#I love me some paulo freire

[thatonebirdwrites]

DEO: Department of Extra-normal Operations

This will be an essay that looks into the ethical problems of the DEO. For the purpose of this essay, I am not concerned about the showrunners reasons for their decisions for how the show presents the DEO. I care only about examining the worldbuilding and stories inherent within the world created. So let's dig into some philosophy and theory. Whee! [Minor spoilers]

To start, this department was first created within the Superman/Supergirl universe in order to analyze alien activities after Superman reveals himself on Earth. It's made in retaliation to the appearance of powerful aliens that those in power deem possible threats. Already, the DEO's beginnings are rooted not in true protection but in stopping and eradicating what those in power deem a threat. It's roots start with dubious ethics.

Let's examine it's history:

It was led by Hank Henshaw, who is vehemently anti-alien. Henshaw is also slated to have ties to Cadmus, which experimented on aliens and attempted several rather horrific and genocidal attacks on aliens. (Note that in Supergirl: Season 2, Kara and Lena thwart Cadmus' activities. Lena Luthor saves the day by modifying an alien killing virus to be harmless to all living creatures. Bits and pieces of the worldbuilding around Cadmus showed that the aliens experimented on came from DEO facilities.)

Henshaw dies when Jeremiah Danvers "kills" him when saving J'onn J'ozz, who then takes Henshaw's place until exposed. He recruits Alex sometime before his exposure (Season 1). After J'onn is exposed in Season 1, Lucy Lane takes control. Then after J'onn helps Supergirl defeat the murderous Kryptonian Non, J'onn received a presidential pardon and was reinstated as director. He kept Henshaw's guise for publicity sake.

The show makes it clear that J'onn choses to be the Director to change the DEO. Yet, what evidence is there that this actually happens?

So that's the basic history.

We have a clandestine agency that has unethical procedures that doesn't change under a new director.

The DEO picks up aliens and throws them in a cell to never be seen or heard from again. This would likely terrorize the alien neighborhoods. This is never truly address in any meaningful manner by the Superfriends or Kara.

In fact, if anything, the show positions the DEO as being Good if Alex, J'onn, or Lucy are in charge (Kara, ironically is not in charge of the DEO at any point). However, the DEO becomes Bad if Lex Luthor or Lauren Haley or the real Hank Henshaw are in charge.

This creates a rather large ethical problem.

First of all, the worldbuilding builds up the argument that certain people are good and certain people are bad. The person we see skirting between those two extremes, and living in a morally grey area the most, is Lena Luhor. For the purposes of this essay, I'll put a pin into Lena's characterization and focus only on the DEO.

Secondly, we are told again and again what Kara/Supergirl's ethics are: justice and truth. Yet when we examine Kara's actions within the context of her DEO Supergirl duties, we are confronted with the following:

She must hide her identity, even from her best friend Lena, and thus deceives regularly. Her reasons for not telling Lena are rooted in the pressure from those at the DEO to not tell Lena but also in Kara's intense fear of loss. However, Kara will demand truth from others despite her hypocritical actions. This doesn't seem to fit solidly in the "good" category.

Her "justice" is defeating criminals. Humans go to the police to eventually have a fair trial. However, aliens are not afforded that same right. Her justice for aliens becomes judge and jury. Since she professes to "not kill," she at least doesn't extend that to executioner. This again doesn't fit solidly in the "good" category.

Thus, by examining Kara/Supergirl's actions, we see a disconnect with what the show claims is "good:" truth and justice. Yet, there is no true justice for the aliens fought and captured; their rights are rescinded (if they had any at all).

This is why the show must tell us who is "good" and who is "bad," because people's actions do not fit the show's claims of what "goodness" is versus what "badness" is. Thus the worldbuilding ends up defining Kara's actions as always "good" even if those actions cause harm to those around her.

[Side note: This isn't to say that Kara is "bad." It is to say that the binary within the show's worldbuilding lacks nuance for the complexity within Kara's understanding of the world and how she acts within that understanding. This binary simply cannot allow for such a complex examination as there is no room for it.

Because of this binary, the show actually butchers Kara's character to make her past "not good" actions as somehow "right" and "good" in the end. We see this with how Kara's harmful actions toward Lena (the lying, duplicity, deception etc) is turned into "I did just one mistake" when it wasn't one mistake. It was years of harm, but because the show paints Kara as "good," Kara is not allowed growth.

This binary of good versus bad is already nonsensical in the worldbuilding since Lena Luthor's very existence throws this entire frame out the window. Her actions, always with the intention to do the least harm and try to improve the world, don't fit neatly into the binary. The story often punishes her for this. (She breaks the binary too much I suppose.)

Yet when other people's actions fail to fit neatly into the binary, the show whispers: "Hush, don't look or think, believe us when we say this person is good and this person is bad.']

To reiterate: It's okay to capture aliens and disappear them without any right to trial If the Superfriends are doing it. This good/bad definition collapses ethics into meaningless words since the activities and procedures of both the "good" people and "bad" people don't differ in terms of impact on alien communities. This lack of differentiation is why we must be told who is good. Otherwise, how would we know?

To dig a little deeper, in Season 4, when Kara is on the most wanted list, she learns very little about the true plight of aliens. During this time, the DEO becomes "bad" under the control of Lauren Haley. Lena Luthor and Alex Danvers, who are both working with the DEO still, also work against the DEO but only to clear Kara's name. So justice is done for Kara's sake but not for the other impacted alien communities.

Once Kara's reputation is restored and she's no longer deemed an "enemy of the state," Kara returns to working with the DEO, as it is now labeled as "good" again because Alex is back in charge.

Ironically, the only person in Kara's friendgroup that questions the DEO is Lena Luthor. (Who in Season 5 will have her 'villain arc' only to be redeemed to the good side again at the end of Season 5. She's the only character, who is labeled a villain at one point, that is allowed true redemption.)

We learn very little about what alien communities actually think about the DEO and about Supergirl in particular. The most we get is the Children of Liberty plot line of Season 4; however, this plot line doesn't ever give us a solid viewpoint from impacted alien communities. Instead, we are confronted with:

We are told what alien communities are like and how lacking in rights they are. Very little of this is shown directly outside of "criminal aliens." Or the brief glimpses within Manchester's arc. However, Manchester is viewed as 'in need of redemption' despite having very real grievances with the state of things. The show then tells us that Manchester is 'bad' and the 'good' J'onn and friends must stop him.

The second time we see alien daily lives is Nia's return to her hometown, which is attacked by supercharged humans. This blended town of aliens and humans serve as an outlier. Nia actually admits that the town is unique and not representative to most aliens' experiences. So again, we don't see a direct experience of alien life in National City or other major cities.

Aliens either have significant powers that humans can justifiably find scary or they are human-like with little to no powers. Both are treated the same for the sake of the Children of Liberty plot line, which serves as an immigrant allegory. @fazedlight and @sideguitars did excellent analysis on this and the problems of these allegories based on the worldbuilding and story itself. (Note: thank you to fazedlight for finding the post in question! Click here o read their analysis.)

This makes it easier for the show to pretend that the DEO is "good" when the Superfriends are in charge. Since we don't meet alien families harmed by the DEO's actions, we never truly get an alternate perspective. Even Lena Luthor's critique of DEO is spat upon by the story, where her alien friends fail to truly counter her valid points. Instead, it's presented in the good/bad binary, which erases all nuance and ethical considerations.

Let's also consider the start of the Supergirl career. Kara is captured by the DEO 12 years after her initial appearance on Earth. However, prior to this moment, we had learned that Kara had nearly been taken by the government -- specifically Henshaw's control of the DEO. Jeremiah Danvers agrees to work for the government in exchange for Kara's freedom from being a government asset.

However, her saving Alex's flight puts her in the crosshairs of DEO, and eventually she is captured. Upon which she learns J'onn is in charge (not the original Henshaw), and J'onn's goals are revealed. He allows Kara to fight her first alien fights as Supergirl. Here we see that J'onn's methods have not actually changed anything about the DEO. The alien fight results in that alien being captured. Supergirl/Kara never hears what happens to the alien she fought and captured. No thought is given to the rights of that alien or if a fair trial will be given. Instead, we are told the alien is a "criminal' as if that somehow justifies the brutal treatment.

After Alex reveals she's an agent with the DEO, Kara fully trusts the agency.

So Jeremiah gave up his life to make sure Kara wasn't being used by the government, only for Kara later on working for the DEO, which is part of the government. Thus Kara ends up used by the government after all. The irony here.

Kara's blind spot here is:

she's privileged. A white-passing, human-passing alien. It's easier for her to hide as a human and not be clocked as an alien. Also, she's white, so less likely to deal with the complications of racism. The most she has to deal with is sexism and the DEO's procedures. This means she doesn't experience the worst the DEO and the systems that uphold it dish out to aliens.

