Electing A Brown Skinned Cop Who Uses Imperial Feminism To Reinforce American Exceptionalism All While

The Banning of Books

NO. 1

Books are intellectual properties that are increasingly challenged and criticized for their particular contents on race, sexuality, class, and gender, even fiction! Books aren’t just educational tools but forms of shaping individual experiences and values, and to be able to share the public is an essential part of our democratic society. The opposition claims that parents of young children have the right to keep their minds free and innocent of what is ‘controversial.’ A list of the books banned during this year is here if you wish to check it out.

NO. 2

Freedom of expression is one of our fundamental rights. Banning or censoring books violates individual rights, but how will children learn to express those individual ideas and thoughts if we suppress diverse perspectives? How will society move forward and evolve if we continue to shelter and limit knowledge? From Precocious Knowledge: Using Banned Books to Engage in a Youth Lens’, ‘‘The quest to protect the imagined innocence of ‘the young and inexperienced’ has endured and is today bolstered by differing organizations—Attempts to control language have a long history with youth; The implicit fear seems to be less about what language might do to teens and more about what teens might do with language. Obscenities can be used to wield power over adults or at least unsettle them. When we balk at a text because of its use of profanity, a racial slur, a homophobic remark, or any other language that might be deemed objectionable, we should consider if we are protecting our students or ourselves from feeling uncomfortable. Language that can be at times unnerving often feels reveals charged topics that demand messy and uneasy conversations.’’

NO. 3

In conclusion, this censorship is not only damaging our intellectual growth but another form of suppressing diverse perspectives, in turn trying to make a return to puritan society. Banning books is going to have the opposite reaction conservative politicians, groups, and parents are hoping for—instead of protecting young minds, it will only narrow their understanding of the world and deprive them of valuable opportunities for critical thinking. And no, I am not liberal, nor am I conservative (republican or democrat.) I am a citizen deeply concerned about the vast changes happening extremely quickly to limit and oppress the free flow of information, ideas, and expression. Children learn by example, and they express more than you give them credit for. They deserve the right to learn and explore freely.

Belly Dancing

NO. 1

The art of belly dancing is a Middle Eastern practice that has, over time, gravitated towards Western white American women. The way American women dance is this is a ‘glamorization’, and more focused on the power of reception, rather than cultivating it and respecting the practice. Originally, belly dancing is based on ancient folk and social dances in North African and Middle Eastern countries, particularly Egypt and Turkey. The dance is characterized by various hip, torso, shoulder, and chest movements. ‘‘The images projected by Westerners in the performance of belly dance and other forms of oriental dance raise the thorny issue of orientalism. The vocabulary of the dance and its position within the framework of the West, especially the United States, as ‘other’ provides an ‘empty’ location, as in ‘not part of my culture’, for the construction of exotic new fantasy identities. At the same time, as a repository of media stereotypes and thus Western fantasies of women, it also provides physical images via the femme fatale which the (generally female) dance emulates in order to play an assertive sexual role in a male-dominated Western society.’’

NO. 2

Of course, here in the West, its meaning has changed, especially in America when gained popularity over 100 years ago when ‘dancing girls’ from different countries showcased in Chicago’s World Fair. ‘‘Because of the movements of body parts, such as the stomach, that were expected to be tightly constrained during the Victorian era, controversy surrounded these performers, and belly dance became associated with burlesque, stripping and prostitution. Despite perceptions of belly dancing being associated with sex work, the dance has a variety of meanings for participants, like spiritual, communal, and feminine qualities. For most dancers in the United States, the dance is a form of leisure. Leisure is a voluntary activity that people pursue with a positive state of mind during their free time. For many dancers, belly dance is an enjoyable form of recreation, rather than a primary source of income. Women in most large and mid-size cities around the country take belly dance classes at studios, gyms, and recreation centers.’’

NO. 3

Belly dancing is a key icon of the Middle East and is a site for performing and interpreting. It is appealing because it expresses ‘imperial feelings’, or the complexity of psychological and political belonging to an empire that is often unspoken, sometimes subconscious, but always present, the ‘habits of heart and mind’ that infuse and accompany structures of difference and domination. We can call on U.S imperialism as an example, as it rests as a multicultural nationalism. Belly dancing has become a ‘‘site for staging a New Age feminism and liberal Orientalist perspective on Arab and Muslim women, illustrating what Edward Said called, ‘new-Orientalism’ of the present moment. Orientalism continues to be a deeply appealing, binary frame for imagining the ‘West’ in opposition to the ‘Orient’, or to the East—a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient’, through the production of an ‘idea that has a history and tradition of thought, imagery, and vocabulary that has given it a reality and presence in and for the West.’’

