Welcome to a delectable vintage video hot off the scintillatingly sexist presses circa 1944.

And boy, is it a doozy!

Written and produced for the United States Education Department, this handy dandy training video deftly explains how to “break in” new women workers in factories. (You know, because these women had previously divided their time between lying on their backs and dusting flours on pies… so all these intimidating gears, gadgets, and machines are exceedingly intimidating, and they need a certain kind of man — a strong, gentle, rumpled-headed man — to lead them through this metal-laden fray.)

There are myriad revelations here, but the general takeaway is that women scare Joe — very, very much — but, “women workers can be surprisingly good producers.” Because we too have opposable thumbs and a frontal cortex that controls our executive functioning!

I also learned that when training female minions, never, ever “use trade terms.” Stick to overly simplistic, infantilizing language similar to when you’re gearing up to “make whoopee.” I’m going to hide my naughty bishop in the dark cathedral. Get my drift Margaret?!

(Also, if anyone knows what the “eternal feminine” situation is that they refer to, I’d love some intel on that.)

Yes, Trump’s budget is alarming. But he’s not the one who wields real power.

Since the 1970s, Schoolhouse Rock has helped explain how ideas become bills and bills become laws. But governing is a lot more complicated than a sullen scroll sitting on the steps of the Capitol Building.

When Donald Trump became the 45th president of the United States, the urgency of the opposition increased exponentially. Every new bill proposed or nomination to be considered is met with a swift, gut-check response. Engaged citizens are told to call their Senators and Representatives, demanding they vote no. This is, undoubtedly, a good thing — but too frequently, the bigger picture gets lost in the immediate outrage.

A prime example of this is the federal budget.

Too frequently, the bigger picture gets lost in the immediate outrage.

The 115th Congress, in less than two months, has provided a crash course on how lawmaking works, but the machinations of government have been poorly explained in the media. Headlines declare Congress has begun repealing Obamacare, with little explanation of how far they have to go to actually accomplish this. Media outlets imply that newly elected Education Secretary Betsy DeVos will immediately dismantle public education, even though little can be done without Congress getting involved.

In the wake of Trump’s budget announcement — which suggests deep cuts to the arts, diplomacy, the environment, and social justice efforts, while ramping up defense spending and allocating money for a border wall — this media frenzy has reached a fever pitch. While some outlets have done a commendable job making it clear that this budget is not set in stone, hedging with the use of words like “proposes” and “would,” many others have indicated that the plan is a done deal. There’s a big difference between “would” and the “will” used in headlines like “Advocates Say Trump Budget Will Hurt Country’s Most Vulnerable.” And saying things like “Trump Takes A Gamble In Cutting Programs His Base Relies On” makes it sound like the cuts have already happened.

The machinations of government have been poorly explained in the media.

But here’s the thing: Budget resolutions are nonbinding, and the President’s budget is just a blueprint. Yes, we should be alarmed — but we must also understand the context.

The President’s Budget

Let’s start from the very beginning, with the first (and admittedly most confusing) step in the budget process.

In a normal year, the President sends a budget request to Congress in early February. This kicks off the process of determining how an estimated $3.7 trillion will be spent in the coming fiscal year, which begins on October 1. In Trump’s case, the budget under consideration is for FY ‘18.

This budget request outlines the administration’s spending priorities in great detail, with a funding request for every office within federal agencies. The president’s budget also details how much mandatory spending — which includes entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security and interest on our national debt — is expected, and how much revenue the federal government is anticipated to bring in. Usually, this serves as a blueprint for Congress, with agency officials appearing before the relevant congressional committee to defend the president’s numbers.

This is not, however, a normal year. And here is where the confusion — and panic and anxiety — begins.

Donald Trump Is A Rich Man’s Idea Of A Rich Man

News of Trump’s budget priorities leaked to The Hill the day before inauguration, indicating deep cuts across the federal government, eliminating programs like the National Endowment of the Arts, the Minority Business Development Agency, the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, the Department of Energy, the Department of Transportation, and the State Department. After The Hill first reported the cuts, dozens of media organizations followed suit. Facebook was inundated with articles spreading the news, with little explanation about how this was only a leaked suggestion of what might happen.

With the release of the President’s finalized budget request for FY ’18 on March 16, we have a clearer picture of what’s at stake. And it’s just as bad, if not worse, than expected. The so-called skinny budget does not address mandatory spending or propose tax policy changes, but rather focuses on discretionary spending. It calls for an increase in spending at the Defense Department, up 9%, and the Department of Homeland Security, up 7%, as well as a 6% spending hike at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

As for the rest of the federal government? Trump essentially wants it gutted — and not just in terms of across-the-board spending reductions. Instead, the Trump budget proposal outlines specific programs that should be eliminated altogether. Some of the proposed cuts? $200 million from WIC, the program that supports pregnant women, new mothers, and young children; the elimination of the National Endowment of the Arts, the National Endowment of the Humanities, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; and gutting efforts like Meals on Wheels for seniors.

The drama surrounding the President’s proposal embodies what historian Daniel Boorstin called “pseudo-events,” or events expressly designed to drum up publicity. Trump excels at employing these. With the release of his initial blueprint, the media is focused on dramatic cuts across the board, while burying the lede that Congress controls the money. The goal is not to make calculated changes to the administration of government — making it more efficient to better serve the public — but to seem strong and commanding. In a press conference, the director of the Office of Budget and Management Mick Mulvaney called it a “hard-power budget” and said that it sent “a message to our allies and our potential adversaries that this is a strong-power administration.”

Trump’s goal is to seem strong and commanding.

Trump’s budget is having the desired effect, shifting the conversation away from where he wants to spend taxpayer money — increasing our nuclear arsenal and building a wall on the Mexican border — to where he’s making cuts. The recent calls to action on social media focus on protecting the arts, protecting our planet, and caring for our seniors. Meanwhile, the government is already soliciting border wall proposals and sending “Declaration of Taking” notices to landowners along the border.

Also lost amid the coverage is the fact that Trump can’t actually exact these cuts. On the federal budget, it’s Congress that has the power.

Congress Gets Started

The U.S. Constitution grants the “power of the purse” to Congress, so while the President submits his requests, it’s up to Congress to actually fund the government. The first step in this process is usually the creation of a budget resolution based on the President’s recommendation, administration officials’ testimony, and Congress’ spending priorities. Like the President’s budget, the budget resolution is nonbinding.

The 115th Congress already set off a wave of confusion about this when it voted on January 12 for a budget resolution to repeal and replace Obamacare. The House soon followed, leading to posts on social media claiming that Congress had just repealed key components of the health-care law. This was not true. The budget resolution only declared the intention to repeal the ACA, as part of the current fiscal year’s budget, and instructed the relevant committees to draft legislation to move repeal forward. Because Congress didn’t pass a budget for FY ’17 last year, the government is funded through a continuing resolution through April 28. Whatever comes next will have to take into consideration the Obamacare repeal, if it goes through. But even though the Republican party wishes it were simple, it will take more than a single vote in Congress to repeal the behemoth health-care law.

A Handy Guide To What The Hell Happened To The Affordable Care Act

Even so, Congress will tackle a budget resolution again, this time to determine a way forward on the budget for FY ’18. Or they won’t. When a budget resolution isn’t passed, the numbers from previous resolutions, which are required to cover multiple years, are used. The budget resolution determines how much money the Appropriations committees will have to spend. Once the resolution has passed through both chambers and the differences have been resolved in conference, the resolution is agreed upon. It does not go to the president. It is not a law.

Appropriations Season Begins

Once the budget resolution for the next fiscal year is complete — it’s due by April 15, but that deadline is frequently missed — appropriations season begins. The first step is the allocation of funds, dividing up the big chunk of discretionary spending between the 12 appropriation subcommittees in the House and Senate, which are devoted to departments like homeland security, energy and water development, transportation, and defense.

This is where the real work begins. Members of the various subcommittees begin the determination of how money is divided up between the various departments within each federal agency. The President’s cabinet secretaries and agency administrators come to the Hill and face a firing squad of questions about why they need money and how they will spend it. Based on that testimony, and with the President’s budget request as a guide, bills are drafted. At long last, the Schoolhouse Rock explanation makes sense again. The appropriation bills are passed in committee, then sent to the floor for a vote.

At least, that’s how it’s supposed to go.

Remember, this is not a normal year. In a normal year, the President’s budget request is a reasonable allocation of funds across the federal government. But Trump’s budget proposal is decidedly not reasonable, with cuts that lack nuance and defy explanation.

Mulvaney has justified cutting Meals on Wheels, for instance, by saying it doesn’t work, despite all evidence to the contrary. The President’s administration will now have to go to the Hill and testify in support of the cuts, even though many of Trump’s own Cabinet secretaries pushed back against the proposal. And given the slow pace of not just confirmations, but nominations by the Trump administration, many departments just don’t have anyone in place to advocate on their behalf.

Trump’s budget proposal is decidedly not reasonable.

