tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67785024314001748632024-03-13T11:27:18.786-07:00Mic the WhispersUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6778502431400174863.post-69326712082294122232018-10-09T10:26:00.001-07:002018-10-09T10:26:11.938-07:00What Mr. DiDonna is reading today<header class="post-header cf" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #606569; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="heading cf" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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<span class="entry-title-primary" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Recontextualizing the Ocean Blue</span><span class="entry-subtitle" style="border: 0px; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.533333em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Italian Americans and the Commemoration of Columbus</span></h1>
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<span class="posted-by" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">BY <span class="reviewer" itemprop="author" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.processhistory.org/author/blogoah-org/" rel="author" style="border: 0px; color: #19232d; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.4s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Posts by Laura E. Ruberto and Joseph Sciorra">LAURA E. RUBERTO AND JOSEPH SCIORRA</a></span> </span><span class="posted-on" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ON <span class="dtreviewed" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><time class="value-title" datetime="2017-10-04T17:16:26-04:00" itemprop="datePublished" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="2017-10-04">OCTOBER 4, 2017</time></span></span><span class="cats" style="border: 0px; float: right; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.processhistory.org/category/public/commentary/" rel="category tag" style="border: 0px; color: #19232d; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.4s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;">COMMENTARY</a>, <a href="http://www.processhistory.org/category/public/public-history/" rel="category tag" style="border: 0px; color: #19232d; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.4s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;">PUBLIC HISTORY</a></span></div>
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<a href="https://i1.wp.com/www.processhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Columbus-Memorial.jpg?fit=1024%2C828" itemprop="image" style="border: 0px; color: #19232d; display: block; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.4s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Recontextualizing the Ocean Blue Italian Americans and the Commemoration of Columbus"><img alt="" class="attachment-main-slider size-main-slider wp-post-image no-display appear" height="336" src="https://i1.wp.com/www.processhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Columbus-Memorial.jpg?resize=702%2C336" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; opacity: 1; padding: 0px; transition: all 0.4s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline; will-change: opacity;" title="Recontextualizing the Ocean Blue Italian Americans and the Commemoration of Columbus" width="702" /></a><div class="caption" style="background: linear-gradient(rgba(25, 35, 45, 0) 0%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8) 100%); border: 0px; bottom: 5px; box-sizing: border-box; color: white; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 14px 20px; position: absolute; text-shadow: rgb(0, 0, 0) 0px 1px 1px; transform: translate3d(0px, 0px, 0px); vertical-align: baseline; width: 621.328px;">
Unveiling of the Columbus Memorial in Union Station Plaza, Washington, D.C., June 8, 1912. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.</div>
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<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Maledetto Cristoforo Colombo e quando ha scoperto l’America</em>.<br />(Damn Christopher Columbus and his discovery of America.)<br />—A popular curse among Italian immigrants</div>
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The attention on Confederate-focused statuary in public spaces has led to reflection on other historical figures carved in marble or cast in bronze. Perhaps no other individual has single-handedly spurred such impassioned ethnic controversy as the fifteenth-century Genovese navigator, Christopher Columbus.</div>
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For nearly two centuries, many Americans have lauded Columbus as the heroic discoverer of a new world. Even so, in his time, Columbus was critiqued and investigated for his cruelty to Native peoples as the Spanish-appointed governor of the newly claimed territories in the Caribbean. In his desire for profit—the Spanish court had awarded him 10 percent of future spoils—Columbus tortured and enslaved Arawaks and Taínos, and he established the <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">repartimiento</em> system of forced labor in the desperate search for the islands’ negligible gold. These and other atrocities established a genocidal approach to colonization of the Americas; they remain a crucial aspect of Columbus’s legacy.</div>
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Repaired fissures in the Columbus Circle statue, New York City, 2012. Photo: Joseph Sciorra.</div>
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In recent weeks, we have traced an almost daily call to remove Columbus statues on public sites in cities such as <a href="https://www.metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2017/09/07/group-petitions-detroit-to-remove-christoper-columbus-statue" style="border: 0px; color: #e54e53; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.4s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;">Detroit</a>, <a href="http://gothamist.com/2017/08/22/not_so_columbus_circle.php" style="border: 0px; color: #e54e53; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.4s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;">New York City</a>, <a href="http://www.citypages.com/music/wanna-swap-st-pauls-columbus-statue-for-a-prince-one-sign-this-petition/441720223" style="border: 0px; color: #e54e53; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.4s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;">St. Paul</a>, and <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/08/22/internal-affairs-san-jose-organizers-push-to-remove-christopher-columbus-statue-from-city-hall/" style="border: 0px; color: #e54e53; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.4s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;">San Jose</a>. These are not new appeals but in fact voices in a decades-long debate. Similarly, anonymous iconoclasts have of late vandalized Columbus statues, smashing the oldest known one, erected in 1792, in <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-columbus-monument-20170821-story.html" style="border: 0px; color: #e54e53; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.4s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;">Baltimore</a> and toppling one in <a href="http://nypost.com/2017/08/30/vandals-behead-christopher-columbus-statue-in-westchester/" style="border: 0px; color: #e54e53; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.4s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;">Yonkers</a>. But this too is not new, as unidentified actors annually have doused Columbus images with symbolic red paint in places like <a href="http://boston.cbslocal.com/2015/06/30/christopher-columbus-statue-at-boston-park-vandalized-with-black-lives-matter/" style="border: 0px; color: #e54e53; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.4s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;">Boston</a>, <a href="http://www.khou.com/news/local/christopher-columbus-statue-vandalized-in-houstons-bell-park/465300272" style="border: 0px; color: #e54e53; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.4s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;">Houston</a>, and <a href="http://turnto10.com/archive/columbus-statue-vandalized-with-red-paint" style="border: 0px; color: #e54e53; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.4s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;">Providence</a>. Protesting traditional representations of Columbus, members of the American Indian Movement in Denver and Pueblo have defaced Columbus statues by pouring blood on them and, and in the latter city, affixing images of Adolf Hitler and a skeleton holding brown baby dolls to the statue.</div>
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We cannot easily compare Columbus statues and monuments with those that glorify Confederates, armed traitors to the nation and defenders of slavery. Most Confederate monuments were erected as part of Jim Crow and in opposition to the Civil Rights Movement. The proliferation of Columbus representations to a large degree occurred in a different context; namely, the arrival and fraught assimilation of more than four million Italian immigrants at the turn of the twentieth century. The dynamics of symbol-building around Columbus for a once marginalized and attacked immigrant community—whose descendants are now firmly planted in corporate boardrooms, the highest echelons of political power, and white suburbia—necessitate a nuanced discussion about class and race in the United States.</div>
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The countless memorials to Columbus that now dot the U.S. landscape were constructed in a variety of different circumstances. Columbus, as a symbol of individualistic resolve and ultimately of Manifest Destiny, emerged as an American cult hero before most Italian immigrants arrived. Washington Irving’s 1828 multi-tomed paean reveals early lionization of Columbus, as does the 1893 Chicago’s World Fair dedication to Columbus’s first voyage. The Knights of Columbus, a Catholic voluntary association founded by Irish immigrants in 1882, was instrumental in championing Columbus as an icon for Catholic assimilation.</div>
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In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Italian immigrants saw the American idolization of Columbus as a way to deflect the onslaught of xenophobic and racial prejudice and violence they encountered, and for which they were relatively unprepared, as new arrivals in the United States. They bought into and contributed to a specific Italian reading of Columbus in relationship to their brutal experiences of bigotry. Italian Americans built their emerging identity as provisional whites out of this hagiography.</div>
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The connections between Columbus and Italian Americans developed in great part through the work of Italian immigrant <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">prominenti</em>, ethnic leaders who served as intermediaries between WASP elites and the working poor and who supported an upper-class notion of Italian national identity. These included Angelo Noce, a publisher who spearheaded the first declaration of Columbus Day as a state holiday, in Colorado, in 1907, and Carlo Barsotti, a banker and newspaper editor who solicited funds from primarily working-class immigrants to erect New York City’s Columbus monument in 1892. These leaders, many from northern Italy, “argued for full inclusion as Americans based upon an imagined ‘Italian’ heritage of civilization and whiteness,” as historian Peter G. Vellon reveals. In Columbus, they perceived a tool by which to forge an Italian national identity which did not exist among the vast majority of immigrants from southern Italy whose geopolitical affinities were to their local villages. By perpetuating ideas of a united Italian community based on racial hierarchies and a grand history of an assumed, singular Italian civilization, the <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">prominenti</em> imposed elitist notions of a unified Italian American community that was removed from working-class understandings of history and social formations, and that relied on Italians aligning themselves with a white majority. At the same time, the <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">prominenti</em> devalued and inhibited a whole host of Italian working-class cultural expressions that became more and more associated with ignorance and vulgarity—from undermining the practice of Catholic street feasts to belittling the use of Italian regional dialects.</div>
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The quintessential <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">prominente, </em>Generoso Pope, was instrumental in cementing Italian Americans to Columbus. A powerful businessman and influential newspaper owner in New York City, Pope was pro-Fascist. He used his Italian language daily <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Il Progresso Italo-Americano </em>during the 1920s and 1930s as propaganda for the Italian dictator, and he led Columbus Day gatherings at Columbus Circle where audience members made the fascist salute (and anti-fascist Italian Americans protested both vocally and physically). Critical in securing the Italian American vote for Franklin D. Roosevelt, he later lobbied FDR’s administration for an annual national Columbus Day, eventually proclaimed in 1937.</div>
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Significantly, many Columbus statues around the country were commissioned, paid for, and built by Italian immigrants. The statues were not created—as in the case of Confederate statues—to impose political dominance over others; on the contrary, the monuments were a means to gain entrance into a racist society under the cover of whiteness. Theirs was no doubt a troubling, but all-too-common, approach to assimilation. Contributions of small change from working-class Italian immigrants helped underwrite statues like the grandiose marble one dedicated in 1892 in New York City or the smaller bronze one erected in 1930 in <a href="http://www.mcall.com/mc-kkk-fought-easton-columbus-statue-20141011-story.html" style="border: 0px; color: #e54e53; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.4s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;">Easton</a>, Pennsylvania. In some communities like Easton and <a href="http://richmondmagazine.com/arts-entertainment/columbus-discovered/" style="border: 0px; color: #e54e53; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.4s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;">Richmond</a>, Virginia, the Ku Klux Klan actively campaigned to prevent the placement of Columbus statues in public spaces in opposition to Catholics and “foreigners.” In short, these monuments were historically contested sites where Italian immigrants sought visibility in the remaking of local landscapes and the larger political sphere.</div>
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In 1971, politicians and business people, many of them Italian American, succeeded in making Columbus Day a federal holiday. This legal holiday—which, importantly, has never been officially named as a day for Italian Americans—came about with the rise of the white ethnic revival, when the national discourse around normative whiteness shifted from “Plymouth Rock whiteness to Ellis Island whiteness,” as Matthew Frye Jacobson has noted. In brief, Columbus Day coalesced at the moment ethnic Europeans became most invested in whiteness, in the face of civil rights movements of African Americans and other minority communities, including, importantly, Native Americans.</div>
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Today, representatives of local and national voluntary associations such as the National Italian American Foundation, UNICO National, and the Order Sons of Italy in America have come out vigorously in opposition to the removal of Columbus statues in the name of Italian American victimization, while rearticulating their support for Columbus Day. Their position perpetuates the elite Italian national history championed by the <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">prominenti</em> in the early twentieth century and the limiting Italian American identity that developed with the white ethnic revival.</div>
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These self-appointed ethnic leaders claim to speak not just for their membership, but also on behalf of a larger and unspecific Italian American community. Yet, numerous Italian American poets, activists, and scholars have long spoken out against Columbus and his legacy. In different moments, groups such as the New York City-based Italian Americans for a Multicultural United States, the San Francisco-based Italian American Political Solidarity Club, and the national <a href="https://nocolumbusday.wordpress.com/" style="border: 0px; color: #e54e53; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.4s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;">NoColumbusDay</a> group, as well as individuals such as poets Diane di Prima (“Whose Day Is It Anyway?”) and Robert Viscusi (“An Oration Upon the Most Recent Death of Christopher Columbus”), have offered counter-narratives to a purported Italian ethnic solidarity and its symbols. But these voices, as strong as they are, do not hold the same weight as marble.</div>
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<img alt="" class="wp-image-3989 size-medium no-display appear" height="214" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" src="https://i1.wp.com/www.processhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Carlo-Tresca-2.jpg?resize=300%2C214" srcset="https://i1.wp.com/www.processhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Carlo-Tresca-2.jpg?resize=300%2C214 300w, https://i1.wp.com/www.processhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Carlo-Tresca-2.jpg?resize=269%2C192 269w, https://i1.wp.com/www.processhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Carlo-Tresca-2.jpg?w=833 833w" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; opacity: 1; padding: 0px; transition: all 0.4s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline; will-change: opacity;" width="300" /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.923em; font-style: italic; margin-right: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
Sympathy Labor Parade for Carlo Tresca, December 2, 1916, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.</div>
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The lack of commemorative public art dedicated to Italian American activists—such as Angela Bambace, Pete Panto, and Carlo Tresca, who struggled on behalf of workers’ rights, and James Groppi and Vito Russo, who fought on behalf of civil rights—or victims of anti-Italian violence, such as the eleven men lynched in New Orleans in 1891, let alone the executed anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti, is not surprising. Early-twentieth-century ethnic leaders ingratiated themselves with the Anglo-Saxon ruling class, profited from the working poor, spoke out against unions, and aligned themselves at times with Fascists. Over the years, the labor and civil rights of working-class Italian Americans were ferociously suppressed. Barring only a few examples, such as the 1918 Colorado Ludlow Monument and the planned memorial to the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in New York City, Italian Americans have rarely worked for the commemoration of their working-class immigrant history and have ignored, forgotten, or otherwise erased aspects of their collective experiences.</div>
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All symbolic works, especially those that bear the weight of group identities, are open to re-interpretation by members of a pluralistic society. Understanding the historical context in which commemorative objects are erected reminds us of the dangers of investing too much symbolic power in any one individual. We instead imagine alternatives and look toward a new generation of Italian Americans who find different ways to bear witness to their histories and evolving lives.</div>
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<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Laura E. Ruberto is a professor in the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies at Berkeley City College and the author of </em>Gramsci Migration and the Representation of Women’s Work in Italy and the U.S.<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> (2007). Joseph Sciorra is a director at Queens College’s John D. Calandra Italian American Institute and the author of </em>Built with Faith: Italian American Imagination and Catholic Material Culture in New York City<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> (2015). Ruberto and Sciorra are the co-editors of the two-volume </em>New Italian Migrations to the United States, Vol. 1: Politics and History since 1945<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> (2017) and </em>Vol 2: Art and Culture since 1945<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> (2017).</em></div>
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Selected Bibliography<u></u></h4>
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Deschamps, Bénédicte. “Italian-Americans and Columbus Day: A Quest for Consensus between National and Group Identities, 1840-1910.” In <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Celebrating Ethnicity and Nation: American Festive Culture from the Revolution to the Early Twentieth Century</em>, edited by Jürgen Heideking, Genève Fabre, and Kai Dreisbach, 124-39. New York: Berghahn Books, 2001.</div>
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Jacobson, Matthew Frye. <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Roots Too: White Ethnic Revival in Post-Civil Rights America</em> Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.</div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.857em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Klain, Bennie, dir. <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Columbus Day Legacy</em>. TricksterFilms, 2011.</div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.857em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Kubal, Timothy. <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Cultural Movements and Collective Memory: Christopher Columbus and the Rewriting of the National Origin Myth</em>. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.</div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.857em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
di Prima, Diane. “Whose Day Is it Anyway?” In <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Avanti Popolo: Italian-American Writers Sail Beyond Columbus</em>, edited by the Italian-American Political Solidarity Club, 13-16. San Francisco: Manic D Press, 2008.</div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.857em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Saverino, Joan L. “Italians in Public Memory: Pageantry, Power, and Imagining the ‘Italian American’ in Reading, Pennsylvania.” In <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Italian Folk: Vernacular Culture in Italian-American Lives</em>, edited by Joseph Sciorra, 153-69. New York: Fordham University Press 2011.</div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.857em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Vellon, Peter G. <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A Great Conspiracy against Our Race: Italian Immigrant Newspapers and the Construction of Whiteness in the Early 20th Century</em>. New York: New York University Press, 2014.</div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.857em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Viscusi, Roberto. <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">An Oration upon the Most Recent Death of Christopher Columbus</em> (West Lafayette, IN: Bordighera, 1993.</div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.857em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Williams, John Alexander. “The Columbus Complex.” In <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Old Ties, New Attachments: Italian-American Folklife in the West</em>, edited by David A. Taylor and John Alexander Williams, 196-209. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1992.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03381354424836201473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6778502431400174863.post-6887981200437107012018-10-03T09:32:00.000-07:002018-10-03T09:32:19.572-07:00A Journey into the Matter of Blindness<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">A Deeper
Darkness<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">from Mr.
