How does US media and entertainment represent cool? How do we code beauty, rebellion, urbanness, sexuality, (in)civility strength, weakness, and resistance to institutional rules and regulation?

The US Media, entertainment, and social media has a big hand on what is consider cool and culturally appropriate. Which often times is rife with stereotypes of groups of people that society thinks is real and true. What US media thinks is cool is very narrow minded and not inclusive. White opinions are what are matter and is consider the norm. Which is often use to marginalize people who don’t fit into the social construct of is considered cool or beautiful and as we all know the standard is whiteness.

Blogging is another form of social media and entertainment. Blogging for the longest time as early research shows was centered on the experiences of Western White men. (pg 73) Steele In the reading “Signifyin: Bitching, and Blogging: Black Women and Resistance Discourse Online the author Steele discusses how “A Black feminist epistemology centralizes the conversations of Black women that occur in settings that are often excluded as valid by academic researchers.” (pg 73) Steele This research that was done examines how the online gossip of black women is used to contribute to discourse of resistance . As” Audre Lorde (1984) writes that black female writers manage “the external manifestations of racism and sexism with results of those distortions internalized within our consciousness of ourselves and one another” (p. 147). This study found out that gossip can decimate information to keep people in the loop of information; that it is a connection between woman sharing information and being united by an appreciation by that media text. This analysis suggests that black women use these blogs to “talk back” ( hooks, 1988) to the systems and structures from which they are excluded or within which they are exploited.” Black Feminist Epistemology was developed to bring attention to the multiple oppression that black women face. Since White feminist only focused on the oppression of gender while ignoring the issues that race, class, and sexuality bring.

intro: ” Every child in America deserves a world-class education – especially in science and technology… we also need folks who are studying the arts because our film industry … tells our story and helps us to find what’s our common humanity.” President Obama. I agree that every child deserves a chance regardless of who they are and where they come from. His quote means to me that what he described is another way to bring people together to show we are all humans. That he recognizes the immense power that these mediums have. To go in even deeper in chapter 14 “Education, Representation, and Resistance: Black Girls in Popular Instagram Meme Tanksley discusses how social media is impressionable and powerful to teenagers. That Social media can be used as a tool to circulate oppressive views about certain groups of people. The circulation of racist and sexist media has grown with the internet. “With the advent of the Internet, ideological investments in “post -racialism” require new forms of racial common sense (Omi &Winant, 1994) and interrogations of how the invisibility of Whiteness (Daniels, 2013) serves to limit our understanding of the interesectional nature of race and gender in social media engagement.” (pg 244) Tanksley

In the reading section The Landscape of (mis) Representations and Black Girl Resistance Tanksley discusses the consumption of social media and the misrepresentations of black girls. From Vine videos to podcasts to blogs the social media landscape is virtually saturated with demeaning images of black womanhood (hooks, 1996; Richardson, 2007; Stephens & Few, 2007). ” I agree with this statement as I stayed away from all social media because of how it was affecting my image of myself as a Afro-latina woman. I just now got instagram to keep on touch to do some activism in regards to sex work and women of color. Often times social media misrepresents black women as hyper-sexual, hyper-aggressive, and stupid. As well as slut shaming them, calling them hoes , gold diggers and baby mamas I hate the last term with a passion. I feel it is just another way to degrade a black woman and white society has adopted this racist moniker as true. “In resistance to many of the mass and online media depictions of Black girl/ womanhood, Black girls have created and circulated memes as a means of resistance. These memes, which consist of text written over images as a form of social critique, address sexism, racism, colorism, and multiple forms of aggression against Black girls.” (pg 248) Tanksley

In reading 8 Roberts discussed that social media platforms are empty vessels that need user generated uploads to fuel visits. That companies use these platforms even though its not their specialty. This is what a CCM is which is an acronym for Commercial Content Moderation. ” CCM is not an industry but rather a series of practices with shared characteristics that take place in a variety of worksites (e.g., in-house at large tech firms; online via microlabor websites such as Amazon Mechanical Turk.)” (pg 147). Basically workers are dispersed all around the world, work in secret by low status workers earning low wages; which they review day and night. One of the things that I found interesting was the piece on Doing A Good Job In The CCM World. That while the internet is rife with racist, homophobic, and sexist content that CCM flag inappropriate content and remove it from the site so that users don’t see it. To go in even further America has a long history of racialized and racist material as humor in which the punchline degrades and degenerates marginalized groups. “The participatory Internet, perhaps once seen as a potential site of escape from racist tropes or sexism and misogyny (Light, 1995) embedded in American Popular culture, has largely failed to deliver on foregrounding mass critical engagement with these issues at all.” (pg151) Roberts

