sarawthinks-blog

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Scientific Bludgeoning

Using science to justify discrimination is not new. From the institution of blood quantum by the US government for Native Americans to a plethora of fields developed to show that non-white people are inferior to white people (phrenology screams to mind), it is well established. The appeal to scientific fact and the scientific method is meant to make the conclusions somehow free of criticism, that they are inherently unbiased, because science is fact not opinion.

The latest iteration of science being used as a weapon rather than as a means to greater understanding came out today with a court ruling. The highest court in international sports has ruled to place restrictions on female track athletes with what they consider elevated levels of testosterone in major international events. Focus on the case has been on Caster Semenya, a two-time Olympic champion, who naturally has more testosterone than most women.

The court ruled that the decision was discriminatory but NECESSARY to preserve the integrity of competition.

Pardon me for being a relativist, but anything that those in power point to as an absolute source of truth should be treated with incredible skepticism. I accept that there are certain things that exist in nature in a particular, measurable way. At least, measurable in ways that make it possible to form human knowledge from these observations. True understanding of nature as it is I think is beyond reach. And I do not accept is the interpretations and conclusions that people draw from measuring and studying these things in nature when applied to society in discriminatory fashion.

Considering this, it's possible to break down what is and what is not. What is: Caster Semenya has both estrogen and testosterone naturally produced in her body. What is: there are levels of each of these hormones that doctors and scientists have concluded are average or normal ranges in most bodies. What is: testosterone is primarily a male sex hormone but naturally occurs in all people. What is: testosterone is a hormone that is important to building muscle and other bodily functions. What is: many of these functions relate to athletic activity. What is not: levels of testosterone outside of these determined normal ranges for women inherently make a woman unfairly advantaged in particular athletic activities.

Who decided the hormone ranges accepted by the IAAF? Why is it agreed that higher testosterone creates an unfair advantage when it is part of someone's natural body chemistry? 

More importantly, why does this only apply to women? And, most importantly, to a black woman who has been hounded about this issue for years because she is an exceptional athlete? That something must be off, something must be giving her an unfair edge. It couldn't have anything to do with her training and hard work. Similarly, Serena Williams has said that she gets drug tested more than any other woman in professional tennis.

Why must these professional women athletes have their hormones monitored and regulated to achieve fairness while men are left alone other than standard steroid screenings? If a man has naturally occurring testosterone higher than what is considered normal range for men, will he too have to take hormone suppressors? It seems unthinkable, because testosterone is the MALE sex hormone. It is more natural than Semenya's natural.

Even if we had enough evidence to accept the premise that elevated testosterone leads to competitive advantage, it is hard to accept the conclusion that it is an UNFAIR competitive advantage. Next will they say women who are above a certain height have an unfair advantage in certain events? This is equally natural as the amount of hormones a body produces on its own.

There should be no acceptance of a ruling permitting regulating bodies, particularly black women's bodies. It is yet another use of science to discriminate against marginalized groups. I hope the decision is appealed and defeated, and I hope the court looks back on it in shame.

[sarawthinks-blog]

Oration on the Dignity of (Hu)Man(s)

In December of last year, ProPublica published an investigation of New York's system for moving mentally ill patients out of adult homes and into independent, but supported, living situations. They found numerous deaths, injuries, and unsafe or inhumane living conditions for residents. The article is circulating again because in response to it, New York state ordered an examination of their incident reporting system. The examination found the system is inadequate with many holes that put these people at risk.

The subjects most at risk and most profiled in this series are those suffering from various forms of schizophrenia. In the process of documenting the conditions they are living under, I found myself cringing. The descriptions are factual, but document vulnerable, ill people at some of the lowest points of their lives. Describing squalor, violence, outbursts, and ravings, these people are further stripped of their dignity.