Kara hasn't really interacted with aliens outside her friend group. She's relatively sheltered since coming to Earth due to Kal placing her with the Danvers and having to hide herself. She has no real knowledge of how aliens survive on Earth. This means she has nothing in which to compare the DEO's claims.

She blindly trusts Alex when it comes to DEO.

We don't see Kara questioning what happens to aliens until Season 3 (if it happens in season 1, I apologize as that season is a bit hazy for me). Here Psi saves Kara's life during a perilous mission. Kara then asks about her accommodations and finds out she has no window in her cell. She then demands Psi be given a cell with a window.

However, notice who Kara takes with her on that Season 3 mission: LiveWire (human but due to an accident became Livewire, so she's not an alien but a meta-human) and Psi (who is labeled a meta-human). So the two incarcerated people that Kara chooses are meta-humans and not actual aliens.

So again, we never see Kara interact with aliens outside her friend group unless she is interrogating them. Once the DEO is done with interrogations and the case "closed," those aliens disappear into these windowless cells. Which, need I remind that solitary confinement is labeled as torture for a reason?

Yet that is where aliens that are dubbed "too dangerous" end up by those with power. No rights given; left trapped in solitary confinement with (likely) no windows to never see the light of day again. Of course, because we are told the "good" people do this, it is thus "okay," despite it not differing in methodology with what the "bad" people did.

2. DEO's procedures don't match law. This is especially true when alien amnesty is put into law.

DEO changes NOTHING about their procedures after alien amnesty is put into law. This means that although aliens now have a legal right to a trial, the DEO does not provide this for them. No captured alien is given this right.

This means the DEO doesn't operate within the law.

So if the DEO can disregard laws if they so desire, then what is to stop them from terrorizing any citizen regardless of whether that citizen or alien or human?

What exactly is the ethics of the DEO?

Is the ethics dependent on who is in charge? But if one compares the tenure of the directors: Henshaw, J'onn, Lucy, Alex, Lauren, and Lex -- we see no difference in how the DEO acts.

They all target aliens and give them no rights. The aliens vanish into the cells never to be seen again. This includes some meta-aliens.

Some will claim that while the Superfriends are in charge only criminal aliens are thrown into solitary cells with no hope of release.

But that begs the question: Why do the Superfriends get to be judge and jury and/or executioner? What makes their decisions good but Lauren Haley's or Lex's or the original Hank Henshaw's decisions bad?

Why do the Superfriends get to decide that criminals get no right to a fair trial? Why do they not interrogate what is causing the criminal behaviors in order to change the conditions to avoid aliens resorting to "criminality" as defined by them?

In the end, it does not matter why an alien or meta-human engages in what the state has deemed "criminal" behavior; the methods used in capture and the end result is the same regardless.

The families of captured aliens see the same results regardless of whether "good" people or "bad" people are in charge of the DEO.

While alien amnesty is in law, the DEO, who is under Superfriend control at the time, does not alter their procedures to give the aliens they capture any rights. We never see the aliens or meta-humans captured ever given a fair trial. Nor do we see any programs to reform "criminals" or give them any chance at parole or redemption.

The only method for dealing with aliens and meta-humans uses a carceral prison system that is based in solitary confinement torture. Even the interrogation procedures used have elements of torture to them. In fact, many of the "interrogation" procedures use leading questions to entrap and force a confession under duress. None of these methods are conducive toward reform or fixing a system that deprives those captured of all rights.

Alternate systems for dealing with criminals are never explored. We never see transformative or restorative justice utilized. Both systems would require extensive dialogue with the communities harmed by the "criminals," and if there is one thing the DEO fail at consistently is dialogue with the impacted communities. Instead, their approach is top down, where their ideas of what is right and best is pushed down upon the communities they claim to serve.

Part of this lies with the fact the Superfriends can't engage in dialogue as long as they adhere to the oppressive methodology and practices of the DEO. Reform has failed to alter the ethical violations within the DEO. Alex Vidale wrote an excellent book called The End of Policing, which digs into the attempted reforms for police and how they have consistently failed. Vidale writes:

“At root, they [reformers] fail to appreciate that the basic nature of the law and the police, since its earliest origins, is to be a tool for managing inequality and maintaining the status quo. Police reforms that fail to directly address this reality are doomed to reproduce it.”

The DEO at its root was created to manage the inequality inherent between human rights and the lack of any rights for aliens. It was also created to control aliens and maintain a human status quo. The Superfriends attempt at reform fails to address this reality, and thus were doomed to repeat it.

Vidale continues:

“Police argue that residents in high-crime communities often demand police action. What is left out is that these communities also ask for better schools, parks, libraries, and jobs, but these services are rarely provided.”

Services to better the conditions of so-called "high-crime" communities are not shown to be rendered in the Supergirl world, while the Superfriends are in control of the DEO. It is not more policing that is needed, but more services which do not get provided for most of the show's story and worldbuilding. Thus, the communities that struggle with survival, who often must resort to "illegal" or "criminal" ways end up with only punitive measures that continue the cycle.

It's only in Season 6 when the Superfriends are no longer with the DEO that we start to see them engage in dialogue with the community in general (Kelly's arcs in particular touch on this for the lower income area that she tries to help, which is shown to be a mixture of nonwhite humans and some aliens).

If J'onn and others truly are seeking to reform the DEO, then that requires them to be in dialogue with the affected communities and to put forth new procedures that provide rights to those impacted. This is never done.

3. The DEO suffers no consequences for its actions.

The "Bad things" that happen under the "Bad" directors -- original Henshaw, Lauren Haley, Lex -- aren't ever addressed. Nothing really changes; instead the "Good" guys get back in control and things continue.

Was any reparations made for those harmed by the bad actors? Are the families impacted ever given compensation? We see some aliens rescued from Cadmus in Season 2 and Lex's Power Plant in Season 4, but what of the families of those murdered by Lex and Henshaw? The show fails to address this.

Instead, we are told that the "good" people are now in charge again and only "criminals" are being taken and incarcerated with no rights.

The concept of "criminality" depends entirely on who is in a position of power to dictate what constitutes "criminal" acts. One of the biggest problems with "criminality" as a concept is that it fails to interrogate the why these behaviors happen. What led to the "criminal act?" Are the people engaging in the act just "bad" people?

Often when basic needs are not being met, people may engage in acts of desperation to meet those needs. These actions may fall under what that society deems as "criminal." However, if the people's needs were met, then they wouldn't need to engage in desperate acts to meet their needs.

Another reason for "criminal" behavior stems from people who lack rights in a society. The oppressed will often fight against their oppressors using a mixture of methods (sometimes nonviolent, sometimes violent) in order to win their rights and transform society for the better. Until they win that fight, their actions are labeled as "criminal" by those in power.

Some rarer individuals may engage in acts of harm because they enjoy it such as Lex. However, this is actually very rare. Property crime and burglary is far, far more common. Yet, even those engaging in horrific violent crimes are still afforded a fair trial. Something aliens in the Supergirl universe are never given.

There's quite a few scenes where the aliens fought by Supergirl are engaging in robberies/burglaries or other property crimes. Those that seek to violently mass murder is actually rarer, and often the big villain of the season. At no point does anyone in the show reckon with the reasons someone may choose to engage in "criminal" behavior. Instead, all "criminals" are painted as "bad" regardless.

J'onn professes to be "reforming" the DEO to stop its reign of terror among alien communities. Yet, the most crucial components in changing an oppressive system? We don't really see him utilize them until Season 4, but by then the DEO is in the hands of Alex, who continues the procedures put into place by J'onn,

Paulo Freire writes in Pedagogy of the Oppressed concerning the "radical" as in the person seeking to end an oppressive system:

"The radical, committed to [human] liberation, does not become the prisoner of a 'circle of certainty' within which reality is also imprisoned. On the contrary, the more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can transform it. This individual is not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled. This person is not afraid to meet the people or to enter into a dialogue with them."

J'onn recognizes that the DEO's methods are wrong and unethical. When he takes over and poses as Henshaw, he wishes to transform the system. Except, this is where he fails, because he justifies his changes by claiming that now the DEO only locks away forever criminal aliens.

No thought is given as to why these aliens are making these decisions. What pushed them to rob a store? What pushed them to attack? Did they feel like they had no other choice? Was there no opportunities other than to rob for what they needed? Or to fight against a system that they deem is harming them and their communities?

These questions are not analyzed at all by J'onn or the Superfriends. They do not listen to those most impacted by the DEO. The only time we see J'onn seem to listen is when he is trying to work with Manchester in Season 4, but that results in Manchester being presented as bad in the end, while J'onn is shown to be good. Where he tried to redeem Manchester.

Yet Manchester had valid points about the treatment of aliens. His methodology in fighting back against what he saw as oppressive system is problematic, but he listens far more than Kara and the Superfriends to those being harmed by the systems that created the DEO.