Sources cited:

Roberts , S. T. (n.d.). Commercial Content Moderation: Digital Laborers’ Dirty Work . In The intersectional Internet: race, sex, class and culture online (Vol. 105, pp. 147–161). Noble & Tynes EDS.Steele, C. K. (n.d.). Signifyin; Bitching and Blogging: Black Women and Resistance Discourse Online . In The Intersectional Internet: Race, Sex, Class, and Culture Online. New edition edition, (Vol. 105 , pp. 73–95). Noble & Tynes EDS.Tanksley, T. C. (n.d.). Education, Representation, and Resistance: Black Girls in Popular Instagram Memes . In The Intersectional Internet: Race, Sex, Class, and Culture Online. New edition edition, (Vol. 105, pp. 243–269). Noble & Tynes EDS.

Indigenous people in the United States went through a systemic marginalization since colonizers came to their lands. Where they endured displacement, violence and discrimination. Which goes far back since when the United States first began a treaty between the government and the Natives. The Treaty with the Delawares of 1778 was one of the first treaties signed. “The Dawes Act of 1887 was a United States post-Indian Wars law intended to assimilate Indians into white U.S. society by encouraging them to abandon their tribally-owned reservation lands, along with their cultural and social traditions.” Longely Look at the political implications of this treaty; of the introduction of this act shows another reason as to why it was constructed specifically to undermine tribal unity. This treaty was designed to marginalized, to force assimilation, and another way to steal land from the Natives. This treaty was presented with that if tribes gave up their lands they would be granted U.S. citizenship. By granting them U.S. citizenship the hope was to keep them quite by granted them tribal government. In the end this treaty did nothing but destroyed their culture with the; loss of indigenous tradition and land across the U.S. It destroyed tribal communities and tried to pit our Natives against each other. Picotte As well as forcing children into bordering schools where they were abused and mistreated. On June 18, 1934 President Roosevelt signed the Indian Reorganization Act (also called the Wheeler-Howard Act ). Which reverses the U. S. policy favoring Native assimilation the Dawes act. This became the basis for United States policies that recognizes the rights of self-determination for Native Americans. “The law curtails the land allotment system, permits tribes to establish formal governments with limited powers, and allows the formation of corporations to manage tribal resources.” Wilma

The new deal was nicknamed the Indian new deal. This was passed to rectify what the United States did to Native Americans. This was used to build upon the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 which granted citizenship to the remaining indigenous people. Again as I stated earlier this treaty was designed to fix the issues and right the wrongs from the treaty of 1887. The Merium Survey that was conducted captured the extreme poverty on Indian reservations demonstrated the failure of this policy and assimilation. Wilma Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana the creator of the policy upheld the long-standing U. S.government policy of assimilating American Indians into the dominant populace. As a Progressive, he believed the “Indian Reorganization” bill he introduced in Congress in 1934 to permit limited self-government for reservation communities would assist Native Americans in becoming prosperous, self-sufficient members of the United States political economy. Wheeler was a populist with progressive leanings; who built a reputation as a defender of individual rights over the corruption of vested interests. He was addressing the relationship between American Indians and the federal government, Wheeler advocated a policy of limited welfare combined with education and health provisions to help full-blooded Indigenous people assimilate among their non-Indian neighbors with minimal government involvement.

Till this day Native Americans are other, marginalized, discriminated against, murdered and raped even though they are the natural citizens of the United States. For example in the 2018 elections the supreme court made it difficult for Natives to cast a vote. The law is requiring that voters must present a qualifying ID in order to cast a ballot. A State issued ID card isn’t valid unless it contains the voter’s current residential street address. This requirement is not fair and burdens Native Americans, plaintiffs in the case pointed out,  many do not have residential addresses; they have their mail delivered to a post office box rather than to a physical address. This is voter suppression at its finest many Natives live on reservations which make it impossible to have a physical address. Although Indigenous people have been marginalized one thing that needs to be discussed more is violence against Native women. Which is often over looked and dismissed. “Native girls and women are more likely than average to be the victim of a violent crime.” Edwards. For many generations Native women have been victimized at some point in their lives. The criminal justice system still fails to protect these women, and with that comes the crisis of disappearing Native women. Native women go missing at higher rates than other groups of people. They are also at a higher risk for domestic violence and sexual assault. In the past decade, activists came to the government which responded to the problem of violence against Native American women with legislation seeking to close legal loopholes, improve data collection and increase funding for training of tribal police. Hudetz In a 2017 a report was generated by the Inspector General which highlighted the U.S. attorneys’ uneven track record with prosecuting serious violent crimes on reservations. That data must be collected under the 2010 law to help improve those prosecution rates. Native Americans have always been murdered and the violence Native Women faced in the past is factor in today’s violence against Native Women. What is congress doing about this issue? Right now there are seven States that have a task force to address the needs to make lives safer for Native Americans. These experiences that Native women have has prompted activists to advocate for more reforms that protect Native women.

