#Native American Student Association
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"Growing up, Mackenzee Thompson always wanted a deeper connection with her tribe and culture.
The 26-year-old member of the Choctaw Nation said she grew up outside of her tribe’s reservation and wasn’t sure what her place within the Indigenous community would be.
Through a first-of-its-kind program, Thompson said she’s now figured out how she can best serve her people — as a doctor.
Thompson is graduating as part of the inaugural class from Oklahoma State University’s College of Osteopathic Medicine at the Cherokee Nation. It’s the first physician training program on a Native American reservation and in affiliation with a tribal government, according to school and tribal officials.
“I couldn’t even have dreamed this up,” she said. “To be able to serve my people and learn more about my culture is so exciting. I have learned so much already.”
Thompson is one of nine Native graduates, who make up more than 20 percent of the class of 46 students, said Dr. Natasha Bray, the school’s dean. There are an additional 15 Native students graduating from the school’s Tulsa campus.
The OSU-COM graduates include students from 14 different tribes, including Cherokee, Choctaw, Muscogee, Seminole, Chickasaw, Alaska Native, Caddo, and Osage.
Bray said OSU partnered with the Cherokee Nation to open the school in 2020 to help erase the shortage of Indigenous doctors nationwide. There are about 841,000 active physicians practicing in the United States. Of those, nearly 2,500 — or 0.3 percent — are Native American, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.
When American Indian and Alaska Native people visit Indian Health Service clinics, there aren’t enough doctors or nurses to provide “quality and timely health care,” according to a 2018 report from the Government Accountability Office. On average, a quarter of IHS provider positions — from physicians to nurses and other care positions –are vacant.
“These students here are going to make a generational impact,” Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. told the students days before graduation. “There is such a need in this state and in this region for physicians and this school was created out of a concern about the pipeline of doctors into our health system.”
The Cherokee Nation spent $40 million to build the college in its capital of Tahlequah. The walls of the campus feature artifacts of Cherokee culture as well as paintings to remember important figures from Cherokee history. An oath of commitment on the wall is written in both English and Cherokee.
The physician training program was launched in the first year of the pandemic.
Bray said OSU and Cherokee leadership felt it was important to have the school in the heart of the Cherokee Nation, home to more than 141,000 people, because students would be able to get experience treating Indigenous patients. In Tahlequah, students live and study in a small town about an hour east of Tulsa with a population of less than 24,000 people.
“While many students learn about the problems facing these rural communities,” Bray said. “Our students are getting to see them firsthand and learn from those experiences.”
While students from the college are free to choose where to complete their residency after graduation, an emphasis is placed on serving rural and Indigenous areas of the country.
There’s also a severe lack of physicians in rural America, a shortage that existed before the COVID-19 pandemic. The Association of American Medical Colleges has projected that rural counties could see a shortage between 37,800 and 124,000 physicians by 2034. An additional 180,000 doctors would be needed in rural counties and other underserved populations to make up the difference.
Bray said OSU saw an opportunity to not only help correct the underrepresentation of Native physicians but also fill a workforce need to help serve and improve health care outcomes in rural populations.
“We knew we’d need to identify students who had a desire to serve these communities and also stay in these communities,” she said.
Osteopathic doctors, or DOs, have the same qualifications and training as allopathic doctors, or MDs, but the two types of doctors attend different schools. While MDs learn from traditional programs, DOs take on additional training at osteopathic schools that focus on holistic medicine, like how to reduce patient discomfort by physically manipulating muscles and bones. DOs are more likely to work in primary care and rural areas to help combat the health care shortages in those areas.
As part of the curriculum, the school invited Native elders and healers to help teach students about Indigenous science and practices...
Thompson said she was able to bring those experiences into her appointments. Instead of asking only standard doctor questions, she’s been getting curious and asking about her patient’s diets, and if they are taking any natural remedies.
“It’s our mission to be as culturally competent as we can,” she said. “Learning this is making me not only a better doctor but helping patients trust me more.”
-via PBS NewsHour, May 23, 2024
#indigenous#native american#cherokee#choctaw#cherokee nation#medical school#united states#doctors#medical news#medical student#cultural competence#cultural heritage#public health#health care#medicine#good news#hope#oklahoma
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do u perhaps have any advice/notes on how to write a Deaf character, especially on how to write them signing?
Writing Notes: Deaf Characters
Deaf
The word “deaf” describes a person with profound or complete hearing loss. It is important to understand that many people do not consider being deaf or having hearing loss as a disability. Instead, deafness is often considered a culture.
“Deaf” and “hard of hearing” are the terms recommended by the World Federation of the Deaf and The National Association of the Deaf. Many people in the Deaf community prefer the use of a lowercase “d” to refer to audiological status and the use of a capital “D” when referring to the culture and community of Deaf people. Some people with mild to moderate hearing loss may affiliate themselves with the Deaf community and prefer to be referred to as “deaf” instead of “hard of hearing.” Alternatively, some who are profoundly deaf may prefer the term “hard of hearing.”
NCDJ Recommendation: “Deaf” or “hard of hearing” are the preferred terms. Uppercase when referring to the “Deaf” community and lowercase when referring to the condition. Avoid using “hearing impaired” or “partial” or “partially” in reference to deafness or hearing loss unless people use those terms for themselves.
When possible, ask if a person or group uses identity-first language (deaf students) or person-first language (students who are deaf). However, The National Association of the Deaf supports the identity-first approach.
When quoting or paraphrasing a person who has signed their responses, it’s appropriate on first reference to indicate that the responses were signed. It’s acceptable to use the word “said” in subsequent references.
AP style: The stylebook uses “deaf” to describe a person with total hearing loss and “partially deaf” or “partial hearing loss” for others. It calls for use of a lower case “d” in all usages.
The Portrayal of Deafness in Media
Some examples you can use, and do further research on, as a guide (also to learn from and avoid what are considered problematic representations in media):
A Quiet Place and sequels: Post-apocalyptic thrillers in which monsters with highly-advanced hearing invade America. The main characters are a family who all know American Sign Language, owing to their deaf eldest daughter (played by deaf actress Millicent Simmonds), allowing them to communicate without drawing the monsters' attention, and most of the dialogue (especially in the first film) is in ASL. Static from her hearing aid also proves to be a powerful weapon against the monsters.
Baby Driver: Features a hearing protagonist with tinnitus (Ansel Elgort) who is a getaway driver for a gang and has a deaf foster father (CJ Jones).
Godzilla vs. Kong: One of the main human characters is a deaf girl named Jia, played by deaf actress Kaylee Hottle. She is said to be the last of the Iwi people, the natives of Skull Island, and she has a strong emotional bond with Kong, as both of them are the last of their kind. Past incarnations of Kong typically formed strong emotional connections - sometimes ambiguously sexual ones - with white American women, so this is also the first time the most important human to Kong has been a native of his own island. She also teaches Kong sign language.
Hawkeye: As in the comics, Clint suffers from hearing loss due to his superhero endeavors taking a toll on him. The series also features a prominent supporting character who is deaf (Echo), played by deaf actress Alaqua Cox.
Sound of Metal: An American drama starring hearing actor Riz Ahmed as a metal drummer losing his hearing and working at a school for the deaf.
Switched at Birth (2011) features several deaf characters who are able to sign fluently. The show portrays how they adjust to life and their everyday experiences with being deaf and how hearing people react to them.
There Will Be Blood: H.W. is left deaf after a blast at the oil field.
The entry below focuses on films made by American and foreign filmmakers who have little or no special interest in or knowledge about deaf people or Deaf communities. Casting hearing actors to portray deaf characters is unfortunately common. Because neither the filmmakers, the expected audiences, nor the actors know anything about d/Deaf people, inauthenticities are widespread. These problems are only slightly improved by casting a Deaf actor: Deaf actors can portray authentic use of a sign language but are often limited by the script, the director, and the editing process. Therefore, while the signing community commends the casting of Deaf actors, the discussion here focuses on the deaf characters themselves and reasons for their inclusion in the story. In the following, the actors are labeled either “D” for Deaf or “h” for hearing. If there is no label, the actor’s status is unknown.