All of which means we won’t necessarily see the steep cuts the president has proposed. “The President’s request is certainly an opening bid,” says Kellie Mejdrich, an appropriations and budget reporter at CQ Roll Call. “There seems to be some willingness to look at the president’s plan on the part of Republicans, obviously, but they also are asserting there’s a separate budget document in Congress.” Ben Wyle, deputy congressional editor at Politico, tweeted caution the night before the proposal was released. “A last-minute reminder to those writing about Trump’s budget: Just because it’s proposed doesn’t mean it will happen. Congress must approve!”

That approval may not be as forthcoming as the administration would like. Republicans are already panning the plan. In a statement, Sen. Marco Rubio from Florida said he won’t support the 28% reduction of funding at the State Department, stating, “These programs are integral to our national security, and cuts at these levels undermine America’s ability to keep our citizens safe.” Sen. Lindsey Graham from South Carolina had previously said Trump’s cuts to diplomatic efforts were dead on arrival, pointing out that that “[h]istorically, presidential budgets do not fare well with Congress.” Republicans have even pushed back against eliminating the NEA, which supports the arts in every congressional district across the country. New Jersey Republican Rep. Leonard Lance told the Washington Post, “I will be working as hard as I can, internally and publicly, to make sure these programs are funded. All of my peers have arts venues in their districts. This affects all states and all congressional districts.”

Already, Republicans are panning Trump’s plan.

Ultimately, the appropriation bills also need bipartisan support to make it to the President’s desk. Though some bills can make it through the Senate with a simple majority, the budget appropriation bills will have to meet the 60-vote threshold to even come up for debate. Senate Democrats have already pledged to fight these dramatic cuts, shutting down the government if necessary. Senate Republicans will have to create a budget that is palatable to Democrats, which will require some dealmaking.

Ironing Out The Kinks

Once the appropriation bills pass through the subcommittees and the full Appropriation committees, Congress decides whether to present the bills separately or to combine them together into an omnibus spending package. The preference is always to pass all 12 bills individually, but more often than not, time gets away from Congress and they turn to an omnibus. The debate and amendment process on the floor frequently slows down efforts to pass the bills, and legislation that was once bipartisan becomes bogged down with partisan issues. The 2016 spending bill to fund energy and water programs, for instance, was sunk over an amendment to protect LGBT federal contractors from discrimination.

The Senate and House are also working on the spending bills separately. Even if all 12 bills pass both chambers, the differences need to be reconciled in conference. The final bills will have to pass bipartisan muster to get majority approval in the House, with possible defections from the left and right, and past the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the Senate. Finally, after all the spending bills have worked their way through the process, they can be sent to the President to sign or veto.

And therein lies the President’s sole binding role in the process. If the budget is passed before the September 30 deadline, the federal government will remain funded and continue to do the work of governing.

Plan B (which frequently becomes Plan A)

Again, the process outlined above is how it’s all supposed to work. But frequently, things change.

In fact, Congress has needed to pass at least one continuing resolution — an extension of the previous budget’s spending allocations or across-the-board spending reductions — every year since 1997 to keep the government open. Sometimes the CR is meant to give Congress a bit more time to finish the appropriations process and avoid a government shutdown. Other times, a CR is necessary when both sides of the aisle can’t come to an agreement. In 2016, Congress passed a CR for FY ’17 in order to give the incoming Trump administration input on the spending bills. The current CR ends on April 28, and the appropriation committees will have to figure out a solution for the current fiscal year before working on the next.

Writing the budget is a long, messy process, but it is the essential function of Congress. While this is the basic rundown of how it all plays out, much of the work happens behind the scenes in back rooms and private offices, where deals are struck.

While this all shakes out, we must be diligent to not get distracted by splashy headlines, and to understand the nuances of the process.

We should absolutely be concerned about the federal hiring freeze and the shrinking of our bureaucracy. We should worry that the administration has been slow to nominate and appoint people for sub-Cabinet positions, leaving offices without leadership and direction. And we should be alarmed by the cruelty of a proposal that aims to hurt our environment, the arts, and America’s most vulnerable citizens.

Writing the budget is a long, messy process.

But we should also remember that while there will be cuts, they likely won’t be as deep as the Trump administration would like. Every elected official knows that their constituents rely on government services and government funding to keep them healthy, fed, and safe. It’s the federal government that plans for pandemics and protects us against global threats. It makes sure Social Security checks get sent on time and Medicare continues to care for our seniors. It brings the arts to communities outside the big cities and helps fund research for new cures.

It makes sense to be panicking about what Trump has proposed. But the best way to thwart devastation is to call your representatives in Congress. Tell them to support the programs that may be on the chopping block, and to speak out against the wall.

Now is the time for constituents to hold their representatives accountable. Congress will, after all, have to answer for the decisions they make. And an engaged citizenry is one that remembers.

]]> https://theestablishment.co/welcome-to-the-anti-racism-movement-heres-what-you-ve-missed-711089cb7d34-2/ Thu, 16 Mar 2017 21:14:16 +0000 https://theestablishment.co/?p=4987 Read more]]>

A handy list of things that you’re going to need to catch up on. Buck up, because it won’t be easy.

Pixabay

Are you still reeling in shock at the presidential election results? Are you pulling at your hair wondering, “How did this country get so racist??” Are you posting statuses about how it is now time to come together to fight racism in the face of current political threats? Have you found yourself saying, “Well, at least this administration is waking people up.”

Hi! I see you there! Welcome to the anti-racism movement. I know you were kind of hoping to sneak in the back of class in the middle of this semester and then raise your hand in a few days to offer up expert opinion like you’ve always been here — but you’ve been spotted, and I have some homework for you, because you’ve missed A LOT and we don’t have the time to go over it all together. I’m glad you are here (I mean, I’d really rather you arrived sooner and I’m a little/lot resentful at how often we have to stop this class to cover all the material for people who are just now realizing that this is a class they should be taking, but better late than never I guess) and I know that once you catch up, you can contribute a lot to the work being done here.

If you are just now feeling the urgency of the need to fight systemic racism, chances are, you are white. I know, I know — I’m starting off with blanket assumptions about you and that doesn’t feel good; you literally don’t have to tell me about it, I’m quite familiar! But seriously, you are probably white or white passing (yes, I’m aware that Ben Carson and Lil Wayne exist and some people of color are capable of holding on to baffling amounts of denial, but I do not have whatever power it would take to break through that level of delusion so let’s just stick with new white folk). I’ve written down this handy list of things that you’ve missed so far that you’re going to need to catch up on, on your own time. This knowledge and preparation will not only make your fight against racism more effective, it will allow us to continue our progress as you catch up.

If you are just now feeling the urgency of the need to fight systemic racism, chances are, you are white.

This work is the worst.

Woah, I know — I’m starting off in the most negative way possible but look, I need you to know what you are signing up for. Fighting racism is one of the most difficult things you will ever do. I mean, reading this essay might be a little uncomfortable, but it is NOTHING compared to the conversations you are going to have to have, the privilege you are going to have to sacrifice, and the brutality and pain you are going to have to be able to look in the eye every day. Not only will this work get harder and harder the further you dive in, you will also get what at times seems like a very small return on your efforts.

If you want a fucked-up silver lining, you can always remember that people of color (POC) are also doing this work, never have the option of taking a break, and also have to live through the actual racism being fought in the process. So, buck up and get ready.

Your welcome parade. You missed it.

It was a beauty too — floats and streamers and everybody was clapping and cheering. But then it ended and we swept up all the confetti and everyone had to get back to work. Sorry.

Every idea you have for how we can better fight racism has already been discussed.

I know you might be saying “but how can you know that Ijeoma, you don’t know me?” I know. Trust me. I know. You are a 10-year-old explaining to a theoretical physicist how time travel might work. The theoretical physicist has already heard your theory and many others. She probably had some of those same theories when she was 10. And while your interest in time travel and your imagination and intelligence might well lead you to eventually help invent time travel, it will only do so after it has been paired with a lot of the education and experience that the physicist that you are trying to explain time travel to already has. But you are not actually 10, so your ideas are not cute. Keep them in your hat for now while you learn the basics.

Your journey to understanding that racism is a real problem and you have been contributing to it has already been covered.

Please don’t raise your hand to tell us all the tale of how you came to see that you are part of an oppressive system. We were there. When you didn’t know, when your obliviousness was contributing to our oppression, we were there being oppressed. When you were ignoring our cries for help, we saw you look away. As you stumbled along the path of recognition, we were the people you took down with you in each fall. We would rather not go over that all again.

But all is not lost, and your story does have real value — to people who are not in this room, who are afraid of acknowledging the part they play in a White Supremacist society. You can show fellow white people that they can survive the self-reflection necessary to fight racism. Please, share your story with them, it can do real good.

White People: I Want You To Understand Yourselves Better

Your ramp-up period. You missed it.

When POC were very, very small, we got a few years of comfort and protection from some of the realities of a White Supremacist society. When we were safe at home with our parents, the effects of systemic racism were muted somewhat, although never entirely. Then when we were 4 or 5 and went to preschool we discovered we were four times more likely to be suspended from preschool, and by the time we went to kindergarten another kid called us a “nigger” or another racial slur, and from then on we’ve been neck-deep in that shit.

