Captain America.. in a turban? (Blog Post 7)

 Observation: This article on a brown Captain America made me think about acceptance of others in America.  The  provokes many different thoughts and topics of discussion. **Also check out the things Vishavjit Singh learns from being Captain America.

Captain America is a beautiful superhero. I never knew much about him growing up, but watching the Marvel movie last year, Jack Kirby's character Captain America is quite lovable. Watching the frail skinny kid try and do well in the drills yet only fail was admiring when you saw how much heart he had. He undergoes an experiment that makes him taller, exponentially much more muscular and physically perfect as a solider. The image of Captain America is to represent a patriotic figure battling the axis powers and helping America win the World War II.

American has grown into a cornucopia of cultures and different people. It’s a beautiful thing—diversity, however America is fighting an internal war with herself. We in the field of social work and other people fields are battling racism, discrimination, and hate constantly. Division is certainly apparent in various parts of the U.S and it is important for us to not see past color, but recognize and embrace the differences we all have.

I prefer to see the superhero Captain America as the comic originally created him as, but this article speaks to me that our wonderful country has been growing and evolving, yet not all of its people have. Many are not ready to accept the growing differences that are steadily becoming more apparent and are fearful of change. These changes come through  the quality of marriage, certain races gaining more power and affluence, shifts in political power, and  many other practices of diversity.

We are a great and mighty nation. I long to see the day Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech will be our reality of life.

Closing the Gap (Blog Post 6)

Observation: I came across a buzzfeed article about the clothing store Gap handling some racist vandalism against advertisements featuring Waris Ahulwalia, a sikh model.

I, like many, would like to personally applaud Gap for their diversity and using this model in its "Make Love" campaign. It has received both positive and negative attention from the public. Its quite usual for me to look at any American  advertisement and never spot an Indian person unless its about a racist cartoon about 7-11 or terrorism (misdirected act of racism btw). So personally its great to see Indian Americans making progress in industries like modeling and Gap being more representative of the American population by using Waris.

What is even more amazing is Gap. Gap was tweeted by an individual about the racist comments that was written on an advertisement and Gap responded asking where it was so they can fix the problem. They immediately took care of it at the location where it happened, but took it to the next step by changing their twitter banner to the advertisement of Waris.

Gap also used two men in their "Make Love" campaign and the same thing happened where it was defaced with negative comments about homosexuality. Someone tweeted about it needed to be removed and the mayors office tweeted back looking to take care of it.

Its great to see communities and organizations (see what I did there?) working together to promote diversity and embrace differences whether its a sikh man rocking his turban and beard or two guys chilling in Gaps "Make Love" advertisement campagin. I checked out Gaps website and they have a section dedicated to social responsiblity. Its a report focusing on what they do to reduce the impacts they have on the environment, community, employees, and a section on human rights focusing on how their workers in foriegn nations are treated with dignity, safety, and respect. -- Check it out http://www.gapinc.com/content/gapinc/html/social_responsibility/our_commitment.html#human_rights

I applaud you Gap. Whats more sexy than diversity and nice beards?

Beauty Is in the Eye of the Needle? (Blog Post 5)

Observation: I came across this video and like many of you will, became irritable and angry.

Osmel Sousa is the president of the Miss Venezuela organization and has been considered the driving force behind many of the Miss Venezuelas who go on to become Miss World, Miss Universe, Miss Interntional, and Miss Earth. He's brought 7 Miss Universe titleholders, 6 Miss World winners, 6 Miss International crowns, and 1 Miss Earth. What Osmel Sousa says is beauty, is beauty.

I find it most disappointing that natural beautiful people even recognize that Sousa's definition of beauty is unrealistic and not beauty at all, yet fall into the societal held belief to chase this idea of physical perfection in order to be accepted or considered for various roles.  Many of the women know that this ideal of beauty is socially constructed and not realistic, yet allow the media to guide how they make their decisions and definition of what beauty is.

This idea of beauty comes from people like this one man and makes its way across the country, across multiple markets of pageant organizations to other women, other countries and across the world.