Deaf Characters and Sign Language for Intrigue. Thrillers with deaf characters typically put a deaf woman in peril. In Hear No Evil (1993), Jillian (Marlee Matlin d) has been learning from her hearing boyfriend which mechanical devices cause ear-splitting noises. When she is pursued by a would-be murderer, she takes advantage of a fire alarm, a sprinkler system, and a stereo turned full blast to mask the sounds of her movements as she attempts to hide. In Orphan (2009) a family with two children, one of them deaf (Aryana Engineer h), adopts an orphan who turns out to be a murderous psychopath. When this “orphan” cleverly steals the deaf girl’s hearing aid before launching the climactic killing spree, we gasp in horror as the deaf girl negotiates the house unable to hear just where her mother or the murderer are. Suspect (1987) has a major deaf character, a mentally ill transient (Liam Neeson h) who has lost his hearing during the Viet Nam war and is accused of murder, but the film focuses on the efforts of his court-appointed attorney, who first must realize that he is deaf, then piece the case together with minimal help from him. (His treatment by the police will be regarded as unsettling and quite authentic by many deaf viewers.) In a departure from the usual use of the deaf character in thrillers, The River Wild (1996) has hearing characters communicating surreptitiously in ASL after they are taken hostage. A brief glimpse of a Deaf father (Victor H. Galloway d) at the beginning of the movie shows where they learned to sign.
Heightened Sensory Powers. The myth that deaf (and blind) people have heightened sensory perception sometimes prompts writers and filmmakers to provide their deaf characters with supernatural powers. After Image (2001) presents Laura (Terrylene d), a young deaf woman whose visions and strange dreams enable her to discern clues to crimes. What the Bleep Do We Know? (2004) is a hybrid of narrative and documentary filmmaking, with Amanda (Marlee Matlin d) simultaneously experiencing different planes of existence as she struggles with the existential angst of her life.
Writing Notes: Sign(ed) Languages
Sign(ed) Languages are languages which primarily function non-verbally through visual signals, generally invented for the use of the deaf to communicate. As the name indicates, the primary means of communication is generally signs made with the hands in front of the body. However, most sign languages include facial expressions and some, such as Japanese Sign Language, include mouthing as part of their mechanics. It is important to recognize that while almost every community with a spoken language also has a signed language, the signed language used is related more to the geographical region than to the spoken language. For example, English is the primary language of the United States, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand, but the US and (Anglophone) Canada use ASL note , the UK uses BSL, and Australia and New Zealand use Auslan and NZSL respectively - all different languages with distinct signs and grammar.
One important aspect of Signed Languages is that they are, as a rule, fully-formed languages with their own grammar and words. They are not pantomime nor do they necessarily follow the grammar of the spoken/verbal language of the region. Some signs are iconic, or resemble what they speak of, much like how some spoken words are onomatopoeic, but most signs are abstractions of iconic signs or completely original. The grammar itself frequently differs greatly in part due to the spatial aspects of signs and the ability to convey information non-sequentially. For example, within ASL, it is common to establish specific people in a conversation at spatial locations and later use signs moving from location to the other rather than having to reestablish identities or use pronouns. Similarly, since both hands and the face can be used, multiple pieces of information can be encoded into a single sign. For example, a sentence like "I drove from Jane to John and I enjoyed it" can be conveyed in a single sign if Jane and John have already been previously established in the conversation. And, before you ask, most signs convey individual words. There is finger-spelling (you're familiar with that from The Miracle Worker, it's what Annie shows Helen to communicate), but it's inefficient (especially with big words like "inefficient"), and not all signers are necessarily fluent in it because it requires them to depict, letter by letter, words that are not from their native language — specifically, words from the spoken/verbal language of the region.
It is worth noting that Signed Language, while non-verbal, is not necessarily quiet. Even deaf users typically make sounds while signing and it is not infrequent for a very low-pitched grunt to be used to catch someone's attention via the vibrations.
As an anthropological note, it is worth considering that many communities and cultures define themselves by their language, and the deaf are no exception. The word "Deaf" is often capitalized when indicating the non-hearing culture, or membership of same. Though there are always exceptions, most Deaf individuals do not consider their lack of hearing to be a drawback and are proud of the community their condition allows them access to.
For a number of reasons, including religious, eugenics and association with Native Americans (e.g. Plains Indian Sign Language) and other "savages", the oralist movement sought to eliminate Sign in an attempt at normalization and mainstreaming. There were actually laws against using Sign in school classrooms until 2008. Educators such as Thomas Gallaudet recognized being Deaf as a cultural identity and warned that eliminating Sign and insisting on oral speech would put Deaf children at a lifelong disadvantage. Today, Sign is recognized as a legitimate form of communication and oral-only education has been discredited.
Signed Language has nothing to do with the trope of Talking with Signs which involves characters communicating via written signs. It is related to Hand Signals, which range from pantomime to a reduced vocabulary, sometimes with a sparse grammar. Especially within fantasy works, it is not uncommon to have races or nations where Hand Signals have evolved into a Signed Language, typically to provide a method to communicate in secrecy.
In real life, some professional fields rely somewhat heavily on signed language even if nobody in a particular project is deaf. One such field that relies on Hand Signals and signed languages in varying combinations, is professional diving, since one can't exactly speak out loud when wearing SCUBA gear.
Sources: 1 2 3 ⚜ More: Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs
Choose which of these notes and references are most appropriate for your writing. But communicating with someone (or people) in the community would provide you with even more valuable information.
#anonymous#writing notes#writeblr#literature#writers on tumblr#writing reference#dark academia#spilled ink#creative writing#writing tips#writing inspiration#character development#writing prompt#writing advice#light academia#writing resources
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Margery E. Beck at AP:
A new South Dakota policy to stop the use of gender pronouns by public university faculty and staff in official correspondence is also keeping Native American employees from listing their tribal affiliations in a state with a long and violent history of conflict with tribes.
Two University of South Dakota faculty members, Megan Red Shirt-Shaw and her husband, John Little, have long included their gender pronouns and tribal affiliations in their work email signature blocks. But both received written warnings from the university in March that doing so violated a policy adopted in December by the South Dakota Board of Regents. “I was told that I had 5 days to remove my tribal affiliation and pronouns,” Little said in an email to The Associated Press. “I believe the exact wording was that I had ‘5 days to correct the behavior.’ If my tribal affiliation and pronouns were not removed after the 5 days, then administrators would meet and make a decision whether I would be suspended (with or without pay) and/or immediately terminated.” The policy is billed by the board as a simple branding and communications policy. It came only months after Republican Gov. Kristi Noem sent a letter to the regents that railed against “liberal ideologies” on college campuses and called for the board to ban drag shows on campus and “remove all references to preferred pronouns in school materials,” among other things.
All nine voting members of the board were appointed by Noem, whose remarks in March accusing tribal leaders of benefitting from illegal drug cartels and not properly caring for children has prompted most South Dakota tribes to ban her from their land. South Dakota’s change comes in the midst of a conservative quest to limit diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives gaining momentum in state capitals and college governing boards around the country, with about one-third of the states taking some sort of action against it. Policies targeting gender pronoun use have focused mainly on K-12 students, although some small religious colleges have also restricted pronoun use. Houghton University in western New York fired two dorm directors last year after they refused to remove gender pronouns from their work email signatures.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) and her appointed state Board of Regents enacted a extreme prejudicial policy that is anti-freedom of speech by barring employees from using pronouns and tribal affiliations in email signatures.
This is a naked act of hate and erasure against indigenous peoples and the LGBTQ+ community in The Mount Rushmore State.
#Kristi Noem#Pronouns#Indigenous Peoples#Emails#South Carolina#Anti Trans Extremism#Anti LGBTQ+ Extremism#South Dakota Board of Regents#Freedom of Speech
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* GENERAL OBSERVATIONS, PART FOUR.
ASTEROIDS
Determine the sign, planetary ruler, and the house that ASTEROID SHAKESPEARE (2985) is in to figure out which genres of Shakespeare plays you might enjoy the most!