So J'onn and the other Superfriends are failing to engage in dialogue with those harmed by the DEO. They fail to unveil what is truly horrifying with the DEO: incarcerating aliens in solitary confinement with no fair trial and no hope of ever seeing the light of day again.

The justification that because they are "criminals" this is somehow okay erases all the contributing factors that may make up the circumstances that lead to the "criminal" behavior. Nothing is truly done to remedy the situations that may drive someone to what the state labels as "criminal" behavior. It also unveils a horrible truth. Any alien (or meta-human or even human) can be marked an "enemy of the state" and thus a "criminal," where all rights they had prior be rescinded. We see this happen to Supergirl in Season 4. The only reason she isn't locked away in a cell with no windows is because Alex and Lena don't allow it. Unlike most aliens the DEO fights to find and capture, Kara has people fighting for her. But what about every other alien? Who is actually fighting for them?

J'onn's attempt to reform the DEO falls into the biggest trap for all radical liberators: it is all too easy to become complicit with the system at be and justify this than it is to actually change it from within.

As Paulo Freire puts so succinctly:

“Oppression is domesticating. The gravest obstacle to the achievement of liberation is that oppressive reality absorbs those within it, and thereby acts to submerge human beings' consciousness.”

Thus the DEO fails to be reformed. It's reign of terror in alien communities is not truly diminished. Nor does those fighting to "reform" the DEO engage in any dialogue with those communities to determine their needs or ways to improve conditions to decrease the need to resort to "criminal" activities.

In the end, the DEO stays an oppressive, clandestine agency that has no transparency, answers to apparently no one, takes away the rights of those they catch, and disregards laws as they please.

What the Superfriends have failed to learn and understand is that oppression cannot be defeated by reforming the system that causes the oppression. In other words, liberation cannot be achieved be reform alone.

This is why the destruction of the DEO in Season 6 is perhaps the best result at least within the rules of the Supergirl world. The Superfriends could not reform it from the inside, and by trying to do so, they ended up complicit to a harmful system. As long as they were tied to the DEO, the Superfriends would never be able to live out justice and uplift the rights of aliens and humans alike.

ADDENDUM: However, the Superfriends decision to go full vigilante is a whole other can of worms. They do attempt to be transparent in their actions for the communities they serve, but is there a way for people to hold them accountable? That isn't fully addressed. However, that would require a full essay, and this essay is only about the DEO.

[whentherewerebicycles]

ok and now some thoughts about my early experience of parenting.

it kinda rocks... i really like it. i will definitely have a second kid if finances and biology work out. my life is so much better with this little guy in it. the sacrifices so far are mostly minor and are much more logistical than personal. i have to work more hours than i'd ideally want to because there's only one paycheck. i have to try to cobble together more sleep than i used to because i am pretty tired at the end of the day. i can't go to the gym or run an errand or go write at a coffeeshop for a few hours without hiring a sitter or asking my friends to help out. but the tradeoff is i get to be this little kid's mom. he thinks i'm pretty funny and he's interested in everything i do and he calls to me to get me to come over to his mat and talk to him and he likes to grab my face and hold it still so he can study it real intently and when he's upset he wants me to snuggle him until he feels better. i would pick that over getting to run into a store without the stroller a million times over.

i remember reading this book years ago where someone (paulo freire? someone influenced by freire's pedagogy?) recommended that all teachers, no matter how long they'd been teaching, carve out time every six months to reflect on their teaching practices and consider whether those practices were aligned with their core/guiding values as educators. i obviously love this idea because i was born to engage in sustained reflective journaling about my values lol. but also: i do think there's value in setting aside time at regular intervals to check in with yourself about the way you are living, or about whatever you are practicing, whether it's teaching or your work with others or, in this case, parenting. so idk i might try using his birthday and half birthday as time to journal both about my kid and about my own practice of parenting.

do i have a practice of parenting?? that sounds too fancy for someone who is only six months in lol. but i do enjoy thinking about what i'm doing and i like trying to connect the day-to-day choices i'm making to larger principles. i have written about this before but idk i think i am somebody who derives a strong sense of security and groundedness from having a loose framework of guiding values i can refer to when making decisions. and i guess in this first round of reflective journaling i will try to articulate what some of those emerging values/principles are. here we go:

I am making a conscious effort to not sweat the small stuff. there are one million things you can be worried or stressed about in parenting. and there are one million ways you can fall into the trap of thinking that if you just control every single variable nothing bad will happen to your kid. i am trying, inasmuch as i can, to avoid at least a few ways of falling into that trap. i have worked really hard to choose flexibility instead of rigidity when it comes to, for instance, letting other people care for my kid. it's okay if people do things differently than i would - as long as he's safe, he can only benefit from being exposed to different caretaking styles and adapting to different people's ways of engaging with him. i also made a decision early on to not engage with any parenting content on social media (this means ignoring the dozens of insta reels my mom sends me every week lol) and that has been really healthy/good for me. there is TOO MUCH information out there. it is way too overwhelming. you could spend your whole life worrying and i want to spend my life doing other things, like funny accents and comedy bits for the baby.

i am working hard to not interpret other people's parenting choices as a judgment of my own. i really believe that there are lots of different ways to raise healthy, well-adjusted kids. we can make different choices (small and big choices!) and still arrive at the same outcomes. i just really don't want to be the kind of person who takes it personally when people do something differently than i would've! i want to be secure enough in my choices to be able to accept and appreciate a whole range of other parenting styles. i also want to be humble enough to realize that i don't have it all figured out and might learn something from reflecting on someone else's parenting choices. anyway this has been a challenging one as i sometimes DO feel quite judged or shamed by other people's choices. but i also think it's ok to feel that reaction as long as i can keep making space for myself to take a deep breath and think through why i feel like that. idk! work in progress but i've only had six months of practice lol.

i am also trying not to interpret other people's anxieties as anything other than them working through their own stuff. to give one example: i love my mom so much but she is just, like, vibrating out of her skin with anxiety at all times about literally everything. and she has really found an outlet for that anxiety in grandparenting. i get dozens of texts a week about what exercises i should be doing with him and what experiences i should be making sure he has and where i should be taking him and what i should be saying to him and what i should be asking the doctor about and so on and so forth. this obviously could be pretty stressful, and i know that my brother and SIL find it so stressful that it is kind of negatively impacting their relationship with her. but idk i feel like with my mom i spent a lot of my life taking her anxieties personally, thinking that she thought i was incompetent/incapable/irresponsible/whatever. and then at some point in the last few years i was just like oh... this isn't about me at all, is it? this has absolutely nothing to do with me. this is just her fear and her terror of doing things wrong and her overwhelming need to avoid shame, and all of that emotional stuff just happens to be playing out in this relationship because we are close enough that she can lets her emotional walls down and let me see the churning river of anxiety that runs through the heart of her life. i wish that she didn't feel like that. but it's also not something i can fix or change. the only thing that is within my control is the choice not to take it personally, which in turn helps me put some guardrails around it so that it doesn't impact our relationship. idk i think this will probably be an ongoing thing i have to sort through for myself. but also she is who she is and i love her and it is important to me that she be a big part of owen's life. so we will figure it out.

I refuse to optimize my parenting because i refuse to see my child as a thing that needs to be optimized. this is in some ways hard for me because in many respects i am all-in on the very american philosophy that everything can be improved endlessly, including yourself and your family, if you just work harder and care more and give endlessly of yourself to the work. but nope! nope. not for parenting. not for my kid. i want him to have experiences and be exposed to new things, but not so he can "get ahead" or excel in things. i want him to be curious, engaged, interested, flexible, alive to the world, open to new things. i do not care if he is bilingual by age four or has a STEM curriculum at his daycare or goes to a top college or whatever. and i want the choices i make about what we do together and how we spend our time to reflect that. idk he's still so little that this is not super relevant yet but i can feel some of it creeping in.

lastly: i am trying to approach all aspects of parenting with the fundamental belief that i am and will be a good parent. i feel like our culture wants women in particular to spend all their time feeling guilty and inadequate as mothers. we also don't get a lot of external feedback on whether or not we're doing a good job as parents, which i think can make us frantic for validation and riddled with self-doubt over whether we are doing Enough. but i want to just like, try to cut some of that out and just answer it for myself. i'm doing a great job. i'm a great mom. i love my kid and my kid loves me. as i learn more about my child and myself as a parent i will undoubtedly adjust my approach to parenting many times, but making adjustments doesn't mean i was doing something "wrong" or "bad" before. it just means i want to try something new or shift gears a little bit. idk maybe this sounds dumb but i actually think it is proving kind of powerful so far as a strategy for managing parenting anxiety. i just assume that my parenting instincts are reasonably good and will guide me to make reasonably good choices, and if something turns out not to work, i assume i am a good enough parent to figure it out and adapt accordingly.

ok!! good journaling session and now it's time for bed!!

