Week 6

Apologies for my lateness.

  Much of this week was dedicated to the actions of the past in relation to the traumas of today, which is a timely topic, as much of the discourse surrounding many minority groups and POCs today revolve around the theme of rethinking and re-contextualizing narratives that were taught in schools, by parents, or the society they're involved in. In the Americas, two strong narratives that come to mind in deconstructing traumas and the identity of the Americas themselves is slavery and the cultural mistreatment of indigenous people. Two topics that we explored at some points in discussion and lecture. 
  We were given the question "How does the history of slavery affect the Americas today?" in this week's lecture. Though this question is important, my thoughts kind of expanded it to think of not just slavery, but how the history of colonialism affects the Americas. A few thoughts came to mind-
The lecture (and I suppose everyday life?) mentions that race is a social class, and I find this to be a key component in how colonialism affected the contemporary landscape. The perception of stereotypes and race derived from colonial teachings have echoes in today's contemporary landscape.
  The third question that Jon left us with in this class was "What justice can be done?" and I was kind of hit with a mental block. "How can we heal cultural trauma?" has been a consistent question of mine for a while, and it's come up in discussions regarding the Vietnam War, The Holocaust, The Cultural Revolution; and I don't think I've found an answer to it. Acknowledgement of these events and traumas is one thing, and is a step in a direction, but from acknowledgement... where do we go from here?  





















Comments

  1. Hi! I really liked your post. I think that in relation to what can be done, the question itself can be really daunting as you state. However, I think that if we tackle it from different aspects, it may be easier. What I mean is, perhaps if we begin by looking at the legal system for example, we can begin to do our work from there, then the media, then educational institutions and so on and so on. Take it one bite at a time so we all process the pass properly and understand why 'justice' is needed in the first place.

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  2. Hi, I agree with Melissa that change needs to be tackled from different aspects. Especially in terms of education and the legal system in relation to one another. For example, in the U.S., public education is funded through local property taxes, meaning that areas with less money (often times with higher proportions of marginalized groups) have less resources for their schools. This perpetuates the preexisting inequalities, and is something that can be improved on by changing where the funds come from- instead of each municipality allocating tax revenues to their schools, maybe it should come from the federal government to be divided up equally among states and municipalities.

    Anyways, I kind of went off on a tangent there but it is one idea on how we can start changing the system to support those that have had generational trauma from colonialism.

    Here's an article about this!
    https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/property-taxes-and-unequal-schools/497333/

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  3. Hi there! I am going to the lecture tomorrow, so your post gave me an idea of what to expect! I like the fact that people nowadays are able to discuss controversial topics such as slavery. Because slavery is real, it did happen (and in some instances it is still happening today). I believe that people should be more aware of it, they should not be kept in the dark. No matter how harsh reality can be, the sufferings of the past deserve to be acknowledged. But then again as you said, "where do we go from here?" I have been educated on the history of slavery, and yet I find myself bewildered when faced with a question such as "What justice can be done?". We like to feed on information, but what should we do with it? I sometimes feel like we tend to focus more on the reasons why something happened rather than on searching for a concrete way to fix the problem. Because the truth is, no one likes to deal with the issue (especially one that's been around for centuries), it is always harder to take action. I agree that acknowledging the mistakes that have been made in the past is a start. However words are not enough to make racism disappear.

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