🥲

Honorable mentions:

The last SAMURAI- white.

Prince of PERSIA- white.

Just shut up.

A hero can go anywhere, challenge anyone, as long as has the nerve

#percyjackson#heroesofolympus

The Federal Reserve

NO. 1

Today, we’re going to asking some questions all focused on the Federal Reserve. Who created the Federal Reserve? What is its purpose? And how does it continue to control us, poor and middle-class folks, today? The Federal Reserve Act was signed by President Woodrow Wilson on December 23, 1913. Generally speaking, it has five general functions, ‘‘like conducts the nation's monetary policy to promote maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates in the U.S. economy; promotes the stability of the financial system; promotes the safety and soundness of individual financial institutions; fosters payment and settlement system safety and efficiency and promoting consumer protection and community development.

NO. 2

The first myth about the Federal Reserve, is that it is controlled by the federal government, hence the name. But in actuality, it is a private institution whose shareholders are commercial banks, hence the term, ‘bankers bank’. The word ‘federal’ is designed deliberately to create the impression that it is a public entity. Indeed, misrepresentation of its ownership is not merely by implication or impression created by its name. More importantly, it is also officially and explicitly stated on its website: ‘The Federal Reserve System fulfills its public mission as an independent entity within government. It is not owned by anyone and is not a private, profit-making institution” [1]. To unmask this blatant misrepresentation, the late Congressman Louis McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee in the 1930s, described the Fed in the following words: ‘Some people think that the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are private monopolies which prey upon the people of these United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers; foreign and domestic speculators and swindlers; and rich and predatory money lenders.”

NO. 3

Henry Ford quoted, ‘It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” In simplistic terms, the Federal Reserve basically controls the money supply, and average citizens, like you and me, work for any valuable company, and in order to receive those paychecks, you used where only a fraction of bank deposits are backed by actual cash on hand and available for withdrawal. This is called fractional reserve banking, and it is done to theoretically expand the economy by freeing capital for lending. Every single person on this planet is working under the Federal Reserve.

For more information, please watch the documentary ‘Capital in the Twenty-First Century’, based on Thomas Piketty's best-selling book, on Netflix. They give a widespread selling of how far back the plans to implement the Federal Reserve goes.

Imagine if they turned a black character white there would be riots…But can anyone recall riots over any of this?

Paranormal experiences

This article is wholly based on sociological principles, so it’s a little different from previous articles. The paranormal is an experience that falls out of conventional standards, or ‘science’. Paranormalism is thinking about or the examination of claims about things that fall out of conventional standards. C. Right Mills, the author of the Sociological Imagination, says the sociological imagination is the concept of being able to ‘think ourselves away from the familiar routines of our daily lives in order to look at them anew. But how does this fit into paranormalism?

Well, according to studies made, 18% of Americans say they’ve seen ghosts, or witnessed paranormal experiences. Nearly one-in-five U.S adults say they’ve seen or been in the presence of a ghost. 29% say they’ve felt in touch with someone who has died. Claude Fisher, a professor of sociology, explored America’s persisting beliefs in some supernatural phenomena in a 2013 study. A closer look reveals that belief can differ by gender and that women are more likely than men to believe in haunted houses, communicating with the dead, and astrology (because men are statically seen as more logical.) ‘‘In spite of strong public expressions of skepticism from the scientific community, polls show that nine out of ten Americans adults profess belief in paranormal phenomena. Some scientists view this is as a social problem, directing much blame (but little research) at a variety of sources including a lack of critical thinking skills, fads, need for transcendent experiences, failure of the educational system, and cultural cycles. Social impact theory provides an alternative focus: it views paranormal beliefs as a natural consequence of social influence processes in interpersonal settings.’’

The Inconsistencies of Race and Class

   NO. 1

  Class is primarily an economic measure, of course, based on wealth and income. This is explained more in Karl Marx’s and Max Weber’s ‘The Communist Manifesto, where Marx touches on Capitalism, an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit rather than the state's need to expand throughout Markets. The three main groups in class society are 1) The Aristocracy, 2) the bourgeoisie, which owns most of society’s wealth and production. And 3) the proletariats, or the working-class people. These terms are even more present today than during the Industrial Revolution. The bourgeoisie thrives off alienation and false consciousness, which is the way of thinking that prevents a person from understanding the true nature of their social or economic status.

