#flatfriere

Today I was scrolling through twitter when I stumbled upon a post by @theGrio. theGrio.com is a news website that "is a community devoted to perspectives that affect and reflect the African-American community.", According to their twitter bio. The tweet said "A teacher joined students bullying a Muslim student and caught on tape pulling her hijab off to see her "pretty hair:"," and had an accompanying link to their website with a video from news channel 4 in Nashville. The video was recorded in a classroom and circulated through social media like snapchat and twitter. The video showed a student having their hijab being taken off by students while she covered her face, and other students were playing with her hair. The teacher is now on suspension without pay. In this weeks reading by the American Academy of Religion (AAR), the  second major premise states: "One of the most troubling and urgent consequences of religious illiteracy is that it often fuels prejudice and antagonism, thereby hindering efforts aimed at promoting respect for diversity, peaceful coexistence, and cooperative endeavors in local, national, and global arenas" (pg 5). I believe that the students were very interested in seeing the students hair, as they had never seen it before, but their religious illiteracy did not allow them to realize that what they were doing is wrong. From my understanding, hijab is worn when women are around men who are not close relatives, and is viewed by some as a way of having people focus on their inner qualities rather than their external characteristics. This action was astonishing to me, but also not that unpredictable. Another idea from the AAR was, "One example of the negative consequences of religious illiteracy is that...in countries where Muslims are in the minority is the widespread association of Islam with terrorism and the consequent justification of individual hate crimes against those perceived to be Muslim." (pg 5-6). While this individual act was not violent, it is still seen as disrespectful to the Muslim faith and could have been solved by a simple conversation about the importance of the hijab in the classroom.

While undertaking the process of writing one of the dozens of papers I have due this week I went exploring Alden. I found this little room that is deemed the Meditation room, and it reminded me of our recent readings in class on religion but particularly the Adams and Joshi article that highlighted our freedom of religion. “Freedom of religion is one of the most enduring and powerful narratives about the United States” (Adams/Joshi 229). The idea that we've managed to progress from our squabbling between Protestants and Catholics during the immigration phase in the 1800's to being open and accepting enough to establish an all-purpose room in which all religions can utilize it and practice their religion while out and about their daily life. It's also very inspiring considering our current political climate that we have something like this to protect the ability of other students to practice their religion. 

~Dakota

These two pictures are from the first episode of a newer television show “Riverdale.” This is only the second scene with the character of Kevin in, and we are bombarded with his sexuality.  Kevin becomes, and is referred to as later in the episode, the gay best friend of the two main female characters.  I want to also mention that Kevin is one of three potentially queer characters on the show; the others are a football player that denies the label of gay for social reasons, and the other is a member of the town’s most dangerous gang.  I mention this because these are all very generic tropes used when writers are putting queer characters into their shows or movies.  The gay best friend, the closeted football player, and the dangerous potential villain are all used to generically, and very poorly, represent people from the LGBTQ community in television and movies. This relates to the concept of privilege; in Johnson’s The Social Construction of Difference, privilege is described as “when one group has something of value that is denied to others simply because of the groups they belong to” (16). Heterosexual individuals get to see accurate and diverse representations of themselves in the shows and movies they watch; they are not reduced to their sexuality and very basic assumptions about their personality and lives based on that.

I was walking home from class one day when I noticed this LGBTQ friendly sticker on the sign for the UCM: Center for Spiritual Growth and Social Justice. I had never noticed this sign and sticker before, but it reminded me of the readings we did for week 5. I learned a lot about gender differences and transgender issues that week, and it got me thinking about how many other people are unaware of information regarding the LGBTQ community. Do people know that transgender people experience unemployment twice as much as the general population? Does our society realize that transgender individuals cannot serve in the U.S. Military? Are people aware that 41% of transgender people attempt suicide next to the 1.6% of the general population? Each of these statistics comes from GLAAD’s article, Transgender FAQ. We need to become aware of the strain that our society puts on the LBGTQ community and begin to make a difference for their lives. We are all equal, and we always have been.

