Once Upon A Time in Philosophy Class Part 2
As a white female Canadian that grew up in rural Alberta, in a place that I unfondly call the home of conservatives and cow tippers, to say that I was blind to systemic issues in society is very kind. It took moving to Edmonton and a further six years later for me to have any meaningful interaction with the type of problems that visible minorities face. The illusion I had of Canada being the multicultural place with the nice people who are 'sorry for being sorry' was blown up thanks to the Anthropology department at MacEwan.
The professor I had for Race and Racism took issue with Canada featuring in none of the course material, so the final exam was a ten page research paper on any topic we liked provided that it was about Canada. I was kept up for days reading about residential schools and harrowed by how we treated and justified treating children recently - often forcibly - stripped from their homes. I wrote a compelling paper about mental health (historic trauma) in the context of a critical response to the persistence of ethnocentric language in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action. Despite the concern of my professor regarding the breadth of such a topic for a second year undergraduate, it became the first research paper I ever presented at a conference. This formed the foundation for switching my academic focus to Anthropology.
So, in the last post, I alluded to somehow connecting my thoughts about FGM and circumcision to the BLM movement and police brutality protests. There is a key event that triggered the line of thinking I'll attempt to outline for you. After King Cheeto made an unsettling speech about the military being invoked to quell protests, people protesting peacefully were removed from the streets under rubber bullet fire and gas devices that cause excessive tearing (by any definition this is tear gas) in order for King Cheeto to have a photo op in front of St. Johns Church. I'm sure you can read the news and listen to the equivocating bullshit by the current press secretary.
As a brief aside, I refuse to use the name of the 2016 US President, because in my view, he hasn't earned that privilege. So, I use his desired status of power paired with his typical skin tone as a small reminder to myself that, while it's not easy to do the job of President without any criticism or moral issues, these four years have not been close to acceptable.
For me, I had a similar reaction to each topic. Both just rubbed me the wrong way in a way that has stuck with me for a number of years. When I started thinking about it a bit more, some of the connective tissue became clearer. If we think about the way that bodies are governed and the ways that states have to dissuade undesirable behaviours and encourage desirable behaviours both within and across international borders some realizations ought to click into place. The way that states invoke power through their institutions is not consistent. Forces that dictate social norms and acceptable actions that can be taken are also inconsistent. The experiences of people, with what little phenomenology I've read, is a chaotic stream of consciousness on which we try to ascribe order.
I'll take pause here for a moment... Having tried to come to grips with various iterations of complexity theory, I've reached this point in my thoughts that there are connections everywhere. In similar kind to the structure of the brain to the integration of systems in the body these connections vary in strength, number, and scale. It's a weird thing to try to put into words, but I've been thinking about ways to talk about getting to purple from Q.
-Megs
The professor I had for Race and Racism took issue with Canada featuring in none of the course material, so the final exam was a ten page research paper on any topic we liked provided that it was about Canada. I was kept up for days reading about residential schools and harrowed by how we treated and justified treating children recently - often forcibly - stripped from their homes. I wrote a compelling paper about mental health (historic trauma) in the context of a critical response to the persistence of ethnocentric language in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action. Despite the concern of my professor regarding the breadth of such a topic for a second year undergraduate, it became the first research paper I ever presented at a conference. This formed the foundation for switching my academic focus to Anthropology.
So, in the last post, I alluded to somehow connecting my thoughts about FGM and circumcision to the BLM movement and police brutality protests. There is a key event that triggered the line of thinking I'll attempt to outline for you. After King Cheeto made an unsettling speech about the military being invoked to quell protests, people protesting peacefully were removed from the streets under rubber bullet fire and gas devices that cause excessive tearing (by any definition this is tear gas) in order for King Cheeto to have a photo op in front of St. Johns Church. I'm sure you can read the news and listen to the equivocating bullshit by the current press secretary.
As a brief aside, I refuse to use the name of the 2016 US President, because in my view, he hasn't earned that privilege. So, I use his desired status of power paired with his typical skin tone as a small reminder to myself that, while it's not easy to do the job of President without any criticism or moral issues, these four years have not been close to acceptable.
For me, I had a similar reaction to each topic. Both just rubbed me the wrong way in a way that has stuck with me for a number of years. When I started thinking about it a bit more, some of the connective tissue became clearer. If we think about the way that bodies are governed and the ways that states have to dissuade undesirable behaviours and encourage desirable behaviours both within and across international borders some realizations ought to click into place. The way that states invoke power through their institutions is not consistent. Forces that dictate social norms and acceptable actions that can be taken are also inconsistent. The experiences of people, with what little phenomenology I've read, is a chaotic stream of consciousness on which we try to ascribe order.
I'll take pause here for a moment... Having tried to come to grips with various iterations of complexity theory, I've reached this point in my thoughts that there are connections everywhere. In similar kind to the structure of the brain to the integration of systems in the body these connections vary in strength, number, and scale. It's a weird thing to try to put into words, but I've been thinking about ways to talk about getting to purple from Q.
-Megs
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