Today I came home from work to find LA polo's board breakdown crew sprawled out in the living room watching 'The Deadliest Warrior' on Netflix. The show really disturbed me, and as I watched I started teasing out exactly what I so disliked about it. List time!
-Glorification of violence and brutality.
-The disembodying of the violence from the very real men and women it was carried out on historically.
-How much the above ties into our current tolerance of the bloated military industrial complex in this country.
-Also, such a boys club. Only Manly Men can know anything about guns, amirite?
-Also, the historical inaccuracy of it all- we were watching the Waffen SS vs the Viet Cong. Those two groups went to war at very different times in history, under very different circumstances. Had the two actually engaged, it would have been under very different terms than either of them engaged the American army on.
-Oh hey, a woman! ...oh she's just a whore. Right. Whore with a gun, poor persecuted menz, being tricked by the evil women they sleep with.
-So much posturing and bullshit. Blegh.
-Oh, and those Vietnamese are just so weird, right? Like, totally backwards junglemen. And the Waffen SS's Aryan-only requirements, were just, y'know, what it takes to get the best of the best.
In summary: Explosions? Cool. Blood and guts? Cool. Both those things in the explicit context of separating them from any notion of accuracy and, more importantly, human empathy? So very not cool.
On a lighter note, I'm pretty sure that my annual NaNoWriMo attempt will actually be a NaNoBlogMo, hopefully I'll break the 5,000 word wall I seem to hit each year that way. I have over a dozen unfinished posts already, I'd like to go through and actually tease out all those ideas floating around in my head and wasting brain-RAM. To 50,000 words!
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Editing is hard
I spent ages and ages on this video, and when I compiled it into a .wma file, all the precision timing was lost. but it's still awesome and worth watching for the lulz.
It seriously bummed me out to see that I'd have to go back and redo everything to fully realize the video in my head after months of working on this intermittently, amounting to several hours of my life for a one minute video using someone else's footage and someone else's music. I have even more respect for editors now.
And if that didn't cheer you up, here's my new favorite song:
And if that didn't cheer you up, here's my new favorite song:
Cut from "Burning Low" in the fourth season of Adventure Time.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Just Your Average Othering
So this it what I saw when I opened my Yahoo email today:
Leaving writing about the actual tragedy that occurred to those with more knowledge and authority than I, I'd like to focus on the conjunction of this headline and image. Maybe I wouldn't have noticed if the two hadn't been so close together, but the coverage of the Aurora shooting was always accompanied by photos of Holmes or photos of the aftermath- victims crying, police arriving, etc. Why would they choose to use a (seemingly*) random shot of Sikhs in prayer? This photo only serves to Other the Sikh community, as if their appearance is so novel that even as victims they must be shown, displayed in their day to day environment instead of in a sympathetic portrayal based on a common humanity.
I also worry about the connotations of this photo in connection with the headline. Of course, we know the phrase 'holy war' is a loaded one, most commonly associated with 9/11 and its subsequent Islamophobia. Which, by the way, is the reason this temple had been targeted by extremists in the past. So why place the two together? It's a valid news item, to see that a white extremist uses the same language as the heavily vilified non-white extremists, but this photo doesn't help subvert any norms, especially when the public is used to seeing the killer's face next to the sensationalist pieces about him.
*I can't find any citation for this photo, as it is not in the article once you click through. Even if it is a photo of members of the targeted temple, it's a poor choice compared to the candlelit vigil, etc. that are on the other thumbnails related to this event.
 |
| [photo shows Sikh men in prayer, headline reads "Temple gunman was on feds' radar, warned friend of 'racial holy war'"] |
I also worry about the connotations of this photo in connection with the headline. Of course, we know the phrase 'holy war' is a loaded one, most commonly associated with 9/11 and its subsequent Islamophobia. Which, by the way, is the reason this temple had been targeted by extremists in the past. So why place the two together? It's a valid news item, to see that a white extremist uses the same language as the heavily vilified non-white extremists, but this photo doesn't help subvert any norms, especially when the public is used to seeing the killer's face next to the sensationalist pieces about him.
*I can't find any citation for this photo, as it is not in the article once you click through. Even if it is a photo of members of the targeted temple, it's a poor choice compared to the candlelit vigil, etc. that are on the other thumbnails related to this event.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
So apparently Santa Cruz
is a bastion of pretty redheads.
...fuck me.
This is now the fifth city I've been to in the last two weeks. If I wasn't so attached to LA, I wouldn't want to go home at all. But this trip has also been filled with plenty of angst and drama (lost bags, broken bikes... booo!) so I'm looking forward to being back to the usual routine. I have a feeling I'll be back on the road pretty soon though- Seattle and Portland have me fairly motivated, and maybe I'll even find my way back to the Midwest. I'm hoping to write up a few more ideas that are hanging out at the back of my head too. Tentative increase in productivity, woo!