So, if you weren’t there, you missed it. Nobody is going to hold your hand through this. If you fuck up, you will be called out. If you slow us down, you may be left on the side of the road. If we are angry at white people, we will say we are angry at white people, and nobody is going to add “not all white people” for your benefit. You will find a way to keep going — we have.

Nobody is going to hold your hand through this. If you fuck up, you will be called out.

Free, individualized education is not a thing we do anymore.

I know you would prefer a nice, safe sit-down with someone who would patiently walk you through all of this, but we have millions of people we need to get right and an entire system of White Supremacy to fight. We do not have the time or energy. Also — that “free labor from POC” thing is kind of how we got into this mess. The questions you are asking have already been answered by POC — some of whom have already been compensated for their time and effort. Google is your friend. If we have to live it, the least you can do is Google it.

We care about multiple things here — at the same time.

Yes, we are aware of how dangerous this administration is. No, we do not have “better” battles to be picking right now. We are doing multiple things at once, because we cannot be sure if it is the cops that will kill us, or the racist jokes at work fostering an environment where we are seen as unreliable and dispensable that will leave us unable to feed our families. But we know that it all can kill us in body and spirit, one way or another, so we will drag people for cultural appropriation and demand that schools provide a more diverse education to our children, while also raising alarm about the Muslim ban, ICE raids, and police brutality.

You could maybe help pick up some of the slack instead of trying to refocus our efforts in a way that makes sense to someone who doesn’t actually have to live with the consequences of what you think we should just “let go.”

Your privilege is the biggest risk to this movement.

That’s right: the biggest risk. The compromises you are willing to make with our lives, the offenses you are willing to brush off, the everyday actions you refuse to investigate, the comfort you take for granted — they all help legitimize and strengthen White Supremacy. Even worse, when you bring that into our movement and refuse to investigate and challenge it, you slow down our fight against White Supremacy and turn many of our efforts against us. When POC say, “check your privilege,” they aren’t saying it for fun — they are saying it because when you bring unexamined privilege into anti-racist spaces, you are bringing in a cancer.

Your privilege is the biggest benefit you can bring to the movement.

No, I’m not just talking nonsense now. Racial privilege is like a gun that will auto-focus on POC until you learn to aim it. When utilized properly, it can do real damage to the White Supremacist system — and it’s a weapon that POC do not have. You have access to people and places we don’t. Your actions against racism carry less risk.

You can ask your office why there are no managers of color and while you might get a dirty look and a little resentment, you probably won’t get fired. You can be the “real Americans” that politicians court. You can talk to fellow white people about why the water in Flint and Standing Rock matters, without being dismissed as someone obsessed with playing “the race card.” You can ask cops why they stopped that black man without getting shot. You can ask a school principal why they only teach black history one month a year and why they pretty much never teach the history of any other minority group in the U.S. You can explain to your white friends and neighbors why their focus on “black on black crime” is inherently racist. You can share articles and books written by people of color with your friends who normally only accept education from people who look like them. You can help ensure that the comfortable all-white enclaves that white people can retreat to when they need a break from “identity politics” are not so comfortable. You can actually persuade, guilt, and annoy your friends into caring about what happens to us. You can make a measurable impact in the fight against racism if you are willing to take on the uncomfortable truths of your privilege.

Thank God For Identity Politics

You will get better at this, but at first you will fuck up a lot, and you will always fuck up a little.

You are a human being and human beings are inherently flawed. You are also a human being who has lived with an entire life of unexamined privilege and racist social programming. You are going to fuck up hardcore. You are here because you are a decent human, and because you are a decent human you are going to feel pretty shitty when you fuck up. You will probably be called out, you may even be dismissed by some folk, and that may make you feel angry and defensive along with feeling shitty. You will need to get used to the pang of guilt from realizing you have fucked up and it has hurt people. Because it will hit you again and again.

It is okay to feel guilty about things that you are guilty of. It will not kill you, but hiding from that guilt and responsibility can kill others. So feel the guilt, realize you are still alive and intact, figure out how to do better, try to make amends if possible, and move forward. You are not alone. We are all fucking this up in various ways, every single one of us. Right now, there are whole big problematic chapters in our movement. We are all trying to do the work and wrestle with the ways in which we are causing more harm than good. But we have no choice but to keep working, even when it sucks.

You are here because you are a decent human, and because you are a decent human you are going to feel pretty shitty when you fuck up.

I’m glad you are here. I’m angry you are so late — have I mentioned that? I’m very, very angry you are so late because so many of us have been lost fighting without you. And you are going to just have to live with that anger for a while because you deserve it. But I am also glad you are here. I am glad you are seeing more clearly now and have decided that you no longer want to be a part of the problem. Eventually, I may get over my anger and I may even trust you, but until then I’m still going to need you to do the work to help dismantle the system that you have benefited from and have helped maintain for so long.

Because I do need your help, and I do know that you can help in ways that I cannot. Your reward may not be the warm welcome and heartfelt thanks that you might have been hoping for, but a more just and equal world will have to suffice.

Looking For A Comments Section? We Don’t Have One.

]]> https://theestablishment.co/the-role-of-photography-in-resisting-trump-and-racism-66d615592fca/ Wed, 15 Mar 2017 22:00:44 +0000 https://theestablishment.co/?p=4989 Read more]]>

Tonika Johnson is using her art to ‘interrupt stereotypes.’

Tonika Johnson is a 37-year-old native Chicagoan making a name for herself as a street photographer. Her community, Englewood, rose to infamy after Spike Lee’s 2015 film Chi-Raq portrayed it as a hotbed of gun violence. “This is not the Englewood I experienced growing up, or that I currently see through my lens,” she says on her artist’s statement.

For Johnson, the still image and social justice go hand-in-hand: She wants to highlight the joy, power, and humanity of marginalized communities that are often overlooked or outright demonized by popular media. Through her tender images of everyday life, Johnson is systematically shattering preconceived notions about Englewood, and in their wake she offers outsiders — as well as the community itself — “a more accurate and artistically beautiful reflection of themselves” than is ever depicted.

The Establishment sat down with Johnson to talk cameras, race, and the role of art in resisting Trump.

What is your earliest memory of photography?

It was freshman year of high school, and I was in a Saturday writing program called Young Chicago Authors. The program held a special photography class, and I took it. After that I started to write less and less poetry and take more and more pictures. It was all old-fashioned film cameras back then, nothing digital, so I was learning how to work the camera and develop the photos, too. It was the first time I learned something so fast that was so foreign to me. I kind of shocked myself.

Even your earliest work feels like it’s highlighting the positive aspects of your world. Were you working with the same aim of confronting stereotypes that you are today?

Oh, no. Way in the beginning I was just using the little point-and-shoot camera my dad bought me. I became known at school for just always taking pictures. It wasn’t artistic or anything, I just wanted to constantly catch a moment. I loved the constant challenge of changing subjects, moving subjects, trying to capture whatever moment or emotion you’re after, knowing that your subject is going to do something different in a second. I took pictures of landscapes, of my friends. It wasn’t until much later that I realized the pictures could change how others thought about my community.

You went to Columbia College for journalism, which is in a much whiter part of the city than Englewood. What was it like practicing your craft there?

I was definitely the only Black student. I was used to being in diverse settings and was sort of taken aback that all the other students were white. I got to see how my photos looked compared to theirs. The difference was race, city to suburbs. My photos of my friends and my neighborhood were these kids’ only exposure to kids who didn’t look like them. It was my first time — more or less — being designated as the representative of Black people from the South Side of Chicago.

I remember feeling estranged from my class, and that made me want to get as technically superior as I could. I remember feeling like the subject matter — the emotion of my photos — was always dismissed, and it always boiled down to a critique of the photos’ technical aspects. So I had to let it go and use those photography classes as a time to master understanding my equipment.

Can you tell me a little more about your journey from photography student to photographer-activist?

In 2008, I got a Nikon D-80 for my birthday. I had been working as a development associate at a nonprofit and hadn’t taken photos for about seven years. That Nikon got me out and taking photos again. I got involved with community organizations like Resident Association of Greater Englewood and taught a youth journalism program at the local library. I had a whole bunch of friends who were performers, and I started documenting their performances. One friend opened up for Wu-Tang and I documented that. Another friend asked me if I could take photos of her while she was on tour in France. That’s when it just really started to amaze me where photography could take you.

I got comfortable enough to stop taking just landscapes and start taking portraits of Englewood residents — some neighbors but most strangers. After Spike Lee’s movie came out I thought, “Nah. I’ve got all these pictures that show Englewood in a completely different way. I’m going to use photography as my platform to expand other people’s social awareness.”

What are your working on now?

Right now I’m moving toward video. I want to have a video collage showing a week in Englewood at different times of the day, and I want to project it on the two empty walls of the abandoned building on 63rd and Halsted. I think it’s important to make quality art accessible to communities. It has to be outside of galleries. It has to reach people who wouldn’t come to the gallery.

More generally, I want to show and remind people of the humanity that exists in abundance within these communities. Videos and photographs stick in our minds and give us evidence to believe what we want to believe about a person or neighborhood. I would like for there to be another way to look at Englewood and communities like it. I don’t want it to be visually associated with crime and poverty. Because when you label a neighborhood that way, you’re labeling the people in that neighborhood. It’s dehumanizing. I want to make it so that when you Google “Englewood” and other neighborhoods like it, these positive images will start popping up.

