So although I am going through this nasty divorce (of sorts) process, my life still goes on. I mean it has to. In doing this I have been having some family drama since late last night and all day today. I won't get much into it except to say that in the end there were several e-mails exchanged between my uncle and me. Now, for anyone who knows anything about my family, I find them to be awesome and most accepting of me and the fact that I am a queer lesbian. While I am sure they take it in stride sometimes, I know that my mother and my brother love me very very much and are very cool about my life and the way I choose to go about living it. This is not to say being queer/lesbian is a choice, but I believe in a comprehensive view on the formation of sexuality (physiology, language, environment, performance) etc. This is not to air out my dirty family laundry, but I do think it is an important thing to write about, because it is about families, it is about communication, and the communication in itself could definitely be a place for further study in my life.
So the last e-mail I received from attempted to harangue me, saying that what I do in school isn't "real" because it isn't math or science. He also made sure to tell me that he doesn't hate me because I am a lesbian but because I am a mean person (which he also attributes to genetics-weird because we are related?) And then in the last paragraph proceeded to tell me that at least he has a son and that the dildos I use have no semen coming out of them, so I couldn't be a mother anyway. WTF?!? REALLY?!? GROSS! And last time I checked queers were still allowed in various ways to have children. Wow-low blows for sure.
This is why I hate STUPID white men. Now to clarify, not all white men are stupid, far from it. In fact my best friend and my roommate are both straight white men and I love them both very much. What I dislike are white men who try to define my life for me and tell me what I am and what I am not. I am also not a big fan of white men who refuse to acknowledge their power and privilege in this world (of course I am annoyed by anyone who cannot do this!) I am also super annoyed that my school, my job, my life were dismissed so incredibly hard. I mean really, really, math and science are the only real things? I would like to suggest that without communication we couldn't teach those things-in fact we could teach nothing-so really I am pretty sure communication research and study is important.
I proceeded to e-mail this letter which I will include here and then blocked all of his incoming e-mails. I apologize for the profanity and warn now that if it offends you-DO NOT READ IT!
My name is Kathryn-not Kathy-but you wouldn't know that about me,
because you know absolutely nothing about me.
You are a despicable, ignorant asshole. I don't hate all white men,
what I hate are STUPID white men who use things like sexual orientation
as fodder to hit a person below the belt (YOU!) I am in fact a very
nice person, except when assholes like you decide to engage in this
behavior simply out of sport and ignorance. In which case no I am not
the subservient little woman you appreciate. I speak my mind loudly,
and don't abide by the female codes of civility expected by you or
society. If that makes me mean, then I'm glad. I am not angry, nor
spiteful, unless it comes to people like you who refuse to acknowledge
their power and privilege in this world because they are simply too
ignorant to recognize it.
As for what I am getting a degree in, you have no idea what I am doing
or what I value-again in your ignorance you assume you can speak for
and at me, which is exactly why I do the work I do. To keep ignorant
douchebags like yourself from gaining any more power than you already
do. I'm also pretty sure you maybe have a B.A. and did nothing with
it or with your life-you are a loser-plain and simple. So when it
comes to doing REAL things, I am pretty sure you don't do them either,
in fact you do nothing but drugs and being in pain and wanting to die.
Yeah, that's a very decent life and role model you are setting for
your son.
You may actually be the worst parent I have ever seen. Kicking your
child while on family vacation-wow it's a wonder why they let people
like yourself procreate-this is where forced sterilization might
actually come in handy. It's honestly a shame, because your son is
suffering at your own hands and you fail to recognize that. But
again, being anything other than a loser is not your strong point-you
always have been and as far as I am concerned you always will be.
My sexuality is not up for debate or your insults you fucking asshole.
Fuck you.
the end.
To not end in this extremely negative way, I feel like at least I am strong enough to write something like this. I am a passionate person and I love what I do and I am good at it. And I don't abide by the codes of white female civility that says I need to be quite, and subservient to a man, I don't think that makes me mean. It makes me a strong, independent, fierce, and fabulous feminist, of which, I am very proud. So take that douchey white men of the world and for all you white men out there who are doing good work around your identity, power and privilege, I salute you. You are allies not foe and I have so much respect for that!
the end.
Love Kathyn
Showing posts with label privilege. Show all posts
Showing posts with label privilege. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Margot at the Wedding
Margot at the Wedding is a movie I watched while on my vacation. I don't know that I actually enjoyed this movie but I liked a few of the points it made and the way it connects to writing and Truth and connecting to intimate others.
I liked the scene especially well when Margot and her sister Pauline are in a hotel room. Margot who is a writer of books and magazine stories is sitting on the bed with her journal before her writing. Pauline accuses her of writing about her and the situation they are currently in. Apparently in the past Margot has written about Pauline's life and it ended up in tragedy. She rips the journal from Margot's hands and says, "The rights to this are not for sale."