[martellspear]

commenting what I'm reading

—๋࣭⭑ I am physically incapable of shutting up about things I enjoy:

—๋࣭⭑ CR [ ✧ book | ✦ fanfic ]: holy and heathen

⭒｡˚☼₊ ⊹⋆˙⟡

Some children in Hightower often turmoil her mind with bad words about how a shy, odd little girl she was. | biggest case of oh pretty girl let’s hate on her!!

?????????? im sure it's ilegal to write that

if Septon Lowan’s wasn't there for The Flood, he certainly stepped on the mud

Morning kept talking about how Mel isn't a reliable narrator and now I'm like.... oh she's definitely poisoning this man

"some will survive, some not" take it back right now

i will never read a chapter while eating again

the interruption- I can't that's just evil wtf

????????? QUE VELHA DESGRAÇADA ONDE ESTÁ O ECA

"The lowborn taking revenge on the highborn, oppressing the former oppressor." as Paulo Freire once said-

the contrast between reasons got me laughing im not even fighting for my place in heaven anymore

alexa, play labor by paris paloma

nós mulheres meio melara

leyton saying she stinks😭 leave my girl alone!!

CaLL mE mOtHeR get tf out

omg elia my baby !!

"Then, a new gaze was lingering on her. Brown, big eyes, staring at her as if she was a prey being targeted by her hunter. Prince Oberyn had her in his sight while dancing with Elia, examining her up and down, left to right" THIS

he's horrible (affectionate)

I love this fic so much, I blinked and the chapter was over

[ecopoetry4teachers]

Teaching Current Events in the Classroom Through Ecopoetry

Last week, my students spent time viewing weather reports, watching projections and talking about Hurricane Lee. After gauging their interest in the hurricane, I decided to use short lessons that allowed them to steer the conversation. They used their experience with post tropical storm Fiona in 2022 to engage in the daily lessons. Most of my students are not yet 10, but their conversations and insights told me it is an area of interest, or perhaps concern, for them.  What can Adora Svitak teach us?

I have always felt it was important to teach current issues in an age appropriate manner. I believe students are curious about their world and want to know more about it. As a parent, I want to shelter my children from some of the harsh realities, but I also know the importance of teaching them the truth. Young educational activist Adora Svitak said:

"By bringing current events into the classroom, everyday discussion, and social media, maybe we don't need to wait for our grandchildren's questions to remind us we should have paid more attention to current events."

Adora Svitak https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/adora_svitak_594720

Adora Svitak and Paulo Freire: What is the connection?

This young activist reminds me of Paulo Freire. Freire believed that teaching adult learners to read would help them see their own oppression. This knowledge could then transform their lives through action. Teaching current events in the classroom, can do the same. Elizabeth Lange, in her 2023 book Transformative Sustainability Education, stated that Freire’s:

"literacy process was called conscientization as adult learners become conscious of the root causes of their oppression and then took collective action to improve their lives" (Lange, 2023, pg. 76). 

This is similar to Svitak's belief that children need to understand current events, so they can begin their work toward change. To learn more about Paulo Freire’s theory of education, watch the following video.

An informative academic article regarding Freire's transformative learning theory can be found here:

The Ecopoetry Connection

One major current issue that faces children globally is climate change. Extreme weather events, loss of ecosystems, endangered species and species at risk, pollution, environmental disasters or social system failures are all partly the result of climate change. We need look no further than Great Thunberg to see how these issues are affecting children and young adults. Her global climate strike has mobilized millions of students throughout the world. My own students have hosted small rallies outside our school as a way to tell adults they want change. Youth do have the intelligence, willingness and creativity to take action against climate change. Young spoken word poet, Amanda Gorman, gives us a glimpse as to what youth can do:

Black eco-poets, such as Frank X Walter use their experience with oppression and resilience in his poems. Contemporary eco-poets are using their word to teach about environmental impacts to our natural world. Below is Walter's poem Love Letter to the World.

https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/8-black-eco-poets-who-inspire-us#:~:text=%E2%80%9CEco%2Dpoetics%E2%80%9D%20%20may%20be,finding%20home%20away%20from%20home.

Edinburgh Napier University Professor Sam Illingworth states that ecopoet Elise Paschen, uses her poem The Tree Agreement, to

"promote the idea of the agency people possess in protecting and preserving their local environment. These poems discuss neighborhood resistance to tree felling and challenge our need to make a mark on the world."

Eco-poetry is more than poetry about the environment. It tells a story that is meant to expand the reader's thinking and make connections between humankind and the litany of social issues that surround their lives. As Eleanor Flowerday (2021) states,

“Eco-poetry roots you in your environment both physically but also in the way we tell stories to one another. It provides that line of connection to your surroundings that is so necessary in founding a relationship with the natural world: that feeling that you actually belong there.”

As an educator, I believe eco-poetry has a role to play in helping to transform the global climate crisis. Eco-poetry has a place in every language arts curriculum because the climate crisis effects everyone. The poets, educators and activists discussed in this blog are just a few in the every growing list of climate change activists.

Reference List

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ImsBe97u3DMtBAbB4hj3N9Rt8ASKcpEYfYP6JJPUhZQ/edit

[dgr-maestro-en-progreso]

Pedagogy of the Oppressed - Reflection - Third Chapter Done

As many of you know, I've been reading "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" by Paulo Freire for a while now. What first started as a project where I would read 14 books in 14 weeks, all centered around pedagogy, education, and critical thinking and education, turned into a slow churn through just one book, "Pedagogy of the Oppressed". This is due to a multitude of reasons, such as recent employment, personal situations, and overestimation of my available time and, frankly, my willpower. "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" is easily the most difficult experience I've ever had in reading comprehension. To a certain extent, the intricate academic language of the book is necessary, as it helps put specific and purposeful labels and concepts in an order that makes the information as thorough as possible.

As to how I feel after my completion of the books main portion, I have mixed, mostly positive feelings. First, I'll start with my feeling of "enlightenment" (I know it's intense, I don't know what other word to use). "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" takes what I, and most other people, know about education, civil involvement, and humanity, throws it at the window, and convinces me that I've had it all wrong. I'm not just talking about "me" that used to be a "centrist" while in high school. I'm talking about the current "me" that refers to himself as a leftist and as a socialist.

Throughout my reading, I often felt conflicted and frustrated, as so many things that I've taken to be true when it comes to civil involvement might not be the best options. Paulo Freire's strict disdain for "communiqués" and propaganda seem heavily antithetical to the heavily publicized and slogan-ridden world of today's social media platforms and bumper stickers. In fact, I still don't fully agree with Freire on this topic, as disdain for propaganda can only, in my opinion, truly work in a bubble. However, Freire has convinced me to put similar effort into dialogue and mutual understanding than I would into propaganda.

I also feel inspired, motivated, and optimistic, which I give Paulo Freire many thanks for. This book has helped me understand the value of true love, a love that seeks to humanize, one that isn't held back by a "neutral" direction of love, but instead one that focuses on the validation of humanity for the oppressed, and seeks to love the humanity even for the oppressor, which is stripped of their oppressive power and gains their humanity once more. To hate the power of the oppressor is to truly love humanity, and thus the liberation and humanization of the oppressed. This isn't the liberal love of "love even the oppressor, as you could become the oppressor yourself if you're lucky, loving, and deserving enough", this is the kind of love that says, if you truly love the humanity of all people, then you must hate those that embrace the power to strip them of said humanity.

Technically I'm not yet finished with the book; I'm on its fourth chapter, where the book clarifies and expands on some of its major concepts. A full paper on the book is what I have my eyes on next.

[colombinna]

This professor is a lovely man and great at teaching but by god his theories are so white and European and outdated and plain wrong to some degrees it makes me spiral on anger every single time I go to class.

This is our first official class on teaching and we didn't even reach Paulo Freire. He had never heard of bell hooks when I talked to him about her. He says things to the class he has told me personally that have been proven wrong and are outdated. There is way too many white men in academia

[educationalphilosophy]

Educational Philosophy

My approach to education is mainly influenced by bell hooks. Her books Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (1994), All About Love (1999), Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope (2003), and Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom (2009) have shaped the way I think about teaching. I read All About Love during my first job working with middle school students after my supervisor, who I looked up to, mentioned what an impact it had on him. I admire the way bell hooks put her whole heart and soul into teaching; you can really tell from her writing that she had a passion and a great love for what she did, and that had a direct impact on her students and their ability to grow and learn. 

When I think of my own educational philosophy these are some of the terms that feel most important to me: Love, vulnerability, freedom, growth, reciprocity, community, and autonomy; all of which are components that can be found in hooks teaching philosophy. Hooks believes in both students and teachers being learners, and learning from one another. In order to do this, she says that teachers have to be willing to be vulnerable alongside their students. She believes that love does have a place in the classroom, unlike many others who do not think that emotions play a role in education. However, I would argue, humans are complex, emotional beings, our emotions make us who we are, and to not hold space for them in the classroom does a huge disservice to both students and teachers. Feelings are bound to arise in a classroom that prioritizes dismantling domination. I believe that the classroom is a place for people to learn about systems of oppression and how our life experiences and identities impact the way we are able to live our lives, and so emotions and conflict are almost guaranteed to arise. That is why I believe every teacher should be equipped with the skills, knowledge, and self-awareness to navigate having challenging conversations alongside their students. 

