And Just In Case You Thought She Was Lying...

Krampus, the legend!

During the Christmas season, every young boy and girl awaits their presents and gifts with eagerness, hoping for Santa to make their way to their homes. The saying, you better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout is the official song for Santa Claus as he is checking his list for all the good boys and girls. But for those who are naughty children, the invention of the famed horned goat Krampus who works together with St. Nick.

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Created in Eastern European folklore, Krampus, meaning ‘claw’, is depicted as a horned, half-demon like monster who terrorizes naughty children, hitting them and beating them with whips, other versions having him with chains, sometimes shaking them to scare the children, equipped with a sack or a basket strapped to his back, to cart off the children chosen to be either eaten or dragged to Hell. He even has a holiday dedicated just to him, celebrated in Germany and now, because of the film, in America as well, called Krampusnacht, or Krampus Night, on December 6. In this long and very funny tradition, spectators dressed up as Krampus appears in the streets, visiting homes and business, along with his devilish accomplices, evil elves and imps, the total anthesis of Santa Claus, who help Krampus scare people and onlookers in the streets.

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Because of the resurgence of the celebration of Krampus in the late 19th century, including popular greeting cards with his image and funny rhymes and poems, not to mention the many horror movies or TV shows in North America, gaining traction and popularity every time Christmas comes around. Or maybe it’s because of the intense, heavy commercialization around Christmas time, meant for family and friends. So, here’s the question, do you celebrate Krampus, or Christmas as a whole, or do you think he’s just a myth better left to the children?

Agent Carter

I AM SO HAPPY #AGENTCARTER GOT RENEWED

Prevention through Deterrence.

What is Prevention through Deterrence? It is a strategy that the U.S Border Patrol implemented to make border crossing as difficult, dangerous, and expensive as possible, ultimately aiming to redirect migrants routes into the most inhospitable sections of the border, basically making the hot desert a weapon to discourage migrants from attempting the crossing at all. 

The U.S has made it abundantly clear that migration through crossing the border is illegal, making policies after policy to dismay the crossing, including Operation Streamline, a joint initiative of the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice in the U.S started in 2005 that adopts a ‘zero-tolerance’ approach to unauthorized border-crossing by criminally prosecuting them; up to 70 people, locked together in handcuffs through hands and feet are shown before a judge before being prosecuted and sent to the state jail, which affects the economy since all of the space being taken up is being paid at taxpayer’s expense, and destroys the judicial system because justice is not being served, and instead becomes corrupt.

  But then how did this all start? Why are migrants crossing the border in the first place? Because of colonialism and domestic violence, that’s why. Back in 1944, the allies like the U.S, the U.K, and France, etc. would connect their banks to the dollar, or regular paper money, making it the BrettonWood Agreement. The colonies under such big world powers, around the ’50s wanted independence, which caused immense turmoil for the world powers. The colonies wanted to rise independently, and could only do that economically. A man by the name of Jacobo Arbenz was elected president of Guatemala; he was a great military officer and politician. At this time he had drawn a land reform, where he wanted the U.S who owned land in Guatemala that they weren’t using to pay taxes and give that fallow land back to the Guatemalan government for land distribution. The U.S felt like they were being bossed around, and didn’t like that this small country was forcing them to give up their land’, so they, under the company United Fruit decided they couldn’t control this man, so they killed him and set a man who became a dictator by the name of Carlos Castillos Armas in his place. A series of coups and new presidents/dictators after Armas’s four years. It was only in the ’80s of Guatemala do things go from bad to worse, with the presidency of Rios Montt, who believes he was appointed by God.