On January 21, I was granted the amazing opportunity to march alongside thousands of fellow Americans for the Women’s March on Washington. This is a picture I took during the march. It was a very empowering experience, and it also encapsulates the importance of inter-sectional feminism. As a cis-white woman, it’s important for me to recognize the difference between white & inter-sectional feminism, with me choosing the latter form. There were so many angry posts on Facebook regarding the Women’s March and how the posters viewed it as petty and unnecessary. The thing is, I noticed that it was white women who were predominantly making these posts. That sparked concern with me. This is because even though women face oppression, cis-gender white women have more privilege over women of color as well as LGBTQ women because of their race and sexuality. In short, these women who were making these posts weren’t putting into consideration their privilege as well as the minority groups of women who face deeper forms of oppression due to the lack of this privilege. In the chapter Oppression and Power (Sensoy & DiAngelo), it’s stated on p. 45 how “…Women [white] received the right to vote in the early 20th century in Canada and the United States, but injustice between men and women did not end the day suffrage was granted. In fact, victories enacted through law, while important, often work to slow progress because they mislead people into believing that a single change has solved the issue.” There is still a long way to go with women’s rights, so it’s important to consider every type of woman when advocating for or critiquing feminism. Overall, intersectionality is key.

On my way to class I saw this sign posted on the college gate. I thought it was really interesting because when you walk into college green you aren’t walking into a building. When I think of handicap signs, I think of parking spaces and buildings. However, thinking about it more, it is really nice that they have a sign indicating that it is handicap friendly to be on college green. Especially with Athens having so many hills, you might not know if there would be outdoor stairs or not. However, if you are walking on college green, the bricks are super uneven and there is a significant incline, so, I would wonder how handicap accessible it really is. Then, I wonder if they put that sign on other outdoor areas and if it is just an Ohio University thing, or if many public places will do the same. Susan Wendell’s reading, “The Social Construction of Disability,” talks about some of these ideas. Although the main focus of the reading is about social issues like malnutrition that can lead to disabilities, she also writes, there are “subtle cultural factors that determine standards of normality and exclude those who do not meet them from full participation in their societies.” So, we can look at this accessibility sign and wonder what it would be like to live in a world where we can just assume a place is accessible to those with physical disabilities. Wendell describes this as “the physical and social organization of societies on the basis of a young, non-disabled, ‘ideally shaped,’ healthy adult male paradigm of citizens.” To us, that is what we assume as the normal and I feel you do not align with that group, then we have to make exceptions for you to be able to access an area that us able-bodied people don’t even have to think about. Assuming I am speaking to all able-bodied individuals, I would wonder how hard it would be to navigate a place like Ohio University where there are hills and uneven pavement. Since the university is so old, I might even go as far to say that some buildings aren’t handicap accessible and that might make a huge difference to those who have to rely on that accessibility. Is it fair that we have buildings where those with physical disabilities can’t even get into? What if they are living in the dorms? Half, if not most, of the dorms don’t have elevators so they would have to live on the first floor. All of these circumstances are thing that I, as a citizen like Susan Wendell outlined, don’t have to worry or think about daily, if ever.

This photo is of an article written by The Post, here in Athens, OH. Recently, the wall by Bentley Hall had graffiti on it depicting a hanged black man, the words “Build the wall” and “You can’t cover this up.” The knowledge that students on campus have racist thoughts is upsetting and shows that we are not as progressed as we think. Black people are obviously still oppressed in society, and this image is a reminder of that. Chapter 4 of Sensoy & DiAngelo discusses social stratification. They state, “the process of assigning unequal value is called social stratification” (41).  Seeing as how this is not the first racist comment that has been painted on the wall, it is clear that some students on campus value minorities less than those who are white. This is social stratification on OU’s campus. If we hope to make a change, we need to admit that there is a problem so that we can address it.