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March 9, 2019 at 2:45 pm #4701
Mariela Flores
ParticipantIn Friday’s discussion someone mentioned that they vaguely remembered an armed confrontation between the U.S. government and Native Americans. I also vaguely remembered a similar event but could not pinpoint what indigenous nation was involved and what was the source of the conflict. However, I now was able to research that the event I was trying to recall was the occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota in 1973. The Oglala Lakota (Sioux) that lived in the Pine Ridge reservation, where Wounded Knee is located, were struggling with their corrupt and discriminatory tribal chairman Dick Wilson so they turned to the American Indian Movement for assistance to remove him. The American Indian Movement was a militant civil rights and identity movement that formed in the social and political upheavals of the 1960s. AIM then occupied Wounded Knee in order to demand the U.S. government renegotiations of 19th and 20th century land treatises. This led to a violent 71 day conflict with the U.S. National Guard and FBI where they shot at, cut off, and starved the occupiers.
Furthermore, Marlon Brando brought more public attention to this movement during the 1973 Academy Awards where he contacted Sacheen Littlefeather, an Apache indigenous actress, to reject his award for him and bring attention to how indigenous people were continued to be oppressed and threatened in the U.S. through the harmful representations of indigenous people in western films and the dangerous conflict in Wounded Knee. However, in my opinion, this was not a good instance of allyship because Littlefeather suffered significantly due to this event which included her being surveilled by the FBI, death threats waged against her, and her acting career being ruined. Brando also gathered more praise for his stunt which led to this historical event be mostly credited to him rather than Littlefeather’s bravery despite him not taking any measures to ensure Littlefeather’s safety or security. While giving platforms is an important part of allyship, the impact remains important and thus it is important to keep the safety of marginalized peoples in mind especially in such an overtly racist time.
Ultimately, while there was a signed agreement that promised a meeting between the White House and the Oglala nation to discuss tribal grievances and over 500 violated or broken treaties, the Pine Ridge reservation still suffered under Dick Wilson and still to this day struggles with poverty, unemployment, and a high murder rate. The U.S. continues to threaten and marginalize indigenous nations which proves the significant resistance that indigenous nations and people are forced to undertake to simply exist.
First photo: AIM members and other civil rights leaders at Wounded Knee, most of them were in their 20s
Second photo: Sacheen Littlefeather rejecting Marlon Brando’s Best Actor award for The Godfather at the 1973 Academy Awards, she was 23
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March 3, 2019 at 3:06 pm #4589
Mariela Flores
ParticipantFor this week’s photo share I wanted to focus on the controversy that surrounded Aurora Perrineau’s own #MeToo story. Perrineau is a Black actress who in 2017 came forward to say that she had been raped by Murray Miller, a writer on the HBO show Girls, in 2011 when she was 17 years old and Miller 35. Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner, an actress and producer for the show respectively, both came out in support of Miller and Dunham publicly asserted that she had insider knowledge that exonerated Miller. However, over a year later Dunham issued a public apology directed to Perrneau that she lied about her insider knowledge due to “blind faith” and proceeded to use most of her apology to invoke public sympathy. Dunham has been deemed, multiple times, a big proponent for white feminism due to multiple past actions where she has explicitly ignored the structural oppression women of color face and for taking up too much space as a privileged wealthy white woman. Despite all the controversy that Lena Dunham leaves in her wake she is still given multiple platforms to elevate her career and deemed a major feminist even though she only caters to other privileged white women. Thus, here we see another case of a privileged white woman leveraging her assigned innocence to harm and devalue a Black woman and her story. Dunham chose to not apologize until over a year later which allowed plenty of time to irreparably invalidate Perrineau’s account. Ultimately, Miller was not charged of rape or pedophilia and his image remains clean because there were “inconsistencies and delay in reporting”. I have not been able to find any further statements by Perrineau after Dunham’s defense and apology; it is disheartening to see that in a movement that seeks to support all victims of sexual assault, Perrineau’s own rape has been forcibly silenced and hidden away by the same people that deem themselves as ardent feminists.
