#adopt that color blind racism mentality

[the-ocean-is-trans]

so there are pages and pages that could be written examining portrayal of race in og leverage cause hoo boy so much to unpack and a lot of casual racism to analyze but what i will say for now to folks who are feel like eliot having Black parents is at odds with him saying racist shit to Hardison in the original show... i am not a transracial adoptee however i am a person of color with a white father and he absolutely says and does racist shit not IN SPITE of having a wife who is a woman of color and a child who is also not white passing, but BECAUSE we are both POC and his proximity to us makes him feel like he has a better than average understanding of race and therefore gets to say a lot of bullshit

[cyclopstm]

                         DISABILITY && MENTAL HEALTH

This post will cover items such as disabilities, mental health, PTSD and trauma in relation to Scott. These are things which are either canon for him, or headcanons I want to pay more attention to on my blog.

I do not have any personal experience with any of the items I will address in this post, which means that most (if not all) of my information is gained through reading and research online. If there are items I missed out on or have described incorrectly, you may contact me about this to kindly help me figure out a new/better way to put things into words. It’s in no way my intention to upset anyone, or bring forth wrong information.

To me, it just feels like Scott is a good opportunity to improve the representation of characters and people who deal with visual impairment because the narrative that disability is binary caused that most blind characters in popular media have no vision at all. Blind characters in heroic roles like Daredevil, have powers that completely compensate for their blindness while blind people who don’t have these compensations are usually portrayed as helpless.

As a team leader and a superhero, Scott offers a good opportunity to include people who are visually impaired, yet often ignored or left out of the heroic narrative.

Needless to say, do NOT reblog this post && don’t interact with it if you’re not a RP blog.

                                             _____________________________

TABLE OF CONTENTS : 1. Scott’s brain trauma and injury 2. Scott’s PTSD during his youth 3. Symptoms and signs of PTSD for Scott 4. Scott is (legally) blind 5. Scott cannot distinguish colours 6. How Scott deals with his visual impairment 7. The X-Mansion and dealing with trauma 8. Additional notes

                                      ________________________

1. SCOTT’S BRAIN TRAUMA AND INJURY When Scott was a young boy, he went on a travel with his parents and his little brother Alex. The family’s private jet was ambushed by an alien Shi’ar scouting ship. The boys lost their parents on that unfortunate day and in the crash, Scott took a hit to the head after his mutant powers manifested for the first time and allowed Scott to break his fall and allow him and Alex to survive. The head injury Scott suffered on that day would permanently disable the part of Scott’s brain which would have enabled him to control his optic blasts. Additionally, Scott (as well as Alex) suffered traumatic amnesia regarding the accident. Unlike his brother, Scott was forced to remain hospitalized for up to a year.

As a teenager, Scott began to suffer from severe headaches and he was sent to a specialist (Mr. Sinister in disguise) who provided him with lenses made of ruby-quartz. Scott’s mutant power erupted from his eyes as an uncontrollable blast of optic force and the only means to control it ever since have been the ruby-quartz lenses Sinister gave him. Sinister knew the lenses would help due to experiments and research he had been doing on the boy while Scott lived at the orphanage where Sinister had feigned being the owner.

2. SCOTT’S POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER DURING HIS YOUTH After losing his parents and waking up alone at the hospital after the plane crash, Scott was placed in the State Home for Foundlings, an orphanage in Omaha (Nebraska) where he was subjected to batteries of tests and experiments by the orphanage’s owner, Mr. Milbury (alias, Mr. Sinister). He placed mental blocks on Scott and took on the role of ‘Lefty’, who was Scott’s roommate and bully at the orphanage. During his time spent at the orphanage, Scott was subjected to several occasions which would leave him traumatized — such as the attempt of one of the other orphaned boys at taking his own life, and Scott’s failed attempt at saving him. Any time anyone came close to adopting Scott, Sinister intervened.

At some point, Scott demolished a crane with his optic blast, by accident. He had saved a crowd of people by using his blast again to destroy the crane before it would crush the people, but they believed he was out to kill them and chased the young mutant boy. Scott woke the attention of a mutant criminal who sought to use Scott’s powers in his crimes, but abused the kid when Summers refused. At that time, he had also attracted the attention of Charles Xavier who tracked down Scott and took him in as the first of his team of X-Men...

3. SYMPTOMS OF SCOTT’S PTSD — Reliving the traumatic event (during his childhood) :: as a boy, Scott was fond of airplanes and dreamed of becoming a pilot himself one day. But when he was taken to an air show by one of the orphanage’s nurses, he had a violent traumatic reaction in the middle of the show, reciting things he otherwise doesn’t consciously remember. — Negative Thoughts and Feelings :: Scott often deals with feelings of anger, guilt, fear or numbness. He’s prone to blame himself for things going wrong on missions with the X-Men. When someone comes to pass, he’s quick to take up responsibility and the blame for it, and occasionally even deals with survivor’s guilt. Scott also feels cut off from his friends and family and hardly keeps much interest for day-to-day activities. He hardly does them to relax, but rather only when they become necessary. — Avoidance :: Scott feels like he has to keep busy at all times, he doesn’t want to think or talk about anything in relation to his past, feels emotionally cut off from his feelings, struggles to express his emotions or affection towards others and thus comes across as numb and cold and very serious and occasionally does risky things which could be self-destructive or reckless. He’s often the first in line to sacrifice himself for the X-Men not only because he’s their leader, but also because he has little to no value for his own life. — Disturbed sleep and lack of sleep. — Taking risks and hypervigilance. — Intrusive thoughts. — Nightmares. — Trust issues. — “No one understands.”-mentality. — The sense of never being at peace.

4. SCOTT IS (LEGALLY) BLIND While Scott was born with perfectly normal eyesight, and perfect vision, he no longer has the ability to see without his ruby-quartz lenses ever since his optic blasts came to manifest. Only ruby-quartz can keep the optic blasts under control, meaning that any other means of vision such as regular glasses or lenses would not be of help for Scott. Scott literally can’t see without his ruby-quartz shades. Opening his eyes would prove incredibly destructive to his nearest surroundings.

Someone who is completely blind can’t see any light or form. Of the people with eye disorders, only about 15% can see nothing at all. If you’re legally blind, you can still see, just not that clearly. Normal vision is 20/20. That means you can clearly see an object 20 feet away. If you’re legally blind, your vision is 20/200 or less in your beter eye or your field of vision is less than 20 degrees.

In addition to being unable to distinguish colors due to the red tint in his glasses, they also reduce his low-light vision, which means Scott deals with low vision.

5. SCOTT CANNOT DISTINGUISH COLOURS I’m not using the term colorblindless in this post for the main reason that Google gives me too many search results in relation to racism, and I do not intend to use a term that has a double meaning that could be taken the wrong way.

Scott’s ruby-quartz lenses cause him to see the world through a veil of red. The lenses are tinted in red which alters Scott’s general, every day perception of the world. He sees the world in shades of grey, white, black and red and can no longer distinguish any other colours. Maybe rather than ‘colourblindness’, Scott deals with something alike to monochromacy. Though, Scott’s monochromacy is perhaps not of a kind that has been officially diagnosed in real life cases before.

The comics and movies rarely acknowledge Scott’s eyesight aside from him claiming to have an ‘eye condition’ as an excuse for him to wear sunglasses all the time. Scott’s adaptations to being unable to distinguish different colours would be mostly rather subtle and maybe it doesn’t inherently add onto the story a comic book or movie wants to tell, but they shouldn’t be ignored in how I wish to bring Scott in my writing...

6. HOW SCOTT DEALS WITH HIS VISUAL IMPAIRMENT — High contrast text and browser extensions for reading. — Color coding his outfits. He labels them with what color they are and organizes his closet by items that go together. — As a prodigy at billiards, Scott has a special billiards set adjusted to his specific needs. — Large prints for letters, books, digital fonts, etc. — Increased brightness on any of his devices’ screens. — Assistance from ‘self-driving’ tech when flying the Blackbird or riding his motorcycle. He knows the majority of controls through muscle memory by now. — Assistive technology to improve contrast, especially at night. — Scott owns a touch-based Rubik’s Cube. — Help from his closest friends.

7. THE X-MANSION AND DEALING WITH TRAUMA Scott and Ororo both (among others), are hyper aware of the traumas some of their students have experienced. They recognize behaviours and reactions in trauma survivors because they have been in such a position themselves as well. They made sure the school has a clear set of rules and policies on the safety and comfort of students. The school faculty received training in mental health first aid, there’s places students can retreat to when they feel anxious or suffer from power meltdown.

People like Scott, Jean and Rogue would know how to handle students who have gone through different types of abuse. As trauma survivors themselves, they’d take extra steps to reassure students who have every reason to distrust adults. They would announce themselves when approaching students from behind, maintain wide personal space bubbles and refrain from initiating physical contact such as hugs or touching students without asking them first. They see there’s no use in raising your voice to the kids, and won’t tollerate any kind of jokes about trauma. Scott is rumoured to be very strict on the rules of the house concerning mental health.

8. ADDITIONAL NOTES While Scott is aware that there is no shame in any of what he deals with every day, he still keeps it under wraps a lot. He doesn’t ever want for his visual impairment or his trauma to become his only and main personality trait other people associate with him. This is why a lot of people may not even know that he is dealing with these things on the daily. He’s very subtle about everything and only those who get to know him better may begin to see and notice things which indicate that he’s disabled. Scott has grown so adjusted to living with his disabilities that they commonly no longer cause him trouble.

The only people who know Scott is visually impaired because he told them himself are Charles (confidant and father-figure), Jean (lover, the person he maybe trusts more than anyone else), Hank (as the resident scientist), Ororo (as his fellow team leader) and Emma Frost (as his therapist).

Scott has been able to take therapy sessions with Charles during his early years, and later on with Emma Frost. Jean has also helped him an incredibly great deal on coping with his trauma and PTSD, lack of self-esteem and dealing with his emotions and expressing them more openly.

To this day, Scott still suffers from migraines and occasional moments of memory loss. His brain injury does not always allow him to maintain or store knowledge accurately. His migraines are a result of his optic blast building up surplus energy. When Scott can’t use his optic blast regularly, he will build up a surplus energy which manifests into migraines.