In the reading The Round House Louise Erdrich touched upon the subject and interweaves of the narrative of Native American tribal law, treaty history and land dislocation with that of sexual violence. By interweaving and highlighting a Native’s family story. ” For years our people have struggled to resist an unstoppable array of greedy and unstable beings, Our army has been reduced to a few desperate warriors and we are all but weaponless and starving. We taste the nearness of defeat.” (pg 111) Through out the reading they discuss the issues the tribe faces as well as Joe’s mother who experienced a violent attack. Within this story you get a glance at what their lives look like.

Cited Sources:

Baur , R., & Thurman, P. J. (2004). Violence Against Native Women. Social Justice , 31, 70–86.Edwards, M. (2019, July 23). 7 States Step Up Efforts To Fight Violence Against Indigenous Women. Retrieved October 24, 2019, from https://www.npr.org/2019/07/23/743659569/7-states-step-up-efforts-to-fight-violence-against-indigenous-women.Erdrich, L. (2017). The round house. New York: HarperCollins Publisher.HistoryLink.org. (n.d.). Retrieved October 24, 2019, from https://www.historylink.org/File/2599.Hudetz, M. (2018, September 5). Despite past reforms, Native women face high rates of crime. Retrieved from https://www.apnews.com/316529000f3c44988969ab22acfb34d7.Hudetz, M. (2018, September 5). Despite past reforms, Native women face high rates of crime. Retrieved October 24, 2019, from https://www.apnews.com/316529000f3c44988969ab22acfb34d7.Longley, R. (2019, June 25). Dawes Act of 1887: The Breakup of Indian Tribal Lands. Retrieved October 24, 2019, from https://www.thoughtco.com/dawes-act-4690679.Stoddart , W. M. (1996). Who’s Deal . Burton K. Wheller and The Indian Reorganization Act .

Social systems of power have impacted online spaces, which causes lateral violence in social justice movements. In the reading Digital Intersectionality Theory the authors discussed the ways social systems of power have impacted online spaces. In chapter 2 of The intersectional Internet the authors discussed how a white male academic who identify as “male feminist” attacked women of color for the work they do; while their white feminists counter parts turn a blind eye. Daniels How can they call themselves feminist? When one of their own contributors is involved in racist online attacks. Writer and pop culture analyst Mikki Kendall grew frustrated by the inaction of the white feminists that she created a hash tag #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen. Which made white feminists and activist lash out at Kendell. Kendell was merely calling out that one of their own who does feminist work as being problematic. Instead of admonishing the male she got the blow back. These are some of the ways that white feminist refuse to acknowledge their role in implicit whiteness. In the early days of the internet people thought they could escape the confines of gender and race. They were wrong. “Race and racism persist online, both in ways that are new and unique to the internet and alongside vestiges of centuries -old forms that reverberate significantly both offline and on. (Brock, 2006, 2009; Daniels, 2009, 2013).

Daniels did three case studies one of them was a book by FB chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg. Her book was widely discussed online by feminist bloggers. Her book Lean In is not just a book it is an online campaign. Sandberg discussed how women should assert themselves in work spaces that are dominated by males. That women are limiting themselves. Her book is problematic in several ways. She fails to account for race. Yes we are all women but our race dictates how we navigate in certain spaces. Her book is more for middle, upper class white women. What she articulates is liberal feminism that intersects with white privilege, class, colonialism and heteronormativity. She speaks about marriage in terms of cis-gender no mention of gay or lesbian relationships. As I stated before there is no mentions of women of color. Leaning in will look different to women who are not white. (pg46) Daniels

Crenshaw writes”The failure of feminism to interrogate race means that the resistance strategies of feminism will often replicate and reinforce the subornation of people of color.” (Crenshaw, 1991, p.1252)

Sources:

Noble, S. U., & Tynes, B. M. (2016). The intersectional Internet: race, sex, class and culture online. New York (N.Y.): Peter Lang.

