So it has been quite awhile since my last blog post. This past semester was awful. My classes were fine, work was fine, but the amount of drama that erupted in my personal life over the last few months left me incapable of focusing on anything beyond school, work, and starting my post-undergrad job hunt. I even pushed my GRE back to June because studying for my original November date just wasn’t an option.
I’ve resolved for 2012 to be better. Even though I still don’t love the idea of resolutions, I am making a small resolution-type-thing… in 2012 I refuse to get caught up in anything that will drag me down in the way that this last year did. My anxiety issues (which I will talk about more in a future post) have hit their peak in 2011 (seriously, I’m calling it) & 2012 will be the year that I pull myself together and become the calm, collected, kickass person that I can be 24/7, instead of just when I am out in public and my reputation is on the line. Part of this resolution means writing here (and elsewhere on the web) a lot more again, because I miss blogging & everyone who I interact with on here!
While I was missing from Imagine Today a TON happened elsewhere. The two most exciting things are…
(1) I got an article posted on xoJane.com!
(2) I also got accepted to present at Momentum 2012 alongside Maria Falzone! Check it out, check it out! I added the conference icon to my sidebar (FINALLY) so if you’re interested at all check it out and consider attending. Last year’s conference, the first ever, was fabulous, it was new, exciting, and experimental yet the organizers obviously knew what they were doing… the workshops were well scheduled, presentations ran smoothly and were well times, plenty of delicious and refreshing snacks were constantly available. I normally really enjoy conferences, but Momentum is on another level entirely. Check out the liveblogs & recaps I wrote of last year’s conference…
- Momentum Liveblog Part One
- Momentum Liveblog Part Two
- Momentum Liveblog Part Three
- My First Burlesque Show
- Closing Plenary Videos (Not mine.)
Maria and I will be co-facilitating a presentation called Selling Safer Sex to College Students: Tips and Techniques of the Trade. Click the linked title to check out the description! Maria is ridiculously funny & we are both committed to facilitating a session with plenty of dialogue and engagement, so I can promise you this will be awesome. I know my biggest issue that week is going to be choosing between so many wonderful looking workshops.
So I am signing off for now, but I promise this time it won’t be for nearly three months (sorry!) I’ll be back with new content (and a renewed commitment to writing here) soon! In the meantime, do any of you have resolutions? How do you stay calm and focused when life seems to want you to lose your mind? I always love having conversations in the comments!
I wrote this post for the Ramapo College Women’s Center blog but I wanted to share it here too!
For most people today is Columbus Day, but not for me. After reading about the atrocities committed by Columbus and his men in James Lowen’s Lies My Teacher Told Me I can no longer acknowledge the day in good conscience.
Despite my lack of aptitude when it comes to history, for the past ten years or so I have had some awareness of the fact that Columbus Day was a really crummy holiday. I mean, thinking about it logically it is easy to understand that Columbus didn’t discover anything, he simply took over a patch of land that was already inhabited by various groups of people. With this understanding I spent many years ambivalent, not thrilled about the reasoning behind the holiday but enjoying my day off all the same. Now, however, I am outraged. This excerpt from a post on commondreams.org is lengthy, but it sums up the horrible history behind Columbus’ expedition to the “New World” very well. It is a history that I, like many of my peers, was woefully unaware of until just a few weeks ago.
