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stunt_muppet at 11:09pm on 09/10/2010 under unfunnybusiness
stunt_muppet at 11:09pm on 09/10/2010 under unfunnybusiness1. Via ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kayliemalinza (and, in turn, via rubynye ): Chimamanda Adichie, on the danger of a culture's "single story". On the stories that get told and disseminated about non-majority cultures, including African cultures, and why stories exclusively about resistance or suffering are not enough.
2. Viasrevans : You've probably heard, by now, about the five teens that committed suicide because they were bullied for being gay. (Though you may not have heard about four more teens - in one high school alone - who also killed themselves after being bullied.) Dan Savage, radio host and columnist, has started a project called "It Gets Better", which encourages bullied gay teens to keep going, invites well-known gay actors, writers, and public figures to speak about their experiences with discrimination, bullying, and suicidal ideation, and, per the name, encourages teens that life gets better after high school.
But the project isn't perfect. Femmephane outlines ten problems here:
9. There is actually no path to change in this vision. Promoting the illusion that things just “get better,” enables privileged folks to do nothing and just rely on the imaginary mechanics of the American Dream to fix the world. Fuck that. How can you tell kids it gets better without having the guts to say how.
Samia has more to say here:
And can I just say I find it weird that suddenly all these straight/cis liberals are all torn up about LGBTQI suicides? These turn out to be a lot of the same people who regularly make and/or let their friends get away with the stupid "harmless" jokes, disdainful innuendos and judgmental gender policing that make transphobia and homophobia socially acceptable.
I post these links after the link about the single story because I think part of the problem with It Gets Better is that it does rely on the single story, which is an overwhelmingly white, upper-class one that doesn't have that many problems after high school, that has an assumed happy ending. Plus, the first point that femmephane raises, about the wholesale rejection of religiosity and small-town life, again speaks to the danger of placing an entire culture - whether a religious culture, urban, or rural - into a single narrative: it is small, it is inherently bad, there is nothing redeeming about it. Which is not to say that prejudice among religious communities is not a problem, but the solution is not asking someone to cast off their home and the culture they grew up in because it is too broken to be fixed. / $0.02
3. Viaivy_chan and upstart_crow : Something else you might have heard of: Firefighters in South Fulton City, Tennessee, responded to a call from Gene Cranick, bringing all their fire equipment - and then doused his neighbors' houses to prevent the fire from spreading, while standing and watching as his mobile home - containing everything he had, plus his three dogs and cat - burned to the ground. The reason? He forgot to pay a $75.00 fee.
A PayPal account has been set up to help to aid Mr. Cranick; details on how you can contribute are here.
4. Also viaivy_chan : Pony Black, a woman in Olympia, Washington, was charged with public combat and obstructing an officer after police broke up her fight with another woman. The police in question also slammed her head into the pavement and refused her medical attention when she went to complain (TRIGGER WARNING for physical assault).
Her arraignment has already passed, but there's been no sentence that I can check.
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Going to reply to comments, promise promise. I've just been spending most of my time doing laundry.
kayliemalinza (and, in turn, via rubynye ): Chimamanda Adichie, on the danger of a culture's "single story". On the stories that get told and disseminated about non-majority cultures, including African cultures, and why stories exclusively about resistance or suffering are not enough.2. Via
srevans : You've probably heard, by now, about the five teens that committed suicide because they were bullied for being gay. (Though you may not have heard about four more teens - in one high school alone - who also killed themselves after being bullied.) Dan Savage, radio host and columnist, has started a project called "It Gets Better", which encourages bullied gay teens to keep going, invites well-known gay actors, writers, and public figures to speak about their experiences with discrimination, bullying, and suicidal ideation, and, per the name, encourages teens that life gets better after high school.But the project isn't perfect. Femmephane outlines ten problems here:
9. There is actually no path to change in this vision. Promoting the illusion that things just “get better,” enables privileged folks to do nothing and just rely on the imaginary mechanics of the American Dream to fix the world. Fuck that. How can you tell kids it gets better without having the guts to say how.
Samia has more to say here:
And can I just say I find it weird that suddenly all these straight/cis liberals are all torn up about LGBTQI suicides? These turn out to be a lot of the same people who regularly make and/or let their friends get away with the stupid "harmless" jokes, disdainful innuendos and judgmental gender policing that make transphobia and homophobia socially acceptable.
I post these links after the link about the single story because I think part of the problem with It Gets Better is that it does rely on the single story, which is an overwhelmingly white, upper-class one that doesn't have that many problems after high school, that has an assumed happy ending. Plus, the first point that femmephane raises, about the wholesale rejection of religiosity and small-town life, again speaks to the danger of placing an entire culture - whether a religious culture, urban, or rural - into a single narrative: it is small, it is inherently bad, there is nothing redeeming about it. Which is not to say that prejudice among religious communities is not a problem, but the solution is not asking someone to cast off their home and the culture they grew up in because it is too broken to be fixed. / $0.02
3. Via
ivy_chan and upstart_crow : Something else you might have heard of: Firefighters in South Fulton City, Tennessee, responded to a call from Gene Cranick, bringing all their fire equipment - and then doused his neighbors' houses to prevent the fire from spreading, while standing and watching as his mobile home - containing everything he had, plus his three dogs and cat - burned to the ground. The reason? He forgot to pay a $75.00 fee.A PayPal account has been set up to help to aid Mr. Cranick; details on how you can contribute are here.
4. Also via
ivy_chan : Pony Black, a woman in Olympia, Washington, was charged with public combat and obstructing an officer after police broke up her fight with another woman. The police in question also slammed her head into the pavement and refused her medical attention when she went to complain (TRIGGER WARNING for physical assault).Her arraignment has already passed, but there's been no sentence that I can check.
---
Going to reply to comments, promise promise. I've just been spending most of my time doing laundry.
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