#existing in society NECESSITATES being uncomfortable sometimes | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

bigskydreaming · 3 years ago

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Fandom Stuff To-Do List (basically just stuff I want to get to this week in any order, now that I have Completion Capabilities. Not meant to be a promise of any specific things on this for sure getting done, just these are stuff on my mind to get around to when I have the chance)

- Finish meta post about the wings fic AU and how peoples’ wings are affected by massive physical or emotional trauma that changes them as a person (aka do Babs’ wings change when she becomes Oracle). Which will of course segue into a mini-rant about how our culture tends to view trauma and the acquisition of physical disabilities as something there’s no coming back from, like there’s a ceiling on how good a person’s life can ever be after certain things happen to them.

And that’s why so much of our media content is geared towards treating disabled people and survivors almost more as resources to ensure ‘the same kind of thing’ doesn’t happen to people it hasn’t happened to yet and thus ‘can still be saved/protected.’ Rather than people just fucking acknowledging that trauma is just destructive change that’s impact is relative to how many resources a person has to cope or deal with that change and incorporate it into their life. And that people don’t need to be protected from trauma or accidents as much as is hyped because its literally impossible to ever prevent anything bad from happening ever, so rather than hyping the illusion that ‘this sort of thing could never happen to you as long as you do xyz and don’t do abc’ more attention and focus should be shifted to acknowledging that its still gonna happen sometimes no matter what people do to prevent it or keep safe from it. Because these sorts of trauma ARE EXTERNALLY ORIGINATING and thus there’s literally only ever so much people can do that’s originating within the self to control/protect from being affected in certain ways by stuff originating from outside the self, aka inherently OUT of our control.

And thus IMO we’d all be better served as a society by paying less lip service to the idea that people can be guaranteed safety or protection from various things and instead have more of that focus and attention shifted over towards the acquisition and building and distributing of more resources to help people in the EVENT of certain things happening to them anyway. Which in turn helps spread the narrative that you know what, even if these things happen, even if you are disabled, even if you are traumatized, that’s not the end of the road, that’s not a dealbreaker, that’s just a CHANGE that we as a society are here to help you through. It just means that your life is different now, that you may be different now, but different doesn’t have to be bad, it doesn’t have to come with a ceiling or limitations, it just means a change in perspective.

Bad things will still happen, just like bad things still happened before your Big Change, and its important to remember not to glamorize or romanticize the Before time because that tends to gloss over the fact that nobody’s life was ever perfect before big change or trauma hit anyway. So why on earth should it be a surprise (or any different from anyone else’s life) that life isn’t perfect after big change or trauma? That doesn’t mean it can’t still be GOOD. That you won’t still have good days, good surprises, happiness, friends, joy, laughter, that maybe it takes more resources or just DIFFERENT resources to get there than it did before.....but everyone’s life is different and everyone requires different resources to achieve various desired results or experiences in the first place, so its not the end of the world to have to switch your focus and look in different places for different resources now.

There needs to be less focus on what HAPPENED to people and more focus on what EFFECT it had on them, specifically. On how it changed them and what those changes mean they require now in order to live their life fully and happily, that just might be different from what they needed before. There needs to be a shift in focus from just the trauma or accident or THING that happened that changed the course or direction of a person’s life as like....the definitive point their life changed, because that THING that happened was still just a THING. It came from the outside. It was external. It literally WASN’T ABOUT THEM, and thus focusing on IT can only ever reveal so much about the PERSON it happened to.

No, the point of focus for a person’s life changing in the wake of massive trauma or an accident isn’t WHEN that happened, its when in the aftermath of that, however long it took, when that person, that survivor, finally got up one morning and realized they had a new normal. That they weren’t the person they were before, but they aren’t aimlessly lost in a single long-lasting trauma response searching fruitlessly for personal landmarks to reorient themselves when those landmarks simply don’t exist anymore, because they don’t HAVE to find or lean on those old familiar landmarks anymore. Because they’ve found new ones, found their footing in a new landscape, a new approach to living and perceiving the world around them and how it impacts and intersects with them.

Gimme a change in focus to how recovery isn’t a thing you can ever FIND, that you can ever ACQUIRE by searching for it...and so its less vital that we hold up the idea of it as some kind of semi-mythical Holy Grail its okay to send knights eternally questing for on just the possibility of its existence because hey at least its something to shoot for, when not so deep down a lot of people shelling out advice for recovery that isn’t rooted in their own experiences or utilization of the same advice they’re selling but rather is born of ‘eh, you want something I can’t give or help with and that’s making me uncomfortable so lemme point you in a direction just vague or far away enough that I don’t have to worry about seeing you and your aura of Making Me Uncomfortable around for awhile’....

.....nah, instead how about looking to how resources might be better utilized just....supporting people until they can reach that point of recovery in their own time and their own ways. Because by its very nature, you can spend years working on recovering, on finding a new normal, a new sense of stability in your life, but you’re only ever going to ‘find it’ the day you realize that you’ve ALREADY found it. That you don’t have to go searching for it anymore because its already there, you settled and replanted yourself without even realizing it. Recovery in the wake of trauma is about searching for a way to feel better, to heal, to move past something, and the answer to that need is a feeling of no longer needing to search or find that ephemeral something, because you’re content, you’re okay with who and what you are now. And you don’t need to look anymore for something you wake up and realize you’ve already found somewhere along the way.

Being disabled, being traumatized, being hurt, being CHANGED by some kind of big ass fucking Meteor Of Suck smacking into the planet that is your life and wiping out the fucking dinosaurs of this weirdo metaphor, like....yes, it leaves a mark, makes an impact, oftentimes a BIG one. But like, without the meteor that ended the dinosaur age or whatever, none of us would even be here because the point is just life goes on, and there’s no predicting what it will look like tomorrow, so yeah it could be worse and maybe it’ll never be like it was before, but there’s absolutely zero proof it couldn’t maybe be BETTER, even if it doesn’t ever look the way it was before.

Change is just change. Its not the enemy, its just the point of life. Like we’re born and then things change every single day of our life however long it is and then we die. Birth and death are the bookends, and constant change is every single page of the book in between that. Change isn’t the villain of our story, change IS our story.

And its OUR story, so it never gets to be defined by what someone else does to us in the story, because the hero’s journey isn’t about what MADE the hero set out on their quest, its about their QUEST itself, its about their TRIUMPH, its not about what happened its about what THEY decided to do NEXT because of it. Its not about the catalysts for our changes, its about what we decided to DO, who we decided to BECOME, once those catalysts hit the page and necessitated further change.

Your trauma, your change, none of those are YOU, because YOU are the person you see when you look in the mirror and take all of that in, view it as part of you, your story, something that left a mark just like every single experience of your life has left SOME kind of impact no matter how small, and who you changed into, decided to become, how you incorporated all those marks and changes and experiences....THAT is you. The ENTIRETY of that map, not the single markers along the way, no matter how loud or dramatic or attention-grabbing they try to be.

You are the map of your experiences and you only look to a map, a map only matters to you when its about leading or finding the way to where YOU want to go, with intent. No road map gets to take the wheel of the car just because you aren’t going in the direction it said you were supposed to go originally. If you get lost, you get lost. If you end up somewhere you didn’t expect, you end up somewhere you didn’t expect. If you realize you no longer want or need to go where you were setting out to originally, if you change your mind or decide another destination is better suited to you, you get to look to your map and draw a new route accordingly, because its YOURS, it only exists because of you, not you because of it.

Your trauma or whatever else is fucking up your life may be big fucking pieces of the mosaic you are when you see yourself in the mirror metaphorically speaking cuz I want this analogy to be inclusive for blind people too and I just realized I need to spend more time thinking up alternative ways to express that sentiment that don’t rely on a singular axis of experience to convey it, because that’s kinda the point in and of itself:

We’re all born with toolboxes that give us a variety of tools to approach life with, to build things out of, to build OUR life out of. The aim of civilization, of society, of being a species that only made it this far by being communal and building things together, pooling our tools to build things none of us were equipped to build with just what we already had...is that ideally, the toolbox we’re born with gets added to by others around us. Our parents or guardians or teachers, our friends and loved ones, the random person at the store who saw someone was a dollar short at the grocery store register and offered one of their own or the way we can add to someone else’s toolbox by simply asking if they’re alright when we can see they’re not and then just like that they have the added resource of the knowledge that someone cares enough about them to want to know what’s wrong.

And none of our toolboxes are identical. None make it all the way to our deathbed with us while containing the exact same tools we started with, some are missing, some are added. Some we didn’t even realize we had. Some we never even used. Some we used the hell out of and are worn to pieces and some are shiny and new because we wore out the older version of them and needed a replacement. And sometimes big fucking meteors of suck smack into our lives right when we’re just minding our own business and enjoying our own jurassic age and everything changes forever, but millions of years later we might still be around and now we just look like chickens and alligators and sharks and all the other creatures that are basically just dinosaur descendants in a different form because we’re hardy as fuck and damn I really need to get over this metaphor it is not the analogy I’m looking for but oh well.

Point is, sometimes Change happens and the tools we’re used to leaning on when building our better, ideal lives and optimal experiences, like....maybe they just don’t work for us anymore. Maybe we can’t grip the old familiar ones the way we used to, maybe our eyes have gone to shit and we can’t wield the more precise instruments with the precision we’re used to, maybe the nails we were using to build stairs in our dream house are fucking useless cuz they’re not the right size when building the wheelchair ramp our new dream house needs instead.......and so fucking what? What does any of that actually say about US, about who we ARE, about what our life could be or how good it could get?

Absolutely nothing. Because the toolboxes we were born with were still only ever just tools. What we ARE is what we make with them, what we build out of ourselves, what we choose with intent to become. So what if our old tools aren’t up to the task of actualizing our new dreams? That’s what we need other people for. That’s what society SHOULD be for. That’s when what we need is not to be FIXED, not to be restocked with what we had originally but is now no longer of use to us or what we need or maybe even not what we want.....no, all we need is....new tools. New resources. New kinds of help.

And again, that’s what society is SUPPOSED to be for. To help us define ourselves not by the problems we face but our solutions to overcoming them. To help give each other new tools and teach each other how to use them when change necessitates hunting around for something that’s easier to grip now. And if we all come into the world starting out with different tools than everyone else anyway.....what does it MATTER if somewhere along the way we have to swap out the old familiar ones we started with and look for new ones we didn’t need originally?

A cane is just a cane to help someone walk because for whatever reasons, their legs or spine need that tool to help get them where they want to go. A cane is not proof that it will never take them to a destination where they’re every fucking bit as happy as people who made it to the same place without the use of one. A cane is not THEM. Its just a fucking cane. Same thing with glasses, with wheelchairs, with prosthetic limbs, with hearing aids. Same thing with support groups, with therapists, with trauma centers.

Like do people ever think about how fucking AMAZING it is that we have prosthetics at all? That somewhere along the line, people saw a problem, saw a need, that was not ‘oh this person (or maybe even ‘they themselves’ because let’s not go the saviorism route and forget that disabled people have had plenty the fuck to do with designing or dreaming up or building the tools disabled people use to navigate life while working with a different set of physiological tools than most people are equipped with. Like this isn’t a ‘oh look how good other people are to people in need’ point but more just a ‘people-as-in-society-overall-which-includes-both-able-bodied-and-disabled’ point).

Like the point is the response to seeing that was not just ‘oh so and so or maybe even me is damaged beyond repair,’ no instead it was just ‘this person’s legs aren’t currently equpped to do what this person needs or wants them to do.’ And people said okay the solution, the answer, the RESPONSE to seeing that problem or need was not to sit back and think about how much it sucks that this person can’t walk on their own and how limited or ‘lesser’ their life will be than other peoples’ because of that, no they said instead, hey, what if we just BUILT THEM DIFFERENT LEGS. Like, just THINK about that. We, as a people, communally, as in more than one, pooled resources to BUILD PEOPLE NEW FUCKING LEGS.

And all it ultimately took, the catalyst for THAT, for changing the lives of people who use prosthetics as tools in their day to day lives....the catalyst for that CHANGE was NOT in fact....whatever happened to make various people need prosthetics in the first place. No, the catalyst, the change that got us to the point of people having the OPTION of prosthetics at all, was the point in time where people saw a need, and came up with the solution of prosthetics to address that need. When they said not oh that’s a problem or oh sorry you have that need, but oh I have an idea, or oh here’s what we can do about that. The defining element wasn’t that something needed building. The defining element was WHAT PEOPLE CHOSE TO BUILD BECAUSE OF THAT.

Just like severe trauma is a catalyst for change in a person’s life, a meteor that no one saw coming and can dramatically reshape the landscape of their life, wipe out familiar comforts and landmarks they use to orient themselves.....but at the end of the day, that person is not the meteor itself. We don’t call them whatever we call that meteor, we call them by their fucking name because they’re still the same fucking person, just in a different place now, with different needs, with different dreams or wants or goals. Who they are isn’t how rough they have it while they’re going through the most....because how much a trauma shakes up a person’s life is directly relative to how equipped they are already to deal with that particular trauma or change.

So by its very nature the ‘worst’ or most changing traumas are the ones that we’re personally LEAST equipped to deal with at that particular time on our own, and how fucking stupid is it to try and draw conclusions about a person based just on how they react in the immediate aftermath of an event whose defining element is that it was a destructive change that was uniquely impactful because it hit them where they were least equipped to deal with it?

Like, NOBODY is equipped to handle well, like, an event that relative to THEM SPECIFICALLY, like....is something they’re not equipped to handle. LOL. Like, that’s so fucking dumb, but that’s who we ALL are when in the midst of massive trauma responses - just people hunting desperately for new normals, new landmarks, new awareness with which to recenter ourselves, reorient ourselves, redefine who and what we are in relation to our lives and society and our loved ones in the wake of a massive change that shook things up and required repositioning ourselves because the spot we used to be positioned on no longer exists.

