A blessing or a curse?

Over the course of this school year, I have learned about empire the its ruins. From the unique and fascinating infrastructure of the Roman and Inca empires to learning of the seemingly endless cycle of controlling and being defeated, empire is a term that can be used for a million and one aspects, whether they be physical or mental.

I have learned that not only is everything interconnected, but that is is also a reaction to what had happened prior. The world wasn’t given a set of rules. Rather, we, as humans have been trying to make sense of the inter-workings of societies to relationships since the beginning. And we still are. Because of this, injustices can be found throughout every society and time period.

After reviewing and learning about the process of Othering that is found within imperialism, I was left very aggravated. It can not be used to justify the tearing apart of cultures, land, and of people. Although we don’t have the “correct” set of rules, it has been agreed throughout different cultures and belief systems that taking more than one should and being unfair to the less fortunate is wrong. And yet, we still continue to do so.

othering

With the material given, the need and want for humans to be apart of the group and have group identity (especially if individuals are within an elevated group) is sadly revealed. Because of this need, the use of Othering as a justification can be understood. This is our ultimate weakness. Humans are willing to kill others and justify taking land that isn’t theirs because the ones inhabiting it look differently, talk differently, or use a different system.

Humans have been doing what they have wanted and use justifications that are seemingly pulled out of the air to do so. These justifications are the basis of much of the American high school history curriculum. Now, they have become the subconscious.

Due to this, we have a much more dense set of beliefs that are based off of wants.

Although the material throughout the quarter might have some completely and utterly emotionally destroyed, it has left me recharged. The injustices that we are able to identify throughout history, in media, film, law, and even the day to day are the same injustices we can pick out in our present media, law, and day to day. Now with the knowledge that I have acquired, and with the reflections that I have encapsulated in past blog posts (i.e. the ways in which I have come to my conclusions) I can not reflect back on the year correctly. I have grown immensely in terms of being able to make worldly connections.

However, I do not know if this is a blessing or a curse.

Black Anne Frank

Last week in my Humanities Core lecture, something was said that I had been thinking for a few years but I hadn’t been able to put into words and that was:

“..able to create race without saying the word race”

It was just casually thrown out there and I was just plastered onto my seat with my mind going crazy. In response, I stopped taking notes and began to just Listen (along with texting my friend Joe about how great this lecturer was).

Later into the lecture we watched a video. Just the day before, I had written about how African peoples that had been kidnapped were looked upon and felt as though they were numbers on a chart. And although I had made this connection and could talk about it comfortably, I hadn’t really realized what was right in front of me. I continuously looked at the situations from the slave perspective and never looked at it from the European perspective.  Because of this, the reality did not set in until seeing the maps and the pictures and paintings and actual accounts of the time from a white man in a video form. I finally saw from the perspective of those who were in power. I finally realized how absolutely inhuman these acts were and it left me incredibly disgusted and shocked.

 

redone hands of a slave

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I didn’t feel this was purely because I hadn’t understood the gravity of the entire situation because I thought that I had been educated enough to understand. I took every history AP class in high school, and was involved every year in my high school’s theater for black history club, and yet I didn’t know enough. I went out of my way for years in search of information and yet I still didn’t know.

In history classes, we are taught about the unjust laws and how we have fixed them. Or we are taught about how we were wrong in treating others unequally- because it was mean. We are taught to sympathize with those who were treated unjustly, and not once are we taught to think about how the slave traders and owners were wrong. We don’t discuss the entire situation.

 

 

As a nation, we have built ourselves up off of the suffering of others and we need to take account for our actions.

From the Trail of Tears, to the enslavement of an entire set of people, we must take account and make our wrongs, right (if we even can do that). The least we can do as a nation, is teach out children what we have done.

In history class, we learn about the Holocaust and it’s gravity. We are taken to museums, see Anne Frank torn from her family. Rejoice and feel along with her as she gets her first kiss and experiences her first period. We look at the actions of Hitler and shudder at the thought. But what have we taught ourselves about the enslavement of so many Africans? What have we done to try to understand the entire perspective?

image taken of those an internment camp

We are attached to African slavery one hundred percent. There is no denying it. But the fact that we are makes it that much more important to talk about its gravity.

I know I will make such attempts. The question is what as a nation, what are we on an  individual level be willing to do to admit fault and take responsibility for our nation’s actions.