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February 24, 2019 at 3:27 pm #4355
Mariela Flores
ParticipantAfter this week’s and particularly Friday’s discussion of the Black Lives Matter movement and the way Black women are often undermined in it, I wanted to focus on the role of Black women in current movements for Black lives. I included a 2015 picture of Brittany “Bree” Newsome who scaled flagpole at a South Carolina statehouse and took down the confederate flag that hung there. Newsome’s actions came after the racist murder of nine Black churchgoers during prayer service incited a debate about the presence of confederate flags as it is used as a symbol for racist hatred. The fact that Newsome was subsequently jailed and that protestors rallied the next day with signs that said “Southern Lives Matter” speaks volumes about the way Black lives are deemed and treated, disposable. However, her monumental action has given Newsome, a Black Lives Matter activist, a platform to speak against a number of issues and brought the harmful presence of confederate flags to a forefront. Thus, Bree Newsome is one of the many Black women who continue to lead the movement by deliberately disrupting the normalized dehumanization of Black lives.
photo credit:
Gender and Removing the Confederate Flag
Bree Newsome takes down the Confederate flag from a pole on the statehouse grounds in Columbia, S.C., June 27, 2015. (REUTERS/Adam Anderson)
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Mariela Flores.
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February 17, 2019 at 4:34 pm #4168
Mariela Flores
ParticipantThis week I also wanted to relate our discussions about the student activism surrounding Ethnic Studies departments our own campus’ history. I have recently learned more about UCSD’s own extensive history of student and campus community activism despite its rumored reputation to be “socially and politically dead”. I wanted to use a graphic that my friend and Cross-Cultural Center peer, Emily Liu, made for a blog post for the CCC on this quarter’s topic, Social Justice Topics on College Campuses. The graphic depicts a timeline of the major events and strides that were fought for and by, predominantly, students of color. These events include the creation of major organizations such as the Student Affirmation Activist Committee, the current seven campus community centers, the Ethnic Studies Department, and even includes more disruptive protests such as the takeover of the 5 freeway in response to the Los Angeles riots. It grounds me to know that I can enjoy community spaces, such as the Cross-Cultural Center and Women’s Center, heritage months like Cesar Chavez month, because of the hard work other students did before me. It drives me to join efforts to keep their work moving forward and to keep battling against the restrictions of this arguably violent institution.
Link to Emily Liu’s post on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ucsdccc/posts/10156484351794877
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February 10, 2019 at 4:57 pm #3951
Mariela Flores
ParticipantThis week I wanted to focus on the growing underground movement of Black women rappers. As we discussed in class, some rap has been historically laden with often violently misogynistic sentiment, specifically against Black women. This in turn has made rap nearly exclusive to men and therefor very difficult for women to find platforms or even support for their rap careers. While there have been remarkable women in rap before such as Lil’ Kim, Foxy Brown, Missy Elliot, Eve, and Nicki Minaj; they still made a very small minority in the industry and were subject to significant misogynoir throughout their careers. However, now we are seeing an increasing amount of diverse and multifaceted Black women rappers rising through the ranks and often establishing their own platforms. Name like Cardi B, City Girls, Young MA, Noname, CupcakKe, Bbymutha, Rico Nasty, Megan Thee Stallion, Lizzo, Maliibu Miitch, and so many more are making their own success in an industry that actively works against them. The best part is, is that all of these women are multifaceted and are expressing themselves in their own unique way and subverting the stereotypes waged against them. I wanted to call attention to CupcakKe, Elizabeth Harris, a clever X-rated rapper who promotes sex and body positivity and is often judged for her racy lyrics and music videos. There is a youtube video from the React youtube series and it is “Elders react to CupcakKe” where many of the elder participants say her sexual songs are “disgusting” and felt that Harris should focus on promoting her songs with social messages. However, that is the beauty of these multifaceted rappers who are breaking barriers and not catering to the limited expectations of them such as focusing their music on addressing racism and sexism and solely performing their traumas instead of focusing on what truly inspires and empowers them.