And what the fuck can you learn, can you actually KNOW about a person based solely on the fact that ‘oh this person is having a hard time dealing with something that there’s literally NO good way to deal with?’

People talk a lot about how revealing trauma or tragedy is, that you can learn a lot by seeing how someone handles a huge trauma or tragedy being thrown at them, even in fiction. But y’know what? There’s a ceiling on how much that alone can ever reveal, especially if the lens of time through which you examine that person or character is limited just to the aftermath of the trauma, the thing that HAPPENED to them. Rather than focused on the beginning of their new journeys, once they’ve reoriented themselves, acquired new tools, picked new destinations or goals for their lives and set out to now make THOSE a reality....just like people before or without massive trauma or tragedy are similarly not defined by the LACK of what didn’t happen to them, but simply by......what destinations or goals they pick for their lives and their journeys to get there and what they do and what choices they make along the way.

Nah, if you ask me, a person’s truest essence isn’t revealed by what they do with whatever limited tools or resources they have when struggling with a massive trauma or tragedy that’s only massive specifically BECAUSE it hit them in a way or place they were ill-equipped or unprepared to deal with. Because the essence of that person, the truth revealed by examining that struggle, the answer in focus when looking through just that finite lens....can be boiled down to the exact same thing, no matter WHO you put in that place.

What they do in the wake of a massive trauma is simply ‘as much as they’re capable of given their limited resources or capabilities at THAT SPECIFIC POINT IN TIME.’ Which is inherently....not a lot. Completely subjective and relative to every individual, given the different traumas, resources and needs or injuries relative to every individual while they’re going through their fucking worst....but that’s still the point.

A person struggling with things beyond their capability to handle well at that given moment given their current state or resources.....is ultimately never going to appear as anything other than.....a person struggling with things beyond their capability to handle well at that given moment given their current state or resources. Wow. Really pegged that person huh. Got them all summed up, totally differentiated from every other person to ever go through shit, just by seeing them.....not handle it great when by its very nature of fucking course they’re not going to handle a trauma they’re not prepared for with any degree of ‘great.’

Like, is it any wonder our society has this built in presumption that experiencing certain traumas or tragedies just fucking CONDEMNS that person to from then on live a life that will never actually measure up to being as optimal as it maybe could have been if that hadn’t happened? What other conclusion are you gonna draw, about how good or not a person’s life is in the wake of massive destructive change....if you’re only ever focusing on or looking at how they react at the specific point where they’re LEAST equipped to deal with that trauma or tragedy well?

Because thing is....that’s not a person. That’s a snapshot of a person. Try and define me or sum me up by looking at a fucking Polaroid of me when I was ten or whatever. Go on. See how revealing that is. Tell me what that says about me.

People can’t be defined by negative space. By what they’re NOT. By all the ways in which they can’t be what they MIGHT have been had something happened different, or all the things they COULD be if they were born into different circumstances. You do that, you’re not describing a person, you’re describing hypotheticals that you can apply as desired to ANY person, with just a few tweaks here and there, and thus always find a way to picture them as you want to for your own personal purposes, agenda or comfort, rather than gaining any insight whatsoever about who they are as defined by the space that they DO fill up, with intent, by their choices.

We don’t look to the early history of our species and talk about all the people who DIDN’T discover fire, maybe even just because they were born in a fucking wet climate or whatever where it was inherently more difficult to happen across the realization that striking sticks or stones in certain ways can make a very useful and helpful flame. With the point being that even if we DID talk about those early humans as much as we did the ones who got actual bonfires going, the fact that they simply ‘weren’t the ones to discover fire’ actually would reveal shit about them in and of itself, because who’s to say that the reason, the ‘culprit’ for that was that they were simply too dumb or whatever to figure that out instead of just being they lived in a climate that made that discovery particularly difficult or less likely to happen by chance? Y’know?

But no, anyway, we talk about the ones who DID discover fire, because the turning point for our species which that was, like, we don’t look at it and define it by the lack of it happening sooner, at the problem that not having fire was for the people who came before that discovery. It was the triumph that mattered, it was the choices made in the wake of that discovery, it was how people put that new tool to work and not oh how revealing it is about the rest of early humanity that they didn’t put that tool to work in similar ways because it simply wasn’t even a possibility for them when it was simply a resource they didn’t have.

Nah, IMO a person’s truest essence is revealed not by their problems or their lacks, not by the hypothetical maybe me they could have been if they went through life without anything bad ever happening to them and thus who they’ll never actually be now. Its not revealed by taking a snapshot of them in the moments or days or even weeks following a trauma or tragedy that struck with an accompanying seismic shake-up of all their existing stability and support systems that ultimately limited how much or many of the resources they’d previously acquired or built could even be of use to them in dealing with things now. You don’t learn anything substantial by putting people in a room with only two exits and one of them locked and then act like its an insightful revelation that they ultimately make their way out by means of the finite options available to them when their options have been actively limited by forces outside them and their control, even if that wasn’t the ‘optimal’ answer to that predicament and you wanted them to make other more ideal choices without acknowledging they literally were limited to the most basic of fucking choices available. No, IMO the actual revelations about people come in their declaration of a new want or wish or ask or goal AFTER they’ve found their footing and are ready to live again rather than just cope.

Why define ourselves by our needs when we’re most ourselves when dreaming of our wants?

You don’t gain the most insight by watching someone flail about when they’re at their lowest and just floundering. You want insight, you look to see what tools they use to pull themselves upright, what resources they ask for or seek out in order to build something new that they can place upon their new shaken-up-and-reformed foundations and from there find some stability with which to pull themselves FORWARD. Instead of just clinging to the shattered remnants of whatever their source of stability was previously but is no longer useful for that purpose, maybe not even because they WANT to cling to just that or are afraid or unwilling to move forward, but because they simply can’t reach any fucking resources with which to do anything BUT just cling to what little they could grab, and what they actually need is just someone to offer them said resources instead of just acting like they really did something by looking at a person lacking in resources and then judging or defining them simply by all the things they AREN’T doing to better themselves or their lives, WHEN THAT’S ONLY BECAUSE THEY’RE LACKING THE FUCKING RESOURCES TO DO ANY OF THAT.

You see who a person is not by comparing them to who they MIGHT have been before, because who can say with any certainty what person they might have been the day after that massive trauma or tragedy, had said trauma or tragedy never actually occurred? Who can guarantee that person, that hypothetical maybe-me is ACTUALLY better than who they are or can become now?

Nope. You wanna know who that person is? That’s who they declare themselves to be the second they stop trying to define themselves by who they WERE and thus who they’re not anymore....but rather by who they are NOW, and who they want to be from here on out. You don’t look at the person who’s been pushed to the ground and say oh that’s that person, that’s who that person is. No, all that tells you is that person was pushed to the ground by an asshole, and surprise surprise, they fell because that’s what fucking happens when someone pushes you to the ground, lolol. That’s not the nature of a person, that’s the nature of physics. Wow. Person A is affected by gravity and the forceful aggression of assholes in their vicinity. The uncanny insight of it all.

You wanna see that person, you look at who they are AFTER they’ve pulled themselves back up. You see what they do THEN. Once they’re back in control of themselves, their life, in the driver’s seat.

You can’t define people by the lack of something. A lack of control, a lack of choice, a lack of resources. Because we are our choices, we are the journeys we take, we are what happens on the next page of our story because the next page of our story only EVER happens because each and every page we decided to MAKE something happen next.

And we can only MAKE those choices, versus have them made for us and which thus says more about the person who forced those choices on us than it does us for simply being unable to stop that, we can only TAKE those journeys, versus being forced into certain directions and paths and down certain roads by limited options that say more about how little a person can do with only finite options available to them rather than say anything substantial about what directions a person might go in if they had actual options and choices available to them beyond just being presented with two routes that both equally suck, we can only do anything substantial with any of that, anything that says anything about US rather than just descriptive of our circumstances....

We can only do anything with all of that AFTER we’ve gained or taken back or regained control over our lives. AFTER we’ve found our footing. AFTER we’ve said well guess what, this happened then, but guess what else happened today? I got out of bed and said okay so we’re just not gonna worry about that because its over and done and it doesn’t get to be the only thing that matters about us. So instead, how about what matters right now is whatever the fuck I choose to do today, because THAT is up to me, THAT says something about me, THAT is not just some random rock crashing into me from outer fucking space and saying knock knock, fuck you. THAT is ME, saying with intent, THIS is who I am now and THIS is what I’m going to do today, and THAT’S an actual story about me and my choices and my PERSONHOOD. Versus just a summation of how shitty I looked while being smacked in the face by a mountain of bullshit and me without so much as an umbrella.

THAT’S a story about a person. That other thing, that fixation on the rock that crashed into them without warning? Its ultimately never going to be anything other than the story of how a person got hit by a fucking rock.

All of which is to say, so yeah, in that wing fic AU, Babs’ wings do change after what happens with the Joker, even though her wings had already settled.

BUT, the key thing about that is....the point of CHANGE for her wings was NOT when the Joker shot her. Its not when her life, when SHE changed, ‘because of that.’ Because maybe her wings didn’t work the same way anymore after that happened, because they represented who she was before that. And before that she was and thought of herself as someone who could grapple between buildings, flip kick into bad guys, do cartwheels across rooftops, and she can’t do those things anymore so maybe her wings don’t work for her in the way they used to because they were ‘designed’ for someone who lived life in a way she was no longer capable of.

But her wings didn’t just change then and there, they still remained the same as always even if they weren’t as useful because maybe she could still fly perhaps, but not land in the ways her wings were designed to do that, due to the changed capabilities of her legs and spine which were meant to work in concert with her wings.

See, because the point is.....if the wings are the ultimate expression of the self, even acknowledging that she was in fundamental ways CHANGED at that point (not lessened, but changed, made different, needing different things and having different wants).....the point is, at just that specific time, in the immediate aftermath of that trauma, what would her wings have changed into? What would they LOOK like, simply because say, two days ago, the Joker shot her and now she’s paralyzed? If she’s no longer the old her, how could the new her POSSIBLY be defined by that little data, that little definition, that small an image or encapsulation of everything she still MIGHT yet be or become once she’s out of bed, out of tears, out of grief for the goals that are no longer viable and now ready to say okay, now let me decide what DOES come next for me now.

So yes, Babs’ wings do change after the Joker shoots her, but they remain as they were for awhile. Just not as useful to her now that her toolbox of physical capabilities was less equipped to accommodate her newly changed needs and approaches to life.

When they change, its because she’s already become Oracle. That’s who she is now, Batgirl is a part of that but more about who she was. It’s part of the foundation she built her new self atop, its never going to not be a part of her, never going to leave, it still matters....but it is not the building itself anymore, it is the bedrock that made it through the seismic upheaval of her life and thus was sturdy enough she felt safe building something new on it, something that could ride out further earthquakes thanks to having it to ground her. But as integral as it is to what she built in the wake of her big quake....it is not the house she houses her self-image in. That’s Oracle’s domain now.

And so when her wings do change, it happens overnight, while she’s asleep. Dreaming of everything she wants now, everything she wants to become. They change not in a ‘this is happening’ sense, much like we’re never fully aware of how far into our recovery process we are.....instead, they change in a ‘huh, so this happened’ sense. Just like we only realize how much we’ve recovered, how much we no longer need to define ourselves by a quest to be better, happier, more alright...once we’ve already found that happiness or contentment and realized the reason there’s no longer the same drive to pursue some abstract image of recovery is simply because we no longer need to go anywhere to get that, we’re already there and this is what that looks like.

And so when one day Babs wakes up feeling different and looks in the mirror to see her wings no longer look like they used to but rather seem much more suited to the woman she is now, the woman she envisioned in her mind as a new goal or destination of self-determination, that she chose to become with intent, that she worked to become so she could be defined by something other than what some asshole did to her, so that she could be the sum of her deeds rather than the snapshot of her tragedy.....its a sign of change. Of her change, and proof that her life is not now what it once was, and never will be again.....but its not some big momentous reveal, more just an exhale of affirmation for something she’s already known for awhile and just now has the distance and perspective to see actual proof of.

Its the marker of the fact that actually she’s okay with it, she’s okay with herself, her new self, because she doesn’t need to be who she might have been without that trauma, she doesn’t need to be a maybe when who she is? Has no more of a built in limit or ceiling or cap on happiness and success than the woman she was before her trauma had. She doesn’t love what happened to her, but its just something that happened to her. Its not who she is, THIS is who she is, this is THAT, and this she’s more than okay with, she’s proud of, she’s like damn I look good. Life threw a punch at her and she got into a wheelchair and rolled with it, and if you’re busy looking at the bruise from that punch because you’re so focused on the fact that it happened, you’re missing the real story.

And that’s the way she pulled herself out of bed every morning for a year and into her wheelchair to train with escrima sticks in whole new ways of fighting so the next time the Joker tried knocking on her door, he wouldn’t get to pull the same shit twice. Because she’s not the same woman she was then and anyone focusing on THAT instead of watching out for all the ways she can still kick ass, some old, some new, some that she invented herself because necessity is the mother of invention and Babs has always been driven to be the top of her class for reasons that have everything to do with just HER and absolutely nothing at all with what happened to put her in a class where fighting from a wheelchair was a tool she felt she needed -

Well maybe they need to get clocked across the head with a stick to drive home that they’ve missed the entire point, that if you’re there looking to see a tragedy you’ve got the wrong fucking address cuz she’s doing just fine.

And so she wakes up one day and looks in her mirror and sees her wings have changed overnight and they look nothing like she remembers but tbh, she likes these a lot better, likes the way they feel, the shape of them, they just FIT....and then she just nods her head decisively, quietly pleased but in no rush to make any big announcement, because for her, this changes nothing. Its just a sign that change has already happened.

And its like....duh, she already knew that, and she’s more than okay with it, so semantics can wait for another time. She’s Barbara Gordon, the Oracle of Gotham, and she’s got shit to do.