MONEY MONEY MONEY (and more money)

The other day, I was scrolling through my feed on Instagram when I came across this photo:

 

Weekly Wage Gap 2016

I automatically sent it to my sister and my friend, Joe, because I know that they like to talk about this type of stuff (thankfully).

Even though we all knew that the wage gap existed, all three of us were incredibly outraged. Being a woman in this day, I already know that my salary may not be as large as my brother’s strictly due to the fact that I am a girl. Along with this, I am apart of the LGBT community and I know I will marry a woman in the future. I am incredibly happy that I am able to not only dream about this, but that it is a possibility. But with this in consideration, not only will I be losing money myself , my spouse will also be losing money. This is upsetting and encourages me to continue being apart of progressive movements. After viewing this image I naturally did a little more research to discover exactly where this gap originated and what attempts had been made to close this gap.

 

women fighting for equal pay in the 1960s

young girls fighting for equality present day

In the rest of this blog post, I will be reporting what I have found while focusing on the gap between white women and men.

The wage gap is used as a number that is used to indicate the status of a group income differences.
In 1963, the Equal Pay Act was signed in attempts to close the wage gap between men and women at a rate of half a penny a year.

Two landmark court cases served to strengthen and further define the Equal Pay Act:
Schultz v. Wheaton Glass Co. (1970), U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
→ jobs need to be “substantially equal” but not “identical” to fall under the protection of the Equal Pay Act
Corning Glass Works v. Brennan (1974), U.S. Supreme Court
→ employers cannot justify paying women lower wages because that is what they traditionally received under the “going market rate.”

 

During World War II, a large number of women began taking on jobs. Because of this, the National War Labor Board began to urge employers to make adjustments to equalize wage rate paid to females with the wage rate paid to males starting in 1942. Not only did the employers fail to do this voluntarily, but at the end of the war, the majority of women lost their jobs.

It wasn’t until the Equal Pay Act of 1963 that it became illegal to continue the practice of paying women at lower rates strictly due to their sex.
It wasn’t until the Equal Pay Act of 1963 that it became illegal to continue the practice of paying women at lower rates strictly due to their sex.
Over the years, the act gradually expanded and between June 1964 and January 1971, 71,00 women were paid $26 million in back wages. the Equal Pay Act radically changed the work place. However, although there has been radical change, there has not been significant changes in closing the gap. Although it is narrowed, men eared 20% more when women in wages in 2012.
This gap had narrowed by 20% since 1963.

This raises the question of why this gap is narrowing to slowly over the past four decades.

This gap is due to the amount of money each age group of women are willing to work towards. While women under 25 are making 93.8% of what a man makes, a woman at the age of 55 is willing to work for 75.2% of what a man makes.

Assumingly, this means that as older women begin to retire, the gap should shrink considerably.

I am glad that I found out that the percentage in the wage gap was large due to lurking factors. However, new and innovative attempts must be made to bring wage gaps down among ethnicities.

What I’ve learned

Walking into this quarter, I thought I had a good idea of what an empire is: an idea. According to pre-winter-quarter-Denae, empire was a vague term used to help someone put something into a category.

A respected empire:

• Sounds large, probably with a good military

A small empire:

• Sounds modest, probably not with a vast military. However, it probably is able to hold its ground and stays out of other empire’s ways.

A chaotic empire:

• Sounds like it’s still finding its way to be organized. New rulers?

The word empire gives a group of people unity. It allows them to be treated as one, which simplifies things not only for them, but the surrounding areas. I learned in the fall that this unity is found through language and social habits. Both of these can still be found today from cultural and social norms to schoolyard habits. However, as my knowledge of empire has grown, I have learned that it is more than this.

 

 

During the winter quarter, I learned that empire creates a lens of one’s truth. The way we understand our truth is based on the narratives we choose to believe and the ones we identify with. The stories we tell ourselves define our reality and our idea of the world around us. For example, when we studied the Incan Empire, I learned that the Spaniard’s truth differed greatly from the Inca’s truth. Through their myths, they created their own reality and their own idea of what is. From these shared stories and their personal truths, we can take from them the information that is given to us, and strip from it the language involved in these narratives. To connect what I had learned this quarter with last is that language, the partner of empire, plays a significant role in how we claim truth. In sharing our histories and our narratives, it is important to understand the role of perspective. We must consider the story of the “winner” of the event and the “loser” and from these two completely different narratives, we can draw an idea of what truly happened opposed to what can be hypothesized based on one side, or what one tells themselves for generations and generations.