╰► Example: My own Shakespeare asteroid is in 5H Pisces, and Pisces is ruled by Neptune. The 5th house is associated with romance, while Neptune governs illusions, mysticism, secrets, prophets, and deceptive idealism. So I would probably enjoy his romances and comedies such as Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
In my natal chart, ASTEROID WASHINGTONIA (886) CONJUNCTS SUN. This asteroid was named after George Washington, and the Sun represents our Ego + Core Identity. Guess whose first ever fixation as a historian was the American Revolution? ✨Me✨.
Look for ASTEROID KLIO (84) in your chart to determine what types of history you should study! For example, I have 11H Klio in Virgo, which is ruled by Mercury. So this means that when it comes to history, I might be drawn to studying the friendship dynamics that existed between historical figures (shoutout to Abraham Lincoln and William Henry Seward as well as Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman my BELOVEDS) as well as public discourses and social movements of a given time period.
PLANETS
9H VENUS placements might be more comfortable with befriending strangers on the internet + having online relationships than they are with developing their in-person connections.
While working on my Famous Individuals With Your Moon Sign post, I noticed that a LOT of authors have ARIES MOONS. This absolutely checks out because Aries Moons tend to be assertive individuals who become pioneers in their fields of interest, which many of these authors were.
If you have difficulty relating to your SUN SIGN or BIG THREE placements, check the aspects in your chart and spend some time researching them! HARD ASPECTS to your personal planets may be the culprits responsible for this.
VENUS rules over the 5H of creativity, so check the house that your Venus placement is in to determine your most prominent sources of creative exploration!
╰► Example: Taylor Swift has Aquarius Venus in the 1H. Her music is often inspired by 1H themes of exploring her core identity, and it is known to have Aquarian undertones of progressivism and rebelliousness. When I saw this placement in her chart, I immediately thought of her songs “The Man” and “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?”.
╰► Example: William Shakespeare had Gemini Venus in the 12H. His works are widely known for their explorations of hidden enemies, endings, spirituality, mental health, and loss — and with his Venus being in Gemini, it’s clear that he had a lot to say about these topics.
Because the MOON rules over the 4H of home and roots, the house that your moon sign is in can show you where you might feel most at home. For example, I have my moon in the 9th house of higher education, and I’ve always felt the most at home in academic settings.
12H JUPITER placements might do well pursuing an occult career field, such as becoming a professional astrologer, tarot reader, palm reader, or even a past life regression hypnotist.
Going through a period of writer’s or artist’s block? Check to see if your TRANSIT SATURN is in the 5H or if Transit Saturn is aspecting the 5H!
TRANSIT MARS in the 9H is a time of yearning for academic recognition and success. If you have this placement and are currently a student, take advantage of opportunities for class participation, extra credit, study abroad, and extracurricular activities!
ASPECTS
MIDHEAVEN OPPOSITION URANUS natives loathe adhering to social norms and are prone to having unpopular opinions that, if expressed, would drastically alter their social status.
MOON OPPOSITION MARS can indicate strong willed and incredibly assertive personality types that, if caution is not taken, may be viewed by others as “bossy”. They’re the type of folks who like to take the reins and lead the group during a group project.
SUN CONJUNCT URANUS people strike me as the type who enjoys researching conspiracy theories, especially if their Sun sign is Scorpio or Gemini.
MERCURY-URANUS as well as MERCURY-VENUS are the types of people who could be uniquely prone to social media / screen time addiction.
VENUS TRINE SATURN natives are sensitive to rejection, and when rejected, might carry it as a deep wound for a long time.
MERCURY CONJUNCT PLUTO individuals have the potential to be excellent speechwriters, poets, songwriters, and journalists.
#astrology observations#astro notes#astrology aspects#astrology#midheaven#mars#9th house#4th house#astrology asteroids#* astrology
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Trump presents plan for using K-12 schools for racist and transphobic propaganda
President Donald Trump signed a toxic executive order Wednesday, barring federally funded schools from recognizing transgender students’ names and pronouns that align with their gender identity, Advocate reports.
By Jack Molay
The measure specifically targets social transitioning, which includes using chosen names, dressing in accordance with gender identity, and adopting preferred pronouns.
The order also mandates that schools notify parents if a student requests to use a different name or pronoun, a policy critics warn could forcibly out transgender youth, possibly leading to invalidation and violence at home.
The sweeping directive also prohibits transgender students from using bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender and prevents them from participating on sports teams consistent with their identity.
This is a fascist text
What is missing from much on the reporting on this case (including Advocate's) is the fascist nature of the text. The Trump administration is no longer hiding that the goal is to create an education system that instills "a patriotic admiration for our incredible Nation and the values for which we stand."
“Patriotic education” means "an accurate, honest, unifying, inspiring, and ennobling characterization of America’s founding and foundational principles."
We doubt that the extermination of Native Americans, the practice of slavery and the persecution of LGBTQ people can be seen as "ennobling".
The goal is clearly meant to stop any teaching that make students question the racist past of the US and the current terror against transgender kids. The administration is turning the American education system into a propaganda machine for a cishet white supremacy. Real education is to be replaced with nationalistic propaganda.
The language used in the order is extremely toxic, using slurs and defamation to stigmatize those that support an open, just and democratic society. Any disagreement is seen as "indoctrination", "anti-American, "subversive", "harmful" and "false".
All of these words could rightfully be used to describe the Trump-administration's policy, but that is what fascists do: They project their own crimes upon those who go up against them.
Do not discuss real racism
The message given is that any substantial discussion of racism is bad.
The order will stop federal funding of any K-12 school that teaches what they call “discriminatory equity ideology”, which means "an ideology that treats individuals as members of preferred or disfavored groups, rather than as individuals, and minimizes agency, merit, and capability in favor of immoral generalizations."
Concepts like “White Privilege” or “unconscious bias” (which are real, observable, social phenomena) are to be banned in schools receiving federal funding.
Any policy aimed at helping people of color in a white society is seen as some kind of reverse racism targeting white Americans.
A war against transgender people
There is broad agreement among researchers and medical experts (and their organizations) that gender incongruence and gender dysphoria are real phenomena, that they do not represent mental illnesses and that trans kids benefit greatly from the help the health system can provide them.
In spite of this the document is filled with insulting lies about trans people.
Gender affirming health care is presented as "surgical and chemical mutilation" . Trans women are presented as men.
This fits the rhetoric found in the previous Executive Order on "Protecting children from chemical and surgical mutilation," which states that the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) lacks "scientific integrity". (Who cares about real science, right?) Kids are apparently undergoing "female genital mutilation". They are not. The use of puberty blockers does not include surgery.
So this is all about creating a false narrative that makes the social exclusion of all transgender people possible. They will definitely come for adult trans people next.
Protests
Advocacy groups swiftly denounced the order, arguing it effectively erases the existence of transgender people in schools and puts LGBTQ+ youth at greater risk of harm.
Nicholas Hite, an attorney with LGBTQ+ rights group Lambda Legal, condemned the move as “patently unconstitutional nonsense” designed to marginalize transgender students. He warned the order endangers youth by exposing them to increased bullying and discrimination.
The Human Rights Campaign also criticized the order, with its president, Kelley Robinson, saying that “All students deserve to feel safe and welcome in school. But this new administration is making it clear they want to dictate to children, their parents, and educators what they can read, what they can learn, what they can say, and who they can be.”
Trump may lack the authority to do what he’s promising, Jonathan Zimmerman, a University of Pennsylvania professor tells the Washington Post. He argues that the Every Student Succeeds Act, passed in 2015, forbids the federal government from mandating or incentivizing states to adopt or use any particular set of academic standards.
The order directs the education secretary to provide a plan to end “indoctrination” in schools within 90 days. Lambda Legal and others are considering legal action to challenge the directive.
But the legal approach must not be the only one. Pro-democracy activists and politicians have to stop beating around the bush and start telling the public that what we see here is fascism, plain and simple.
The photo is of an American school with kids saluting the American flag using the so-called Bellamy salute. For some bizarre reason many Americans did not find the similarity to the Nazi salute disturbing, not even during the Second World War.
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Let's talk about this article:
... because I read the study, and I have some questions.
