Author: mahaxay.1

Text Review: My Name Is Pauli Murray

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My Name is Pauli Murray is a documentary film on the life and accomplishments of Pauli Murray. The film takes you through her struggles of not only being a female but an African American female in the early part of the 20th century. He was a fierce advocate of equal rights for women, civil rights and equality for people of color. She often pushed back against Jim Crowe laws and refused to abide by unfair laws. Such as, being denied the right to attend the University of North Carolina due to her race. She was close friends with Elanor Roosevelt and other feminist at the time.

Throughout her life she has dealt with “othering” from racism, sexism and prejudice due to her sexual orientation. From her time being jailed for not moving to the back of the Greyhound before Rosa Parks to being denied the right to attend the University of North Carolina and Columbia University because of her race and gender. Othering experienced by Pauli Murray can be explained by Simone de Beauvoir’s theory of othering. In which the power of one controls the other. In the case of Pauli Murray it was both the power wield by white men over African Americans and men over women.

The creator of My Name is Pauli Murray wanted to give credit to those who paved the way for future generations. Pauli Murray was not only a strong advocate of equal right for women and civil rights but also paved the way for those involved in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s. Also, she is an unknown pioneer that gave inspirations to the likes of Ruth Bader Ginsberg and campaigned with and close friend of Elanor Roosevelt. She may have been an unknown pioneer because of her race, gender or because of her sexual orientation.

Roe v. Wade, The Battle for Women’s Rights

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The Texas abortion law is a roadmap to privatized oppression - Chicago Sun-Times

 

In recent years the fight over women’s right to abortion has been a hot topic. Texas passed a law that would allow civil citizens of the state of Texas to sue providers of abortions, either performing or inducing the procedure. To get around the women’s constitutional right to an abortion, Texas allows the provider to be prosecuted instead of the patient. Forcing physicians from performing or inducing abortions, stopping abortions from taking place in the state. This takes the blame from the state and allows anyone to sue a provider, for a minimum of $10,000 plus court and attorney fees. The bill also includes a clause that denies the defendant the right to use Roe v. Wade as a defense tactic. The bill gives all the power to the plaintiff including the location of the court and monetary benefits. A Texas citizen in Dallas can effectively sue a physician in Austin. Forcing the physician and his lawyer to come to court in Dallas rather than the county the abortion took place

This an example of Simone de Beauvoir’s “Othering” and Hegel’s Master and Slave Dialectic. Simone de Beauvoir explains “Thus it is that no group ever sets itself up as the One without at once setting up the Other…against itself.” (de Beauvoir, 1). For men to assert their authority, they must subjugate women to what they believe to be right. Where the One forces the Other to submit, this follows Hegel’s theory of the Master and Slave Dialectic. One must have control over the other, for the state to systematically maintain control over the Other they must assert their authority over them. In a time when women are becoming more prominent in business, society, and international stage. The One is working to maintain its control, thus refusing rights to women that were already established as their civil right by Roe v. Wade.

In 2019, the government implemented a new rule regarding Title X funding. Any organization within the Title X network who was receiving funding from the federal government was barred from mentioning abortion. Forcing clinics all around the country to withdraw from Title X which included most of their funding. Title X was passed during the Nixon administration that provided funding for family planning clinics. This includes contraceptives, STD testing, cancer screening and counseling for low-income communities (Gerson, 2021).  Without the funding many clinics were forced to close their doors including two in Cincinnati because they refused to not give their patients information on abortion (Ellis, 2019).

As Supreme Court considers abortion cases, local governments impose bans (nbcnews.com)

Sources:

Astudillo, Carla, and Erin Douglas. “We Annotated Texas’ near-Total Abortion BAN. Here’s What the Law Says about Enforcement.” The Texas Tribune, The Texas Tribune, 10 Sept. 2021, www.texastribune.org/2021/09/10/texas-abortion-law-ban-enforcement/.

Ellis, Nicquel Terry. “’Teetering on a Public Health Crisis.’ New Title X Policy Forces Ohio Planned Parenthood Clinics to Close.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 20 Sept. 2019, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/09/20/new-title-x-policy-funding-forces-ohio-planned-parenthood-clinics-close/2345553001/.

Gerson, Jennifer. “What Is Title X, and What Did Trump and Biden Do to Change It?” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 8 Oct. 2021, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/10/08/title-x-how-trump-biden-changed-family-planning-program/6037924001/.

The Leavers by Lisa Ko

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Lisa Ko’s The Leavers is about a young man in search of his identity. Deming Guo and Peilian Guo both are living in Chinatown of New York City. Peilian meets Leon another Chinese immigrant, and they form a romantic relationship. They later move into his apartment which he shares with his sister and nephew. While Polly is working in a nail salon, they shop is raided by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She is arrested and detained in a detention camp in the United States for fourteen months before her deportation back to China. In a study conducted by Brian Allen at Penn State they found that, “Children with a deported parent were significantly more likely to display externalizing and internalizing problems than children whose parents were not deported”. (Allen, 2013) During this time Deming is put up for adoption and is taken in by Kay and Peter, his adopted parents.

As a young adult Deming or Daniel has trouble in and outside of school. He drops out of college and becomes addicted to gambling. Daniel’s trouble as a young adult can be correlated to his early childhood, especially after the deportation of his mother. Brian Allen in his research of the effects deportation and detention have on the development of children concluded that there is a strong correlation between the parent-child relationship and mental development. The study concluded, “research demonstrates the critical role that parent–child relationships play in the development of social skills, emotion regulation and self-concept”. (Allen 2013) While he is attempting to get his life back on track he gets a message from Michael, Leon’s nephew regarding his mother. Daniel gets in contact with Leon who is now living in China and has been in contact with Polly. Daniel calls Polly and they start to mend their relationship after years of being separated. He flies to Fuzhou to meet her and ends up staying to teaching English at the World Top school. At the end, Daniel has gone from an angry lost man to finding his own path in life.

 

Citations

Allen , Brian. The Children Left Behind: The Impact of Parental Deportation on Mental Health . Feb. 2013, https://www.nationalcac.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/The-children-left-behind-The-impact-of-parental-deportation-on-mental-health.pdf.

Ko, Lisa. The Leavers. Dialogue Books, 2018.