Social Justice

News Segment

A news segment that showed injustice was the reports on the protests in Ferguson over the not guilty verdict for Darren Wilson (New York 1, Monday night). I think that the protesters in that community must be in unbelievable pain and anger. I was very angry and upset when I heard about the verdict, but I think that if you lived there and knew him, or were part of the black community there, you would be so enraged and in an incredible amount of pain over the injustice that happened. I hope that the people there are able to stay safe, and I hope that they’re opinions are being recognized because they’ve worked so hard for something so unfair.

TV Shows

I watched three episodes of different shows-Glee, The Carrie Diaries, and How I met your Mother. I felt that The Carrie Diaries and How I Met Your Mother should have had a bit more diversity-almost the whole cast was white, and neither had any lgbtq+ characters, and for both of them, the cast had “perfect” bodies-the girls were skinny, the guys had abs. Glee showed more diversity in race, sexuality, and weight, but I felt that they also showed too many stereotypes-the gay guy was effeminate, the cheerleaders were perfect and were the “mean girls” and the popular guys were on the football team. I think all of these shows should show more diversity, and should try to defeat stereotypes by showing people with “unexpected” personalities for their identity.

Interview (With Olivia Foote)

What are some things that are good about the world?

There are things that are fun and make me happy-animals, holidays, travel, summer, Tyler Oakley and Troye Sivan, my favorite people.. Also, the fact that the world is getting slowly more tolerant-there is marriage equality in more states, and women are starting to have all of the same rights as men.

What are some things that are bad about the world?

All of the human rights that still don’t exist-like homophobia, and the fact that there isn’t marriage equality everywhere in the world, and the fact that you can get beat up, killed, or arrested for not being straight in some places. Also, there is a lot of sexism-women still make 77 cents to every dollar a man makes. There is also racism-a cop can shoot  black teenager for nothing and walk away with half a million more dollars. There is rape culture, and victims are blamed for what happened. People are letting the enviroment die by pretending global warming doesn’t exist. Lastly, people choose to ignore sexualities that aren’t gay or straight-like bisexual, pansexual, asexual, demisexual, heteroromantic, homoromantic, aromantic, and also genders that aren’t male or female-nonbinary, genderqueer, and genderfluid.

Observing Neighborhood

I saw a lot of good things when I observed my neighborhood, but I also saw a lot of things that displayed injustice. One thing I saw (and had happen to me once) was women getting “catcalled” by men (ex. “Hey gorgeous”, whistling, etc.). This is not flattering, and is a blatant display of sexism. Many women feel threatened by having this happen to them, because they worry the man may make an advance on them, which should not be a problem in 2014. I also heard many offensive slurs used people at school, such as “slut” “queer” “fag” “whore” and “nigger.” This shows that although many people claim to not be sexist, racist or homophobic, they still say and do things that can be very offensive to some people. I also heard a lot of people at school make rape jokes. They are completely inappropriate and offensive, as it is a traumatic and horrible thing that people have experienced, when they are treating it like something that is funny. That shows that even when people don’t realize what they are doing, they can still show intolerance.

Lyrics

The lyrics I chose were from Macklemore’s song same love. The lyrics are “Gender to skin color, the complexion of your pigment, the same fight that led people to walk outs and sit ins, it's human rights for everybody, there is no difference”. These lyrics address many social issues-racism, homophobia, and sexism. What it is saying is that the things that people often fight over, like skin color, sexuality, or gender, shouldn’t be the cause of such hate in the world. It is saying that these things that we discriminate against each other for are causing horrible things in the world, and everyone is equal and deserves equal rights no matter what. This song deals with injustice and discrimination by saying how useless it really is.

Article

The article I chose was an opinion piece from the New York Times called “Gender Equality.” It was about the definition of feminism and gender equality, and why it was important. It talked about how women deserve all the same rights as men (and believing that is all that feminism is). It dealt with injustice because it said that this has been a fight that has been going on since the 1800’s. Men and women having equal rights should not be a privilege, or something we need to fight for-it should be a given that everyone gets the same rights. It also said in the article that everyone judge what feminism is based on how women dress, who they date, and how many people they date. This is completely untrue. Any woman can be a feminist, but people assume it means hating men. You can believe in equal rights and wear whatever you want, but people have an idea that women who fit certain criteria are the only ones who can be feminists. Gender equality needs to exist in our country

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/30/opinion/global/gender-equality.html?pagewanted=all&module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar%2C%7B%222%22%3A%22RI%3A17%22%7D

Inspirational Person

A person I find inspirational to me is my uncle, Matt Porterfield. I think he is inspirational because he works part time as a college teacher, and full time as a film writer and director, and manages to keep supporting himself even when he is in the middle of a film. For the interview, I asked him what made him decide to pursue filmmaking. His answer was “I love creating my own world and then watching it be created. It can be a really hard job sometimes, but it’s always worth it.” I also asked him what advice he had for teenagers. He answered “When you’re older, if there is something you really want to pursue, especially a job, do whatever you can to make it happen.” He is inspirational because he pursued what he wanted to do, and has succeeded by persevering.