This article breathlessly states that trans and gender non-conforming teenagers are attempting suicide by up to 72% more, potentially based on laws their states are passing.
... but also as low as 7% more. So no, there is no massive wave of individuals committing or attempting suicide everywhere. There is no trans "genocide."
The survey run by the study did have participants ages 13-24, and found those participants through social media ads. They had more than 5,000 respondents from California and less than 180 from Wyoming, just as an idea of the sample.
The study admits that "no work has been able to identify casual mechanisms between state-level anti-transgender laws and the mental health of the TGNB (transgender/non-binary) community" and "no research has specifically identified a casual link between anti-transgender laws and increased suicide risk" but then boy does it go on and try.
It also fully admits that TGNB teenagers "are already at risk for mental health concerns," which the study believes is due to "minority stress" (stress associated with being the negative impacts of being part of a minority) or potentially because they feel "unimportant and disconnected" (who doesn't, as a teenager?) but which, in my opinion, is more likely because everyone keeps telling them they're going to commit suicide.
Let's talk about these laws that are apparently causing "trans children" not to exist. There have been laws to limit access to cross-sex hormones, dangerous off-label cancer drugs, and permanent life-changing surgery on minors (considering these drugs have a wide range of side effects like slowed intellectual and emotional development, osteoporosis, vaginal atrophy, permanent infertility, and never being able to orgasm, and the surgeries are designed to remove healthy body parts, this seems positive); keeping bathrooms segregated by sex (considering that girls face higher levels of abuse in mixed-sex restrooms and changing rooms, this also seems positive); and keeping sports sex-segregated as well (considering that male and female athletes have different strengths and body types, this seems like it would increase fairness for both groups, and so seems positive to me too).
Now let's talk about people who are actually committing suicide, not just using it for emotional abuse:
The Jed Foundation, which works to increase mental health support on high school and college campuses, says that almost 14% of young adults and 22% of high school students have seriously considered suicide in the past year; 10% of high school students attempted suicide in the past year. The groups with the highest rates of both consideration and attempts are females, Native Americans, and lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals.
The CDC tells us that teenagers in rural communities who face isolation, Black teenagers, and "LGBT" teenagers have the highest rates of suicide deaths. Alaska (which has, notably, no anti-trans laws on the books) has the highest rate of suicide deaths (roughly 40 in 100,000), and it's noted that pockets of suicide spring up in groups like Native Americans, Mormons, and evangelical Christians. The places with the lowest suicide rate for teens are urban areas and big cities, whereas those in isolated areas with higher access to firearms and illegal drugs or alcohol see higher rates.
The rate of teen suicides is the lower than the general suicide rate of the entire US. Elderly people have the highest rate of suicide. But yet all that's talked about is the rate of specifically trans kids killing themselves because they couldn't get "gender-affirming" health care, or play on a sports team, or go into the opposite sex's bathroom. The media has decided to push this angle, and almost everyone has eaten it up. Obviously they're the most affected by everything.
I am tired of this narrative. Teenagers and kids deserve better.
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Native American Heritage Month at UWM Archives
In honor of Native American Heritage Month, we offer this selection of materials from our collections that begin to illustrate Native American presence and power at UWM.
📸: Sandra Harris Tran tables for the Native American Student Movement (NASM) at UWM, circa 1980. The NASM has been a key vehicle for Native student organizing, support, and expression since the late 1960s. NASM is now known as the American Indian Student Association. Call Number: UWM Photographs Collection, UWM AC 6, Box 18.
📸: A Milwaukee Sentinel clipping pictures American Indian students organizing for a dedicated academic program outside Chapman Hall in 1971. Call Number: UWM University Communications & Media Relations Records, UWM AC 134, Box 2.
📸: The cover to a 1974 catalog shows the fruits of Native student organizing in the form of the UWM Native American Studies Program (now American Indian Studies). Call Number: UWM Office of the Chancellor Records, UWM AC 46, Box 54.
📸: The UWM Native American Studies Program announces the pilot of the Wisconsin Native American Languages Project (WNALP) in 1974. This announcement is from "Anishinaabe News: UW-Milwaukee American Indian News," a newsletter of the Native American Studies Program and NASM. Call Number: UWM Office of the Chancellor Records, UWM AC 46, Box 54.
📸: Margaret Richmond offers language instruction to a class of Native "youngsters" as a Menominee Language Resource Consultant for the WNALP in 1976. Call Number: UWM Photographs Collection, UWM AC 6, Box 18. The earlier Native American Studies Program WNALP announcement anticipates an appropriate caption: "We've a lot to learn from our elders!"
In cooperation with the Great Lakes Intertribal Council, UWM Archives stewards the Wisconsin Native American Languages Project Records, 1973-1976 (UWM Mss 20). With extensive instructional materials from the WNALP, the collection continues to serve as an important resource for the study and revitalization of Wisconsin's Native languages for citizens of Wisconsin's Ojibwe, Menominee, Oneida, Potawatomi, and Ho-Chunk nations.
- Eli
#uwm archives#Native American Heritage Month#Native American Studies#Ojibwe#Menominee#Oneida#Potawatomi#Ho-Chunk#teaching#learning#language revitalization#archives#special collections#uwmdistcoll#history#photography#newspapers#Wisconsin history#Milwaukee history#uwm#American Indian Studies
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I wanna expand on that 13% of the population that I am a part of.
Most Black Americans are the descendants of enslaved Africans stolen between 1618-1808.
Race is a social construct, and in our construction, possessing one drop of Black blood meant you were Black.
This man was considered Black.
He served as the leader of the NAACP at one time. He posed as white to infiltrate racist organizations. Of his 64 great-great-great-great-grandparents, 5 were Black.
To white folks, we are perceived as lazy & and stupid, yet it was their ancestors who went to a foreign land to steal millions of people to do manual labor.
Slavery existed for centuries. Ending in 1865 after a Civil War. There was a period of Reconstruction in which there was a genuine effort to make things equal, but the white folks rebelled and started burning down our neighborhoods and lynching us for minor transgressions.
There were laws & policies in place to try to redress that wrong, but Trump has taken steps to remove those protections.
Despite being only 13% of the population, Black folk are the main constructors of American cultural identity. It's our music, slang, food, mannerisms, humor, etc. that folks associate with Americans. We dominate in sports.
We use our own language called African American (vernacular) English. Even Elon Musk uses AAVE in his speech.
We are vilified while also emulated. White folks have stolen aspects of our culture then taken active steps to remove us from it. Re: Country Music
A lot of white people feel that because of their white skin, they deserve preferential treatment. That a white dude with no college education should have every opportunity to thrive.
Sadly, a lot of white Americans have "Temporary Broke Billionaire Syndrome" or TBBS. They will vote for billionaires, despite not having a million, because they believe they are one lottery ticket away from becoming a Billionaire. 🙄
Meanwhile, Black folks buckle down and get our degrees.
Let me address Affirmative Action because a lot of white folks are just plain ignorant.
The largest group to benefit from Affirmative Action has been white women.
The current largest groups include VETERANS and the DISABLED. Note that there are no racial categories there.
White folks spun it that unqualified Black folk were stealing their spots.
As someone who sat on a college admissions committee and drafted a Native American student recruitment plan, that's not how it works.
Affirmative Action does not take the least qualified Black person to put in a spot that was reserved for a white person, but that is how white folks viewed it.
Instead, Affirmative Action refers to taking affirmative action to build a workplace or educational institution that reflects greater American society. Quotas are illegal which means no employer or college was allowed to say, there are 13% Black folk so we must have 13% student population. That was illegal but white folks believed otherwise.
So they mobilized to strike down Affirmative Action in education which impacts veterans, rural white folk (who were also part of Affirmative Action plans), disabled, LGBTQI, and first generation Americans.
Now, they are destroying every "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion" or DEI programs just to remove Black folk from spaces. If they had their way, they would strip us of our citizenship and put us back into shackles.
This is all to say that white folks voted against Harris simply because she was a Black woman. They wanted a fascist because he would do the dirty work of putting us in our place.
