#yesteayesshade

[tinihuang]

去年的這個時候，我處在充斥著負面情緒和各種bullshit的氛圍中🙄 #geez 那時候信了不該信的神經病，而做了差點毀掉自己人生的鳥事，我真的恨我自己當時的白癡和貪心。每當想起那段日子，真的又氣又恨！🤮 #ewww 曾經一同努力的夥伴們，我很感謝遇到你們，你們一直默默努力和支持，甚至我的所做的努力和心情也放在眼裡，說真的我很感動，也希望能有機會能夠合作或是相聚😊 #thankful 但對於某些人，我其實真的不想再往來了，也真的都隨便了！我不需要你們的自以為、沒自信還是沒常識來批評或質疑我的年���和經驗，甚至我現在的生活，真的...夠了！🤬 #cantrelate 經歷這些慘痛回憶... 真的見了不少公主王子病的不清的神經病 🤯 真的對不起被我無意傷害到的好人 🙏 真的真的慶幸沒有就此一蹶不振而越挫越勇 💪 #去去肖仔走 #前老闆扣薪欠薪倒閉樣樣來 #重度公主王子病患者可以滾了 #昔日戰友們用心理解覺得心裡暖 #最終夢想依然存在和持續 #throwbackthursday #memorylame #goodvibesonly #thankful #imoverit #mood #yesteayesshade #rewind #lifeheavy #lessonslearned

[unmutedudc-blog]

Power, Privilege, Perreo

             Society’s view of corporeality, the qualities associated with woman/man, the color of one’s skin, and one’s sexuality, all intertwine and stem from a distorted and marginalized representation of the full spectrum of a being’s life. These ideals and preconceived notions elevate a portion of the population to greater opportunities. Privilege is basically when you have special advantages and opportunities because you are a part of a certain group of people. These special advantages and opportunities make it easier for privileged folks to live, even at the cost of less privileged folks, who their lives are often built upon. An author featured in “Queer and Trans Artists of Color: Stories of Some of Our Lives” named Fabian Romero states how he received more attention for his work when he lost weight. He also recognized how the color of his skin led him to more opportunities, i.e. light-skinned privilege, thin-privilege (King, 90). In our current age of heightened social awareness, especially with the help of social media, people of different race, gender, sexuality are more open to understand how we affect each other when we don’t recognize the privilege we have in certain situations. Through this, we learn how to treat each other better, how to not harm our friends and how to teach our peers to interact with their own. Understanding how social interactions affect ourselves and others is important, especially when confronting the layers and layers of inequity and injustice that fuel our socioeconomic communities. “My privileges  and oppressions inform my decision-making, and they inform how I treat people. They also inform how I defend my actions” (King 93).

           Femininity and masculinity have for a long time been confined to certain characteristics. When one falls on the outside of the “norms” of society’s views of what a woman or a man is, their experiences, worthiness, and lives are not represented fully or at all. Representation matters because every person’s life is made up of different feelings, emotions, struggles. When one is not represented it offers a distorted view of the world, in which they are the outcasts and are not worthy enough for representation. For a long time, masculinity has been a series of traits revolving around physical strength, handsomeness, power, domination, and violence. Author, Fabian Romero, stated how this representation is harmful, because it minimizes the voices of men who do not fall into these norms. Femininity on the other hand, was molded to fit perfectly under the masculine traits. Women are taught to be meek, subservient, obedient, and violence is rationalized and expected. In the Afro-Latino/a dance of perreo/reggaeton, the women are the central figures. Their bodies are the focus and stars of the stage, while the men serve as their props. Even though their bodies are on display in various ways and positions, the women dancers have actual skill in this art, and have the power to captivate. Mr. Rivera-Servera states it is “a skillful performance of agency” (Rivera-Servera 108).

           As Mr. Rivera-Servera states: “Queer perspectives are unfortunately still marginal, though certainly emergent” (Rivera-Servera 97). Fabian states that he gets by in life as a gay man and PoC relatively easily, because he has typical masculine traits, traits associated with success and likeability (King 90). Mr. Rivera-Servera states that “the focus of the action is on bodies in motion queerly articulating a performance script rooted in homophobic and sexist violence” (Rivera-Servera 108). A slight at the blackness of reggaeton can be noted, in which the author calls attention to the fact that “in Puerto Rico and the United States, where blackness has been historically devalued but enthusiastically consumed” (Rivera-Servera 108). What we see in much of today’s dance culture is women taking a passive role, (sexually submissive) men taking the lead operating their masculinity, bent over women, men spanking their ass, thrusting their groins towards the buttocks. What we see is is music stars like Akon singing songs about “Smack that” in which he states that we wants to smack a woman’s butt until it’s sore. So women need to be fat only in places where it is desirable to men. Let’s look at the music world and in particular Reggaeton, a musical dance genre and style that originated in the early 1990s in Puerto Rico, something as simple as a dance could favor privilege towards men, towards the wealthy, or towards a fat phobic culture. Has this culture gone from expression of freedom to one that appeases the male hedonist desires?

           People of color, especially women of color, have had the details of their lives marginalized, cast away, or objectified. Malcolm X said, “The most disrespected person in America is the black woman.” New versions of disrespectful treatment of women pop up all over the world. The continued objectification, specifically of black women but also women in general, is a systemic problem in our culture. Women are continually relegated to levels of importance based on their curves and cup size. Fabian Romero states how even light-skinned PoC in Mexico, and many immigrants in general, wish to distance themselves from dark-skinned PoC. There is an “Anti-Black sentiment within communities of color and immigrant communities” as well (King 99). Fabian states also that “dark-skinned folks and black folks are usually talked about in this really unintelligent way” (King 92). Even though their struggles are similar, some of “their practices become really divisive” (King 99). Author Ramon Rivera-Servera states how he is insisting on “recognition of the blackness of latinidad, especially in Puerto Rican and queer contexts” (Rivera-Servera 97). An article, from website REMEZCLA, highlights the importance “to actively engage with the history of reggaeton (which is one of Afro-diasporic struggle).” Who gets credit for the things that artists of color create for their communities, and how does privilege and power translate into that?