DiDonna<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This past
summer I had the privilege of attending a permanent exhibit at the Israeli Children’s
Museum in Holon, Israel. I was delivered to the venue by an Israeli host
without forewarning of what was about to ensue. I could tell something was up
by the look of mischief on her face, and this made me a bit suspicious. I mean,
it was a “museum,” not a house of horrors. Upon checking in, I was led over to
a small waiting area and handed a walking stick usually reserved for people who
are blind. I was surrounded by a gathering of about a dozen fellow participants
(with identical walking sticks) whom I had never met, and with whom I believed
I had nothing in common. As I continued to focus on the sign overhead which
read “Dialogue in the Dark,” I searched for clues as to what I was about to
experience. My hosts remained silent. Soon, a concierge introduced herself and explained
that we would be escorted through the “installation” for the next hour and a
half by a person who was blind. We were told his name would be, Seadya. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We were led out
of the foyer and into another room, where a door closed behind us. In that
instant, I was cast into pitch darkness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Now, there is the kind of darkness where one’s eyes eventually adjust
over time, and where figures and shadows, along with other sources of light
(door cracks, for example) come into focus. This room was sealed of any such
leakage. There weren’t any contours, not one silhouette, or outline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only color that existed was black,
without even an inkling of gray. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In that room
our tour guide, Seadya, would introduce himself and informed us that he, the
blind person the concierge had eluded to, would be leading us through several
rooms over the course of the afternoon, each its own separate environment, each
its own separate experience. He told us we would find objects in our path that
we would have to navigate with the help of our walking sticks and by following
the sound of his voice. We were ushered along through environments like a
simulated street corner with an actual “parked” car in the room, then into a
movie theater, then a grocery store, and later, a discotheque. This was all in
the same pitch darkness. Whenever Seadya sensed we were feeling lost and
insecure, he would make his way to us individually and helped us advance with
the knowing reassurance of his hand and his voice. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Despite his
all too familiar sensitivity to our journey, I began to feel a deep sense of
loneliness, and not the kind of loneliness one feels because they haven’t any
friends on a Friday night. This loneliness was existential. We had lost our
eyes. We were subject to a condition that created a rupture in everything we
had considered normal up to that moment. As participants we began to talk to
one another, not out of a need to be polite, but because we needed one another to
find our way forward through the tour. It became all too evident how truly
interdependent we each were and have probably always been. It became all too
evident what life had been like for Seadya his entire life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">For many of
us who have the luxury of going through our daily lives with relatively healthy
eyesight, the vicarious possibility of closing one’s eyes to simulate the
experience of blindness, seems plausible. One can, for example, place
themselves in a darkened room at home, with closed eyes to ensure a full
effect, and think, “oh, this is what it feels like.” However, the knowledge
that the experiment could be aborted at any time, prevents any real anxiety
from entering one’s experience. Further, in any dark room of a standard house, some
source of light would always be present. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, in the passageways of this
“installation,” there wasn’t any relief to be found. We were all cast in
darkness together. And, in this darkness, we were also alone in our thoughts.
Questions and doubts around trust emerged. Along with that, the consideration
that I could one day find myself in this condition, began to hound me. The
vulnerability was exceptional. I was dizzy, often off balance, and deeply
confused. As I reached out my hand feeling for the security of the strangers
accompanying me, I also found myself feeling deep gratitude for the presence of
those very strangers. What would I do on a Boston street corner in this condition?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">At the end
of the exhibit, we all sat at a table in a cafeteria with Seadya and were given
the opportunity, while still in the dark,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>to ask him questions as he informed us of his own experiences and some
general statistics around blindness. For example, he stated that approximately
only 10 % of people who are blind see absolute darkness. He stated that the
other 90% see some variation of shadow. He urged us to not think of people with
disability as weak, but as possessing a special brand of strength. While
listening to him, I began to develop a sober and respectful insight into the
categories of human courage and faith. My inner world directed by my own
internal radar, became the guidepost. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We live in a
world that isn’t designed for people possessing only four of the five known
senses. The world makes accommodations for those people, but rarely does the
creator of the design factor such individuals into its overall vision. In a
sense, they come after; they are an afterthought. On this afternoon, I was
exposed to what it feels like to be rendered incidental in a world of people
defined by their own derived sense of purpose, where something as mundane as
pouring a glass of water, the buttering of one’s bread, or the counting of
money, becomes a challenge that must be navigated...in the dark. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03381354424836201473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6778502431400174863.post-56402538060635081072018-02-25T18:54:00.004-08:002018-02-25T18:54:48.776-08:00Yoga, Trauma and Social Justice<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GXdrp9ZQmHw/WpMucq33E4I/AAAAAAAAAb4/2Vx-el6o0oEr6nJZnIEbHlhQaWwbjsjngCLcBGAs/s1600/7491491400-cd513e106f-b-d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="1024" height="213" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GXdrp9ZQmHw/WpMucq33E4I/AAAAAAAAAb4/2Vx-el6o0oEr6nJZnIEbHlhQaWwbjsjngCLcBGAs/s320/7491491400-cd513e106f-b-d.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Hey all!<br />
<br />
Yesterday I participated in a great workshop called "The Issues In Our Tissues: Yoga, Trauma and Social Justice." You may be wondering: what the heck does yoga have to do with trauma and social justice?<br />
<br />
Well...plenty.<br />
<br />
It's well documented that communities and subgroups of folks who suffer the injustices of the world are more likely to suffer trauma. Trauma is what happens when our ability to cope is overwhelmed, leaving us feeling helpless, hopeless and out of control. In situations of trauma and stress, our sympathetic nervous system activates and we go into fight / flight / freeze mode. Being in an activated state for a prolonged period of time takes its toll on our bodies and minds.<br />
<br />
Whether we as individuals belong to an oppressed group, or whether we are taking part in social justice work, or even if we are just existing in today's political and social landscape, our nervous systems are, no doubt, activated. When we're in this state of high alert activation, our parasympathetic nervous system - the rest / digest / heal / restore mode - is off.<br />
<br />
Think about it. When we're experiencing stress and trauma, whether it's one time or recurring, we can't fully engage the system responsible for healing and restoring. To be truly present in conversations around social justice, we must first look inward and care for ourselves.<br />
<br />
Taking time for self care means slowing down. This can mean taking time for mindfulness, for yoga/movement, for breath work. These strategies have been effective for people of all ages. When we intentionally care for ourselves and activate our abilities to rest and slow down, we are more prepared to be compassionate. We are more resourced to be better listeners and communicators, to build community and interdependence. We have more capacity for empathy, both for others as well as for ourselves.<br />
<br />
Isn't this a really necessary first step in doing the deeply important work of social justice?<br />
<br />
I'd love to hear your thoughts, FRS.<br />
<br />
~ Kate Blair<br />
<br />
<br />Ms. Blairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08502267140466060799noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6778502431400174863.post-22742420164286220762018-02-22T12:12:00.001-08:002018-02-22T12:12:42.304-08:00What Mr. Costello Is Reading Right Now: Ta'Nehisi Coates and "Black Panther"Hi MTW!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2016/03/WEL_Coates_BlackPanther_Concept1/0d24ef7bf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="434" data-original-width="562" src="https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2016/03/WEL_Coates_BlackPanther_Concept1/0d24ef7bf.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Still Black History Month!<br />
<br />
With <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_(film)">"Black Panther"</a> dominating the box office in a historic way since its release, an entire generation of action movie enthusiasts and comic book lovers will have a black superhero from the genre-defining, and predominantly white, Marvel Universe lead the way for hero narratives. Marvel's "Black Panther" release continues a paradigm shift for the way that our society has viewed "the hero" in mainstream media for the last 60-70 years or so. <a href="https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/best-superhero-movies-of-all-time/3/">Rotten Tomatoes has ranked "Black Panther" as the "Best Super Hero Movie of All Time."</a> DC's "Wonder Woman" is equally as important for this cultural shift at #2.<br />
<br />
In 2015, Ta'Nehisi Coates was asked to rewrite the "Black Panther" comic universe from the 1960's and revamp the narrative for our modern climate. The result was published by Marvel and inspired the film. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-return-of-the-black-panther/471516/">Coates discusses his writing and the challenges that come with writing for a visual medium in <i>The Atlantic:</i></a><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Lyon Text", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 18px;"><i>Comic books are absurd. At any moment, the Avengers might include a hero drawn from Norse mythology (Thor), a monstrous realization of our nuclear-age nightmares (the Hulk), a creation of science fiction (Wasp), and an allegory for the experience of minorities in human society (Beast). But the absurdities of comics are, in part, made possible by a cold-eyed approach to sentence-craft. Even when the language tips toward bombast, space is at a premium; every word has to count. This big/small approach to literature, the absurd and surreal married to the concrete and tangible, has undergirded much of my approach to writing.</i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Lyon Text", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 18px;"><br /></span>
Take some time to recognize who and what creates the prevailing storylines that dominate our lives. Coates and the "Black Panther" family deserve a lot of credit for helping to re-write our culture's "normal" for the next generation.<br />
<br />
--CUnknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6778502431400174863.post-12147888468994112352018-02-16T06:55:00.003-08:002018-02-16T08:13:57.868-08:00What Ms. Strelke shared with Mr. DiDonna<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<img alt="An Italian immigrant family on a ferry from the docks to Ellis Island, New York." class="subbuzz__media-image js-subbuzz__media js-progressive-image js-pinnable xs-col-12 xs-block img--loaded" data-bfa="@o:{ignore:[bfaBinder]};" data-crop="30.56" data-force-desktop-width="1600" data-loaded="1" data-mobile-crop="109.64" data-mobile-src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2016-08/4/16/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane03/sub-buzz-8300-1470341423-1.jpg?crop=446:489;557,0" data-pin-media="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2016-08/4/16/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane03/sub-buzz-8300-1470341423-1.jpg?downsize=1600:*&output-format=auto&output-quality=auto" data-span="1" data-src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2016-08/4/16/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane03/sub-buzz-8300-1470341423-1.jpg" height="193" src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2016-08/4/16/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane03/sub-buzz-8300-1470341423-1.jpg?downsize=1600:*&output-format=auto&output-quality=auto" width="640" /></div>
<a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/adamserwer/how-an-1891-mass-lynching-tried-to-make-america-great-again?utm_term=.inpaaLN0vB#.pmWqq7ReVm">https://www.buzzfeed.com/adamserwer/how-an-1891-mass-lynching-tried-to-make-america-great-again?utm_term=.inpaaLN0vB#.pmWqq7ReVm</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #9b9b9b; font-family: "sorts mill goudy"; font-size: 20px;">In the hysteria following the murder of a New Orleans police chief, 11 Italian-Americans were lynched by a vigilante mob angry about the city's influx of immigrants. Here's how the past and future of American nativism may not be that different.</span><br />
<span style="color: #9b9b9b; font-family: "sorts mill goudy"; font-size: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #9b9b9b; font-family: "sorts mill goudy";"><span style="font-size: 20px;">Click the link</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03381354424836201473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6778502431400174863.post-47703916216564690302018-02-11T19:22:00.001-08:002018-02-11T19:22:15.447-08:00What Mr. Costello Is Reading Right Now: "Dear Black Athlete"Hi MTW!<br />
<br />
It's Black History Month!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://txmgv24xack1i8jje2nayxpr-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/us/files/2018/01/Picture1-383x400.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="383" height="400" src="https://txmgv24xack1i8jje2nayxpr-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/us/files/2018/01/Picture1-383x400.png" width="382" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
ESPN and <a href="https://theundefeated.com/">"The Undefeated"</a> air "Dear Black Athlete" this month. "The Undefeated" is a corner of ESPN's franchise which is specifically designed <a href="https://theundefeated.com/about/">"for exploring the intersections of race, sports and culture. [They] enlighten and entertain with innovative storytelling, original reporting and provocative commentary."</a> The show is a combination of different panel discussions, and letters from athletes, that address different issues that affect the black community.<br />
<br />
Halfway through the program, embattled ESPN personality Jemele Hill responds to a question about the measure of responsibility that the black community has to facilitate a social change. Her response was that black people have a lot of experience talking about race, and she acknowledged that almost the entire live audience of the program was black, and very interested in the topics being discussed. Then she asked, "Where are the white people?" The message was clear: white allies are essential for any kind of positive social change, and it starts with listening. There are so many examples in contemporary sports culture that would prove this to be true. <a href="http://micthewhispers.blogspot.com/2018/01/what-mr-costello-is-reading-right-now.html">Earlier on MTW, I shared an article on Jaylen Brown's experience as a black athlete and in the NBA</a>, and growing up realizing that black athletes are treated differently than white athletes. <br />
<br />
There is a prideful athletic tradition at Frontier, and it is no secret that the majority of the student body and student athletes are white. We all know sports at its best can be a leveling mechanism for athletes to be judged for their merits in skill or athleticism, but at its worst it can be about exclusion, fear, intimidation, bias, stress. "Dear Black Athlete" was a nice reminder for me, as a teacher and coach, and a white cis male, to keep my eyes and ears open to what all my students and athletes are dealing with on a micro and macro scale.<br />
<br />
I strongly recommend <a href="https://theundefeated.com/">"The Undefeated"</a> for young athletes for some enlightening reading. How does your experience playing sports impact your identity as a person? Have you ever become aware of social intersections as an athlete that have made you question the role of sports in your life?<br />
<br />
--C<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6778502431400174863.post-66803756981451037742018-02-11T17:43:00.000-08:002018-02-13T19:20:48.276-08:00Mateo on Justice, Power, Oppression, and other topics<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: right;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Mateo Rull 12th grade</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: right;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Social Justice Magazine Club</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: right;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">01/29/2018</span></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WOi3kMqqdhM/WoDuzgypWeI/AAAAAAAAAIM/XyHxXeb-dZQcpKDOnI5Le4vDDWOfmLA7QCLcBGAs/s1600/5653819568_be722c3d64_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="669" data-original-width="651" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WOi3kMqqdhM/WoDuzgypWeI/AAAAAAAAAIM/XyHxXeb-dZQcpKDOnI5Le4vDDWOfmLA7QCLcBGAs/s400/5653819568_be722c3d64_o.jpg" width="388" /></a></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-f50496a3-53a3-ceff-2481-0e41b9350f73" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">What is justice? What does it mean and look like within our school, community, and society?</span></b><br />
<br />
<br />
Justice, similarly to the other abstract terms that will be discussed, derives its meaning entirely based off the personal, individual convictions people hold of it. If the definition and application of this particular concept is thus ambiguous, how is something veridically considered just or unjust? The answer is simple, yet very misleading; it has to be agreed upon by a majority (or the respective socio-political authority). This very incongruence in its definition has blurred the concept enough to be wrongfully attributed to its antonym, injustice. A system based by normative rule inevitably carries with it a possibility for the discussed incongruence. In times past, the people (and the power that rests with them) may have deemed something as radical as racial segregation just when, in reality (although the conflict indeed had been agreed by a majority as just), was thoroughly unjust. Nowadays, this democratic ‘golden rule’ is somewhat more progressive and refined than previously; yet the possibility of incongruence will persist and survive for as long as democracy does. Why is this? This last question is far more difficult to answer; in brevity, it is because we humans are incongruent beings ourselves; we tend to listen not to the voice of reason, but to the voice that is louder, passionate and authoritative. We don’t stop to question the preconceptions and fallacies of the modern society we live in, instead abiding to its systematic rules for the purpose of ‘fitting in’. It thus becomes our personal mission to battle with this appealing conformity, in our unique and individual struggle for social justice; advocating not for what is considered just, but for what our most pure, kind, childish and gentle impulse commands us as a species: peaceful and effective coexistence.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><br /><span style="font-size: large;">Who and what is power and why? How have people gained power? How can we gain power? </span></b><br />