The guerillas, a small attack force that was taking part in action against a large force, in this case, Montt, were being hunted down, killed, and tortured. In Guatemala, there are white Spaniards, brown Spanish people, and then the indigenous tribes called the Maya; some of the Maya, who lived in small towns away from the city, wanted to join and stop Montt, who became a dictator at this point. He believed that since the Mayan people had joined against them, then all of the Mayan people were guerillas. He, with the help of the U.S government, started the Scorched Earth Campaign, which was the legal use of killing and destroying every Maya and anyone else who was associated with the Maya, or the ‘guerillas’. 626 villages were burned down, and over 1.5 million were displaced, with many of them being children (kill the seed, a strategy of destroying the Mayan tribe.) People would hide in the mountains or they would migrate to Mexico or other countries, some able to migrate to the U.S. 

   I mention Guatemala because in the ‘Imaginarium of migration’, what we in the U.S think about these people who are crossing the border believe they do not just come from Mexico here to ‘steal our jobs’. They come from Guatemala, Chile, Brazil, Venezuela, etc. all over, so they could have a shot at supporting their families, and learn and be somewhat educated, then hope to go back home. So no, not all migrants are from Mexico, and not all of them are criminals. Many people are traveling through the desert knowing the risks and the dangers and doing so on the basis of hope that they could get through, hoping to find border patrol. Yes, they want to find border patrol, because border patrol offers them food, water, and shelter from the heat of the sun and the dryness of the desert. But sometimes many people do not even get that far, and their deaths become ambiguous because again, they have no rights; hundreds, if not thousands are dying in the desert. 

Colonialism and nationalism also play a big part in how the U.S writes immigration policy. ‘’Give me your needy, your tired and your poor’’ is a regular statement and not to be taken literally. The colonialist/capitalist mindset is that people can come to the U.S, they just have to be white and rich. State/space of exception is the concept where human rights are negated. There is a space where people are reduced to distribution, where they don’t matter enough for anything a person in the U.S might take for granted because they are ‘alien/illegal’. Since there are no laws to protect them, they have no rights to be protected. And the rise of nationalism is what we've been seeing a lot since the presidential campaigns of 2016 when Trump was stated into office. Nationalism is the ideology and movement that promotes the interests of a particular nation, especially the aim of gaining and maintaining the nation’s sovereignty over its homeland, in this case the U.S. Nationalism holds that each nation should govern itself, free from outside interference, that a nation is a natural and ideal basis for a polity, and that the nation is the only rightful source for political power. This is why racism, fascism, and classism always follow closely after. 

Information from Jason De Leon’s book, ‘‘The Land of Open Graves.’’

mhhmmm yea

Old dude came in the shop and when I said "lemme know if you have any questions" he goes "what was the name of Alexander the Great's horse," thinking he was so funny. I told him Bucephalus, and he was so disappointed. Like his whole day was hanging on beating me at trivia. He says "you're only the second person who knew that" and I said "well, probably the third if you count Alexander the Great." He left without buying anything, and did not say goodbye. I think I honestly hurt his weird little feelings! Sorry I'm a bitch, old man!

Seneca Village

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The history of Seneca Village is fraught with history, opportunity, and endurance against racism and white supremacy. In 1825, a ‘‘25-year-old African American shoe shiner named Andrew Williams bought land in the middle of Manhattan, two years before slavery was abolished in New York. More free Black Americans followed, fleeing the disease and discrimination of downtown, and together they created the bustling settlement. The village was home to the most significant number of African American property owners in NY before the Civil War. Because those black men possessed property, they were allowed to vote. Irish and German immigrants could also live there, and white and black churchgoers often side-by-side.

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As you can see, Seneca Village was a thriving community, living far from the dense population of downtown, despite NY's abolition law in 1827, discrimination severely limited the lives of the African-American populace. Seneca Village provided access to more space from the unhealthy and crowded conditions of the city. ''By 1855, there were 52 houses in Seneca Village. On maps of the area, most of the houses were identified as one-, two-, or three-story houses made out of wood. Archeological excavations uncovered stone foundations and roofing materials, indicating that they were well-built. Some of the houses were identified as shanties, meaning that they were less well-constructed. Land ownership among Black residents was much higher than that in the city as a whole: more than half owned property in 1850, five times the property ownership rate of all New York City residents at the time. Many of Seneca Village's Black residents were landowners and relatively economically secure compared to their downtown counterparts in the Little Africa neighborhood by Greenwich Village.''