#ask auntie#ask me anything#black girl magic#sociology#critical race theory#should have listened to black women#us politics#donald trump#elon musk#elon mussolini#fascist#affirmative action#dei
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"At a small-town candidate forum this week, a North Idaho Republican senator left the event early after making a disparaging remark about the Native American heritage of a Democratic candidate, people in attendance said.
Sen. Dan Foreman, R-Viola, was one of six House and Senate candidates for District 6 who attended a moderated forum in Kendrick, a town southeast of Moscow.
Roughly an hour into the discussion, candidates were asked whether they thought there was discrimination in the state. Rep. Brandon Mitchell, R-Moscow, answered first, saying he thought there wasn’t any discrimination in Idaho, according to Julia Parker, Foreman’s Democratic opponent.
After Mitchell spoke, Trish Carter-Goodheart, a Democratic House candidate who is a member of the Nez Perce Tribe, responded that she thought racism and discrimination were real problems in the state, and referenced the history of white supremacist enclaves in North Idaho, according to a statement she released after the forum.
After she spoke, Foreman stood up and began to yell, saying: “I’m so sick and tired of this liberal bulls---! Why don’t you go back to where you came from?” according to Carter-Goodheart’s statement.
The Idaho Statesman was unable to obtain a recording of Tuesday’s forum. Two of the event’s organizers, Parker and Kendrick Mayor Rose Norris, corroborated Carter-Goodheart’s account via phone. Carter-Goodheart is from Lapwai, on the Nez Perce Reservation. Indigenous Nez Perce people have lived in Central Idaho and the Pacific Northwest for thousands of years. “Racist comments like this one that were directed at me have no place in our community,” Carter-Goodheart told the Statesman. “Intolerance is unacceptable.”
“This is our land,” she added. “We’re never planning on leaving; this is where our ancestors are buried.” Parker, Foreman’s opponent, told the Statesman that after he left early, the remaining candidates finished their discussion of discrimination, presented their closing statements and ended the forum.
Earlier in the evening, after Parker had criticized Foreman’s record as a senator, she said he told her she’d “better not” do it again. Asking if he meant to threaten her, she said he replied: “You heard me.”
“He was clearly already agitated and making these kinds of aggressive statements,” she told the Statesman, noting that there was another candidate forum on Wednesday night that she reluctantly went to after the experience on Tuesday. “It really hurts democracy when somebody is threatening” at a political discussion, she said.
Norris, the Kendrick mayor, said she hopes future forums will be more civil. “People should be able to have differences and come together at a table or in a room and not have to fear that their opinions or their thoughts are going to be belittled,” she told the Statesman.
Foreman did not respond to a request for comment, but said he had been “race-baited” in a Thursday post on Facebook. In his post, Foreman called abortion “murder,” gender-affirming care for transgender people “sick and demonically influenced,” and homosexuality an “abomination.”
“Does the democrat party challenge the Word of God?” Foreman wrote. “Yes, every person in our state and nation has equal rights under the constitution. That is a good thing. But there are no designer or special rights associated with one’s sexual behavior — sorry democrats and other lefties.”
In his eight years in the Legislature, Foreman has become known for outbursts of anger. In 2018, he yelled at a group of University of Idaho students seeking to meet with him to discuss birth control and sex education, according to previous Statesman reporting. He refused to meet with the students. A few months earlier, Foreman was caught on camera yelling at a man while at the Latah County Fair, telling him to “go straight to hell,” according to previous reporting.
Born in Illinois, Foreman is a retired Moscow police officer."
Read more at: https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article293444224.html
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Fail Better Premium: David's Thoughts (Part X)
Creating a breadcrumb trail with David Duchovny's personal growth.
David: "You said you are ambitious-- um, or, you had ambition. I wonder, I wonder what your ambitions are; and in what fields, in what realms. And how you... how you feel-- 'unfulfilled' is the wrong word, because you seem very grateful and fulfilled in many ways. But, um, with the work you've been able to do. But what is, what is still... what would put you in that 18 year old head space again, that would make you go, 'Ah. I'm challenged all anew. This is a new ambition, this is a place I want to get to, this is a world I want to create.' I mean, not specific project; but, y'know."
Fred: "Doing something immersed in another language where it isn't a gimmick. Where I could, like, disappear into-- something in another language. Disappear into something: American sign language; something in German; something that like... in the way that, like, a lot of pop culture is like, has been changing for so long. Y'know-- like I know Squid Game has already, like, y'know--"
David: "Yeah."
Fred: "--it's been years. But the idea that something in Korean is a huge hit is endlessly fascinating to me. I love that. That, like, now we can... we longer have to take for granted that something has to be in English, y'know."
David: "It's interesting to think back on your roots and on the way you described, y'know, yourself as a child. And, uh. And, and your desire to go to England-- whatever England meant, to be 'English.' It's a very, it's very interesting to me that... that's, that's the ambition-- you want to disappear. It's very interesting that you want to disappear. You know, Samuel Beckett's a writer that I wrote a lot about when I was a student. And he was obviously Irish-- born in Ireland, spoke English-- but he was fluent in French; and he ended up writing in French, and then translating himself into his native tongue English. And he would say he wrote in French because the words were cleaner. They didn't have all the associations from his childhood. Y'know, the words, the words that he grew up with-- I remember my mom saying that, my dad, whatever-- those were all fraught with, with ghosts and echoes and meanings. And French was not. French was something he learned; it was clean. And he felt he could write-- and it just put me in mind of what you were saying, in a way: it's like you could really disappear if you could do something in another language, or through another culture."
(Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV: 1/3, Part IV: 2/3, Part IV: 3/3, Part V: 1/3, Part V: 2/3, Part V: 3/3, Part VI: 1/2, Part VI: 2/2, Part VII, Part VIII, Part IX)
#DD#Fail Better#Lemonada#podcast#2024#Fred Armisen#another German and French mention >:DDD#Meg Duchovny#Amram Duchovny#Amram Ducovny
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I have had such a socially good few days?
Chatted with a lady at the thrift store and it wasn't awkward
Went to a ghost story reading at the library
Had a really good discussion class in history
Actually got into costume for Halloween and went to the Bird Club party
Got offered an officer job for bird club for next semester because "I think you'd be really good at it"
Got complemented on my costume a lot
Ran a table at a Dia de los Muertos event hosted by the museum and showed a bunch of kids how to make ojo de Dios
Helped clean up after and had non-awkward chats with the other volunteers throughout
One girl said we should hang out later
Went to the Wabanaki flag raising to celebrate Indigenous history month with our decolonization group
Swapped Halloween pictures with another girl in the group and talked about vampires
Met with a guy from history class and when I told him I celebrated Samhain, offered to connect me with another pagan he knows
In the same conversation we talked with a girl who's Mi'kmaq who's trying to get the campus Native American Student Association back up and running, and when I told her about our decolonization group, we both thought it would be a good idea to join forces
Swapped contacts with, like, five people
Like, in the past, when I went out to things like this, it was by myself or hardly anyone would talk with me longer than a quick "hi". I don't know what I did to deserve so many nice things happening, but yeah! I hope it keeps up!
#Am I tired? Yes! Do I regret anything? No!#also are depression-thoughts peaking through sometimes? of course#but I'm not letting myself dwell on it. I left all of these interactions feeling good and I'm not letting them retroactively ruin them#the Distortion ain't getting me no more baby!#sword speaks
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by Aaron Subarium and Jessica Costescu
The deans at the center of the Columbia University texting scandal scoffed that Jewish students concerned about the eruption of anti-Semitism on campus are "coming from a place of privilege" and suggested those students have more institutional support than their peers because of their supposed wealth, according to new messages reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.
The messages, obtained by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce and released on Tuesday, show that three of the deans—Susan Chang-Kim, Matthew Patashnick, and Cristen Kromm—engaged in a more extensive pattern of disparagement than has been previously reported and shed new light on how Columbia officials reacted in real-time to a panel on anti-Semitism held during the university’s alumni weekend.
"I’m going to throw up," Chang-Kim, Columbia’s vice dean and chief administrative officer, wrote to her colleagues roughly an hour into the panel. The text's timing aligns with remarks from an audience member and daughter of a Holocaust survivor, Orly Mishan, who described how her own daughter, a Columbia sophomore, "was hiding in plain sight" on campus after the Oct. 7 attacks.