The media, the individuals, the groups, and all different realms either push for or against this idea of beauty. Many like the shop owner acknowledge that true beauty comes from within and from your own self esteem, yet does not challenge the widely held belief that beauty is physical perfection and because they do not challenge that idea, they are saying its okay.

Its hard however to be a man or women of your ideals. Like Angelli Ramirez [women going under the knife]  many of us succumb to  various societal ideas because if we do not, we might not be able to land a job that puts food on the table and takes care of our basic human needs. We might believe it's wrong, but we'll do it anyways just to get by.

I don't know much about Venezuela, but came across this video on the slums and specfically theTower of David  in Venezuela. We cannot say that Venezuela is the only country that has this kind of issue, because we see this happen throughout the world-- chasing beauty before chasing basic necessities.

How do we challenge and change macro beliefs when we ourselves are barely able to survive in our own micro world? 

Another interesting article related to beauty, Sophia Bush, and Urban Outfitters. 

Separate and Unequal (Blog Post 4)

Observation: I came across an article about Renisha McBride, a 19 year old girl who was shot in the face after knocking on door of a house in Newborn Heights, neighborhood near Detroit Michigan.
Original Article

Renisha was involved in a car accident earlier in the night. McBride hit a parked car and was injured, bleeding from the head. McBrides cell phone was apparently dead.  People nearby in a home came to help her and the neighbor went into their home to call 911 and came back and Renisha was gone. Renisha was injured and wandered into Dearborn Heights looking for help. She walked to a mans porch looking for help and knocked on his door. Police reports say that Renisha McBride was shot in face, and the 54 year old shooter claims that he thought Renisha was breaking into his home and the shotgun had gone off accidently. No charges have been filled, but an investigation is currently going underway into looking into what happened. The shooters attorney, Cheryl Carpenter is saying the shooting was justified.  "I'm confident when the evidence comes it will show that my client was justified and acted as a reasonable person would who was in fear for his life," Carpenter said.

Many questions come into play when asking about what happened that night.

1. Can an “accidental” shooting even within the stand your ground law be justified in this case with Renisha who was unarmed and seeking help?
1. Stand your ground laws give individuals the right to use deadly force if they are using force to prevent imminent death, sexual assault, or believe force is necessary to defend themselves from imminent danger.
2. Was this shooting racial profiling?
1. Dearborn Heights is known as a neighborhood with a higher socioeconomic index and predominately white. The neighborhood is 83% white (non-hispanic or latino) and almost 8% black.
3. What does this say about how white perceive young black youth?
1. Renisha McBride, Jonathan Ferrell, Treyvon Martin to say the least all were killed.
1. Renisha- Homeowner
2. Jonathan Ferell- 24 year old a former football player of Flordia A&M  who was in a car accident and came to home of a women who called 911 after she hear Jonathan knocking on her down asking for help. 3 Police came to the scene and Jonathan ran towards them seeking help. They fired a taser which was unsuccessful and Randall Kerrick, an officer shot 12 rounds at Jonathan Fuller killing him on the scene. Police reports mention that Kerrick believed Fuller was trying to assault him.
3. Treyvon Martin- Treyvon Martin looked supcious while walking in a neighborhood and was shot by Gerorge Zimmerman out of “self-defense.”

Too often we see African Americans getting harmed especially from police or white people. Will minorities specifically black people just always be at the wrong place at the wrong time?
http://www.theroot.com/photos/2013/06/unarmed_black_men_shot_by_police_20_sad_stories.html

Home is Where the Heart is. (Blog Post 3)

Observation: I watched a Ted Talk by Holly Morris called “Why Stay in Chernobyl. Because its home.”

http://www.ted.com/talks/holly_morris_why_stay_in_chernobyl_because_it_s_home.html

The disaster at Chernobyl happened after initial problems occurred with the power output in reactor 4 and were not settled in proper manners because of inadequately trained personal. The reactions led to bigger problems and showed flaws in the design of their reactor. The reactor had a fire burning for 11 days blowing the remains of the radioactive material into the atmosphere.  To compare how radioactive it was—it was 400 times more radioactive than the Hiroshima bomb. 28 people who worked on the site as staff or firemen died within 3 months and two died that night of the explosion.  Different organizations around the world estimate from 4,000 to 10,000’s of people who have died because of what happened at Chernobyl.