“If you fly over the country of Haiti on the island of Hispaniola, the island on which Columbus landed, it looks like somebody took a blowtorch and burned away anything green. Even the ocean around the port capital of Port au Prince is choked for miles with the brown of human sewage and eroded topsoil. From the air, it looks like a lava flow spilling out into the sea. The history of this small island is, in many ways, a microcosm for what’s happening in the whole world. When Columbus first landed on Hispaniola in 1492, virtually the entire island was covered by lush forest. The Taino “Indians” who loved there had an apparently idyllic life prior to Columbus, from the reports left to us by literate members of Columbus’s crew such as Miguel Cuneo. When Columbus and his crew arrived on their second visit to Hispaniola, however, they took captive about two thousand local villagers who had come out to greet them. Cuneo wrote: “When our caravels were to leave for Spain, we gathered one thousand six hundred male and female persons of those Indians, and these we embarked in our caravels on February 17, 1495. For those who remained, we let it be known (to the Spaniards who manned the island’s fort) in the vicinity that anyone who wanted to take some of them could do so, to the amount desired, which was done.” Cuneo further notes that he himself took a beautiful teenage Carib girl as his personal slave, a gift from Columbus himself, but that when he attempted to have sex with her, she “resisted with all her strength.” So, in his own words, he “thrashed her mercilessly and raped her.” While Columbus once referred to the Taino Indians as cannibals, a story made up by Columbus – which is to this day still taught in some US schools – to help justify his slaughter and enslavement of these people. He wrote to the Spanish monarchs in 1493: “It is possible, with the name of the Holy Trinity, to sell all the slaves which it is possible to sell Here there are so many of these slaves, and also brazilwood, that although they are living things they are as good as gold.” Columbus and his men also used the Taino as sex slaves: it was a common reward for Columbus’ men for him to present them with local women to rape. As he began exporting Taino as slaves to other parts of the world, the sex-slave trade became an important part of the business, as Columbus wrote to a friend in 1500: “A hundred castellanoes (a Spanish coin) are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten (years old) are now in demand.”
In order to draw attention to the controversy over this “holiday” at Ramapo Professor Gorewitz planned a “campus takeover to appreciate Native Americans.” This is the schedule for the day:
9:45 – Gathering 10:00 – Greetings from representatives of the Ojibwa and Lenape communities 10:15 to 11:30 – Trudell by Heather Rae 11:30 to 1:00 – Powwow Highway directed by Jonathan Wacks 1:00 to 2:00 – Drum circle near the arch 2:00 to 3:30 – Smoke Signals directed by Chris Eyre 4:00 to 6:00 – The Business of Fancy Dancing written and directed by Sherman Alexie
I’m in class and meetings for most of the day, but I did manage to jump back and forth between Ramapo Coming Out Day (more about that in another post) and the Drum Circle! The drum circle was lead by a Native American man* who spoke for awhile about the significance of the various instruments before leading the circle in a beat for a little while. * [Because I came in late, I missed where exactly he was from but we should all be aware that "Native American culture" is not a monolithic thing. Someone I spoke to told me the man was from Wisconsin, so I suspect he is Ojibwa based on the program and the fact that there is an Ojibwa reservation in Wisconsin. If anyone has more information about the facilitator of this portion of the event please post it in the comments! ]
![](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-c1A9orf_JQM/TpM089C9bUI/AAAAAAAAAKw/pC-3XGUq8hE/s1600/IMG_4752.JPG")
In addition to the film festival, there has also been a petition going around to change Ramapo’s name for the day to it’s Native American spelling, Ramapough. This is the part of the event that resonates with me most, since so few people on this campus realize that there is a Native American tripe, the Ramapough Lenape people, living not twenty minutes from Ramapo’s campus. Even fewer people realize that the Ramapough Lenape people’s health and livlihood has been compromised for years now, at the hands of Ford Motors:
In 1983, the Ramapough homeland was declared an EPA-monitored Superfund site by the federal government. After 7,000 cubic yards and 727 tons of paint sludge and 61 drums of toxic waste was removed from the Upper Ringwood, New Jersey site from 1987 to 1990, and in 1994, the EPA delisted the site and declared it safe. In 2006, after many complaints by the Ramapough, Upper Ringwood was the first site in history re-declared a Superfund site and today the EPA admits that 80 percent of the toxins were missed in the original cleanup.
This piece is a follow-up of sorts to a post I wrote awhile back for Not Your Average Feminism, on a similar topic, called It’s About People, Not Breasts.
Showing off my tie-dyed bra after a few hours of tabling!
This past weekend I helped to bring Octoberbreast to my college’s Octoberfest celebrations. For three hours I stood behind a table with some friends, in a black dress and a bright tie-dyed sports bra, encouraging other women to tie-dye their own bras while we spoke with them about the various Breast Cancer Awareness Month events we had coming up around campus. The table was met with a great deal of enthusiasm and excitement… we ran out of bras long before the event ran out of time!