I learned that each individual is a part of some empire and that this empire aids in building perspective. And perspective lays out how one will approach everything in life. Empire builds perspective simply because the empire in which one lives controls their way of thinking, their way of viewing reality, and their way of understanding life. For example, growing up in the West, my reality must greatly differ from those who are far removed from our understanding of life and from those who do not align with American ideals and characteristics. I believe that an empire plays as a formal structure for the way we perceive our life.

Winter quarter has taught me that through language, through stories, and through perspectives, empires control our way of thinking and navigating through our world much more than we truly think.

 

THE EMPIRE OF SOCIAL MEDIA (and how it has made love much harder)

We have all had that conversation with one of our friends; the one where she is venting about snooping onto her significant other’s social media and how it has upset her? If you haven’t, I applaud you. The other day, one of my close friends came to me to speak about this scenario. However, she did not end the conversation with the stereotypical sigh and muted facial expression. Instead, she tossed her phone across the room and muttered, “I wish our generation wasn’t so engulfed with this social media crap.” This would have usually gone over my head, except recently, I have been wanting the same thing. One of our first world problems: I don’t want to care and be involved in social media, but I also don’t want to miss out on what’s going on.
My friend’s comment on social media in relation to romantic relationships made me begin to think about the way in which the language that millennials have created on social media has affected “love.”

Love is often thought about as being the prime emotion, with romantic love as being the top experience. However with today’s new style of dating, incorporating social media, the way to achieve romantic love is much more complicated to navigate. Technology has helped shape the way romantic relationships are handled and perceived.

I, along with countless others, have learned that while the instant gratification of the internet and the use of phones have made many aspects of relationship-building easier, they have also made other aspects complicated.

While communicating over text, we are able to choose how we want to present ourselves and create the image that isn’t necessarily true to ourselves. The person that is on the other side of the screen can withhold an alternate persona much more easily.

Instincts and common sense become much more difficult to maneuver and understand. There is a lot you can learn about someone through their profile and Instagram pictures. However, millennials have learned that to really try to understand someone through a screen, extensive detective work must be done. But as a result, of this work, we have also learned to over analyze and read into minuscule things, which lead into jealousy being a larger issue than ever before. Because a new language has been developed over social media for dating, the reading of body language, the attention to tone and the analyzing of social cues have been thrown out the window.

Who changes their relationship status first?
Who posts when we have a special date?
Why are you liking comments of other people’s inappropriate comments?
Why is your ex liking your stuff?
Who changes their status first after a break up? Am I cold-hearted if I do it?

 

Instead, focus is put into whether the significant other’s initials are within the bio, if they post enough about them, and even if they post too much about them. It is more than what one’s partner interprets, it is also about the way other people interpret their relationship and it they have “relationship goals.” This new strain has made relationships much less natural and much more surface-based.
While exchanging messages can be the start of a meaningful relationship, it can not end there. Togetherness, conversation and mutual affection can be supplemented by social media, but not replaced. Rather, these supplements have only further complicated dating.

Too White to be Filipino, But too Filipino to be White: Being an Outlier

In one of the beginning lectures for Humanities Core, we discussed Don Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala and his experiences as a mestizo.

Don Felipe’s father was from Spanish descent, while his mother came from the line of Royal Incas. Because of this, Don Felipe’s upbringing was a complicated one. Although he grew up among the Incas, he was taught Spanish from a young age and was exceedingly educated.

As he was growing up, Don Felipe saw the Inca struggle against the Spanish and used his mixed blood as a tool to help the Incas regain their power. He was able to do this because he could use his Spanish blood to make the Spanish listen, and yet stay on good terms with the Incas because he developed within the culture. He was one with both: an outlier to some extent.

As I was listening to the lecture, I wondered how Don Felipe felt in terms of “fitting in” and if he ever really could “fit in.” I not only related his psychological state to Zitkala Sa, but also to my own.

I am half Filipino and half white which has created a strange dynamic that my siblings and I have been able to discuss recently (before this conversation, I believed that I sat alone with these thoughts).

————————————————————————–

Thoughts:

• Never being able to truly feel at home when in a family environment or when in an environment that is either primarily white or primarily Filipino
• Having difficulty figuring out which customs are acceptable in which environments
• Never being able to truly relate to a culture’s dynamics
• Feeling as though siding with one side of the family is necessary

————————————————————————–

Reading Zitkala Sa sparked this conversation with my siblings and has helped all of us work through a large degree of the thoughts above. However, the lecture on Don Filipe helped immensely.