As a result from the acute exposure to the radiation ung cancer, radiation sickness, leukima, and cardiovascular disease were all common to the “liquidators” and staff of the power plant.  Long term exposure of the low level radiation have shown to result in tumors, genetic mutations, and damage to the immune system.  Much argument has taken place on the direct result of the health of people that live or have lived in Chernobyl .

There has been a high correlation between thyroid cancer in children living in the area back in 1986 and the 90’s because at young ages children are more susceptible to the uptake of iodine in their tyroid gland. Aside from this little research has proved to show any direct relationships from living in the area after the disaster took place. However there has still been many psychological effects taking place post disaster.

The blast zone of this horrific event covered 150,000 kilometers in Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia. 30 Kilometers of the zone is considered the exclusion zone is is called unihabitied. A total of 200,000 people were evacuated from the result of the Nuclear plants damage and 400,000- 600,000 people were given “liquidator” status as they were apart of the clean up efforts to restore Chernobyl.  

Imagine this being your home.

Would you stay away? Would you come home? What is home?

Molly Harris’ Ted talk highlights some of the experiences and stories she heard of when visiting Chernobyl on its 20^th anniversary. In the exclusion zone, there are currently 200 people living there who are predominantly elderly women. 

These women have a history of surviving the worst. They survived the forced famines of Joseph Stalin in the 1930’s, the Nazi reign in the 1940’s and the disaster that happened in Chernobyl in 1986.

When asked to evacuate for the second time by a solider after a resident returned back to the exclusion zone, the women responded to the solider  “shoot me and dig a grave, otherwise I am going home."

Its impossible to not wonder “what is it that makes these women come back?”  When there is no longer community, people, institutions, and civilization why are the inhabitants of this land coming back?

Some of these residents have been living in the exclusion zone for over 27 years and have lived longer than some of their counterparts who evacuated and lived for 10 years until passing away.

These stories show the risk, deep emotional and mental ties to “home”, and self determination to keep ones home.  Its makes me wonder what makes home, home? The family? The buildings? The food? The memories? The graves of your loved ones?  The work that you built? Success that you gained?  I believe these all are part of what make home, home. Home is an idea that we all create within our own series of circumstances and life development.

The strong phenomena of survival that these women have shown for the sake of their home make me question what makes Dallas or Austin my own home.  It is important for us to understand the idea of home as social workers to understand how our clients view their homes and communities and the strong ties whether, good or bad ,that they may have to those places.  Stories like this, help us understand why we or our clients might feel unexpected deep ties  to the places we live or have grown up in and may not want to leave when positive success and growth call for us to migrate or even eminent danger may come our way. 

http://www.chernobyl-international.org/documents/chernobylfacts2.pdf

http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/features/chernobyl-15/cherno-faq.shtml

^Some things I was looking at to help inform me on Chernobyl. 

"The Only Thing Necessary For The Triump of Evil Is For Good Men To Do Nothing" (Blog Post 2)

Observation: Over this past week like Sara mention our social justice class talked about the idea of being an ally. We discussed how it is important for people who are wanting to be change agents  to help other populations and members of the target group recognize that they are not allies until the target group acknowledges and wants them to be helping.


As I think on the subject and wonder how groups are able to gain economic and social justice that they did not have before I realize how important it is for them to have allies. People look at groups whether they are racial/ethnic, gender, age, or class and see these groups having their own problems because of unique characteristics that only apply to them. However when someone "different" from the group stands up for the group, people take a double-take on the issue. I'm not saying its required that groups need allies in order to see their desired changes happen, but it helps promote positive changes tremendously when you have an ally that would not typically fit into your group.

Example of these could be-- The veteran that stood up for Muslims (What would you do video in a comment of my blog on Muslim discrimination) , Macklemore in his song "Same Love", Jewish volunteers in the Civil Rights Movements some of who were arrested with other African Americans.