I believe that each of the educational philosophies have aspects that I incorporate into my own facilitation. Social reconstructivism is the one philosophy that resonated the most with my own personal morals and values in relation to education, and one that I felt bell hooks references the most in her work. Hooks often cites the Brazilian philosopher Paulo Freire whose work is referred to as the foundation for what is now known as critical pedagogy, similar to social reconstructivism. Freire’s philosophy has influence from existentialism as well, in that he believed in the importance of each individual student being their own autonomous being with their own way of thinking. Freire also believed in an education practice that functions as a tool for thinking critically about the world in order to bring about change, and utilizing lessons that diminish domination and oppression in the classroom. I believe students would be more engaged in lessons if they understood the real life application of what they were learning. The common practice of teaching students information for the sole purpose of seeing how well they can regurgitate it on a test, without providing any context, gives students no reason to want to care about learning. If you explain to a student why what they are learning is important, and how they could use it in the future to help themselves, their community, or the world, it would give them more incentive to be engaged in the topic and has the potential to create a more just world. 

Education as the practice of freedom, as hooks and Freier would say, allows for emotional, spiritual, and intellectual growth amongst all of its participants. School should be the place where transformation happens. Where ideas can blossom and flourish. Where systems of oppression can be dismantled. School should be a place where people are taught to think critically. School needs to be a place of safety for children (see ending gun violence) where they feel the freedom to explore their minds.

[bring-it-all-down]

I recently went into a rabbit hole reading all of your posts. I really love how well thought out they all are. You also quote stuff from a lot of authors and I was wondering if you could list some of your favourites or stuff that you read recently and really liked. Thanks!

Thanks for the ask! Here are some of my favorite readings that can be found online. I've linked to each of them in the title and have divided them roughly by length. Let me know if you have any questions about them!

Short readings:

Wage Labor and Capital by Karl Marx

This is a good, relatively short introduction to Marx's theory of capitalist exploitation of the worker. He explains what capitalism is and why it is inherently contradictory and self-destructive.

2. The Pitfalls of Liberalism by Kwame Ture

In this short piece, Ture, a Pan-Africanist, explains why liberalism will always support the status quo over any revolutionary movement, and thus relying on liberalism will always end in defeat.

3. The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action by Audre Lorde

This is a short essay in Lorde's collective work, Sister Outsider. She discusses how silence is political and how the project of searching for the right language creates communal relationships that can be turned into political power.

4. Notes for the Study of the Ideology of the Cuban Revolution by Che Guevara

Here, Che briefly discusses how the Cuban people adapted the teachings of Marx/Marxism to the material realities of Cuba, thereby enabling them to win the revolution.

5. Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin

Following his father's death, Baldwin reflects on their relationship, living with hatred as a Black person in America, and using knowledge of present circumstances to better fight injustice.

Books:

Black Reconstruction in America by W.E.B. DuBois

This is an incredibly thorough (roughly 800 pages) investigation of reconstruction in each of the Southern states following the Civil War. DuBois explains the power Black slaves in the South utilized during the Civil War and then how poor white farmers post-war routinely sided with plantation owners to enforce Jim Crow laws and lay the foundation for the contemporary carceral state.

2. Feminism is for Everybody by bell hooks

In this book, bell hooks explains the relationship between racism, classism, and sexism and why true feminism requires one to fight against all forms of oppression in society. In essence, it quite thoroughly debunks the notion that the success of a few women leads to the success of all women.

3. The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State by Frederick Engels

Here, Engels, the writing partner of Karl Marx, explains how the nuclear, monogamous family operates to serve the interests of capital by restricting the role of women in society and reducing familiar relationships to matters of private property.

4. Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism by Vladimir Lenin

This work outlines the replacement of settler colonialism with finance capitalism, the final stage of capitalism whereby international monopolies leech resources from the global south.

5. Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire

Here, Freire, a 20th century Brazilian teacher and philosopher, examines the ways in which traditional education is a tool of oppression and offers an alternative form of education oriented toward collective liberty.

[gladiates]

175+ non-Western literature recommendations to diversify your academia, organized by continent + country

I love world literature, and I’ve been frustrated by the lack of representation of it in literature + academia communities on tumblr, so here are some recommendations. I haven’t read all of these myself yet, but the ones I have are excellent and the ones I haven’t come highly recommended from Goodreads and are on my to-read list! 

With the exception of anthologies of older works, all of these books were written before 2000 (some literally thousands of years earlier), since I’m less familiar with super contemporary literature. Also, I only included each writer once, though many of them have multiple amazing books. I’m sure there are plenty of incredible books I’m missing, so please feel free to add on to this list! And countries that aren’t included absolutely have a lot to offer as well--usually, it was just hard to find books available in English translation (which all of the ones below are.)

List below the cut (it’s my first post with a cut so let’s hope I do it right... and also warning that it’s super long)

ASIA:

Bangladesh:

Pather Panchali by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay (1929)

China:

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu (6th century BCE)

The Art of War by Sun Tzu (5th century BCE)

The Analects by Confucius (circa 5th-4th century BCE?)

The Book of Chuang Tzu by Zhuangzi (4th century BCE)

Mencius by Mencius (3rd century BCE)

The Songs of the South: An Anthology of Ancient Chinese Poems by Qu Yuan and Other Poets (2nd century AD)

Li Po and Tu Fu: Poems by Li Po and Tu Fu (written 8th century AD)

Poems of Wang Wei (8th century AD)

Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong (14th century AD)

Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio by Pu Songling (1740)

Dream of the Red Chamber by Xueqin Cao (1791)

Six Records of a Floating Life by Shen Fu (1809)

Diary of a Madman and Other Stories by Lu Xun (1918)

Mr Ma and Son by Lao She (1929)

Family by Ba Jin (1933)

Love in a Fallen City by Eileen Chang (1943)

A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy by Wing-Tsit Chan (1963)

Red Sorghum by Mo Yan (1987)

Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian (1989)

The Big Red Book of Modern Chinese Literature edited by Yunte Huang (anthology, 2016)

India:

The Rig Vega (1500-1200 BCE)

The Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita (around 400 BCE but not known exactly. The Gita is part of the Mahabharata)

The Upanishads (REALLY wide date range)

The Dhammapada (3rd century BCE)

The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way by Nāgārjuna (2nd century AD)

The Recognition of Sakuntala by Kālidāsa (4th century AD)

The Way of the Bodhisattva by Santideva (700 AD)

Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore (1910)

Annihilation of Caste by B.R. Ambedkar (1936)

The Discovery of India by Jawaharlal Nehru (1946)

Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh (1956) 

A Source Book in Indian Philosophy by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Charles Alexander Moore (1957)

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (1981)

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth (1993)

Women Writing in India: 600 BC to the Present V: The Twentieth Century by Susie J. Tharu and K. Lalita (1993)

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry (1995)

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (1996)

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (1999)

Indian Philosophy in English: From Renaissance to Independence (anthology, 2011)

Indonesia:

The Weaverbirds by Y.B. Mangunwijaya (1981)

Iran:

Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings by Abolqasem Ferdowsi (11th century AD)

The Essential Rumi by Rumi (13th century AD)

The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat (1936)

Savushun by Simin Daneshvar (1969)

My Uncle Napoleon by Iran Pezeshkzad (1973)

Missing Soluch by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi (1979)

Iraq:

Fifteen Iraqi Poets edited by Dunya Mikhail (published 2013 but the poems are 20th century)

Japan:

The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu (9th-10th century AD)

The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon (1002 AD)

The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu (1008 AD)

The Tale of the Heike, unknown (12th century AD)

One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each: A Treasury of Classical Japanese Verse (not sure of year)

Essays in Idleness by Yoshida Kenkō (1332)

Kokoro by Natsume Sōseki (1914)

No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai (1948)

Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata (1948)

The Makioka Sisters by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki (1948)

Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima (1949)

Masks by Fumiko Enchi (1958)

The Woman in the Dunes by Kōbō Abe (1962)

A Personal Matter by Kenzaburō Ōe (1964)

Silence by Shūsaku Endō (1966)

Korea (written before the division into North/South):

The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong (written 1795-1805)

Lebanon:

Samarkand by Amin Maalouf (1988)

Gate of the Sun by Elias Khoury (1998)

Pakistan:

We Sinful Women: Contemporary Urdu Feminist Poetry (1991)

The Rebel's Silhouette: Selected Poems by Faiz Ahmed Faiz (1991)

The Taste of Words: An Introduction to Urdu Poetry edited by Raza Mir (2014)

Palestine:

Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories by Ghassan Kanafani (1963)

Orientalism by Edward Said (1978)