"Amazing what $$$$ can do," replied Kromm, the dean of undergraduate student life.
The new messages suggest that the administrators, who were placed on leave pending a university investigation after a Free Beacon report revealed snippets of their text exchanges, see concerns about anti-Semitism as manifestations of entitlement.
"They will have their own dorm soon," Patashnick, the associate dean for student and family support, said of Jewish students, after the head of Columbia Hillel, Brian Cohen, said that many Jews felt more comfortable spending time at the Kraft Center he runs than in their own dormitories following the Oct. 7 attacks.
"Comes from such a place of privilege," Chang-Kim wrote two minutes later. "Trying to be open minded to understand but the doors are closing."
The deans also ridiculed Cohen’s efforts to provide support services, including psychological counseling, to Jewish and Israeli students following Oct. 7, implying that they were receiving special treatment denied to other groups.
"Not all heroes wear capes," Patashnick texted sarcastically. "If only every identity community had these resources and support," Kromm replied.
In 2024, Columbia hosted separate graduation events for black, Asian, Native American, LGBT, and "Latinx" students. Jews were one of the only minority groups not to host a ceremony of their own.
The release of the texts comes as Columbia faces renewed pressure to take action over the ordeal. A petition put forth on Tuesday by Columbia alumni, students, and community members calls on the Ivy League institution to remove Sorett, Chang-Kim, Patashnick, and Kromm "from their positions immediately."
"All four of the deans implicated must be held accountable and terminated. This incident exposes a profound issue at Columbia that cannot be dismissed," the petition reads. "Failure to address this quickly can only be interpreted as a lack of seriousness and urgency in dealing with campus antisemitism within Columbia’s administration. Columbia University must deliver an immediate and unambiguous message that antisemitism will not be tolerated."
Sorett, Chang-Kim, Kromm, and Patashnick did not respond to requests for comment. A Columbia spokeswoman pointed the Free Beacon to a June 12 statement saying the school is "committed to combatting antisemitism and taking sustained, concrete action to ensure Columbia is a campus where Jewish students and everyone in our community feels safe, valued, and able to thrive."
Other text messages obtained by the Free Beacon from the same panel show the four deans dismissing claims of anti-Semitism.
At one point during the panel, Chang-Kim texted Sorett to say the panel "is difficult to listen to but I’m trying to keep an open mind to learn about this point of view." Sorett responded, "Yup."
Kromm, meanwhile, used vomit emojis—"🤢🤮"—to reference an op-ed from Columbia campus rabbi Yonah Hain that raised concerns about the "normalization of Hamas" on campus.
After the release of those messages, Sorett issued a private apology to Columbia's Board of Visitors, saying the texts did not "indicate the views of any individual or the team." He later informed his colleagues that Chang-Kim, Patashnick, and Kromm had been placed on leave. Sorett was not included in the disciplinary move, and a Columbia spokesman declined to say why.
Shortly thereafter, on June 21, the Free Beacon obtained a photo of another text sent during the panel that showed Sorett sneering at Cohen. After Chang-Kim sent Sorett a sarcastic text calling Cohen "our hero," Sorett responded, "LMAO."
On the same day, Sorett broke his silence on his involvement in the scandal in an email to the Board of Visitors. "I deeply regret my role in these text exchanges and the impact they have had on our community," he wrote. "I am cooperating fully with the University's investigation of these matters. I am committed to learning from this situation and to the work of confronting antisemitism, discrimination, and hate at Columbia."
Sorett sent that message after calling the cops on a Free Beacon reporter who knocked on his apartment door to ask him about his involvement in the texts. While Sorett never came to the door or asked the Free Beacon to leave, when the Free Beacon left the building, several New York City police and campus security officers were outside. A Columbia security official said Sorett "raised a whole big issue."
The new texts obtained by the committee, meanwhile, show Kromm and Chang echoed an assessment from Patashnick that Cohen took "full advantage of this moment" for its "huge fundraising potential."
Those texts were sent around the time Cohen cited a visit to Columbia's campus from prominent Israeli politician and human rights activist Natan Sharansky.
"Who was the speaker he mentioned?" Kromm asked. "Natan Sharansky," Patshnick responded before sending a link to Sharansky's Wikipedia page.
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Writing Notes: Memory
Memory - a single term that reflects a number of different abilities: holding information briefly while working with it (working memory), remembering episodes of one’s life and our general knowledge of facts of the world among other types.
Memory involves 3 processes:
Encoding information – attending to information and relating it to past learning
Storing – maintaining information over time
Retrieving – accessing the information when you need it
The information processing model of memory is a useful way to represent how information from the world is integrated with the knowledge networks of information that already exist in our minds.
Sensory Memory
The part of the memory system in which information is translated from physical energy into neural signals.
This is part of the encoding process.
We receive information from our environment and we must perceive it and attend to it before it can move to our working memory.
Short-Term Memory (working memory)
The part of the memory system in which information can be temporarily stored in the present state of awareness.
This type of memory is limited to 7 items of capacity and 7 to 30 seconds of duration on average.
Long-Term Memory
The part of the memory system in which information can be permanently stored for an extended period of time.
It has a large to unlimited capacity and a duration that may last from minutes to a lifetime.
Semantic Memory
The type of long-term memory about general facts, ideas, or concepts that are not associated with emotions and personal experience.
Episodic Memory
A type of long-term memory about events taking place at a specific time and place in a person’s life.
This memory is contextualized (i.e., where, who, when, why) in relation to events and what they mean emotionally to an individual.
MEMORY FAILURES
Can occur at any stage, leading to forgetting or to having false memories.
The key to improving one’s memory is to improve processes of encoding and to use techniques that guarantee effective retrieval.
Good encoding techniques include:
relating new information to what one already knows,
forming mental images, and
creating associations among information that needs to be remembered.
The key to good retrieval is developing effective cues that will lead the person back to the encoded information.
Classic mnemonic systems can greatly improve one’s memory abilities.
MEMORY & CULTURE
Many of our memories are personal and unique to us but cultural psychologists and researchers have found that the average age of first memories varies up to two years between different cultures.
Researchers believe that enculturation and cultural values influence childhood memories.
Example: The way parents and other adults discuss, or don’t discuss, the events in children’s lives influences the way the children will later remember those events.
Mullen (1994) found that Asian and Asian-American undergraduates’ memories, on average, happened six months later than the Caucasian students’ memories.
These results were repeated in a sample of native Korean participants, only this time the differences were even larger.
The difference between Caucasian participants and native Korean participants was almost 16 months.
Hayne (2000) also found that Asian adults’ first memories were later than Caucasians’ but Maori adults’ (native population from New Zealand) memories reached even further back to around age three.
These results do not mean that Caucasians or Maoris have better memories than Asians but rather people have the types of memories that they need to get along well in the world they inhabit – memories exist within cultural context.
Example: Maori culture is focused on personal history and stories to a greater degree than American culture and Asian culture.
Individualistic & Collectivist Cultures
Differences in memory could also be explained by the values of individualistic and collectivist cultures.
Individualistic cultures tend to be independently oriented with an emphasis on standing out and being unique.
Interpersonal harmony and making the group work is the emphasis of collectivist cultures and the way in which people connect to each other is less often through sharing memories of personal events.
In some cultures, personal memory isn’t nearly as important as it is to people from individualistic cultures.
Source ⚜ Writing Notes & References
#writing notes#memory#psychology#writeblr#dark academia#writing reference#spilled ink#culture#literature#writers on tumblr#writing prompt#poetry#poets on tumblr#writing ideas#writing inspiration#light academia#frank mason#writing resources
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On a crisp afternoon last spring, visiting student Yair Berzofsky found himself in the largest park in Prague captivated by the sight of a human effigy burning on a tall pyre. He took notice of the children in play armor who ran past him wearing giant purple hats and jousted with foam swords as adults drank, danced, and beat drums. The figure in the bonfire was part of this year’s Čarodějnice, a celebratory burning of winter witches. Berzofsky watched the woman’s frame crumple as celebrants took turns roasting sausages and marshmallows over the fiery branches.