[loudlytransparenttrash]

Black activism has gone from fighting against segregation to demanding segregation. Fighting to attend college and getting a proper higher education to demanding there be no SAT tests or admission requirements for ‘Beyonce 101.′ It’s gone from fighting to be defined by our character to demanding to be defined by the color of our skin. As they trample on MLK’s dream of unity and progress, they have embraced a far different sect of the civil rights movement, the radical, vengeful ideology of Malcolm X. It’s all blaming the “white devils,” creating black-only spaces and demanding power that is "owed to us.” Nothing is owed to us. We owe ourselves and the next generation of black Americans better families, better education, better respect for the law and each other and the truth that no one is hunting us and nothing is stopping us. That’s what our fists should be raised for and what our marches should represent. 

Instead, we get Black Lives Matter, a “movement” that’s so desperate to cosplay the stories they’ve read in history books, they have to fabricate their hate crimes, oppression and enemies. Black Lives Matter is founded on the myth that Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and Michael Brown were innocent black males who were “murdered” because they were black. We’re more outraged by a black person being shot while he’s beating another man senselessly than a black child being shot in crossfire between thugs. We either set cars on fire and break shop windows in protest or we stay quiet and mind our business like nothing happened. On the streets black activists riot first and ask questions later. They need to get that hashtag trending on Twitter, after all, it’s what feeds their hatred, funding and demands. In colleges, black students protest against portraits, novels and their spelling being corrected. We’re bringing our children up to believe that a police officer’s job is to do wrong by us and kill us. We teach them that getting a good education, speaking properly and starting traditional families isn’t for us. Our mentality is our oppression. 

Have you ever noticed that all the evidence of systemic racism is psychological? Today it’s all about “invisible forms of racism,” such as “racial battle fatigue,” “unconscious bias” and “microaggressions.” We know we’ve come a long way when our own invisible perception of discrimination is our discrimination. There’s such a short supply of it today, we have to generate it ourselves. This invisible, unconscious racism that nobody but the most woke people can see has become a mainstream ploy to keep black Americans blind to the freedom and opportunities all around us. Where is the actual proof that blacks are being deliberately and systemically discriminated against? Nobody knows, except for those who just assume it and demand for us to assume it too. Any countering facts or evidence is shut down as further discrimination. 

They will often say, “Well the black population of this town is six percent and the amount of black employees at this store is only four percent which equals discrimination!” but that’s not discrimination. Just as feminists have found out with their wage gap equation, there’s a little pesky thing called choice, which all too often explains numerical discrepancies, aka “inequalities,” rather than looming evil, invisible, oppressive forces. There is virtually no company today that hasn’t adopted various affirmative action and diversity plans, they are literally handing out jobs to black people just to get their numbers up so they don’t get sued. We already have anti-discrimination laws. We’re supposed to believe employers are deliberately breaking the law just so they can get on with screwing with black people? 

At some point we have to stop waiting for the people who keep promising that more welfare and dependency on them will fix all our problems and start to take the initiative to fix things ourselves. We can protest against proven cases of police violence and discrimination together, but in the meantime, we can also be the most productive citizens and individuals we can be. We can value marriage, traditional family, education, work and the law without it devaluing our community. In fact, it’s what the community needs more than any placating handout. Every time a progressive black voice is shot down, the further away from MLK’s dream we will stray. If we can’t rely on the community to engage in honest and productive dialogue and action, then maybe it’s time for black Americans to Get out, and start thinking for ourselves. 

[jackelyntam]

Research project

Jackelyn Tam

Professor Fish Burton

English 2010

30 October 2019

Research Project

Audience: Teens. Who struggle with their identity.

For each of you, “teens”, are trying to find out who you are. Who are you? What defines you? Does someone get to say who you are or is that decision made by you? Some say that the character of one person will depend on their family, their genetic background, or does it stem from the environment around the person? Every story has characters that influence us on how we think makes up a character or a personality. Let’s take the example of the Thor and Loki for example. They both have their own definite character that they play. Thor is the real son of the king and acts almost alike with their father. Loki is an adopted son who does not act or have a character of either his adopted parents. Does his character come from his biological parents or does it come from the environment at which he was raised in? This raises the question, does who you are born from define who you will become? What character do you want to play in your life story? Do you have a say of what character you want to play? Quite often your parents or the people around you may say “you fall after your father so well….” Or “you will be just like your mother/ parents…”. However, do you parents have an influence in who you will become and do they have an influence genetically or environmentally?  

           The main question is does character or one personality defined by nature or nurture? In this article by Mcleod he explains the extremes to the nature versus nurture topic. Nature by extreme is called “Nativism” (Mcleod). Nativism are people who think that all their abilities and their character are biologically inherited (Mcleod). He writes “psychological characteristics such as behavioral tendencies, personality attributes, and mental abilities are also “wired in” before we are even born.” (Mcleod). This explains how the side of Nativism would have viewed the topic of where character and attributes come from. On the other side of Nativism there is the “Empiricism” (Mcleod).  Empiricism is the extreme perspective on a person who thought on the nurture side of the scale. The Empiricist thinks like this, Mcleod writes, “Their basic assumption is that at birth the human mind is a tabula rasa (a blank slate) and that this is gradually “filled” as a result of experience” (Mcleod). Mcleod draws a perfect picture of the two sides: Nature versus Nurture. One either by the extreme naturist or the extreme empiricism. Which one of these extreme ends defines who you are? On the spectrum of nativism, you don’t get a say on who you will become. On the other hand, there is empiricism where you are born with no qualities or attributes, as Mcleod would say “a blank slate”.

In the past there have been men or the society who have tried with efforts to distort the truth of whether nature or nurture creates a person self-worth or character. These people were extreme nativist who would do anything to create judgment and fixed perspectives on a religion, or a race or, a group of a people. There are a couple of evidence from history that proves that men have a way of distorting the way we look at people, however, we will discuss only two. There are many people in life and in school that have a way to discriminate humans from what they look like and who they are born from. The first event in history is the discrimination in WWII specifically for the Jews. In world war II, the Nazi; Hitler convinced the people that the cause of Germany’s problems was because of the Jews. He was convinced that linage of the Jews was a dirty thing. He then started to discriminate and even kill the Jews for their existence based on their linage and their biological inheritance. However, little did he know that the Jews weren’t the problem but the people around them, like Hitler. In reality, the Jews had the right minds and the right intelligence to help society grow and flourish. It was Hitler and his anger and judgment that was blinding him from seeing the truth. In this website article it says “An example of this type of prejudice can be found in the memoirs of a member of the slowly declining British aristocracy, who wrote that her social class resented the Jews "not because we disliked them individually, for some of them were charming and even brilliant, but because they had brains and understood finance."” (web.mnstate.edu/shoptaug/AntiFrames.htm.). The people began to judge the Jews based on where they came from. By nature, they discriminated them and placed them in a box based on by whom they were born from. The problem is not only the fact that they were extreme nativist, but they falsely accused the linage of Jews. Another article has claimed, “throughout history, many have sought to define Jews, incorrectly, as a single and uniform category of people with fixed characteristics, which racists and anti-Semites falsely believe are rooted in biology. But the lives Jews have lived around the world and throughout history can perhaps be characterized best by their immense diversity.” (European Jewish Life before World War II).

The second evidence in history, of this biases and clouded thought process in nativism, is the racism against African American humans. This set of wrong judgment based on their color and their biological features is the same situation as the discrimination for the Jews. Except with this situation, of racism towards African American humans, they would change the history they taught in class to drill in the young minds the false accusation for the African American humans. This article by Brosnan talks about how black people were portraited in the 1800’s school education. Schools at the time were taught differently than the school we teach today. The schools back then would teach things they thought would benefit the society. They believed that white people were significantly “superior” than the African Americans. They would design textbooks and book based on this knowledge that African American are worth less than the white race. In result of writing text books like this, they would in reality, force African Americans psychologically to stay in the fields and hard labor work areas (Bronsnan).  By looking at history, we have seen so many mistakes based on non-researched and clouded judgments be based on whether someone’s worth or someone’s character stems off nature or nurture. We can’t let the biases from the world or others decided for us what we can be or what we are. What character or attribute is inherited by nature, and which is created from nurture?

Sexual identity is an example of an attribute that is created by nature. In this article, written by Loof, where he explains more about the sexual dominance and identity, he expands its most recent controversies in today’s topic of how sex is determined (Loof). Is it by nature, biologically created through hormones and chemical reactions with in the chromosomes, or is it by nurture? In today’s world people have wanted to become more like each other sex. Women want to be equal with men (loof). They want to be treated like how men are viewed as (Loof). Biologically one may be born as a female or a male human however, in today’s world there may be cases where nurture can potentially overcome what has biologically shaped gender. However, on the other hand, there are attributes that cannot be changed which are called the major genes (Fuller). Fuller writes an interesting article based on clearer way to see things on the nature side. He explains that the major genes are those that are passed down from parent to child like hair color, eye color, height etc (Fuller). He also says that diseases or viruses is also something that we cannot change by nurture, but it is passed down to parent to child (Fuller). Diseases that are passed down genetically affects the personality and attributes of a child. There are some diseases or viruses that affect the intelligence or even the ability to use the mind well enough to have their own character. This is where nature cannot be avoided. Shuttleworth agrees with Fuller, nature cannot be avoided. He writes that there are some fine lines of nature that we cannot control which are diseases that are passed down. There is another article, written by Shuttleworth, agrees with Fuller that some nature attributes that are passed down cannot be changed. However, he says that environment and heredity both have an influence as to forming character and other attributes (Shuttleworth). Shuttleworth in his own words says, “Further, in the case of intelligence and many other variables, it is essential that we have a determination of the joint contribution of hereditary and of environmental differences.” (Shuttleworth). Fuller starts to back up what Shuttleworth have been claiming on how a character is formed. There are attributes that are inherited that cannot be changed, a set of genes that are set into your DNA that cannot be changed, however, once one is being developed inside the womb, that is where nurture comes to influence your development in building character. Your parents give you a set of DNA that is unchangeable but inherited. After you are given this DNA form, you are vulnerable to have nurture to develop into your character (Fuller). Some may say you “fall after your father or your mother” however, one does not exactly inherit a 50 to 50 ratio of mother/father side. “variation in heredity are the causes of variation in traits.” (Fuller) Evolution makes organisms; humans to have variation in the DNA. Your parents are a mix of other genes that were passed down from one family tree to the next… therefore your parents will pass down a variation of genes that are not particularly what your mother or father have shown to have but are in the blood line. They may be a recessive disease or characteristics that runs in the blood line of the father or mother.