I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti (1997)

Mural by Mahmoud Darwish (2000, which technically breaks my rule by a year but it’s great)

Philippines:

Noli Me Tángere by José Rizal (1887)

Saudi Arabia:

Cities of Salt by Abdul Rahman Munif (1984)

Sri Lanka:

Funny Boy by Shyam Selvadurai (1994)

Syria:

Damascus Nights by Rafik Schami (1989)

Taiwan:

Last Words from Montmartre by Qiu Miaojin (1996)

Turkey:

My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk (1998)

Vietnam:

Spring Essence: The Poetry of Hô Xuân Huong by Hô Xuân Huong (1801)

The Tale of Kieu by Nguyen Du (1820)

Paradise of the Blind by Duong Thu Huong (1988)

Miscellaneous Asia (country unclear or multiple current day countries):

The Epic of Gilgamesh (circa 1800 BCE)

Myths from Mesopotamia translated by Stephanie Dailey

The Arabian Nights (as early as the 9th century AD, lots of changes over the years)

The Qur’an

AFRICA:

Algeria:

Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade by Assia Djebar (1985)

The Bridges of Constantine by Ahlam Mosteghanemi (1993)

Cameroon:

Houseboy by Ferdinand Oyono (1956)

Egypt:

The Tale of Sinuhe and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems 1940 - 1640 B.C. translated by R.B. Parkinson

Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz (1956)

The Sinners by Yusuf Idris (1959)

Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi (1975)

The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif (1999)

Ghana:

Our Sister Killjoy by Ama Ata Aidoo (1977)

Two Thousand Seasons by Ayi Kwei Armah (1979)

In My Father’s House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture by Kwame Anthony Appiah (1992)

Guinea:

The Radiance of the King by Camara Laye (1954)

Kenya:

A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi wa Thing'o (1994)

The River and the Source by Margaret A. Ogola (1995)

Libya:

The Bleeding of the Stone by Ibrahim al-Koni (1990)

Mali:

The Fortunes of Wangrin by Amadou Hampâté Bâ (1973)

Nigeria:

The Palm-Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola (1952)  

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (1958)

Efuru by Flora Nwapa (1966)

The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta (1979)

Aké: The Years of Childhood by Wole Soyinka (1981)

Sozaboy: A Novel in Rotten English by Ken Saro-Wiwa (1985)

The Famished Road by Ben Okri (1991)

Senegal:

God’s Bits of Wood by Ousmane Sembène (1960)

So Long a Letter by Mariama Bâ (1981)

Somalia:

Maps by Nuruddin Farah (1986)

South Africa:

When Rain Clouds Gather by Bessie Head (1969)

Fools and Other Stories by Njabulo S. Ndebele (1986)

Sudan:

Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih (1966)

Tunisia:

The Colonizer and the Colonized by Albert Memmi (1957)

Zimbabwe:

The House of Hunger by Dambudzo Marechera (1978)

Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga (1988)

Miscellaneous Africa:

The Granta Book of the African Short Story edited by Helon Habila (2011)

The Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry edited by Gerald Moore and Ulli Beier (1963)

AMERICAS:

Antigua and Barbuda:

A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid (1988)

Argentina:

Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges (1944)

Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar (1963)

The Museum of Eterna’s Novel (The First Good Novel) by Macedonio Fernández (1967)

Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig (1976)

The Sixty-Five Years of Washington by Juan José Saer (1985)

How I Became a Nun by César Aira (1993)

Thus Were Their Faces by Silvina Ocampo (2015 but written earlier)

Brazil:

Dom Casmurro by Machado de Assis (1900)

Chronicle of the Murdered House by Lúcio Cardoso (1959)

Dona Flor and her Two Husbands by Jorge Amado (1966)

Pedagagy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire (1968)

The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector (1977)

Vast Emotions and Imperfect Thoughts by Rubem Fonseca (1988)

Chile:

The Obscene Bird of Night by José Donoso (1970)

Emergency Poems by Nicanor Parra (1972)

The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende (1982)

Colombia:

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez (1967)

Cuba:

The Kingdom of This World by Alejo Carpentier (1949)

Cold Tales by Virgilio Piñera (1958)

Dominican Republic:

In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez (1994)

Guatemala:

Men of Maize by Miguel Ángel Asturias (1949)

I, Rigoberta Menchú by Rigoberta Menchú (1985)

Guadalupe (part of France but overseas):

I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem by Maryse Condé (1986)

Haiti:

Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwige Danticat (1994)

Jamaica:

No Telephone to Heaven by Michelle Cliff (1987)

The True History of Paradise by Margaret Cezair-Thompson (1999)

Martinique (part of France but overseas):

Discourse on Colonialism by Aimé Césaire (1950)

Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon (1961)

Poetics of Relation by Édouard Glissant (1997)

Mexico:

Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo (1955)

Aura by Carlos Fuentes (1962)

The Hole by José Revueltas (1969)

Underground River and Other Stories by Inés Arredondo (1979)

The Collected Poems, 1957-1987 by Octavio Paz (1987)

Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel (1989)

Nicaragua:

Azul by Rubén Darío (1888)

Peru:

The Cardboard House by Martín Adán (1928)

The Time of the Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa (1962)

The Complete Poems by César Vallejo (1968)

St. Lucia:

Omeros by Derek Walcott (1990)

Trinidad and Tobago:

The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution by C.L.R. James (1938)

A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul (1961)

Uruguay:

Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano (1971)

Venezuela:

Doña Bárbara by Rómulo Gallegos (1929)

Indigenous Writers from Canada and the United States:

American Indian Stories by Zitkála-Šá (Dakota) (1921)

Winter in the Blood by James Welch (Blackfeet and A’aninin) (1974)

Emplumada by Lorna Dee Cervantes (Chumash) (1982)

She Had Some Horses by Joy Harjo (Mvskoke) (1982) 

Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich (Chippewa) (1984)

Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna Pueblo) (1986)

Custer Died for Your Sins by Vine Deloria Jr. (Dakota) (1988)

The Grass Dancer by Susan Power (Dakota) (1997)

Miscellaneous Americas:

And We Sold the Rain: Contemporary Fiction from Central America edited by Rosario Santos (1988)

Short Stories by Latin American Women: The Magic and the Real edited by Celia Correas de Zapata (2003)

Bordering Fires: The Vintage Book of Contemporary Mexican and Chicana and Chicano Literature edited by Cristina García (2006)

[firstfullmoon]

hello pauline, greetings from the other side✨ i have been struggling with reading non-fiction for a while, feels like my brain is rotting :( could you please help me out/ recommend things i can start with which are interesting and not that hard to comprehend. thank you so much for you help. love and light to you 🌟

I feel you, I’ve just started reading academic papers for uni again and I hadn’t realized how much I missed reading non-fiction! On this list there are some I’ve read, some I’ve started but haven’t finished and others I’m looking forward to read. I would say all the essay collections and memoirs (except maybe for that of Wojnarowicz) are pretty accessible, maybe the political writings are a bit harder to understand depending on the subject (and I guess level of specificity and/or radicalism as well)

Obligatory readings (so like, my favourites, essays/collections that have shaped who I am): - The Book of Delights by Ross Gay - All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks - The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing - Upstream: Selected Essays by Mary Oliver - Conversations with James Baldwin, edited by Fred L. Standley - The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison

Some very touching/harrowing memoirs: - Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson - Little Weirds by Jenny Slate - The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion - Bluets by Maggie Nelson - The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch - In the Dream House: A Memoir by Carmen Maria Machado - The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir by Alexandria* Marzano-Lesnevich (I think they no longer use that name but it’s the name under which it was published) - The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher - A House Of My Own: Stories From My Life by Sandra Cisneros - The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde - Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration by David Wojnarowicz

More political non-fiction: - The Fire Next Time, Notes of a Native Son, Nobody Knows My Name, and I Am Not Your N**** by James Baldwin - Women, Race & Class and Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Davis - Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism by bell hooks - Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde - The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander - Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire - A Power Governments Cannot Suppress by Howard Zinn - This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible by Charles E. Cobb Jr.

