the continuously fractured life

"I am not proposing that sexual violence and domestic violence will no longer exist. I am proposing that we create a world where so many people are walking around with the skills and knowledge to support someone that there is no longer a need for anonymous hotlines.

I am proposing that we break through the shame of survivors (a result of rape culture) and the victim-blaming ideology of all of us (also a result of rape culture), so that survivors can gain support from the people already in their lives. I am proposing that we create a society where community members care enough to hold an abuser accountable so that a survivor does not have to flee their home. I am proposing that all of the folks that have been disappointed by systems work together to create alternative systems. I am proposing that we organize.

"

— Rebecca Farr, CARA member, in The Revolution Starts at Home (via miswritten)

Thoughts on Women’s History Month & Claudette Colvin

           

pic credit.

It’s the end of Women’s History month and I’ve been thinking a lot about how women have been actively removed from popular history, or how their contributions have been downplayed to singular contributions. But what I realize is that, further than this, certain types of women have been completely removed from history. The same goes for other categories of people as well. What I mean is, if I think of popular historical knowledge, I can name a few gay rights activists, but they’re all white men. I can name a few peace activists but none of them are Korean or Iranian. I can name several Civil Rights leaders but none of them lack normatively acceptable qualities. In fact, those qualities were used by Civil Rights activists for safety during sit-ins and boycotts: Do not give anyone a reason to attack you. I’m not discounting that tactic, it clearly worked well. But it’s important to note that outliers did and do exist (Read more about that idea here), and they’ve had a huge, mostly unrecorded affect on the world.

The most heart-breaking example of this is the claim that Rosa Parks was the first African American woman to refuse to give up her seat on the bus. The truth is that Rosa Parks was the first socially acceptable African American person to give up her seat on the bus. The truth is that Rosa Parks’ roll in the Civil Rights movements is not only not  correctly recorded, it’s totally downplayed. She was an indescribable activist for justice.

The truth is that a 15 year-old, teen mother was the first African American women to refuse to move to the back of the bus. But, Claudette Colvin wasn’t a very good poster child for the Civil Rights movement now was she? We can’t have a, irresponsible, child/mother representing strength or courage because she’s not seen as noble, and certainly not seen as pure. Only a certain type of mother is acceptable; only a certain type of activist.

This makes me sad. I pity a world that fears anyone who does not represent hegemony. The world has then missed out on authentic, social change. It has perpetuated stereotypes instead of truth, and the myths of perfection that still haunt us today. It says, “you can do anything… but only if you minimally abide by certain standards.” 

Sometimes when I tell someone I work with teen mothers I see their eyes shift from interest to pity. I see them knowing and not knowing at the same time. I see the effect that second-hand pity and assumed knowledge has on young mothers as well.

My final thought on Women’s History Month (for this year anyway) is that I hope to see a future that includes a more complete history of the world. I hope that all types of women start to count, not just the stereotypically acceptable ones. I hope that people who are not yet allowed to be written down, start to get written down. I hope for the whole truth.

“We can have no significant understanding of any culture unless we also know the silences that were institutionally created and guaranteed to go along with it.”

- Gerald Sider

"Much has been made of the fact that so many sixties radicals went on to become hardcore capitalists, profiting by the system they once critiqued and wanted to destroy. But no one assumes responsibility for the shift in values that made the peace and love culture turn toward the politics of profit and power. That shift came about because the free love that flourished in utopian communal hippie enclaves, where everyone was young and carefree, did not take root in the daily lives of ordinary working and retired people. Young progressives committed to social justice who had found it easy to maintain radical politics when they were living on the edge, on the outside, did not want to do the hard work of changing and reorganizing our existing system in ways that would affirm the values of peace and love, or democracy and justice. They fell into despair. And that despair made capitulation to the existing social order the only place of comfort."

— bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions, pg. 121

Your Very Own Gender Studies Degree: Dolores Mission Peace Walks

But first, how can I get my Very Own Gender Studies Degree?

Dolores Mission, a Jesuit Catholic Parish in East LA was established in 1980 to serve a neighborhood hindered by poverty and the effects of active gangs within the two-square-mile parish. In the early 1990s, a group of women in the parish met in search of a solution to the issue of gang violence in the neighborhood citing that gang-related killings and injuries were an almost daily occurrence.

One night, after a long discussion, seventy women (and a few men), began walking the streets, from one gang turf to the next, throughout theneighborhood. They met with gang members and offered them food and a listening ear. Throughout the night, neighborhood conflicts were directly interrupted.

From that night forward, the members of the newly formed Comite Pro Paz En El Barrio (Committee for Peace in the Neighborhood) walked throughout the neighborhood and within a week there was a remarkable drop in gang-related violence due to the nonviolent intervention. They had challenged the traditional, circular script of violence and retaliation and created, for a time, a new and more creative movement. By entering into danger, the group created a transitory space for peace where all parties witnessed each other as human. The gang-members were able to see, many for the first time that other members of the community were interested in them. At the same time, the women were able to address and confront their fear and anger and see the human face of gang members.

The women listened to the pain of the gang-members about the lack of jobs and police brutality, conversations which led them to develop a tortilla factory, bakery, and child-care center, creating jobs and giving people in the neighborhood opportunities to acquire job skills and conflict resolution techniques as people from different gangs worked together. Eventually, the women opened a school and moved from being the eyes and ears of the police to being trained to monitor and report abusive police behavior. This redefined the relationship between the Los Angeles Police Department and the neighborhood.

Poverty, racism, and violence still exist in East LA, however, the peace walks served as a trigger point and a huge step toward creating a restorative environment.

 —

Information from:

http://www.dolores-mission.org/parish.php

http://www.thirdside.org/stories_01.cfm

Various class notes.

 

Things to Think About

1. What does this say about “bad neighborhoods”?

2. What does this say about women in those neighborhoods?

3. How does the role of confronting our own fear play into such situations?

"We suffer increasingly from a process of historical amnesia in which we think that just because we are thinking about an idea it has only just started."

— Stuart Hall

Well, I needed this reminder.