We’ve entered a political era where bigotry and hatred are on the rise. How do you see art figuring into the resistance?

It was disturbingly painful to see that there’s a large group of people in our country who really hold onto some very damaging, hurtful stereotypes and beliefs about other people in the country who don’t look like them. Now more than ever it’s important to challenge that, and I think art is just a great conduit to expand people’s social ideas and constructs in a way that a conversation or a debate or an argument doesn’t allow. Sometimes art can come in and create a safer space to communicate a different opinion or viewpoint and allow you to interact with it.

I think a lot of the resistance right now is bridging the gaps between understanding and having people consider other people’s point of view. My contribution is to offer a visual narrative showing the humanity of different marginalized, othered groups.

We are the experts of our neighborhood. We can tell our own stories. We can be beautiful.

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Kim Kardashian And ‘Poor-nography’: The Dangers Of Celebrities Romanticizing Poverty

For privileged stars, it pays to pose as poor.

Photo via Unsplash, Flickr/Eva Rinaldi; Illustration by Maxine Builder

“Bad & Boujee” is how Kim Kardashian describes a photo of herself and friend Stephanie Shepherd sipping coffee from takeaway cups and pretending to eat cookies, apparently taken on a disposable camera but posted to Instagram. If they weren’t on Kim’s private jet, it’s the kind of photo you’d probably see on the Instagram feed of any young, fashionable creative trying to make it in a big city while holding down multiple jobs, maybe nannying in the day and bartending at night. The aesthetic is bad and boujee (or bougie, depending on whether you listen to Migos or not). It’s just that Kim is not.

Since her return to Instagram this year after taking a much-publicized break from social media, Kim has been embracing this new, grainy aesthetic, which falls under the umbrella of “poverty chic.” Kardashian has posted pictures of herself and her family in a home that’s sparsely furnished with grimy walls, photos of Kanye eating cereal, and even one of herself cooking. These seemingly mundane scenes are a jarring departure from the glossy, lavish lifestyle we’re used to seeing Kim boasting — but they’re just as carefully staged and almost entirely fictitious. That home turns out to be music producer Rick Rubin’s house, and the meal Kim’s preparing is actually a delivery service Atkins meal.

These seemingly mundane scenes are a jarring departure from the usually glossy, lavish lifestyle we’re used to seeing Kim boasting — but they’re just as carefully staged and almost entirely fictitious.

Kim’s not the only member of the Kardashian clan jumping on the poverty chic bandwagon. Little sister Kylie Jenner has been spotted rocking the ultimate rural poor emulation trend from the ’00s : the Von Dutch trucker hat. Other wealthy celebrities, too, have been posting photos to Instagram of themselves acting “poor.” Vogue Australia’s latest shoot with Selena Gomez, for example, features the former Disney star posing in a run-down home. Supermodel Bella Hadid has posted a photo of herself gone full aughts-era mallrat with an ironic caption, “pinkys up.” On Instagram, Hailey Baldwin posed with McDonald’s food, calling it “#essentials.”

The question isn’t whether or not poverty chic is making a comeback — it’s why.

Much the same as cultural appropriation, poverty chic is an act of “cherry-picking.” As Refinery29’s Leeann Duggan writes, “It glibly looks at the world with a purely visual eye, and refuses to consider meaning.” The celebrities and fashion elites flaunting these signifiers of poverty have likely never lived through the abjection they’re mimicking.

Why Should You Become An Establishment Member For $5 A Month?

This fascination with the lives of those less fortunate is nothing new for the rich and famous. Christian Dior’s spring-summer 2000 haute couture collection, designed by John Galliano, is often considered the birthplace of “homeless chic” in fashion. The collection was a mish-mash of ripped fishnet, belts made of found items, and scrunched-up garments in newspaper print, all twisted together in a futuristic, Dickensian style. At the time, it was harshly criticized by his peers and the media, in much the same way Kardashian’s photos are facing a backlash now. Galliano called his detractors “bourgeois people, condescending and smug,” excepting himself from actually being bourgeois — as Kardashian is currently attempting to with her Instagram pictures.

The rest of the mid-00s were bombarded with images of waifish celebrities dressed as “bag ladies,” and fashion culture insistently “cool-ified” the bottom echelons of the socio-economic spectrum. In 2010, Vivienne Westwood sent a whole tattered menswear collection down the runway. Photographer Miles Aldridge has deified the homeless in his work. The Olsen Twins dressed like homeless people through the mid-’00s. Erin Wasson heralded dressing like a homeless person as the pinnacle of style. Tyra Banks had the models in Cycle 10 of America’s Next Top Model pose as sexy homeless, while the Sartorialist made a model of an actual homeless person. Terry Richardson went on to capitalize on all of this, creating that instantly recognizable visual aesthetic — celebrities shot in high contrast images, as if on disposable camera, against a sparse white background, often with dirty or unmade hair, simple clothes (jeans, t-shirts, in lingerie, or shirtless), smoking (both cigarettes and marijuana), blowing gum bubbles or wearing hipster-style reading glasses, caught in “natural” off-guard poses, capturing the way the rich imagine the less privileged should look.

The propensity to “dress homeless” eventually disappeared along with the global recession, fashion’s reclamation of ’80s “bodycon” and, ironically, the beginning of Kim Kardashian’s rise to pop-culture icon status. But almost a decade later, here we are again, asking ourselves: What is it that drives the upper class to aspire to look poor? Why are celebrities once again looking for dilapidated environments in which to pose in grungy, mismatched, oversized streetwear? Why are they eschewing the signifiers of their “success” — ostentatious jewelry, hero handbags, and Michelin starred restaurants — to hang out at Dave and Busters?

What is it that drives the upper class to aspire to look poor?

Our return to this trope of “acting poor” has a lot to do with the romanticization of poverty, projecting a purity onto the poor that the rich just can’t seem to buy. For Kardashian, the turn to this new aesthetic might be reactive. Following the robbery in Paris in 2016 which saw her held at gunpoint over around $10 million in diamonds, many commentators saw her lavish displays of wealth as courting that exact sort of trouble. Downplaying her wealth, then, might be a form of repentance, where she actively attempts to distance herself from the notion that her excessive having makes her deserving of being taken from.

In an article addressing the phenomenon of poverty chic from 2002, writer Zoe William posits in The Guardian that the notion of poor equating to “cool” is “timeless.” This, it is argued, is rooted in religion, and the core “notion of the poor being inherently pious.” The poor, unlike the privileged, are exonerated from guilt, something the upper class rich are eternally shouldered with. This condescending idea of the “pious poor” might be what’s propelling the currency of struggle in the modern climate.

The glorification of poverty is intrinsic to the wider perception that this generation’s trendmakers have never actually endured any kind of palpable struggle. Taylor Swift’s girl squad and the Kardashian family’s Instagram photos are too clean and neat, and all celebrities can do to earn “authenticity” is to co-opt the visual signifiers of struggle — a yellow stained wall, blurry photos, ripped jeans and dirty hair. Essentially, the socioeconomic barriers that preclude people like Kardashian from being viewed as “genuine” or “empathetic” can’t be dismantled. The best she and her peers can do is to attempt to appear like the every person.

But the rich acting poor isn’t emulation or flattery. Indeed, the aesthetic Kardashian is glamorizing is a daily reality for many — often born out of cyclical patterns of institutional bias, social stigma, cultural abuse, and a whole system that is rigged to ensure that those poor stay poor, while the rich jealously guard their privilege. As July Westhale, writing for The Establishment, points out, many of the appropriations that take place — from Instagram-friendly hipster bars promoting trailer park aesthetics to preposterous lifestyle trends for wealthy young people extolling the virtues of “minimalist” living — are often things for which the poor are scrutinized and belittled. We celebrate the performance of poverty, but we demonize the the poor, and according to Westhale, because of the “systemic oppression that makes it difficult for them to have the same access to upward mobility, [the poor] are considered socially uncouth and lazy, while white anarchists…are praised for their radically subversive actions.”

Whether it’s the burden of an unfair tax system, the Republican attack on health care including the defunding of Planned Parenthood, or the onerous user-pays education system, poverty isn’t really a choice, but something that’s been foisted on the working class — and disproportionately on communities of color — in America and across the globe since time immemorial. The rich are happy to perpetuate dangerous stereotypes of the poor for their own gratification, but when it comes to the actual poor, judgment abounds. What Kardashian and her peers have therefore failed to understand is that just because they choose to romanticize poverty, that choice isn’t a universal reality.

The Troubling Trendiness Of Poverty Appropriation

Dressing in shabby chic and posing against the background of a dilapidated domestic environment suggests that despite unknowable wealth, these rich have been humbled — something Kardashian seems adamant on proving post-robbery. Writing in Salon, Brook Bolen suggests poverty chic is an attempt at “enlightenment” where those performing it show how they “pared down possessions to live more simply and happily.”

Celebrities are attempting to disavow themselves of dirty words like “privilege” and “entitlement,” and mainstream aesthetic culture, once again, is drawn to the latest iteration of “slumming it.” In a climate where even a billionaire businessman was able to win a presidential campaign by positioning himself as a man of the people, it pays to pose as poor.