Others: - Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke - Feel Free: Essays by Zadie Smith - What Poetry Is All About by Greg Kuzma - Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari - Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer - The Crying Book by Heather Christle

[s-ewell]

So, @not-sewell tagged me in this forever ago and I finally answered it! Thank you, it was fun 💕

rules: answer 30 questions and tag blogs you are contractually obligated to know better.

name/nickname: ray (nickname!)

gender: female (she/her)

star sign: leo, but no one believes it at first lol

height: about 162 cm? 

time: 10 p.m

birthday: 13th August

favourite bands: La Dispute, twenty one pilots, and.. hm... the rest is just kpop (my favs are monsta x, clc and dreamcatcher!)

favourite solo artists: dua lipa, chung ha, hozier

song stuck in my head: as it was by hozier 

last movie: I.. think... Rio 2?

last show: Bridgerton!

when did you create this blog? probably like.. september last year? i don’t know time was not real in 2020 

what do i post? it was supposed to be just twc but i sneak a few other games (mostly bioware games) and things like that from time to time (I started to play choices so who knows what the future holds)

last thing i googled: “the luckiest” i was searching the lyrics of a song lol

do i get asks? sometimes, not all that much!

why i chose my url: i am very convinced a certain N sewell is the love of my entire life, so

average hours of sleep: if i have my way, 9, if i don’t probably 6 or 7

lucky number: idk???? sorry

instruments: I can play acoustic gittar a little but like... not really.. probably just a few emo songs from 2011 ajakajskskks

what i’m wearing: pink pijamas... that’s all I want to wear tbh

dream job: I just want to have a job omg hjsjsakhsk I don’t know, Im studying to be an art teacher, but thats not exactly a dream job for me. But I would love to be an makeup artist!

dream trip: First I want to get to know different reagions of my own country, it’s so big and there’s so much to see!! I really want to visit the estate/region my father's side of the family came from, I've never been there. But after that Italy (probably a boring answer coming from a art student but what can I do ahsjsjjskks) !!

last book i read: good question........ just some academic stuff I guess, some books by paulo freire on education

favourite food: I love sweets! Cakes and tartes and chocolate and fruit things

nationality: brazilian :)

favourite song: nine by la dispute

top three fictional universes: mass effect and.. I don't know!

✨ tagging (absolutely no pressure of course!!!): @lilas ; @masonsfangs ; @masonscig ; @admdmrtn ; @ejunkiet ; @agentfreckles ; @agentnatesewell ; @nerdferatum ; @evilbunnyking

[of-foolish-and-wise]

mega-list of book recommendations

saw a mega-list of literary recommendations going around recently and was struck by the dearth of titles by poc, so i made a list of just poc titles to course-correct. keep in mind that i can only in good faith recommend what i’ve read, so i’m sure i’ve absolutely missed some integral titles. drop me an inbox message if you have more recs, i’m always open

canonical

the narrative of frederick douglass - frederick douglass

incidents in the life of a slave girl - harriet jacobs

the souls of black folk - w.e.b. dubois

montage of a dream deferred - langston hughes

cane - jean toomer

their eyes were watching god - zora neale hurston

the bean eaters - gwendolyn brooks

a raisin in the sun - lorraine hansberry

invisible man - ralph ellison

native son - richard wright

the autobiography of malcolm x - malcolm x

the fire next time - james baldwin

sister outsider: essays and speeches - audre lorde

things fall apart - chinua achebe

the garden of forking paths - jorge luis borges

one hundred years of solitude - gabriel garcia marquez

the color purple - alice walker

the woman warrior - maxine hong kingston

satanic verses - salman rushdie

beloved - toni morrison

sula - toni morrison

the house on mango street - sandra cisneros

the joy luck club - amy tan

DAMN. - kendrick lamar

plays

a tempest - aime cesaire

for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf - ntozake shange

fences - august wilson

dutchman - amiri baraka

the american play - suzan-lori parks

memoir

the light of the world - elizabeth alexander

how we fight for our lives - saeed jones

between the world and me - ta-nehisi coates

persepolis - marjane satrapi

men we reaped - jesmyn ward

heavy - kiese laymon

black boy - richard wright

the yellow house - sarah m broom

brothers and keepers - john edgar wideman

zami: a new spelling of my name - audre lorde

poetry

american sonnet for my past and future assassin - terrance hayes

the tradition - jericho brown

night sky with exit wounds - ocean vuong

citizen: an american lyric - claudia rankine

twenty love poems and a song of despair - pablo neruda

don’t call us dead - danez smith

eye level - jenny xie

life on mars - tracy k smith

a fortune for your disaster - hanif abdurraqib

postcolonial love poem - natalie diaz

i can’t talk about the trees without the blood - tiana clark

i wore my blackest hair - carlina duan

an american sunrise - joy harjo

oculus - sally wen mao

short stories

her body & other stories - carmen maria machado

interpreter of maladies - jhumpa lahiri

exhalation - ted chiang

ficciones - jorge louis borges

what is not yours is not yours - helen oyeyemi

sour heart - jenny zhang

essays

how to write an autobiographical novel: essays - alexander chee

trick mirror - jia tolentino

bad feminist - roxane gay

they can’t kill us until they kill us - hanif abdurraqib

we were eight years in power: an american tragedy - ta-nehisi coates

borderlands/la frontera: the new mestiza - gloria anzaldua

this bridge called my back: writings by radical women of color - ed. cherrie moraga and gloria anzaldua

white girls - hilton als

non-fiction

the new jim crow: mass incarceration in the era of colorblindness - michelle alexander

stamped from the beginning: the definitive history of racist ideas in america - ibram x kendi

bunk: the rise of hoaxes, humbug, plagiarists, phonies, post-facts, and fake news - kevin young

an alchemy of race and rights - patricia j williams

looking for lorraine: the radiant and radical life of lorraine hansberry - imani perry

the next billion users: digital life beyond the west - payal arora

fiction

passing - nella larson

caucasia - danzy senna

trust exercise - susan choi

on earth we’re briefly gorgeous - ocean vuong

corregidora - gayl jones

the fifth season - nk jemisin

the brief wondrous life of oscar wao - junot diaz

the round house - louise erdrich

there, there - tommy orange

little fires everywhere - celeste ng

the supervisor - viet than nguyen

kindred - octavia butler

the known world - edward p jones

the underground railroad - colson whitehead

the god of small things - arundhati roy

the vegetarian - han king

theory

playing in the dark: whiteness and the literary imagination - toni morrison

black skin, white masks - frantz fanon

mama’s baby, papa’s maybe: an american grammar book - hortense spillers

discourse on colonialism - aime cesaire

scenes of subjection - saidiya hartman

the signifyin(g) monkey - henry louis gates jr

pedagogy of the oppressed - paulo freire

feminist theory: from margin to center - bell hooks

black noise: rap music and black culture in contemporary america - tricia rose

decolonizing the mind: the politics of language in african literature - ngũgĩ wa thiong’o

black marxism: the making of the black radical tradition - cedric robinson

black feminist thought: knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment - patricia hill collins

black and blur (consent not to be a single thing) - fred moten

young adult

diary of a part-time indian - sherman alexei

the hate u give - angie thomas

emergency contact - mary hk choi

i am not your perfect mexican daughter - erika sanchez

poet x - elizabeth avecedo

[antifainternational]

Hi! So I'm a history teacher in high school and I do some activism whenever I can outside of work, but I believe history is super important, especially to learn lessons from. I'd love to do some antifascist work in class too, but I'm not sure how to put it so it doesn't seem super obvious what I'm doing. I don't wanna push an ideology, I wanna make them think. You got any tips? Maybe other teachers?

Hello comrade! You're asking a question that I've struggled with myself over my career. Public education is a mass of contradictions, and to a large degree there's a disconnect between what I do in the classroom and what I do in the streets (and there has to be for the sake of my job!). This said, part of what made me into an activist was what I learned in school, especially in history class, and the classroom is a key battleground.  Some points to consider:  1. Education is never neutral or apolitical. That goes a hundredfold for history. If you're attempting or being encouraged to teach from some kind of "objective" perspective, know that by default that means a reactionary perspective. History has a distinct antifascist bias. :)  2. Much depends on where you are. In my district, I'm afforded a certain level of protection in terms of both human rights legislation, school board policy, and the curriculum itself (one of the courses I teach actually has an activist campaign as its final project). So if I'm accused of pushing my ideology on students, I can actually open a curriculum that includes, for example, discussion of Indigenous title and Israel's Apartheid Wall. I suspect most teachers aren't so lucky and I may not be for long if the present government here gets its way.  3. This said, your goal (and mine) is to make them think, not make them think exactly like you. And that's where I hand it over to my career-long obsession, critical pedagogy. Check out the works of Paulo Freire, bell hooks, Henry Giroux, Neil Postman, et. al. if you haven't already. It's all about inquiry-based learning; asking the kinds of questions that lead students to critically examine the world around them for themselves. 4. To the extent that you're able, having a classroom that's a safe space is key. I find that on controversial issues, students, especially younger, more academically inclined students, will often reach for the answer that they think will impress me as an authority figure. Creating an anti-oppressive environment is a way to combat that. It means anything from openly questioning school rules around dress codes, lockdown drills, and standardized testing, to offering your pronouns on the first day of class, to ensuring that your material and visuals are representative of diverse cultures.  5. Bring in as many perspectives as you can. I remember my history textbook, for example, had a whole chapter on WWII and half a page on the Holocaust. While I disagreed with my teacher on many things, to his credit he took us to meet Holocaust survivors, one of whom had fought as a partisan in Poland after escaping. We also ended up having ISUs in that class with very open-ended subject matter, which was how my friends introduced me to the Spanish Civil War. 6. My Ancient Civilizations teacher, conversely, was very openly a socialist and a huge influence on me politically. He spent a lot of the class on looking at historical methods and what (and who) gets left out of history and anthropology. Again, completely within the scope of the curriculum, except it led to discussions of feminism, anti-colonialism, and anti-capitalism. 7. All of the above assumes a relatively harmonious classroom environment with students who are open to learning. I've also had students who were literal fascists. I ended up having, in many cases, having to resort to "you can think what you want, but the moment you're expressing this, you're violating the rights of other students in the classroom." I now have an Inclusive Space Policy in my syllabus, otherwise known as the This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things Policy, outlining the scope of what discourse is just not permitted in my class. Hope this helps, and good luck!

