Lying on the cold ground outside of Penn Station on Thursday night, surrounded by activists chanting “We Can’t Breathe” as I chanted those very same words myself, I felt my body. I couldn’t say how many times it has happened other than to say that it rarely does, and if you asked me to describe the feeling now, I couldn’t for the life of me. I call it a feeling and not an experience because that’s what it is: a feeling. Everything else seems like an experience in comparison. The magic in feeling my body is that I am not in control of it. It just happens to me. It feels as though there’s a shift in my being in which I go from experiencing my body through my consciousness to actually feeling my body, being my body. Continue reading
The Fear of Fear Itself
Content warning: Home invasion, home intruders, fear, potentially sensitive topics
Representation in Photography
I love the internet, of course. It lets me access a whole wealth of content, my favorite being photographs. I’m very interested to see what everyone else is seeing through their perspective. I look at a lot of photo blogs, flickr accounts, so on, to get to see peoples photos. However, I am often disappointed and a bit confused. When I look at photographic work done by my generation, most of it looks the same. Most of what I see is white people,specifically ‘pretty,’ thin girls, doing whimsical things like running through a field or laughing while their hair blows in the wind or something. If you have a Tumblr I know you know what I’m talking about. Let me find an example…
I don’t want to discount anyones photographs. I’m not saying these photos are bad or should not be taken. This isn’t an issue of quality or validity of work. Its an issue of representation in youth photography. Where are the fat photographers/ photo subjects? The photographers of color? Trans photographers? I could even venture to ask where the financially lower class photographers are, as the people in these photos often appear to be well off (taken with high quality equipment, or color film which is pricey, but this is an assumption). I would love so much to see the perspectives of a broader range of people. I’m wondering, is it there and just hiding in an unfound corner of the internet, or are the only people my age using photography as an outlet white skinny people? Of course there are layers of nuances here relating to socioeconomic issues, the narrative visual media maintains, and so on. But I hope that a wider demographic of people will being to be represented in photography.
Schools are not for the disabled
Our last class discussion really had me thinking about how un-accessible schools really are. Not only in physical lay out but also in policies and attitudes and I wanted to talk about it a little more. For students with mental disabilities there’s the issue of “proving” that you have an issue that could affect you in class, going to the doctor’s, reporting it with the school where it is then on file, then outing yourself to your professors which can be very stressful for someone. Also once you talk with a professor it is a guessing game on whether they will be accommodating or act like you are taking away from others. For those with physical disabilities our campus is not designed for easy access while getting around, our desks are small and uncomfortable and overall there is just so many obstacles to overcome.
Class also made me think about things we don’t often attribute to this issue. Bigger individuals, whether it be height or weight, have a hard time fitting into the desks and yet it is not thought of as an issue. The same goes for pregnant women who are not given appropriate accommodations, they face a variety of issues such as discomfort/ pain, fatigue, doctor’s appointments, sickness etc. and teachers often don’t think of them as needing any help.
The school as a whole is often set up to work best for someone who can afford tuition, is young, able bodied, can live on campus, doesn’t have to work, and takes the classes their adviser tells them to. But what about the people who don’t fit into this. I’m young and luckily I’ve gotten through college without much trouble but thinking about it critically I can find times where I was seen as a nuisance because I didn’t fit into the appropriate mode. I am on scholarship so I have to take a certain amount of credits and get a certain GPA, also I take more than the needed amount of credits because my scholarship only lasts until the end of this year. I also have to work in order to get through college and I’ve been told many times I should quit my job, or I need to just stay in school longer and take more classes even though that’s not a possibility for me. Commuting also opens up problems that students face. There’s only a small number of students who fit into the accepted form and yet nothing is being done to change how we deal with all of the others.
I don’t know if we have one already but if not I think we should have a group or panel that discusses these topics and try to make change.
Black and Yellow Black and Yellow
In class I was secretly, desperately hoping we would discuss people of mixed race. I am Korean and African-American. My mom is from South Korea and my dad is from Louisiana. I have identity issues. Continue reading
How?
I’m not surprised in the slightest by the failure of the justice system to indict Darren Wilson. In the eyes of our society, black bodies and lives do not matter, and it’s no shock to anyone who knows any statistics on black male imprisonment that the law would side with an armed police officer’s right to self-defense before coming to the defense of an unarmed black man. The correlation is direct, it is salient, and it is hiding in plain sight behind the bars of our prisons. The justice system in no way favors black men, and so even one who was killed by said justice system is at the mercy of the same racism as those being charged with crime. Were Mike Brown still alive, it’s possible that he could be the one facing time for aggravated assault of a police officer and attempted robbery of the convenience store which he allegedly stole cigars from.
Were you offended by the campus protests?
This post isn’t actually about bodies but it relates to our class discussions about the Ferguson case and the protests in general. As I read the post from the link below, I just got more and more frustrated that people actually found offense to the protests on campus over the last two weeks. People said that it was really just shouting, disruptive and was pointless. In doing the protests I didn’t think that anyone could take offense to it but that’s obviously because I felt more invested in it so I never thought of it that way but If anyone had any interest or opinion on the protests, can you please comment about them?
This is the thread that I found on the myUMBC homepage that makes me wonder, Was anyone in class offended by the protests?
Bodies, Self-Esteem, and Sex in “My Mad Fat Diary”
trigger warning: weight, body image, self-hate, suicide mention
Recently, actress Sharon Rooney who plays Rae Earl on the UK TV show My Mad Fat Diary announced that the show is returning for a third season. MMFD is allll about bodies. Rae Earl is the protagonist of the show, a fat sixteen-year-old girl dealing with not only her weight and low self-esteem but also with mental illness. She has a tough push-and-pull relationship with her mother, and a father that is out of the picture.
What’s the deal with looting?
I’m not going to count this as one of my actual blog posts, but I would just like something clarified a bit. What is the deal with looting? I think I understand that it involves going to stores in mass chaos and taking anything you want from them (this is my understanding from the media’s portrayal, which I understand is most likely pretty skewed). I am just interested to know more about the connection between this and the Ferguson case. Does it have anything to do with race? I must admit, I was a bit confused by Dr. Kate’s question at the end of class today. What is the connection between boycotting and looting? Are they the same thing? What’s the deal? I figured this was the best place to ask a question like this, because I am always interested and curious to see what my classmates (and others) think about this.
Any help understanding this would be very helpful. Thanks!
I think about this class at the bar… is that weird?
Bars are weird places for bodies, especially for me and my female body. In most other places there are standard rules about how it’s okay to touch someone, what to say to someone, how to interact with someone. But when it comes to the bar it seems as if this all gets jumbled, thrown in the air and mixed up. Of course people have different thoughts about what is okay when it comes to touching their body especially when drinking. But the bar is this weird social environment where things get a little tricky. There’s dancing, it’s crowded, there’s alcohol… and things seem to go wrong… a lot
Unruly Bodies 