In Esmé Weijun Wang's essay collection, The Collected Schizophrenias, she describes her experiences living with schizoaffective disorder, including multiple hospitalizations. In one essay she addresses the idea of the psychiatric hieararchy and what it means to be sondiered high-functioning, and how schizophrenics often receive basic care because "there [is] no hope for them beyond low-grade stability." All of her essays in this collection offer valuable insight into the view of schizophrenia as a patient, when most accounts come from the views of doctors, nurses, caregivers, or family and friends of someone with schizophrenia. 

Often throughout the ProPublica article, it is mentioned that many of the people moved from adult homes to supported independent living were "off their meds," as if that provided a full explanation of their behavior. But the schizophrenias are varied and medication is not some panacea for ensuring stability.

Wang cites research and a program from the National Institute of Mental Health that emphasizes the importance of a support system for living a high functioning life. The initiative focused highly on early-intervention treatments, receiving treatment after the initial schizophrenia episode or as early as possible can dramatically affect the outcomes for patients.

She also details the imbalances of power she felt in psychiatric institutions "amid clinicians who knew me only as illness in human form." Others recounting their experience in these institutions and with schizophrenia echo these sentiments. Contrasting this with the positive results seen in years of research for the holistic aspects of treatment is painful to consider.

For those in the New York state case, the adult homes and systems for treatment had already been shown to provide inadequate care. After living years in this sort of environment, it is unsurprising that many patients were unprepared to live in these external, supported environments. Particularly considering the degenerative nature of schizophrenias on the brain, and how not receiving treatment with early onset affects your prognosis. But not just because they couldn't take their pills on time.

Many mental illnesses have pharmaceuticals that help with treatment, but these pills are not cures. The continued focus on whether someone was on or off their medication when considering their ability to live independently further entrenches biases and stigmas about people suffering from serious mental illness. I'm not saying the medication is not important, but neither is it everything.

Where does human dignity begin and end? What is the concentration the medication has to reach in the bloodstream for dignity to apply? The kind of examinations such as ProPublica's are important to show when large numbers of people are receiving inadequate care so this can be addressed and corrected. These sorts of failing systems lead to great human suffering.

Those profiled throughout these pieces are ill, they are not their illness. I wish the writers of these pieces could take more care in their portrayals of the mentally ill, particularly those with schizophrenia. The focus should always remain on how the system has failed these people, but at times it reads as if the patients have failed the system by requiring care.

[sarawthinks-blog]

Shouting into the Void

Spring is on the rise here. The morning has been sunny and warm, calling me to come out and walk by the river. Feel the breeze on my face, see blooming flowers, smile at dogs out with their owners.

Instead I'm inside reading philosophy about the Rule of Law because America is a nightmare. Don't get me wrong, I know a lot of countries are nightmares! But I live in this one, so I'm a bit preoccupied with it. Particularly with members of Congress using it constantly as a high and mighty talking point. 

We’re a nation of laws! No one is above the law! They love to throw that out on Twitter when Trump is being racist, but they are quite averse to doing their jobs when it comes down to upholding the rule of law they supposedly cherish so deeply.

For the record, I'm not a lawyer, legal scholar, philosopher, etc. I'm just a mad bitch on the internet with opinions. 

However, it seems pretty obvious that to have any semblance of a claim to be upholding the Rule of Law, Congress needs to impeach a President who has committed many crimes both before and after taking office. While the Constitution does not outline exactly what "high crimes and misdemeanors" means, if Bill Clinton can be impeached for perjury, it is genuinely laughable that President Trump is not going to be impeached for the amount of crimes and misdemeanors detailed in the Mueller Report and even on his own damn twitter feed.

In general I hate the pervasive both-sidesism that chokes our discourse and government continually. But in this I can say that both sides are culpable in not impeaching this President.

The Democratic majority in the House has made it clear that they do not want to impeach him despite all of this evidence. They say there's an election in 18 months and American voters can decide then. This is bullshit of the highest caliber.