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Unfortunately, Seneca's village’s demise had to do with the construction plans of what the settlement is today, Central Park. William Cullen Bryant, ‘‘the editor for the New York Evening Post at the time, and Andrew Jackson Downing, an English landscape architect, started the park project together. The Special Committee on Parks was formed. They surveyed possible sites before selecting Seneca Village, even getting NYS officials to legislate the Central Park Act in July 1853, authorizing a board of five commissioners to start purchasing land and creating a fund to raise money and donations for the plan. Before the acquisition of Central Park, Seneca Village was referred to with derogatory and racial slurs. Advocates for Cental Park used the media to describe Seneca Village and other communities like them as ‘‘poor squatters living in shanties’’.

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The residents fought against the city’s planning as they were legally entitled to do so as landowners. But the Central Park Act set aside the 775 acres of land in Manhattan from 59th to 106th streets between 5th and 8th avenues to create the country’s first major landscape public park. ‘‘There were roughly 1,600 inhabitants displaced throughout the area. Although landowners were compensated, many argued that their land was undervalued. Ultimately, all residents had to leave by the end of 1857.’’ The settlement was discovered in 2011 when archaeologists from Columbia University uncovered artifacts such as an iron tea kettle, a roasting pan, a stoneware beer bottle, fragments of Chinese export porcelain, and a small shoe with a leather sole and fabric upper. This article is dedicated to the people of Seneca Village and other ‘Little Africa’s’ settlements all over this country that historians and archaeologists are finding in recent times who have continuously fought against the struggles of race, class, and economic opportunities that this country’s governmental systems continuously try to sweep aside.

Artifacts and Archives: The Rediscovery… | Central Park Conservancy (centralparknyc.org)

Haitian Revolution

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As history points out, the French Revolution sparked things like Freedom, Equality, and Fraternity, into the hearts of oppressed peoples, and birthed the Haitian revolution, where enslaved peoples did not have to stay that way. Thoughts of freedom and a life of their own ran through the hearts of the large population of enslaved and free blacks on the island of Saint—Domingue, where they did not have to answer any longer to the white hierarchy and elite. The one leading man that helped change a revolt into a revolution that paved change to the island, was Toussaint Louverture. But who was Toussaint Louverture? How exactly did one person, who was also enslaved, become the leader of a revolution, and how did it change life?

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The Haitian Revolution is such a widely popular topic to discuss and converse about is because a successful slave revolt against one the leading powers at that time, France, Spain and Britain, but mostly France, has never been done before. That, and it proved black people were not the primitive, lower species that the majority had deeply believed them to be, and Toussaint Louverture proved to be one of the most brilliant army generals to-be-rulers at that time. By scanning the map of the island, he was able to gain allies in the free black militia and the mulatto population, who were tired of being treated second-class. To go back to the quote, the Code Noir (Black Code), at the time legalized the most cruel, abusive and harsh treatment of slaves; if you ran, and you were caught, you would suffer dearly, and so would any slave you came into contact with by two folds. ‘’It forbid slaves from bearing arms, the assembly of slaves, and slaves trading or selling their own goods for a profit. It stated that slaves who struck their master or any free person were to be punished by death. It explicitly defined slaves as personal property.’’ The fact that King Louis XIV of France, put the Code Noir under effect and Louverture was able to defy it, and did it with his own army himself shows that his leadership was effective; and indeed, for in the capital of Haiti, Louverture is considered a hero and liberator for his people.

