Author: holloway.263

The Handmaid’s Tale

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Season one of The Handmaid’s Tail is a film that brings ideas of slave/master and othering. The series starts off with first acknowledging there is a one. The one being wealthy white men or so we think. These white men are the ones who are given all the power. This is because with they were able to convince the minds of both the others and the one that the others are beneath them. The show created a society where women were beneath men having they do not have the right to own property. Meaning they were able to convince women they were at a level that didn’t deserve to own anything of value. This created a construct that reinforced the ideas of master/slave. To the point of having the slave believe they deserve their role and the master deserved theirs.

The show goes into further depths of othering by separating the groups that were beneath the white men of power. There was of course their wives, then a military would be below them. They then had workers, property, and then those who could not meet the needs of being property were set to do undesirable work which caused them to be sick and die due to the health conditions set by the type of work they endured. These separations caused othering within the minority groups. The minority being those able to have children. Those who could not but had  other skill sets. Then as mentioned before those who could not meet the requirements of any other group. What’s interesting is that I order to get help from other countries there was an organization attempting to get the stories of the women who were forced to live as property and conceive children for the “one” population.

Some questions that are left to be taken away include: How can the ideas of a small group grow to the point of changing the values and views people hold for themselves? How can the voices of those being oppressed is affected by silencing and wrongful story telling? Who has the power of story telling? Who is the one and who is the other and what gives them the power of title? How were they able to create system from a point of potential progression to regression?

Context Presentation: Black Panther

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  • Black Americans have a lack of belonging. Due to the ideas of not really belonging to America or belonging to Africa there is stress on their identity and roles. This is evident by the lack of many black Americans preferring the term blacks to the identity of African American. This can be associated with the lack of feeling of belonging in America and belonging to Africa. America has been detrimental to this break down of identity and belonging. Black America has been labeled by stereotypes by other American identities.” When Donald Trump refers to “the African Americans,”his use of the word “the” attempts to put Black Americans into one subordinate monolithic category. The “the” becomes a code, a signal that he distances himself from an entire group. He is reassuring his supporters that “the” group he is referring to is the Other” (Powell, 2018). This use a prime example of black Americans Bering exempt from a group they assumed they belonged to.
  • Then it comes to the relationship that black American have with Africa. Due to the removal of the history many families had to endure for generations this caused a lack of cultural identity that was once associated with the continent of Africa. “The negative images of Africa, coupled with racist scholarship and the weaponized usage of Christianity, made some African Americans avoid an African identification. Though slavery exacerbated a disconnection with their ancestral homelands, African Americans developed unique traditions rooted in their African ancestry; though they were not regarded as ‘African’” (Mares, 2020). This was an intentional removal of identity. Although, some believe that in order to gain this identity back there only needs to be a home coming of black Americans to Africa. However, many also believe there is no where for them to go and no one to welcome them.
  • This is causing extreme depression in black Americans. The thoughts of never belonging or feeling welcomed has taken it’s toll on them. “Exacerbating a feeling of alienation are incidents of discrimination and racism, large and small, intended or unconscious, on the part of their fellow students and the institutions themselves. Together, these stressors — which occur at a time in life when mental illness is known to develop at a higher rate — create a scenario ripe for the emergence of depression, anxiety disorder” (Powell, 2019). With this high rate of depression and anxiety many black Americans do not have the means to find help. This can be seen in behaviors of acting out or suicidal ideations. This can be seen in the film Black Panther. Thus making Killmonger a relatable antagonist to many black Americans.

 

Mares, R. (2020, August 14). The relationship Between African Americans and Africa. Retrieved April 02, 2021, from https://www.aaihs.org/the-relationship-between-african-americans-and-africa/

Powell, A. (2019, September 19). Feeling of alienation could account for higher rates of mental illness among minority students. Retrieved April 02, 2021, from https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/09/feeling-of-alienation-could-account-for-higher-rates-of-mental-illness-among-minority-students/

Powell, J. A. (2018, November 01). Obama’s people and The African Americans: The language of othering. Retrieved April 02, 2021, from https://belonging.berkeley.edu/obama%E2%80%99s-people-and-african-americans-language-othering

Diary of A Systemic Injustice- Human Trafficking

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As a volunteer GAL (guardian at leitem) for CASA I have to represent children in court that are dealing with being in the children services systems for multiple reasons. Primarily they are there for abuse or sex trafficking. With this organization we have to spend some time training and getting continuing education credits. This week we had a week long seminar on sex trafficking and its victims. Which brings me to the systemic injustices of sex workers. From this seminar I heard from victims, police, judges and senators. This made me think of the incident with Cyntonia Brown. At the time she was 16 when she was arrested and tried for murder for killing an adult man that was having sexual relations with her. After spending 15 years in jail there were then movements in hoping to release her which were eventually successful. However, can we take back those years of abuse? Can we fix the fact she spent all those years in prison?

What I concluded is that due to our current justice system we are failing victims and systemically oppressing sex workers. If I thought about our reading Can the Subaltern Speak? I think of how we negate and remove the voices of those being oppressed and force our own views of what we believe they should feel and how they should be treated. Many sex workers are forced into the lifestyle from abuse, homelessness, kidnapping, grooming, and forced drugs. Which later on causes drug dependency. However, due to our current justice system the sex worker is the one that is being criminalized and not the people seeking the arrangement. Since the seeker is not being penalized they can continue to thrive and succeed in life. However, the victim worker is forced to serve jail time. They end up with felonies that prevent them from working. Since they cannot get a regular job due to their criminal record, they remain or become homeless. Thus leading them into another situation where they depend on people who place them back into sex work. Where they get arrested again and go back to jail and end up with new charges. Thus creating a cycle they can never get ahead from. By decriminalizing sex work and putting the charges on the correct people (the seeker) we can potentially limit the amount of demand people have for these victims. Hopefully giving them more opportunities to have better lives after already suffering the way they have been. However, until changes are made the system is not set up to help these victims and but keep them oppressed.

 

 

Below I have attached a link to NPR which goes on to tell her story.

https://www.npr.org/2019/08/07/749025458/cyntoia-brown-released-after-15-years-in-prison-for-murder

I have also added a link to 10 facts about human trafficking.

https://www.humanrightscareers.com/issues/facts-human-trafficking/

 

 

Citations

 

10 facts about human trafficking. (2019, December 10). Retrieved March 27, 2021, from https://www.humanrightscareers.com/issues/facts-human-trafficking/

Allyn, B. (2019, August 07). Cyntoia Brown released after 15 years in prison for murder. Retrieved March 26, 2021, from https://www.npr.org/2019/08/07/749025458/cyntoia-brown-released-after-15-years-in-prison-for-murder