Week 1

Social Construct, Wikipedia and plagiarism

For this weeks reading that I chose to summarized “The Social Construction of Difference.” I chose it because I can identify with the reading. Author Johnson discusses Americas social construct of gender, race, class, and sexuality. One interesting point that struck out to me that was made by the late James Baldwin an African American novelist assertion that there is no such thing as whiteness. “No one is white before he/she came to America he wrote. It took generations and a vast amount of coercion, before this became white country.” Baldwin Which brings me to another point being made a woman in Africa considers herself African and has never experienced white racism. That is until she comes to the United States. Where privilege, skin color and race is socially constructed. Because she has dark skin she isn’t seen as African in the United states she is black. I identify with that as someone who is brown people assume I am just black. Johnson further goes on to discusses the mechanisms of privilege and difference and what that looks like. Why is the word privilege such a loaded word for white people. People get upset when it is pointed out that they have privileges that other groups don’t get. He also discuss the varying ways privilege shows up daily. Some people do benefit from white privileges. For example a straight black woman can talk freely about her life her husband and marriage. This is a form of heterosexual privilege someone who is LGBTQ can not talk freely about their relationships like someone who is heterosexual it can put them in danger. I am brown but I have heterosexual privilege.

Sources: 1) Adams, Maurianne, et al., editors. Readings for Diversity and Social Justice. 3 edition, Routledge, 2013.

Wikipedia Summary Avoiding Plagiarism

In your doing research and writing an essay for school one must be very careful to not plagiarized someone else’s work. Plagiarism can get you banned from Wikipedia if you are not careful. Plagiarism can show up in many ways. One of them is where you copy text and don’t credit the author. Another form of plagiarism which is something I found surprising. Copying text word for word and citing it is still consider plagiarism. But what I found out is that in academia the rules are not as strict with Wikipedia. Also don’t close paraphrase even when it is cited. If you are going to paraphrase use your words and ideas. When you find information on Wikipedia you should put it in your own words. When in doubt always cite.

Cited sources: Zúñiga text according to Wikipedia guidelines for avoiding plagiarism (Links to an external site.).

Week 3

Posts

Posted on October 20, 2019Edit “Wikipedia and class readings”

Wikipedia and class readings

For this weeks reading I decided on to blog about Ch 64. Feminism: A Movement to End Sexist Oppression. (bell hooks ) I chose this reading because it highlighted the ways certain forms for feminism have contributed to many forms of oppression. It asks the important question what does equality look like for everyone. Not everyone gets the same equality; that depending on your gender, race, class and sexuality it dictates how society will treat you.

Not everyone is treated equally in that is why it is important to include an intersectionality view. The authors discussed people’s views on what feminism means and why it is a disservice to lump everyone has the same. “Most people in the United States think of feminism or the more commonly used term ” women’s lib” as a movement. that aims to make women the social equals of men. This broad definition, popularized by the media and mainstream segments of the movement raises problematic questions. Since men are not equals to white supremacist, capitalist’ patriarchal class, structure, which men do women want to be equal to? Do women share a common vision of what equality means?” Hooks (pg 360) The simple broad definition dismisses the factors of race, class, gender, and sexuality as I stated earlier before. White women are not quick to call attention to race because they were not being affected by racism. While women who were non-white and lower social class, did not benefit from the women’s liberation movement. They were seeing in their every day lives how the men in their family were oppressed. The factors need to be address in order for all to be equal.

I was not surprised that some women have a hard time calling themselves feminist. I was the same way due to its history. Like those before me that did this work. I did not want to be associated with a movement that had racists undertones. I saw it mainly as a white women’s movement. It was not until I got to college I understood what feminist meant. I thought; just like in the reading that its “anything goes”. In the reading this form of feminism is defined as apolitical in nature and tone. Most liberal women find this form of feminism to be appeasing which romanticizes the notion of personal freedom; which is a more acceptable than a definition that emphasizes radical political action. (pg 361) Hooks

Sources cited: Adams, M., Blumenfeld, W. J., Catalano, D. C. J., DeJong, K. “S., Hackman, H., Hopkins, L. E., … Zúñiga Ximena. (2018). Readings for diversity and social justice (4th ). New York: Routledge.

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