...fuck me.
This is now the fifth city I've been to in the last two weeks. If I wasn't so attached to LA, I wouldn't want to go home at all. But this trip has also been filled with plenty of angst and drama (lost bags, broken bikes... booo!) so I'm looking forward to being back to the usual routine. I have a feeling I'll be back on the road pretty soon though- Seattle and Portland have me fairly motivated, and maybe I'll even find my way back to the Midwest. I'm hoping to write up a few more ideas that are hanging out at the back of my head too. Tentative increase in productivity, woo!
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Learning Social Justice Part 1- Being Raised Feminist
For a few weeks, I've been planning a series exploring how I came to my current state of awareness on social issues. So far I have around 8 installments planned, and I intend to add on to that as I continue to learn and grow on new topics.
For me, feminism had no discernible starting point. I was raised by an overwhelmingly female and at least feminist-leaning, if not overtly feminist, family. My maternal grandmother was a doctor at a time when such a thing was still quite rare, and (I get the impression) she raised her son and three daughters in a more egalitarian than usual household. By the time I came around, that son had married a feminist, and the two other daughters remained unmarried until I was a bit older. My parents are also both physicians, and all of those aunts freely pursued their careers of choice, to great success. This meant that my earliest years saw very little gendered discrimination, because no one in my family was inclined to say, "You can't be an astronaut, that's what boys do." The only inequality I noticed in my two-years-younger brother's treatment and mine stemmed from our age differences. It wasn't until my tomboy sister came along that I noticed any sort of gender policing behavior, and the extent of that was really that she was forced to wear dresses to very formal events. While there was plenty of complaining about it, she was regularly allowed to wear only our brother's hand me downs and never mine (unless they went to him first, but she didn't need to know I owned them originally). The majority of our conflicts with our parents stemmed from (our own) violence and tendencies towards mayhem, not the failure to perform gender exactly which I so often hear feminists, particularly those of an older generation, reporting.
I'm not sure how they did it, but my family did manage to instill a bit critical thinking in me from a very young age. I strongly preferred the proactive Ariel to any of the other Disney princesses, until Pocahontas entered the picture, and I remember pondering the fact that every princess has a prince to save her. I genuinely liked pink, but I hated pinkification- I was very upset at my seventh or eighth birthday party, because it was Pocahontas themed, yet every single plate and napkin was pink. That was not how the movie's color scheme went.
Another big influence was the street I grew up on- for the first seven years of my life, my family lived on that idyllic suburban street where all the kids play in the street until dinnertime. Our neighbors were a diverse set of people, and it didn't occur to me until much later in life how problematic some would have found them. While there were a few instances of bigoted perspectives (there was speculation our Mexican neighbor was a drug dealer, our gay neighbors were 'roommates' until years later), we kids were just taught to treat everyone in the neighborhood with respect. I think this is pretty demonstrative of how bigotry becomes reduced through the generations- as one generation learns to only whisper prejudices behind closed doors, their children don't ever learn to even whisper them. Of course, there are plenty of other coded and overt bigotries that are still perpetuated every day, but I like to be optimistic that our country is getting somewhere, however slowly.
Up next: Early Instances of Dissonance
For me, feminism had no discernible starting point. I was raised by an overwhelmingly female and at least feminist-leaning, if not overtly feminist, family. My maternal grandmother was a doctor at a time when such a thing was still quite rare, and (I get the impression) she raised her son and three daughters in a more egalitarian than usual household. By the time I came around, that son had married a feminist, and the two other daughters remained unmarried until I was a bit older. My parents are also both physicians, and all of those aunts freely pursued their careers of choice, to great success. This meant that my earliest years saw very little gendered discrimination, because no one in my family was inclined to say, "You can't be an astronaut, that's what boys do." The only inequality I noticed in my two-years-younger brother's treatment and mine stemmed from our age differences. It wasn't until my tomboy sister came along that I noticed any sort of gender policing behavior, and the extent of that was really that she was forced to wear dresses to very formal events. While there was plenty of complaining about it, she was regularly allowed to wear only our brother's hand me downs and never mine (unless they went to him first, but she didn't need to know I owned them originally). The majority of our conflicts with our parents stemmed from (our own) violence and tendencies towards mayhem, not the failure to perform gender exactly which I so often hear feminists, particularly those of an older generation, reporting.