The last three sources are interesting because it connects nature and nurture together to help build character. The last three articles mainly talk about “biological clocks”. The first article is by Mcleod, the article introduces the biological clock theory. This article believes that a person’s personality and character may not reveal itself as a child but over time it will come. It is as if a biological clock is ticking its time for each individual gene to starts its chemical process. The article says “Characteristics and differences that are not observable at birth, but which emerge later in life, are regarded as the product of maturation. We all have an inner “biological clock” which switches on (or off) types of behavior in a pre-programmed way.” (Mcleod). The environment of development affects the way or when the genes are turned on…  “What does it mean that grit is “heritable”? Although an estimated 99.9% of your genes are exactly the same as mine and your neighbor’s and literally everyone else you know, a tiny fraction of human genes differ.” (Angela). Sometimes we think that character and “grit” are from nature, meaning that these qualities come from genetics, which is mostly true. From the nativist point of view, alike from what Angela said, we are all practically genetically the same (Angela). Now, here is the trick to this. Most of our genes are turned off. Angela compared our genes like a switch that is turned off (Angela). When that certain gene is turned on, let say for example a gene that causes “grit” like qualities, that person will have that ability to overcome challenges; to use this quality of grit to become a better person. Therefore, the main question we all have been wondering is, how do we turn it on? How do we turn on the gene’s that are on “off pilot”? In the point of view of the nurture side of things, the way to turn on is simply through experiences. Experiences and environment triggers chemicals inside of us to “turn on” the gene that has been “off pilot”. Circumstances that happen to a person will trigger a character that maybe unlikely, considering his/her background, to achieve. We may be born with character or attributes that may already be “turned on”. Yet, we also have the ability to change or gain more attributes and qualities into our genetic pool. Therefore, nature versus nurture: it goes both ways. We are not born with nothing and yet we are also the creators of more. Creators to change and create more of who we are (Angela).

There are stages to life that are delicate and it can affect the delicacy of the biological clock. The delicate stage of life are the developing stages of finding who you are. The last article called “Development Holds the Key to Understanding the Interplay of Nature versus Nurture in Shaping the Individual” explains more about this. The stages are for example ages from in the womb to ages 25 years of age. These developing stages are so critical because it will affect a person permanently for the future than the stages of adulthood. Adolescents who face hard environment events in their lives are mostly likely to have a great impact in their life to come (Development Holds the Key to Understanding the Interplay of Nature versus Nurture in Shaping the Individual). An outside impact on the body of a person in a developing stage will significantly affect the person in the long run. For example if a young person was to be treated with any kind of drug to mess with the growth of the young person, the drug will also mess up with the timing of turning on the genes that are suppose to turn on to have a normal mental and physical side of human (Development Holds the Key to Understanding the Interplay of Nature versus Nurture in Shaping the Individua). These sensitive periods of growth are important to the timing of creating the character of a person. It is implied that genes and the experiences in a sensitive growth period trigger on other genes and rather say cognitive functions of the brain (Development Holds the Key to Understanding the Interplay of Nature versus Nurture in Shaping the Individual). Meaning that one can gain more intellect no matter what. One is not stuck in the same situation. As do babies grow do the brain develop… suggesting that the easer to develop and change cognitive behavior is the more likely to gain more intellect… meaning that at a younger age where it’s a sensitive time where the brain absorbs everything is the best time for increasing intellect. It’s not just intellect, he says “wider range of cognitive behavior” (Development Holds the Key to Understanding the Interplay of Nature versus Nurture in Shaping the Individual). The controversy whether it is nature versus nurture is deceiving because it is nature and nurture that creates one’s character. We are born with a set of genes that are not changeable however, once we are in the womb nurture plays a big part in shaping what was already given to you. Through setting off the right genes at certain, specific times, can shape a person’s personality and character to be unique and different from others.

In conclusion, nature versus nurture is a controversial topic that many want to know if to whom you are born to will affect the person you will become. There are people out there who think that nature is the only thing that creates a human being character. There are people who think that if you are born to a killer it makes you a killer. There are people who think that nurture is the only way to which one can create a life character. They think that you are born with a blank slate. Nature versus nurture is controversial, however, I believe that it is not nature versus nurture but it is nature and nurture that affect and creates a personality and character. To answer the question of what changes character, the answer is nature and nurture. This answer questions like who do you want to become? Does who you are born from change the outcome of who you will become? Your parents do play role in creating your DNA and raising you, meaning they create the environment in which you will be raised in. The environment that you create and the parents that created you will affect a big significant towards of who you will become. Your family, your friends, the influences that are around you will shape what you will take and what will trigger you inside. Even the financial opportunities and help that your family will provide will shape the person you will become (Cherry, 2019).  These do affect in who you will become however there is your own will to change yourself. It is your part to make sure you aren’t affected by the people around you that may put false accusations on you and your background. It is your job to make sure that you are in environment that will turn on the genes that are needed to have a normal or even better qualities in your life to come.  

                                                        Sources

 Mcleod, Saul. “Nature vs. Nurture in Psychology.” Nature Nurture in Psychology | Simply Psychology, https://www.simplypsychology.org/naturevsnurture.html.

 Untitled Document, http://web.mnstate.edu/shoptaug/AntiFrames.htm

  “European Jewish Life before World War II.” Facing History and Ourselves, https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/teaching-holocaust-and-human-behavior/european-jewish-life-world-war-ii.

 Brosnan, AnneMarie. “Representations of Race and Racism in the Textbooks Used in Southern Black Schools during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era, 1861-1876.” Paedagogica Historica: International Journal of the History of Education, vol. 52, no. 6, Jan. 2016, pp. 718–733. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1120017&site=eds-live.

  Loof, Arnold De. “Nature, Calcigender, Nurture: Sex-Dependent Differential Ca2 Homeostasis as the Undervalued Third Pillar.” Taylor & Francis, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19420889.2019.1592419.

 By: John L. Fuller research associate division of behavior studies R. B. Jackson memorial laboratory Bar harbor, Main

 Shuttleworth, F. K. “The Nature versus Nurture Problem I Definition of the Problem.” Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 26, no. 8, Nov. 1935, pp. 561–578. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1037/h0061615.

 “Nature versus Nurture.” Character Lab, 1 Mar. 2019, https://characterlab.org/thoughts-of-the-week/nature-versus-nurture/.

 “Development Holds the Key to Understanding the Interplay of Nature versus Nurture in Shaping the Individual.” Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, Elsevier, 20 June 2017, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878929317301196.

  Cherry, Kendra. “How Different Experiences Influence a Child's Development.” Verywell Mind, Verywell Mind, 18 Aug. 2019, https://www.verywellmind.com/experience-and-development-2795113.

[psy598]

Module Three

Part 1: Reflections on individual differences

1a. My growth edge this week places emphasis on the learning of why. In the last module, we learned about the how. How minority groups are overlooked within psychology, how privilege impacts race, and how to be more mindful of our impact on others. This week’s modules gave us an insight into why and what continues to happen that cause minority groups and their inequalities to be overlooked in psychology. We also looked into why we identify with “our people” and then what social categories we also identify with.

1b. After listening to “The Power of Categories,” I realize “my people” are my tribe, they are like me, we share the same goals, and we like doing similar activities. My people are those that are spiritual, love traveling and trying new foods, and are dedicated and determined to change the world positively. I think others would categorize me as a black woman who is calm, kind, truthful, and very caring of people. I have been in situations where these labels have been too constriction. For example, people see me as soft, kind, and quiet. When faced with injustice people assume, I am acting out of character because I assert myself and get loud. These labels that people see don’t always fit me.

1c. When thinking about culture as a protective factor, I thought back to the text where Ayunerak et al. (2014), mentions how the Yup’ik culture believed that sickness, injury, bad luck, and misfortune have a spirit. The text goes on to mention how the spirit of suicide visited their tribe and they were able to overcome it by having the elders protect their young, in the same way musk ox's encircle their young. This gathering of the community with the same goal in mind saved many lives and brought the people in the community together. I’ve always believed we are stronger in numbers. My culture has empowered me many times throughout my life. It never lets me forget that I am a strong black woman who can do anything that I put my mind to and that no weapon formed against me shall prosper. My culture brings us together in times of need, similar to the Yup’ik tribe when the spirit of suicide visited them. My culture, at times, has been a hindrance. There have been things that I’ve done that are outside my cultural norm that has led people to look down on my actions.

1d. After reading the chapter by Bryant-Davis and Comas-Diaz (2006), I’ve determined that I don’t meet all the criteria for being a womanist. I do identify with love, spirituality, and strength as seen in womanists. I celebrate life through my arts, as I create art in many forms and through dance, as I’ve been a professional dance throughout my life. I am community orientated and my goals in life are always to unite people. I do want the wholeness and survival of the entire people but with that comes the issue of racism. I agree that the fights against racism and sexism are necessary and central, but I do feel at this time the fight against racism should be higher on the hierarchy. At this time in the world, black men and black women are being killed unreasonably, after fixing this issue we can then move onto the issues between man and woman.

Part 2: What are we not seeing?

2a. Whiteness is the result of having a Euro-American worldview and allowing this narrow perspective to shape lives. Whiteness is put on a pedestal and seen as the default standard. Whiteness is invisible because it adopts the denial of differences as seen in the study of color blindness (Sue, 2004). This prevents the discernment of discrimination and inequalities experienced by people of color. People are conditioned to attribute whiteness to the standard of which everyone should reach. People are even rewarded for remaining unaware and oblivious of their Euro-cultural beliefs. They also continue to lack the knowledge and empathy of how their actions may unfairly oppress people of color.

2b. My reaction to Sue’s (2004) statement was a lightbulb coming on in my head, suddenly dots had connected in my brain. I’ve personally wondered why white people denied their advantages associated with being White”, I now realize that one reason is due to the negativity associated with this. Sue mentions that white people live the illusion of fairness. This is the belief that everything is fair and just, and that people reach the top based on their merit and perseverance. They don’t have to think about their race and the system works for them. This claim affects people of other cultures because they are then viewed based on the Euro-American cultural standard. This assurance of being the superior group results in the group being unable to see, understand, and empathize with the experiences and viewpoints faced by those in the out-groups. This also leads to the lack of change for those who cannot experience the same privileges as those of the white race.

The invisibility of Whiteness has impacted my life as I often time have to code-switch. I think to myself that this type of behavior or speech is too black for this environment or group of people that I’m talking to. My culture is not accepted due to whiteness as seen as the standard of America. There are also times where I experience a lack of empathy, for instance, at work. Currently, protests are going on around the world concerning the death of George Floyd, my white co-workers don’t understand why these protests are happening and lack the empathy to understand why my mental health is negatively affected by this.