<br />
<br />
Using Dante’s poetic strategy of embodying the abstract, we can better understand power and other terms in the future: We can then think of Power as a very gregarious individual, a person; and furthermore, a convenient acquaintance for anybody. I say convenient because the credibility and authority that precedes Power will offer its various acquaintances the ability of influence and persuasion without the need for disillusion and dishonesty. No matter its erratic nature, a powerful mandate will be established as both morally acceptable and necessary for the good of its topical application. Power is then not only a dangerous but a very naive individual, because it is not that Power is ill intended, but rather that he is gullible (which is in itself very ironic) and easily manipulated by the real, malevolent tyrant. <br />
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However, the acquaintance of Power is a double edged sword as well. If found in gentle company, its influence can become philanthropic and benevolent. The consequences of an acquaintance with power rely not in its faithfuls or in Power himself, but in the individual manipulating him. What the author is desperately trying to convey is that there is no such thing as evil Power; instead, Power is a vessel that can be filled with either a nurturing or noxious nectar; which has a direct impact to the development of hierarchy in government and society as a whole.<br />
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Having clarified that, an important question still remains: how does one acquire the acquaintance of Power? When asking my friends this question, most recur to the logical connection that Power has: money. At first, I immediately disagreed, instead proposing that Power’s relationship with money was one of deceitful correlation, and not causation. However, after pondering on this question further, I came to the realization that regardless if one does not have money before acquainting Power, one will always end up acquainting Power after acquiring money. What a gold digger huh? <br />
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Regardless, the question at hand still remains. I could continue to write about these correlation relationships that either accompany or succeed Power, such as social/inter social hierarchy, yet I feel like addressing these thoroughly would not only be a waste of time, but it would deviate us from reaching the real, meaningful answer we originally set out to find: True, raw Power, is conceived simultaneously with the vessel of its acquaintance. This means that one does not necessarily acquire power, but instead one is born with the potentiality for Power to acquaint and ultimately manifest in oneself. Much like two fraternal twins living their first 2 weeks of existence within the same fertilized egg. <br />
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This conclusion also helps to understand the complex relationship between Power and its manifestations in an individual. An individual can be placed in a position of authority without an innate sense of power (regardless if the individual can furthermore put up a facade that reflects authority) and yet still hold the influence that comes with the position of authority (showcased in the following discussed Milgram experiment). In contrast, an innate powerful individual will exert his influence without the need of the position of authority; although ultimately if the individual pursues it, it is likely for him to reach said position. We see this pattern repeat itself for the aforementioned manifestations; money, and social hierarchy.<br />
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<b><br /><span style="font-size: large;">What is agency and what does it look like?</span></b><br />
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In the previous essay’s section of authority, we talk about the individual(s) exerting it (that is, Power and its acquaintance), but have not addressed the other vital facet of successful influence: obedience. Stanley Milgram, a psychology professor at Yale University, performed his (in)famous obedience experiments of 1963. Milgram “examined justifications for acts of genocide offered by those accused at the World War II, Nuremberg War Criminal trials. Their defense often was based on "<a href="https://www.simplypsychology.org/obedience.html">obedience</a>" - that they were just following orders from their superiors” (McLeod). In brevity, he wanted to test his hypothesis that people, under the influence of an authority, will succumb to obedience even to the extent of inflicting pain, or worse, on another individual. <br />
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Milgram’s experiment consisted on a pair of ‘volunteers’, were a Milgram’s confederate was always designated to a ‘student’ position, and was strapped to an electrical chair that was supposed to give out electrical shocks whenever he failed to answer a question right. On the other hand, the real participant was a ‘teacher’ whose job was to ask the questions and administer the shocks if the answer was wrong; and everytime it was, increase the intensity or Voltage of the shock. <br />
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The teacher was placed in a room right next to the student, with an authoritative looking experimenter dressed in a lab coat, and an electric shock generator that read 15 Volts all the way to 450, right next to the words DANGER. The student then proceeded to (purposely) answer many questions wrong; and when the teacher was hesitant to continue, he was persuaded by 4 prods that the experimenter used in order when the teacher continued to refuse administering the shocks:<br />
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<b>Prod 1:</b> Please continue.<br />
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<b>Prod 2:</b> The experiment requires you to continue.<br />
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<b>Prod 3:</b> It is absolutely essential that you continue.<br />
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<b>Prod 4:</b> You have no other choice but to continue.<br />
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Thankfully in this already controversial experiment, the shocks were fake, and the pain acted by Milgram’s confederate was too. However, it was fascinating to see that even though only “65% (two-thirds) of the participants (i.e., teachers) continued to the highest level of 450 volts, all the participants continued to 300 volts” (McLeod). <br />
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What we are to take away from this set of experiments is the danger that obedience poses on an individual. Because not just the gullible, submissive, or obedient participants continued with the experiment, but all of them did. Blind obedience to an authority is the break of our agency, our ability as human beings to make decisions based not on set guidelines, not on protocol, not on peer pressure, not on the influence of an authority, but based on our own moral and humane sense of justice and morality. This, the first step towards combating the oppression of agency and justice, is precisely what we should aim for.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />What are the issues of oppression within our school, community, and society?</span></b><br />
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We are extremely privileged to study in a concerned and involved school such as Frontier. We are likewise privileged to live in such a progressive and liberal area (although diversity may be somewhat lacking), and it is okay to acknowledge this. As previously discussed in one of my essay responses, there is no shame in acknowledging and enjoying privilege. In order to successfully enjoy privilege however, (also as previously discussed in said essay, The Responsibility of Privilege) one must strive to dismiss any delusion of superiority, while also bearing the responsibility of applying this privilege for the welfare of those who lack it; to those in other parts of this school, town, country or world who are not so privileged. How does one achieve this? Well, its quite simple. Make other people happy; and if you can, make people who are often unhappy, happy: charity work, food pantries, volunteering, even paid work with a big smile and a quick compliment can make someone’s day you know? Small acts of kindness go a longer way than people expect them to. <br />
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What the author is again trying so desperately to convey is that there is no need to be a superhero. No super-force or lightning speed will save this world from the repercussions of power but the small acts of kindness which we can all understand and appreciate.<br />
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However, there are still countless victims of oppression throughout the world (and even in our school): socio-economy, skin color, gender identity, nationality, physical appearance, fashion style; everything that makes us unique, everything that makes us individuals, also makes us alienate from one another. How ironic, is it not? We criticize others for who they are and yet we fail to see the many criticizable aspects of our own self. This is why people who are most self-aware (note the word choice; self aware is not the same as having a poor self-esteem, but merely refers to the empathy that tags along with an absence of egocentricity) tend to be more polite and considerate for others, because they realize that there is no reason to call someone a dimwit, if we all are in fact, dimwits as well. We should strive to reach this enlightenment. Today, I invite you to start to be self-aware. Know yourself, know who you are; identify yourself as a responsible individual, and in doing so, break through the stigmas that so often leads to oppression. <br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Works Cited: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">McLeod, Saul. (2007) “The Milgram Experiment” Retrieved from </span><a href="https://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">https://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> on January 29th, 2018.</span></div>
<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6778502431400174863.post-49003802044239215172018-02-06T08:42:00.001-08:002018-02-06T08:44:44.488-08:00What Mr. DiDonna read today<br />
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Poland’s President Supports Making Some Holocaust Statements a Crime</h1>
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<img alt="" class="media-viewer-candidate" data-mediaviewer-caption="A rally outside the presidential palace in Warsaw on Monday, in support of a bill that would make it illegal to accuse the country of complicity in the Holocaust. A counter-protest also took place." data-mediaviewer-credit="Agencja Gazeta/Reuters" data-mediaviewer-src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/02/07/world/07Warsaw1/merlin_133344830_ae626f5e-8670-42b0-bba0-d13c5772f1ed-superJumbo.jpg" itemid="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/02/07/world/07Warsaw1/merlin_133344830_ae626f5e-8670-42b0-bba0-d13c5772f1ed-master768.jpg" itemprop="url" src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/02/07/world/07Warsaw1/merlin_133344830_ae626f5e-8670-42b0-bba0-d13c5772f1ed-master768.jpg" style="display: block; height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: 630px;" /><div class="media-action-overlay" style="border-radius: 6px; border: 1px solid rgba(200, 200, 200, 0.8); bottom: 15px; cursor: pointer; left: 15px; opacity: 0; position: absolute; transition: opacity 0.2s ease-in; z-index: 5;">
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<figcaption class="caption" itemprop="caption description" style="color: #666666; font-family: nyt-cheltenham-sh, georgia, "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 0.8125rem; line-height: 1.0625rem; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; max-width: 600px;"><span class="caption-text">A rally outside the presidential palace in Warsaw on Monday, in support of a bill that would make it illegal to accuse the country of complicity in the Holocaust. A counter-protest also took place.</span><span class="credit" itemprop="copyrightHolder" style="color: #999999; display: inline-block; font-size: 0.6875rem; line-height: 1rem;"><span class="visually-hidden" style="border: 0px; clip: rect(0px 0px 0px 0px); height: 1px; margin: -1px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: absolute; width: 1px;">Credit</span>Agencja Gazeta/Reuters</span></figcaption></figure><div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="392" data-total-count="392" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 1.0625rem; line-height: 1.625rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 60px; max-width: none; width: 540px;">
WARSAW — President Andrzej Duda said on Tuesday that he would sign into law a bill making it illegal to accuse “the Polish nation” of complicity in the Holocaust and other Nazi atrocities, a measure that has roiled relations with Israel and the United States, and spurred claims that the nationalist government is trying to whitewash one of the bloodiest chapters in Poland’s history.</div>
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Opponents have predicted that the law — which prohibits, among other things, the phrase “Polish death camp” — would stifle free speech and put questions of historical accuracy into the hands of judges and prosecutors who may be more motivated by politics than scholarship. Despite weeks of ferocious criticism from other nations and from independent scholars, Mr. Duda’s right-wing Law and Justice Party pressed ahead with the bill.</div>
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Mr. Duda said in a speech broadcast on Polish television and radio that he would sign the measure, while asking the Constitutional Court to determine whether the law violated free-speech protections and to make clear specifically what kinds of speech could be prosecuted. He said that the government wanted to be sure that survivors of war crimes felt free to tell their stories without fear.</div>
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But a judicial review is unlikely to placate those who have accused the Law and Justice Party of dangerous revisionism. It is unclear when the high court, which is controlled by judges appointed by Mr. Duda’s party, might act; the law would remain in effect at least until then.</div>
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In Poland, the governing party has tightened its control of the courts and state media in ways that have brought <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/world/europe/poland-eu-parliament.html?_r=0" style="color: #326891;">condemnation from the European Union</a>, which has accused it of undermining democracy, and has opened the door to the bloc’s taking punitive action. The new law reflects a broader effort by the government to shape both memories of the country’s past and its vision for the future.</div>
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For more than 20 minutes on Tuesday, Mr. Duda reviewed his country’s bloody history, noting time and again that both ethnic Poles and Jews died during the war. Like many Poles, he has a personal story of suffering: He said that h is grandfather’s brother was killed by the Nazis.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="115" data-total-count="2299" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 1.0625rem; line-height: 1.625rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 60px; max-width: none; width: 540px;">
“Those years when Poland was occupied by the Nazis was one of the darkest time in Poland’s history,” he said.</div>
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The Israeli response was muted on Tuesday, unlike the angry reactions of recent weeks, as the law neared enactment. The Foreign Ministry took note of the Constitutional Court review, and expressed hope that Israel would “manage to agree on changes and corrections.”</div>
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“Israel and Poland hold a joint responsibility to research and preserve the History of the Holocaust,” the ministry said.</div>
<figure aria-label="media" class="media photo embedded layout-large-horizontal media-100000005721870 ratio-tall" data-media-action="modal" id="media-100000005721870" itemid="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/02/07/world/07Warsaw2/merlin_133296630_b801dc42-fa05-425c-b941-0ff0636e6922-master675.jpg" itemprop="associatedMedia" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" role="group" style="clear: both; display: flex; flex-direction: column; margin: 45px 0px; max-width: none; position: relative; width: 600px;"><span class="visually-hidden" style="border: 0px; clip: rect(0px 0px 0px 0px); height: 1px; margin: -1px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: absolute; width: 1px;">Photo</span><div class="image" style="cursor: pointer; flex-shrink: 0; margin-bottom: 7px; position: relative;">
<img alt="" class="media-viewer-candidate" data-mediaviewer-caption="Visitors at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum on Sunday." data-mediaviewer-credit="Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York Times" data-mediaviewer-src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/02/07/world/07Warsaw2/merlin_133296630_b801dc42-fa05-425c-b941-0ff0636e6922-superJumbo.jpg" itemid="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/02/07/world/07Warsaw2/merlin_133296630_b801dc42-fa05-425c-b941-0ff0636e6922-master675.jpg" itemprop="url" src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/02/07/world/07Warsaw2/merlin_133296630_b801dc42-fa05-425c-b941-0ff0636e6922-master675.jpg" style="display: block; height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: 600px;" /><div class="media-action-overlay" style="border-radius: 6px; border: 1px solid rgba(200, 200, 200, 0.8); bottom: 15px; cursor: pointer; left: 15px; opacity: 0; position: absolute; transition: opacity 0.2s ease-in; z-index: 5;">
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<figcaption class="caption" itemprop="caption description" style="color: #666666; font-family: nyt-cheltenham-sh, georgia, "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 0.8125rem; line-height: 1.0625rem; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; max-width: 100%;"><span class="caption-text">Visitors at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum on Sunday.</span><span class="credit" itemprop="copyrightHolder" style="color: #999999; display: inline-block; font-size: 0.6875rem; line-height: 1rem;"><span class="visually-hidden" style="border: 0px; clip: rect(0px 0px 0px 0px); height: 1px; margin: -1px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: absolute; width: 1px;">Credit</span>Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York Times</span></figcaption></figure><div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="316" data-total-count="3009" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 1.0625rem; line-height: 1.625rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 60px; max-width: none; width: 540px;">
