[HAYLEY FONG]

This image relates to “White Fragility,” specifically regarding segregation and color lines.  Unfortunately, the absolute insult to a beloved cartoon must be brought back up: Avatar: The Last Airbender movie released in 2010.  The movie is a clear example of how individuals strive to keep the media as a white space.  In the cartoon, nearly all characters were drawn as non-white characters; in the movie, the three heroes are white–or at least white-passing–while the villain is played by Dev Patel.

This is an example of segregation and colorism because it purports the dominant system that stories are told from the white, Eurocentric narrative and that people who cannot pass as white are trespassing or can be threatening to the “peace.”  This also served to dissuade young people that people who look like them can be properly represented on the screen–not as stereotypes, but as complex human beings with good friends.

Article by Hatty Lee (2010)

Source: https://www.colorlines.com/articles/hollywood-whitewashing-john-wayne-last-airbender

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[HAYLEY FONG]

I chose this picture because it requires the reclaiming of land from the United States government to an indigenous population, and the inherently flawed countermeasures taken to resist such a return.  The Lenape were a tribe that occupied current day Delaware prior to the European colonization of the Americas.  Recently, the surviving and affiliated Lenape people have announced their intention to reclaim parts of their territory, such as the cemetery currently being used as a firing range to train Delaware State Police.  This image is relevant to this week because it portrays the blatant disrespect for indigenous people as well as how the sacred history of their land is completely ignored, which is what happened with the Dakota Access Pipeline.  While this land was not used for mining and excavation purposes, the unnecessarily extreme pushback on the part of the dominant group is quite unnecessary and only represents a part of the greater story.

Artist: Rob Tornoe

Source: https://whyy.org/articles/immigrants-took-land-from-native-americans-in-delaware-they-want-some-of-it-back/

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[HAYLEY FONG]

This is the Citarum River in Indonesia, also known as the world’s most polluted river.  Tarahita and Rakhmat say, “If we are lucky enough to glimpse the water, we will see it is colored due to the excessive amount of toxic chemicals being dumped into the river by industries.”  In spite of this horrifying reality, 25 million people continue to use this water for agriculture, water, and electricit which poses severe health consequences due to constant exposure.  Government action has proven to be half-hearted promises and publicity stunts as pollution continues to increase.  This relates to the crisis in Flint because it is very much the extreme version of what could have been, and how much governments place for-profit ventures above the well-being of its constituents.

Source: chief, October 16 2009, https://thediplomat.com/2018/04/indonesias-citarum-the-worlds-most-polluted-river/

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[HAYLEY FONG]

This cartoon is of a man whose home is left in ruins after a disaster struck, and the manual is essentially what FEMA and other federal institutions have done to help neighborhoods avoid disasters (which is essentially nothing).  The second step reads, “Move to a rich, white neighborhood,” which highlights how impoverished and disadvantaged communities are relegated to more dangerous and at-risk locations than other groups.  This relates to this week because we also discussed the effects of Hurricane Katrina and the government’s inadequate response.  This also shows how the blame is placed on the victimized people for choosing to live in harm’s way and their inability to prepare for locational situations without recognizing the historical institutions that purposely put them in danger.

Artist and Date: Rob Rogers, 2005

Link: http://talesofcare.blogspot.com/2016/10/caring-for-others-on-environmental.html

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[HAYLEY FONG]

The article listed below is one of the many released by the Chicago Teachers Union who protest against the stark inequality in education, resources, and environmental safety plaguing students throughout the entire city.  In the picture, the boy is holding a sign that says, “This would NOT happen in the GOLD COAST,” which refers to an affluent Chicago neighborhood near Lake Michigan (analogous to Newport Beach).  In his neighborhood, in the southeast side (analogous to Anaheim), both adults and children are actively protesting against the use of petroleum coke, which is toxic when it decomposes or is used up.  Because of the historical legacies of zoning and deliberate federal policies, the residents of Southeast Chicago are subject to far more pollution and programs that further pollute their neighborhoods than the richer, “coincidentally” more Caucasian communities.  To me, this image is not just protesting the use of a toxic waste chemical but the greater structures in place that subject such communities to environmental inequality.

Photographer: Frank Thomas

Article Date: May 9, 2018

Link: https://ajustchicago.org/2018/05/environmental-racism-puts-students-risk/

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[HAYLEY FONG]

In reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’ article this week, the idea of reparations as “the full acceptance of our collective biography and its consequences” is a controversial idea, as many who refuse to accept history for what it is are also the beneficiaries of selective narrative erasure.  The widespread refusal to accept discrimination and racism beyond explicit legislation contributes to the disregard for reparations.  I selected this image because it shows how history is cyclic, and that oppressive structures not only reappear but evolve.  African Americans are still deliberately and systematically denied rights and access to institutions that are supposedly open to all Americans.  Coates’ definition of reparations would apply here through acknowledging how the systems have evolved to become arguably more malicious, but would eventually (hopefully) result in the dismantling of institutionalized racism.

Cartoonist and Date: Mike Peters, 5/2/2014

Link: http://www.cartoonistgroup.com/subject/The-Voter+Suppression-Comics-and-Cartoons.php

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[HAYLEY FONG]

This image is a graphic of the many counties in the state of Alabama with different shades of blue that represent the percentage of residents who live at or below the poverty line (the darker the blue, the worse the economic conditions).  The dark-colored counties in the bottom half of the state make up an area known as the Alabama Black Belt, which used to signify the rich black soil in the region but now have different connotations due to the consequences of deliberate local and federal decisions designed to keep African Americans in socioeconomic isolation.  In Alabama, the poverty rate for African Americans and Hispanic or Latino Americans is 31% and 34%, respectively, which is nearly triple the figure for whites (at 14%).  The image relates to this week’s theme of segregation and specifically the ghetto because of how African Americans were driven into poor socioeconomic conditions based on racially homogenous motivations, and how the consequences of those pernicious actions are still heavily felt today.  In short, African American bodies are relegated to the Black Belt region where poverty is disproportionately higher than most other counties in the state where white Americans live.

Graphic from 2017 report from Alabama Possible.

Date: July 3, 2017

Source: https://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/07/alabama_is_6th_poorest_state_i.html

• This reply was modified 6 years ago by HAYLEY FONG.

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[HAYLEY FONG]

The image I chose was from a moment in a movie called Wind River, which takes place on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming.  While the West Central Fuel Company is not the primary focus of the movie, the presence of for-profit drilling companies on Native American land is indicative of how the Eurocentric romanticism of land prevails today, as mentioned in the Lipsitz and Wolfe readings.  The original establishment of the Native American reservations in inhospitable regions were meant to keep the indigenous communities far from the colonists, and to maintain as much of a homogenous society as possible.  However, the “No Trespassing” sign is quite hypocritical and in complete disregard for the indigenous community, because it demonstrates how the indigenous people are still denied the right and access to their space.  And these people are denied their right and access to space because they are allegedly not cultivating the land properly.

Movie: Wind River (2017), directed by Taylor Sheridan and distributed by Lionsgate.  Timestamp 1:03:36.

(Apparently screenshots from Netflix are not allowed, so I paused the movie and took the picture with my phone.)

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