Systemic Racism - Blog Posts

An Open Letter to White Emo Kids

When I was thirteen years old, I googled ‘how to be emo.’ The music, the aesthetics, the darkness of it all captivated me. There was transgression there, with boys in makeup and girls who weren’t ashamed to be bisexual. The online emo community on google plus (anyone else remember google plus? Just me?) took me in with open arms. I was allowed to be depressed, I didn’t have to hide my burgeoning sexuality or the starts of my struggle with depression, something I now know was caused by intense amounts of dysphoria and life in an abusive and queerphobic household.

Only, there was one problem. I wasn’t white. 

Certainly, nobody would say they had an issue with me being Latino to my face. Most people in the scene genuinely believed they were not racist. After all, they loved Latino people, they thought the guys in Pierce the Veil were so hot. They appreciated the culture too, sombreros and maracas were the full extent of Mexican culture, right? 

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Mass Media and Society

How does mass media affect our society? Is entertainment what drives our society moving forward, and if it is, what type of entertainment are we really pushing out there? These notes discuss how media relates and corresponds pre-existing themes, like ageism, racism, sexism, and the term ‘other-ism’ and explains the origin of the ‘mean world syndrome’ from a sociologist’s point of view.

Democracy

NO. 1

The short definition of democracy is the practice of social equality, and a quick Google search says it is a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives. Basically, the people are allowed/have the authority to have the to choose and decide legislation, or to choose governing officials. And yet, democracy is not included in the Declaration of Independence, nor the U.S Constitution.

NO. 2

The term ‘democracy’ originated from Athens, Greece, and it appeared in the 5th century BC, meaning the ‘rule of the people.’ The word “democracy” comes from two Greek words that mean people (demos) and rule (kratos). Democracy contrasts with the forms of government where power is either held by an individual, as in autocratic systems like a monarchy or where power is held by a small number of individuals, as in an oligarchy—oppositions inherited from ancient Greek philosophy. Western democracy reflects towards all citizens that they are ‘‘equal before the law, and having equal access to legislative processes. For example, in a representative democracy, every vote has equal weight, no unreasonable restrictions can apply to anyone seeking to become a representative, and the freedom of its eligible citizens is secured by legitimized rights and liberties which are typically protected by a constitution. Other uses of "democracy" include that of direct democracy in which issues are directly voted on by the constituents.’’

NO. 3

The U.S Constitution! A symbol of power, patriotism, nationalism, and freedom which conveys meaning honorable and justified peace for all people, granting its citizens hope, and what everyone wants is freedom. From the beginning, the founders of America emphasized this fact. ‘‘The history of the American democracy is usually presented as a political story tout court. Nineteenth-century scholars pointed to the Declaration of Independence as the fundamental document. Now that the Founding Fathers are seen as actively checking ‘the excess of democracy in the 1780s when they ratified the U.S Constitution’s creation of an energetic federal government, democracy is variously depicted as arriving in the U.S with the election of Thomas Jefferson or Andrew Jefferson.’’ And yet, this very word ‘democracy’ is not in the Constitution nor the Declaration of Independence. Why? Because America is not a democracy, it is officially known as a ‘‘representative democracy, in which citizens vote for representatives who create and change laws that govern the people rather than getting to vote directly on the laws themselves.’’

NO. 4

But to the minorities of this country, especially black and Indigenous people, the word democracy is not imparted upon them, nor those steady patriotic beliefs in the country to impose freedom for all. Because power was usurped from the ‘Indigenous People’, everyone who was white, Anglo-Saxon, and male was the only ‘people’ to vote, have a business, and be a part of the government, not to mention be respected as a human being. ‘‘The Constitution does not set forth requirements for the right to vote. As a result, at the outset of the Union, only male property-owners could vote. African Americans were not considered citizens, and women were excluded from the electoral process. Native Americans were not given the right to vote until 1924. When it was ratified in 1787, the Constitution enshrined the institution of slavery through the so-called "Three-Fifths Compromise," which called for those "bound to service for a term of years" and ‘all other Persons" (meaning slaves) to be counted for representation purposes as three-fifths of free people.’’

Granted, the Constitution has changed and was re-edited to allow everyone common and basic freedoms in this century. But as we go into 2022, does the current culture really embody that? Or is democracy still, and always has been, a white man's game?

Eugenics, and how it leads to gender

NO.1

What is eugenics? Better yet, what was the eugenics movement about? Wikipedia states that ‘'it’s a set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population, historically by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior or promoting those judged to be superior. In recent years, the term has seen a revival in bioethical discussions on the usage of new technologies such as CRISPR and genetic screening, with a heated debate on whether these technologies should be called eugenics or not.’’

NO.2

The concept was created by Plato, where he suggested the concept of selective breeding; but the term was invented by a cousin of Darwin, Francis Galton, who launched the movement to ‘improve the human race, or at least, to halt its perceived decline. His ideas spread quickly, and by the 1920s eugenics movements existed all over the world. Eugenics, a movement for social betterment clothed in the mantle of modern science, claimed the allegiance of most genetic scientists and drew supporters from the political right, left, and center. The movement was embraced by Hitler and the rise of Nazism, which thankfully lost most of its power at the fall of the Third Reich in Europe and America, but some of its ideas still linger in the States. Like the notion of gender and marriage; strictly speaking, of white heterosexual couples.

NO.3

In the 1920’s eugenicist, Paul Popenoe brought marriage counseling to the U.S, where he sought to protect ‘family values’ since there was widespread concern over the declining white birth rates and created the American Institute of Family Relations (AIFR) where they popularized pseudoscientific sexual differences to the masses. Back then, everything in pop culture had little trails leading back to eugenics, including in schools, taught to their children, plastered as ads to their buildings, like pamphlets and books, all on advocating for the white female students to produce more children. Popenoe argued that the ‘male-female difference transcended all other human differences and was the ‘greatest that can exist between the two normal human beings.’ He felt that was this sex binary was essential to the survival of the family, nation, and western civilization, and therefore must be protected from the decadence of modern society.

NO.4

Post-war eugenicists were threatened by the higher education women which they felt decreased ‘natural birthrates and called for traditional marriage with defined sex-gender roles arguing that ‘men and women were made for marriage, biologically and psychologically.’ Patricia Hill Collins explains in her book, “It’s All in the Family: Intersections of Gender, Race, and Nation that ‘‘stationed in the center of ‘family values’ debates is an imagined traditional family ideal. Formed through a combination of marital and bloody ties, ideal families consist of heterosexual couples that produce their own biological family. Defined as a natural or biological arrangement based on heterosexual attraction, this monolithic family type articulates with governmental structures. Because family constitutes a fundamental principle of social organization, the significance of the traditional family ideal transcends ideology. In the United States, understandings of social institutions and social policies are often constructed through family rhetoric. Families constitute primary sites of belonging to various groups: to the family as an assumed biological entity; to geographically identifiable, racially segregated neighborhoods conceptualized as imagined families; to so-called racial families codified in science and law, and to the U.S nation-state conceptualized as a national family.’’

We are all part of the change ✊🏿✊🏾✊🏽✊🏼✊🏻