Ten days earlier, after Polish legislators approved the bill, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said, “One cannot change history, and the Holocaust cannot be denied.” Israel’s ambassador to Poland, Anna Azari, canceled a planned speech, saying, “Everyone in Israel was revolted at this news.”</div>
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Polish officials have said they will work with Israel and others to ensure that the law would not affect the work of scholars and artists.</div>
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“The worst thing about a law like this is that it convinces you that you understand yourself,” said Timothy D. Snyder, a professor of history at Yale whose book “Bloodlands” examined the deaths of 14 million civilians in Eastern Europe who were killed by the regimes of Hitler and Stalin. “Your confidence in yourself grows as your knowledge of yourself goes down.”</div>
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Dr. Snyder, whose book spurred <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/31/opinion/the-suffering-olympics.html" style="color: #326891;">highly politicized arguments</a> about collaboration, national suffering and ethnic chauvinism, said the fight over the Holocaust law was also tied to current tensions with the European Union, which in Poland is closely identified with Germany.</div>
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“The notion of wartime victimhood at the hand of Germans follows pretty easily into one of sovereignty,” he said, adding that sovereignty “is the right to define yourself as innocent.”</div>
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The new law taps into the widespread feeling in Poland that the the world does not fully understand the scale of wartime suffering for ethnic Poles.</div>
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From 1939 to 1945, some six million Poles were killed, more than one-sixth of the population. Half of those were ethnic Jews, and the Nazi regime built some of the most notorious concentration camps on Polish soil, including Auschwitz, Treblinka and Belzec.</div>
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At the outset of the war, Germany invaded from the west and the Soviet Union from the east; they partitioned Poland, which did not exist as an independent nation for more than five years. As a result, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told foreign journalists on Friday, it was not possible to blame the country for any of the horrors that took place during the war.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="213" data-total-count="4971" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 1.0625rem; line-height: 1.625rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 60px; max-width: none; width: 540px;">
He compared it to a bandit invading a home with two families: If the bandit slaughtered one family and killed several members of the other, he asked, how could that second family bear any culpability in the crime.</div>
<figure aria-label="media" class="media photo embedded layout-large-horizontal media-100000005721883 ratio-tall" data-media-action="modal" id="media-100000005721883" itemid="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/02/07/world/07Warsaw3/merlin_133363433_2b001507-9c2d-4dde-9e67-1eeb9e2323d4-master675.jpg" itemprop="associatedMedia" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" role="group" style="clear: both; display: flex; flex-direction: column; margin: 45px 0px; max-width: none; position: relative; width: 600px;"><span class="visually-hidden" style="border: 0px; clip: rect(0px 0px 0px 0px); height: 1px; margin: -1px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: absolute; width: 1px;">Photo</span><div class="image" style="cursor: pointer; flex-shrink: 0; margin-bottom: 7px; position: relative;">
<img alt="" class="media-viewer-candidate" data-mediaviewer-caption="President Andrzej Duda of Poland said on Tuesday that the government wanted to be sure that survivors of war crimes felt free to tell their stories without fear." data-mediaviewer-credit="Agencja Gazeta/Reuters" data-mediaviewer-src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/02/07/world/07Warsaw3/merlin_133363433_2b001507-9c2d-4dde-9e67-1eeb9e2323d4-superJumbo.jpg" itemid="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/02/07/world/07Warsaw3/merlin_133363433_2b001507-9c2d-4dde-9e67-1eeb9e2323d4-master675.jpg" itemprop="url" src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/02/07/world/07Warsaw3/merlin_133363433_2b001507-9c2d-4dde-9e67-1eeb9e2323d4-master675.jpg" style="display: block; height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: 600px;" /><div class="media-action-overlay" style="border-radius: 6px; border: 1px solid rgba(200, 200, 200, 0.8); bottom: 15px; cursor: pointer; left: 15px; opacity: 0; position: absolute; transition: opacity 0.2s ease-in; z-index: 5;">
<span class="icon sprite-icon" style="background-image: url("/assets/article/20180202-110728/images/sprite/sprite-no-repeat.svg"); background-position: -256px -135px; background-repeat: no-repeat; display: inline-block; height: 38px; line-height: 0; vertical-align: middle; width: 38px;"></span></div>
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<figcaption class="caption" itemprop="caption description" style="color: #666666; font-family: nyt-cheltenham-sh, georgia, "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 0.8125rem; line-height: 1.0625rem; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; max-width: 100%;"><span class="caption-text">President Andrzej Duda of Poland said on Tuesday that the government wanted to be sure that survivors of war crimes felt free to tell their stories without fear.</span> <span class="credit" itemprop="copyrightHolder" style="color: #999999; display: inline-block; font-size: 0.6875rem; line-height: 1rem;"><span class="visually-hidden" style="border: 0px; clip: rect(0px 0px 0px 0px); height: 1px; margin: -1px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: absolute; width: 1px;">Credit</span>Agencja Gazeta/Reuters</span></figcaption></figure><div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="194" data-total-count="5165" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 1.0625rem; line-height: 1.625rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 60px; max-width: none; width: 540px;">
Even those who oppose the law agree that the phrase “Polish death camp” is historically inaccurate. Both Israel and Germany have issued statements saying that the use of the phrase is wrong.</div>
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But it is the part of the law making it a crime to accuse the “Polish nation” of atrocities that has caused the deepest concern.</div>
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“Whoever claims, publicly and contrary to the facts,” the law reads, “that the Polish Nation or the Republic of Poland is responsible or co-responsible for Nazi crimes committed by the Third Reich or for other felonies that constitute crimes against peace, crimes against humanity or war crimes, or whoever otherwise grossly diminishes the responsibility of the true perpetrators of said crimes — shall be liable to a fine or imprisonment for up to three years.”</div>
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The Constitutional Court could decide uphold all of the law or none of it, or could strike down only those provisions that have drawn the harshest condemnation.</div>
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The Polish law is similar to one in Russia that makes it a crime to say that the Soviet Union was an aggressor during World War II, or to describe Soviet actions as war crimes.</div>
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The Polish government has said repeatedly that it wants to work with Israel and other opponents to address their concerns. But on Monday, the government canceled a planned visit by the Israeli education minister, Naftali Bennett, after he criticized the law.</div>
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“The blood of Polish Jews cries from the ground, and no law will silence it,” Mr. Bennett said in response. “The Government of Poland canceled my visit, because I mentioned the crimes of its people. I am honored.”</div>
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“Now, the next generation has an important lesson about the Holocaust of our people, and I will ensure that they learn it,” he said, adding that the Polish government’s decision “has a role to play in Holocaust education, even if they intended it to achieve something else.”</div>
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Mr. Morawiecki, who called the fight over the law Poland’s “Rubicon,” told state-run television in an interview on Monday that it was too late to change the law.</div>
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He said that the “real intention” of the legislation was “not to write history differently” or to “cover it up.”</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03381354424836201473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6778502431400174863.post-74013877181156202572018-01-25T11:16:00.003-08:002018-01-25T11:16:57.111-08:00What Mr. Costello Is Reading Right Now: Wyatt WalkerHi MTW!<br />
<br />
Yesterday Wyatt Walker's obituary came across my news feed and I was jolted a bit because of a chapter that I teach out of Malcolm Gladwell's book "David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants." The chapter is titled "Wyatt Walker" and it tells the story of some of the critical moves made during the Civil Rights Movement. Wyatt Walker was the architect behind some of the peaceful protests in Birmingham, AL that led to a national perception shift of the treatment of blacks in the South.<br />
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<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Read Walker's obituary here:<br />
<a href="https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/obituaries/wyatt-tee-walker-dead.html?referer=http://m.facebook.com">https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/obituaries/wyatt-tee-walker-dead.html?referer=http://m.facebook.com</a><br />
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<i>"Dr. Walker joined the fledgling Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1961 and served until 1964 as its executive director and, unofficially, as Dr. King’s right-hand man. At the S.C.L.C., he devised a structured fund-raising strategy and organized numerous protests, including a series of anti-segregation boycotts and demonstrations in Birmingham, Ala., that came to be known as Project C.<br />The C stood for “confrontation,” and the project is regarded as the blueprint for the civil rights movement’s success in the South."</i><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span>
Also<br />
I highly recommend Gladwell's writing, but I think it especially important that my students read the "Wyatt Walker" chapter in "David and Goliath" as a way to foster a perception shift in themselves. As the Civil Rights Movement of 50 or more years ago keeps fading away, and it's leaders age out of the public eye, or die, we need to continue to challenge what we see and what we are shown. This was one of Walker's philosophical foundations and I'm thankful to have learned what his story was before he died.<br />
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Grab a copy of Gladwell's "David and Goliath" for an essential read. You should also listen to his podcast "Revisionist History" which uncovers the truth of many of our long-held stories from history. He goes deeper into Walker's story and it outcomes in season 2, episode 4, linked to here:<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/goog_1039930343"><br /></a>
<a href="http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/14-the-foot-soldier-of-birmingham">http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/14-the-foot-soldier-of-birmingham</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com33tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6778502431400174863.post-2136923064159242372018-01-11T12:17:00.002-08:002018-01-11T12:17:42.313-08:00What Mr. Costello Is Reading Right Now: Jaylen BrownHi MTW!<br />
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As a teacher and a coach, I am always trying to get my students and players to access their entire human experience and apply it to the skills required for our sport or class. In teaching 9th graders, I have a lot of fun reading different kinds of narratives throughout the semester and imploring my students to follow their own path for a goal for which they would be a "stone through water." As a coach, my players must have a mindfulness of their bodies and their process in order to perform at their peak. The hidden message behind all of these lessons is that the tasks we perform day-to-day in any context, be it the classroom or the playing field, should require our entire concentration in the moments that we are processing them.<br />
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<picture><img alt="Jaylen Brown: ‘We’re having some of the same problems we had 50 years ago. Some things have changed a lot but other factors are deeply embedded in our society.’" class="maxed responsive-img" itemprop="contentUrl" src="https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/cae09f88c9086ef238fce90b3f6643169e2c3104/755_742_1461_877/master/1461.jpg?w=300&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=9d81401bff9533691b85ba54eaa411cc" style="border: 0px; display: block; height: 372.172px; left: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 620px;" /></picture></div>
<a class="article__img-container js-gallerythumbs" data-is-ajax="" data-link-name="Launch Article Lightbox" href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/jan/09/jaylen-brown-boston-celtics-nba-interview?CMP=share_btn_fb#img-1" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #005689; font-family: "Guardian Text Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; outline: 0px; touch-action: manipulation;"><span class="inline-expand-image inline-icon centered-icon rounded-icon article__fullscreen modern-visible" style="background-color: #ffbb00; border-radius: 62.5rem; display: inline-block; fill: rgb(0, 0, 0); height: 2.75rem; margin: 0.625rem; position: absolute; right: 0px; top: 0px; vertical-align: middle; width: 2.75rem;"><svg class="centered-icon__svg rounded-icon__svg article__fullscreen__svg modern-visible__svg inline-expand-image__svg inline-icon__svg" height="22" viewbox="0 0 22 22" width="22"><path d="M3.4 20.2L9 14.5 7.5 13l-5.7 5.6L1 14H0v7.5l.5.5H8v-1l-4.6-.8M18.7 1.9L13 7.6 14.4 9l5.7-5.7.5 4.7h1.2V.6l-.5-.5H14v1.2l4.7.6"></path></svg></span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Guardian Text Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"></span><br />
<figcaption class="caption caption--main caption--img" itemprop="description" style="background-color: white; color: #767676; font-family: "Guardian Text Sans Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 0.75rem; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; line-height: 1rem; max-width: none; min-height: 1.75rem; padding: 0.5rem 0px 1.5rem;"><span class="inline-information inline-icon rounded-icon centered-icon hide-until-tablet" style="background-color: #bdbdbd; border-radius: 62.5rem; display: inline-block; fill: rgb(255, 255, 255); height: 0.875rem; margin-right: 0.125rem; margin-top: -0.1875rem; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 0.875rem;"><svg class="rounded-icon__svg centered-icon__svg hide-until-tablet__svg inline-information__svg inline-icon__svg" height="14" viewbox="0 0 6 14" width="6"><path d="M4.6 12l-.4 1.4c-.7.2-1.9.6-3 .6-.7 0-1.2-.2-1.2-.9 0-.2 0-.3.1-.5l2-6.7H.7l.4-1.5 4.2-.6h.2L3 12h1.6zm-.3-9.2c-.9 0-1.4-.5-1.4-1.3C2.9.5 3.7 0 4.6 0 5.4 0 6 .5 6 1.3c0 1-.8 1.5-1.7 1.5z"></path></svg></span> Jaylen Brown: ‘We’re having some of the same problems we had 50 years ago. Some things have changed a lot but other factors are deeply embedded in our society.’ Photograph: Brian Babineau/NBAE/Getty Images</figcaption>Jaylen Brown of the Celtics is a perfect example of the kind of person who lives by this code. At the highest level of his sport, he remains committed to engaging his entire human capabilities every day, not just what his sport/job requires of him. And beyond that, he applies his humanity to understand the world around him in a deeper context. As a white male, I will never understand the depth of the experience growing up black in this country. I am really proud to support athletes like Jaylen Brown that share their experience, and have success on a national stage. Professional sports can distort just about every positive motivation for being athlete, substitute it with money, then pull the rug out from under 99% of it prospective employees, leaving them with false hopes and ruined lives. It might not exist yet, but the true highest level of sport would be a league of Jaylen Browns.<br />
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Excerpt:<br />
<i>Brown’s readiness to talk about politics and culture might account for the surreal suggestion in 2016 that he was “too smart” for the NBA. From the outside, ‘smart’ seemed a euphemism for ‘troublesome’. What did Brown think when, as a teenager, he heard words unlikely to be used in conjunction with a white athlete? “It was hinting at something very problematic within society. It bothered me but I was so focused on getting to where I was going I never dissected it or pointed it out to anybody.<br />“But I disagree that an athlete can’t be intelligent. Some people think that, in basketball, we have a bunch of masculine adults who don’t know how to control themselves. They’re feeble-minded and can’t engage or articulate ideas. That’s a narrative they keep trying to paint. We’re trying to change it because that statement definitely has a racist undertone.”</i><br />
Source: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/jan/09/jaylen-brown-boston-celtics-nba-interview?CMP=share_btn_fb">https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/jan/09/jaylen-brown-boston-celtics-nba-interview?CMP=share_btn_fb</a><br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com37tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6778502431400174863.post-80794713521168915892018-01-08T10:32:00.001-08:002018-01-11T10:12:04.581-08:00What Mr. DiDonna wants to direct your attention to...<h1 class="title" id="page-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2c2c2c; font-family: "Graphik Web", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 54px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1; margin: 0px;">
NAACP to protest Trump in Atlanta: report</h1>
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The NAACP is planning to protest <span class="rollover-people" data-behavior="rolloverpeople" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative;"><a class="rollover-people-link" data-nid="261287" href="http://thehill.com/people/donald-trump" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2c30; display: inline-block; outline: none; position: relative; text-decoration-line: none;">President Trump</a></span>'s visit to Atlanta Monday evening, <a href="https://www.apnews.com/ed1ec389f0dc4841ae7c9e3993b7bf70/NAACP-plans-to-protest-Trump's-visit-to-Atlanta" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(42, 83, 193); box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2c30; display: inline; outline: none; position: relative; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">The Associated Press reported</a>.</div>