I'm not sure how they did it, but my family did manage to instill a bit critical thinking in me from a very young age. I strongly preferred the proactive Ariel to any of the other Disney princesses, until Pocahontas entered the picture, and I remember pondering the fact that every princess has a prince to save her. I genuinely liked pink, but I hated pinkification- I was very upset at my seventh or eighth birthday party, because it was Pocahontas themed, yet every single plate and napkin was pink. That was not how the movie's color scheme went.
Another big influence was the street I grew up on- for the first seven years of my life, my family lived on that idyllic suburban street where all the kids play in the street until dinnertime. Our neighbors were a diverse set of people, and it didn't occur to me until much later in life how problematic some would have found them. While there were a few instances of bigoted perspectives (there was speculation our Mexican neighbor was a drug dealer, our gay neighbors were 'roommates' until years later), we kids were just taught to treat everyone in the neighborhood with respect. I think this is pretty demonstrative of how bigotry becomes reduced through the generations- as one generation learns to only whisper prejudices behind closed doors, their children don't ever learn to even whisper them. Of course, there are plenty of other coded and overt bigotries that are still perpetuated every day, but I like to be optimistic that our country is getting somewhere, however slowly.
Up next: Early Instances of Dissonance
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Women and Midnight Ridazz
Following the discussion of the Westside Mosey incident (The FB discussion has been removed), I decided to try and begin to address the issue of sexual harassment and other related inappropriate behaviors on rides and/or between Ridazz. I am now collecting data and ideas to be put forth at the next Ridazz Summit. I'd like as many people as possible to fill out the following form, so that we can a) jumpstart this conversation and b) compile the data to create solutions to this problem. If you'd like, you can email it directly to me at sarah (dot) danya (at) gmail (dot) com. I promise to maintain complete confidentiality for those who request it.
ETA: I'd like to stress that responding for the sake of being counted, even if you don't want your story quoted or you name used, is a legitimate and useful thing to do. I plan to report the number of respondents I get as well as the number and type of incidents they report. It is possible to post anonymously on this blog, so it's not attached to a user name, or you can email me with from throwaway email account.
Name: (Anon is acceptable)
Name of Harrasser: (Unknown, Anon, and Changed names are all acceptable answers)
Approximate Time and Place of Incident:
Description of Incident:
Did you attempt to confront your harasser? Why or why not?
-If yes, what was your harasser's reaction? How did that reaction affect you?
Did you report this to other Ridazz? What circumstances made that possible, if yes, or would make that possible, if no?
-If yes, how did these Ridazz respond? Did you feel their reactions were sufficient given the circumstances?
Can I quote your responses at the Summit and/or in future writings?
-If you chose to use real names, would you like me to alter them or anonymize them in quotations?
And I'll get this started with one of my own, the very first one, and the worst. Believe me, I could report a dozen incidents off the top of my head, and it'd probably be way more (50+) if I had attempted to actually record instances of being made to feel uncomfortable as they happened, instead of just trying to forget about them.
Name: Danya
Name of Harrasser: Anonymous
Approximate Time and Place of Incident: LACM, July 2008
Description of Incident: After drinking on a ride for the first time (it was maybe the 10th ride I'd been on, the first where someone offered my underaged self liquor), I was convinced to accept a ride back to the valley with a few of the other Ridazz I had recently met. The driver of the car was very conveniently the one who had been plying me with alcohol all night. Also conveniently, he dropped the other 3 Ridazz of before taking me home. Except he didn't take me home. He took me to his place, and forced me to come inside, even though I insisted that I could wait in the car for whatever errand his pretext for stopping his place was. He sat me down on his couch, and proceeded to touch and kiss me, ignoring my multiple protestations about having a boyfriend and the dozens of times that I simply and clearly said "No." I was too drunk to be able to move well, and the idea of being able to even lift my arms to push him away was laughable. When he tried to take my shirt off, I was so overwhelmed that I vomited. This instance remains the only time in my life I've vomited without mixing liquors. Luckily for me, he was repulsed by this and agreed to take really take me home at this point. I am convinced that if that had not been the case, he would have completed his attempted rape. I know others of my friends have not been so lucky within MR.
Did you attempt to confront your harasser? Why or why not? No.This was the first time anyone had ever attempted to violate my boundaries in such a way, and I had not been prepared to process, acknowledge, or report such incidents. The closest I came was writing about it as a private post on my LiveJournal the next day, and even then in a joking manner, as I couldn't fully acknowledge how egregious a violation it was.
-If yes, what was your harasser's reaction? How did that reaction affect you? Although I did not confront him, the next time I saw him, he exuded a silence towards me that I interpreted as a warning: we would not discuss the incident, and for my silence, I would be allowed to continue interacting and becoming accepted within that social group. At the time, this was my only option for being included in SFV MR, which was something I desperately wanted.
