Author: kern.375

Text Review-“The United States vs. Billie Holiday”

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The movie The United States vs. Billie Holiday is a true story of Holidays life and song career and how the singing of “Strange Fruit” got her into a lot of trouble. The movie starts off with an interview Billie is having with a white lady and the first question she asks after telling Billie how much she loves her is “what’s it like to be a colored woman” (2.45). This sets the tone to show how people of color were treated and defined by their skin. Throughout it we see the struggles that Black people encountered and the way it effected even Holiday as she was trying to show her view on the situation in America.

We see that because she sings  the controversial song “Strange Fruit” she is targeted by the government because it is “un-american” and shows something negative going on in America. The FBI uses a Black agent to get her arrested and this shows how the government tries to pin Black people against their own community to “better” them. Even when she stops singing the song they still try and frame her because she is a strong Black women and that to the white man is a threat. Throughout the film we see how the white agent wants to take her down and multiple times plants drugs on her to do so. The whole film shows the injustices the Black community has to deal with daily.

The agent that had her arrested on her death bed was rewarded by JFK. “…earned for you the respect of the world community” (2:02:00). This tells us how white men are praised at the hands of Black lives. The film also shows us the lack of progression we have made on this injustice. Stated at the beginning of the movie it says, “In 1937 a bill to finally ban the lynching of African-Americans was considered by the senate. It did not pass” (1:00) and the movie ends by stating, “In February 2020, the Emmett Till anti-lynching act was considered by the senate. It has yet to pass” (2:03:00).

I think the director wanted us to think about the criminalization of Black Americans and the way systems are set up against them. This movie makes us think about how many times this has happened and how many people in power have hate on their mind. We also are shown that a century later we are still dealing with the same injustices, the question is what can we do to make the next century different.

Canadian Indigenous Injustice- Paige Kern

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There is a systemic injustice against the indigenous peoples of Canada. For a long time the indigenous community has fought for equal rights and still are working toward them. Colonization has put the community at a disadvantage because they have systems working against their interests. It has gone so far that “Canada’s treatment of its indigenous peoples has been described as a ‘cultural genocide'” (Rees).

There are activist trying to stop the trans U.S.-Canada oil pipeline: Line 3 which will be very harming to the community. “Houska and other activists say any spills would cause “irreparable” harm to bodies of water where local tribes fish, harvest wild rice and hold treaty rights” (Tigue). There is a way to prevent so much damage but politicians are more willing to please a party rather than help the people. Biden wants to stay friendly with the Republican Party and the Canadian Government so he has still not decided whether to stop the pipeline building or let something so destructive be continued.

Indigenous people of Canada who live on a reserve do not own the land they live on; Under the Indian Act they do not own their land and instead it is held by the government, this causes the people living at these reserves to not have the same rights as any other Canadian citizen. They cannot buy and sell their land which would lead to them gaining wealth and building equity, Bains says, “…full property rights on reserves… it’s shown to promote prosperity and social and economic wellbeing for those who need it most” (Bains). They also go on to say “In Canada today there are three groups of people who cannot legally own property: children, the mentally incompetent and First Nations people who live on a reserve” (Bains) this creates a disadvantage to the community because they are considered unable (like children or mentally incompetent people) to have control over what should be their own property. This is systemic because like what happened to the Black community when they were prevented from buying houses it causes a long term effect for generations on the wealth of the families. More recently for First Nations to own their own land they have to qualify to see if they are truly considered indigenous or not, this decision is one that shouldn’t be made by an outsider, it shouldn’t be a job to say if someone is indigenous or not.

https://youtu.be/7GmX5stT9rU This link will take you to a video covering a lot more systemic injustices occurring in Canada and likewise the U.S. I highly recommend taking the time to watch this, it elaborated on a couple of the things I touched on.

Works Cited:

Bains, Ravina. “BLOG: Property Rights for All Canadians: the First Nations Issue Forgotten by All Federal Political Parties.” Fraser Institute, 19 May 2020, www.fraserinstitute.org/blogs/property-rights-for-all-canadians-the-first-nations-issue-forgotten-by-all-federal-political-parties.

Rees, William. “Canada’s First Nations.” History Today, 9 Sept. 2018, www.historytoday.com/history-matters/canada%E2%80%99s-first-nations.

Tigue, Kristoffer. “Urging Biden to Stop Line 3, Indigenous-Led Resistance Camps Ramp Up Efforts to Slow Construction.” Inside Climate News, 12 Mar. 2021, insideclimatenews.org/news/16022021/biden-line-3-minnesota-enbridge-pipeline-indigenous-resistance/.

International and Interracial Adoption -“The Leavers” by Lisa Ko- Paige Kern

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In The Leavers we follow Deming into the relationship he has with his white adoptive parents who don’t know his mothers language and don’t make an effort to keep him connected with anyone of his friends before his adoption. Transracial adoptees struggle with knowing their background and history because it is different than that of their adoptive parents. “Race and identity were the central issues that emerged in the life history interviews I conducted with twenty-two transracial adoptees” (Patton 2). The concern of transracial adoption is that the white parents will not be able to understand and help the non-white child through the racism that occurs along with not being able to share their culture with them.

International adoption started in 1955, Chinese international adoption it didn’t start until 1992. Most of the children were put up for adoption because of Chinas one-child policy which only ended in 2015, this created a place where parents didn’t want to give up their child but were forced to. In America there has been a large anti-Asian sentiment (Choy 4), creating a place where Asian children have struggles unknown to their parents. For the children adopted by parents of a different ethnicity this makes them not part of the white community because they aren’t white and are surrounded by predominantly white people/norms but also makes it harder for them to fit in with other children of their birth culture because they don’t grow up with parents teaching them about their culture or important parts of their ancestors past.

Interracial/international adoption by white parents is seen sometimes as the white parents having a “savior” complex, or that they’re colorblind. This is damaging because it is good to see our differences and good to interact with the childs culture instead of ignoring it. This is shown in The Leavers by the Wilkinsons changing Demings name after he has grown up identifying with it and in turn stripping his culture that he grew up with from him. “The displacement of birth creates a heady confusion regarding how to map these different forms of collectivity onto socially legible constructions of person- hood” (Jerng x). Deming has to change his identity when he loses his mother, friends, and his name and is forced to leave his culture behind.

 

Work cited:

Patton, Sandra Lee. Birthmarks : Transracial Adoption in Contemporary America. New York University Press, 2000.https://muse-jhu-edu.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/chapter/166412. Accessed 13 Mar. 2021.

Jerng, Mark C. Claiming Others : Transracial Adoption and National Belonging. University of Minnesota Press, 2010.https://muse-jhu-edu.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/chapter/902447. Accessed 13 Mar. 2021.

Choy, Catherine Ceniza. Global Families: a History of Asian International Adoption in America. New York Univ. Press, 2013. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=MuYTCgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR11&dq=white+savior+complex+in+adoption&ots=sNEmk7cEo-&sig=ISZoNf6Pb2jmAMz9x26zqaZoZ0M#v=onepage&q&f=false.