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The NAACP is encouraging people to protest the president's visit to attend the college football national championship game by carrying anti-Trump signs and wearing white — an effort to mock the "snowflake" term used by some Trump supporters, according to the news service.</div>
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Refuse Fascism ATL, another group, is also reportedly planning to protest the president's visit by taking "a knee against Trump" outside of CNN's world headquarters ahead of the kickoff.</div>
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The group is looking to show their solidarity with the NFL players who have knelt during the national anthem throughout the season to protest social justice issues, such as police brutality.<br />
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Trump is <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/367302-trump-to-attend-college-football-championship" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(42, 83, 193); box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2c30; display: inline; outline: none; position: relative; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">expected to attend</a> the game Monday night between the University of Georgia and the University of Alabama.</div>
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Trump has frequently attacked NFL players who kneel during the national anthem and has called for the NFL to implement a rule requiring players to stand during the anthem.</div>
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In response to the president's attacks last year, multiple coaches and players spoke out and players on several teams continued to kneel during the national anthem throughout their season.</div>
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Vice President Pence also made headlines last year for leaving an NFL game between the Indianapolis Colts and the San Francisco 49ers after several 49ers players kneeled during the national anthem.</div>
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Last year, Trump took to Twitter to rip Rep. <span class="rollover-people" data-behavior="rolloverpeople" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative;"><a class="rollover-people-link" data-nid="187935" href="http://thehill.com/people/john-lewis" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2c30; display: inline-block; outline: none; position: relative; text-decoration-line: none;">John Lewis</a></span> (D-Ga.) and said his district, which includes most of Atlanta, was "falling apart."</div>
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“Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results. All talk, talk, talk — no action or results. Sad!” Trump wrote in a series of tweets.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03381354424836201473noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6778502431400174863.post-5649059178279223202017-12-07T19:47:00.001-08:002018-01-11T11:29:43.787-08:00A Humble Play<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mateo Rull 12th grade</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Social Justice Magazine Club</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Frontier Regional School</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">9/28/2017</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Humble Play</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Narrator: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tuesday morning. The rain outside muffles the sound of the two students speaking on the incandescent black box. You could turn the volume up more, but it would not improve the acuity of perception for the drowsy students; some of them are out of their assigned seats; all of them overstate how tired they are.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Miss Tina: Alright everyone news is over, get to your seats please!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maria: Ms. Tina when was the assignment on Imperialism due?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Miss Tina: I’m really glad you asked Maria… Listen everyone! The assignment is due today but don’t worry, I will give you time in class as we are gonna review that chapter today. Hold tight to your seats while I turn the projector on please!</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tina: Okay people, today we will be discussing the impact of the Imperialist movement in the United States… Who can tell me what Imperialism means? …</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Patrick raises hand*</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Miss Tina: Yes Pat?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>David ignores Pat's hand and Ms. Tina's remark, and decides to speak instead</i></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">David: Isn't that when like a country that's like powerful starts expanding in like less powerful countries?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tina: Yes... More or less correct. You people also gotta remember that imperialism was influenced by the Social Darwinism movement in America. It also infused the idea of spreading Christianity and “democracy” to less powerful nations as an excuse for white superiority and their influence on these countries.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lance: Are you talking about colonies Ms. Tina?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tina: Indeed! During this period, the race for expansionism drove aaaall these world powers to establish a heck ton of colonies in Africa, China and other territories all over the world. Let’s see… Who can tell me an example of the United States role in this race for expansionism?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Parson: Wasn’t Puerto Rico one of them?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tina: Well yes, Parson you are correct. At the end of the 19th century, the US took a particular interest in all these Central American regions that would provide new market and territories expanding their influence in the world… one of the targets was indeed Puerto Rico and their Independence Movement, which the US provided with military support to gain independence from the Spanish Empire in 1898. Ironically, the Independence Movement is still active today, because even though Puerto Ricans are US citizens by law, it is not part of the 50 united states and furthermore the Independence movement is still advocating against this, seeking total independence...</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">David: *interrupts teacher* But Miss Tina, why would they do that like at all?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tina: What do you mean David?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">David: Like obviously we gave them citizenship so now they’re part of the US and that has its benefits I just don’t get why people would not agree with that… </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tina: Well, you have to consider that they were promised independence from Spain but instead the United States took over.. This ‘unwelcomed’ visit was showcased several other times … México, Cuba… </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">David: But like </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*under his breath: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘oh my god haha*</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Miss Tina you don’t get what I’m saying! Like, what’s so bad about us taking over those third world countries if we are extending democracy and freedom?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Everyone in class starts clapping, 2 students of Latino descent in the front -one Puerto Rican, one whose parents emigrated from México- stay silent and look at each other and the teacher with clear discomfort on their faces.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Narrator: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What could the teacher do? Obviously this obnoxious teen needs to be educated, but Miss Tina knows that she is not likely to regulate David’s flaming nationalism. She gives up and calmly continues the class after the clapping settles down. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Curtain closes*</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ACT II</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Narrator: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The bell rings as the waves of students overfill the hallways, all driven by the warm smell of pizza emanating from the cafeteria. Miguel, a Puerto Rican student born and raised in the US, and Roberto, a Mexican who recently immigrated to the US, sit in the same table as David and a couple other kids from their previous class.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">David: Yo this lunch is disgusting. How can they manage to mess up something as simple as pizza?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Adriana: Oh my god I know right. It’s sooo bad. I’m literally not even going to eat it.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Miguel: Why did you buy it then Adriana? </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Adriana: Oh no, I wouldn’t spend money on this don’t worry I get it for free! </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">David: Yo guys what was the deal with Miss Tina today anyway? She clearly has no idea what she's talking about. Did she even finish high school?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Adriana: I bet I could teach that class and do a better job. She literally NEVER grades our assignments EVER!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nancy: OMG I know! I literally have an C- in that class though</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Adriana: No way, me too!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>*Adriana and Nancy hug hands and laugh with wide smiles on their faces*</i></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">David: No but really, that pissed me off when she was talking about the US like we’re the bad guys. Everyone just disrespects the country like that. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>*Looks over at Miguel*</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Honestly I bet Puerto Rico just wants to be part of the US. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Miguel: Well… actually my parents have opposite opinions about this David.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">David: Huh?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Miguel: What I said... my father has always supported the Independence as his father and his grandfather did before him. They are a minority though.. I guess like you said most people just want Puerto Rico to be a state… just like my mom. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">David: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*looks at the rest of the people in lunch table*</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I told you guys! </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Miguel: But I don’t think that’s because we want to be like the United States. I don’t know much about the history of it all, but honestly I don’t feel like my country was offered an option in the first place. The whites just did what they always have done, taking over things that they think they deserve. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">David: No offense, but that’s not a fair statement Miguel, the US just wants to spread democ...</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Roberto: Sorry to interrupt you David, but I just wanna say that even though I love this country, it lately seems that this country doesn’t love me. I open up my phone every day and see people calling my ethnicity rapists and criminals. I see my mom crying out of fear of deportation every now and then… especially when they air that the wall separating my country and the US is being built and prototypes have already started. It just makes me super pissed off to hear people like you saying that the US is always spreading ‘freedom and democracy’ or that immigrants should just go back to our countries when in reality you are also spreading fear and hatred.. Sometimes, similar to Puerto Rico, but in a different sense, we really don’t have a choice. In my case I’m lucky, and I know I am lucky because I had a choice to come to this country legally. But there is people out there who aren’t so lucky and do it out of necessity. I feel you don’t really see this David. We live in a world in which white is normal, and color is different. Y’all need to wake up from your privileged daydream…</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Halfway through his speech and without Roberto realizing, the entire cafeteria had gone silent to hear what he had to say. After exactly 5 seconds, an unknown student begins clapping. Another follows suit; a wave starts until the entire room, including David, are clapping. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Narrator: A few days later Roberto is suspended for 2 days for the controversial argument in the cafeteria. The same day, his mom is stopped in a highway for speeding 2 miles over the limit, and gets thrown into jail for not having a state driver's license. After a few hours in her cell, 2 ICE officials process her for deportation. At the same time this happens, Miguel’s family in Puerto Rico are denied government relief after their home is completely destroyed in hurricane Irma. Miguel’s dad is forced to send them large amounts of money to survive and this results in Miguel dropping out of school and work full time to compensate. Two more days after this, David wins Western Mass as the captain of the football team and gets offered a scholarship to Princeton University.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6778502431400174863.post-44005730653636009012017-12-07T19:34:00.002-08:002018-01-11T11:44:45.479-08:00The Responsibility of Privilege<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mateo Rull 12th grade</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Social Justice Magazine Club</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Frontier Regional School</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">9/28/2017</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-fd5af93c-3429-3ecb-a056-1ce6a247aeb5" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am white. That’s all you know about me. Am I privileged based on that alone? And assuming I am, should I feel guilt? And what should I do about it?" </span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stand up comedian Omar Ismail answers this long and ambiguous question in the most graceful way: comparing white privilege to height, liberating himself from the controversy (which is bound to happen regardless) of racial debate; debate that in fact should not exist at all. A debate that originated from sheer ignorance in times past and that somehow we haven’t managed as a species to overcome.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Consider it this way, All I know about you is that you’re tall. Does that mean you don’t deserve the can of tuna on the higher shelf? Should you feel guilty about getting the tuna from the top shelf? Does that mean short people can’t get the tuna? Does that mean there aren’t any disadvantages of being tall?” </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No, No, No and No.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What truly comes with privilege is a responsibility: First, of understanding that this privilege does not reflect in any way superiority. Once you allow those erroneous</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">thoughts out of the consciousness, comes the second responsibility: realizing that privilege is something that, just like the rest of your person, you can’t help but possessing. For that same reason, there is no shame (or in this case guilt) for enjoying it. Third: life is not a competition, a game in which the winner gets it all and the rest get nothing. Being a winner in life goes beyond the privilege of a head start, of an advantage; for becoming a winner is independent on how we are born, and likewise completely dependent on how we are raised. The responsibility of being privileged then, is to help the underprivileged, with the same attitude that one may help clean the dishes after dinner; not because someone else is unable to, but because, if you did not have to go through the trouble of making the dinner in the first place, you might as well do it yourself.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In life, one can’t help but being oneself; and, more often than not, we are discontent with our physical appearance, intelligence, athletic ability; and even the color of our skin. What a fascinating species we are, that having such unprecedented cognitive and creative abilities, we tend to fixate on the most insignificant aspect of our existence: how we, and most people look. We must learn to embrace ourselves; and, with ourselves, the people around us. Regardless if they are black, white, ugly, handsome, tall, short, fat, skinny, straight, gay, trans, female, male, religious, nonbelievers, believers and anything we might or might not be. We are human, there should be no such thing as a privilege; but, because there is, the privileged bunch needs to realize the responsibilities that come with it, and consequently embark in the collective reformation of society. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Works Cited:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yu, Heather Johnson. “Stand-up Comedian Explains White Privilege, Totally Nails It.” </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">NextShark</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, 12 Sept. 2017, nextshark.com/omar-ismail-this-stand-up-comedian-explains-white-privilege-totally-nails-it/.</span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-fd5af93c-342f-761d-c81d-7782d50745ef"></span><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6778502431400174863.post-77435352728416228422017-12-07T19:26:00.000-08:002018-02-01T15:13:50.691-08:00"Why are you so gay?" TED Talk Analysis<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mateo Rull 12th grade</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Social Justice Magazine Club</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Frontier Regional School</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why are you so gay? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“The interesting thing about this question too, is the opposing motivations as to why do people ask this question. Some people ask this question as a way to shame me, and to shame the (gay) identity . . . but then also, people very close to me . . . ask from a place of love and concern, ‘why are you so visible?’ ‘Why would you subject yourself to potential discrimination when you don’t have to?’ And therefore, answering this question involves addressing both of these sides of concern . . . (To me) it comes down to 3 things: One, is my obligation to history; two are the realities of my own identity; and lastly, our obligations for those yet to come”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Lloyd 2014)</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As on any other Monday morning at Frontier, the stream of classes flowed smoothly, undisturbed, unconcerned; occasionally a few shabby rocks would get dragged along, causing a slight agitation that was quickly settled by the drowning current of tranquility, the stream never losing its peaceful nature. This particular morning, however, the tranquility of the stream was agitated, and it caused in me a deeper shock than usual (or at least I perceived it so to be):</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">During the second period of the day, my class actively engaged in a debate about the Senior class superlatives, which many people had varied opinions about. After this, a comment was made regarding the fact that, during the spirit week, one of the dress ups was cancelled and changed from last year: The Gender-Bender. The class agreed that the controversy was not worth stressing about, since the school did not impose this tradition on anyone who did not feel comfortable dressing up as either gender. After this was settled, however, came the effect of groupthink</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, which I believe prompted one of my classmates to say: “I don’t know if I wanna say this, because I feel like it could be either dumb or rude, but I think that more people are coming out recently and it's because they just want attention”.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At a first glance, this statement should feel familiar to all high school students who are experiencing the newest wave of the “Pride” movement; living in one of the 14 states in the US with a LGTBQ community of over 4% of the total population (Williams, 2016), it is common to encounter people embracing their sexuality and personal identity. However, even for the somewhat accustomed communities, it remains hard to fully integrate this change. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In order to answer this question we first have to understand what difference means, to which Lloyd responds: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“It was in (high school) that I started what we know as covering [...] even if I didn’t necessarily feel that different from my peers, other people did. Suddenly I (deliberately ) thinked about every single step that I took [...] the things that (everyone else takes) for granted were critical things I had to think about every second of the day. I had to expand all of my creative energy in covering what it was that made me different”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Breaking through societal constructs is no easy task, but it is our responsibility in the fight for social justice. For the LGTBQ community to</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> “own (them)selves and use (their) identities to change the system around (them)’” </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is an action of bravery that influences the other side of the community, the side where Lloyd resided at prior to his personal revolution. Bravery that, in his words “</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">influenced (his) </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">vow</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to be </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">outrageous</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Although progress is literally</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> visible in the street nowadays, Lloyd truthfully states that “</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">there are still so many (LGBTQ members) behind [...] in our community who do not have the resources that they need and it is our obligation not to assimilate, not to cover, because we need to keep the community open so that one day they can feel comfortable”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The humble task that Lloyd takes upon during his talk, is at the same time an invitation. An invitation to change the way we see the world. An invitation to change the meaning of a word. To be strong enough to keep your identity, and equally strong for others to embrace it, in order for the rest of the community to feel that much needed sense of belonging. For </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“It is easier to change a community, It is easier to change a society, than to change your own identity.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-style: italic; white-space: pre;"> </span>Lloyd wraps up this passion filled talk with his final response to the title: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“So to answer the question . . . I am so gay because I had such loving resources that provided me with so much strength like my parents that it would be selfish and wrong, not to share that with the people who do not have them (just) yet.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(2014, November 19). Retrieved October 19, 2017, from </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U1foLW8h54" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U1foLW8h54</span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“LGTB Data & Demographics.” The Williams Institute, UCLA, May 2016, williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/visualization/lgbt-stats/?topic=LGBT&area=11#economic. </span></div>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6778502431400174863.post-45687008509887225982017-12-01T05:30:00.002-08:002017-12-01T05:30:25.861-08:00December: A Month of Kindness<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
Hi MTW!</div>
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A big Thank You goes out to Ms. Blair and the KindVersity Club for this project:</div>
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Happy December!</div>
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In today's morning news, KindVersity Club announced that today kicks off a month-long campaign to spread kindness throughout the Frontier community and beyond. </div>
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To that end, members of the KV club are sharing Kindness Calendars with all faculty, staff and students. Look for one, and please feel free to share this calendar far and wide :) I've attached an image of this calendar below. </div>
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Stay tuned for more info and updates on this project - and please, join in!</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6778502431400174863.post-14085322965351790882017-11-27T18:44:00.000-08:002017-11-27T18:44:00.097-08:00What Mr. Costello Is Reading Right Now: NYT White Nationalist Profile and ControversyHi MTW!<br />
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I hope everyone found some rest and enjoyment during the extended weekend. I was reminded that holidays and family time can be restorative for some, but painful and stressful for others, especially those with social identities that are not accepted or understood by those closest to them. More on that later.<br />
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American citizens are tasked with the analysis of news media to determine the level of truthfulness. Educated citizens must be able to separate personal beliefs from facts in order for those beliefs to form and transform. Here is the controversy summarized with four pieces that should be required reading.<br />
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1. This weekend, the NYT published a profile of a white nationalist that has received some intense criticism from its readership. Please read:<br />
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<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/25/us/ohio-hovater-white-nationalist.html?_r=1">"A Voice of Hate in America's Heartland" by Richard Fausset</a></div>
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2. NYT's national editor responds to the backlash that followed in this piece:<div>
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/26/reader-center/readers-accuse-us-of-normalizing-a-nazi-sympathizer-we-respond.html">"Readers Accuse Us of Normalizing A Nazi Sympathizer; We Respond" by Marc Lacey</a><br /></div>
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Lacey's response is summarized by this paragraph at the end:<br /><i>"We regret the degree to which the piece offended so many readers. We recognize that people can disagree on how best to tell a disagreeable story. What we think is indisputable, though, is the need to shed more light, not less, on the most extreme corners of American life and the people who inhabit them. That’s what the story, however imperfectly, tried to do."</i><br /><br />3. Eventually, the original author was compelled to write a follow up piece to provide some of the context which may have been lost on those who have been most critical:</div>
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<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/25/insider/white-nationalist-interview-questions.html">"I Interviewed a White Nationalist and Fascist. What Was I Left With?" by Richard Fausset</a><br /></div>
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One reader finished their commentary with this:<br /><i>"This piece was meandering and unfocused, the kind of the thing I would expect to find at a freshman seminar. Journalism shouldn't be an unfinished, poetic exercise."</i><br /><br />4. Finally, “The Atlantic” published a parody of the original profile published by the NYT with this note: <br /><i>“Editor’s Note: This essay was inspired by “A Voice of Hate in America’s Heartland,” published in The New York Times on November 25, 2017. The Times reflected on the shortcomings of the piece after it was met with outrage and ridicule.”</i><br /><br /><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/11/a-nazi-cooks-pasta/546737/">“Nazis Are Just Like You and Me, Except They’re Nazis...despite what you may have read in The New York Times”</a> by James Hamblin</div>
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Here is an excerpt:</div>
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<br /><i>Stephanie Stevenson is followed by a normal dog, who walks into the room with a slight limp, and Stephen pets it. He leans in.<br /><br />“The Jews control all the money, and the world would be better off if they were dead,” he says, petting the dog. “Who’s a good boy?”<br /><br />The question is rhetorical. I ask about the wallpaper.<br /><br />Some people disagree with Stevenson’s political views.<br /><br />“He’s a nice enough guy,” said the local grocer, Butch Tarmac, a registered Democrat. “He buys apples and pancake mix. I also like those things. But I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on the bit about the one true race cleansing the soil and commanding what is rightfully theirs.”<br /><br />“It’s totally fucked up,” said one person, whose name I didn’t catch.</i><div>
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It will probably become even more difficult in the coming years to sift through news media to discover what is true. President Donald Trump tweeted this earlier today (11/27/17):<br />"We should have a contest as to which of the Networks, plus CNN and not including Fox, is the most dishonest, corrupt and/or distorted in its political coverage of your favorite President (me). They are all bad. Winner to receive the FAKE NEWS TROPHY!"</div>
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Are we up to the task?</div>
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--C</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6778502431400174863.post-84315763877289967092017-11-16T11:24:00.002-08:002017-11-16T11:48:04.336-08:00Aromanticism<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">James was working on his math homework when he heard the familiar “ding” of his phone. He picked up his phone and looked at the notification. His phone screen read, “Hey, baby! Just thought of you xoxo -Brianna”. James sighed and tossed his phone to the side. He thought about how uncomfortable texts from his girlfriend made him. He didn’t know why her feelings made him squirm. It wasn’t normal to feel this way about someone you loved, was it? James didn’t know why he felt the way he did. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Although this was the first relationship James had been in, he discovered something important about himself. He was aromantic. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unlike asexuality, aromanticism has not gained much public attention. It seems to be an obscure romantic orientation that seems to hide in the shadows. Someone who is aromantic does not experience romantic attraction to others. Romance is a feeling of attachment, or love for someone. However, aromantic people can still experience and enjoy platonic relationships. Romantic affection tends to make aromantic people uncomfortable. This form of affection can include kissing, hugging, and holding hands. Aromantic people are also generally uncomfortable with attachment in relationships, and prefer to keep a strictly sexual relationship with their partner. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Similar to all other romantic and sexual orientations, aromanticism exists on a spectrum. Someone may identify as demiromantic--meaning they feel the need to establish a sexual relationship before they are able to have a healthy romantic relationship. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Romantic orientation is independent of sexual orientation. For instance, James identifies as both heterosexual and aromantic. People can identify with any combination of sexual and romantic orientation that makes them comfortable. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Someone can also feel romantic attraction for a certain gender identity, and feel sexual attraction for another. You could identify as panromantic (meaning you feel romantic attraction for people regardless of gender identity) </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> homosexual (meaning you feel sexual attraction to people of your same gender identity). You can also be both asexual (meaning you don’t feel sexual attraction) </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> aromatic (meaning you don’t feel romantic attraction). People who are aromantic are not necessarily interested in sexual relationships. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Two people who have a romantic attraction to one another are generally said to have “crushes” on each other. In aromantic relationships, these attractions are called “squishes”. Squishes are platonic in nature. Someone who has a squish most likely craves friendship with a particular person. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Being aromantic can be frustrating becuase romantic orientation is not a popular topic of discussion. Making romantic orientations known and supported is going to strengthen the LGBTQ community, and it’s important to let anyone who is questioning know that they are loved. Spreading awareness is the first step to spreading peace and love for romantic orientations of all kinds. </span></div>
<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6778502431400174863.post-44978746492496016212017-11-14T09:09:00.001-08:002017-11-14T09:09:10.699-08:00In the last two years I've been involved with a regional conflict regarding Native American representation in Pioneer Valley. This has been my social justice initiative outside of my work as a teacher. Many of you may have come across biased articles in the local newspapers attempting to swing this matter in an inaccurate direction. I am stating here that this is not a matter of property rights, or "green energy," but a matter of civil rights. What is pasted below is a public record already in circulation. I invite your comments.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Plantagenet Cherokee";">Facts
About Destruction of Sacred Lands in Shutesbury, MA<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b>Lake Street
"Development" and Cinda Jones Ignore Science and Decency in Rape of
Burial and Sacred Site<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b>Using a pay-for-service
report from a development service company based in the distant Southwest, a
pair of Midwest extraction capitalists have come to the East to tear down a
forest in the name of "green energy."
The sham report of the hired surveyors, SWCA, ignores basic scientific
standards, fails to apply tests of any kind, and whitewashes the desecration of
sacred lands.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b>Several very critical
reviews of the hired report found deep flaws and lapses in ethics. Those who hope to profit here also ignored
objections from several professional archaeologists as well as anthropologists
and tribal representatives.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b>1 - </b>Three lettered
archaeologists visited the suspected burial and ceremonial site, called
Woscheke Winohket, and all three stated that the site deserves careful
inspection for human remains and tribal evaluation for ceremonial use. Two federally recognized tribes requested to
review the site. Nonetheless, the banker
duo who wish to cut down the forest and demolish sacred relics refuse to allow
any Native Americans to review the site, and refuse to perform any tests
whatsoever for human remains.<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b>2 - </b>The secondary report
submitted by SWCA to shore up their first, very substandard report is no more
than that - a shoring up of a bad report. There is a great deal wrong with SWCA's
rehashed report. To begin with, there is no science within. No
tests capable of differentiating a natural mound from a human burial are
offered. Not even a conjectural test to
differentiate between natural and manmade features is offered. Only the presumption of absence of human
remains and sacred relics is offered.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Plantagenet Cherokee";">3 - On
pages 3-4 (7-8 SWCA) the Town’s own reviewing archaeologist, Johnson states: “I
was surprised by the limited number of photographs in the report and the
limited extent to which they illustrate the mound features that the report
discusses. This is especially important given the restrictions on access
to the property . . . . I also found that the photographs that were
included do not clearly illustrate the point that the authors are trying to
make." The Town reviewer then cites a host of further missing
evidence and information.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Plantagenet Cherokee";">The town
reviewer concludes: “I recommend that these features be reviewed by an
individual who is part of a [Northeastern Algonquian] Native American community
and is qualified to assess TCPs. The Special Permit conditions stipulate
that this is the responsibility of the applicant.”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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4
- None of the archaeological reports showing that the mounds at Woscheke
Winohket are similar to known burials of Contact-period Algonquian peoples are
discussed by SWCA - again. Heye's
archaeological report and other reports cited to the SWCA by myself and others
are left ignored in this report. In simple words, SWCA is ducking valid
arguments and hiding from the truth. By
failing to respond to contradictory studies, SWCA is engaging openly in
falsehood and cover-up.<o:p></o:p></div>
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5
- At no point did SWCA put any of their claims to any scientific test, whether
physical examination, chemical analysis, comparison of data for significant
correlations, or any form of systematic science acceptable to modern
definitions of "science."<o:p></o:p></div>
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SWCA's
report is based entirely on assumptions.