In American Political Science Review on Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, who was born on a southern plantation who is biased, showing a clear defense of slavery, particularly American slavery, and bases his experience on an economic study of American slaveholders and there sharecrops. He has made use of Southern newspapers and pamphlets, and some source materials, but has not made any effort to research ‘Negro’ sources, from which he claims are ‘dubious details’ anyway. The review last five pages, and explicitly states that the ‘Negro’ as a responsible person has no place in the book, and gives Louverture the term ‘criminal’ to suit his needs, and the needs of others. Half of the book implies historical facts, the treating of Africa and the slave trade and West Indian and American conditions while the other half is a series of essays on aspects of slavery—cotton crop, plantation economy, etc., and the other half is devoted to freedom and crime among slaves and slave codes. ‘The law is the law, and it should stay that way!’

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  According to Toussaint Louverture: A Black Jacobin in the Age of Revolutions , The man who would in later life be known as Toussaint Louverture himself belonged to the category of ‘creole; His father was Gaou Guinon, an African prince who was captured by slavers and endured the horrors of the Middle Passage across the Atlantic Ocean. As an enslaved child, Toussaint would have been known as Toussaint Breda, named after the plantation on which he was born. The actual details of his birth remain’s uncertain, but from his name he is associated with All Saints Day; his personal life, meaning his early childhood, is also uncertain. As Phillipe Girard comments, ‘retracing the childhood of a slave is an arduous task, not only because of the lack of archival traces, but also because such traces that exist tend to dehumanize the enslaved and deny their individuality.’

Toussaint, after rising to power, did not wish to surrender that power to Paris and ruled Saint Domingue as an autonomous entity. In 1801 he issued a Constitution for the island, which provided for autonomy and established Toussaint as governor for life, where he abolished slavery and aspired to put in place a multiracial society composed of blacks, whites and mulattos. When Napoleon Bonaparte came to power in France, he aimed to return the Caribbean colonies to their earlier profitability as plantation colonies. In 1802 he dispatched an expedition of French soldiers to the island, lead by his brother in law Charles Leclerc, to reestablish French authority and slavery. Leclerc arrested Toussaint and deported him to France where he was imprisoned in Fort de Joux, where he died on April 7, 1803. For a few months, the island lay under Bonaparte’s control, but the French soldiers fell victim to weapons and disease, and surrendered to the indigenous army in November 1803; On July 1, 1804, under Jean-Jaques Dessalines control, Louverture’s general, the colony, the first black republic, became known as Haiti.

Happy Black History Month!

Mean World Syndrome

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Mean World Syndrome is a theory the sociologist George Gerbner, creator of the Cultural Indicator’s Project, where three quarters of Americans believe in high level of crime, even though statistics show it is low. In the media, there is too much sex and violence, more so than the average person will ever see a day in their lives, and it has become repetitive, too routine, as the storytelling of violence seem ‘normal’. Since 1995, the demand for guns to ‘protect themselves’ has been at an all time high, and so is the fear, fear that everyone in the world is a suspect. But most importantly, is the image of the bad guys coming to get them. 2/3 of Americans get their information from the media, mostly the news, which creates negative stereotypes of minorities, who are seen as violent and aggressive.

NO. 2 Take for instance, Latina’s, who make up 15% in population in America, are portrayed by the media as aggressors, seen as ‘rapists and gangbangers’ or ‘murderers’. They are also the subject of illegal immigration, which all together creates dehumanizing effects. Then, there’s the vilification of Arabs and Muslims, as bloodthirsty terrorists, that are linked to violence and terror, and the subject of torture/ing of these people is ‘okay as long as it’s a good guy doing it’’. 39% of Americans actually believes that American-born Muslims are not loyal to the country’s ideals, and so not loyal to them. And finally, African-Americans are twice as likely to be seen as perpetrators. In the media, it is harmful showing black people as great middle/class, successful people, then as violent and aggressive in the next slide, as if to say some people choose that type of lifestyle, that they are simply a product of their environment. White people are five times more than likely to be criminalized by whites than black people, yet it’s not white people being shown almost everyday on the news for braking crimes.

The result of all this is the active fear in everyday Americans that makes us less likely to be compassionate, and more hardened to anyone and everyone. It also increases a high demand for national security, and believing that we have to lock these ‘criminals in cages where they belong.’