References

Ayunerak, P., Alstrom, D., Moses, C., Charlie, J., & Rasmus, S. M. (2014). Yupik Culture and Context in Southwest Alaska: Community Member Perspectives of Tradition, Social Change, and Prevention. American Journal of Community Psychology, 54(1-2), 91–99. doi: 10.1007/s10464-014-9652-4

Bryant-Davis, T., & Comas-Diaz, L. (Eds.). (2016). Womanist and mujerista psychologies: voices of fire, acts of courage. Washington, District of Columbia: American Psychological Association.

Spiegel, A., & Miller, L. (2015, February 6). The Power Of Categories. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/programs/invisibilia/384065938/the-power-of-categories

Sue, D. (2004). Whiteness and Ethnocentric Monoculturalism: Making the "Invisible" Visible. American Psychologist, 760–769. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.59.8.761

[muneerahwrites]

BHM: Autobiography of Malcolm X

I am a little late because it’s already mid-November and I’ve only just finished “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” that was meant to be reading for Black History Month in Oct ahhaha.

Anyway, I was looking forward to reading this because I admit as much as I knew that Malcolm X was an icon and role model for civil rights movement for the Black community and Muslim community worldwide, I did not know specifically what he stood for. More importantly, I did not understand his journey. I heard snippets of his talks from the Nation of Islam days and then some during his Hajj journey. These snippets confused me most of the time because they were at times, contradictory.

In 2013, I was at a Malaysian event for youths and they asked us to shout out notable Muslims, so Malcolm X came to mind. Muslim, famous, black, American, (different from the other figures that everyone else named, for eg, Salahuddin, Hasan Al Banna etc) I shouted his name.

“Malcolm X!” The room stilled and even the MC was stunned. He brushed his shock off quickly and said that he could not be counted in this list because he was a controversial figure. I am ashamed to say that even though I was thrown aback but that statement, I did nothing to learn more about this man and why he was so misunderstood.

So fast forward 4 years, I am glad I dedicated three books to 3 Black figures and I am glad to finally understand Malcolm X as he himself wishes to be understood.

His autobiography is a great read, I took a while to read it because I was re-reading certain chapters. His life is truly remarkable.

Who was Malcolm X?

I think this section can be answered by his book – YALL SHOULD READ IT PLEZ. The whole time I was reading his book I kept thinking that Allah’s tarbiyah (development of the self) is really tailor made.

Malcolm X (he claimed that his slave name was Malcolm Little, adopted by slave owners so he disowned his surname and referred to himself as X) was also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz.

Malcolm Little, was born in Omaha, Nebraska. He grew up in a myriad of locations in the United States including Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Lansing, Michigan, Boston, Massachusetts, Flint, Michigan and New York City. He was assassinated in New York in 1965.

Malcolm X was raised by a Baptist minister, he had an understanding of Christianity in his youth. He led a life of hustling, crime, drugs, dancing, women etc. (When we watched the movie, my younger brother was so confused, he didn’t know Malcolm X’s past). This was so important in hindsight and just shows Allah’s wisdom in putting him through so much pain and suffering. This period was so important in terms of him understanding racism, systemic racism, the attitudes of White people, the attitudes of Black people and the different struggles, poverty cycles that are violently placed on the Black community.

“I believe that it would be almost impossible to find anywhere in America a black man who has lived further down in the mud of human society than I have; or a black man who has been any more ignorant than I have; or a black man who has suffered more anguish during his life than I have. But it is only after the deepest darkness that the greatest joy can come; it is only after slavery and prison that the sweetest appreciation of freedom can come.” – Malcolm X

He was in prison for seven years. Honestly, for me, these chapters were the most captivating and it truly showed how pivotal this time in confinement was for his journey. He discovered Nation of Islam in jail, as well as the importance of reading and knowing the language of your oppressors.

 “I certainly wasn't seeking any degree, the way a college confers a status symbol upon its students. My homemade education gave me, with every additional book that I read, a little bit more sensitivity to the deafness, dumbness and blindness that was afflicting the black race in America. Not long ago, an English writer telephoned me, asking questions. One was, "What's your alma mater?" I told him, "Books.” – Malcolm X

 Autobiography of Malcolm X review

Stage 1: The Nation of Islam

Before he went to Africa and for Hajj, Malcolm X was quite a bit more militant (I’m not placing a value on this word, it’s neither moral nor immoral. He was just fiercer and less willing to sit defenceless/passively.  He said things like:

I am a Muslim, because it’s a religion that teaches you an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It teaches you to respect everybody, and treat everybody right. But it also teaches you if someone steps on your toe, chop off their foot. And I carry my religious axe with me all the time. – Malcolm X (not from Autobiography: https://hollowverse.com/malcolm-x/#footnote_2_6100)

His period of his life from Chapters “Savior” to “Out” was intense. We get an understanding of the physical, emotional and systemic violence and racism that went down in the US against the Black community. I got an understanding of how Nation of Islam was an organised Black nationalist movement that had a religious rhetoric (and also a very specific unorthodox/fringe understanding of Islam).

As a Muslim myself, when I was reading about the practices and the rhetoric of Nation of Islam, I immediately knew that the organisation was not religious per se. The practices and rituals were not orthodox (what Muslims around the world do). It is particularly a US creation and institution, that can’t be found in Sunni, Shi’a, Sufi, Wahabbi teachings etc.

Nation of Islam was most defined by its leader Elijah Muhammad, who put forward a very clear, conservative code aimed at black spiritual, mental, social and economic improvement --- using Islamic rhetoric and toughing on some aspects of Islam but not truly Islamic? Its interesting because I felt as though Islam was used solely as an anti-thesis to Christianity, aka “the religion of the white man/the oppressor”.

They called for/preached about:

-          The complete separation of races

-          the created narratives and mytic views of the creation of the Black man

-          Black separatism

-          Black capitalism: economic self-reliance and empowerment

-          Return of African American to Africa / creation of a separate state

Read more here.

Stage 2: Transition post Hajj/Africa

Reading his recollections of how he was betrayed and how he broke off with the Nation of Islam was actually heart breaking. And we see this too often, when the time is dire and in need of unity and strength, we see organisation breaking apart with different allegiances and leaders being goaded by power and delusions. For someone who was loyal and so committed to the cause, I felt the pain and emotional confusion of Malcolm X.

This was when I realised what a great man he was. Through and through, Allah kept seeing that there was a diamond in the rough, misled by the system, by circumstances and by people. He was tested in terms of his sincerity to the Truth and in this phase we see it manifest.

It really is quite sad that we were not able to witness the development of his philosophies and how this more refined, more open understanding of Islam and the situation in America could have played out. But Allah knows best.

For more detailed understanding of his life please read the book! Or read here.

In 1963, Malcolm X travelled to Africa, the Middle East and Europe where he met white people of whomhe could find no reason to hate, no matter what colour they were. Furthermore, Malcolm X discovered hypocrisies and deceptions within the Nation of Islam that caused him to question his allegiance to the organization. At this time, he changed his socio-political worldview as well as his religious tone, saying things like:

[Islam] is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem. Throughout my travels in the Muslim world, I have met, talked to, and even eaten with people who in America would have been considered white, but the white attitude was removed from their minds by the religion of Islam.

“America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem. Throughout my travels in the Muslim world, I have met, talked to, and even eaten with people who in America would have been considered white, but the white attitude was removed from their minds by the religion of Islam. I have never before seen sincere and true brotherhood practiced by all together, irrespective of their color.”

― Malcolm X

His commitment to Truth and speaking it to power.

He was an important figure and an inspiration to all of us in terms of speaking Truth to power – truth in terms of speaking out against the oppressor and its systems as well as being committed to searching for the ultimate Truth.

“I’ve had enough of someone else’s propaganda… I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I’m a human being first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.”

Powerful quotes

(Reading his book was one experience but searching up his speeches, now THAT was another experience. He was really really charismatic, mashaAllah)

“So early in my life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.” 

“Hence I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people, and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight.”

“And because I had been a hustler, I knew better than all whites knew, and better than nearly all of the black 'leaders' knew, that actually the most dangerous black man in America was the ghetto hustler. Why do I say this? The hustler, out there in the ghetto jungles, has less respect for the white power structure than any other Negro in North America. The ghetto hustler is internally restrained by nothing. He has no religion, no concept of morality, no civic responsibility, no fear--nothing. To survive, he is out there constantly preying upon others, probing for any human weakness like a ferret. The ghetto hustler is forever frustrated, restless, and anxious for some 'action'. Whatever he undertakes, he commits himself to it fully, absolutely. What makes the ghetto hustler yet more dangerous is his 'glamour' image to the school-dropout youth in the ghetto.These ghetto teen-agers see the hell caught by their parents struggling to get somewhere, or see that they have given up struggling in the prejudiced, intolerant white man’s world. The ghetto teen-agers make up their own minds they would rather be like the hustlers whom they see dressed ‘sharp’ and flashing money and displaying no respect for anybody or anything. So the ghetto youth become attracted to the hustler worlds of dope, thievery, prostitution, and general crime and immorality.”

House Negro and the Field Negro (THIS WAS SOOO SIMILAR TO FANON’S OBSERVATIONS in “Black Skins, White Masks”): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kf7fujM4ag

By any means necessary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dfSpjyCplg

Who taught you to hate yourself?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaXPhR7aWvo

[stfangofboredom]

EDIT: I went searching through Tumblr to see what others were saying about the Claremont, NH lynching, and wasn’t able to find a single post about it.  So, I’m attaching a link to an article about the incident, because I don’t want what happened here swept under the rug.  A biracial child was lynched in a New England town and the police force is more concerned with protecting the teens who did the lynching than protecting child who nearly died.  (We now have the state involved and there is an ongoing investigation, but initially, the police chief was unwilling to “ruin the lives” of these teens by investigating them. 

TW: If you click the link, I believe there’s a picture of the child’s neck with his wounds from the rope he was hung from.  

-- 

As a citizen of Claremont, NH and the adoptive parent of two biracial children, I cannot avoid speaking out about the recent events in my hometown.  I have lived in Claremont my whole life, and while I know this place isn’t perfect, I could never have imagined seeing an incident like this in my lifetime.  The lynching of an eight-year-old boy, not just in my town, but in my neighborhood, by the park I take my kids to on the weekends.  This event turned my world upside-down.  This had always been a safe town.  I never saw this coming.