Progress I believe definitely is spurred when an ally is present in the fight. I think its a beautiful thing to witness--to see people from different perspectives and worldviews empathize with others and attempt to learn and understand the struggles that those people are having. Becoming an ally though is sensitive and that soon to be ally needs to be welcomed into that group as an ally. Too often we see people trying to become allies only to make themselves look like a savior or  make those people they are trying to help more oppressed.

A question to think about it is:
Can we be allies with other groups without creating a coalition or does becoming an ally automatically mean you are forming a coalition?

"We Aren't Looking For 15 Minutes of Face, But A Lifetime of Equality." (Blog Post 1)

Observation: This last Wednesday, a friend of mines posted on Facebook a story about a Muslim women who was given a cup of tea with bacon inside the straw on her way out of the restaurant.
http://themuslimvoice.net/2013/10/02/bacon-put-into-straw-of-muslim-womens-drink-as-discrimination-in-tgi-fridays/

 I can't say I understand the feelings that some Muslims have had to unfortunately experience dealing with discrimination and hate crimes in the U.S, but I hope that I can say I have empathy for people that have to deal with the racist and discriminatory actions that people take on this population.  Islamaphobia- a hatred and irrational fear of Muslims,  has definitely spiked after 9/11 happened 12 years ago and the Wars in Afganistan and Iraq.

This story is disappointing to read about. I have been to this TGI Friday's before since Garland, Texas is about 30 minutes from where I live in Dallas. I read the article, and checked TGI Friday's facebook page to see what was happening there. To summarize the story, Nicole Queen and a friend went to have a casual lunch at TGI Friday's.  She ordered a salad and it had bacon in it. She asked the waiter if she could have it removed, and he was put off by the request. Another waitress had finished her check and asked if she wanted a to-go cup of her drink and she said sure. She got the cup back with everything there and a straw already in it with the partial wrapper. She took a sip and tasted bacon and immediately took it back to the restaurant. The manager denied what had happened and said no one would have done that on purpose, etc.

Nicole Queen got in touch with someone from the blog TheMuslimVoice and this story has circulated around now reaching various parts of the world; from the U.S. to Austraila. The Facebook page of TGI Friday has been active with people writing on their timeline expressing their thoughts on the matter and it is awesome to see how people are mobilzing through TheMuslimVoice blog and facebook to bring to light the injustice this woman had to face at this Dallas TGI Fridays. Many are pledging to stop eating at TGI Fridays from different states and even in other countries after this story has circulated.

Some notes about Nicole Queen. She converted to Islam 6 years ago from her Christianity. Although she has the right and a very strong case to sue TGI Fridays on this event, she wants TGI Fridays to have their staff take sensitivity training and have an on camera apology be made to her and Muslims. Some comments she made were "We are not looking for 15 minutes of face, but a lifetime of equality" and "I have never been more offended in my life and I cant beieve that the biggest offense of my life is happening at a TGI Fridays." "They made me feel like a minority yanno? And Ive never known what that feels like"

Reading the TGI Friday Facebook pages comments, I have read many comments from other people saying a number of things:
"Bacon should be made a standard on all menu items now"
I dont see what the deal is here. The Muslims just want attention, again.
"Hope she enjoyed the bacon, obviously a publicity stunt and staged."
"I am disgusted that so many people are choosing to believe in such a fabricated story"

This story has made it to the local news channel in Dallas and TGI Fridays released statements on their Facebook and to the news channel. This is just another incident you see a Muslim facing discrimination from others in our country. I cant say what exactly it is that this says about our society, but I definitely believe there is a lack of understanding, acceptance, religious tolerance, respect towards others, and a definite fear of difference. I am not Muslim, but I feel like I can relate just a little bit of what people like Nicole go through because of the racist comments and actions I have had to deal with just for having brown skin. It so awesome to see how she did not just accept what happened and move on with the status quo of treatment that we see Muslims face as second class American citizens. She did something about it. 

I personally will not be supporting or eating at TGI Fridays till I see some reasonable actions taken against whats happened. 
Being the minority and usually only hearing about the disappointing stories about race and treatment of others, I thought I would share this link to end. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hHUQ0Lp6v4
"Not at the moment, right now I'm ordering a sandwich"