SWCA has failed in two rounds to perform any test to determine the
nature of mounds and stone relics at Woscheke Winohket, but nonetheless, they
wish to give the green light to destruction of suspected burials and sacred
stone relics without any responsible testing.<o:p></o:p></div>
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6
- The SWCA report is chock full of factual errors, major omissions of fact and
historic record, citations abused by taking them entirely out of context and
perverting the authors' intended meanings, and attempts to obscure obvious
facts by use of "smoke and mirrors."
SWCA cherry-picked outdated and disproven conjectures, presenting them
here as current and accepted. SWCA so
abuses citations of researchers that they entirely reverse the point the author
was making.<o:p></o:p></div>
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SWCA
even states openly that the prejudiced intent of their present report is to
shore up their first report. Because the
"investigation" begins with a prejudiced intent, it is not science;
it is not an "investigation."
Any scientific endeavor must not be engaged under bias and
pre-conclusion. A fundamental standard
of science is that investigation must be conducted without bias.<o:p></o:p></div>
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7
- Regarding bias, we should all keep at the forefront of understanding the fact
that SWCA is a service-for-hire group that rubber-stamps the needs of
developers, who have a selfish interest in circumventing restrictions on their
desire for cash.<o:p></o:p></div>
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SWCA
takes statements by Dr. Bruchac severely out of context and poses these as
evidence that there is little known about our people, the various Algonquians. To do this, SWCA has reduced lengthy
expositions by Dr. Bruchac to one sentence and even partial sentences, in order
to pervert her meaning. This is an abuse
of the author and entirely dishonest.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Margaret
Bruchac would resent this abuse of her writing. Dr. Bruchac is indigenous
and has written extensively on the denialist attacks on Native history by
revisionist Euroamericans. One point of
Dr. Bruchac's writing is that European revisionists have at every turn
attempted to minimize and even erase all record of indigenous persons in this
region. Dr. Bruchac's career has been
based partly on recovery of suppressed heritage and history.<o:p></o:p></div>
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If
you read Dr. Bruchac’s writing, she makes strong statements that Algonquian
heritage is under attack by biased denialism. Paula Steeves has addressed this
issue as well, as “erasure.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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[Notes:
The DEDIC site, at South Sugarloaf, in ancient, and effectively erased from the
awareness of even the people who live next door to the site. This is just
one of dozens of such cases of "erasure" by the MHC and European
propagandists. No public interpretation
is offered by MA, and no protection of the site was effected by MA, nor has any
body other than a private researcher published anything to the public about the
DEDIC site. Yet, as one of the earliest
sites in the region (10,000+ years old), the DEDIC site is enormously
important. Such is the state of MA on
Native culture and heritage. The same is
true across MA.]<o:p></o:p></div>
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8
- Cowls and the Joneses “erased” several groups of sacred stone works on
Quaquatchu (Brushy Mountain), and “erased” two rare plant populations in the
same stroke. Then they collected several millions in federal, state and
private funds for “conservation” on the same land. SWCA greases the wheels of such end-runs
around legislation intended to preserve historic heritage items and to protect
threatened and endangered species.<o:p></o:p></div>
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9
- Section 2 of the SWCA report supports the case for THPO inspection and the
claim that the SWCA reports are both substandard. Pages 3-4 (7-8 of the report)
Eric Johnson’s review discusses soil type at Woscheke Winohket. However,
both cited surveys (1967 and 2006) are large-scale surveys that do not describe
soil types specific to any particular acreage, but are only general references
for the predominant soil type on an intended scale of interpretation in terms
of miles, not acres. The maps used simply do not describe soil specific
to the site in question.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As
well, recorded cemeteries of tribes that occupied various parts of Western Massachusetts
and their immediate neighbors are mostly located on soils that are anomalous to
those given by USGS surveys for their locations. For example,
Wissatinnewag (Wissatinoag) cemetery is located on a perched localized sand
deposit atop an otherwise bare basalt promontory. The surrounding areas
are basalt and eroded basalt with sand deposits. This is a recorded
Pacomtuck/Nipmuck site, located some miles from the villages that it served.<o:p></o:p></div>
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[Notes:
Senasqua cemetery is also recorded at Croton Point, NY, in Maheakanneuk
territory, which tribe is recorded as occupying parts of Western MA, and of
whom the Stockbridge Mohican Nation’s official historic territorial map
includes much of Berkshire and parts of Western Franklin County. This
cemetery is also located on soils anomalous to the USGS soil type given for its
location, which is confirmed on the ground by casual observation. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Minisink
cemetery in Montague, NJ, lies a couple of miles to the SW of the historic
Monsi “capitol” of Minisink, on a sand deposit hypothesized by Heye to have
been “carted in” from a nearby creek called Bena Kill. The soil in this
cemetery, as noted, is anomalous to its location and USGS survey soil maps for
the location, and probably anthropogenic, but in any case, anomalous and not
knowable from USGS soil surveys.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Pelham’s
Neck cemetery, in SE Westchester County, NY, is recorded by early Dutch officials
and an archaeological site of record. Two burial mounds for Sanchemanuog
are recorded here, along with the names of the buried officials. The
nearby cemetery is also recorded, which lies again on soils anomalous to the
surrounding area and which do not appear of USGS soil maps for that location.
Again, the soil used at the cemetery may be the result of human hands.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Fort
Pond, NY in the Corchaug territory, whose language is closely related to
Nipmuck and Narragansett, is a recorded location of 2 more burial mounds for
Sanchemanuog, recorded by both Dutch and English. Here, the nearby
cemetery lies again on soil that does not match its surroundings.]<o:p></o:p></div>
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10
- On Page 12 of SWCA’s attempt to obscure the truth, there are misleading and
irrelevant statements about expected indigenous sites north of Lake Wyola.
This area is misstated at 4.5 miles from the proposed project, when it is
actually closer, and such a distance would not be unusually far for dead to be
buried in any case. However, at the south end of Wyola, Native American
artifacts <b>are</b> recorded, which is
considerably closer to the proposal site than the north end, about half as far,
and on the edge of the claimed 2-mile “no historic properties zone” in SWCA’s
first report. <o:p></o:p></div>
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SWCA
makes another false statement that there are no bodies of water near Woscheke
Winohket. There are several large streams nearby the proposal site.
Several towns named in the same originating Land Deeds of Hampshire County are
located on streams no larger than these, including Pacquoag and Pomptucksett,
both within 10 miles Sanakkamak (Shutesbury).<o:p></o:p></div>
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Villages
and cemeteries are not normally located in the same place. Most recorded
cemeteries above are located at some distance from their villages. <o:p></o:p></div>
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[Notes:
Several other cemeteries have been recorded in Westchester and Putnam Counties,
which are also located several miles from their respective historically
recorded villages, such as Kestabuinck and its cemetery, Canopus and its
cemetery. The burial site of Sachem Katonah and his wife Cantito is
located several miles from their historic village. The Pelham’s Neck
cemetery is several miles from the historic town of Quarropas and the former
town at Pelham. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Sacred
stone sites, such a Wawanaquassik, recorded by the Dutch and whose name is
borne on the deed for the Wawanaquassik Patent, is recorded as a sacred site,
located several miles from the Pachami Maheakanneuk main village and from other
known villages. “Wawanaquassik” means “many honoring stones,” and is an
example of Algonquian sacred stone works recognized as such by State
Archaeologist for Rhode Island, Timothy Ives in his report for Northeast
Anthropology. “Dans Kammer” is another recorded sacred stone site, which
has a recorded twin on the opposite side of the Hudson a few miles from
Wawanaquassik. Dans Kammer is a number of miles from any recorded
village. Dans Kammers' religious purpose and use is many times recorded in
historic records.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Thus,
the actual historic record for known towns, cemeteries, and sacred stone sites
belonging to nations of Western Massachusetts into their NY territory are all
separated by several miles on average. The proposed project at Woscheke
Winohket is less than 10 miles from recorded villages at Pomptucksett and
Pacquoag, and there are “wawanaquassik” in several locations within 2 miles of
the proposal site. Keep in mind that “honoring stones” or “wawanaquassik”
are of historic record and are recognized by the State Archaeologist of Rhode
Island as Native American in origin, and by most neighboring states. ]<o:p></o:p></div>
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11
- The SWCA claims in section 3 about land use by local nations are entirely
contradicted by the originating Land Deeds for Hampshire County (originally
included Franklin). In those deeds, numerous cases are given where
“cottinakeesh/cottinakeel” are freely shared with Colonists. These places
and village sites had just been emptied by genocide. Thus, they were
available. The Native terms used mean “plantation lands.” Local
Algonquian land use terms segregate lands into 4 categories of usage, which are
defined by their terms and restricted to those purposes. There are kottinakish/kottinakiil
- farmland and fallow land. There is Ehenda mauwikenk, places where
hunting and fishing camps are made, and village sites (mauwe= cluster, wikwam=house).
There is Ehenda mawewink, places of ceremonial gathering
(maweminen=gather us). There is Ehenda tauwundin, which designates
“cemetery” and is given by Zeisberger as the translation, while he notes in his
dictionary that the term derives from the word for “wilderness.” Since
one does not inhabit or trespass on the cemetery, it is “wilderness.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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[Notes:
"Ehenda" signifies a defined district or space with a defined use or
property. "Endalun towiyun" is
the term used to address the deities of the cardinal directions, and the term
means "who has supervision of that specific space." "Enda" = specific space,
"ehenda" = specific space use type.
When Col0nists introduced European iron mines, they were termed
"Ehenda sukaxsin hatte" or "place specifically used for finding
black stones." There are many other
examples of "ehenda" used to mean a place with a specific use,
including even butter churn "place for making butter," ehenda
putelaink. It's not a matter of scale of
space type that determines the meaning of "ehenda," but the fact that
the space has a specific use. Neither iron mines nor butter churns have
alternate uses. Ehenda tauwundin therefore means "cemetery" and only
cemetery, without any other use. Same
goes for the other land types, one use and one use only. Ehenda always applies to a space with only
one use.]<o:p></o:p></div>
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Notably,
the same land deeds very often demand reserved rights of entry for upland
areas, as well as demanding restrictions on activities of Colonists in the same
hills and ridges. This further supports their segregated land use and the
special status of these upland sacred sites.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The
terms used in the region for these land use types demonstrate that their uses
are segregated and the terms correlate to their separated locations in the
historic and archaeological record. This
fact has been presented by the author at the 2017 Annual Conference of the
American Society for Ethnohistory, and the combined Annual Conference of the
Eastern States Archaeological Federation, Archaeological Society of
Connecticut, and Massachusetts Archaeological Society.<o:p></o:p></div>
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[Notes:
The SWCA report fails to mention the many satellite towns that surround the
largest villages in the mid-CT Valley, such as Skakeat, Peskeompskut,
Corroheagan, Pacquoag, Mattampash, Suchow Noycoy, Pacomtuck, Wunnaquecksett,
Pompstucksett, Towanucksett, Quaboag, Chicopi, and others. It should be
noted the “sett” or ‘sit” most often applies to the location of a village, like
Hassanamessit, Massachusett, Mattapoisett. “Skut” is a variation on “sett”
found among Apenaki and Maheakanneuk, like Penobscot, and “tuck” is a common
village name, as in Webatuck, Wnahktituk, Naugatuck and so on.]<o:p></o:p></div>
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12
- The Land Deeds For Hamsphire County name 8-9 times more towns than SWCA gives
in their report, a gross error on the part of SWCA.<o:p></o:p></div>
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13
- The Shutesbury Town Master Plan cites of the MHC that only 1 in 300 Native
American sites in MA are believed to be recorded in the MHC database (Scenic
and Historic Resources section), meaning that SWCA has only a 1 in 300 chance
of being correct in their assumption of no historic site, as based on the MHC
database. <o:p></o:p></div>
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14
- The very outdated population estimate cited by SWCA on page 13 gives no date
for their estimate, no area the estimate supposedly covers, and does not even
define whether their estimate is per village or for the whole mid-CT Valley region.
Contrastingly, Driver and Massey (University of Chicago, 1996) give an
estimate of 20,000+ for the mid-CT Valley population at the time of contact
with Europeans.<o:p></o:p></div>
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15 - All 3 maps shown by SWCA on pages 16-17
show that Woscheke Winohket remained wooded (trees even drawn all over the
site), roadless and uninhabited through the 1800’s, which is confirmed by the
1760’s map submitted by plaintiffs to the federal district court in this case.
