#marginalized community

Being aware of all the problems in the world is hard emotional work. And that's not me being all "it's so hard to believe in human rights, here's why nothing matters" -

I mean that, often, having strong belief in human rights comes with emotional work. When you're marginalized, and you have to sit there and really think about the world, how it categorizes people, what your place in it really is -- that brings up a lot of emotions.

Anger. Fear. Shame. Jealousy. Grief. Disbelief. Bargaining. Distress over living in a world that can be so unjust, terrifying, and wrong. The trauma of it all. Yet on top of it, there's a sense of validation and empowerment. You see the problems, and now you're able to begin to lift some of the blame off of yourself.

But it doesn't come overnight, and depending on your situation, it may not be able to outpace the devastating effects of marginalization and oppression on a person's wellbeing. And I'm here to to tell you that it isn't your fault if or when that happens.

That's precisely why all those horrible things you're saying are preventing us from living in a better world are so horrible. They are not survivable conditions. They do not promote growth. They do not allow people to live full lives, despite human society's growing capacity to provide this to many more people than in the past. They make it so people feel isolated and powerless.

You didn't fail. You're not weak. You're not somehow secretly for all those things you're against. You aren't doing anything wrong. You're suffering under the same systems as everyone else. That doesn't mean things can't get better, or that you're doomed.

You're not alone in this world. So many things can change for the better. There are so many lessons for you to learn about life still. So many passions you have left to uncover. People you have yet to meet. Other people who are fighting for people just like you.

It's okay to put your faith in them. It's okay to lean on them - and I promise, they do exist: good people, good things, and your future self. It is hard to live as a marginalized person in this world, and it varies from person to person what that looks like. You know that. It's just hard to believe in yourself. You matter too. Your story deserves accepting too. You do not have to carry the weight of the entire world on your shoulders alone. Be aware, fight in whatever way you can, but please, don't lose hope - either in yourself, or in the world around you.

This is in the same vein as some of the critiques of Lev Grossman’s comments about “The Magicians” show-runners and how they chose to handle his work: where should Lev Grossman’s loyalties lie? 

Because walking into fandom’s discussions about how they feel mistreated and misrepresented and asking them to tone it down or to think about the positions of the people whom hurt them in this very ambiguously careful way so as to not upset these show-runners doesn’t seem like something someone like him should be doing when the audience is made up of so many of his own supporters. I’m certain that first and foremost the people who read his work supported the show and I’m sure many of them also make up the number of people who feel hurt and betrayed by the show’s depictions right now, especially given the book series’ subject-matter.

He also hasn’t added anything new to the discussion and so much of this interjection come off as caping for these show-runners whom may have put work into making his dream come true to a certain extent but ended up bastardizing his work in inexcusable ways and hurting the people whom support him in the process! Not to mention, these show-runners are people whom have the resources to have handled all of this properly from the depictions in the show to the aftermath of their fuckups and chose not to. The network itself is still adding insult to injury as we speak! So... what is this?

I can’t know if this is the case but it comes off as switching loyalties on a lark and not wanting to bite the hand that feeds him at the moment even though the supporters of the books and show are the ones who really made him who he was, not Sera Gamble and John McNamara! It feels too in line with the shit the show-runners were saying on their own social media platforms and makes this situation all the more frustrating and saddening. Especially when he could have just stayed out of it if he wasn’t going to help his supporters come to terms with this in any meaningful way or add anything new to the conversation.

He’s done all of this, I’ll remind everyone, while cleverly concealing his own part in this because we’ve got two versions of his part floating around and he hasn’t written a novel-length response clarifying his part in all of this at all that I know of. Please correct me if I’m wrong. He’s causing more confusion and just being messy while seemingly berating the people whom supported the adaptation of his work and I don’t understand why!

And maybe I’m the only one that’s reading it like this but I’m really sick of people telling other people how they should react to being hurt and upset! I’m sick of being told, especially by people in these hegemonic groups whom have been very comfortable in their positions or critique and judgement for so long, telling other people that they’re not allowed to critique things or how that critique should be administered. It’s not right!

Some of the biggest frustrations I have in all of this is that we’re seeing this behavior from media across the board. Across video games, music, television, movies, books, creators are in better positions than they’ve ever been to know what it is that audiences want from their media, to know how best to respectfully handle sensitive subjects, and to know when they’ve hurt their audiences and marginalized communities and instead we keep getting this entitled push-back. 

We keep getting these creators who arrogantly shun their audience’s advice and constructive criticism and ignore it when they hurt the people who built them up! 