It might be an outward projection of humility, or a grasping at some kind of inner solace against the guilt of privilege, but either way, for Kim Kardashian and her peers, lavish displays of wealth have been sidelined as alienating. Instead, they’re standing on the precipice of the echo chamber where rich people go to shout, “Hey, I’m just like you!”

But in the attempt to create something “authentic” by embracing “realness,” Kardashian and her peers have created an incongruity that’s difficult to witness. It’s a modern absurdist art form in which the counterintuitive goal is self-aggrandizing through the craven mirroring of “humble” subjects.

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]]> https://theestablishment.co/sikh-americans-prepare-for-resurgence-of-anti-islamic-violence-c4e6b7cb3f3a/ Wed, 15 Mar 2017 21:40:55 +0000 https://theestablishment.co/?p=4998 Read more]]>

Sikh Americans are turning to community as they face mounting bigotry in the wake of Trump.

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When Guvinder Singh and his family immigrated to the U.S. from India in the 1980s, they found an ideal home in Texas. The “Southern Hospitality” that the region was known for fit their open, friendly personalities. Outside of a few questions about whether or not he was related to Ayatollah Khomeini (this was during the Iran-Contra scandal), Singh found that he got along well with his neighbors. “People might have looked at you a little strange, but if you smiled and nodded, they usually would smile and nod back,” he explained with a chuckle.

Singh’s family was not alone in finding home and community in the U.S. Sikhs have been a part of U.S. society for over 130 years, arriving first as laborers to California. But when former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated in 1984 by her Sikh bodyguards in New Delhi, the resulting decade of violent backlash left 30,000 Sikhs dead, many burned alive. In the wake of this violence, many more Sikhs fled India for the United States and Canada. Discrimination and violence against Sikhs has also prompted many to flee from Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Today there are approximately 500,000–700,000 Sikhs living in the U.S. Sikhs have, as an immigrant group, fared well in the U.S. both economically and socially, with higher employment, income, and educational outcomes than many other immigrant groups. And while Sikhs have never been spared anti-immigration sentiment and bigotry, they were for a long time grateful to be in a country where discrimination could at least be challenged.

Today there are approximately 500,000–700,000 Sikhs living in the U.S.

“Here there is a structure in place to try to fight discrimination and violence. It is a blessing of God,” Singh tells me with a voice full of love and appreciation for the freedom and justice that his family traveled so far to find.

But for many American Sikhs, that peace and prosperity was shattered with the September 11, 2001 terror attacks at the hands of Islamic terrorists. In the 30 days following the attacks on the World Trade Center, over 300 cases of violence and discrimination against Sikh Americans were reported. Sikh students were singled out with bullying and harassment at school, with 69% of California Sikh students reporting such abuse. The abuse was not only harsh words or denied services; Sikhs found themselves on the receiving end of physical violence, sometimes even deadly violence. Four days after the 9/11 attacks, Balbir Singh Sodhi was shot and killed by a white man claiming revenge for the attacks. The post 9/11 violence against Sikhs was punctuated in 2012 with the shocking murder of six Sikhs during prayer in a gurdwara in Wisconsin by a white supremacist.

What Must Be Done In The Wake Of Escalating Hate Crimes

But outside of high-profile murders, little attention in the mainstream press has been paid to such incidents. This is likely due in part to the fact that — while nobody should have to face bigotry, discrimination, and violence because of their faith or ethnicity — it is particularly challenging to talk about people who are facing threats for a faith and ethnicity that they don’t actually belong to.

Though Sikhism, an independent faith centered around unity and public service, is the fifth largest religion in the world, the majority of Americans know little about the faith or its adherents. This ignorance has laid the groundwork for abuse; despite the fact that Sikhs are mostly of Indian rather than Middle Eastern descent and Sikhism is entirely separate from Islam, uneducated bigots have targeted the group as part of their violent campaign against Muslims.

Muslim and Arab Americans are in no way more deserving of anti-Islamic and anti-Arab bigotry and hatred than Sikhs are, and it is difficult to talk about the unintended victims of discrimination without making it seem like one group is less deserving of such abuse than the other. Vile hatred is of course completely inexcusable against any group. But in the complexity of this conversation, the story of what many Sikhs have suffered is often pushed aside.

The story of what many Sikhs have suffered is often pushed aside.

There are no firm numbers on how many Sikhs have been subject to violence after 9/11 (even the FBI has tracked violence against Sikhs and Muslims together), but tallies from Sikh advocacy groups show the likelihood that Sikhs have suffered a large proportion of the face to face violence, verbal assault, and discrimination aimed at Muslim Americans. While the headscarf has made many Muslim women the target of insult and abuse for many angry Islamophobes over the last 16 years, the same has been true for the turban that Sikh men wear. Mandated by their faith, the turban makes Sikh men (who, again, are neither Muslim nor Arab) a target for those whose knowledge of Muslim culture consists of Fox News, a few poorly drawn caricatures of Osama bin Laden, and the Disney movie Aladdin. “Sometimes I feel like we suffer more violence,” Singh observes, “because we are so easily identifiable.”

Over the last 16 years, Sikhs have banded together to push back against discrimination in the workplace, schools, and government offices. Singh proudly tells me of the work that he and many others at United Sikhs have been doing over the years to help protect and empower the Sikh community. They have been monitoring anti-Sikh discrimination and violence, and have provided outreach, education, and legal support in the battle to protect their community against bigotry, all while maintaining their relief work with marginalized populations all over the world.

Mandated by their faith, the turban makes Sikh men a target for countless ignorant bigots.

These efforts have been successful; though discrimination has hardly gone away entirely, the immediate violence that many Sikhs faced after 9/11 has waned over the last 16 years. But now, in response to our current political landscape, bigotry is escalating yet again.

When we talk about the outlook for the near future, Singh’s voice loses some of the optimism that had infused his voice throughout our conversation. The election of Donald Trump has rekindled anti-Islamic bigotry in a way that we haven’t seen since 9/11, and with that, both Muslims and Sikhs are finding themselves face to face with the same hatred and fear that had terrorized their lives a decade ago. The legal structure that had provided Singh with a measure of comfort and security against discrimination and violence is now at risk — it is of note that Trump has appointed Jeff Sessions, a man who has repeatedly voiced fear of Muslim immigrants, to the cabinet office in charge of enforcing many of these legal protections.

The election of Donald Trump has rekindled anti-Islamic bigotry in a way that we haven’t seen since 9/11.

The Islamophobic rhetoric and reasoning behind Trump’s travel ban has made travel even more difficult for Sikhs. Sikhs have widely reported extra searches at airports, have had their turbans searched and even forcibly removed, and have been detained for hours when trying to travel both domestically and internationally.

Singh is not opposed to airport security checks, so long as they are actually providing security: “I don’t mind being searched. But I’m always the only one searched. If you are only searching one person, how is that safe? I want to be safe too.”

The high levels of profiling and discrimination that Sikhs have faced at airports since 9/11 now have a brazenness that they did not have before Trump took office. “Now, if you want to pat down a Sikh — it’s patriotic,” laments Singh. He says that he is already receiving increased reports of profiling and discrimination against Sikhs at airports.

“At the top levels, if we have hatred, misogyny, and bigotry — there’s a veil of acceptance provided for [discrimination]. When you have a message from the top giving credence to that hatred, it is very hard to counter,” Singh says. “We saw that in India, that climate of fear and hatred.”

‘Now, if you want to pat down a Sikh — it’s patriotic.’

We are speaking just weeks after two Sikh men were shot and killed in a bar in Kansas by a white man saying “get out of my country,” and just days after a Sikh man was shot and wounded in his own driveway in Washington state by a man saying “go back to your own country.” Shockwaves from the recent violence have been felt all the way in India. Singh bitterly remarks on the concern voiced by India’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sushma Siraj:

“She reaches out to a Sikh man shot in Kent, and voices outrage at his attack, but at the same time countless Sikhs are being tortured and killed in India. None of the perpetrators are in jail. Some of them are even in her government.”

For Singh, there is little comfort to be found in the concern from a government that he and many other Sikhs had to flee, over violence they now face in the country they had to flee to.

I ask Singh if he is angry at seeing a resurgence of this hatred and bigotry after so many years of fighting. “Internally, I’m pissed off,” he responds. “America is filled with immigrants. How can someone forget that only three generations in and then tell us that we don’t belong?” Singh sighs and the edge leaves his voice; “Rather than being angry, I’m disappointed.” After 16 years of being seen as a threat because of his appearance and the ignorance of bigots, he is tired.

‘America is filled with immigrants. How can someone forget that only three generations in and then tell us that we don’t belong?’

But this is still Singh’s home, and he and many other Sikhs are gathering strength from their love for their communities and families, and from the massive post-election protests that have taken place in solidarity against bigotry. Singh says that he hopes that people across the country will come together to fight the rise in hatred emboldened by the presidential election, which threatens more than just his community. “We have to call out injustice whenever it occurs,” he states emphatically. “When we minimize any injustice, we minimize justice.”