In the 3rd map, the road and houses shown in the inset are located
outside Shutesbury, in Leverett. The portion in Shutesbury contains but
one lane leading to one house, which house lies at the northern edge of the
Wheelock Tract, near Reed Road, seemingly outside Woscheke Winohket and the
proposal site. All the maps confirm plaintiffs’ claim that the site is
historically unpopulated and not clearcut. <o:p></o:p></div>
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16
- The cemetery and sacred stone landscape at Woscheke Winohket match the soil,
locational, topographic and cultural features of recorded cemeteries of local
tribes in the area. The SWCA report spins quite a few false statements
and fails to address a large body of archaeological record that completely
refutes SWCA's claims.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The
standards of science, law and decency have all been attacked by a sham process
that serves big money. The extraction
capitalists who came halfway across the nation to cut down a forest in the name
of "green energy" have orchestrated a "Wizard of Oz" show
to obscure every pertinent fact of this crime against humanity. In fact, the United Nations High Council on
Human Rights has condemned exactly the acts committed by Lake Street
"Development" and Cinda Jones, with the help of Shutesbury town
officials, all who intend to divide the profits of this fake "green
energy" project.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03381354424836201473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6778502431400174863.post-28123178440066322652017-11-13T10:30:00.002-08:002017-11-13T10:30:58.905-08:00What Mr. Costello Is Reading Right Now: Ta-Nehesi Coats on Language and OwnershipHi MTW!<br />
<br />
I've been a big fan of Ta-Nehisi Coats ever since I read his book "Between the World and Me" a couple of years ago. He is an expert on cultural and social impacts, especially race relations. He is an extremely compelling author and speaker. His new book is called "We Were Eight Years In Power" which is a collection of essays that he published during Obama's two terms as President.<br />
<br />
On his book tour, a white audience member asked him about how to approach "the n-word," specifically in hip-hop lyrics. The video below is his brilliant response.<br />
<br />
--C<br />
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<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/QO15S3WC9pg/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QO15S3WC9pg?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6778502431400174863.post-73607276987218140092017-11-12T17:29:00.002-08:002017-11-12T17:31:31.361-08:00What Mr. Costello Is Reading Right Now: Transgender High School AthletesHi MTW!<br />
<br />
There have been a lot of stories recently about transgender athletes overcoming biases in their sport or challenging inequitable governing policies just to participate. At the youth level, many high schools are looking closely at the language of their policies but guidelines can vary greatly from school to school and state to state. Title IX turned 45 this year.<br />
<br />
--C<br />
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<a href="https://cdn1.nyt.com/images/2017/10/24/sports/TRANSGENDER-ILLO/TRANSGENDER-ILLO-superJumbo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="794" height="320" src="https://cdn1.nyt.com/images/2017/10/24/sports/TRANSGENDER-ILLO/TRANSGENDER-ILLO-superJumbo.jpg" width="317" /></a></div>
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ILLUSTRATION BY SAM MANCHESTER / THE NEW YORK TIMES</div>
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<a href="https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/sports/transgender-athletes.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&referer=http://m.facebook.com">How Should High Schools Define Sexes for Transgender Athletes?</a></h2>
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The question is relatively new, and guidelines so far differ from state to state. “It has been a challenge” one Texas official said.</h1>
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By MALIKA ANDREWS</div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6778502431400174863.post-82158204690496260112017-11-09T10:08:00.000-08:002017-11-09T10:14:32.476-08:00What Mr. Costello Is Reading Right Now: Trump Suspends TPS Visas<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Hi MTW!</span><br />
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Heard this on NPR the other day and it hit home, given my relationship with Nicaragua. </div>
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--C</div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-a1slQ73u7es/WgSa7Is-2kI/AAAAAAAAAGo/96x_wQXwnNgfroQJBTk52iqltAi6fdqwQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_6678.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="899" data-original-width="1600" height="179" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-a1slQ73u7es/WgSa7Is-2kI/AAAAAAAAAGo/96x_wQXwnNgfroQJBTk52iqltAi6fdqwQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_6678.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Trump Administration Announces The End To Protected Status For Nicaraguans</h1>
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<span style="color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">The Trump administration has told thousands of Nicaraguans who are living in the U.S. with temporary visas that it's time to go home. Many have been here for at least two decades. They got special status after a hurricane. That special status is called TPS or temporary protective status. Hundreds of thousands of people, mostly from Central America and the Caribbean, live in the U.S. under TPS. And now all of them face an uncertain future.</span></div>
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<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.npr.org/2017/11/07/562619788/trump-administration-announces-the-end-to-protected-status-for-nicaraguans&source=gmail&ust=1510237364209000&usg=AFQjCNHiVaYFUEmtgNigiSIK0U9ax1Lw-w" href="https://www.npr.org/2017/11/07/562619788/trump-administration-announces-the-end-to-protected-status-for-nicaraguans" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><span style="color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588235294118); font-family: "roboto" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">https://www.npr.org/2017/11/<wbr></wbr>07/562619788/trump-<wbr></wbr>administration-announces-the-<wbr></wbr>end-to-protected-status-for-<wbr></wbr>nicaraguans</span></a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6778502431400174863.post-47455170054888649882017-11-09T10:07:00.000-08:002017-11-09T10:07:39.368-08:00What Mr. Costello Is Reading Right Now: Hadiya RoderiqueHi MTW!<br />
<br />
This is a fantastic personal essay about a black woman's struggle for success and belonging. Hadiya is Canadian and a fellow ultimate player. I can't resist sharing this one!<br />
<br />
--C<br />
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<img alt="Hadiya Roderique is a lawyer who left private practice five years ago. She is now working on her PhD at the University of Toronto. Looking back at her journey to Bay Street, she remembers facing 'roadblocks at every step along the way' as a person of colour." class="article-media-photo__content__img" data-id="36806409" itemprop="url" sizes="(min-width: 960px) calc(960px - 320px), (min-width: 768px) calc(100vw - 60px), calc(100vw - 20px)" src="https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/ece-images/b90/news/national/article36806409.ece/BINARY/w620/hadiya1a.jpg" srcset="https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/ece-images/1bf/news/national/article36806409.ece/BINARY/w1100/hadiya1a.jpg 1100w, https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/ece-images/e8f/news/national/article36806409.ece/BINARY/w940/hadiya1a.jpg 940w, https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/ece-images/b90/news/national/article36806409.ece/BINARY/w620/hadiya1a.jpg 620w, https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/ece-images/34f/news/national/article36806409.ece/BINARY/w780/hadiya1a.jpg 780w, https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/ece-images/064/news/national/article36806409.ece/BINARY/w460/hadiya1a.jpg 460w" style="border-style: none; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; height: auto; line-height: inherit; width: 620px;" /></div>
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Hadiya Roderique is a lawyer who left private practice five years ago. She is now working on her PhD at the University of Toronto. Looking back at her Bay Street career, she says she misses some things about the legal world, but ‘I don’t miss the isolation and the nagging sense that other people didn’t feel I belonged.’</div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: , "georgia" , "palatino" , "book antiqua" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: inherit;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Pratt-BoldItalic, Georgia, Palatino, "Book Antiqua", "Times New Roman", serif; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit;">Photography by Luis Mora</em></span></div>
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Black on Bay Street: Hadiya Roderique had it all. But still could not fit in</h1>
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My parents moved to Canada to offer me the promise of the North American dream. But on my way to becoming a lawyer, I learned that success isn't necessarily about merit. It's also about fitting in. As a person of colour, that's a roadblock that comes up again and again.</div>
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"<span style="color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.87); font-family: "roboto" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Later, a fellow law student, a white woman, asked me if I was going to wear my natural hair to interviews. I hadn't thought of that. I'd worn it naturally since I started university. But how black is black enough, and how black is too much? Should I straighten my hair, which I hadn't done in seven years? I didn't want to work for a firm that wouldn't want me as I am. But I knew this principle might come at a cost. After all, I'd never met a black lawyer with natural hair."</span></div>
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<span style="color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588235294118); font-family: "roboto" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/hadiya-roderique-black-on-bay-street/article36823806/&source=gmail&ust=1510236426125000&usg=AFQjCNHYmRdo6L7k-lTySafjcdyGZgYAbw" href="https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/hadiya-roderique-black-on-bay-street/article36823806/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">https://beta.theglobeandmail.<wbr></wbr>com/news/toronto/hadiya-<wbr></wbr>roderique-black-on-bay-street/<wbr></wbr>article36823806/</a></span></div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6778502431400174863.post-76804677869842175622017-11-08T14:53:00.000-08:002017-11-08T14:53:17.166-08:00What Mr. Costello Is Reading Right Now: IntroHi MTW Readers!<br />
<br />
In all of my classes I curate Google Classroom spaces as a way to pose questions, post assignments, and point out details of our main texts and our world. I will regularly share articles from my own reading that I feel are relevant to my students in our joint quest to become more educated citizens. In my Google Classroom spaces I will use the tag "What I'm Reading Right Now." I'll take a snippet from the article to copy and paste as a preview, and attach a link to the article on the post.<br />
<br />
I really enjoy when students notice the pieces that I post and I've had some of the best, and most fruitful conversations about What I'm Reading Right Now even though the content is usually outside of the specific demands of the curriculum.<br />
<br />
A lot of What I'm Reading Right Now (WIRRN) is centered around social justice topics, with the occasional ultimate frisbee article, just for flavor. I'm excited to share WIRRN with MTW!<br />
<br />
--C<br />
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Emily Nash, shown on Aug. 8 after <a href="http://www.mgalinks.org/about-us/news/2017/news_2017_080317b.html" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #5076b8; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;">winning</a> the Massachusetts Golf Association's WGAM Junior Amateur Championship. This month, in an unrelated high school tournament, Nash was denied a trophy despite her winning score.</div>
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(From October 27, 2017)</div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">Winner Of High School Golf Tournament Denied Trophy, Because She's A Girl</span></h1>
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David S. Cohen, a law professor at Drexel University, says the rule raises Title IX concerns. The law does does allow contact or skill-based sports to be separated by gender, he says — so MIAA could have kept girls out of the boys' tournament completely.</div>
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"But ... once they say, 'We're going to let girls participate,' they're required by Title IX to treat them equally," he says. "And denying someone the trophy and the championship is far from treating them equally."</div>
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<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/10/26/560210230/winner-of-high-school-golf-tournament-denied-trophy-because-shes-a-girl?utm_source%3Dfacebook.com%26utm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_campaign%3Dnpr%26utm_term%3Dnprnews%26utm_content%3D2053&source=gmail&ust=1510237364194000&usg=AFQjCNHI1nFiYa3qBSQj7wsK3dCjK8_YXA" href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/10/26/560210230/winner-of-high-school-golf-tournament-denied-trophy-because-shes-a-girl?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=2053" style="color: #1155cc; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" target="_blank">http://www.npr.org/sections/<wbr></wbr>thetwo-way/2017/10/26/<wbr></wbr>560210230/winner-of-high-<wbr></wbr>school-golf-tournament-denied-<wbr></wbr>trophy-because-shes-a-girl?<wbr></wbr>utm_source=facebook.com&utm_<wbr></wbr>medium=social&utm_campaign=<wbr></wbr>npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_<wbr></wbr>content=2053</a></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6778502431400174863.post-34358926776077973962017-10-26T09:57:00.002-07:002017-10-26T09:57:55.071-07:00What is Social justice Within Ourselves? by Marcel <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What is social justice within ourselves?</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-7072fbf3-599d-22ee-3a43-3349d0ecb488" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The objective of social justice is to spread equality, without judgment, through ethnicity, religion, gender, or ethnic origin. Social justice normally goes undefined, as it comes in various forms and interpretations. There are certain steps people must follow in order to learn about themselves, and to acknowledge that social justice surrounds us every day. One of the most important questions to ask ourselves is, “what is social justice to me?”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first step in answering this opinionated question, is to be more aware, to listen, and to absorb information. Listen to what's going on around you, think of how you want to react to what you have encountered. The second step is ponder the issue of social justice, and how it may affect you and individuals around you. For example, if you hear a racist remark, take a moment to reflect. Think and take in what they're saying. How does the racist comment affect you? How does it affect your thinking, even if your ethnicity isn't the target of hate. On the other hand, if your ethnicity is being targeted, also take a moment to think about how you can respond, physically or mentally. The third step is to take action. To take action in an appropriate manner by exploiting social justice issues that mean something to you is most effective. Take a stand on what you believe to be just. Taking action comes in many forms and can be as simple as a “retweet” on Twitter or a Facebook post. </span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now, decide what social justice means to you. How will you take action? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03381354424836201473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6778502431400174863.post-26739047847608623442017-10-26T09:54:00.004-07:002017-10-26T09:54:43.468-07:00The Broadening Vocabulary of Social Justice: Did You Know? <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">James was working on his math homework when he heard the familiar “ding” of his phone. He picked up his phone and looked at the notification. His phone screen read, “Hey, baby! Just thought of you xoxo -Brianna”. James sighed and tossed his phone to the side. He thought about how uncomfortable texts from his girlfriend made him. He didn’t know why her feelings made him squirm. It wasn’t normal to feel this way about someone you loved, was it? James didn’t know why he felt the way he did. </span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-96039570-599a-5912-bfde-dabaf814292c" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Although this was the first relationship James had been in, he discovered something important about himself. He was aromantic. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unlike asexuality, aromanticism has not gained much public attention. It seems to be an obscure romantic orientation that seems to hide in the shadows. Someone who is aromantic does not experience romantic attraction to others. Romance is a feeling of attachment, or love for someone. However, aromantic people can still experience and enjoy platonic relationships. Romantic affection tends to make aromantic people uncomfortable. This form of affection can include kissing, hugging, and holding hands. Aromantic people are also generally uncomfortable with attachment in relationships, and prefer to keep a strictly sexual relationship with their partner. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Similar to all other romantic and sexual orientations, aromanticism exists on a spectrum. Someone may identify as demiromantic--meaning they feel the need to establish a sexual relationship before they are able to have a healthy romantic relationship. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Romantic orientation is independent of sexual orientation. For instance, James identifies as both heterosexual and aromantic. People can identify with any combination of sexual and romantic orientation that makes them comfortable. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Someone can also feel romantic attraction for a certain gender identity, and feel sexual attraction for another. You could identify as panromantic (meaning you feel romantic attraction for people regardless of gender identity) </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> homosexual (meaning you feel sexual attraction to people of your same gender identity). You can also be both asexual (meaning you don’t feel sexual attraction) </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> aromatic (meaning you don’t feel romantic attraction). People who are aromantic are not necessarily interested in sexual relationships. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Two people who have a romantic attraction to one another are generally said to have “crushes” on each other. In aromantic relationships, these attractions are called “squishes”. Squishes are platonic in nature. Someone who has a squish most likely craves friendship with a particular person. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Being aromantic can be frustrating becuase romantic orientation is not a popular topic of discussion. Making romantic orientations known and supported is going to strengthen the LGBTQ community, and it’s important to let anyone who is questioning know that they are loved. Spreading awareness is the first step to spreading peace and love for romantic orientations of all kinds. </span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03381354424836201473noreply@blogger.com1