And okay, so clearly, I ended up just writing that post instead of writing the rest of that to-do list, so I’m gonna now go make another post with the ACTUAL to-do list, and like, yay, I can cross this off I guess? My process is so mysterious, oh unknowable ways.

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aion-rsa · 3 years ago

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How Loki and Fallout Use Retrofuturism to Unnerve Us

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While Loki has proven to be a somewhat divisive show at times, the one thing that most people seem to agree on is that the series boasts an incredible sense of style.

The same could certainly be said of WandaVision, but unlike that series which wore its sitcom influences on its sleeve, Loki‘s stylistic influences are a bit more varied and complex. Watch Loki close enough, and you’ll spot references and callbacks to everything from Blade Runner and Mad Men to Jurassic Park and Atomic Blonde. All of those styles come together to form a fascinating universe (perhaps multiverse?) where cosmic sci-fi, comic book adventures, and Western action somehow manage to coexist and form a strangely cohesive vision.

Then there’s Fallout. While the video game series that changed CRPGs forever is rarely referred to as one of Loki‘s most pronounced stylistic influences, the two are fascinatingly united by the ways that they use retrofuturism to unnerve us and leave us with the feeling that there’s something so much darker happening in their worlds than the actions of the usual collection of villains.

Retrofuturism: The Advances of Technology With The Comforts of Nostalgia

What is retrofuturism? The technical definition of the term is “the use of a style or aesthetic considered futuristic in an earlier era,” but it’s important to realize that particular definition is based on the idea of looking back. While the “retro” part of retrofuturism obviously implies a look back, many of the most iconic retrofuturistic visuals were actually imagined by those who were, at the time, were trying to predict the future through the concept most commonly referred to as “futurism.” It’s a practice that has existed for centuries even though the idea of retrofuturism wasn’t really popularized until later in the 20th century.

For instance, in the late 1800s/early 1900s, French artists making postcards for tobacco products and a German chocolate manufacturing company took a shot at predicting what the world would look like in the year 2000. As you can see below, their predictions included everything from surprisingly forward-thinking portrayals of automation to utterly bizarre images that make you appreciate just how long opium has been readily available:

When we think of retrofuturism today, though, we often think back to Americana images from the 1950s and 1960s. That’s when a potent combination of post-war optimism and rapidly advancing technology (especially technology related to the emerging space race) led to widespread interest in predicting just how great the future would be and what it would all look like. While that style can obviously be seen in movies like Forbidden Planet or shows like The Jetsons, some of the most definitive examples of those often misguided glimpses into the future can be found in the old Sunday paper comic strip, “Closer Than We Think.”

It wasn’t just artists having a bit of fun who were trying to predict the future at that time. There were more than a few manufacturers who were interested in not just trying to advance technology by 30+ years as soon as possible but crafting designs they felt represented what the future looked like. There is perhaps no better visual of this concept than the design of the Ford Nucleon: a 1957 concept for a nuclear-powered commercial car.

In fact, the whole idea of nuclear-powered vehicles was so popular at one point that the United States and Soviet Union each began to research the possibility of designing nuclear-powered jet fighters. The idea didn’t make it far off the ground (quite literally) due to, among many other problems, the realization it would be nearly impossible to shield the plane’s crew from the radiation produced by the engine. Remarkably, the U.S. was so desperate to make the idea work that at least one engineer reportedly suggested recruiting elderly pilots who were going to die soon anyway of natural causes to fly the nuclear planes during the testing phases. The idea was shot down and seemed to be a sobering wake-up call to the realities of the whole idea.

That’s the thing you have to understand about futurism and what eventually becomes retrofuturism. From balloon-powered carriages that won’t break your monocle to the plane of the future that most people of the time would live to fly in only once, the concepts are based on the often mistaken idea that some tenants of society (notably fashion and certain cultural concepts) are going to be roughly the same in 100 years but technology will be significantly improved. The aspects of life that you’re comfortable with now will still be there, but you’ll now have access to an array of conveniences you otherwise couldn’t imagine. It’s all the benefits of technology with the comforts of nostalgia.

Loki and Fallout not only understand the depth of that concept but use it as the basis for horrors that keep us fascinated in their stories and worlds even as we harbor an uncomfortable feeling that we can’t quite explain.

Loki and Fallouts Retorfurism Design Styles

According to Fallout lore, the world existed pretty much as we know it now until sometime around World War 2. That’s when an event known as “The Great Divergence” occurred.

The basic version of this story sees The United States enter a prolonged period of hostility with China and the Soviet Union during the 1950s as part of a cultural battle against the perceived threat of communism. Much like we saw during our timeline’s version of the Cold War, that period results in fantastic technological advancements born out of both necessity and one-upmanship. An increased desire (some would argue “need”) to harness nuclear power eventually leads to the creation of fantastic machines, incredible weaponry, cybernetics, and advanced supercomputers. It was a kind of new industrial revolution.

However, because these countries were devoting so much of their time and resources to war, their cultures didn’t have a chance to advance far beyond what they were in the 1950s. Even new media that was created beyond that point (mostly comics and radio shows) often drew upon the established style of that era. More importantly, propaganda art remained in vogue as nations constantly encouraged their citizens to join the fight, donate, or do whatever they can in the name of hating and fearing their enemies.

While the early Fallout games played with a somewhat muted version of that concept that accounted for other timeline possibilities, that’s roughly how we arrived at the world that was prominently featured in Fallout 3: a nuclear wasteland where culture and ideas are permanently stuck in the 1950s but technology obviously advanced beyond that time despite looking like it also came from that era (or a vision of the future popular during that time period).

What about Loki, though? Well, while we still have a lot to learn about that show’s lore, there’s no denying that the TVA utilizes a distinct retrofuturistic style where unbelievable technological advances clash with surprisingly outdated hardware and cultural concepts. From a lore perspective, Loki director Kate Herron has noted that the design is meant to convey the idea that the TVA is stuck outside of our ideas of a traditional timeline and pull from both the past and future due to the constant chronological confusion they inhabit. From a style standpoint, Herron has also cited titles like Blade Runner and Metropolis as some of the series’ biggest influences when it comes to the retrofuturism look of the TVA offices.

Herron has seemingly never referenced Fallout as one of Loki‘s major stylistic influences, which is actually quite surprising given some of the design similarities the two series sometimes share.

Mind you, none of this is meant to suggest that Loki somehow “rips off” Fallout or that the series’ showrunners owe the game series any kind of acknowledgment. In fact, both draw from the same well of cultural influences, which happen to include those real-world retrofuturistic designs that helped popularize the concept in the first place.

No, what really interesting about Loki and Fallout’s retrofuturistic connection isn’t their shared visuals but how each uses this concept to create a world that is strangely alluring even as we realize the whole thing is built on lies.

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Vault Boy and Miss Minutes: The Smiling Faces of Bureaucracy, Corruption, and Propaganda

In the world of Fallout, we have the “advantage” of coming into its retrofuturistic world at the end. When you see an old drawing of a smiling family asking you to buy war bonds as it’s being stepped on by a super mutant created from the fallout of the nuclear war those bonds were used to fund, it’s hard to miss the social commentary.

Yet, Fallout’s design isn’t solely intended to be an ironic backdrop to the apocalypse. Actually, Fallout‘s vision of the end of the world can be traced back to the cultural institutions that popularized that retrofuturistic style that initially seems to clash with the game’s vision of the apocalypse.

There are few better examples of that idea than Fallout’s mascot: Vault Boy. Designed to be the poster child of the Vault-Tec Corporation, Vault Boy was supposed to be a friendly face that distracted people from the fact that one of the largest companies in the world only exists because a never-ending war necessitated the privatization of fallout shelter creation. Vault-Tec was given the power to do pretty much whatever they wanted in the name of rapidly advancing the development of technology that was supposed to help people. Mostly, though, they want you to remember them for that smiling character that assures you that everything will be fine, despite the fact that everything can’t be fine if a company that offers such a service has already become as powerful as they were.

Well, Loki has its own Vault Boy in the form of Miss Minutes. We first meet this cartoon clock when Loki watches an instructional video designed to help inform variants what the TVA is and why they are there. The video (which was clearly inspired by retro PSAs and commercials) is a horrifying revelation that strongly suggests that free will may not exist just as it implies that the universe is only being held together by largely absentee gods and the bureaucrats that serve them. Who better to deliver that kind of information than a cartoon character designed to make you remember times when you never thought about fate and the finite nature of life?

In both cases, retrofuturistic design principles are used to shield people from the harsh realities that birthed them. Vault Boy isn’t worried about nuclear war, so why should you be? Miss Minutes isn’t suffering from existential dread, so why should you? They’re creations pulled from a different era as a way to say “Hey, if this whole situation is as bad as you think it is, then what is this smiling character from a simpler time still around?”

Of course, it’s all a facade. Fallout and Loki (and Terry Gilliam’s brilliant Brazil, for that matter) show us worlds where the bureaucracies and corporations wear the faces of our own nostalgia. They have successfully harnessed the optimism of a more innocent time that never really existed in the way they suggest it did. That image they created only becomes stronger as it is reinforced by a new generation that defends a time and ideas they never knew because they were raised to believe in a carefully crafted version of them.

Again, though, in both Loki and Fallout, we have the advantage of coming into these worlds from the outside. We know they can’t exist because they’re not our own. Yet, there is something deeper and more sinister about the use of retrofuturism as a thematic whistle that goes well beyond the borders of fictional worlds and makes us reexamine how we view our own.

Retrofuturism Tells Us That We’re Somewhere We Don’t Belong

There is a genuine appeal to retrofuturism from a sheer stylistic standpoint. There’s something strangely satisfying about watching complex tasks be performed by old computers or seeing one of the cars that defined Americana be launched into the sky as a family prepares for their vacation to the moon. It’s wonderfully absurd and, especially in the case of Loki, it gives personality to what may otherwise be a dry and lifeless office environment.

Yet, retrofuturistic design is still based on the idea that the scary and uncharted world of tomorrow and all the technological advances that come with it can be tempered by a dose of nostalgia. It tells us “the future will be the best of all worlds” when we know (or should know) that technological advances change society in ways both good, bad, and, most often, something in between. In the 1950s and late 1800s, people used futurism to dream of what wonders the future will hold. In 2021, we often use retrofuturism as a way to mock some of those predictions while still sometimes fantasizing about this time when there seemed to be widespread cultural optimism about the future.

It’s hubris that leads us to believe we can predict or control the future, and it’s hubris that’s at the heart of retrofuturistic design. While there are some who would undoubtedly want to live in a world filled with ‘50s/’60s designs and cultural values where they are still able to enjoy certain modern technological conveniences, even the most hopelessly nostalgic must see the retrofuturistic worlds of Loki and Fallout and think “this isn’t right.” Retrofuturistic design done well is one of the best ways to convey that something has gone horribly wrong before we even know what that something is. Loki and Fallout happen to be two of the better examples of retrofuturistic design utilized exactly for that purpose.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

As writer Bruce McCall once put it, retrofuturism is sometimes nostalgia for a future that never happened. It’s that old Air Force engineer looking at a black and white photo and thinking “If they had just let us put senior citizens next to nuclear reactors, we’d have better planes by now.” It’s fascinating to look at, it’s interesting to think about, but as Loki and Fallout show us, it’s nearly impossible to spend any time in such worlds without realizing that they’re rarely more than pretty lies.

The post How Loki and Fallout Use Retrofuturism to Unnerve Us appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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rustandyearnings · 7 years ago

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Calling In, Take 2: Power, Accountability, Movement, and the State

In the winter of 2013, I wrote a piece titled, “Calling IN: A Less Disposable Way of Holding Each Other Accountable.” Over the next four years or so, this piece would become the bane of my existence. Let me explain.

This piece sort of exploded – I was receiving emails and messages that the piece was really resonating with folks doing justice work across all types of communities. It was true and probably is still true how tired we all are of the constant worry that we cannot make mistakes – not even among those who we call friends, family, and/or comrades.

There have been numerous challenges that have arisen since the publication of this piece. The first is that it was so wildly appropriated by white people to rationalize or justify their own racist behavior. It’s been wildly appropriated to push away valid critique of racist or otherwise oppressive behavior. I remember as Ani DiFranco was being called out for playing music at a slave plantation, that white lesbians were quoting “Calling In” to tell Black women and women of color that they shouldn’t be critiquing Ani (or other white people) in such a harsh way. I don’t think I need to offer any more examples on how this piece or this concept has been misconstrued to mean, “I can do whatever I want and you have to be nice to me.”

The second challenge actually has a lot more to do with my own political development than external factors—how it was being read by my community or how it was being used by those inside and outside of my community. In the four years since writing this piece, I regret to some extent not writing more about the relationship we have to each other in movement versus our relationship to each other and that relationship to the state – the apparatus which seeks to and often succeeds at dividing, repressing, and conquering (literally and metaphorically) us.

I have become regularly frustrated by some of the contexts in which “calling in” has been used or named. It’s less about people annoying me (because people annoy me a lot) or some idea that I am the arbitrator of what “calling in” as an accountability practice or process actually means. It is actually more about the individualistic ways we think of accountability, power, and our relationships to each other. In many ways it is not surprising that we conceptualize ourselves as simply individuals. We are born into this world by ourselves (unless we’re a twin or a triplet, or something, but you get my point), we experience much of the world with only ourselves (even if many of our experiences involve others), at night we fall asleep and wander into the dream world on our own, and when we die – and we all die – we die alone.

We take the reality of the human experience as being both terrifyingly and rewardingly lonely and compound it with the deadliest economic, political, and social system in existence, capitalism, and most of us end up having a lot of shit to unpack around our individualism, and specific to this context, our understanding of harm and repair.