Despite everything, Singh is confident that Sikh Americans can weather this storm. When I ask Singh how he discusses recent events with his children and how he prepares them for the bigotry they will likely face, his answer is filled with love and determination: “We’ve been blessed with our history of sacrifice and valor. We had a wonderful empire. We have undergone extreme sacrifices for our faith. And so we tell our children to be outspoken, to not be fearful, to not shy away. To be confident in our history and know that they have value they can give to the United States. We tell them that the turban is a crown.”

]]> https://theestablishment.co/we-cant-talk-about-standing-rock-without-talking-about-cultural-appropriation-5c5a8c92bc7d/ Wed, 15 Mar 2017 00:19:35 +0000 https://theestablishment.co/?p=5453 Read more]]>

We Can’t Talk About Standing Rock Without Talking About Cultural Appropriation

The Standing Rock fight isn’t just about the Dakota Access Pipeline. It’s also about cultural theft, colonialism, and white supremacy.

WikiCommons/Rob87438

Despite the bitter cold, thousands of First Nations people, environmentalists and others gathered in D.C. on Friday, March 10, to fight for native sovereignty, and protect the rights of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe who own the land the Dakota Access Pipeline would cut across. The #NativeNationsRise march and rally come roughly a month after the Standing Rock camp in North Dakota was forcibly removed, and they prove that although the protest stronghold is not longer there, the resistance is far from over. Four days after Donald Trump was sworn in as president, he signed executive orders that nullified Obama’s temporary construction halt last fall. Now, indigenous Water Protectors and their accomplices have brought the fight to him.

The environmental concerns regarding the pipeline are obvious: Part of the Dakota Access Pipeline would be built beneath the Missouri River reservoir, threatening the drinking water supply of the entire Standing Rock Indian Reservation. In the last year alone, there have been reports of multiple oil leaks from pipelines located in cities across the country. One leak, spilling more than 176,000 gallons of crude oil into a hillside and a river tributary, happened a mere 150 miles away from the Standing Rock protests. But taking an environmentalist approach to the conflict is a cop-out, and considering the urgency of this moment, we cannot afford to settle for a surface-level analysis of the powers at play. The water protectors and allied protesters at Standing Rock aren’t just fighting against the DAPL. They’re fighting against white supremacy, resisting its centuries-old colonialist and capitalist impulses.

The water protectors and allied protesters at Standing Rock aren’t just fighting against the DAPL. They’re fighting against white supremacy.

At the core of the injustice is the same white supremacist nationalist arrogance that prompted early American colonialists to rationalize the displacement and genocide of millions of indigenous people. To be clear, as Kelly Hayes perfectly laid out in an essay re-printed by Truth-Out.org, “This moment is, first and foremost, about Native liberation, Native self-determination and Native survival.”

In order to develop stronger, more effective tactics to combat state-sanctioned white supremacist violence, we have to be willing to deconstruct the sources of its power, beginning with even the seemingly mundane. In the case of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and indigenous liberation more broadly, the question I wrestle with is this: How does cultural appropriation empower white supremacy?

It may seem off-topic, or even superfluous, to discuss cultural appropriation in this politically violent moment. I wince to even mention it; the media space has definitely been saturated with the topic in the past. But cultural appropriation — which I prefer to call cultural theft — is the exact kind of drawn-out cultural violence that makes room for the literal violence we’ve witnessed against the indigenous people at Standing Rock.

Midwives At Standing Rock Aren’t Going Anywhere

Using the more accurate word “theft” helps to highlight the way that cultural colonialism enables physical harm. In the mainstream American imagination, the term “appropriation” has been dulled, often placed alongside less threatening words like “borrowing” or “adopting” or “appreciating.” Cultural theft, however, is a more active term. More importantly, it also implies that the act involves a renegotiation of power, visibility, and more, which is why cultural theft is so harmful to marginalized communities of color in the first place.

If we don’t understand cultural theft as a derivative of white supremacy, then calling out some carefree, trendy lifestyle brand for selling dreamcatchers and Native-inspired accessories on its website quickly becomes an oversimplified argument about cultural ownership. Without a proper analysis, challenging a “bohemian” white girl for wearing a misappropriated native headdress at a music festival will always turn into a reductive, patronizing playground back-and-forth about sharing. But cultural theft is an extension of white supremacist power specifically, not just power in general. It is, at a base level, a white supremacist project.

Cultural theft is an extension of white supremacist power specifically, not just power in general.

Over the last few years, the constant gaslighting by opponents has somehow managed to turn the mainstream narrative about “cultural appropriation” into its own isolated battleground. For those invested in maintaining the status quo, having drawn-out arguments about whether or not something counts as cultural theft is much less threatening than talking about how their team mascot or Halloween costume relates to the genocide of an entire population. People who deliberately debate the significance of cultural theft effectively minimize the issue, forcing the rest of us to expend a ridiculous amount of time and energy on each instance.

Understandably, the whole thing can be emotionally and mentally draining, but the debate about cultural theft takes up more space than it should. In reality, white supremacy is the battleground; cultural theft is the fallout. It’s one very visible and particularly painful symptom of a power imbalance that is both systematic and directional. The minute a people’s attributes are reduced to fodder, substance, material to be culled and used at the whim of a dominant group, power shifts. When we normalize the cultural theft of indigenous traditions, decorations, images, histories, language — the very details that facilitate identity — indigenous people are reinforced as the playthings of white supremacy.

For the Lakota Water Protectors at the Oceti Sakowin resistance camp at Standing Rock, the threat of theft was real and imminent, just as it had been countless other times before across history. After holding the camp for more than 9 months, the Governor of North Dakota and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued an evacuation order, stating that the camp would be forcible removed, and any remaining protesters arrested. But the land that the resistance camps stood on belongs to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, according to the Fort Laramie Treaties of 1851 and 1868. It is literally, legally, their property — making the evacuation order in violation of the treaty rights of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation.

When we normalize the cultural theft of indigenous traditions, decorations, images, histories, and language , indigenous people are reinforced as the playthings of white supremacy.

The Dakota Access Pipeline, whose construction has continued steadily since Donald Trump’s January order, will travel beneath Lake Oahe, putting the entire Tribe’s water supply at risk. And according to a U.S. Internal Department memo written by Hilary C. Tompkins, the Interior Department’s top lawyer, the pipeline’s route also infringes on the Sioux Tribe’s federally protected hunting and fishing rights. “The Corps’ reasons for rejecting the Bismarck route also largely apply to concerns regarding tribal treaty rights associated with the Lake Oahe route. As such, if the Bismarck route is impermissible, the Lake Oahe route should be equally impermissible,” Tomkins writes.

The actual land that the pipeline would cut across belonged to the Sioux Tribe as of the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty, but was supposedly ceded in the 1868 Treaty. The legitimacy of that Treaty, though, should be called into question, considering several Sioux chiefs didn’t sign the document, and at least one chief who did sign claimed he was misled, according to the Huffington Post. Since the United States has a long history of misleading, manipulating, and deceiving indigenous leadership into signing Treaties and documents, this should come to no surprise.

We’re witnessing the contemporary iteration of American colonialism — now armed with rubber bullets and tear gas, but perpetuating the same anti-indigenous aggression as before. The forced removal and displacement of indigenous peoples is both a historical and contemporary violence. The violation of the Treaty rights of indigenous people is an occurrence of both the past and the present. The restriction of resources and the violent theft of land first belonging to the First Nations people is a horror that has continued for centuries. If cultural theft is a child, then domestic colonization — this country’s history of indigenous erasure and genocide — is its proud mother.

If cultural theft is a child, then domestic colonization — this country’s history of indigenous erasure and genocide — is its proud mother.

White supremacy is not a simple thing. Its multiple branches and varied faces all serve to bolster its power, strengthen its reach, and ensure its survival. Cultural theft is a deceptively normalized, sinister part of that. If we develop the narrative that cultural theft is a symptom of white supremacy, then perhaps a sense of urgency will alter the mainstream conversation around “cultural appropriation,” revealing just how far-reaching and many-sided white supremacy actually is. And of course, the better we can understand white supremacy — its shape, its habits, its strategies and derivatives — the more effectively we can challenge it and threaten its stability.

]]> https://theestablishment.co/i-suppressed-my-periods-to-save-my-health-8f77e174d66d/ Tue, 14 Mar 2017 21:31:20 +0000 https://theestablishment.co/?p=5456 Read more]]>

My chronic illness made it impossible for me to have both a menstrual cycle and a life.

“Maybe I should stop my periods.”

It wasn’t something I had ever before considered and I had, in fact, wondered if there could be potential, unknown, long-term ramifications when friends of mine stopped theirs. I had never considered my periods an inconvenience or gross or annoying; in fact, I had liked the rhythm of them. The times I had been on birth control I resented how it made me feel divorced from my body.

When I asked this question, I was sitting in my doctor’s office, nine months into antiviral treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome, 11 years after starting treatment for Lyme disease. The previous year had been hard. Though I had been significantly healthier than I’d been in a long time and had started running again, working hours that were closer to full-time and going out with friends, every month, in the week before my period, I collapsed.