I thought this made some great connections between writing biography, ethnography, autobiography and what are the ethical lines and limitations of writing about people we are intimately connected with. How as researchers should we be committed to ethically representing the people we are working with. I think we must be held to an utmost standard not of portraying accuracy, honesty, and the truth but of being fair, empathetic, and accountable. This means showing care and thinking about the way we
would like to be represented if the research were about us and even better talking about ourselves (the self) in the research so as to make one even more accountable to the process.
This also made me recall a conversation had in my qualitative methods II class about the woman who supposedly wrote a memoir about her life in a gang. It was later found that all of the things she wrote about were fabrications, that she had been dishonest about her past with just about everyone and written a book about it. I would never advocate that this is an ethical position to hold to premeditate fabrications and falsify stories but I also think we have to reconceptualize the Truth. Was it ethical-no but if it helped someone and served a larger purpose might the outcome be worth it? I don't know but these are questions I have to ask. Is the greater good of helping someone, calling people to action/social justice more important than complete and utter honesty which can never actually be achieved anyway? I think it might.
This reminds me of Testimonios written about mainly women in Central and South America. The women in these testimonies reveal their stories about having loved ones disappear in countries facing political turmoil. These women risk their lives to join activist groups in order to stand against the the government in solidarity. The testimonios are mainly written for an American audience so that they will be called to action to ask the U.S. government to send support to stop funding for corrupt governments that harm and torture Central and South American people. These testimonios are calls to action for people in the U.S. to realize what happens in other countries and how the U.S. contributes to these problems. However, what was later found was that the stories in the testimonios were sometimes part of a collective consciousness made because the society's of which these women took part were collective society's so what happened to a neighbor or relative felt like it was directly tied to the woman telling her story to the translator and using it though it were her own tragedy to tell-in a way it was. But is this being dishonest, using a clever strategy, or simply an act of story-telling? It is hard to say but I can't help but think that without these testimonios the words of these women might never be heard and if it can call one person's attentions (and it did because it drew mine)so even if it is not completely factual-it served a greater purpose.
This doesn't mean advocating lies or thinking it is ethical to falsify a complete story but in this sense the author of the gang memoir is villanized for not being truthful but stories like Into the Wild are valorized because they are supposed insights into the truth-but the story serves no purpose but to illustrate a white privileged kid deciding to give it all up to disconnect from society in the wilderness. What good does supposedly piecing his story together do for humanity? What does the attempt to retrace his steps, talk to people he knew, go to the place his body was found? This is not Truth, this is Krakauer's interpretation of truth as he figured it out. And he portrays McCandless as a hero and Krakauer is a hero for finding this uncovered story. Although I liked the movie, I think it failed to focus on the real culprit, mental and social dis-ease. No one knows what McCandless's story really is and the book even if it had been written by him himself would not be the accurate and real story behind his life.
So why do we value some stories, valorize them and glorify the writers and subjects and others we condemn and villianize. I understand the situations and circumstances are different-but not so much that no comparisons can be drawn. In the end I think it comes down to the bodies that are being represented and the narratives being told in each of these types of story. Into the Wild's main character is an upper-class white privileged kid from Virginia or something who goes Emory University and is on a quest "to Find Himself." This is a story I bet a lot of white middle class white men could relate to-not wanting to deal with life, wanting to be free from societal expectations etc and I say men not because women do not feel the same but the manifestations because of society tend to be different. Men are supposed to be removed nature (more feminine characteristic) and primal nature which is no longer socially acceptable o the ultimate release is for them to become in touch with these things. I know these are large sweeping generalizations but being raised by a step father who obviously wished for this life as well as an uncle who is still trying to live it I think it might be somewhat fair. In opposition In Love and Consequence is written by a white woman also middle class but supposedly about herself as a multi-racial Native American and white girl in and out of foster care. This is telling a harrowing tale of interacting with black people and dealing with gang violence. This is an unpleasant story to hear and tell and one that she should have probably prefaced as being a compilation of truth, fiction, and other people's stories but didn't. While the theory might not hold up in court I can't help but think it definitely has something to do with it. I am not on her side but I think things are always more complex then we would like to make them-boil everything down to black and white-Truth and lies. But everything is a representation and interpretation and those are all subjective. We can never get to the truth of experience no matter how hard we try so the point is to maybe think of the bigger picture, the purpose of the work. This is a challenge because most people in this society want real definitive answers or are only open to discourses of the unknown as they relate to Jesus and God. I would hope people would be open to empathy and accountability...I think I will be working on that for awhile
--
MARGOT AT THE WEDDING Trailer
I liked the scene especially well when Margot and her sister Pauline are in a hotel room. Margot who is a writer of books and magazine stories is sitting on the bed with her journal before her writing. Pauline accuses her of writing about her and the situation they are currently in. Apparently in the past Margot has written about Pauline's life and it ended up in tragedy. She rips the journal from Margot's hands and says, "The rights to this are not for sale."