Which was exactly the problem.

I’ve always seen Claremont through privileged eyes.  I’m white, I’m part of the majority.  As a child, raised by conservative parents, I was desensitized to a lot of… We’ll call it “low-key racism”.  Racist jokes and comments by “I’m not a racist, but…” Racists.  The “I’m not racist, I own a color TV” Racists.  The “Black people need to stop whining about slavery, they’re free now” Racists.  The “The Civil Rights Movement is over, we’re all equal now.” Racists.  The racists who don’t realize they’re racists, or don’t want to admit to it.

Even as an adult, an adult who has broken far, far away from her Republican upbringing, I still failed to see the faults in the community around me.  I believed I lived in a relatively safe community.  We had plenty of ignorant people who made shitty jokes and comments, but it’s not like we had an active KKK or anything.  Nobody was calling to actually hurt or kill someone of another race.  It was all just words and disagreements.  I mean, it’s New Hampshire.  This isn’t the Deep South here.  We tend to be a liberal area.  We’re right next door to BernieLand.  Nothing truly bad’s gonna happen here.

So then how did a group of young teens get the idea to lynch a child?  Exactly this thinking.  We expose our children to this low-key racism, and we make racism, in the minds of these kids, okay.  They grow up hearing jokes about violence, cruelty, and disrespect against people of color, and then we’re surprised when they harm a biracial boy?  

I’m sure many of my fellow Claremonters, these teens parents included, are out there screaming, “We’re not racist!”, and I think they truly believe it. These kids’ parents most likely aren’t telling their children to go out and lynch a child.  They probably don’t condone actual violence against people of color.  But they probably laughed at a few lynching jokes (I bet the ever-popular, “I’ve got some blacks hanging in my family tree” one.  That one floats around a lot.)  They’ve probably made comments supporting racial stereotypes.  They’ve probably made disrespectful comments about movements like BLM. I bet they taught these kids to be kind and respectful to everyone, but modeled the exact opposite.  

I stopped making jokes like that when I realized how disrespectful they were.  But I failed to see the true harm in them, so I didn’t stop others from making them. It was easier to stay silent and mentally roll my eyes than to get into a fight with people over “just words”.  I, along with the rest of Claremont, developed an indifference to low-key racism.  These little things weren’t a big enough deal to battle.  Sticks and stones, you know?

I’ve read about plenty of terrible acts of violence happening to poc all over the country, and they always filled me with anger and disgust.  I always wondered how terrible a community could be that something like that could happen there.  What was wrong with those people?  But at least it was far away, at least I would never have to deal with that first hand.

Then I’m reading the news, first thing in the morning, about a little eight-year-old boy, just up the road from my house, hanging by the neck, and my first feeling isn’t anger, but dread.  For the first time, I got a look outside the narrow view of my white privilege blinders and saw the dangers around me. My children were in danger.  My oldest daughter walks home from school in this neighborhood. She goes to school with the members of this teenage lynch mob.  And apparently, my community, including our police force, is not going to protect her as well as I’d thought.

I don’t know what to tell her anymore.  I used to teach her to stand up for herself and her friends when she saw bullying. Now I’m telling her to turn and run. I thought my roommate, her birthmom, was being a helicopter parents when she put up webcams in our home to keep an eye on her when she’s home alone, but now I’m thankful to be able to tell that she’s home and safe.  I walk a thin line between not wanting to scare her, but wanting her to understand that her world is not safe and she needs to be cautious.  

If there’s one thing that can come out of this terrible incident, it’s that I’ve learned.  I’ve learned that casual racism is no less damaging than the white cloak-wearing, tiki torch-waving kind.  I’ve been reminded that my white privilege is still blinding me, and that I need to be more aware of it.  And I’ve learned that, yes, it CAN happen here.  This wasn’t something that happened far away, to people I don’t know.  This was my neighborhood.  This little boy goes to my daughter’s old elementary school.  My daughter is friends with his older sister, the one who witnessed the lynching.  This isn’t just a news story, this is REAL.  I don’t get to just share a post on Facebook, stick a few hastags on Twitter, and move on with my life.  I have to live in this reality, with the fear, the anger, the community turmoil. And the shame.  The shame of knowing I’m part of the problem.  That I, too, allowed us to get to this point.  My white privilege helped in creating an unsafe home for my children.  This is what I get, my punishment for letting the racism around me slide.

I hope the rest of my community learns from this, too.  That we can’t just do “well enough”, we have to be better, for the safety of our children, we can’t afford to be indifferent.  We need to realize, as an extremely white community, we are still racist, even if we don’t mean to be.  We grow up with privilege that narrows our view.  We need to be aware of that privilege, aware of how we speak and act, especially around our children, and work to set a better example.  

And I hope others learn from our example.  It can happen in your community.  Racism is alive and thriving in ALL of this country, even the “safe” communities. Big cities, small towns, it’s out there. People of color are not safe.  We can’t afford to let things slide.  We need to do better.  

[alexsmitposts]

American Foreign Policy: Populism’s Racist Roots America’s military adventures, domestic and foreign, have had racist components, with frightening consistency for well over two centuries. Ethnically cleansing the continent of its indigenous population of up to 10 million, allowed America to spread from Atlantic to Pacific. Once on the Pacific shore, the drive to make that ocean an “American lake” began. War with Spain in 1898, with Japan in 1941, followed by Korea and then Vietnam, America’s military history was strewn with racist stereotypes, polluting the language with terms best forgotten. The only exception has been Germany and Russia, nations of origin for much of America’s white population. There programs of demonization created a century of conflict. Though controversial, an examination of America’s role in nurturing two world wars and a half century Cold War is more than supportable, once one looks behind the fabricated historical narrative foisted on the public. With these exceptions, a major component of global policy has been not just racist propaganda. It goes much further, dehumanization of a majority of the world’s population of color and vilification of an increasingly comprehensive list of ethnicities, nationalities and religions. Trump, it seems, has taken it all to a new level, but he didn’t invent racism, not in America. He simply tapped, under the guise of “populism,” something long instilled into the psyche of a nation that was created by ethnic cleansing. One might note that the world had already been divided by the colonial powers of Portugal and Spain, in accordance with the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494. You see, after Columbus returned from the New World, it was necessary for the Catholic powers to come to agreement or descend into conflict. It was Rodrigo Borgia, known as Pope Alexander IV, who established a meridian, dividing the planet between the two small Iberian nations. By 1580 the two nations became one and in 1588, with the destruction of the Spanish Armada, world conquest had slipped away. Still, Latin America, with the exception of Portuguese Brazil, would remain Spanish, a Latin America that included Florida, Texas, California and the entire Southwestern United States. As an aside, Spain’s northern neighbor on North America’s Pacific Coast was Russia. On March 31, Fox News, owned by Rupert Murdoch, whose real background as one of the crown princes of the Deep State known only by a very few, flashed a bizarre headline on the screen during one of their broadcasts. The show was “Fox and Friends,” where Donald Trump is a regular guest. The headline, even by Fox News standards was a serious gaff, goes as follows: “Trump Cuts US Aid to 3 Mexican Countries” Trump didn’t say this, but he had said worse. The nations referred to, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, are and have been politically unstable for decades, mostly due to American interference in their governments. In 1933, Major General Smedley Butler, two-time winner of the Medal of Honor, made the following statement during a speech: “War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we’ll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag. I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket. There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its “finger men” to point out enemies, its “muscle men” to destroy enemies, its “brain men” to plan war preparations, and a “Big Boss” Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism. It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service. I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.” Butler may have been the only 20th century military commander ever to speak out openly with the exception of General George Patton. Crushing the military careers of each became a major goal of Washington’s “fat backside” ruling order. Butler was, at one time, put under arrest for citing an incident where Italy’s Fascist leader Benito Mussolini ran down a child with his automobile, thinking little or nothing of it. You see, Mussolini was quite popular in Washington as was Adolf Hitler, Time Magazine’s “Man of the Year” in 1940. Patton, sharing the title of “America’s Greatest General” with Robert E. Lee, was repeatedly removed from command and, in all probability assassinated, most likely for his open defense of the German people who he was ordered to starve to death under American occupation. With Mexico, South and Central America, the air of racism that now floods Washington, wildly inaccurate stories about massed assaults on America’s Southern border, are little more than a distraction from America’s targeting of nation after nation in that region, a follow up to America’s dismal failures in Afghanistan and Syria. When we add this to fake reports of “no go zones” in America’s cities where imaginary Sharia Law is enforced by an Islamic population made up largely of business owners and highly educated professionals, the majority of whom are conservatives with ties to Trump’s own party, and the newfound war on, well whom? One might ask why the continual focus on transsexuals. In 70 years, I haven’t knowingly met one yet I am warned, on a daily basis, of the threat they pose to my moral wellbeing. For those of us, the “baby boomers,” born during or after the Second World War, born in an America that was over 90% “whites only,” few accurately remember the highly charged atmosphere of our youth, race hatred and fear permeated everything. “Good negroes” swept our floors, cleaned our homes, those of us, and I was hardly one of “those,” who could afford such things. The “rest,” were purported to be “layabouts” or violent criminals. Few of us ever met these criminals who did exist, but not in the numbers or under the circumstances alleged. In fact, the most radically racist states, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, I could add a dozen more to the list, had no African American population whatsoever. What residents of these Red States knew then and know now is based on what they see on television. A reminder, much of what is on television or even the print media, is made up by people working for Rupert Murdoch. In fact, Donald Trump watches nothing that isn’t Rupert Murdoch approved. Donald Trump doesn’t read anything at all, ever. Conclusion A question, can we look back to 9/11 as a watershed event, replacing the hatred of African Americans with fear and hatred of Muslims? Was this done to polarize a sector of America voters, one sector motivated by fear and hate, while other sectors drown in ambivalence and hopelessness? Is this how America is ruled, though fear and racism fed “populism?”

[shecalleditsavagery]

Thoreau is a tool, now go read Walden.

Okay, so this began as a justification for teaching Thoreau to high school students, then turned into a rant against Thoreau, then looped back to a defense of his ideas.  It is what it is. Enjoy!