So what does it mean to hold each other accountable in a world that is incredibly messy? In a world where we don’t have much to rely on but the reality that things are incredibly messiness? That isn’t to say that there aren’t topics or issues where we are capable of drawing a clear line. We know how to do that – that’s why we have vibrant social movements.

But we have to start figuring out the space that exists between ourselves and our communities, our communities and the movement, and the movement and the state. Not only do we have to start figuring out that space, we have to do this in a way that is honest, transformative, and real.

I don’t think that I can say this enough: we are human beings and we have our shit. We carry with us the traumas we experience from early ages, that we don’t start developing different coping mechanisms for until later in life. For some of us, it is much later in life or it is never actually dealt with at all.

Being in movement has taught me that movement brings together the maladjusted weirdos of society who have decided or have been led to doing something about their own and others’ maladjustment. When I say “maladjusted” I am capturing a pretty broad stroke of people who are, by the standards of this system and society, not fit to be a part of this system and society. We are rightfully upset, uncomfortable, and angry. In most aspects of our lives – at our jobs, in our classrooms, in our neighborhoods, and most public spaces, including those that are allegedly democratically elected to represent us, we do not belong nor do we have power.

Movement is where we have power. Movement is where those of us who have seen the most fucked up shit; have made a whole lot out of the nothing slapped to us by capitalism; have had to endure the incredulous crimes against humanity, whether it be gentrification or police brutality, homelessness or addiction, incarceration or unemployment; have once believed that we might not survive another day have managed to find others, to find a way, and to fight for our right to life every day.

The power we have in movement spaces is beautiful, transformative, and sometimes (and increasingly so) threatening to those who have power over us. But the power we have can sometimes fuck us up. Let’s be real. Sometimes we get power and suddenly no one is a friend, it’s only foes. And it’s especially foes if not everyone agrees with us. Sometimes we get power and we become stagnant, we start operating in the interest of preserving our own power, instead of remembering why people’s power means anything to begin with: we have to build with other people to win. Our fingers tight as a fist are much stronger than they are a part. Our arms linked are a much stronger barricade than our shoulders alone in the cold. The harmony of many voices is much louder than just one.

The movement gives us power and we start acting like calling out greedy politicians and corporate profiteers or politicians who want to rid the world of queer and trans people is the same as calling out our cousin who makes sexist jokes at the family reunion or even a fellow organizer who takes up a lot of space as a white person. These are fundamentally different relationships. Our relationships to capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy as pillars holding up a destructive and deadly system is fundamentally different than our relationships to the human beings who have to survive these systems.

The state is an oppressive force that seeks to cultivate division and thrives on our disconnection and alienation from each other. Let’s try our best to not feed it with our harms and grievances as if it could help us resolve them.

Our movement is, in many ways, fighting to confront the state. We are disrupting the institutions and systems harming our people. Our movement is not mechanized with an oppressive ideology; we are not weaponizing ourselves toward profit; we are not propping up fake democracy to make the rich more comfortable; we are not fighting to dispose of our people, leave our people behind or for dead. If we are truly building our movement to confront the state, we’ve got to stop treating each other like the mistakes we commit are the same heinous crimes that the state commits against our people. We are all capable of causing harm but we can’t operate as if the harm we cause to each other is the same as what we experience from the state. Often, the harm we cause to each other happens in the process of trying to build a different world.

Somewhere along the lines, the idea of “calling in” was put in opposition to “calling out.” I don’t believe that such dichotomy exists, since I think that our accountability should be more rooted in our understanding of power, to each other and to the forces that seek to exert power over us, than rooted in our individualism and selfishness about who gets to be right and who is wrong.

But ultimately, whether you want to call in or call out, let’s all try to be on the same page about who our shared enemy is – and it is not each other. I stick by a lot of what I originally wrote in that piece in 2013. Movement building is about relationship building. And it’s also about nuance. In the piece I elaborated on how we use our relationships as the basis for determining whether we "call in" or "call out." I’m still less interested in how we label our processes for holding each other accountable and more interested in the process itself. Some questions that I would pose to folks when they are deciding how they want to deal with an oppressive situation are: what is the depth of the relationship I have with this person? Are they someone I consider an acquaintance? A friend? A comrade? What values do we share (if any) and what are they?

There are deeper political questions that should inform how to hold people accountable, too -- because everything is political and more importantly, because everything requires us to think of ourselves within the context of a broader society. Our society necessitates harm in order to thrive and it can either continue to thrive or be delegitimized based on our responses to harm. We live in a real society of disposability. We talk about it a lot but I think sometimes we forget how entrenched we are in it. When we talk about the prison industrial complex, we are talking about a world that puts people in cages for the rest of their lives because of an accountability system where the state arbitrates who gets to make mistakes and who doesn't. The structural violence carried out by the state shapes and informs how we relate to each other interpersonally.

Lately I’ve been returning to the fact that we are human beings. This kind of statement is obviously a little oversimplifying. We are human beings who are greedy, selfish, cruel, unforgiving, vengeful and also deeply feeling, compassionate, remorseful, creative, apologetic, loving, and caring. Some of the human beings on this earth commit viler nastiness than just being human – we know that this shows up in our communities and in the broader world as sexual, emotional, and physical violence, all tied and connected to capitalist exploitation and oppression: white supremacy and anti-blackness, transmisogyny and homophobia, islamophobia and xenophobia, Zionism and anti-Semitism and more.

I'm not saying that there is never harm nor that we should martyrize ourselves to minimize the harm we experience. I'm saying we should remember we have all caused harm, have the propensity to cause harm and if causing harm or making mistakes were the basis for whether or not we maintain community with each other instead of our humanity, our dignity, our aptitude for change, and our belief in a radically different and better world, we'd have no community. And probably just as scary, if not more, we’d have no movement.

There is no perfect way to deal with harm or conflict. We are trying our best to maintain our relationship to each other and ourselves in a world that is routinely dehumanizing, under a system that doesn’t care about what we mean to each other. But we should care about what we mean to each other.

As a queer and gender non-conforming person of color, a migrant from Viet Nam, and a communist, what keeps me alive is the fact that everything changes – that in fact, everything must change. When something has stopped changing, it’s dead. If there’s nothing that is useful from this piece, any of my (largely unoriginal) musings on power, accountability, movement, and the state – I hope at least that we can all remember and respect that everything changes. That this be a gift we do not take for granted, that this be a gift we give to each other in service of a better world, a world where not only are we capable of transforming but one that our transformation made possible.

In the spirit of change, I acknowledge that four years from now I might write a totally different piece, depending on where the forces of this gruesome planet are, depending on the tenacity and resilience of humanity, I might write a take three. But for now, I hope that I’ve done some justice to those who I am fighting alongside with each and every day, whose mistakes I share in, whose vision I believe in and co-create, whose wisdom, commitment, and revolutionary optimism reminds me that healing, being free, and almost anything is possible.

#ngoc loan tran #calling in

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whorchataaa · 4 years ago

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Podcast: The Trauma of Racism- An Open Dialogue

As the world watched in horror the brutal murder of George Floyd by a police officer, many people are searching for answers. In today’s Psych Central Podcast, Gabe and Okpara Rice, MSW, tackle all of the tough subjects: white privilege, systemic racism, disparities in education and the concept behind Black Lives Matter.

Why does racism still exist in America and what can be done? Tune in for an informative discussion on race that leaves no stone unturned. This podcast was originally a live recording on Facebook.

SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

Guest information for ‘Okpara Rice- Racism Trauma’ Podcast Episode

Okpara Rice joined Tanager Place of Cedar Rapids, Iowa in July 2013, and assumed the role of Chief Executive Officer in July 2015. Okpara is the first African American to hold executive office at Tanager Place in its more than 140-year history. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Social Work from Loyola University, Chicago, Illinois, and a Master of Social Work from Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri. Okpara lives in Marion, Iowa with his wife Julie and sons Malcolm and Dylan.

About The Psych Central Podcast Host

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from the author. To learn more about Gabe, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

Computer Generated Transcript for ‘Okpara Rice- Racism Trauma‘ Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Announcer: You’re listening to the Psych Central Podcast, where guest experts in the field of psychology and mental health share thought-provoking information using plain, everyday language. Here’s your host, Gabe Howard.

Gabe Howard: Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week’s episode of The Psych Central Podcast, we are recording live on Facebook. And for this special recording, we have Okpara Rice with us. Okpara Rice joined Tanager Place of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in July of 2013 and assumed the role of chief executive officer in July of 2015. Now, Okpara is the first African-American to hold executive office at Tanager Place in its more than 140 year history. He also holds a Bachelor of Science in Social Work from Loyola University in Chicago, Illinois, and he has a Master’s of Social Work from Washington University from St. Louis, Missouri. Okpara lives in Marion, Iowa, with his wife, Julie, and sons Malcolm and Dylan. Okpara, welcome to the podcast.

Okpara Rice: It’s good to be with you again, Gabe. It was good to see you, man.

Gabe Howard: I am super excited for you to be here. There’s a lot going on in our country right now that necessitated conversations that, frankly, should have happened centuries ago. And you brought to my attention that there’s a lot of trauma involved in racism. Now, that’s something that I had never really considered. I want to state unequivocally, I think that racism is wrong and that it’s bad. And a month ago at this time, I would have thought that I understood what was going on. And I’m starting to realize that I may understand a skosh, but I don’t understand a lot. And you suggested an open dialog to talk about racism, race relations and the trauma that you’ve been through. And I want to say I appreciate you being willing to do so because it’s a tough conversation.

Okpara Rice: I appreciate you, man, being open to it and just I’ve always appreciated your friendship and being a colleague and knowing that what we have to do for our society is to have conversations with each other, to be vulnerable and not be afraid to ask questions of each other. If we don’t do that, we’re not going to learn. We’re not going to gain enough of a perspective and it’s definitely not going to help us move the community forward. So I just appreciate you having me today and look forward to the dialog.

Gabe Howard: Thank you so much for being here. All right. Well, let’s get started. Okpara, why do you think that racism is still an issue?

Okpara Rice: Man, that’s a way to jump right in there, Gabe, I’ve got to tell you. Because we’ve never really dealt with it as a country. As we’ve evolved as a country, we try to think we continue to make advancements, but there are some fundamental things that we have not really addressed. We know Bryan Stevenson down south, who runs the Equal Justice Initiative, was speaking about this a couple of years ago around how we have never come to reconciliation, even around slavery, around lynching. There are things that are just really uncomfortable for us as a society to talk about. And what we know is that there has been systems built. You go back to the beginning of slavery, you go further than that around making sure people are disenfranchised. And so we have these very concrete systems that are entrenched in the very fabric of our society to make sure that some segments, African-Americans sometimes in particular. And I’m an African-American. But there are other segments from all socio-economic levels that people don’t get ahead. And they’re designed that way. It is very hard to go back and look at how we are built as a country, right from the roots of slavery and someone else’s labor to build wealth and then to go back and think about where we are today.

Okpara Rice: Until we really address those core issues of who we are and how we evolved as a country and reconcile some of that painful history. I don’t know if we’re gonna get there. I will tell you, though, I am hopeful. I have never, I’m 46 years old, seen as much conversation as I have right now. And you think about all the horrific incidents that have happened. There’s something that really just resonated all of a sudden. And I mean, think about it, I got an email the other day from PetSmart, telling me Black Lives Matter. What is going on? Right. And so, what changed is we watched another black man die, and it just was the tipping point. And I think that these conversations are critical and it’s going to bring about some reform. I hope to bring about some reform. And let’s not forget we’re in the middle of a pandemic. And so people feel as strongly as possible right now and are out there marching and protesting in the middle of a pandemic. So I should tell you that this is a conversation whose time has come and well overdue.

Gabe Howard: Will Smith said that racism hasn’t changed and police misconduct hasn’t changed and treatment of African-Americans hasn’t changed. We’re just starting to record it because of cell phone cameras. And he feels, I’m not trying to take his platform, but he feels very strongly that this has been going on since pretty much the beginning of America. And we’re just now able to get it televised in a way that people can respond to. I grew up learning about Dr. King. He wrote the book Tales from a Birmingham Jail when he was in jail in Alabama, and we’re like, look, look what he did. Look at this amazing thing. He made lemonade out of lemons. But how do you feel about the headline not being a law abiding African-American man put in jail for doing nothing wrong? And we’re still talking about police reform. And this literally happened in the 60s.

Okpara Rice: We have been talking about. I had the pleasure of meeting Adam Foss a few years ago, and Adam is a former prosecutor out of Boston who has been talking about prosecutorial reform for years. And the criminal justice, the new Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander’s book, these things are out there. What happens is that we just have not been paying attention. Nothing has changed. The data has been there. What we know around the disproportionality and criminal justice system, disproportionality and how education is funded and housing and access to. Well. That does not change. That data has been there. The reality is that we have not paid attention to it for some reason, collectively as a society. And so when we look at that and we talk about the news and how black men are portrayed or even people who are protesting, none of it really surprises me. Because it’s not. That’s not a fun story to say, you know, protester who was doing nothing arrested. It doesn’t really matter. When we’re saying we have someone who may have done a minor crime, who was basically murdered in cold blood with a video camera pointed directly at them. And still, that didn’t make the police officer move or feel like he had anything he needed to correct.

Okpara Rice: That says a lot about who we are as a society. And I think that is a real breaking point. And remember, we just had also, Breonna Taylor, that situation happened down in Kentucky and then Ahmaud Arbery that just happened where two men decided to do a citizen’s arrest for a guy that is jogging. So it just says that we have got to open dialogue and look at addressing these things head on and calling a spade a spade. And that is hard for people to do. And if we think that the media, whoever it is going to, you know, their job is to sell papers, to get viewership. And so those things are the most inflammatory, is always what’s going to hit there, right? So you look at just recently even this, all the news coverage around the rioters and the looters. You’d think just absolute chaos. But it didn’t really talk about the thousands and thousands and thousands of people who were out there just marching and protesting peacefully of all creeds and colors. It just says like you go to the lowest common denominator because that’s what seems to grab people’s attention. But that doesn’t make it right. And some of those stories have not been told.