I know all the arguments against impeachment, which are all political reasons. Impeachment is a political matter, it's hard to avoid this. And with the Republican majority in the Senate it's quite unlikely much would come of a trial if it made it there.

Yes, it would be ugly, and insane, and the propaganda that would be produced throughout would be a nightmare. But politicians are more concerned with their electability than with laws.

So I don't want to hear any damn politician on either side of that damn aisle talk about the Rule of Law again. Because if they really cared about the Rule of Law, ensuring that no one is above the law, impeachment is a no brainer. Instead, they are allowing the President to continue being above the law because they're so afraid of his base, Fox News, their centrist or swing voters, and the circus that will necessarily ensue from these proceedings.

[sarawthinks-blog]

The World on Fire

Notre Dame burning was a terrible sight. Outpourings of sadness and sharing of memories flooded timelines and newscasts. After studying history for a good portion of my life, that part of me that has always sought out physical connections to the past ached. Napoleon and Josephine were crowned in that cathedral! It was built before the Black Death.

And it burned because of an accident, nothing more. The nihilism, the mortality.

These feelings I understand.

Today there are reports that people have pledged and donated hundreds of millions of dollars to the cathedral's restoration. Individuals and nations. 

Odd that some sentiments drive action while others do not. Thoughts and prayers after mass shootings but monetary donations after Notre Dame. Changing the channel when footage of Yemen or Syria comes on the news but monetary donations for Notre Dame. Wringing hands over immigrant detention but monetary donations for Notre Dame.

These juxtapositions are likely unfair, but they keep coming to my head and heart. Perhaps it is the scale of the problem that is the mover. This is a physical structure that requires money to restore. An easy to follow cause-effect thing. No one is sure the level of reconstruction or restoration that is possible. We know it will never be the same. But it is known they need money to try.

When it comes to larger scale problems, there is not such a simple cause-effect direction. There are so many moving parts, so many moving people. The broken promises of the past its own pile of rubble to climb over.

A mosque in Jerusalem also burned yesterday. Not meant to be a comparison, just a remark. It was a smaller fire and didn’t cause damage on nearly the scale. It barely made international news coverage in the face of Notre Dame. Al-Aqsa Mosque is/was the third holiest site in Islam and a major point of contention between Arabs and Israelis as it has dual claims in Judaism and Islam. This fire also seems (as of now) to be an accident, children in the courtyard. Thankfully much less devastating than that of Notre Dame, but could be equally significant considering the contention regarding the site and its location.

Worlds together and apart. History burning. 

[sarawthinks-blog]

That's when I knew she was forever caught in her own undercurrent, bouncing from one deep swell to the next. She would never lift me out of that sea. She would never pause to fill her lungs with air. Soon the world would yank her chain of sadness against every shore, every rock, every glass-filled beach, leaving nothing but the broken hull of a drowned woman.

“Any Further West,” in Sabrina & Corina by Kali Fajardo-Anstine

There is so much strength and resilience within the women in Kali Fajardo-Anstine's short stories in Sabrina & Corina. Focusing on Latinas of indigeneous descent in different parts of the American West, the collection is a loving portrait of a part of this region often erased in popular culture. Centering the indigenous and Latinx communities forces readers to confront their assumptions about this region, particularly the gentrification of Denver.

The women who fill Fajardo-Anstine's collection broke my heart in so many ways. Sometimes because of things that happened to them, sometimes because of things they did, and sometimes because I wished they were people I could know. Through it all the women shouldered whatever pain came their way and continued, always moving forward even if it was unclear what direction forward was.

The resilience of these women felt connected to their Latinx and indigenous identities. The kind of resilience that can only come from the history of imperialism and genocide that built the American West. The depth of it, and the depth of each character in this collection, is stunning.

Yet as I read these stories I question myself and why I love these kinds of stories. They cause me pain but bring inspiration through seeing, even in fiction, the strength women possess. Would it not be better if the world did not require women to summon such incredible strength simply to survive it? Shouldn't I wish for other stories?