Henry David Thoreau went into the woods to live in solitude for two years. Except not really.  He built his home, not in the far reaches of the wilderness, but on the property of his BFF, Ralph Waldo Emerson.  In fact, their two houses were about a mile away from each other.  Thoreau could hear the bells of the nearest church from his front door.  Often, he spent his evenings at the homes of friends and acquaintances before walking home for the night.  He regularly visited his mother, often bringing his laundry with him, because caring for his own hygiene and cleanliness was either too arduous or too feminine for him to do himself.

I won’t go so far to say Thoreau was a hypocrite.  His position was always to remove oneself from the misery of life, the conformity, the monotony, and this he did effectively.  He advocated for spending at least four hours immersed in nature, but never went so far to say that a hermetic life-style was the way to go. That he lived in such close proximity to the “civilized world” was essential to his success in thriving on the shores of Walden Pond.  He was true to his own ideals.

He was also incredibly narcissistic and short-sighted.  In advocating for the adoption of his life-style by others, Thoreau shows his own ignorance to the reality of life for most of his contemporaries.  

Consider Thoreau's upbringing.  He was born to a well-off family in the affluent and modern (for the time) municipality of Concord, Massachusetts.  He was admitted to (and dropped out of) a respected university.  He kept the company of business owners and community leaders.  It is fair to say that Thoreau never encountered financial difficulties, or if he did, a relation of means made the problem go away.  He was not born into a life of debt.  He was able to remove himself from the workforce because no one depended upon him for their survival.  He was able to live alone for two years because he had no wife nor child, and his still living parents had plenty of means to care for themselves.  In this manner, he was extraordinarily privileged, and blinded by that privilege.

During this time, there were over 3 million black American still oppressed by the system of slavery.  Those that were free, and lived in the north, were still subjected to a form of racism that actively excluded them from positions of independence and wealth, and often enforced that system with the irrational violence that is inherent in white supremacy. Concord, Massachusetts would not have been a safe place for Thoreau to explore his inner naturalist if he had been black.  Nor would he have had the financial means to even buy the supplies for the house he built.  Nor, in fact, would he have ever made the acquaintance of Emerson, who was so influential in Thoreau’s experiment.  Non-white individuals who were not black would not have fared much better.

Thoreau’s experiment would also never have come to fruition if he had been born female. Women of the 1800 were little more empowered than people of color, and less so if they were both.  Women had few rights of their own, and most still considered them the property of their fathers, husbands, or sons. A woman not under the control of a man was often met with violence, including forced incarceration in what I will euphemistically call a “mental health facility”.  Even if Thoreau would have managed to attend university as a women, he most certainly would not have been allowed to work in his father’s pencil-making factory (the catalyst for his retreat to Walden Pond), and would have been forbidden for a life of seclusion on the property of a man not his husband, had such an idea made its way into Thoreau’s mind anyway.

Thoreau was only able to write Walden because he was a rich white man, and because he was a rich white man, he was unable to see how his lifestyle was outside the realm of possibility for anyone who was not. Not a hypocrite, but definitely an ignorant fool.

Despite all of this (or because of it?), Thoreau continues to be taught in high schools across the nation as one of the quintessential Transcendentalist authors, together with his BFF Emerson.  I learned about him when I was a teenager, and now, as a teacher, I am passing on his knowledge to the next generation.  I am not, however, doing so without some heavy introspection. Thoreau is the most tedious of all tedious, privileged, white, male authors.  He gets under my skin as much as the protagonist of Into the Wild (another privileged, white dude).  They both are given every advantage, and instead of doing something productive for society, or meaningful, or generous, they escape into the quasi-wilderness because their life is so hard.  Granted, the guy in Into the Wild died for his efforts, so I detest him slightly less.  Only slightly.  

So why do I still consent to teach him?  Because, besides being so influential to authors that would follow, Thoreau was kinda on to something.  He looked at the factories of the industrial era and said, “lol, nope.”  He wanted the rest of the world to follow him into the bliss of simple living, free from an over-burdensome work economy that was (and still is) heavily influenced by the Puritan ideal that only through the misery of work we can find salvation.  Thoreau thought the Puritans were full of shit.  I agree with him.  And I kinda want to live like Thoreau, albeit farther away from my mother, and with wifi in my one-room shack.

The modern world drives us hard.  Progress continues at a relentless pace, and we are swept along with it.  We want bigger and better without really understanding the consequences of our needs.  The world is full of terrible things, but a great many of those terrible things are the result of modernization.  Factories that pay pennies per day thrive in so many countries because we continue to give money to companies that produce things we don’t really need.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my smart phone as much as the last person, but do we really need to buy a new one every year when the majority of useful features remain unchanged?  Electronics, clothing, bedding, dishes, a thousand small knick knacks and decorations are all produced in unethical conditions because we must have them, and we must have them in every color, and we must have them new each year.  To have these things, we subject ourselves to unethical systems of employment that support systems of oppression, and forget how to actually enjoy life.

Thoreau was onto something when he called for a lifestyle of simplicity, but his message gets lost because he was too full of himself and his own grand ideas to even attempt to speak to the common person.  So let me translate him:

What was the happiest moment you can remember?  For me, it was lying in bed one early morning with the person I love, talking about our dreams.  Simple.  Live your life in pursuit of those moments, and nothing else.  Work, if you have to, but buy only what you will use, and take pleasure in what you already have.  The most radical thing you can do is opt out of the capitalist/consumerist system, and live wholly on your own terms.  At the end of your life, you will not remember your possessions, but you will remember what you did, and who you did it with.  Make them good memories.  And for chrissakes, take a walk outside every once in awhile.

[the-withered-writer]

Adopted into Racism

A Caucasian man, assumed to be impotent, and his wife enter an adoption agency, hoping to adopt a white baby. They found one: light skin, big brown eyes, and curly hair. Without hesitation, they signed the documents, ready to claim this child as their own daughter. They kissed her head and brought her into the pink room they set up for her, every piece of furniture carefully selected. The man and his wife sought out this baby girl - she was no accident. So, surely, they shall love her no matter who she grows up to be, right? Please take the time to learn my cousin Chrissy's story. This is a true story and the events of her life may cause you to feel uncomfortable or even angry. They should. Raise awareness for child abuse, mental illness, gay rights, and ethnic minorities. The biological parents did not disclose any information to the adoption agency; who they were was a complete mystery. She looked white at six months, so the agency marked her as "Caucasian." However, as she began to grow, her skin darkened and her hair curled even tighter. To my uncle Jerry's demise, his white adopted daughter turned out to be a beautiful little black girl. To my aunt, her mother, this did not phase her in the slightest; she already loved her daughter and her skin color would not change anything. But Jerry, an angry alcoholic, was not known for being forgiving or accepting of others. Not only did he beat his wife, but her children from another marriage as well. But none got it worse than Chrissy. Her adopted father hit her, kicked her, threw things at her and left bruises - all because she did not turn out to be white. "White is right," he'd think. But how could a white man, consumed in an addiction and violent to his wife and children, be better than an innocent young girl whom has never done anything wrong? The blind cannot see passed themselves and their own mind. As Chrissy ascended into adolescence, she tended to have so-called "boy interests;" she didn't like dolls, she preferred being active. Pink was uglier than blue. Wearing dresses was uncomfortable. Uncle Jerry did not approve and punished her even more than before. The gene for schizophrenia is something that's activated; many people can carry the gene for schizophrenia but not suffer from it. Usually, an external trauma activates this gene. Once again, my cousin's biological parents did not disclose any information. Chrissy carried this gene. Eventually, she began to believe her neighbors were government spies. She spent much of her time watching them through her front bedroom window. Gradually, voices sounded throughout her head, multiplying as time went on. Each violent beating seemed to make them louder. But then, in young adulthood, Uncle Jerry died. A funeral was given and Chrissy hoped to bury her trauma is the casket along with her father. Yet, she couldn't change the fact that she was black. She couldn't change the fact that she was a lesbian. She couldn't change the fact that she had schizophrenia. And she could not fathom changing the awful feelings about herself that her father forced upon her. It was too late. Fast forward to almost 30 years after Uncle Jerry's funeral: My mom, in tears, came into my room. She said Chrissy was in the hospital. She had threatened to kill her sister with a knife in the morning. And in the evening, Chrissy had slit her own throat with a kitchen knife. A voice in her head instructed her to do it. She believed that this was the voice of the notorious serial killer, John Wayne Gacy. Constant protests from psychiatrists could not sway her belief. They tried to get her to take medication, saying that his voice would disappear. She feared taking her medication, claiming Gacy would kill her if she did. The psychiatrists put her on a 5250. The end of the two weeks approached and the doctors had a meeting with my aunt and Chrissy's sisters. They were unsure if they wanted her back, even if she took her medication. She was too much of a risk. The doctors told them it was fine and offered to drop Chrissy off at a homeless shelter after her hold expired. Her family considered it. "How," I thought to myself, "How could someone abandon a family member in dire need?" If you're going to adopt a child, love them whether they're white or black, or straight or gay. Beating your children leaves long-term consequences you may not have considered. The mentally ill need to be loved and cared for or things will not get better. Someone's struggles is not your inconvenience because imagine how THEY feel. If you believe that there's something wrong with someone because they're black, gay, or mentally ill, then YOU'RE the one who's wrong.

[cassiecantyousee]

One White Girl’s Journey from A Bit Racist to Hopefully Less Racist

Post about racism! Because this is my blog and I can do whatever I want! Sorry not sorry if any of you were looking for more science ramblings but there were literal nazis marching openly in the streets so here we go!

First I want to acknowledge that there is a very fine line between "white people need to speak out against racism and hold their fellow white people accountable" and "performative white girl outrage." My intention is to stay in the first category, but feel free to tell me if I slip.

So, I grew up in Amherst. You know this. Everyone knows this. I talk about it all the time. I have bumper stickers and t-shirts and every day I am struck with deep pity for people who did not get to grow up there. I also joke about Amherst a lot, and how liberal it is, and how aggressive it is about activism, and how we're all a bunch of hippies and my first job was teaching kids how to farm.

And I worry that, in all of this, I have misrepresented myself. I have noticed that sometimes when I say things about various current issues, especially social justice issues, I get a little bit of a "oh you got brainwashed by the hippies so you don't know any better" response. As if caring about issues like this is a quirk of the geography of my upbringing. Even setting aside the obvious condescension of that response, it makes one crucial mistake: that Amherst turned me into an activist. So I want to make this very clear:

I didn't become an activist while I lived in Amherst: I became an activist when I LEFT.