I thought this made some great connections between writing biography, ethnography, autobiography and what are the ethical lines and limitations of writing about people we are intimately connected with. How as researchers should we be committed to ethically representing the people we are working with. I think we must be held to an utmost standard not of portraying accuracy, honesty, and the truth but of being fair, empathetic, and accountable. This means showing care and thinking about the way we
would like to be represented if the research were about us and even better talking about ourselves (the self) in the research so as to make one even more accountable to the process.
This also made me recall a conversation had in my qualitative methods II class about the woman who supposedly wrote a memoir about her life in a gang. It was later found that all of the things she wrote about were fabrications, that she had been dishonest about her past with just about everyone and written a book about it. I would never advocate that this is an ethical position to hold to premeditate fabrications and falsify stories but I also think we have to reconceptualize the Truth. Was it ethical-no but if it helped someone and served a larger purpose might the outcome be worth it? I don't know but these are questions I have to ask. Is the greater good of helping someone, calling people to action/social justice more important than complete and utter honesty which can never actually be achieved anyway? I think it might.
This reminds me of Testimonios written about mainly women in Central and South America. The women in these testimonies reveal their stories about having loved ones disappear in countries facing political turmoil. These women risk their lives to join activist groups in order to stand against the the government in solidarity. The testimonios are mainly written for an American audience so that they will be called to action to ask the U.S. government to send support to stop funding for corrupt governments that harm and torture Central and South American people. These testimonios are calls to action for people in the U.S. to realize what happens in other countries and how the U.S. contributes to these problems. However, what was later found was that the stories in the testimonios were sometimes part of a collective consciousness made because the society's of which these women took part were collective society's so what happened to a neighbor or relative felt like it was directly tied to the woman telling her story to the translator and using it though it were her own tragedy to tell-in a way it was. But is this being dishonest, using a clever strategy, or simply an act of story-telling? It is hard to say but I can't help but think that without these testimonios the words of these women might never be heard and if it can call one person's attentions (and it did because it drew mine)so even if it is not completely factual-it served a greater purpose.
This doesn't mean advocating lies or thinking it is ethical to falsify a complete story but in this sense the author of the gang memoir is villanized for not being truthful but stories like Into the Wild are valorized because they are supposed insights into the truth-but the story serves no purpose but to illustrate a white privileged kid deciding to give it all up to disconnect from society in the wilderness. What good does supposedly piecing his story together do for humanity? What does the attempt to retrace his steps, talk to people he knew, go to the place his body was found? This is not Truth, this is Krakauer's interpretation of truth as he figured it out. And he portrays McCandless as a hero and Krakauer is a hero for finding this uncovered story. Although I liked the movie, I think it failed to focus on the real culprit, mental and social dis-ease. No one knows what McCandless's story really is and the book even if it had been written by him himself would not be the accurate and real story behind his life.
So why do we value some stories, valorize them and glorify the writers and subjects and others we condemn and villianize. I understand the situations and circumstances are different-but not so much that no comparisons can be drawn. In the end I think it comes down to the bodies that are being represented and the narratives being told in each of these types of story. Into the Wild's main character is an upper-class white privileged kid from Virginia or something who goes Emory University and is on a quest "to Find Himself." This is a story I bet a lot of white middle class white men could relate to-not wanting to deal with life, wanting to be free from societal expectations etc and I say men not because women do not feel the same but the manifestations because of society tend to be different. Men are supposed to be removed nature (more feminine characteristic) and primal nature which is no longer socially acceptable o the ultimate release is for them to become in touch with these things. I know these are large sweeping generalizations but being raised by a step father who obviously wished for this life as well as an uncle who is still trying to live it I think it might be somewhat fair. In opposition In Love and Consequence is written by a white woman also middle class but supposedly about herself as a multi-racial Native American and white girl in and out of foster care. This is telling a harrowing tale of interacting with black people and dealing with gang violence. This is an unpleasant story to hear and tell and one that she should have probably prefaced as being a compilation of truth, fiction, and other people's stories but didn't. While the theory might not hold up in court I can't help but think it definitely has something to do with it. I am not on her side but I think things are always more complex then we would like to make them-boil everything down to black and white-Truth and lies. But everything is a representation and interpretation and those are all subjective. We can never get to the truth of experience no matter how hard we try so the point is to maybe think of the bigger picture, the purpose of the work. This is a challenge because most people in this society want real definitive answers or are only open to discourses of the unknown as they relate to Jesus and God. I would hope people would be open to empathy and accountability...I think I will be working on that for awhile
--
MARGOT AT THE WEDDING Trailer
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