Author: lykins.66

Text Review: Bitch Planet

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Bitch Planet by Kelly Sue DeConnick is a dystopian sci-fi graphic novel about a planet that women who are considered “non-compliant” are shipped off to as prisoners. Non-compliant refers to any women who talk back, do not convey traditional beauty standards (small features, thin frame, etc.), or those you would consider a bad mother. Women, in this dystopian future, are all fearful of offending or stepping over the line because the risk of incarceration on Bitch Planet are so high. Anyone, even other women, can accuse someone of having an attitude or defying the society’s “norms” and be sent off to this other planet.

An example of what the society views is a “compliant” woman.

The storyline shows how this dystopian society “others” women that defy standards that are placed upon them. It is also interesting to note that in the story, there is a panel of men, called the Council of Fathers, that control what happens in the prison. They see firsthand what the women go through and they end up making decisions on how the women are treated, what they can do in the prison, and who they interact with. I believe it is a nod to how women are often “othered” in our society as well, especially by governmental entities, and how when the women stood up against the men working and controlling the prison system, they could put up a fighting chance.

At the end of Book one, the sporting event Megaton that the prisoners are forced to participate in leads to a death of one of their own. Throughout the first book, you see the rage that the women feel about being sent to this planet and being forced by society to act a certain way their whole life. In this scene, however, you see the walls come down and they all mourn the loss of their friend. It brings them closer, and I think it is what keeps them fighting so hard to take down the Council and the militant ruling against women and their minds and bodies.

Diary of Systemic Injustice: The COVID-19 Pandemic and Redlining

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The COVID-19 pandemic has been affecting our communities for over a year now. We have all experienced some sort of loss because of the pandemic. Black Americans, in particular, have disproportionately been affected by the pandemic due to historically racist practices that still inhibit many predominantly Black communities. On the CDC’s website, they list how discrimination influences the healthcare system and further creates disparities amongst ethnic minority groups. The key topic areas include: the neighborhood and physical environment, healthcare systems, job conditions, wealth inequalities, and inequities in education quality (CDC). These are just a few factors that have increased risk of exposure to the COVID-19 pandemic among many racial and ethnic minority groups.

 

Historically, Black people have endured brutal injustices that continue to affect their communities today. From the early 20th century, there were federally mandated policies that have created lasting impacts on the 21st century. For example, in 1934, the National Housing Act was established, which created the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) in response. The FHA, in a way to standardize mortgage practices, created color-coded maps that indicated investment potential for residential areas. White communities were given the most financial backing, while loans were expensive or sometimes impossible to get in communities with a larger minority population (Digital Chicago). This idea was called “redlining” and created many economic issues among lower-income neighborhoods, furthering the wealth gap between White and Minority communities. While redlining has been banned for over 50 years, it still affects the communities that were once deemed “hazardous”. In this map below, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition looks at historically redlined districts in St. Louis, MO and how they are disproportionately still experiencing a lower life expectancy and higher social vulnerability rate. According to an article by the Washington Post, almost 75% of the neighborhoods that were once considered hazardous according to redlining standards, are still inhabited by mostly minority residents, while 91% of the areas that were considered the “best” remain residences for middle and upper-class families.

Black Americans have historically been “Othered” and because of these practices from the early 20th century, they are still struggling for proper representation. The middle and upper-class are the “One” and they continue to have more options for their health and safety practices while many of these districts still do not have adequate health care. The redlined areas created a divide in how some regions still function, and has kept areas from providing the same adequate health care options as wealthier regions. This directly correlates back to how their are a disproportionate amount of Black Americans that have suffered during this pandemic. By creating more inclusionary zoning and more affordable housing options outside of these historically redlined districts, we can reduce the concentrated regions of poverty and lower the social vulnerability rate that was present in the map of St. Louis. In doing so, it would create not only more adequate health care options to everyone, but begin to eliminate the social gap that we still see today.

Below, I have included a video that further illustrates the impact of redlined districts on public health and how it still affects many communities today. http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

References:

Redlining and Neighborhood Health

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/03/28/redlining-was-banned-50-years-ago-its-still-hurting-minorities-today/

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/health-equity/racial-ethnic-disparities/index.html

https://digitalchicagohistory.org/exhibits/show/restricted-chicago/other/redlining

 

Week 5 Context Presentation: Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif”

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Recitatif is Toni Morrison’s first, and only, published short story. The short came out in 1983 in Confirmation: An Anthology of African American Women, a collection of fiction, poems, essays, and short plays that delved into the life of Black women in American society. Toni Morrison was born in 1931, in Lorain, Ohio and while she grew up in an area that was semi-integrated, racial discrimination still ran rampant. According to the National Women’s History Museum, when Morrison was just two years old, her family’s apartment building set their home on fire while they were inside because they couldn’t afford their rent. As she got older, she focused her time on her studies and attended Howard University, a historically black institution in Washington, D.C. Throughout her time at Howard University, she got a closer look at the divisions there were in society due to skin tone.

Recitatif, is the French form of “recitative,” which is a style of dialogue, often used in operas sings ordinary speech, typically during interludes. According to Merriam-Webster, recitative is literally “a rhythmically free vocal style that imitates the natural inflections of speech…” This title refers directly to the episodic nature of the story of the two characters, Twyla and Roberta. Morrison breaks up the stories in five parts, where they go through the years and reflect on their childhood. In her short story, Morrison identifies one woman as white and the other as black, but she deliberately chooses not to reveal which woman identifies with which race. I think it is very significant that she chose to focus on five stories throughout their childhood and avoid the discussion of who was black or white to shift the reader’s focus.

By not being explicit about which girl is African American and which girl is Caucasian, it points out racial codes that are ingrained in us by society, and by our own perceptions of the world. The impulse to “solve” who is white and who is black in the story is at the core of why Morrison chose to exclude the answers. Twyla and Roberta represent racial binaries, the black and white, and how Maggie, this character that they revisit from their past allows the women to have a shared narrative that provides them a means for a new understanding of their vastly different versions of their history. The stories about Maggie moves the readers to see past the racial binaries that are present from the start and instead look at the complexity of their lives, and how race cannot be determined solely based on racial codes.

 

 

References:

Alexander, Kerri Lee. “Toni Morrison.” National Women’s History Museum, 2019. Accessed 19 Sep. 2021.

Benjamin, Shanna Greene. “The Space that Race Creates: An Interstitial Analysis of Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif”.” Studies in American Fiction, vol. 40 no. 1, 2013, p. 87-106. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/saf.2013.0004.

Morrison, Toni. Recitatif. Morrow, 1983.

“Recitative.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/recitative. Accessed 19 Sep. 2021.