Gabe Howard: It struck me as odd that there is this belief that everybody is always acting in concert. As a mental health advocate, I can’t get all mental health advocates to act in concert with one another. There’s lots of infighting and disagreement in the mental health community. Now, you are a CEO of an organization. And I imagine that you and your employees are not always in lockstep. There’s disagreements, there’s closed door meetings, and you obviously have a human resources department. Everybody understands this. But yet, in the collective consciousness of America, people are like, OK, all the protesters got together. They had a meeting at Denny’s and here’s what they all decided to do. And this sort of becomes the narrative and that the protesters are looting. Well, isn’t it the looters who are looting? It’s a little bit disingenuous, right? And that really leads me to my next question about the media. Do you feel that the media speaks about African-Americans in a fair way, a positive or negative way? As a white male, the only time I ever feel that the media is unfair to me is when they talk about mental illness. The rest of the time, I feel that they’re representing me in a glowing, positive light. How do you feel about the media’s role in all of this?

Okpara Rice: As an African-American male, first of all, people see us as this threat no matter what. That’s just sort of a given. We have seen that it was actually not that long ago, I forgot who did the study was when you look at two of the same infractions that if there was a white person doing the same infraction, they put up a picture of them in their prep school or a high school picture, looking all young and fresh, and it was an African-American person who got arrested for something. What they portray them is like the worst possible picture you can find to make them look the part. And I think they actually did this with Michael Brown down in Ferguson, after he got killed. It plays into the narrative that we are scary. We’re big. We’re loud. And people should be afraid of us. This sort of gets perpetuated, has got perpetuated in movies, gets perpetuated on film. And things have gotten better because people are standing up and saying there’s a lot of black excellence in this country. Not everybody is a criminal. Millions of hard working and wonderful African-American professionals out there who are just taking care of their families, being great fathers, being great moms. Those are the stories that need to be out there. Those stories are not as sexy, though. That’s not as sexy as saying, oh, my God, we’re looking at some guy running down the street after he grabbed a TV from Target. Whether than saying, oh, my God, there were whole communities that came out together, put masks on and are marching for civil justice. A march for social justice. That’s a different type of story. So I do feel like some journalists are on the ground trying to do a better job of telling that story, because we have to demand that story is told. But we also know that the media is under target. Right. Newspapers are dying across the country. We know that the larger scale media is owned by large corporations. And so,

Gabe Howard: Right.

Okpara Rice: Again, it goes back to the different metrics that are being used. You know, I hope the local media continues to be able to tell those stories in those communities, because that is really important, that people do see others who are being positive to break that sort of stereotype that we’re all waiting to break into somebody’s house, it’s Birth of a Nation type stuff, man.

Gabe Howard: To give a little context, I maintain excellent relationships with police through the C.I.T. program. Now, C.I.T. is the mental health program for crisis intervention. And I’ve asked a lot of police officers how they feel about this. And one person said, look, people hate us now, but I’m not surprised because we were raised on this idea that if you see something wrong, it’s representative of the entire group. We’ve stoked that fire and we’ve raised it. And we’ve been okay with it. We’ve been okay with, oh, we see something in the black community that we don’t like. It’s representative of the entire community. And then we just moved on with our day. Well, now, all the sudden, people are starting to see something that they don’t like in policing or law enforcement. And we’ve decided, oh, that must be everybody. And, well, that’s what we are trained to believe. I can’t imagine, and I’m not trying to put words in your mouth, Okpara. I can’t imagine that you believe that every single police officer is bad. I’ve worked with you on C.I.T. before. So I know that you don’t feel that way. But how do you handle that?

Okpara Rice: I want to reframe it for you just a little bit.

Gabe Howard: Please.

Okpara Rice: And people say, well, why are African-Americans so frustrated about the police? Because we’ve been telling you these things that have been happening for decades. All right? When you have been saying the same thing over and over again and then people realize, oh, wait a minute, this actually is a thing. It’s kind of infuriating, right? Of course, not every police officer is horrible. I have a good relationship with the police chief here. Of course not. But we cannot deny that there is a fundamental systems problem that has to be addressed in policing and criminal justice. It just cannot be denied. The data is there. Again, that’s how people like to divide us. It gets us on this whole, you must hate them, they’re not good. It’s not about that. It’s about the system, the system that has been holding people down. And you have disproportionality in the criminal justice system for the same felonies, misdemeanors, whatever, that a white counterpart will have, African-Americans drastically, statistically, are way out of proportion with the population. So, I mean, those are things that cannot be denied. And this has been going on for decade after decade after decade.

Okpara Rice: You know, I talked to some officers and again, they’re good people at this tough job. I’ve never been a police officer. I have no idea what that experience is like. But it is very hard. When you look on TV, you know, once again, we go back to the media. When you see people, police officers, when you’re protesting for brutality and then you see police officers beating up on people protesting for brutality. Even in the last week, there have been officers across the country arrested for assault and all kinds of other things. Right. So that’s just happened. But these things are real. And so it’s not that people hate police. People hate a system that disenfranchises whole segments of society. That’s the issue. And that’s what has to be addressed. That’s why reforms can’t happen if a community and a city and everybody is a part of it, don’t come to the table and say we collectively believe this is wrong. And that’s how you have change.

Gabe Howard: One of the things that keeps being said is that, you know, it’s just a few bad apples, it’s just a few bad apples, it’s just a few bad apples. But, you know, for example, in the case of the few bad apples that pushed a 75 year old man and cracked his skull open, the 57 people quit. To, I don’t know, show solidarity that they should be allowed to shove elderly people for, I don’t know, back talking, I guess? So we have the bad actors. We have the bad apples. We’ll leave that sit there that they did the pushing. But why did the other officers feel the need to stand up and say, no, we want to protect our right to push? That takes away from this idea that it’s only a few bad apples, that if everybody is propping up those apples and, you know, not for nothing, nobody ever finishes that quote. It’s a few bad apples spoil the barrel. And if you’re not removing those apples? Do you feel that part of the problem is that nobody is holding the bad actors accountable and that the police sort of close ranks to protect the people that are maybe doing things that are, well, dangerous?

Okpara Rice: Gabe, I would say, again, I’m not a police expert. This is my one perspective is growing up in my skin and my experience. Every organization, every industry, every business has a culture to it. So those who are policemen know what the police culture is like. Know what is expected of each other. Know what the blue wall is. We’ve had that conversation. There are books and articles written about that. I don’t know if people want to cover for that if that is saying, hey, we believe it’s okay to shove a 75 year old guy down. I’m sure most of them wouldn’t want that. If you think about would they want that for their mom or their own dad. But the conversation, again, we lose sight of the conversation. It’s about what do they think is okay use of force? The policy in front of us, talking about what is an OK use of force and having some agreement about when you become aggressive. What that is supposed to look like. So that there is a social agreement with everyone saying this is what’s OK. When I saw the video of the guy getting knocked down and everybody sort of looked at him and then sort of kept it moving. I was like, God, that’s just cold. Right. Yeah.

Gabe Howard: Yeah.

Okpara Rice: But I wasn’t there. I don’t know the dynamics. And from the outside, that’s just crazy to me. But those people who decided to step off of that, they have to attune for themselves and their own morality and ethics. But that’s a conversation among law enforcement that they have to have because they have their own culture. I’m not of their culture, so I can’t speak to what it is like to be an officer, but it’d be fascinating to know and be a fly on the wall of a room behind closed doors. I’d be shocked to see anybody say, gosh, that was good. No, because most officers you talked to off the record say that’s nonsense and we can’t do this. We know we need to get better. So then they have that collective voice and that I don’t know.

Gabe Howard: We’ll be right back after these messages.

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Gabe Howard: We’re heading back to our live recording of The Psych Central Podcast with guest Okpara Rice discussing the trauma of racism. Based on what I’ve seen in the past few years and especially what I’ve seen in the last 10 days, it’s difficult not to just have this knee jerk reaction of why is this okay? Why have we tolerated this? And when you started to look at the research and the facts and figures and then when I started talking to my African-American friends, I realized I am not afraid of the police. I could not find one nonwhite person who said that they weren’t afraid of the police. And I don’t know what the solution is. I’m not even sure I understand the problem. But that’s very striking to me that every single nonwhite person that I met was like, look, Gabe. Between me and you, no, I’m terrified of them. And that’s got to suck if you’re law enforcement. But listen, that’s really got to suck if you’re not white. What are your thoughts on that?

Okpara Rice: Absolutely. I mean, you think every time I leave my house and jump in the car, a traffic stop can lead to my death. That’s just every black man in society. Every black woman. I mean, think about the numbers of examples. This was not new. I don’t speak for all black people, again. As you have these conversations with people, I am imploring people who are listening to this, watching this. Go have a conversation with somebody who does not look like you and ask them about their experience. Ask them about have they ever faced what it’s like to be stopped by a police officer? Knowing if you use your hands the wrong way, you may get shot. Gabe, I got my license. I was 14. I’ve had guns in my face at least three or four times at the hands of officers.

Gabe Howard: Wow.

Okpara Rice: And I wasn’t doing anything wrong in those times. I grew up in Chicago. I’m like, that’s just, that’s just the way it is. We’ve always had a kind of oppositional relationship with the police in some ways. When I leave the house, I know if I don’t prepare my sons for how to interact with police, they could wind up dead. And there’s not a mom who has raised an African-American child in this country who does not have the same fear. That’s what we live with. That is the weight that is on our shoulders. Think about what that does to you emotionally over time, over and over and over again. I was talking to my mom the other day and I said, what was it like seeing me being 17 and running the streets? And her saying, you know, I always wondered if you would come home alive or not. You know, that has not changed. Again, I am forty six years old and there are moms today who are sending their kids out in the community who are having those same exact thoughts. I’m not pro put down law enforcement. That’s not who I am. I think everybody needs to be at the table. But this is a time for everybody to do a little bit of soul searching about why they are the way they are. What is the culture that they have? What is the culture around policing and use of force and come to some agreements and saying, you know, maybe that needs to evolve with society because we can’t keep going this way.

Gabe Howard: You know, we’re doing a live episode, and when you’ve got the video, you could see Okpara, you know, pounding the desk. When we listen to this back on the podcast, without it, that banging is Okpara feeling. Like I’m looking into your eyes. And there’s this part of me that just wants to hug you and say that this can’t be it. Because I have heard, just like every other white person has heard, that America’s fair. We’re all treated equally. And however we end up, we end up based on our own hard work and dedication and stuff. And listen, some of the things that help reinforce that are when I meet people like you, Okpara, you have a masters. Like I’m jealous of you. You’re the CEO of a nonprofit organization. You wield a lot of influence and power. You are very well educated. You have a beautiful wife and children. Your house is bigger than mine. So when somebody says, hey, people in the African-American community aren’t treated fair, I think about my African-American friends and I think, well, but, he’s doing better than me. And suddenly that like turns off a switch in my mind that I don’t need to pay attention anymore. And I imagine that’s like very traumatic for you because your success has helped make me unintentionally turn a blind eye to the plight of minorities in this country. Because I figure, well, if Okpara can do it, anybody can.

Okpara Rice: That, I got to tell you, I’m so glad you said that. First of all, I think we need to establish a couple of things right now from the get go. Nothing is fair and equal. We have got to stop pretending that things are fair and equal. People, pick up a book, read an article, and learn about red lining, learn about how wealth has been cut out of African-American community, learn about how opportunities have been kept out of African-American communities. Learn about how education has systematically been stripped in African-American communities for excellence. We’ve got to understand that the playing field is not equal by any means, any stretch of the imagination. So if you are poor, or you are a person of color, you are already starting from behind. So people look at us right now and say, oh, God, you’re really making it, right? Yeah, I’m doing pretty good. But I had to work twice as hard to get here, right? My mom told me when I was a kid, I’ve got to be two times smarter than the average white person to be able to succeed in life. She wasn’t wrong. She wasn’t wrong. And people don’t like to admit that or have those conversations because the myth of, hey, you just pull yourself up by your bootstraps and it’s all going to be good. It’s just not true. It’s a lot of work.

Okpara Rice: And you know what? It’s also very easy to lose because there’s always people who believe you don’t belong there in the first place. And we don’t like to talk about it and we don’t like to admit it. But when I talk to my black colleagues around the country and even around the world, we all have the same experience. You know it the moment you walk into a place or walk into a room, walk into a boardroom. There are people in there who don’t believe you belong, that you are not smart enough, that you do not have the business acumen to make good decisions. And that’s just one microcosm of the world that I live in. So, yeah, I am very proud of what I’ve been able to accomplish, but I also worked really hard to get here. And what I want to see people understand is that it shouldn’t be like you gotta jump above and through every type of hoop imaginable. Our kids, our future is making sure the playing field is level. That’s the future. My kids, because they have a mom and a dad who have a master’s degree shouldn’t get any more advantage than the single mom having to work two jobs to care for herself and her children. They should have the same advantages. They should have the same opportunities in life. And we’ve gotta stop pretending that everybody does because they don’t.

Gabe Howard: When I bought my first house, Okpara, one of the things that somebody told me is, hey, this is a great school district. It then occurred to me that in order to have a great school district, you have to have a bad school district. And when all of us become 18, some of us graduated from a great school district and some of us graduated from a school district that was not great. We’re now all on the same playing field at 18, and there’s just a ton of examples like that that have been pointed out to me in the last month. They’ve been pointed out to me, frankly, all of my life. I’ve just chosen to ignore them because I believed that hard work and dedication would get me there. Okpara, we’ve talked a lot. We’ve talked a lot about how the world is not fair, how you had to work twice as hard, how your relationship with the police is different from mine. Let’s talk about all the trauma that has caused, because that’s one of the things that you said to me in preparation for this episode, that it’s very traumatic knowing that your country, well frankly, feels not good about you. You literally said that this was traumatizing. Can you talk about that?