In these weeks, I felt ragged, frayed; the simple act of my body functioning with regulatory actions felt like too much of a drain. My life required too much of me in these weeks and I’d stumble through work, cancel plans, and do as little as possible. I’d get cold and not be able to warm up again, no matter how many burning hot showers I took; fevers would flash through me, but I never retained the heat and I’d collapse in a heap of fatigue, wracked with fevers and chills, muscle pain, sore throats, and mental confusion again. When my cycle was over, I’d be better than I was during the flare-up but worse off than I had been before my period. Every month, I’d take another step down in my health.

I always wonder how to describe a fatigue so profound it feels like a weighted shroud, especially as so many doctors have not believed me. This is not just being tired, it’s a fatigue of dangerous proportions that feels like an emergency in my body, threatening to take me down again. When I was finally diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease, I’d been sick for over 11 years — 11 years of doctors who refused to believe that I wasn’t just seeking attention, 11 years of worsening chronic fatigue and tick-borne illness. These are diseases that, when not addressed, become steadily more serious and more difficult to treat.

The Hidden Battle For The Rights Of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Sufferers

When I was 24, I moved back in with my parents, deep into third-stage Lyme. My hairline had receded dramatically, deep purple rings dragged on my always bloodshot eyes, my skin had gone gray and papery. My body was wracked with so much pain it felt like simple daily use of my joints was causing them to degenerate. I wondered if I would be able to walk in three years. I couldn’t follow conversations, words had lost significance for me, I could no longer read. My inability to engage with the world mimicked that of my grandfather’s Alzheimer’s Disease. I was so tired that I hadn’t laughed in years.

A decade-plus of treatments has stripped me of most of the worst effects of CFS and Lyme (the symptoms often overlap) and returned me to living a life more fully than I had ever been able to before. But I still declined each month with my period, and never quite got back to where I had been before the decline. I was doing better than I had been before I started my antivirals, I told my doctor, but I felt that I would never be doing well — unless I stopped menstruating.

My doctor, Jennifer Sugden, N.D., had treated me for Lyme and CFS with a variety of different protocols, including hormone replacement therapies. But I’d never suppressed my periods before. I had always collapsed the week before my period, but I thought that this was one more thing that would resolve as I got better. Instead, it seemed that the hormone changes around menstruation would always be an Achilles heel.

This is a common experience among patients with Lyme and chronic fatigue syndrome and some other tick-borne illnesses. Dr. Sugden says that when she discusses Lyme and CFS within the medical community of Lyme-literate doctors, they talk about how “women are typically harder to treat and some women really decline before or with her period.” Jose G. Montoya, director of the multidisciplinary division of Stanford’s Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Initiative, concurs, saying that “this phenomena is really pronounced in some women. You don’t have to dig this [information] out…that is so clear in some cases, that the disease is significantly worse right around their menstrual cycle.” He acknowledges that “we will have to be treating women and men differently, there is no question.” (It’s important to note here that menstruation is not just a “women’s issue,” and can affect trans and nonbinary bodies as well.)

So far, the research on ME/CFS has been meager at best and without a focus on female endocrinology. Stanford’s ME/CFS Initiative is currently recruiting subjects for a neuroendocrine study with women of child-bearing ages to hopefully give some answers on this subject. Eventually, Dr. Sugden says, “it wouldn’t surprise me if stopping periods becomes a part of protocol.”

So what is it about periods that can compromise some patients with ME/CFS and tick-borne illnesses so dramatically? Dr. Sugden points to an underlying problem: overworked adrenal glands. The adrenals produce cortisol, which regulates our circadian rhythm, and DHEA, which is the building block to produce estrogen and progesterone. “It’s having to produce DHEA on a cyclic pattern when the adrenals are not strong enough to produce it on a monthly cycle,” Dr. Sugden says about the monthly decline some people experience. “But when you replace the hormones and suppress periods, the glands can focus on healing themselves. You allow the adrenals to NOT produce DHEA and your body can produce cortisol at the rate it needs to.”

My doctor said it wouldn’t surprise her if stopping periods becomes a part of chronic fatigue syndrome protocol.

After three months of supressing my periods, I realized that I hadn’t had any extreme crashes in my health. While I wasn’t fully well, my health was steadier and I was incrementally getting better. Six months later, I was stable enough to start chasing dreams again. I packed up and moved to Mexico City, a place I’d been talking about moving to for years. I never did because I needed my family and my doctors close and I didn’t want to move abroad when I would have to live my life tight, watching to never do too much.

It’s been a year now and I live more easily than I ever thought possible. I’ve settled into my new home and language, work full time, and still have energy left over for friends, exploring, and climbing trips. In many ways, stopping my periods helped give me back my life.

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]]> https://theestablishment.co/bad-advice-on-reverse-sexism-988eb3431660/ Tue, 14 Mar 2017 21:29:24 +0000 https://theestablishment.co/?p=5458 Read more]]>

Welcome to our latest Bad Advice column! Stay tuned every Tuesday for more terrible guidance based on actual letters.

Pixabay

By The Bad Advisor

“I have an interesting question for you. Is it sexual harassment if a female supervisor at work calls a male employee ‘Honey?’”

—From “PETER IN SOUTH CAROLINA” via “Dear Abby,” 22 February 2017

Dear Peter in South Carolina,

First of all, allow me to thank you for bringing this fascinating quandary to my attention. It’s always refreshing to be asked to chart heretofore unexplored territory and probe new questions, such as this one on the subject of reverse sexism, a novel and fascinating concept of your own discovery. But, to your inquiry: The answer is yes. (And please, give my best wishes to the guys back at r/fedoras.)

“My daughter has been dating a very nice guy and is quite happy. But I hear him swearing frequently, especially when it concerns work or sports. While I am not a prude, neither am I comfortable listening to it. I have tried to react with comments such as ‘Oh, that’s lousy.’ Any advice on how to clean up the conversation?”

— From “M.D. / Boston” via “Miss Conduct,” Boston Globe, 3 March 2017

Dear M.D.,

Today’s young people require the careful guidance that only a good scold about their inappropriate language can offer. Otherwise they may fall victim to their own mixed-up priorities, putting things such as human kindness and their own personal happiness before settling on what really matters: a partner who does not say cusses. A grown man doing swears when expressing himself about his workplace is shocking enough, but to befoul the delicate world of popular sport with unsavory language is an offense beyond measure. Due to the static nature of language and humanity’s tendency not to experience cultural change over time, some words are simply objectively bad, and the sooner this man gets a thorough haranguing about it, the better. You will probably find that, in addition to creating an unforgettable connection between the two of you, policing the language of a grown adult will have the added benefit of reducing the overall number of words you hear from this dirty boy.

Bad Advice On Berating People While They Shower

“I’m a 28-year-old television news producer in Atlanta, and I met a guy (a creative director at an ad agency) two weeks ago in a bar. We had fantastic chemistry. After dancing half the night, we went back to my place. It all felt so good until he took his shirt off. I ran my hand over his back, and he was covered in large moles! I got seriously turned off, couldn’t touch him, couldn’t even look at him. I said we were moving ‘too fast’ and asked him to put his shirt back on.

He stayed the night, so basically we made out. I have to admit I was not impressed with the way he kissed. In the morning, I just wanted him out of my bed. Frankly, I was desperate to get him out of my apartment. Okay, he was a lousy kisser and his moles got to me, but my question is: It’s been 13 days, so why haven’t I heard from him? What went wrong? I thought he liked me! Why hasn’t he called?”

—From “Crazy, Stupid Crush” via “Ask E. Jean,” Elle, 7 March 2017

Dear Crazy, Stupid Crush,

Who can know what would compel someone not to seek out contact with a person who was physically repulsed by them? We may as well ask where a rainbow begins, or how many grains of sand there are under the ocean. That this man did not return to you begging for further rejection is a dark stain upon his character, and demonstrative of the extent to which he misunderstands his role as a helpless lapdog who ought to be glad — downright grateful — to beg for the attention of a person who finds him deeply unappealing. After all, he has moles; it’s not like he’s a whole human being with a rich interior life, hopes, desires, and personal preferences around which he is entitled to build a satisfying social circle comprised of people who enjoy and appreciate his presence.

Who can know what would compel someone not to seek out contact with a person who was physically repulsed by them?

You are the pinnacle of human perfection, flawless and captivating, and so it is up to you to decide when someone you admittedly loathe is allowed to leave you alone. You and you alone are permitted to decide that you are not interested in pursuing a relationship with another person; everyone else must fulfill their obligation to be enamored of you regardless of the way you treat them, whether you enjoy their company or would even piss on them to put out a fire should they find themselves ablaze in your general vicinity.

Do not let another 13 days go by without demanding this man explain himself. In detail.

]]> https://theestablishment.co/inside-jahanamiya-saudi-arabias-first-feminist-literary-magazine-44b9674df897/ Mon, 13 Mar 2017 21:53:48 +0000 https://theestablishment.co/?p=5463 Read more]]>

‘I want to counter Western stereotypes about Middle Eastern women, while highlighting issues for Saudis that aren’t spoken about in Saudi society.’