NO. 2

Patricia Hill-Collins writes in Toward a New Vision, ‘’Each group identifies the type of oppression with which it feels most comfortable as being fundamental and classifies all other types as lesser importance. Oppression is full of such contradictions. Errors in political judgment that we make concerning how we teach our courses, what we tell our children, and which organizations are worthy.’’ (Collins, 1993).  Oppression of education and fundamental voting rights happened exclusively to minorities, especially black people. During the ’50s and the ’60s, Brown vs. The Board of Education was one of the most iconic moments in history when the U.S. Supreme Court finally ruled that the segregation of public schools between blacks and whites was unconstitutional.

NO. 3

Basically, proving that separate is not equal. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, and of course, the Civil Rights Movement that led up to it, was a landmark civil rights and U.S. labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. Now, with the Civil Rights Movement passed, it makes it seem that all people have rights, but it’s not true. Minorities alike do not have the same rights, no matter the changed laws and how much we think we’ve changed. White privilege is the societal belief that benefits white people over non-white people. It makes it almost impossible for all minorities to overcome the system. White privilege is the belief that there’s nothing wrong with being a white nationalist and that the removal of our nation’s past physical examples of racism, ex. The erasure of Confederate statues, affirmative action, and other such policies is an attack on white heritage.

NO. 4

Whether they want to admit it or not, the overlap between race and class has a great impact on society, and it intersects in complex ways, and simply focusing on one aspect alone may not lead to comprehensive solutions. Affirmative action was used to bridge the gap between racial and class disparities, and now that it is being threatened and taken away, we must carefully consider the impact that it has had and continues to have on marginalized communities. Carol Anderson, the author of White Rage, talks about the definition of white rage, which is how their anger fuels hatred, and that hatred fuels violence which has caused the deaths of black people, men, and women alike, ever since the first boat brought the slaves. It touches on white privilege and the indifference white people feel for black people, sort of like colorblind racism, a ‘toilet assumption’, the naivety that all people are created equal, when that’s far from the case. 

The Tuskegee Experiment

NO. 1

The Tuskegee Experiment was a hoax experiment used to study how black Americans differ from white Americans in catching a disease. It was a study truly held on the biases and stereotypes of other races. No scientific experiment inflicted more damage on the collective psyche of black Americans than the Tuskegee experiment. ‘‘In 1932, following a survey of the incidence of syphilis in a number of Southern regions, the venereal disease division of the U.S Public Health Service (USPHS) began what turned out to be a forty-year project in Macon County, Alabama, to follow the effects of untreated syphilis in some 400 black men. The study continued through World War II, when a number of the men who were called up for the draft and, had they not been research subjects, would have received medical attention for their infection. It continued through the 1950s, after the efficacy of penicillin treatment was established, and after the Nuremberg trials produced a code of ethics for biomedical research. It lasted through the 1960s, untouched by the civil rights agitation, and unaffected by the code of research adopted by the USPHS itself. It ended only in 1972 when an account of the experiment in the Washington Post sparked a furor.’’

NO. 2

One question that boggles the mind is how could an experiment of such degree that violated both moral and medical ethics continue on for so long? Unfortunately, no questions were asked about the rights and welfare of the men who became study/research subjects, and those same men didn’t even understand that they were unwillingly participating in a research project. Each man was given many treatments, placebo’s mostly, including a ‘spinal tap’, where the needle went directly into the spine without anesthesia, just to see what would happen. ‘‘At least three generations of doctors serving in the venereal disease division of the USPHS, numerous officials at the Tuskegee Institute and its affiliated hospital, hundreds of doctors in the Macon County and Alabama medical societies, and numerous foundation officials at the Rosenwald Fund and Milbank Memorial Fund. It also includes the many readers of such medical journals like the Public Health Reports, the Archives of Internal Medicine, and the Journal of Chronic Diseases. These readers could not have escaped the conclusion that untreated blacks had been severely damaged. In July 1954, an article in the Public Health Reports, to choose one example from many, concluded that ‘the life expectancy of a Negro Male between the ages of 25 to 50 years, infected with syphilis and receiving no appreciable treatment for his infection, is reduced by about 17%.’’