Okpara Rice: Yeah, man, it is. I want people to understand and to realize, because we’ve become so desensitized to images. I took my sons a couple years ago to the new African-American Smithsonian Museum in D.C. Me and my wife made a commitment to make sure that our kids are exposed to understand who they are. And there’s an exhibit there, if people haven’t been there, I highly encourage them to go. It is an amazing, amazing museum, but we’re turning the corner. And I remember being next to my sons, and there was an exhibit with an image of lynching and having a discussion with them about what lynching is. And my son asked me, why are all the people standing around watching, you know? And I think about that image that gets burned in right now. Again, I’m a grown man. These are images I’ve seen my entire life. And I grew up on the south side of Chicago where schools would even talk about the civil rights movement and slavery. Flash forward. I live in Iowa now. Civil rights are hardly talked about in the schools here at all. I have this battle every year with the school district to talk about what are they going to bring into the classroom.

Okpara Rice: It is something that you’ve got to think about. What are those images? We literally just watched a man die. We all collectively, as a society just watched a man die. And we go back to the Tamir Rice video, even from Cleveland. They showed that. So because we do have all these little phones in our pocket. From Ahmaud Arbery, we just watched all those things happen and think about what that does to our psyche. I’m like, I’m a social worker by trade. You think about clinically what it does to you. Of having people tell you and reinforce images of you’re not worthy or your life doesn’t have value. That is what is happening to the black community. So there’s a collective sadness and exhaustion. When I watched the video, I’m like another guy. Like, seriously? And I’m watching that video. And I don’t know what, it’s kind of like disaster porn in some ways. I don’t want people to like. I mean understand what they’re watching. It’s not just about that. Look at the face of the officer. He didn’t have a care in the world kneeling on that man’s neck.

Gabe Howard: And it’s important to understand that he knew that he was on video. And it’s sad to say it this way, but I think maybe this is why this one was the flashpoint, because it, one, it was a very long time. It was eight and a half minutes. There were other police officers around there were first responders that gave him a warning. And, of course, he knew that he was being filmed. And as the majority of my friends say, if this is how you act when, you know, people are watching, what are you doing when people are not? And I hate to ask the question again, Okpara, just I’m asking you and only you. How did that make you feel?

Okpara Rice: Sad. I mean, it’s just sad. It’s because you have to sit down. And again with my kids and explain why a guy who’s already handcuffed, laying on the ground winds up dead. How does a guy like Freddie Gray wind up in the back of a paddy wagon and have his neck and spine snapped? How does that happen? It’s getting harder and harder to answer that question. For me, it is exhausting and it is tiring. I was sad, because you have another life that is brutally taken for no reason, no reason, and it just becomes exhausting watching another black brother die at the hands of people who don’t give a damn about our lives. And that’s not, that’s not OK. And then you have the anger with it and saying, what is it going to take? You know, what is it going to take for people to understand? And this has to stop. Something happened, and I can’t put my finger on it but something happened that collectively as a society around the country, around the world, people are like, wait a minute, OK, like, OK, this is, this is it. Who knows what starts a movement? What starts the rallying cry? I have no idea. I’m just going to appreciate that it has started. That this man’s life will have meaning far beyond the years he spent on this earth, because he may save someone else’s life and not even realize it.

Gabe Howard: I feel again. Thank you. For being so honest. I mean, you’re doing this live. You don’t even get a retake. I sincerely appreciate that. My next question has to do with like you said, we’re still in the middle of a pandemic. We spent a lot of time watching the news and we watched white people carrying AK-47s storm the capital, disobey police, walk into a building with semi-automatic weapons. To be fair, they were carrying legally, but with semi-automatic weapons. They disobeyed police and went into a capital building that housed that state’s governor. No arrests. And then a month later, we see African-Americans protesting for equal treatment, for fair treatment after on video being traumatized by an eight and a half minute death. And because of those protests, rubber bullets, gas, pepper spray, and just dozens upon dozens of arrests. How does it make you feel to know that if you were a white guy, you could storm the capital with a semiautomatic weapon where the governor was and not even get arrested? But as an African-American protesting police misconduct, you will be arrested. What does that do internally?

Okpara Rice: Let’s go back to the story about the Michigan protests. Because I’ve said this to a lot of friends. It’s not a joke, but it’s kind of funny. If it was a group of brothers walked in there with AK-47s and walked in the capital. What do you think would have happened at the end of that? Do you think that would have been a peaceful protest? Do you really think that’s how that would have gone down? No. You would have a lot of black men dead at the hands of police. I’m sorry. It is, again, we keep pretending that the rules for one is the same as the rules for all. And it’s just not. That is reality. You look on stories, people even who right now stand there, protesters with their guns out, you know, trying to use intimidation tactics. What if we use those same tactics? So ask yourself, why don’t we use those tactics? There are plenty of black gun owners in this country. Because we know if we step there and we go there, we are going to be dead. And that is not going to help anybody carry that message. So, again, it is not equal. It is not the same. And we have to stop pretending that it is and call a spade a spade. And that’s the reality. So, of course, it’s going to be met with rubber bullets and whatever when we have this power in law, like we are like, you know, we’re trying to come down hard and be tough sort of thing, like, yeah, OK. That’s not a surprise. But let’s not pretend that is exactly the same.

Gabe Howard: Okpara, you have to make your way in this world, too. And you have literally just described white privilege, systemic racism, unfair treatment. I’m not you. And I’m angry on your behalf. How does it make you feel? What kind of trauma is this causing? How does it influence your day to day decisions?

Okpara Rice: I will tell you this, you know, because the other thing that we haven’t even talked about is we’re in the midst of a pandemic, where it’s also a disproportionate effect on African-Americans. So there’s a lot of things happening in society. I went down to a rally that we had in Cedar Rapids with my sons and my wife. And we’re a blended family, an interracial family. And again, it was important for us that our kids be there and hear and be a part of that. And what I saw. Hands down. We had a very mixed crowd. And there were people who were as outraged as I was about what was happening, if not more so, and vocal about it. And I was thinking, all right, we might get something done. So I’m going to say, you know, as pissed off as I am about everything that has happened and is happening and has continued to happen, I’m actually kind of encouraged because maybe it woke some people up to understand. Yeah, there’s such a thing as white privilege. There is inequalities in society and God doesn’t Colin Kaepernick feel pretty justified right about now? He’s talking about this and look how he got blackballed. So he’s got to feel pretty damn good. Right? So the reality is people are waking up to understanding that, OK, this isn’t right. But this is just one tip of a much larger policy dialog we need to have about how communities of color in particular have been held down by all of these systems. Police reform, criminal justice reform is just one part of a much larger policy debate we need to have to empower these communities to come forward. That’s the part that can’t get lost. We absolutely need to march and deal with this, but we also have to deal with these other issues that people also have. Just waking up to that this is also issues in society that have to be dealt with.

Gabe Howard: Okpara, you’re a dad. You have two children and you’ve been telling the story so far as this is a learning opportunity. I want to educate my children. I want them to grow up to be good men. And does that weigh heavily on you?

Okpara Rice: Oh, man, I look at it as an opportunity. And I’ll say about my kids in particular. My oldest son is named Malcolm. We named him after Malcolm X and my younger son is named Dylan Thurgood and he’s named after Thurgood Marshall. They carry that weight. They understand their namesakes and what they gave for this country. We talk about this stuff all the time. And my kids have bracelets and this is what we talk about. It’s a Bob Marley quote for those who like Bob Marley. I don’t come to bow, I come to conquer. And that’s the mindset that you have to have. Society is going to continue to throw things at you. They’re going to continue to put obstacles up for your success. You’re either going to lay down and let it happen or you’re going to conquer those things. And that’s the attitude we’re trying to raise our sons with. And so I wouldn’t be here if there weren’t people who believed in me along the way. But I know I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for people who are pioneers who laid the path. Yeah, we stand on the shoulders of giants right now. I am standing watching these young people who are out there protesting and all these folks. And I’m in awe of them because they are taking that advocacy the same way that that’s been the part of who we are for a long, long time.

Okpara Rice: And they’re taking that. What I want to see happen is that we take that advocacy and we move it to policy and broad policy. And I think we can do that. So for me, my kids, unfortunately, get to hear this a lot, almost on a daily basis around these issues because we don’t run from it. What happened in Charlottesville? We stopped and we talked about that. We talk about hate. We talk about what is the Klan and disparities in education and why is it important to vote. So we are very honest with our kids about where life is. That’s part of our responsibilities, to raise them to be as strong as they possibly can and to be able to deal with whatever this world and this society throws at them. And that’s what you do, man. You don’t give up hope because of the anger. Anger just eats away at you.

Gabe Howard: The Black Lives Matter movement rose up in response to police misconduct and law enforcement overreach. And then all of a sudden people started yelling, All Lives Matter. I’ve been a mental health advocate at this point for 15 years. Whenever I said we need to help people with severe and persistent mental illness, nobody came up to me and said, we need to help people with cancer. We need to help people with all illnesses. Like how traumatic is that for you that you can’t even discuss the issue without being told that apparently you dislike all the other humans on the planet? I can’t even fathom.

Okpara Rice: Remember, this is all smoke and mirrors, man. It’s just another way to try to divide people away from the core issue. No one is saying black lives matter and everybody else’s lives doesn’t matter. It’s not even rational to say that. Right. But what the reality is, is saying we are dying at the hands of people who are supposed to be protecting us. We have systems of oppression that have been rooted in this country from the beginning. So there is nothing wrong with saying, hey, our lives do matter. That’s all I’m saying. And we are not disposable in society. Our lives matter. That doesn’t mean that nobody else’s lives matter. It doesn’t mean any of that. You don’t have to put up one to put somebody else down. It is a false narrative that I think is being perpetuated to keep people apart. Look, the core issue, the difference is, I don’t know if it’s going to fly this time. I’m not sure people are hearing it. You know, I really don’t. And so I think that maybe a few years ago, because then we had all the other lives matter and we had I mean, everybody had one. Right. And then I think people are coming to realize, oh, I really do start to understand, you know, what they’re talking about. Oh, my God, I am starting to see this. So, you know, I don’t even get into that All Lives Matter debate because I think it’s just silly and people are just trying to divide us because that’s what’s convenient and easy to do.

Gabe Howard: Okpara, sincerely, I can’t thank you enough. I want to give you closing words. What is the last thing that you have to say to our audience before we ride off into the sunset?

Okpara Rice: I’m going to say very simply to your audience, vote, right? Vote if you don’t agree with what is happening. It is our responsibility and our power to get people in office who have our best interests. And we have to continue to read. We have to continue to read between the lines. And I highly encourage people to have a dialog with somebody else that can challenge their thinking. And part of the reason we wanted to talk today was just to talk as friends. I’m not an expert on systematic racism in America. I don’t write any books. But there are a ton of people out there who are. And that’s our responsibility to go and find that knowledge and bring that knowledge in. And we can do that. We have the power to do that. So there’s an election coming up at the end of the year. And this country is going to decide where do we want to go in the next four years? I’m going to be hopeful that things come together. People have the power to bring about change. We helped create these systems. We can tear them apart. And now is the time. And we can’t wait for other people to do it. And we can do that. So use your voice, use your advocacy. Use each other to make that happen. And please have a dialog with other people and share and go out there and take a risk. And somebody is going to help you learn. But remember, it’s not every African-Americans’ responsibility to teach you about racism. So find some resources as well. And there are plenty out there. But know that people will have this conversation if you’re genuine and if you’re coming from a place of intellectual curiosity and love. So remember that.

Gabe Howard: All right. Thank you, everybody, for listening to this special Facebook Live version of The Psych Central Podcast. Please, like, subscribe, rank, review. Share the Live Facebook version of The Psych Central Podcast on Facebook to complete the circle. We have our own special Facebook group, you can find it at PsychCentral.com/FBShow. Check it out. And remember, you can get one week of free, convenient, affordable, private online counseling anytime, anywhere, simply by visiting BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral. And we will see everyone next week.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to The Psych Central Podcast. Want your audience to be wowed at your next event? Feature an appearance and LIVE RECORDING of the Psych Central Podcast right from your stage! For more details, or to book an event, please email us at [email protected]. Previous episodes can be found at PsychCentral.com/Show or on your favorite podcast player. Psych Central is the internet’s oldest and largest independent mental health website run by mental health professionals. Overseen by Dr. John Grohol, Psych Central offers trusted resources and quizzes to help answer your questions about mental health, personality, psychotherapy, and more. Please visit us today at PsychCentral.com. To learn more about our host, Gabe Howard, please visit his website at gabehoward.com. Thank you for listening and please share with your friends, family, and followers.

from https://ift.tt/2ViKAdB Check out https://peterlegyel.wordpress.com/

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ashley-unicorn · 4 years ago

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Podcast: The Trauma of Racism- An Open Dialogue

Why does racism still exist in America and what can be done? Tune in for an informative discussion on race that leaves no stone unturned. This podcast was originally a live recording on Facebook.

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Guest information for ‘Okpara Rice- Racism Trauma’ Podcast Episode

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Computer Generated Transcript for ‘Okpara Rice- Racism Trauma‘ Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Okpara Rice: It’s good to be with you again, Gabe. It was good to see you, man.

Gabe Howard: Thank you so much for being here. All right. Well, let’s get started. Okpara, why do you think that racism is still an issue?

Gabe Howard: Right.

Okpara Rice: I want to reframe it for you just a little bit.

Gabe Howard: Please.

Gabe Howard: Yeah.

Gabe Howard: We’ll be right back after these messages.

Gabe Howard: Wow.