The image I chose is of CupcakKes’s 2018 album, Ephorize, whcih gained critical praise. The cover art was shot by Chicago photographer, Shaun Michael, in 2017
This is the video I referenced: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tarFJQHCKH4
I also really enjoyed this article by Briana Younger from the New Yorker which articulates this movement much more beautifully:
<h5 class=”LC20lb”>https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/is-rap-finally-ready-to-embrace-its-women</h5>-
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February 3, 2019 at 2:41 pm #3690
Mariela Flores
ParticipantAfter our discussion about the Black Panther Party on Wednesday, my peer at the Cross-Cultural Center also presented on the Black Panther Party and their publicly unrecognized works. My peer focused on the party’s radical work in medicine and healthcare, specifically in sickle-cell disease, which had been significantly ignored by the U.S. government. Their extensive research, screen tests, and advocacy regarding sickle cell disease led the government to take more notice and allocate more funding towards SCD research with the National Sickle Cell Anemia Control Act (1972). Furthermore, The Black Panther Party observed that there are several inequalities and problems within the health care system, specifically in how inaccessible it was to communities of color, impoverished people, people with disabilities, etc. Thus, the BPP started the people’s free medical centers (PFMC) as community health centers that served to actively resolve these issues. After doing more research on these clinics, I am amazed by how revolutionary the BPP is and how their work is so cognizant of the social justice issues and they truly endeavored to serve marginalized communities in ways the government has failed. Their clinics were actively shaped through a radical social justice lens, for example, they worked towards addressing the privileges of the volunteer physicians in their clinics by educating them with teachings by political ideologists that focused on class and racial inequalities, such as Frantz Fanon and Mao Zedong. It has become apparent to me that we are not taught how the Black Panther Party’s organization and structure created the framework for public programs, which the government would take and reshape, because they were ultimately seen as too radical against the upheld structures of white supremacy and capitalism.
Thus, I chose this picture of a flyer that advertised the opening of a people’s free clinic dated in 1971
I got the picture and most of the information from here: http://blackpower.web.unc.edu/2017/04/bpp-peoples-free-medical-centers/
Other sources I used: http://www.aadamsonmd.com/blog/2016/12/4/c7m74yvyuezl9wm4ea8ahay7vei36r
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January 27, 2019 at 5:27 pm #3538
Mariela Flores
ParticipantThis week I choose to share a picture from a dialogue between the eminent poet and activist, Nikki Giovanni, and James Baldwin which was televised on PBS Soul! in 1971. Giovanni’s earlier famous works such as Black Feeling, Black Thought (1968) and Black Judgement (1968), were influenced by the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. In the dialogue, Giovanni and Baldwin share an acknowledgment of how challenging it is for Black people to separate their own image of themselves from the image society has defined for them. Giovanni then expresses that her post-movement generation is just approaching understanding themselves by understanding white people. They both ultimately agree then that the key to dismantling these definitions, is love, love between white people and Black people for future generations. I find it interesting now to be able to identify how different Baldwin’s politics were from Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X because while he identifies the way that white supremacy strips Black people of their basic rights, he also does not disdain white people for it but instead sees it as an oppression they must all work together to overthrow. I also thought that Nikki Giovanni’s perspective is essential because she documents the way in which attitudes and identification around the self in Black communities begins to morph as a result of the Civil Rights movement.
image source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZmBy7C9gHQ
James Baldwin & Nikki Giovanni, A Dialogue (1971) filmed by PBS Soul!
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January 20, 2019 at 4:12 pm #3259
Mariela Flores
ParticipantI chose this image of James Baldwin, a prominent Black American novelist and social critic, because his presence was essential in the turbulent times of the civil rights movement and beyond. I chose this specific image of Baldwin next to Martin Luther King Jr. because I think their different perspectives regarding the civil rights speaks volumes of how each figure chose to advocate for Black Americans. I feel that James Baldwin is similar to Malcolm X in how he never curtailed his anger towards white supremacy and was vocal in his hatred for the injustices Black people suffered in America, so much so that Baldwin left the United States for France at 24 because he could not endure his being and life being permanently determined as those of a N*gro. Ultimately, Baldwin’s relationship with many civil rights leaders, including MLK, because they disapproved of his gay sexuality and Baldwin did not consider himself a civil rights activist because he felt what Malcolm X felt, that citizens do not need to fight for civil rights. Thus, Baldwin led his life and advocacy by reminding others that Black people have and always deserved their rights, respect, and so forth which is encapsulated in his popular quote: “Our crown has already been bought and paid for. All we have to do is wear it.”
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