These networks and creators deleting reviews and blocking people and doing all of this underhanded shit in this effort to curate the responses they want for their work, how is that sustainable? How is fake-woke shit sustainable? How is this kumbaya “can’t we all just get along” with no critical analysis shit sustainable? How is telling your audience that you think you know best what they want sustainable? 

We’re not over here trying to restrict creativity but there is a proper way to handle certain shit if you want a wide audience, especially in this day and age. Thinking one can do or say whatever they want from these positions of willful ignorance, that shit just doesn’t fly anymore! Or shouldn’t, right? 

I don’t accept this notion that we don’t know what we want because the only ones listening to one another and learning from one another are the people in these fandoms who seem to have more respect for these creative works than any of these corporations and sometimes, it seems, even the very creators. If a network feels the need to delete reviews that audiences overwhelmingly agree with and that’s their solution to these problems then what does that tell us about what we’re going to see in the future in terms of representation and creativity?

It looks very bleak to me.

[medium-sized font and red text : Being part of a marginalised community doesn't make you immune to being an oppressor yourself]

You can be a woman and racist. You can be poc and homophobic. You can be not-straight and transphobic. You can be transgender and ableist. You can be disabled and misogynistic. etc etc etc...

The same way, you can be toxic inside your own community ! Binary transgender with exorsexist opinions, physically disabled making fun of mentally ill people, gay not believing in bisexuality... Or, even more close to you, still having bad thoughts about the exact thing you are.

        Marginalized communities in Puerto Rico have been a problem rooted from the beginning of the 1940s. Due to the industrialization of the Puerto Rican economy, many farmers began emigrating to the city in hopes of working on industries, which were more prominent than any other business. Because farmers didn’t have much money, they began building houses in areas prone to floods and weren’t considered habitable by middle and high-class citizens. At the time, these people didn’t ask for permits, as it wasn’t demanded of them, and built their home from scratch to be able to work, make a living and sustain their families. Nowadays, most of the people that live in these zones are descendants of the 1940s farmers who were looking for a better life. Marginalized communities are mostly conformed of low-class citizens that don’t have the money to afford “decent” life conditions. Some have inherited these houses without any legal evidence, due to the lack of documents demanded when building these houses, while some have done the required legal work. These communities have been rejected and ignored for decades, their demands have fallen to deaf ears and some have been displaced in order to build tourist attractions. 

Vietnam, PR around the 1960s (Photo provided by: Gabriel Miranda)

        One of the most important marginalized communities is Vietnam, located in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, a city mostly known for its luxurious lifestyle and enriched citizens. The majority of the Vietnam citizens moved in the 1960s to build a community over a mangrove, against the police and the government’s wishes. To do this, they used old tires, pallets, debris and dirt. Vietnam gained its name due to the violent history, where many died at the hands of the government trying to find a place to call home. On numerous occasions, the government has attempted to displace them to build luxurious complexes and businesses meant for the higher class and tourists. Poor people live amongst the rubble and abandoned buildings, their demands for more attention to their community. In exchange, they’ve been ignored, making Vietnam as inhabitable as possible and offering them little money for their homes. 

        The government had planned to build the “Guaynabo City Waterfront”. It included a hotel, expensive housing and recreational areas for the rich. The mayor of this municipality, Hector O’Neill, had gone to court several times, questioning the constitutionality of the Law of Special Communities, which protects against expropriations. This law demands the municipality to get 75% of the approval of the residents of the community, as well as a joint resolution approved by the legislative branch that authorizes any expropriation in the community. O’Neill made his way around it, the residents finding that what seemed like purchases by the municipality had been illegal expropriations. The Department of Justice positioned themselves in favor of the residents. Nonetheless, when a candidate from the same political party as O’Neill took over as governor, the Department of Justice repositioned themselves against the residents. The case soon fell, another one surfacing in 2012 but once again, failing to proceed.

Child playing in the rubble (Photo taken by: Gabriel Miranda)

        Up to 2007, he had already displaced 300 families, reducing to half the population of the neighborhood. Community leaders, like Jerry Morales, have expressed their discontent over the handling of the community’s needs saying ”we build and rescue this and now the mayor wants to profit. Many elders were deceived. [The government] arrived and told them to sign papers to clean the patios, they signed and several weeks later they received a check. They had signed to let [the municipality] expropriate the house without realizing it. There are elders who got depressed and some died because of the impact this caused them.” 

        To maintain the community alive, the community leaders have developed many projects such as “Vietnam Estudia”. It offers daily tutoring to about 30 children from the community, offering snacks, psychologists and chiropractors. In addition, a cinematographer that visited Vietnam felt touched by the community and its conditions, developing a mini-documentary of the community. A snippet of it is linked below.