes" that were brought up throughout all three episodes. For example, acne factories, jocks, cheerleaders, nerds, choir students, popular, and the unpopular stereotypes. Its so funny to think that this is all a societal construct that dominant ideologies shaped and configured the teenager and I actually fell victim to these roles. I did like the fact that they represented a range of people instead of just your typical heterosexual fit, "ideal" beauties, perfect able-bodied actors and actresses. For example, in "FURT" they represented older aged women, Noah helping Artie move around school in his wheel chair. It shows that all people all shapes, colors, and sizes should be represented and goes against the dominant representation we normally see on mainstream TV. 

Post 9: Tricia Rose, Author of The Hip Hop Wars and Video Hip Hop Wars (excerpt)

• QUOTES:  Choose three quotes from the text and explain what they mean and their relevance to the text.

Quote 1:

“There traditions create possibility, and open up exchange, but thats not all thats going on in that era, its also a profoundly destructive period for black america...But its also about expressing an awful lot of pain, an awful lot of anger, and an awful lot just on the borderline of what Cornell West would call Nihilism, right, this borderline of I might not quite not make it but its really awfully close” (Ted.Brown.Rose).

Patricia Rose describes how Hip-Hop is a gateway for possibilities for resistance against anti-blackness and radical categorizations of bodies. A system of resistance that seeks to create consciousness from the every day living circumstances of the inferior beings that is brought upon them by these current political structures and white supremacist modern day slave institutions. She says that through these creative acts of resistance the oppressed beings can find a sense of hope even if it is a very minute amount, we can still hang on to the possibility of true freedom because true freedom has never existed, rather than believe what white history has told us, you know the whole idea that slavery and racism is a thing of the past. Hip-Hop is a gateway to raise the reality of things that are still occurring.

Quote 2: 

“There's a long history of a particular pleasure in consuming the ideas of black-ghetto-excess dysfunction. It used to not be ghettoized in setting because black people weren't always urban people, but the same images can be found in American history for centuries. So this idea that a certain kind of sexual deviance or violent behavior defines black culture has had a huge market in commercial mainstream culture for at least 200 years. Also, sexist images, which hip-hop has a lot of, seem to do very well across the cultural spectrum. So sexuality and sexual domination sell. Racial stereotypes sell. The market is more consolidated, which makes it easier for those images to perpetuate themselves” (Rose).

These degrading “ideas” that are created, in this case “ideas of black-ghetto-excess dysfunction” are instilled and naturalized by the white rule. They are psychologically embedded and engrained in the subconscious via the media, history books, and mainstream hip-hop heard on the radio so on and so forth. Inevitably, these degrading practices are beset upon the black being without their “conscious” consent, if you are being fed what the white master wants to feed you, you will be brainwashed to believe that this is what black culture and black life is supposed to be like. You have no fugitive thoughts of, “could there be something outside of what I have been raised my whole life to believe, its more than a hard pill to swallow”. Remember that those who hold the majority of wealth feed those who have nothing what they want us to believe to keep us oppressed and to keep us inferior. We start to think that this is what it is, this is are culture when this is actually false. Therefore we buy what we believe is our everyday life sustaining and maintaining our own oppression while the white dominant remains free to do his job without guilt.

Quote 3: 

“Definitely. The critics are a little bit more wrong than the defenders. But overall, both arguments have enormous flaws. The defenders are the most wrong about gender and sexism, and the haters are most wrong about issues of violence and culture. I'm very upset about both sides in this war, and I think the only way out is for the rest of us on the sidelines to get involved with an educated, sophisticated position. You have to be subtle, not extreme, in thinking about what's right and what's wrong when it comes to hip-hop” (Rose).

The defenders in this case (Jay-Z, 50 Cent) are less wrong because they know that they are dumbing down their music to gain profit of of their people, I think Rose is saying it doesn't make it right by any means. In all honesty I believe these main-stream rap artists must live in denial or utter despair in silence knowing what is happening to their people and not being able to express it due to their white-washed greed. I also believe that “the haters” (Mos Def, Common etc..) are in denial about our culture and how the white dominant controls what sells and what doesn't through coercion and gratuitous violence upon the black community via the type of music that perpetuates black stereotypes. 

Tough Guise/BoyCode/Masculinity: Kimmel Post:8

REFLECTION: Write about your personal connections to this text.  What does it make you think about?  How does it relate to you? Be sure to draw directly from the text so that the author’s themes and issues are clear.

Having political debates and psychological commentary really missed the mark or are they purposely missing the mark? I think that is one of the most important questions we should ask? Or in all honestly are they even conscious of gender construction and how masculinity and femininity as a social construction playing a major role in these very violent murderous events that are occurring? I mean shootings of black bodies are occurring every single day in black communities and these get no publicity its like a certain fetish this country has with guns, violence, gender, femininity, and masculinity the whole idea of white boys is just a piece of this "the mark" we are missing the whole issue in general! Violence, masculinity, whiteness, control and power over bodies is all you see its normative or accepted even if you want to believe it or not and that is just sickening to me. Anyways I went off on a tangent.... Kimmel makes a very good point in regards to this whole concept of masculinity... gender construction for males and females starts at a young age....

MALES (MASCULINITY): strong, tough, fighters, unemotional, protectors, boys don't cry, muscular, athletic, NOT GAY.  These are just some of the typing that goes into the raising of a male in our culture as a masculine being, this occurs through gender typing that can be formed through the media, education, parenting, environmental factors. It is amazing to me that most people get brainwashed into believing that it is the easy access to guns, the psychological mental health issues, and media itself that causes these violent spastic school shootings. It is the very construction of male as masculine conceptualizations and these can be extremely damaging to not only the males themselves but to everyone in their environments as we have seen in the increasing shootings around the country. Kimmel is definitely getting somewhere with this. When a male does not conform to these typical masculine roles he is therefore considered anything but MASCULINE, so he could be called gay, sissy, weak, scared, or sensitive and this builds up and causes psychological effects and builds up within them . I mean at some point these males get sick and tired of this whole idea of not fitting in or being bullied and picked on they BLOW! and instead of focusing on the main issue our society like to blame a numerous amount of issues instead of the MAIN IMPORTANT ONES. Gender construction and typing.... This topic is very personal to me because I have nephews and I want them to be raised without these expectations of their "boy hood" and I also am worried that it may be out of my hands that they will still be expected to act and hold up to these standards causing psychological damage upon themselves unknowingly. However, I will do my best.

PATRIARCHY HURTS EVERYONE

I'm a barbie girl in a barbie world.

WHY CANT AMERICA DO THESE THINGS HA. WISHFUL THINKING I SUPPOSE

This is a Scottish anti-rape PSA that is a direct response to blaming a rape victim for dressing like a slut.