In executing this table we did A LOT of things right. The idea was fun and catchy. We had a range of sizes wide enough that we did not have to tell anyone that we didn’t have a bra big enough for them (though we did run out of smaller sizes much quicker than anticipated.) We managed to educate a number of people through conversations and pamphlets given out alongside their bras – sharing information about breast cancer in general as well as the events we have less to come.
Still, there was one thing about this event that made me feel just a bit disappointed in us: we had forgotten the men.
Breast cancer aware
ness is important, yes, but with “I <3 Boobies” bracelets on so many arms, and NEW! pink products coming out all the time… most people are pretty aware of breast cancer, well, at least the 51% of them that identify as female are. The other half of the population is still at risk because somewhere along the line the conversation about men & breast cancer often seems to get lost. In fact, I have to wonder if all of these campaigns that focus so much on boobs make men even less aware of breast cancer, since they are trained to associate it with “boobies” and women in general.
If this is true, as I suspect, then these campaigns actually could be costing male breast-cancer patients valuable time as they are less likely to be on the lookout for breast cancer symptoms.That time could be the difference between life and death.
In August many media outlets were reporting on a South Carolina man, Raymond Johnson, who was denied coverage for his breast cancer… simply because he was not born female. Johnson makes too much money to be considered for Medicaid, but not enough to afford insurance that would cover his treatments, as a result of this his doctors encouraged him to apply for help under The Breast and Cervical Cancer Prevention and Treatment Act. Johnson met all of the requirements for coverage under this act except for one: he wasn’t a woman. Johnson isn’t the only man who has been denied by this fund for the same reasons.
Equally horrifying (at least to me) is the fact that Johnson didn’t even know he could GET breast cancer. For all of the awareness campaigns out there he, like many men, was left in the dark until his diagnosis was brought to light:
“I didn’t even know men could get breast cancer,” says Johnson, who was diagnosed after he went to a local emergency room for chest pain treatment. “I’m young. I didn’t think anything bad could really happen to me.” [Source]
While it is true that breast cancer is MUCH more rare in men [there are just under 2,000 new cases of breast cancer in men in the U.S. per year, and just under 400 deaths, while almost 40,000 women die of breast cancer each year] that does not mean that raising awareness in men is not important. Like all cancers, a patient’s chances of survival are MUCH higher
For an event like ours, I would suggest providing white tank tops for men (and women who don’t want sports-bras) to tie-dye in order to help draw in a more mixed crowd. Overall, when it comes to Breast Cancer Awareness, I continue to advocate for a less “boobies”-centric view… what I mean by this, is that campaigns should focus more on the people who are fighting this disease, and less on the “boobies” themselves.
The bottom line is that breast cancer doesn’t discriminate based on sex, and neither should breast cancer awareness programs or treatment funds.
To end this on a positive note, is one awesome Breast Cancer Awareness campaign that speaks to men as well as women:
“Peter Criss, drummer and founding member of the rock band KISS, recently went public with his battle against breast cancer. People don’t associate men with the disease, but men have breast tissue, too, and they are susceptible to breast cancer. Keep reading and then encourage your loved ones — male and female — to get screened for the potentially deadly disease. “ Read more here!
What do you think? Do you know of any effective awareness campaigns that target women AND men? As always, feel free to share in the comments!
What can I even say?
I didn’t know anything about Troy Davis’ plight or his case until last night, when his life was taken by the state.
I am angry, sad, confused, lost… its crap like this that leaves me feeling hopeless, unable to escape from a culture that would murder a man who had so much reasonable doubt tied to his conviction that he probably shouldn’t even be in jail, let alone dead right now.