Really, I should wish for a reckoning.

At the very least, I can hope fewer daughters in the next generation have to see their mothers drowned by their chains of sadness.

[sarawthinks-blog]

Reburying, Rebuilding

In the fall, I read Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi, winner of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. This is the first novel of his to be translated to English. The novel is set in 2005, part of the early years of the Iraq War. The combination of sectarian violence with American military occupation has turned Baghdad into the perfect setting for a monster story.

In this book, a junk peddler begins to pick up pieces of bodies at the end of a day's explosions. He sews the different parts together to form a whole body so the corpse can receive a proper burial, giving peace to all the people who make up this new body.

A car bomb sets off a massive explosion, blowing a body to bits. The soul of this now destroyed body is set adrift and, without a body to return to and unsure how to move to the afterlife, lands in the junk dealer's patched up corpse. The reanimated corpse seeks revenge for those who have killed the people who make up his new body and the body where his soul came from.

The book is filled with dark humor and captivating characters. The supernatural nature and satire make the setting feel both perfectly real and a fantasy setting. Since it is set in 2005, while the American wars in the Middle East are ongoing, the novel has a sense of distance to it.

An article published today in Wired by Kenneth R. Rosen, chronicling the teams of people in Syria who work to find bodies in Raqqa, Syria to give them proper burials, has filled my mind again with Saadawi's imagery.

Between the occupation of ISIS and the American forces fighting to drive them from the city, thousands of civilians were killed in addition to combatants on both sides. Graves are scattered throughout the city and its outskirts holding remains of anywhere from a few to over a thousand bodies.

Body pullers, those who work to remove the bodies to proper grave sites, have been working for over a year with no real end in sight. The lucky dead are both identifiable and have families looking for them. Most are unidentified. Too far decomposed, not enough left, no distinct distinguishing features searching families can use to find them. The teams do not have the funding or necessary equipment to conduct DNA testing, especially considering the sheer number of bodies they are dealing with.

Unlike Saadawi's Baghdad, reality's Raqqa is left to rebuild following this occupation and the airstrikes that 'liberated' them, causing unknown totals of civilian deaths in the process.

In order to construct a narrative that has any semblance of justice in a situation like this, Saadawi turned to one of the most famous monsters ever created. The individuals killed during these kinds of occupations have no real recourse against the powers of American imperialism or international terrorist groups. The only conceptualization of justice became the vengeful rampage of an unsettled soul in a rotting body.

[sarawthinks-blog]

Progress Reversing

On the slow Saturday local back to my furnished room in Brighton Beach the cramps began, steadily increasing. Everything’s going to be alright now, I kept saying to myself as I leaned over slightly in the subway seat, if I can just get through the next day. I can do it. She said it was safe. The worst is over, and if anything goes wrong I can always go to the hospital. I’ll tell them I don’t know her name, and I was blindfolded so I couldn’t know where I was.

I wondered how bad the pain was going to get, and that terrified me more than anything else. I did not think about how I could die from hemorrhage, or a perforated uterus. The terror was only about the pain.

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, Audre Lorde, pg. 110.

I came of age beneath a haze of reproductive rights repression rhetoric. My adolescence was spent in a Catholic school, being taught ‘family life’ instead of sex ed, where groups traveling to DC for the annual March For Life were encouraged and the one girl who became pregnant and stayed pregnant was asked to leave the school. Abortion had been legal for my entire lifetime, I never knew the world of kitchen table abortions with dirty tools, whispered pleas from women “in trouble” desperate to find a contact who could help them, the fear and the risks of controlling your own body.

But now it feels like this world is staring us in the face once again. Threats to defund Planned Parenthood, more restrictive legislation that further limits access to abortion, the prospect of a conservative stacked Supreme Court who could overturn Roe vs. Wade, and anti-choicers leading a new attack on birth control ring in my ears all at once. The image of Gerri Santoro dead on the floor floats in front of my eyes. I have been very afraid.