————————————————————————–

Conclusion from Don Filipe: Own both cultures, because you are rightly apart of both

---

 

Don Felipe’s story is one of courage, strength, and virtue. This being something that I believe every student can take from. His story has helped me embrace not only my Filipino side, but also my white side. Rather than focusing on the issues and hypocrisies within both cultures and fighting them internally, I should focus my efforts on embracing the good and trying to be the change to uplift in each.

My Last Blog Post (of the quarter)

Everyone who has gone to college whether they finished or just attended for a few quarters, say that their experiences within the college lifestyle has changed them. Because of this, I have tried to keep track of my development along with changes in my behavior throughout the quarter.

Regardless of whether someone goes to college or not, the transition into adulthood is bound to change a person. However, the intellectual and social stimulation that college provides adds to the normal development of young adults (aka yours truly). And yet after all of the warnings, many of us are still unprepared for the magnitude of the changes. After doing much research, because I noticed that I am now an outsider of the Empire of Childhood and Complete Innocence. I have learned that these changes have been put into a framework of psychological development.

A theory that stuck with me was developed by Arthur Chickering and was described in his book Education and Identity. Later on, in 1996, his theory was adapted and expanded to include African-Americans and women.

College Student Development Tasks

The first development that a college student must attain is the ability to do something successfully or efficiently. This is incredibly necessary for education, but also physically and interpersonally.

I understand that by following this development, my interests and good friendships will change as a result.

The second development is one that is continuously debated within society: emotional health. Because this, managing emotions, especially anger and stress, is important. Many young people attempt to control their emotions just by repressing them.

Taking care of oneself emotionally and practically is incredibly important throughout life. In addition, this is necessary to become independent from one’s family.

The fourth vector, also known as where I am right now, is establishing identity. “Who am I?” is a ringing question. The urgency of it is prevalent during our ages.

I believe that this question is poignant because of the extreme change we go through, first physically and then mentally. I also think that this might be more problematic for women or minorities who may feel dismissed by society. This is because they must play multiple roles in society and in different situations.

The fifth development deals with relationships. One must learn to understand that the need for interdependence is essential.

I believe that this development comes naturally. This is because we begin to choose our friends, because we have the option now. For example, we no longer have class with people we grew up with.

The last and most important development is integrity which comes with a high level maturity. With this, we can live with uncertainties that we could not understand prior.

I believe that personal growth is bound to happen but whether it occurs healthily or not is up to the person (to some extent). I’m not at the place where I’m using all developmental strategies, and I definitely cannot answer the question of who I am. But I do know that this quarter has been impactful on my life and I have developed in ways that I wouldn’t have been able to without these experiences.

Can we really hate Aeneas?

At the beginning of the quarter, my class read The Aeneid, which was written by Virgil. While reading the epic, my class for discussion was torn.

Within the epic, the main character, Aeneas, leaves a girl who he loves and who loves him dearly (so much so that she commits suicide in reaction to his departure) to follow his fate.Many of the people in my class agreed with his decision; he had a future and he followed it. But others, myself included, disliked his choices.

Personally, I felt that he should have stayed purely for the reason that he lead Dido, the girl, on and took advantage of the fact that she loved him. In addition to this, he wouldn’t have a bad life with her. They would have a kingdom and live comfortably. Regardless of this, he left and with the intent of not saying goodbye to Dido.

However, after going home for Thanksgiving, my perspective on Aeneas and his decisions changed and this is purely because my sister continuously gave me a hard time. She pointed out to me that the way I spoke had changed to some extent. Not only that, but that I had also picked up certain characteristics along with other things.

Because of this, I began to think about how influential our surroundings are. It made me question whether or not we are just a product of our environments. Although none of my core values have changed, I still cannot deny that I have changed.

I relate this to Aeneas because he grew up with the knowledge that he had a destiny and that he had to  execute it.

Although he spent a good amount of time with Dido and could have truly fallen in love with her, he could not have changed his mindset significantly.

Because of this, he left Dido for what he was raised to be and what he was raised to do. He wasn’t just leaving Dido for new and better thing (my previous perspective), rather he was just being true to who he was. Because of this, I believe that we are not just the product of our environments but a combination of this and much more. Therefore, I cannot be hate Aeneas.