“The witch burning was not the reason everyone came,” he later tells us, adding that the event was a testament to Prague’s “ability to not just rehash an old tradition, but to turn it into a reason to celebrate its heritage.”
At the end of each winter, Czechs and diasporic Slavs celebrate Čarodějnice, a variation of the ancestral Walpurgis Night—the Christian Saint Walpurga’s feast day, during which observers light bonfires to ward off witches in Europe and the United States. While some see a witch-burning parties as distasteful, as it recalls a dark history of persecution and murder, Čarodějnice harks back to similar pre-Christian traditions. Berzofsky fondly recalls the event’s warm and charming energy: “In a weird way, I felt at home.”
The witch burning evokes customs associated with Slavic gods and goddesses. As author Michael Mojhe describes in his writings, some deities in the Slavic pantheons lived on through equivalent Christian saints, but others were abandoned. Two critical examples are Jarilo, god of war, vegetation, and spring, and his oppositely aligned sister Morana, goddess of witchcraft, death, and winter.
While Slovakians reimagined Jarilo as St. George during Christianity’s spread across Europe in the late 900s, Morana was not. This was partially due to the Catholic Church’s patriarchy but also because she lacked a counterpart in a Christian tradition vehemently opposed to witchcraft and a female god. The burning or even drowning of her effigy, much like the one Berzofsky witnessed, is a Pagan tradition both celebrating winter’s end and ritually recognizing her cultural death.
Like the continued celebration of Čarodějnice, this story follows those of Slavic descent reclaiming an ancient faith tradition—namely, witchcraft—that endured centuries of erasure from Christian institutions. Both of us, authors Emma Cieslik and Alexandra Sikorski, are from Polish American families and grew up in the Catholic Church. It wasn’t until Sikorski began researching contemporary Paganism that we learned of Slavic religious practices prior to the sweep of Christianity in Europe. Researching the contemporary reclamation of Slavic witchcraft as an aspect of cultural identity—especially when invasion and destruction threaten that culture, as in Ukraine now—has become for us a way to reclaim parts of our heritage we never knew existed.
The term Slavic, or the culture of Slavs, encompasses an ethnolinguistic group of multiple ethnicities and cultures that share similarities in food, language, and cultural practices across Central, Southern, and Eastern Europe. The Slavic world extends from Russia in the east to Czechia in the west to North Macedonia in the south. Beyond these countries are Slavic immigrants and their descendants, including both of us, who exist in diasporic communities around the world.
“In Slavic Paganism, there are broad practices, but there are also some specific to the regions within each country,” Stephania Short, a Slavic Pagan, explains. These specific practices are often what come under threat. Invaders have fought over and died for rich farmlands of what is now Ukraine for hundreds if not thousands of years, making Russia’s recent attack on its sovereignty feel like a continuation of centuries-old conflict. It may come as no surprise that a long history of Slavic immigration, religion, and war shaped various Slavic practices and traditions. For Short, part of her witchcraft involves connecting with her Ukrainian ancestral roots—an act made all the more essential by recent events.
“People are looking for ancient meaning,” says Slovakian tour guide Helene Cincebaux. “I think there’s a fascination with Slavic culture, the rituals—maybe the plants, the herbs, things they did. They were natural healers.”
Witchcraft and Paganism existed in Slavic regions long before Christianity found a home. Even when witchcraft faced persecution, its traditions persisted, reimagined within the constraints of the new dominant religion.
In the UK, the 1950s emergence of Wicca, a nature-based, Pagan duotheistic religion, led to the repopularizing of witchcraft and other alternative belief systems. In the same way that native religions varied across Slavic areas, the term “witchcraft” does not refer to a singular identity. “Witches,” including those who do not use this term but exist under the umbrella of witchcraft, participate in a variety of practices and hold diverse spiritual beliefs. These include contemporary Paganism, folk Catholicism, and Wicca.
Where one person uses tarot, another may not. Where one person views hexes as inherently unethical, another may not. Where one person venerates deities, another may not or may only venerate one. Despite this diversity of practice, some people avoid using the term “witch” because it was and may still be used as a derogatory label for people holding spiritual power outside Christianity, as well as those who exist outside social norms.
In Eurocentric and Americentric beliefs, the prototype for a witch is a woman or femme presenting person who is targeted because of their practices. during the second wave of feminism, some women turned to witchcraft as liberation from the patriarchy, finding empowerment in venerating goddesses. Together, they could create a community through common practices in witchcraft, such as yearly festivals that mark the passage of time. According to a survey conducted by researcher Helen A. Berger between 2008 and 2010, 71.6 percent of contemporary Pagans, including various religions and witchcraft, are women. The faith has also become a safe haven for some LGBTQ+ individuals.
Ever since Christianity spread to Slavic Europe in the 900s, people who existed on the margins of society were accused or and persecuted for witchcraft, including literate women and individuals with limb differences and disabilities. It became a scapegoat identifier for people the Church deemed dangerous or different. Similarly, queer researcher Mara Gold explains, “those accused of witchcraft were generally those that didn’t fit the norms of the gender binary, including [LGTBQ+] people and poor older women discarded by society.”
Polish photographer Agata Kalinowska’s monograph Yaga supports and holds space for LGBTQ+ individuals within witchcraft. The diary, which includes photographs documenting thirteen years of queer women’s spaces, takes its name from Baba Yaga, a ferocious witch from Slavic folklore. For Kalinowska, this title is important because it speaks to how Baba Yaga creates space for queer witches:
Now there are women in Poland who empower such figures of older independent women… women who know a lot about nature, power of plants, the importance of female and nonbinary friendships. They are Yagas, they don’t belong to the world created around beauty myths, they queer the system.
Witches of the Church
“A lot of witchcraft is heavily intertwined with Christianity,” explains Sara Raztresen, a Slovenian American witch. Although Christianity sought to erase native religions, many Pagan traditions became embedded in Christian practice. Converts tethered Pagan deities to saints with similar iconography.
After the Catholic Church arrived in Slovenia, locals began to identify Kresnik, the god of the sun, fire, and storms, with St. John and St. George. So Kresnik, the head deity of the Slovenian pantheon, is no longer as prevalent as the saints who inherited his role. Kresnik, St. John, and St. George are among the entities with whom Raztresen actively communicates.
On those days, she sets her altar with offerings associated with the deity with whom she intends to speak. For Kresnik, this includes herbs and flowers related to his role as patron of summer, such as chamomile and daisies. When the deity makes their presence known, Raztresen asks questions that are answered through the tarot cards she pulls, acting as a conduit between the two.
One of these practices is “kitchen witchcraft,” a broad practice that encourages intention and focus, using many on-hand food ingredients with magic and symbolic meaning. For kitchen witch Raztresen and others, their practices often involve using ingredients key to their ethnic backgrounds, such as meats, grains, spices, and more that are native to their ancestral homelands. Kitchen witchcraft and other ethnic household rituals allow people like Raztresen to connect with their heritage even if they live far away.
However, the intermingling of Christianity and witchcraft among Slavs doesn’t erase the stigma the Catholic Church perpetuates against witchcraft. Today many Slavic witches practice their craft as a form of opposition against religious institutions. Raztresen says, “[Church goers] all want you to do the white button-up collar thing in Church,” but there’s a great diversity of Christian practices that include elements of witchcraft and folk traditions.
Similar to experiences across the world, the Church inquisitors in Slavic regions interrogated, tortured, and executed a number of witches. Scholar Michael Ostling states in early modern Poland, the Catholic Church executed approximately 2,000 people for witchcraft, most from the lower socioeconomic classes. The best documented example of this persecution is perhaps the 1775 Doruchów witch trial in Poland, where the Church executed fourteen women, although historians have debated the year and number of victims.
Immediately, marginalized people and their loved ones, as well as other concerned citizens across Eastern and Central Europe started questioning these claims of witchcraft. It wasn’t until 1776 that Poland outlawed torture and the death penalty—partly in response to the Doruchów witch trial. Today, more than two centuries later, people like Raztresen are exploring how their own ethnic traditions are rooted in pre-Christian pagan and witchcraft practices. They are reclaiming how practices persecuted on threat of torture and death lived on through cooking, praying, and sewing traditions.