Past issues of Jahanamiya

Ahd Niazy tells me she is having a tough week; it’s her final semester at Emory University, where she is a double major in Creative Writing and Interdisciplinary Studies in Culture and Society, and the senior crunch is well underway. As we speak via FaceTime, she is sitting in a computer room on campus and in the background I occasionally see flustered students walk by.

Ahd is the creator and editor-in-chief of Jahanamiya, Saudi Arabia’s first feminist literary magazine. In just three issues, the magazine has pushed the boundaries of the Saudi literary establishment with startlingly intimate pieces of fiction, essay, and poetry.

Jahanamiya denotes the bougainvillea plant in Arabic — a carefully chosen word. The bougainvillea grows easily in Saudi Arabia, can look after itself (it hardly needs any tending), and is very hardy and colorful — so it adds something beautiful and vibrant to the world, Ahd explains to me. It’s a metaphor for the voices of Saudi women, she adds.

Since 2011, when Raja Alem became the first woman to win the International Prize for Arabic Fiction for her book The Dove’s Necklace, the international literary community has become increasingly interested in Saudi writers. With Jahanamiya, Ahd is bringing the diverse voices of Saudi women into this spotlight.

In just three issues, the magazine has pushed the boundaries of the Saudi literary establishment with startlingly intimate pieces of fiction, essay, and poetry.

Even through my computer screen, it is clear that Ahd is a warm and thoughtful speaker who brims with a contagious enthusiasm. After spending many of her childhood years in Alabama, and the last four years studying in Georgia, she laughingly refers to herself as a “Southern Saudi girl.”

We find ourselves careening off on multiple tangents during our conversation. We laugh at the mirrored image we make — an American in Saudi Arabia interviewing a Saudi in America. We’re both adult-third-culture-kids so we also spend a lot of time exploring the complex notions of “home” we wrestle with.

Ahd was born in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, but her family moved to Birmingham, Alabama when she was only a few months old. After spending her formative years there, her family moved back to Jeddah when she was 11. Ahd recalls this return to Saudi Arabia as a pivotal event in her life.

“It was a hard time because my father wanted my younger sister and I to get acclimated to Saudi culture very quickly. He wanted us to completely shift and that wasn’t really possible for me,” she tells me.

This experience galvanized Ahd. From then on she has had a fierce resistance to being labeled or pressured into doing something just because it is what is expected, she says. It was at this time that she also became interested in women’s rights and began questioning societal values and cultural norms, habits that continued through to the start of her academic career at Emory, where the idea for Jahanamiya first took hold:

“It was during my sophomore year when I took the class ‘Orientalism’ that I first became interested in questions of representation. Why did so many works of art and literature historically present Arabs and Middle Easterners as hyper-spiritual or hyper-sexual or savage? Looking at the media today, I realized it had only gotten worse. I wondered: why do they get to represent us? Why don’t we get to represent ourselves?”

Jahanamiya is Ahd’s answer to those questions. Launched in the summer of 2015, publishing work exclusively by Saudi women, Jahanamiya seeks to counter stereotypes about Middle Eastern women and provide a platform for Saudi women to express themselves in their own voices.

Why Should You Become An Establishment Member For $5 A Month?

The first issue took Ahd a year to put together as she taught herself the ins and outs of creating and editing a literary magazine. A solo operation, she orchestrates everything, from soliciting art from regional artists to editing submissions from contributors. “It remains a major learning curve,” she says with a laugh.

From the beginning, Jahanamiya has targeted two audiences, which Ahd admits can be challenging. “I want to counter Western stereotypes about Middle Eastern women, while at the same time highlighting issues for Saudis that aren’t spoken about in Saudi society.”

The first issue, Arabic Coffee — al-gahwa al-arabia, was named for the omnipresent staple of Saudi society where the dallah (Arabic coffee pot) and fenjan (traditional coffee cups) are always on hand to greet guests. Through the portal of this custom, contributors explored issues of memory, social obligation, societal critique, and nostalgia.

Majda Gama’s poem, ‘Why My Coffee is Green’, ends with these lines:

“Wind off our Red Sea / shoreline stung us / with salt, nights / at the beach house / in winter meant coffee / in finajeen with ginger / grated in. Zenjibeel / I said, tasting the word, / the spice travelling / through my body.”

Saudi society can be intensely private and finding contributors to Jahanamiya can sometimes be difficult, but Ahd is passionate about amplifying women’s voices and celebrating the diversity of Saudi culture. Most of Jahanamiya’s contributors are not professional writers, but businesswomen, entrepreneurs, artists, and stay-at-home moms.

“What I do behind the scenes with the contributors is basically one-on-one writing workshops, and we build the pieces together in a nurturing, collaborative way. This helps them be brave with telling their stories,” she adds. The magazine includes artwork from regional artists — both original and previously created––in an effort to showcase stories not only through text but through visual art as well.

Ahd is vehement that she wants to avoid publishing pieces anonymously.

“For too long our culture has disconnected women from owning their identities and stories because of fear of public shame and worries about ‘summa’a’ — your reputation. With Jahanamiya, I want women to share their experiences, own their names, and be proud of who they are.”

The second issue, Ismik, centers on the subject of Saudi women’s names, something that for many is still considered taboo to share publicly. Ismik includes an essay from Ahd herself, “Arabic Tongues and English Ears,” about the cultural weight of names and the complex power dynamics of language.

She writes:

“The Arabic language has been accused by the western world of committing a gross crime. And in adhering to this biased narrative, we deny all the beauty and strength that the language has to offer — all that it’s given in the past. We forget the music of Um Kalthoom, Fairuz, and Abdelhaleem. We forget the writings of Gibran and Darwish. We forget the waves of succulent words — of poetic tenses and meanings that simply cannot be translated into any other tongue. The poetry living within the Arabic language is undeniable. And poets (generally speaking) don’t kill people; they kill fantasies.”

The third issue, Awlad, examines the relationship between the sexes within the Kingdom. One of the standout pieces in this stunning collection is the short story, “Burdensome Boys,” by Layal Niazy, Ahd’s younger sister, in which the traditional gender roles of Saudi society are flipped.

Layal writes:

“Mafloot roughly translate to free, or uninhibited and in motion. And saye’e is sort of a party boy — a wild and untamed mess of a man. I explicitly remember Mama telling me that no ‘respectable woman’ would ever consider taking me as a husband if I picked up that kind of reputation and kept up the “wild” behavior I’d exhibited that night.”

Ahd and I segue into a discussion of the hijab and how it can send different messages depending upon the setting in which it is worn. “Hijab in Saudi is very different than hijab in the U.S.,” she says. “It’s a big issue and I don’t think it’s discussed enough in the Muslim world and the Arab world. We need more narratives about it. But then again, we’re still talking about controlling and regulating women’s bodies. We still cannot fathom that a women can choose what she wears. It’s a hard line to navigate.”

We still cannot fathom that a women can choose what she wears. It’s a hard line to navigate.

I ask Ahd: If what is relevant and impactful in one place is not effective in another, to what extent must we view our feminist praxis as flexible?

“As someone who navigates a mixed identity and balances two cultures at once, I would say that the practice of feminism must differ from place to place.” She adds:

“My beliefs remain the same, but the ways I express them and to whom differs based on where I am and what my primary goal at hand is. Feminism, to me, is about women fighting for their rights to equality — not only economically and politically, but socially and through the questioning and changing of cultural practices that are detrimental to women and girls — whether we’re able to consciously see this or not. Some of these practices may also be detrimental to boys and men’s expectations of women or notions of gender performance. I really do believe that a feminist society is better and healthier for everyone — not just for the women!”

Growing up between the United States and Saudi Arabia, Ahd has spent her life navigating the complex relationship between these two countries, and it is tempting to see Jahanamiya as an effort to build a bridge between them.

“If I could tell the people of these countries about the other, I would say you are more alike than you realize,” she says. “We need to look beyond the stereotypes so we can meet the actual people behind them.”

Jahanamiya’s upcoming issue revolves around the idea of movement, opening up conversations about women’s bodily autonomy, self-determination, and freedom of expression. Looking beyond this, Ahd has big plans: “I hope Jahanamiya continues to grow and to become a known platform for gendered cultural exchange — a platform for storytelling, sharing, and growth. It would be nice to have a full time staff and a steady source of funding to ensure sustainable growth is possible.”

I’m reluctant to finish our conversation but I know that Ahd has the typical senior’s mountain of papers to work on and exams to study for, and a literary magazine to edit on top of that. So, I ask her one last question: “Who are some of your inspirations?”

She replies with a list of names — all female: Mona Eltahawy, Leila Ahmed, Fatima Mernissi, and Nawal El Saadawi. “I find these women inspiring because they are unapologetically themselves and they share themselves with the world. That is a radical thing for a woman to do.”

After we say goodbye, Ahd’s answer lingers in my mind. Her vision of Jahanamiya as a platform to explore the unexplored and change the world through the radical power of personal narrative, feels electrifying and necessary in a world saturated with stereotypes and narrow-minded beliefs.

I bet that if I ask this same question to globally-minded feminists in 10 years’ time, Ahd’s name would be high up on that list.

Ahd invites readers to connect with her via email (ahd@jahanamiya.com) and Twitter.

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