(it should be noted going forward that I'm using the term "activist" very loosely here, I just couldn't figure out a better word. My job is to feed fish, so please give actual activists the credit they deserve)

Here's what I mean: as a straight white girl, I didn't have to confront a whole lot of oppression growing up (shocking, I know). I was also able to turn a blind eye to actual discrimination going on in my community, because it wasn't obvious to me. As far as racism went, I was pretty sure it wasn't a huge problem anymore. Sure, I knew that there were individual racists in the world, and maybe there were pockets of the country where it was more of a problem, but the idea of systemic racism was absolutely foreign to me. That, I was sure, was over. The Civil Rights Movement happened. I learned all about Martin Luther King Jr., and he was the best. We listened to the I Have A Dream speech every year, and I always paid attention, and looked around at my multicultural classroom with a feeling of "yeah look at that we did it!"

(This mentality was almost completely a result of my own personal naivete. My parents, teachers, and especially my peers definitely talked about systemic racism and how it was still an issue. We didn't ONLY listen to the I Have a Dream speech.)

I even trotted out a lot of the tired cop-outs I find myself arguing against now: "But we've made so much progress!" "I don't think they really meant it that way." and my personal (least) favorite that I DEFINITELY remember actually saying out loud on at least on occasion, "In America today it's really more about classism than racism." (aside: why did any of you put up with me?!?! Dear goodness.) I defended people too, especially other white Christians (this is probably where I should mention that, although I was raised in the north, I’m descended from multiple confederate officers and even a confederate senator). I adopted a “live and let live” attitude about what I perceived as merely different cultures, failing to acknowledge the deep privilege that even allowed me to take that position.

I also had enough more progressive beliefs that enabled me to more easily miss my huge blind spots. I knew the Civil War was definitely about slavery, and I was almost paralyzingly ashamed when I learned that a lot of my ancestors had owned slaves. I've never had any patience for people continuing to fly the confederate flag. Schools named after confederate generals weird me out. The "n" word was completely unacceptable (and so was the "r" word and using "gay" as an insult). When I thought about it I thought I was, as the kids say today, pretty "woke" for a white person. Besides, I was actually conscious of where I lived. If Amherst wasn't "woke," who was?

All of this played together in my mind to give me the idea that a) I had absorbed information about race issues in an unbiased and educated manner and b) I appreciated better than most that racism was still a problem in America.

But you guys. I could not have been more wrong.

It started in college, where I (hopefully) began to do a better job of listening to my peers. And then since graduating I have done a lot of moving around. This isn’t to say that the people I’ve known or the places I’ve lived were horrible dens of racism and white supremacy, but MAN was Amherst a bubble.

All of a sudden racism was obvious enough that I couldn’t ignore it anymore. It turned out America was a lot more racist than I had been willing to admit.

In a nutshell, everything that I had spent years saying “well no one really does that anymore” (as if that was an adequate defense) was DEFINITELY STILL HAPPENING. Everything I thought I knew about this “totally harmless” culture crumbled. What had I been defending? A mentality that said that black people were lazier than white people and that was why they were poor? The idea that not being able to say the n word was some sort of politically correct oppression? The assertion that talking about race at all was somehow racist? That saying “I have black friends” gives you license to make as many racist jokes as you want? None of that is benign “culture.” It’s racism. It’s white supremacy. Sure, not torch wielding white supremacy, but white supremacy that allows people to reach the torch wielding stage. And it’s not okay. I don’t think it’s that unreasonable to say that no level of white supremacy is acceptable.

So to my fellow white people, try listening for a change. And maybe take a minute to examine why you think every non-white person you meet is lying to you. Because I can promise you, they’re not.

Also, I’m done defending you. You’ve proved every defense I’ve ever given wrong. There aren’t two sides. Your “culture” isn’t harmless, it has a body count. And, to be clear, there is no such thing as “non-violent white supremacy.” The ideology itself is inherently violent.

So repent, make changes, and start speaking up. Take criticism when it’s offered, because you can’t unlearn an entire culture set up around white supremacy in a day, and you’re definitely going to still mess up. I’m still finding things about myself that I need to unlearn. And for goodness sake stop only listening to white people. If hearing this from another white person helped you start some introspection, good. That’s why I wrote it. But I’m really not the person you should be listening to. Listen to actual people of color instead. White supremacy is very real, and it’s killing people.

Well I hope you enjoyed the first episode of “Cassie was woefully naïve about the level of bigotry in the world and is now pretty angry about it.” Tune in next time to hear about when I discovered that some people don’t consider themselves feminists and how I continue to respond to a wide variety of statements with “oh my gosh you can’t SAY that!”

[theliterateape]

Correcting the Orwellian Doublespeak for Zoomers

by Don Hall

In 1984, George Orwell took a practice he saw in regular use and labeled it Newspeak and Doublethink. 

Newspeak was a fictional language created to limit free expression and maintain the Party orthodoxy. Orwell explains that Newspeak follows most of the rules of English grammar, yet is a language characterised by a continually diminishing vocabulary; complete thoughts reduced to simple terms of simplistic meaning. 

Doublethink is a process of indoctrination whereby the subject is expected to accept as true that which is clearly false, or to simultaneously accept two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct, often in contravention to one's own memories or sense of reality.

Doublespeak is language that deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words. 

The result of all three in combination foments confusion, anger, and ultimately conformity. Most humans simply do not have the energy to mentally combat these practices especially when peer pressure, a desire to be accepted, and a need for inclusion of a social hierarchy sets the stage. When reality won’t conform to our demands, we just change the language to retrofit reality and then hammer it home until the weak-minded follow suit.

This recipe has been most effectively used in marketing of consumer goods.

When jellybeans are marketed as gluten-free and chickens allowed a four foot area outside of a warehouse are marketed as free range, trust in almost anything advertised is eliminated.

Same Product with a Different Logo is “New & Improved” Cherry-Picked Statistics are “Clinically Proven” Nothing Poisonous in Here becomes “Detox Tea” Drink This and Eat Nothing Else is “Weight Loss Shake.”

It’s all designed to use misleading language to sell you shit you don’t need. Marketing thrives on Newspeak and Doublespeak. Fad diets, fertility clinics, and therapists use Doublethink. Put together and most of us don’t have a prayer.

Social media has become both an instrument of this trifecta as well as a self-imposed bubble of discourse that silos thought into camps. Christ, even the term social media is an example of the subtle tailoring of language to advertise a false meaning. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. are the reverse of ‘social’ as is evidenced by the daily grind of completely anti-social behavior it encourages. Thus, like the Orwellian tropes of “War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength”, Anti-Social is Social.

Free Market Capitalists Who Are Socially Left = Neo-Liberal I Want White People to Have Guns = Second Amendment Advocate Trickle Down Economics = Tax Breaks for the Wealthy

Racism used to mean the judging of people and discrimination due solely to the identifier of race. When talking about racism, I was taught to never judge someone by the color of their skin. Today the doublespeak posits skin color is the most important aspect of any human and that White is Racist. Which is a racist idea now spun to promote equality for black people. Equality is Power. No longer the old fashioned notion that Equality means that everyone is treated equally under the law or in society but that those who feel marginalized must have power in order to balance the playing field. 

Riots and Looting are now forms of Peaceful Protest. What?!

Writer Vicky Osterweil's book, In Defense of Looting, came out on Tuesday. In an interview on NPR, she says “Looting strikes at the heart of property, of whiteness and of the police. It gets to the very root of the way those three things are interconnected. And also it provides people with an imaginative sense of freedom and pleasure and helps them imagine a world that could be. And I think that’s a part of it that doesn’t really get talked about—that riots and looting are experienced as sort of joyous and liberatory.”

You mean stealing shit from a NIKE store without consequence gives someone a sense of freedom and pleasure? That snatch and grab is joyous and liberatory? How insightful. She qualifies this by stating “When I use the word looting, I mean the mass expropriation of property, mass shoplifting during a moment of upheaval or riot. That’s the thing I’m defending. I’m not defending any situation in which property is stolen by force.”

Do you smell that horseshit through the digital screen?

Kendi states in his book How to Be Anti-Racist that “The opposite of ‘racist’ isn’t ‘not racist’.” What the fuck does that mean? One of his many conclusions is that any disparity in racial make-up is due exclusively to white supremacy without a moment to reflect on the fact that in America the most successful race in almost all categories are Asian. 

Asians, apparently, are white adjacent, yet another example of doublespeak in play.

Trump doublespeaks and distorts in far more obvious ways but it amounts to the same blind conformity among his acolytes. He spins the notion that he ushered in the greatest economic expansion in the history of the country and points to the DOW to prove his point. He claims to have done more for African Americans than any other president and shows us cherry-picked and wholly ineffectual half measures. He outright lies about voter fraud.

His base eats this up as readily as white people in their twenties without jobs and saddled with mountains of student loan debt from their gender studies degrees gobble up DiAngelo’s doublethink ideas on white fragility and a poor understanding of socialism.

If Orwell had seen this new reality, 1984 would’ve been unreadable because while Big Brother proposed that ‘War is Peace’ Angry Brother would be saying “No. War isn’t Peace. Peace is Power.” 

One of the oddest aspects of this Double-doublespeak competition is that both the Far Left Race Activists and Far Right White Supremicists have a lot in common, belief-wise. Both believe that race is the most important signifier of identity. Both believe in a segregation of races. Both believe that employment and benefits should be based in large part to the race of the citizen. And neither side like the Jews or Asians much.

At a time when there are so many things to be distressed about it is this strange and improbable Venn Diagram of ideological similarities that truly gets me down.

Michelle Obama intoned “When they go low, we go high” and we all nodded our collective heads while deciding that High is Low and adopted Trump’s bullying and juvenile namecalling as our own version of taking that high road.

White Silence is Violence. Violence is Peaceful. Words are Violence. Victims are Survivors. Survivors are Warriors. Wage Slaves are Essential. Billionaires are Job Creators. Authoritarians are Anti-Fascist. Revenge is “Holding People Accountable.” Four Deaths in Benghazi are War Crimes. 200,000 Covid deaths are Acceptable. Educate Yourself is Shut Up and Conform. Be an Ally is Shut Up and Conform. Law & Order is Shut Up and Conform. Fake News is Shut Up and Conform.

If Shut Up and Conform is the end result of a disagreement in terminology or values, your ideas aren’t really worth considering.

Beware of doublespeak. It’s the language of extremists and those seeking nothing more than control or to sell you shit you don’t need.

[itsfinancethings]

Marcus-David Peters had just left his day job teaching high school biology and arrived at his second job at a hotel, where he worked as a part-time security guard, when he apparently experienced a psychiatric episode.