Cultivation Theory is the examination of the long term effects of television. Media cultivates a set of values, meanings, expectations, understanding, etc. which is the culture now in the modern century. Mass media replacement of community-based storytellers, it advances corporate interests (increasing profits and sales) since Americans spend a lot of time with the media. The effects are becoming more systemic and all encompassing. We need to start asking questions, like who is being represented in the media, who is the victim, and who is in the cast, and what are their fates. Who is generally casted as the good guy, and who is casted as the bad guy. We can look to the Media Database (IMDb) to see who is making the cultural object, and what is the main subject. Mean World Syndrome relates to this theory, through intersections of race, gender, ethnicity, criminal justice and the international border. We need to understand who is creating these TV shows/films, since America has such a global reach, it attracts the largest audience. Sociologists are not condemning media, but the constant repetition of ‘happy violence’—where in the film, show, or media, the good guy faces has a challenge, fights and action and explosions reoccurs, he stops the evil doer, saves the damsel, and the day is saved! It’s boring, cliché and the same story over and over again— and the various franchises and storylines springing from these corporations because it slows down progress and keeps negative stereotypes alive, some of them extremely damaging.

The racial aspects of Sci Fi, Fantasy and other forms media

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One of the blog posts I have written before was titled ‘Mean World Syndrome’, which talked about how race and media affects everyone on a global scale. Racial aspects of sci-fi, fantasy, and other forms of media have long been a source of controversy. From the stereotypes of aliens in Star Trek to the whitewashing of characters in movies like Avatar, Prince of Persia, etc. these issues have been a major source of discussion in the media landscape. In many cases, racial stereotypes have been used to create a sense of ‘otherness’ for the characters of color in order to reinforce a sense of white superiority. This has led to criticism from fans, activists, and academics who have called for more representation of people of color in sci-fi, fantasy, and other forms of media.

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In the entertainment business, inclusivity is hard to come by, and in some cases, the representation of characters of color in these genres is inadequate and often offensive. Characters of color are often relegated to the sidelines and made to serve as the backdrop to white characters’ stories, or they are depicted as tokens and stereotypes. This lack of meaningful representation has led to a push for more diverse casts in sci-fi, fantasy, and other forms of media. ‘‘Like many social sciences, international/intercultural/interethnic communication and media studies are primarily an Anglo-American media images have always been critically dissected, often by scholars with some kind of privileged tie to other cultures—Most makers of these blockbusters are mostly white males with English as their mother tongue, mutli-millionaires or aspiring to become one as soon as possible. They usually internalize a mid-Atlantic view of global history and geography, its central myths and legends. So many blockbusters remain ethnocentric, even today—they tend to make non-Westerners look at the world through Western eyes.’’

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In addition to representation in the stories themselves, the casting of actors to bring these characters to life has been another source of debate. Many actors of color have argued that they are often typecast into roles that are stereotypical or that do not reflect the true diversity of the world. Films or TV shows with fantasy/sci-fi themes on Netflix, like Chambers or Raising Dion are not being properly advertised because, like Inclusive Advertising: What’s Holding the Industry Back? claims, ‘‘The industry itself is not diverse: The advertising industry — across the ecosystem and at all levels — is not representative, which is itself a barrier to creating representative and inclusive content. Only 19% of in-house and 23% of agency survey respondents reported that their leader almost always considers the demographic diversity of their team when developing content. That, and individuals (in these marketing companies) lack awareness of and access to the knowledge, skills, resources, and tools to create representative and inclusive content. Individuals are confident in their ability to create representative and inclusive content, but only if provided with adequate tools and resources.’’

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Of course, there will always be people who dislike seeing a more diverse setting, especially against the established order of Western ‘‘whiteness’’ ideologies. Ultimately, the best way to ensure diversity in these genres is to continue to create stories that feature diverse characters and cultures. If authors, producers, and casting directors make a conscious effort to create more imaginative stories that are inclusive and reflective of the real world, then audiences will be able to experience a more authentic and meaningful experience.