Gabe Howard: Okpara, sincerely, I can’t thank you enough. I want to give you closing words. What is the last thing that you have to say to our audience before we ride off into the sunset?

from https://ift.tt/2ViKAdB Check out https://daniejadkins.wordpress.com/

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brentrogers · 4 years ago

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Podcast: The Trauma of Racism- An Open Dialogue

Why does racism still exist in America and what can be done? Tune in for an informative discussion on race that leaves no stone unturned. This podcast was originally a live recording on Facebook.

SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

Guest information for ‘Okpara Rice- Racism Trauma’ Podcast Episode

About The Psych Central Podcast Host

Computer Generated Transcript for ‘Okpara Rice- Racism Trauma‘ Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Okpara Rice: It’s good to be with you again, Gabe. It was good to see you, man.

Gabe Howard: Thank you so much for being here. All right. Well, let’s get started. Okpara, why do you think that racism is still an issue?

Gabe Howard: Right.

Okpara Rice: I want to reframe it for you just a little bit.

Gabe Howard: Please.

Gabe Howard: Yeah.

Gabe Howard: We’ll be right back after these messages.

Gabe Howard: Wow.

Gabe Howard: Okpara, sincerely, I can’t thank you enough. I want to give you closing words. What is the last thing that you have to say to our audience before we ride off into the sunset?

Podcast: The Trauma of Racism- An Open Dialogue syndicated from

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rosemoonweaver · 5 years ago

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I think the Dead Dove tag's whole existence necessitates a conversation about over-tagging. I've run into a lot of fics that were seriously over-tagged, from the fact that relationships that show up for four seconds and have no baring on the plot being tagged in the relationship category to archival warnings for just mentions of things existing in the universe. Rape/Non-con is a big one that this happens with. I've read dozens of fics tagged with non-con archive warnings or "implied/referenced non-con" that only kind of mentioned that rape was a thing that existed in the fic's universe. Now, I do think that needs to be warned for, but not really with an one of the big four "here be dragons" colored box warnings. To me, those box warnings are about things you show on-screen or that play a major role in the fic. Mentioning that rape exists in the society you created is good to warn for, but as a colored box warning? I don't think so. And my reasoning? I got used to associating the colored box non-con and "implied/referenced non-con" combo with mentions of rape off screen because I'd seen in dozens of times. And then one time, that was absolutely not what the fic was trying to warn for (past rape was a huge part of the plot) and I got triggered. It's not the author's fault, of course, they warned me, but the pattern of tagging I'd experienced lead me to take them much less seriously that I should have.

Now, I can't really tell people how to tag. I personally wouldn't tag something with an archive warning unless it's on screen and/or a big part of the plot but that's just me. Someone else might need or want to have a warning for any mention of death, violence, sex, ect. and that's okay. But to me, the Dead Dove: Do Not Eat tag is doing two things: it says "no, seriously, the tags mean what they say" AND it gives an indication of tone. "Exactly What it Says on the Tin" is kind of neutral, it says that what you see is what you get. "Dead Dove: Do Not Eat" on the other hand implies the existence of something more violent/graphic/disturbing. This is especially helpful for darker and more taboo topics that are sometimes eroticized or lightened in fic. A fic tagged "cannibalism" only tells you that cannibalism exists in the fic. A fic tagged "cannibalism" and "dead dove: do not eat" tells you that cannibalism is presented in a way that's probably more graphic, violent, disturbing, or uncomfortable than it would be in a fic that either pulls it's punches or is serving a niche fantasy. And that's good! I'd much rather have a tag that says "no, seriously, this content is presented in a way that might make you uncomfortable, tread lightly" than have to take a gamble. In an environment where over-tagging can be an issue, I do appreciate a little extra "no, seriously, we're going there".

To me, Dead Dove is a wonderful tag and while I'd prefer if over-tagging wasn't a thing, I also recognize that my standards are subjective and not everyone will agree with me in terms of what does and does not need a "serious" warning. Dead Dove is that extra little barrier imo, and it lets me know a lot more about the author and the way the content is presented than standard tags do.

I just want to say that “Dead Dove; Do Not Eat” is a criminally under-utilized tag, and is a quick and easy way to tell people that the tags you’ve used are not just warnings, but actual threats. As an example, the difference between “tagged for gore because of descriptions of a minor surgical scene” and “tagged for gore because someone was messily disembowelled” is huge, and dead dove lets you know when it’s the latter. If more people knew about this tag, I wouldn’t be queasy right now!

While I know and appreciate that tag, it’s not the most obvious thing if you aren’t familiar with the story behind this meme:

youtube

The tag that I prefer is also sort of weighted to native English speakers, but I think it’s a bit easier to understand? “Exactly what it says on the tin”

I’m no expert at this kind of tagging myself, but readers and writers what do you think of these tags? Is there a better one to use to make it clear that the author is completely serious about their tagging and that readers should be wary entering the fic?

#taggign #fandom problems #cannibalism mention #rape mention

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erraticfairy · 4 years ago

Text

Podcast: The Trauma of Racism- An Open Dialogue

Why does racism still exist in America and what can be done? Tune in for an informative discussion on race that leaves no stone unturned. This podcast was originally a live recording on Facebook.

SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

Guest information for ‘Okpara Rice- Racism Trauma’ Podcast Episode

About The Psych Central Podcast Host

Computer Generated Transcript for ‘Okpara Rice- Racism Trauma‘ Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Okpara Rice: It’s good to be with you again, Gabe. It was good to see you, man.

Gabe Howard: Thank you so much for being here. All right. Well, let’s get started. Okpara, why do you think that racism is still an issue?

Gabe Howard: Right.

Okpara Rice: I want to reframe it for you just a little bit.

Gabe Howard: Please.

Gabe Howard: Yeah.

Gabe Howard: We’ll be right back after these messages.

Gabe Howard: Wow.

Gabe Howard: Okpara, sincerely, I can’t thank you enough. I want to give you closing words. What is the last thing that you have to say to our audience before we ride off into the sunset?

from World of Psychology https://ift.tt/2ViKAdB via theshiningmind.com

#World of Psychology #child psychology

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shawnallenblog · 7 years ago

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We merely think we know who we are.

I am not who you think I am,

I am not who I think I am,

I am who I think you think I am.

- the "looking-glass" theory, Charles Cooley in 1902.

In one of my favorite interviews of the last several years photographer and film maker Sam Jones interviewed actor Ethan Hawke. Near the end of the interview Hawke mentioned something that struck a familiar chord in me - sometimes a message has to be said in just a way that it finally resonates. Hawke remarked that at some point during a filming project he received a compliment from the director that had become a really talented actor. And then as Hawke explains, a funny thing began to happen, he started acting like one. It marked a moment in his growth as a creative. Then Hawke mentioned that at some point in his marriage the same thing happened with his wife, in her eyes, he could tell that how she treated and interacted with him, that she saw him in a higher light than how he felt about himself. Subsequently, he again found himself becoming that better husband, he started acting more the man she saw through her eyes. He was changing and growing. He was becoming the not the person he thought he was, but becoming the person that the other person thought he truly was. This is just like the "looking-glass" theory brought about by Charles Cooley in 1902. Cooley stated that a person's self grows out of society's interpersonal interactions and the perceptions of others. I now ask, as I sit back and ponder, Is this not how our modern day social media works ? Sort of ? Let me explain.

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We have moved down through the ages by doing a mere few things right, mostly to learn to hunt and gather better than other species, to survive difficulty, disease and hardship better than our predators, but perhaps our survival is more so based on our learning to communicate better. We started with grunts as cavemen, then learned to draw on cave walls, then we learned a sparse few common words and hand signals, then we developed language. Fast forward to today, we are now moving into the advanced technological era. We are fast moving through a new means of communicating, a social media phase where texting, emojis, snapchat and video have brought the four corners of the earth together via the interweb, leaving us on the cusp of something even grander on the horizon.

The question remains, why has this all occurred? What is driving this expedited change? I propose it is all leading us to a place where we can understand each other better, so we can comprehend the differences between us, so we can grow, and perhaps, so we can grow intimately together. In fact, this all may be happening so that possibly we might even merge our thoughts and brains, a cohesive hive of wisdom, of all seeing and all knowing. Like it or not, the experts are proposing that It will not be long before we can read each others minds. We will be able to think a thought and the recipient will hear and feel the thought without words. We will immediately sense another's emotions, and play off them or their next thoughts. This is likely to be a part of, and perhaps a product of, AR and VR (augmented reality, and virtual reality). Anyone who has been on Twitter for more than a few hours, following tweets and retweets and the resultant conversations on a given worthy topic may grasp a small glimmer of what is to come. When on Twitter, interacting with others over a topic, as more people are brought into the fold of the conversation a common threat begins to take form, a common understanding, if one is paying close attention one can see a wise consensus percolating, bubbling up to the surface elevating the lot to a higher more insightful level. It often happens quickly, but it is fascinating to see and be a part of.

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As I sit back and observe all of this from the preconceived jaundiced eyes of a 50 year old, I think the flaw in our old ways of communicating was that we were always trying to support our thesis to others. Too many times were were waiting to talk and voice our next thoughts rather than listen and receive from another. This I have been guilty of from time to time. I think we can all accept a little guilt toward this shortcoming. At times, it is as if our identity and our lives had points of view which we had to defend and fight for. Is that not the root of so many disputes, so many misunderstandings, so many fragmenting relationships? Many of us have been guilty of trying to find someone that understands us, someone who communicates the way we need them to, someone who understands our language of listening, hearing and responding. Someone who respects our ways, plays up to our "warm fuzzies" and does not threaten our decades of identity building and the few things that might make us feel good, certain and happy about ourselves. We think that when we find a person, a partner, or a friendship who shares that commonality, we collectively believe we are sound. We think our collective way is "the way", and we feel comfortable and good about that. But, I think this may be flawed. I think that to truly grow we need to be uncomfortable, we need to be faced with difficulties, challenges and adversity, both in body and in mind. I think this because if we are merely wanting someone to accept our means of communicating and thinking and of existing, then we are failing to struggle to learn another means of communicating, a means that is different from what is ours, from what makes us comfortable, makes us feel whole. This ultimately stunts our growth, it limits our deeper insight, yet it feels safe, and so it is usually our choice unless we are willing to struggle, to feel uncomfortable, to feel threatened. And so in time, if left with our "warm fuzzy" feeling comfortable world, as one might predict, our relationships become stale. We are not challenged and stimulated, we begin to rot, and our relationships do as well. Slowly, surely, predictably, there is nothing new, nothing fresh, nothing to climb or challenge us to struggle with together. And soon, there is nothing left to discuss, the common minds have melted into a puddle of mediocrity. Perhaps this way, this manner that feels good and safe, is all disguise, a flaw, one that will keep us where we are in our development. It is almost analogous to a defiance of not learning how to use Twitter or Instagram or Snapchat, or to learn how #hashtags integrate and bring groups of common thought together on these types of social media. There too is a language none of us were recently familiar with, but for those who have embraced it, there have been leaps and bounds of shared intellect, wisdom and sharing. Those who have embraced the uncomfortable, the uncertain, the unknown, the new, have leaped ahead of the crowd in terms of accelerated learning, acceptance and the limited ways of our separated thinking. By bringing our own small world closer to thousands of others whom we have never met, yet with the willingness to open up that small world, we have grown, matured and advanced. In fact, perhaps by avoiding these newer means of technology it is as crippling to our growth into the next dimension of communication as failing to change, accept or modify our comfortable love language to a lover's different way. If one wants to move to a higher level of communication, discussion, wisdom, one is going to have to adopt a different way of seeing and discussing things. In fact, one could make broader strokes by saying that, if we have already done our own inner work, to understand our present ways and our comforts in existing and communicating, one might argue that we should fully abandon those stale comforts and lead a new life. For only through fresh eyes and a fresh heart, can one fully embrace the means of challenged communication with our anguished and frustrated lover or friend. Perhaps this is the way to grow into this new dimension, by embracing different things, difficult ways, by adopting new and challenging means of communication.

Within just a decade or so, it is not unlikely that we will be able to read the minds of anyone we interface with, it will be a means of merging our intellects. The research is already saying this is quite possible. We will feel what another feels, we will understand the way they understand, we will be able to love the way they love. There is no doubt going to be a difficult learning curve with this new way, with all the available information that will be immediately upon us in a given moment, it may necessitate a flexible means of communication. There will not be just one way of seeing things, the landslide of emotions, experiences, wisdom, biases, and opinions will infinitely complicate a "conversation". With miscommunication as the absolute scourge of all relationships, of humanity actually, I think we are quickly coming to meet our greatest fears, that people will know exactly how we feel and think without our verbal expression. This new way will force honesty, acceptance and maturity all at once, and this can be our biggest gift. If we accept it. And for the many who do not, it may be their demise.

Perhaps the best means of growing right now while we wait for this "great assimilation event", is to abandon all that we have fought to gain to find our comforts in life, in finding comfort in ourselves and what makes us feel whole. This moves against the grain we have been taught, that being to find someone, people, groups with whom we have sought out to feel safe and comfortable with, entities which have helped us find a comfort in who we thing we are. This we have been told, is the recipe for lasting love and friendships. After all, isn't this what we try to do? We date and scour the landscape of mankind to find someone who "gets us", of groups who accept us for who we are, who do not make us feel vulnerable and afraid. Perhaps we have it backwards though, if it is self growth we are looking for. The flaw in this is that it can stunt the process of becoming who we hope and wish to eventually become, to overstep our limitations and comforts and grow. The quote, "one's life begins at the edge of our comfort zone" resonates strongly here.

If we could find a way to trust that those who do not understand us, because they are merely different in how they tick, talk and think, we could find a way to grow closer to those who actually have so much more to give us. Rather than try to find someone who "gets us" and doesn't rock our boat of comfort, perhaps we should be seeing out those exact people who challenge us, make us uncomfortable, who force us to grow, to look at things differently, to learn to accept that there are other ways to the end means. Perhaps this is the key to all of this relationship and communication thing. Steven Pressfield refers to it as "resistance". We only grow when we are forced up against the resistances in our life, pressed up against the hard times, hard things, hard choices. It is always easy to run away because it is hard, but when we stare it down and make it a mission to overcome, resistance gives way and blossoms into a higher self, a stronger self, one we can conquer even stronger vices and demons from upon high.