Did you report this to other Ridazz? What circumstances made that possible, if yes, or would make that possible, if no? I didn't report this incident to any other Ridazz until last year, when I told one person the barest facts in connection to a tangentially related discussion. It's been a long four years, and I have no idea what could have been done to encourage me to report.
-If yes, how did these Ridazz respond? Did you feel their reactions were sufficient given the circumstances? Yeah, I wasn't really trying to have anything done about the incident at that point, just requesting an increased sensitivity.
Can I quote your responses at the Summit and/or in future writings? (Obviously, I can quote myself.)
-If you chose to use real names, would you like me to alter them or anonymize them in quotations? (and again, I chose to anonymize it myself, although choice people can probably parse out who it was.)
The comments thread on this post will be very closely moderated. I reserve the right to alter and/or remove any inappropriate content, particularly anything which I feel diminishes those who chose to post their stories publicly.
ETA: I'd like to stress that responding for the sake of being counted, even if you don't want your story quoted or you name used, is a legitimate and useful thing to do. I plan to report the number of respondents I get as well as the number and type of incidents they report. It is possible to post anonymously on this blog, so it's not attached to a user name, or you can email me with from throwaway email account.
Name: (Anon is acceptable)
Name of Harrasser: (Unknown, Anon, and Changed names are all acceptable answers)
Approximate Time and Place of Incident:
Description of Incident:
Did you attempt to confront your harasser? Why or why not?
-If yes, what was your harasser's reaction? How did that reaction affect you?
Did you report this to other Ridazz? What circumstances made that possible, if yes, or would make that possible, if no?
-If yes, how did these Ridazz respond? Did you feel their reactions were sufficient given the circumstances?
Can I quote your responses at the Summit and/or in future writings?
-If you chose to use real names, would you like me to alter them or anonymize them in quotations?
And I'll get this started with one of my own, the very first one, and the worst. Believe me, I could report a dozen incidents off the top of my head, and it'd probably be way more (50+) if I had attempted to actually record instances of being made to feel uncomfortable as they happened, instead of just trying to forget about them.
Name: Danya
Name of Harrasser: Anonymous
Approximate Time and Place of Incident: LACM, July 2008
Description of Incident: After drinking on a ride for the first time (it was maybe the 10th ride I'd been on, the first where someone offered my underaged self liquor), I was convinced to accept a ride back to the valley with a few of the other Ridazz I had recently met. The driver of the car was very conveniently the one who had been plying me with alcohol all night. Also conveniently, he dropped the other 3 Ridazz of before taking me home. Except he didn't take me home. He took me to his place, and forced me to come inside, even though I insisted that I could wait in the car for whatever errand his pretext for stopping his place was. He sat me down on his couch, and proceeded to touch and kiss me, ignoring my multiple protestations about having a boyfriend and the dozens of times that I simply and clearly said "No." I was too drunk to be able to move well, and the idea of being able to even lift my arms to push him away was laughable. When he tried to take my shirt off, I was so overwhelmed that I vomited. This instance remains the only time in my life I've vomited without mixing liquors. Luckily for me, he was repulsed by this and agreed to take really take me home at this point. I am convinced that if that had not been the case, he would have completed his attempted rape. I know others of my friends have not been so lucky within MR.
Did you attempt to confront your harasser? Why or why not? No.This was the first time anyone had ever attempted to violate my boundaries in such a way, and I had not been prepared to process, acknowledge, or report such incidents. The closest I came was writing about it as a private post on my LiveJournal the next day, and even then in a joking manner, as I couldn't fully acknowledge how egregious a violation it was.
-If yes, what was your harasser's reaction? How did that reaction affect you? Although I did not confront him, the next time I saw him, he exuded a silence towards me that I interpreted as a warning: we would not discuss the incident, and for my silence, I would be allowed to continue interacting and becoming accepted within that social group. At the time, this was my only option for being included in SFV MR, which was something I desperately wanted.
Did you report this to other Ridazz? What circumstances made that possible, if yes, or would make that possible, if no? I didn't report this incident to any other Ridazz until last year, when I told one person the barest facts in connection to a tangentially related discussion. It's been a long four years, and I have no idea what could have been done to encourage me to report.
-If yes, how did these Ridazz respond? Did you feel their reactions were sufficient given the circumstances? Yeah, I wasn't really trying to have anything done about the incident at that point, just requesting an increased sensitivity.
Can I quote your responses at the Summit and/or in future writings? (Obviously, I can quote myself.)
-If you chose to use real names, would you like me to alter them or anonymize them in quotations? (and again, I chose to anonymize it myself, although choice people can probably parse out who it was.)
The comments thread on this post will be very closely moderated. I reserve the right to alter and/or remove any inappropriate content, particularly anything which I feel diminishes those who chose to post their stories publicly.
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