The Strength of Color
Stephania Short was introduced to spiritualism at the age of thirteen after watching her mom pull tarot. By ninth grade, she “didn’t necessarily believe in God,” and as the years went by, she grew more connected to her Ukrainian roots. She reached out to family members and went to her mom to learn more about Ukrainian cultural traditions and spiritual beliefs. Like Raztresen, Short practices her witchcraft to celebrate her Slavic heritage.
“Paganism kind of allows you to practice with everything that our ancestors would, so everything is based off of the land,” she says. Plants and herbs that are abundant in Ukraine, such as rosemary, are important in her craft.
Like herbs, colors hold meanings in Ukrainian witchcraft traditions. Short explains, “Red is a symbol of strength and protection. Gold symbolizes abundance and prosperity and good luck. Blue symbolizes peace and healing and just kind vibes all around.” With this knowledge, she now intentionally decorates her pysanky, traditional Ukrainian Easter eggs, with these colors to welcome the spring.
Deepening the importance of the color red in Ukrainian witchcraft, poppies represent strength and prosperity. Short aims to incorporate the flower into her spell work and practice “as a form of appreciation for [her] ancestors.” To Short, spells may be made with and for a diverse array of occasions and situations. She defines them as “basically manifestations: energy or intentions that you’re pursuing out for the universe to grasp onto.” Herbs, like rosemary or poppy, and flame may speed up this process. Even the color of the candles may impact the spell. “All elements you use connect to your intentions with the spell, as they carry their own energies.” For Short and many other Slavic witches, the study and practice of Slavic witchcraft involves learning the meanings behind these cultural beliefs.
When winter bleeds into spring, effigies of Morana are drowned or burned just as Berzofsky witnessed, ushering in new life. The Catholic Church banned this practice in the fifteenth century, so the residents of some Slavic countries replaced her with an effigy of Judas. But the custom of burning Morana lived on. Short’s cousin introduced her to Morana. Before, she hadn’t been aware that Slavic Paganism contained so many deities. However, she doesn’t “believe in gods and goddesses necessarily.” Instead, she views it as alluring and something she needs to acknowledge.
Short discusses Slavic and Ukrainian witch practices on social media, from beliefs surrounding native gods and goddesses to the use and meaning of native Ukrainian herbs in spell work. The importance of this has risen in light of the current war. “I’m maybe a little biased, but the Russians’ goal is to eliminate our culture,” she says. During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Ukrainian witch has become a symbol of solidarity for some—recalling the woman of the past who fights for her cultural heritage (her native religion) in the face of erasure and destruction at the hands of the Christian Church.
Images of Ukrainian witches appear on the Ukraine War NFT Collection and among Ukrainian cosplayers around the world, alongside messages showing the strength of Ukrainian people. Madame Pamita, a Ukrainian American witch and author of Baba Yaga’s Book of Witchcraft, explains that during the invasion, traditions and practices have grown more dear, more important to preserve. Ukrainians and other people in Slavic diasporas see the rediscovery of their traditions and practices as a healing tool.
Healing
Emblems of Slavic witchcraft have been interwoven with messages of Ukrainian solidarity, including motanka dolls, 5,000-year-old symbols of feminine wisdom and guards for families within Ukrainian folk traditions. Motanka dolls are talismans unique to each family and symbolize connection between familial generations.
Madame Pamita’s grandmother was a baba sheptukha (баба шептуха), a healer who made motanky (мотанки) spirit dolls, but her grandmother died before she was born. Although she heard about these practices, she never knew how to perform them. Others share a similar experience of unfamiliarity, but a mother-and-daughter team in British Columbia are changing that by creating and selling motanka dolls as a fundraiser for Ukrainian relief.
With attention on agency and the self, Slavic witchcraft encourages healing and identity formation. It focuses on reflection and connection. Even if they aren’t recognized as religious practices, the cornerstones of many Slavic witchcraft traditions can be uncovered in small Ukrainian dolls, Slovenian kitchens, and large celebrations. Ukrainians and their allies are preserving these traditions for solidarity, fundraising, and strength.
The presence of magic may not be obvious, but it is simply a matter of perspective. That perspective may bring people closer to culture they may feel disconnected from in diasporic communities or from being part of a marginalized people. It may bring them their own version of spiritual happiness and cultural enrichment.
Emma Cieslik is a museum professional in the Washington, D.C., area and a former curatorial intern at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.
Alexandra Sikorski is a writing intern at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and a master’s student in public anthropology at American University. When she isn’t researching contemporary witchcraft, she enjoys dissecting material culture and design.
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Hello to the 2 people who might actually remember me! I'm tentatively back. I want to get into writing again but boy have I had a year.
Some of you know, but around this time last year I lost my little brother and my life has definitely been full of ups and downs. I got diagnosed with depression and have been figuring out medication, I got a boyfriend, I've gotten a lot of grief from some girls in my sorority for something I did not do, I became president of my schools Native American student association, I got a lizard, and I changed my major.
I'm trying and I'm not going to promise a fic any time soon, but I'm planning on making a return soon
Peace and love
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A White history teacher accused a California teachers union of discriminating against him on the basis of his skin color and called the move "disgusting."
Isaac Newman, a teacher in the Elk Grove School District, on Friday filed a federal lawsuit against his local National Education Association affiliate for allegedly violating his Title VII civil rights. The suit alleged that the Elk Grove Education Association formed a seat on its executive board that was only available to candidates of color, meaning Newman wasn't eligible.
"It's disgusting, and that's why I'm suing," he told Fox News Digital in an interview.
"My union barred me from a leadership position simply because of the color of my skin," he said, discussing the suit. "I'm prohibited from running for a leadership position simply because of my race. This kind of racial litmus test is illegal, and it's un-American, and that's why I'm taking them to court."
In 2023, Elk Grove Education Association officials voted to create a "BIPOC At-Large" seat on its executive board, a position limited only to people who "self-identify" as "African American (Black), Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawai’ian, Pacific Islander, Latino (including Puerto Rican), Asian, Arab, and Middle Eastern," according to the suit.
"Plaintiff Isaac Newman is a white [EGEA] member who wants to run for union office to address the District’s recent adoption of what he believes to be aggressive and unnecessary Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) policies," reads the lawsuit, filed by The Fairness Center, a legal group focused on representing "those hurt by public-sector union officials."
The suit asked the court to "declare the BIPOC Position unlawful" and prevent the union "from creating any similar positions in the future where candidate eligibility is, in whole or in part, based on race."
Newman said the alleged discrimination was "frightening," as was the prevalence of critical race theory in society's culture.
"I'm actually really frightened for my children," he said, "when we look to a future where people are being taught [critical race theory]."
Newman believes that DEI ideology pushes hostile messages that focus on a person's skin color as opposed to their expertise and knowledge.
"The message there is that as a White teacher in a district that is very diverse, my students can't learn from me," he said. "It's abhorrent, and it's flatly wrong."
Newman told Fox News Digital that after disagreeing with the union pushing "aggressive" DEI agendas in the district, he decided to run for an executive seat to challenge the status quo.
"I'm looking to see my district and union back away from this fantastically toxic ideology, back away from DEI and embrace merit and individuality," he said. "I'm hoping to see that other teachers, other people in similar organizations, will stand up."
Newman said he was not alone in his opposition to DEI in school districts.
"Most people who think like me are unwilling to speak up," he said. "There are a lot of teachers [who are silent], and it's not really a conservative or liberal thing."
"There are a lot of teachers who recognize that meritocracy, colorblindness are at the core of good teaching," Newman added. "What's shocking is in these DEI trainings, they actually call out colorblindness and meritocracy as racist myths. And of course, if you're dedicated to that, well, then you're going to have division, and you're going to have mediocrity."
Fox News Digital reached out to the Elk Grove union for comment.
"Teachers’ unions don’t get a pass from laws that prohibit racial discrimination," said Fairness Center President and general counsel Nathan McGrath. "The Civil Rights Act explicitly forbids unions from discriminating based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin and from segregating members based on these attributes."
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