[sushiandplutonium]

Things I remembered during my walk with the dog and I need to tell my husband when I get home

- The store in front of us has amazing kitchenware and it is NOT as expensive as we judged it to be!

- There is a place that sells pão de queijo on our street, did you know that? (Shame I don't eat cheese anymore haha)

- There is a fancy rich upscale place that sells roasted chicken (like the little bakeries in the countryside. (Shame I don't eat meat anymore haha)

- There are some cool bars/restaurants/shops on a part of neighbourhood we don't usually go to: on the first block across Augusta and Oscar Freire.

- Last thing is a bit personal, but it is the most important: I was listening to you speaking to your student and it just dawned upon me (again): you are such an interesting person, with such interesting ideas, you are intelligent, and I can NEVER lose you in my life. I love you :) And we need to do this more often! I have no idea why, but when we are at home we don't really speak to each other, but when we are out, we are so interesting together. We need to go out more. Even if the quarantine is still one. We can just sit down on the park and have a beer, there's nobody there. But we need to be there for each other, like we do when we go out to a fancy restaurant.

- Ich habe gerade viele Leute gehört, die Deutsch gesprochen haben. Tatsächlich, die Englisch gesprochen haben, aber ich wollte Deutsch schreiben ;P

- Tem muito viado nessas ruas de São Paulo, muita gente interessante. Isso acontece com cidades em que há muito a se fazer.

[greenwaterskeeter]

Hi Potato! i saw your post and feel like i can give some information that might help you sort out what you think about this (i’m not going to insult you or (figuratively) shout at you).

i think a key part that helps me understand where you’re at is where you say you feel like being trans is “just dysphoria.” And with the representation trans folks have right now, that’s a super understandable conclusion to come to. On top of that, everyone’s different, so no doubt for some people dysphoria IS the whole thing. For a lot of people, dysphoria is what alerts them to the fact that they’re trans. But for a lot of us, i would say most of us (including me), dysphoria is not the whole thing.

re: my own experience, until i was about 25 i thought i hated my own body because that’s what you do when you’re raised as a girl. i did hate being fatter* than other people, and that seemed like reason enough (even though the things i hated mostly didn’t fit that category). it wasn’t until i made friends with an out trans person and started reading books about it that i started wondering: what if i could dress how i liked and/or reconfigure the factory settings, as they say?… Now i’m making the dreams i discovered then come true. So it’s way more about gender euphoria than dysphoria for me, since i’d long since resigned myself to living with dysphoria, which wasn’t unbearable.

But of course, everyone has different experiences- some people do have unbearable dysphoria, and their focus might be on alleviating it. Others might not feel dysphoric at all, and are just happy knowing themselves as trans (and i don’t feel qualified to comment on whether they might “really” have dysphoria or not, since a) that’s not my experience and b) who can know what another person feels better than they do?).

The vibe i get is that you may be thinking, “can’t you just take what you like from here and there and not put a label on it?” In some future that might be possible, and just the thing for some of us. But i think what makes that impossible here and now is that People Just Won’t Be Cool. It could be fine for me to look and act how i want and screw what other people think, except that what other people think affects how they treat me. And how transphobic people treat folks who don’t strictly follow gender rules is appalling.

Historically, there have always been people in the US and Europe who didn’t follow the gender rules and may have called themselves trans if they’d had that opportunity. Sometimes they “got away with it” and other times they didn’t. i don’t believe we’ve heard of most of them. In cultures besides the mainstream US and Europe’s, there are of course also people who aren’t cis, and their cultures have their own takes on gender, both more and less punitive than ours.

During the last century in the US, trans people became much more visible to others, not merely because they wanted acknowledgement but because they wanted to be allowed to live. That’s a key thing here- trans people HAVE tried just doing their own thing, hoping to be left alone. And they’ve been treated very cruelly for it. The US is a hostile environment for trans people. This is especially true of women and people of color, of whom Black and Latine trans women have been punished most and advocated hardest.

That’s the history, in incomplete, general terms. It’s understandable to assume that things are much better now that there is more media representation and more people at least publicly acknowledge a trans person’s right to exist. But the reality is that still, People Just Won’t Be Cool. Most urgently, trans women of color are still being killed at hugely disproportionate rates. Besides outright murder, there’s a whole range of cruelties still being perpetrated both by individuals and institutions on trans people for being trans. Housing and job and medical discrimination, bullying, disowning, misgendering…There’s a lot.

For these reasons, trans people really need the inclusive community that’s partly created by using the trans label. We can protect each other, not completely, but vitally. Allowing others in who may not appear trans to us (for any reason) is part of what makes the community a place of strength and safety. And after all, what do we lose by letting someone call themself trans who may later realize they were wrong? What could we lose letting anyone call themself trans that compares to the loss of someone rejected both by society at large and the trans community itself?

_________

*please see @bigfatscience for very clear and empirically-based analysis of fatphobia and related matters

personal note: i’m in a relatively privileged position, being white, transmasculine, not obviously neurodivergent, a US citizen, having stable housing, etc. i’m much safer than many, many others on a day-to-day basis and have options others don’t (including the option to write this post).

i also want to note that i’m glad to be part of this community that has so many inclusive and otherwise wonderful people in it. i wouldn’t wish myself out of it.

_________

i nowhere near know everything about being trans or about How Things Really Are, but reading these books helped me figure things out as far as i have: Delusions of Gender, by Cordelia Fine My Gender Workbook, by Kate Bornstein (link is to an updated version) Sister Outsider, by Audre Lorde (here’s a selection from it: The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, by Paulo Freire

I’ve also learned a lot from following these blogs (and others, but my memory is not great and i couldn’t find all of them): @nonbinary-support , @lady-feral, @queeranarchism , @transgenderteensurvivalguide

As well as sometimes attending GenderQueer Chicago, a lovely group, and talking with the queer folks at the antifascist Haymaker Gym.

[123456789jo]

some people i’d like to get to know better

i was tagged by @bodysmp3 which was so cool, hi, thank you so much! 💗

1. birthday: november 22

2. zodiac: the internet says i fall on the Scorpio/Sagittarius cusp, even though all my life i thought i was a simple, old sag (idk any of the risisng or moon things, sorry!)

3. height: 5′2 (and a half!) ✌🏼

4. last song i listened to: la luna de rasquí by jorge drexler 🌝 it’s about the moon talking to you and being at peace

5. hobbies: reading, listening to music and singing along while laying on the floor, watching too many youtube videos, searching for books on goodreads and adding them to my TBR list. on the flipside, i’m planning on learning how to make earrings out of polymer clay so WATCH OUT for that hobby!!! 

6. favourite colour: any shade of blue (specially this one) + recently my love for green has been increasing! 

7. last movie i watched: i think it was toy story 4, like 2 weeks ago. i liked it. i have some logical issues with it but emotionally..... i cried a couple times. the exploration of loneliness hit pretty hard

8. favorite book: of all time? the book thief. of this year? so far it’s a goddamn tie between “frankenstein”, “black leopard, red wolf” and “how to do nothing: resisting the attention economy” all of them AMAZING books!!!! 

9. dream job: here’s how i usually describe it to people when they ask me: “do you know extreme home makeover: home edition? basically i wanna do that but with the education system/classrooms so that they can function as inclusively as possible. back up some beautiful inclusive pedagogy with some beautiful neuroscience/neuropsychology to create classrooms that can adapt to every unique brain + background and not the other way around.” like, i imagine me with a multidisciplinary team of some sort going around places of learning and consulting with them and radicalizing the teaching-learning process to be inclusive and give a rightful place to everyone within a classroom. plus i’d love to do research on the side, cause it’s so much fun!!!!! and i’d love to work in alphabetization of adults, people in vulnerable situations, etc. (the Paulo Freire influence is strong in this one)

10. meaning behind my url: it’s from the iluminae files books (even though i only read the first one, lol). it’s the planet that our main characters are from, it gets attacked at the beginning of the book. can’t speak for the other two but the first one was pretty good.

ok i submitted to The Mortifying Ordeal so now i tag: @afterhardshipcomesrelief @marsismad @weird-ecologies @whiteshipnightjar @wjnterbucky @v1777