I feel complicit in all of this hate. No matter how much I read, no matter how many worthy causes I advocate for there are always going to be things that I miss. Like Troy Davis. I want so badly to do my part in advocating against racism, but I don’t even know where to begin in my community. I want to advocate against the death penalty. I want to do something that would help to stop this from happening ever again. Yet I can’t seem to get past this feeling that my one voice doesn’t mean a single. damn. thing. I mean, if the voices of the thousands who did protest meant nothing to America’s government, why would mine?
How do you pick up and keep going when the country you’ve been raised to love violates its own principles so blatantly?
How do you accept the fact the the cries of so many Americans, calling out for justice for Troy, were so soundly ignored?
Tonight I watched a room full of Republicans boo a f*cking soldier, risking his life in Iraq for a country that doesn’t even recognize him as an equal citizen. So much for, ‘support our troops.’ Earlier this week I saw headlines telling the story of Jamey Rodemeyer, a fourteen year old boy who was pushed to suicide at the hands of bullying.
Where do you go when you dread opening your computer, turning on the TV, even opening your eyes in the morning… for fear of witnessing something else you can’t bear to comprehend?
What could I ever say, or hear, that could make this better? There’s the old standard: life goes on. And that’s true, life will go on and before long Troy Davis and Jamey Rodemeyer will be forgotten by most of us, overshadowed by a million other injustices, annoyances… and good things, too.
If anything, that makes me feel worse. For me, and for so many other life goes on. For Troy and Jamey it ends abruptly, senselessly, without justice.
Its human nature to look for connections, even when there are none. This time, there is a connection: it’s hate.
We’re trained, from an early age, to fear one another, to hate one another. White kids taught to hate kids with skin darker than their own by parents who weave elaborate lies about entitlement (welfare, affirmative action) and danger (muggings, crime). I should know, even my own progressive family feeds right into this BS from time to time. Children who aren’t white taught to hate themselves by a society that tells them you are not good enough, not deserving even of the things you have earned, a society where history has no meaning and everyone’s circumstance is something that they have earned rather than something determined by centuries of history, stretching back long before their birth. Is it any wonder Troy Davis is dead despite the overwhelming doubt surrounding his conviction?
When straight kids are taught to fear queer kids, as preachers teach that love can be a sin, teachers turn a blind eye to bullying and parents try to steer their kids in the “right direction.” When those queer kids are taught to hate themselves, to want to change because as they are love is something dangerous, not something that every human being deserves. A country where just being openly gay is enough to get a soldier booed. Is it any wonder that Jamey Rodemeyer killed himself just this week?
We’re taught to fear everyone who is not just like us, fear that can turn to hate in the blink of an eye.
A system that executes people for their crimes teaches us that killing, violence, and hate are the answer.
A government that refuses to grant basic rights (like marriage, or job protection) to vulnerable members of its population is one that teachers discrimination is okay.
… and we’re all complicit. Every single on of us has had a moment where we stayed silent, watched hate unfold before our eyes but sat paralyzed and unable to act. Maybe it was a friend calling a stupid movie gay or a grandmother making a ridiculous comment about Mexican students going to school for free. I’ll just let this one slide, we think. We’re having a nice time and I don’t want to be the downer.
I almost stopped blogging just a few weeks after starting, because the passage of Prop 8 in California left me feeling so gutted, so hopeless, that I just didn’t see the point. Just as I did then, I find myself returning to the idea of love as the only thing that matters, the only thing powerful enough to change our world into one that doesn’t hurt so much to inhabit. I don’t meant this in a wishy-washy metaphorical sense though. I mean we have to love each other enough to be honest. Love ourselves and the people around us enough to confront the hate, head on, to call it out even when it is masquerading as humor. We need to love our country enough to demand better. To write letters, and protest, and vote, and campaign until America lives up to the values it was founded upon. We need to love even the most hate-filled people, love them enough to push the hate from their hearts and help them to transform. We have to love even when all we want to do is close out the world because the hate simply hurts too much to bear.
It won’t ever be easy, but it will be worth it. That’s what I’ve learned, at least, in twenty one years of muddling through this all, and personally I will never stop trying to prove that love is stronger, for Troy Davis and Jamey Rodemeyer and the million other voices silenced all too soon by the simple power of hate.