The description by Audre Lorde of undergoing an illegal abortion on in the early 1950s in her biomythography Zami: A New Spelling of My Name is moving, terrifying, and sickening. She describes obtaining a foley catheter, which is inserted, pushed through her cervix into her uterus, which causes the embryo to detach and the uterine lining to be shed. The description at the beginning of this post is immediately after the procedure, pain followed by new pain, fear compounding fear.

This is the world we began to leave behind in 1973, but it is the world that is threatening to rise again decades later. 

[sarawthinks-blog]

Come on, Eileen

“Those people with perfect houses are simply obsessed with death.” Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh, pg. 203

The suspense of this novel made me mad. I’m not a patient person, it’s one of my most persistent flaws. Typically, suspense doesn’t make me angry. It draws me in and entices me, making me enjoy the novel all the more. But the way it was crafted in this novel, through wandering and unreliable narration, made the suspense both maddening and addicting.

The narrator is elderly Eileen Dunlop looking back at her 24 year old self and the events that led her to run away from her sleepy New England hometown, leaving behind a dissatisfying job at a local juvenile prison and a mad, alcoholic father. To disappear, as she repeatedly calls it, because she never returns and no one comes to look for her. She frames leaving the town, which she refers to only as “X-ville,” as a rebirth; her real life begins once she reaches New York. But she leaves behind a dark secret in X-ville and the novel weaves its way through her last days in town and the events that spurred her to leave for good.

Eileen is an unreliable narrator and will deviate from the story into reveries about her past self and particularly how self-absorbed she had been in her youth. Her selfishness truly is fascinating and well constructed by the author. In one of the moments of peak drama during the novel, Eileen breaks from the action to ruminate on her past self for pages before returning to describe the events. It’s maddening but feels essential for the character. For instance, during some of the most exciting scenes, Eileen stops describing what is happening to focus on whether her friend really likes her or not and expounding on all her flaws and self-conscious thoughts.

It was this unreliability by the storytelling that made the suspense so strong. Certain details were left out, such as almost any information about Eileen’s one friend, Rebecca, beyond her looks and what Eileen supposes of her background. These holes are filled with never ending information about Eileen’s self-doubt, her self-criticisms, her fantasies over a guard at the juvenile prison where she works.

But again, this unreliability also felt perfect for the character. She didn’t just say she was selfish, she proved it again and again through these breaks in progress of events for self examination and silent soliloquy. While by no means a perfect novel, it is a wonderfully dark and entertaining thriller with skillful prose.

I was genuinely angry I had to go to work the next day so I couldn’t pull an all nighter to finish it.

[sarawthinks-blog]

It all turns to ash

Speculation both nourishes and damages my psyche. I’m typically self-involved enough to obsess only about myself: my career, relationships, body, future. But as January 20th looms ever closer all I can think about is the incoming administration.

Reporters and other writers much smarter and more talented than myself have written countless articles and op-eds about this topic, the Internet is littered with them. And I find myself day after day consuming them like I’m starving for words.

Sitting at my desk in the office or curled up on my faded blue couch in my apartment, slumped shoulders, leaning closer and closer to the screen with each new tab. I’m filled with dread and fear, my mind buzzes as my thoughts diverge, trying to process each topic at once. New appointments, brash statements, tweets, aggressive foreign policy, all the warning signs of a demagogue and dictator.

A dictator that has the support of Congress and will soon shape the judiciary.

I hope this country will prove resilient, but I’m increasingly fearful that we are a phoenix. Yes, we will rise from the ashes we’re left with, but first we must burn.

[sarawthinks-blog]

Do Not Say We Have Nothing

My father is a lifelong lover of classical music, bridging on the role of afficianado. A hallway in our home is lined with bookshelves that reach from floor to ceiling that are filled with CDs of recordings, all of classical music, and the collection has now extended into the living room due to size. Once in high school I tried to count them and lost my way after two thousand. Ten years later, I’m sure it has reached five thousand and possibly more.