He left the hotel naked, got into his car, then veered off the side of a highway in Richmond, Va. A police officer, Michael Nyantakyi, who had seen the vehicle crash, saw Peters climb out, and attempted to subdue him with his Taser. When Peters advanced, Nyantakyi fired two shots into the belly of the unarmed, unclothed 24-year-old, killing him.

Peters had no criminal record, his family said he had no history of mental illness or drug use, and his death, like those of many killed by police around the country, left his friends and family in anguish. “People ask me all the time, ‘What do you think caused him to have a mental break?’ And I say, ‘We’ll never know, because he was killed,’” says Peters’ sister, Princess Blanding. “It was easier to take out the threat, which was his brown skin, than to try to help him.” Richmond’s top prosecutor later concluded that the May 2018 shooting was justified.

There is no reliable national database tracking how many people with disabilities, or who are experiencing episodes of mental illness, are shot by police each year, but studies show that the numbers are substantial—likely between one-third and one-half of total police killings. And in the renewed national debate over racial injustice sparked by George Floyd’s killing at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer in May, those deaths should loom large.

Advocates for both racial justice and disability rights say Black Americans are especially at risk. Due to a host of social, economic and environmental factors, Black people are more likely than white people to have chronic health conditions, more likely to struggle when accessing mental-health care and less likely to receive formal diagnoses for a range of disabilities. By dint of how others react to their complexion, they are also nearly three times as likely as white people to be killed by police. The combination of disability and skin color amounts to a double bind, says Talila A. Lewis, a community lawyer and volunteer director of Helping Educate to Advance the Rights of Deaf Communities (HEARD). The U.S. government, Lewis explains, uses “constructed ideas about disability, delinquency and dependency, intertwined with constructed ideas about race to classify and criminalize people.”

The danger for people with mental illnesses and other disabilities is also born of police departments’ “compliance culture,” says Haben Girma, another lawyer and activist. “Anyone who immediately doesn’t comply, the police move on to force,” she says. The approach doesn’t work when police interact with someone who doesn’t react in the way they expect. Girma, who is both Black and deaf-blind, says that for her, the danger is hardly abstract. “Someone might be yelling for me to do something and I don’t hear. And then they assume that I’m a threat,” she says.

Ryan Garza—USA Today/SipaA man speaks with a demand for help with people with disabilities as protesters gather at the Detroit Police Department during the eleventh day of protests against police brutality on June 8, 2020.

To address the problem, advocates promote a range of remedies—many dovetailing with the nascent national movement to rethink public safety. They want to decrease the total interactions police officers have with disabled people, redirect funds to other support services, and rethink law-enforcement systems and protocols to better protect people. The demands lend specificity and substance to the protest cries to “defund the police,” drawing attention to the tragedies that follow when armed first responders encounter a situation that demands not enforcement or coercion but care.

Some departments are trying. In recent years, police agencies around the country have offered their forces crisis-intervention trainings, which are designed to help officers safely and calmly interact with people with disabilities and de-escalate confrontations with the mentally ill. But the quality of these training programs is all over the board, and the priority remains elsewhere. A 2016 report from the Police Executive Research Forum found that nationwide, police academies spend a median of 58 hours on firearm training and just eight hours on de-escalation or crisis intervention.

In 2015, the Arc, one of the country’s largest disability-rights organizations, launched its own program to teach law-enforcement officers, lawyers, victim-services providers and other criminal-justice professionals how to identify, interact with and accommodate people with disabilities. “We’re talking about having a community really understand each other, and what that can look like,” says Leigh Ann Davis, who leads the Arc’s National Center on Criminal Justice and Disability. The program has now trained 2,000 people in 14 states.

But training programs, regardless of quality, are not enough, activists say. As protests continue nationwide and demands to defund or abolish the police gain steam, some advocates are pushing for more radical models that seek to avoid bringing people with disabilities, or those experiencing mental-health crises, into contact with the police.

In Eugene, Ore., for example, the White Bird Clinic runs what’s known as CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets), a program that reroutes 911 and non-emergency calls relating to mental health, substance use or homelessness to a team of medics and crisis-care workers. Those teams respond to such calls instead of—not alongside—police. The CAHOOTS program, which launched in the late ’80s, receives roughly 24,000 calls each year; 17% of Eugene police calls are redirected to CAHOOTS, a boon to police departments, which can better use resources combatting crimes.

Police unions have criticized CAHOOTS and similar programs on the grounds that it’s dangerous for medics and crisis-care workers to respond to calls without armed officers. But Tim Black, the CAHOOTS operations coordinator, says that’s mostly not the case. His teams work closely with the Eugene police department, and last year, just 150 of the 24,000 calls directed to CAHOOTS required police backup.

“There’s a really constructive relationship that we have with law enforcement because they see us as the expert,” Black says. “They trust us to engage in all sorts of situations that they’re not equipped to handle. But they also trust us to provide them with feedback and oversight when we see things that aren’t going well because they know that it’s coming from the place of understanding.”

Olympia, Wash.; Denver; and Oakland, Calif., have developed programs modeled after CAHOOTS, and Black says other cities are beginning to call for advice too. In New York City, a coalition of civil rights and social-service organizations has proposed a pilot program for two precincts in which EMTs and crisis counselors would respond to mental-health calls instead of police. The coalition wants to devote $16.5 million to the pilot over five years. (New York spends nearly $11 billion on police-related costs each year.)

Chris Pietsch—The Register-Guard/USA Today/SipaVe Gulbrandsen, center, an EMT with CAHOOTS, joins a team from White Bird in screening guests for health concerns at the Egan Warming Center in Springfield, Ore. on March 16, 2020.

“A police response is not the kind of response you want when people are in a mental-health crisis,” says Carla Rabinowitz, advocacy coordinator for the mental-health nonprofit Community Access and the coalition’s project leader. She notes that at least 17 New Yorkers experiencing mental-health crises were killed or injured by police in the past five years. “It’s much better to have a peer and an EMT who can talk to the person, figure out what is going on in the person’s life, offer them resources.”

Racial equality and disability rights advocates are demanding change beyond law enforcement. Police violence, after all, is only part of why Black Americans have overall worse health outcomes and shorter life expectancies than white Americans. Due to years of systemic racism, Black Americans are more likely than white Americans to have lower incomes, and to live in less safe neighborhoods with fewer grocery stores, fewer parks, worse air quality, and less desirable schools. These factors not only contribute to higher instances of physical ailments, like asthma and diabetes, they’re also intrinsically intertwined with worse mental health outcomes. Black Americans are more likely to have schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder.

These challenges are compounded by many Black Americans’ lack of access to unbiased medical and mental health care. Black Americans are less likely than their white counterparts to be identified as having autism and learning disabilities.

Even talking about disability and mental health in the Black community can require adopting a language separate from mainstream medical culture. “Disability is commonly understood through a white and wealth privileged lens,” says Lewis, the lawyer with HEARD, who helps disabled people facing violence and incarceration across the country. Lewis explains that government officials and even mainstream disability rights leaders often rely on formal definitions of disability that can lead them to overlook the experiences of disabled Black people.

Many Black Americans grow up experiencing police violence, witnessing it in their communities, and seeing videos of deaths as a matter of course. But due to the ways the U.S. medical and education systems have created distrust among communities of color, advocates say there can also be stigma and a lack of awareness about disability in Black communities, even as they push back against violence that impacts these vulnerable populations.

Teighlor McGee, a 22-year-old who has been gathering personal protective equipment and sending medics to help protesters in Minneapolis, says that racial justice groups often don’t think about disabled people when holding demonstrations or advocating for change. “A lot of people don’t see disabled people as people,” she says. “People can’t picture disabled people facing police brutality and violence because they can’t picture disabled people going places.” McGee noticed the lack of spaces to connect with others who shared her experience as a Black autistic woman, so she started the Black Disability Collective online to fill the void.

When people with disabilities or mental illness are not at the center of the conversation, activists say that makes it harder to build understanding and make change. Adrienne Bryant in Tempe, Ariz., says she witnessed the limits of police understanding this year. In January, she called the police because her 29-year-old son Randy Evans, who had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia last year, was experiencing a manic episode and she needed help getting him to a mental health facility. But when police showed up at her apartment with riot shields and rifles, she and her younger son panicked, the officers were yelling, and the situation quickly escalated.

“I said several times, ‘Please do not kill my son,’” Bryant recalled, near tears. “One wrong move and I could have lost two sons that night.”

The police dispatcher had given the responding officers an incorrect name, which turned out to belong to a felony offender who was wanted for violating probation. The dispatcher also told officers that the man they were responding to had knives. (In reality, Bryant and her younger son had collected and hidden all of the knives in the house to keep them away from Evans until police arrived.) As a result of these mistakes, the responding officers believed they were confronting an armed felon, rather than just performing a mental health call. Tempe Police Chief Sylvia Moir told TIME that the responding officers said the mistaken name did not change their behavior. The department believes they responded appropriately in this situation. “We have to first start with, are the police the right societal actor to be inserted into this space and into this societal issue?” Moir says.

More than 60% of Tempe police officers are trained in crisis response, Moir says, and the city has a separate crisis response team that can also be called in to help in situations such as mental health crises, sexual assaults and domestic violence incidents. But she said that she would be worried about sending a crisis response team without police officers carrying lethal weapons in case situations turned dangerous. “I think this is reflective of the police really being the reflective muscle of the government and that there is nobody else out in this space doing this work in this kind of very complex and volatile space,” Moir says.

But Bryant says the damage has been done. Her younger son remains traumatized by the incident; he avoided leaving the house for months afterward. And she is still working to ensure Randy’s name is not associated with the incorrect one provided by the dispatcher. “We will never call the police again,” she says.

Courtesy of Princess BlandingMarcus-David Peters and sister Princess Blanding

Meanwhile, in Richmond, Blanding, whose brother Peters was killed near his car, is using the current, galvanizing prominence of race and criminal justice to push the reforms she has been seeking since his death. Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney recently released a plan “for re-imagining public safety” in the city that includes a civilian review board and a version of the family’s idea for a crisis alert that would involve mental-health experts responding to a mental- or behavioral-health crisis, in addition to other policy changes.

Blanding says she is glad to see progress, but won’t celebrate until the city implements a system that ensures “having a mental-health crisis does not become a death sentence.”

This appears in the July 06, 2020 issue of TIME.