NO. 3

As the 400 men were being ‘treated’, government officials were ecstatic to see that syphilis was the same in blacks as it was in whites, by looking at the many and various autopsies of the men who did not survive, due to organ failure and damage. Racism was at the forefront of this tragedy, as scientists saw black men as expendable and looked forward to seeing the disease progress. Men who were affected tried to seek out treatment elsewhere, in other counties but were called back by the very doctors and nurses they trusted, since they were apart of the study. Once the news story broke out, many in the black community lost faith in the government and no longer believed health officials who spoke on matters of public concern. For example, when the AIDS crisis began in the ’80s and ’90s, ‘‘the Tuskegee experiment predisposed many blacks to distrust health authorities, a fact many whites had difficulty understanding. The NYTimes on May 6, 1992, many black Americans believes that AIDS and the health measures used against it are part of the conspiracy to wipe out the black race. To support their assertion, their editor cited a survey of black church members in 1990 that revealed ‘an astonishing 35% believed AIDS was a form of genocide.’

Progress; the end to police brutality

  NO. 1

   Since the video of George Floyd’s death went viral on the internet, there have been protests across the world, calling for the policemen in question to not only be fired, but arrested and to serve the maximum in jail, and calling for . The senseless murder and case that follows brings up once again the senseless violence of police brutality and race in America once again. For me personally, seeing another black man be killed in such an egregious manner was...numbing. I also realized that events like this have become normalized for me. I didn’t exactly react because I, as a black woman didn’t know how to react. 

  The anniversary of one of the greatest race massacres in the United States occurred yesterday May 31, the Tulsa race riots, where in 1921, a white mob attacked not only black residents, killing between 30 to 300 black people, but more than 1,400 homes and businesses were burned, and nearly 10,000 people were left homeless. 

      NO. 2

I bring this up because historically, things have not changed in America. Police brutality is still the subject of attacks motivated by race. Throughout several years where we thought cases where black men have been shot and killed by the police would be a slam dunk trial; meaning that the officers involved would be prosecuted and serve the maximum in jail, and yet  the opposite happened, like the Eric Garner, Stephen Clark and Trayvon Martin, and new cases, like #RayshardBrooks and #ElijahMcCain. And yet, those officers in question were acquitted. 

The right to protest is protected by the First Amendment in the Constitution, where all citizens have the right to free speech, freedom of the press and the right to peacefully assemble. I write this because it seems like others don’t fully understand the protests going on now; the people who think that ‘peacefully protesting’ means to passively protest. And to passively protest means to erase the voices of millions in this country who already feel like their voices are not being heard. A great man by the name of Martin Luther King jr. said in his Letter from Birmingham Jail said, ‘’Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.’’

   NO.3

Too many black people have been dying at the hands of police at a dis, and the cause of it is directly tied to historic links of slavery and institutional and systemic racism. We want police to take accountability for the crimes they commit against innocent people. For eight minutes, George Floyd pleaded with the officer who had his knee on his neck. All officers need to uphold the responsibility of ‘to serve and protect’. If fifteen bad policemen are on the force, and there are 1300 good officers who do nothing to check those fifteen officers, then there are 1,315 bad police officers.           

I believe that these protests are just the tipping point, as people around the globe now are fed up with the injustice. Racism comes in various different forms, and it’s our generations time to stand up and acknowledge that these brutal acts have got to end, and that goes for anyone whose job is in law enforcement, medical fields, politics, teachers, fashion, entertainment, sports, or media, etc. All lives do matter, but until black people are treated like actual citizens in this country, then that’s a false and inconsistent statement, since it is meant to derail the black lives matter movement. Inequities still exist in this country, and pretending not to see it is just as wrong as those who are actively racist. We owe it to ourselves, and for the men, women and children who were killed over the years at the hands of police brutality, to not only research our public figures, especially in politics, and hire the ones who have our best interest at heart as a nation, but to enact new laws and bring about everlasting change.

Every last protestor who feels this is wrong, that innocent people are dying must vote. Voting sixty years ago used to be for the privileged, and now we all have that right to do so. The black lives matter movement was started by black women who feel action must be met. Black people deserve the same respect as any other human being, and the fact that it took two weeks of protesting and looting for that police officer to be arrested even though his death was video recorded is despicable, and the fact that it took even longer for prosecutors to arrest all the officers who were present for the death and didn’t help Floyd at all showed that widespread and global outrage was the only way justice was going to be served. 

So what are some solutions to this crisis? How can police officers gain the trust of their communities back? Done are the days where senseless killings are being swept under the rug, accustomed to a ‘few bad apples’. There must be stronger requirements for police officers and tougher training so that this doesn’t happen again. There is always going to be lawlessness, of course. But if white protestors can assemble on the streets of Congress with rocket launchers and AR-15’s during the early stages of the COVID-19 crisis so that they can open up their businesses without being tear gassed and shot with rubber bullets, then black people must also protest for their rights.