 

 

 

 

Muslim Women in Society

Sana Tayyen is a Lecturer of Religion at the University of Southern California. She currently holds a PhD in Religion and a master’s degree in Philosophy from Claremont Graduate University. She focuses primarily on interreligious dynamics, Muslims, Islam, and comparative theology and truth. Because of the recent election results and Donald Trump taking the win for presidency, I felt compelled to attend this lecture. Throughout her lecture, Ms. Tayyen focused on lenses: the sexual objectification of Muslim women, and the backwardness and ignorance of “othering.”

While focusing on sexual objectification, Ms. Tayyen used images to help as her proof. In the images she used, the women were depicted as beings existing solely for the pleasure and use of men. They look as though they are toys, prostitutes, and slaves. Along with these images, Ms. Tayyen used pieces of literature from Said and Bouillet to more thoroughly express how Muslim women were looked down upon. In Bouillet’s work, degraded women sexually. But not only did he do this, but he spoke about how women were not “good” at being sexual beings and that when they did try to be sexual, they had the opposite effect, efficiently claiming that women were not useful in any way.

Throughout lecturing about the the lens of backwardness and ignorance and the way in which “othering” affects not only the community, but also the psyche of the individual, Ms. Tayyen showed up clips from an American movie, Father of the Bride.

In the specific clip, there was a couple where the wife was yelled at by her husband. In reaction to this, a father and son paralleled their actions. This showed the relationship dynamics. By doing this, she showed us how we, as a nation, stereotype without even realizing it. The stereotyping is throughout media outlets and much more.

One of the most relatable lenses that Ms. Tayyen spoke about was the lens of fear. We spoke not only about the fear that American Muslims have had, but also the growth in the fear and pure terror with our upcoming president. We spoke about related public issues and the lack safety that needs to reappear within our communities.  From Muslim women having to deal with stereotypes of being uneducated and willingly inferior to stares and harassment due to wearing their religious headdresses, Muslim women endure sufferings that can be avoided through public health measures.

In concluding the lecture, Ms. Tayyen spoke about the current state Muslim women are in. In France, Muslim attire is being completely unaccepted, specifically burkinis. So much so that the former French president, Nicholas Sarkozy  described the women wearing burkinis as “a political act, militant, a provocation.” In our own country, women are deciding to not carry out their religious traditions due to the wrongful association between a hijab and the symbolism of terrorist and hate groups. Like racism, this is a public health concern in which positive progression can be reflected through years and years of work.

Ethics: to keep or not to keep

During Friday’s lecture, I began to revisit a question I have been pondering ever since I learned about the holocaust and the horrific medical experiments that they performed. As I was researching the experiments, I focused primarily on the work of Doctor Josef Mengele, who was nicknamed “the angel of death.”

Mengele, who was only 32 years old at the time, was the top provider when it came to supplying people for the crematoria and gas chambers. He was notorious for sending blocks of people to be gassed for reasons like lice.

Auschwitz gave him a full license to kill his subjects and Mengele took full advantage of this. He performed experimental surgeries that were not performed with anesthesia, sex change operations, removal of limbs and organs and much more. He focused on identical twins so he would be able to compare results. However, and what I find to be the leading argument against using his research,  his work was specifically aimed to demonstrate the inferiority or Jews and Roma biologically.

He would also document physical oddities, and harvest them (tissues and body parts). This proved to be lethal, and if it was not, the victim was murdered in the name of post-mortem examination.  All of Mengele’s work has not been published and many were kept in secret meaning that we do not know everything that has happened to his victims other than the accounts from the survivors.

After learning about this, I wondered whether it would be ethical to use his work knowing that it was performed in horrific ways to unwilling subjects.  But if we did use it, the research would contribute to the progress of medical research. Do we not use the information because of the way in which it was gained, or do we use it because if we did not, these people went through these traumas in vain?

The same ideas were brought up when Steintrager lectured about Kant and his personal life. Similarly, Kant was very intelligent and was able to contribute to the community in ways that people had not been able to before he shared his ideas. At the same time, however, he was also a product of his time period. He sprinkled his works with racism and sexism along with general hypocrisy. But can we dismiss his brilliance due to a collection of negative traits?

To answer my long-pondered question, I do not think we can dismiss any of the information. With the good, we must take the bad. When reading Kant or when reviewing the works of Josef Mengele, I believe that we must approach with caution. We must understand that the sexism in Kant’s work and the true horror in Mengele’s work is unacceptable. At the same time, however, we can gain from their research and positive thoughts.