As we have moved from grunts and cave wall drawings, through languages and coding, to texting and emojis and augmented reality and soon virtual reality. This is going to eventually lead us to the pinnacle of communication, mind-melding voiceless "speech" where we instantly can interface with someone and hear, see, feel, understand and accept, instantly, yet perhaps in time, unconditionally and non-judgmentally. Life seems to always give us two choices in most things, the easy road, and the hard road. One road leaves us unchanged yet in temporary peace, the other promises scars and pain, yet the riches of the kingdom. Which road will you take ? Though life is short, there is much here to learn if we wish to endure the storms of challenge, the scars of resistance.

I started this piece of writing with Charles Cooley's 1902 quote on the "looking-glass" theory.

"I am not who you think I am, I am not who I think I am, I am who I think you think I am."

As we move toward and into these inevitable voiceless mind-melding communication means of the near future, augmented by the assistance of AR and VR, we are going to find out what others immediately think of us. There will be only truth, data and emotion. Just as with today's social media, with all its trolls and mean folk, It is going to likely necessitate that those initial voyagers are confident and grounded in who they are. All to quickly they will find out who they truly are through their own impression of who they think they are, in the minds of others. Maybe.

The world is a mirror we put ourselves up against. If we care to be observant of ourselves.

Head spinning ? Perhaps the attached videos by Jason Silva will help bring it together.

"Life is not merely a series of meaningless accidents or coincidences, but rather it is a tapestry of events that culminate in an exquisite, sublime plan." -Dean's speech, Serendipity

- Shawn

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clothestop · 7 years ago

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13 things that cannot happen under Capitalism (EXPLAINED!):

Full employment

The end of poverty

World peace

Decolonization

Full equality of all social classes

A lastingly stable economy

Abolition/effective reformation of prisons/schools

Ethical consumption

Permacultural and fair global food system

Retirement of all senior citizens

Functional anarchy (looking at you, an-caps)

Free association

Direct democracy

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girlsagainst-archive · 7 years ago

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GA Bookclub#1 // Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay - written by Alice Porter

‘Books are often far more than just books’ writes Roxane Gay in her essay ‘I Once Was Miss America’. This statement rings true to me when writing this blog post and epitomises why I want to use this book club to discuss important issues. The meanings and implications that many of the books I have read have helped shape my perspective of the world. ‘Bad Feminist’ was one of these books, as I first read it a couple of years ago when I was beginning to discover feminism as something that aligned with my beliefs, but was fearful to outright call myself a feminist in fear of ‘getting it wrong’. This book allowed me to realise that I could still be a feminist even if some of my past and present habits did not align with my beliefs, as long as I was working on improving these things. As the last line of the book states, ‘I would rather be a bad feminist than no feminist at all.’ ‘Bad Feminist’ is very accessible, not only because of its conversational voice throughout but because of Gay’s complete willingness to admit that she is far from the ‘perfect feminist’, if such a thing really exists. The book also begins with the claim that feminism is flawed ‘because it is a movement powered by people and people are inherently flawed’. This is important to remember, especially for people who are quick to denounce feminism, and the statement allows a reader who is sceptical of feminism to find a middle ground with Gay, perhaps making them more willing to listen to what she has to say. ‘Me’ The first set of essays have a confessional tone, as does much of the book, as Gay, amongst various other things, goes into detail on her competitive scrabble wins and losses. These essays are humorous and portray Gay as relatable and charismatic to the reader, allowing her to discuss the hard-hitting issues this book is about whilst remaining approachable to the reader. This aspect of the text makes ‘Bad Feminist’ a really great book for someone who is still finding their feet as a feminist and is perhaps feeling overwhelmed, and Gay’s discussion of popular culture would also be useful for this reader as it is something most people can use as a reference point and reflects how the promotion of intersectional feminism is still absolutely necessary. My favourite essay from this section is ‘Peculiar Benefits’ as Gay discusses the necessity of acknowledging privilege but the dangers of completely silencing those with it, which would create ‘a world of silence’. She claims: ‘we need to get to a place where we discuss privilege by way of observation and acknowledgment rather than accusation’, which is crucial as I have witnessed how excluding individuals from conversation has dwindled discussion rather than encouraged it. ‘Gender and Sexuality’ These essays have an autobiographical format, which allows Gay to use her own experiences to discuss gender and sexuality, whilst also considering their portrayal in popular culture. In ‘How We All Lose’ Gay denounces the view that women should be grateful because of the progression of our position in society over the last 100 years, stating, ‘better is not good enough, and it’s a shame that anyone would be willing to settle for so little.’ As a woman who has been told that the cat-calling that makes me feel physically sick from vulnerability should be taken as a compliment, I can vouch for the fact that just because our rights have improved, we are yet to gain total equality. Gay states ‘if the patriarchy is dead, the numbers have not gotten the memo’ and, from my experience, neither have the men who shout sexual remarks at a women walking home alone at night. ‘The Careless Language of Sexual Violence’ is an essay that explores how damaging the casual ways in which we deal with rape can be, from living in a time that ‘necessitates the phrase rape culture’ to it’s gratuitous portrayals in television and film. Gay discusses how language is often used to ‘buffer our sensibilities’ from the brutality of sexual assault, leading to sympathy for the perpetrator and isolating the victim. This is something that is hugely relatable for me as someone who would shrug my soldiers when I was sexually assaulted at gigs saying things like, ‘they only pinched my bum, it’s not a big deal’ whilst feeling completely uncomfortable for the rest of the night, Even at a gig around a year and half ago when I spent the last two songs being grinded on and groped despite my clear unease and efforts to move away leading me to leave the gig early, I refused to accept to myself that I had been sexually assaulted and even attempted to make up excuses for the perpetrator in my head. Being sexually assaulted felt a great deal more significant than being ‘felt up’ but had I immediately accepted that that was what had happened to me, I know it would have been much easier to remove any responsibility for what happened from myself. This essay does a great job at bringing the importance of the language around sexual assault to light that, as Gay states, is not just careless but criminal. In ‘Beyond the Measure of Men’ Gay discusses how the actions of women are often compared to and measured against those of men and portrays the prevalence of this this through certain books written by women being labelled as ‘women’s fiction’ but similar books written by men being simply fiction for everyone. She states ‘narratives about certain experiences are somehow legitimised when mediated through a man’s perspective’. This is something that I had never considered but found really interesting as a book-lover. In the essay ‘Some Jokes Are Funnier Than Others’ Gay considers the humour behind rape jokes. She concludes that they not only serve to remind women that their bodies are open to legislation and public discourse but also that it is because sexual violence is embedded into our culture so deeply that people feel comfortable in making these jokes. Gay talks about her experience of rape in this book and, for me, her story alone would be enough to make rape jokes unfunny and completely insensitive. She also explains why women are allowed to respond negatively to misogynistic humour, ‘We are free to speak as we choose without fear or prosecution or persecution, but we are not free to speak as we choose without consequence.’ The final essay I’m going to discuss from this set is ‘Blurred Lines, Indeed’ as it discusses how music and feminism are linked - something that is particularly relevant to Girls Against. She looks at how rape culture is embedded and accepted in popular music such as in Robin Thicke’s ‘Blurred Lines’ that ‘revisits the age-old belief that sometimes when a woman says no she really means yes.’ Gay comments on how the culture that supports entertainment that objectifies women also elects lawmakers who work to restrict reproductive freedom. Gay describes this as a ‘chicken and the egg’ situation and as ‘trickle-down misogyny’. If we cannot deduce whether it is the lawmakers influencing the media or the media influencing the lawmakers should we really be willing to treat these songs as insignificant? ‘Race and Entertainment’ The next set of essays are significantly shorter, seemingly because they are much more focussed and specific than the previous set, as Gay discusses how race is portrayed in entertainment through considering various films and their significance. The first essay is centred around The Help and Gay’s take on a film/book that I initially enjoyed was really interesting and helped me to see it in a different light. She explains how The Help is a white interpretation of the black experience and is ‘an unfairly emotionally manipulative movie’, offering us a ‘sanitised’ picture of the early 1960s portraying life as hard for white women, and slightly harder for black women, when in reality life for black women was immeasurably more difficult in segregated America. Gay also describes the black women in this book and film as ‘caricatures…finding pieces of truth and genuine experience and distorting them to repulsive effect.’ After reading this essay I can see that this film that I initially enjoyed was seemingly created for the purpose of enjoyment alone. It uses real historical events that are distressing to provide entertainment and not to truthfully portray the painful history of black Americans because if this were the film’s purpose, an accurate depiction of their experiences would have undoubtedly been more of a priority. Gay feels similarly about Django Unchained, a film that I have not seen and so have less authority to comment on, describing it as ‘obnoxious’ and ‘indulgent’ as Tarantio uses a traumatic cultural experience to ‘exercise his hubris for making farcically violent, vaguely funny movies that set to right historical wrongs from a very limited, privileged position’. She also touches on the Oscars and how ‘Hollywood has very specific notions about how it wants to see black people on the silver screen’, as critical acclaim is often dependent on black suffering or subjugation. She asserts that despite this, audiences are ready for more from black film and I certainly agree with this- there is a great deal more to black experience and history than slavery. In a further essay ‘The Last Day of a Young Black Man’ Gay discusses the detrimental effects of demonising young black men in contemporary cinema in reference to the shooting of 22-year old, defenceless Oscar Grant. The effects of the demonisation of young black men in society are terrifying and Gay’s examination of how this is reflected in film is harrowing. Orange Is The New Black is the subject of the last essay in this set ‘When Less Is More’ as Gay explains how its source material concerning a privileged white woman serving a prison sentence will never be anything more than this. She also states that ,as black woman, she is tired of feeling like she should be grateful ‘when popular culture deigns to acknowledge the experiences of people who are not white, middle class or wealthy, and heterosexual’ and that the way in which we are focussing on OITNB’s attempt at doing this shows the extent to which we are forced and willing to settle. ‘Politics, Gender and Race’ These seven essays cover a broad range of issues and are much less focussed than the previous two sets. In the first essay ‘The Politics of Respectability’ Gay discusses the danger of encouraging respectability politics, stating that the targets of oppression should not be wholly responsible for ending that oppression. She uses examples to portray the problems in suggesting that just because one person from a marginalised group has been successful this does not mean everyone is able to reach this same level of success. This is an interesting essay that shows the many ways in which different groups of people can be diminished and the difficult consequences of this. In perhaps my favourite essay of the entire book, ‘The Alienable Rights of Women’, Gay discusses reproductive healthcare and why it is so important to women’s freedom. Repeating the phrase ‘Thank goodness women do not have short memories’ throughout the essay, Gay explores how trivially reproductive freedom is discussed by certain politicians and why the ongoing debate surrounding it, usually instigated by men, is ‘the stuff of satire’. People have actually questioned me on why reproductive healthcare is a women’s rights issue and although I usually have a long and detailed answer to this, Gay sums it up neatly, ‘There is no freedom in any circumstance where the body is legislated, none at all.’ ‘The Racism We All Carry’ explains how racism is embedded in pretty much all of us because ‘We’re human. We’re flawed. Most people are simply at the mercy of centuries of cultural conditioning.’ Gay comments on the fact that for many people, there are times when you can be racist and times when you cannot, depending on your company and setting. Sadly, I feel this is true for a great deal of people, proving Gay’s previous point. ‘Back To Me’ In the final set of essays, Gay plainly states that she ‘falls short as a feminist’ and describes the ways in which she does. Not only this but she describes how feminism has been ‘warped by misperception’ and that her main issue with it is that it ‘doesn’t allow for the complexities of human experience or individuality.’ Gay’s rejection of a prescribed form of feminism is really what makes her approach so accessible. She concludes in stating that although she might be a ‘bad feminist’, she is committed to the issues feminism promotes despite its issues and that it’s importance and necessity cannot be denied. I enjoyed reading ‘Bad Feminist’ this time round as much as I did reading it for the first time, however there are some small issues I have with it. Gay’s complete acceptance in sometimes falling short as a feminist and straying from the principles that she believes in provides reassurance for the reader but perhaps too much leniency. It’s okay if some of your habits don’t completely align with your views but I think rather than completely accepting it, it’s important to work on changing them and improving yourself and Gay’s approach is often a little too laidback for me. I would have also liked Gay’s essays to have been more focussed on the topics they were supposed to be centred around according to the sub-heading they were under. Although I enjoyed the essays themselves, I felt like the way in which they were organised into sub-headings was a little bit lazy and last-minute and this is especially relevant to the penultimate set of essays, ‘Politics, Gender & Race’. Despite these arguably minor issues I took with the book, I think it is great because it covers such a wide range of topics in an informative, thought-provoking way and I would recommend it to feminist newbies and veterans alike, so much so that I rated it 5 stars on Goodreads, which is rare to say the least! If you can’t get hold of the book, many of her essays are available online including some of the ones I have mentioned. For the month of August, the Girls Against Book Club will be reading ‘The Color Purple’ by Alice Walker. If you aren’t familiar with this feminist classic, it’s a novel, first published in 1982, set in rural Georgia that focuses on the life of women of colour in the 1930s. I’ve wanted to read this book for a while and I hope that you will join me in reading or re-reading it! If you do have any thoughts on ‘The Color Purple’, the Girls Against Book Club would love to hear them and we will feature any comments we particularly enjoy in the September blog post. You can send them to us any time before Sunday 3rd September using the hashtag on twitter #GABookClub, email us at [email protected] or join our GoodReads group and contribute to the monthly book discussion here. All credit to the wonderful Alice Porter

#bookclub #bad feminist #roxane gay

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