Every day after dinner, my father would go up to the room we called his library which held his stereo system and he would play some of his recent CD purchases. His favorites are the romantics, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, and the like, but his collection is representative of all periods. I would spend many of my evenings in the library with him reading or doing homework and listening. He would be in his armchair, sometimes reading, but typically relaxing, leaning back with his eyes closed, listening to the music as it flowed from his five foot tall speakers that I’m still not allowed to touch when I visit home.

As a result of this upbringing, I have a well rounded education when it comes to classical music. I’m certainly no expert, but I have a larger knowledge than most in my age group, and learning more is an ongoing interest of mine. Even so, reading Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeline Thien, I consistently felt the need to research the works referenced throughout the text.

The novel is a beautiful and heavy emotional work detailing the life and losses of Li-Ling, who also goes by the English name Marie. Her father was a concert pianist in China and studied at the Shanghai Conservatory during the 1960s and the Cultural Revolution. His death by suicide occurs around the 1989 protests of Tiananmen Square, and following these protests the lives of Li-Ling and her mother are disrupted by the arrival of Ai-Ming, the daughter of Marie’s father’s mentor from the Conservatory.

The story of their family’s entwined lives is slowly revealed throughout the novel, and a more comprehensive review in the New York Times can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/24/books/review-in-do-not-say-we-have-nothing-a-portrait-of-souls-snuffed-out.html

But I want to focus on the music. 

The references to classical music throughout the work are clearly carefully chosen and doled out, adding an emotional element to the novel that I felt was lost on me due to not knowing those works very well or at all. But even so, their use evokes the theme of the power of expression through music and the consequences of its loss.

When I go home for Christmas, I’m planning to comb through my father’s significant music collection to find recordings of the pieces referenced throughout this beautiful novel and listen to them on his stereo, piecing together the lives and emotions of these characters through the movements of the compositions.

[sarawthinks-blog]

Halloween prep underway #thepurge #halloween #purgemask

[sarawthinks-blog]

The Victorian era generated some weird hobbies. These kittens have hand sewn garments and the officiant has a real, hand written copy of the wedding missal in his paws. #morbidanatomy #kittenwedding #taxidermy (at Morbid Anatomy Museum)

[sarawthinks-blog]

Reconnecting

My beloved grandmother died in July and I disconnected from the world.

I’m trying to wade back in, but slowly, like lightening my hair back to blonde after dying it deep brown. Eventually my head will be back to normal.

I’ve had to stop buying peanut butter so I won’t eat whole jars by the spoonful. I’ve let myself read darker, serious novels and histories involving death again without being launched into a cataclysm of grief. I’ve stopped feeling guilty for being happy day to day.

May this week be different than those before and closer to lightness than dark.

[sarawthinks-blog]

We had a visitor under our umbrella #kiawahisland #ghostcrab #beach #critters (at Kiawah Island, South Carolina)

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Wonder why no one wanted to sit next to me in the doctor's office waiting room. #charleston #history #readingrightnow

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#latergram view from the top. #wtc #newyork #oneworldtradecenter #sunset #brooklynbridge (at ONE WORLD OBSERVATORY)

[sarawthinks-blog]

Sounds of Summer

Every night in the summer, a Mr. Softee truck drives down my street, parking at multiple locations. The twinkling music is soft at the first stop, clearly audible at the second, and harsh by the final stop, the one closest to my apartment. My window faces the street and the truck parks almost directly outside my building. The routine of it is comforting and reliable. Mr. Softee isn't unique to my neighborhood but this one truck feels like a local staple. As summer fades, the music disappears. I dread the silent evenings because it means the encroachment of cold air and lonelier streets. For the entire month of August I listen for the sound in the evenings, hoping to hear it as the evenings shorten and Labor Day creeps closer.