[Rachel Gonzalez]

For this weeks photo share, I decided to share this art piece by Melanie Cervantes, a Xicana artist that specializes in depicting the art of indigenous movements. In this piece below, she depicts an indigenous woman fighting for her land and her life. In our class discussion on #NoDAPL, we talked about how it was mainly women who were at the frontlines of this movement, fighting for their water and their land because as Patrick Wolfe states, “Land is life”. We, as original foreigners of this land, do not understand the ways in which the indigenous folks who were here long before us saw their land and had a relationship with it–a relationship in which everything about the land and water sources truly was their life, and there is a deep respect and reverence for it. I personally found it interesting that the indigenous woman is carrying a rifle, insinuating that she has has to use the white man’s weapons in order to protect what is originally there’s, but white folks have not been fair in the fight. I also found it interesting that her face is not shown, possibly insinuating that aside from the Black woman, indigenous women are also underrepresented, and often times ignored.

Reference: https://justseeds.org/product/indigenous-women-defending-land-and-life/

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[Rachel Gonzalez]

For this week’s photo share, I decided to share an except of lyrics from Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam” song. This song is just one of Nina Simone’s many acts of activism during the Civil Rights Era, in which she took it upon herself, as a Black, female singer to speak out against the injustices and segregation that she witnessed. In this excerpt of lyrics, one can very much sense Nina’s discontent with the segregation and oppression in which she witnesses. The government is distrusting of Black Americans, always going after them, ending the second verse with the proclamation that she “does not belong here”. It is incredibly clear the effects in which racism and oppression created a form of physical, social and emotional segregation within many Black Americans’ lives–Nina Simone was only able to vocalize it through her music. She also critiques the fact that the government demeans their efforts at freedom, equality, and integration by admonishing them to “do it slow” as if Black folks should not be fighting for equality as intensely as they had been in the past, and continue to.

Reference: https://genius.com/Nina-simone-mississippi-goddam-lyrics

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[Rachel Gonzalez]

For this week’s photo share, I decided to focus on the importance of “ally-ship” when it comes to the #MeToo/#SayHerName movement. This online focused on the idea of intersectionality when it comes to movements like these–where the individuals who are targeted not only suffer due to their race but also their gender. In this piece, they also fixate on a transgender black women whose friend died from police brutality. In dawned on me that narratives like these rarely get told, yet are so imperative to the idea of intersectionality within social movements, Not only is the concept of gender being erased from police brutality narratives, but transgender women of color suffer from the most neglect. Elle Lucier, an individual that they interviewed for this feature states that “In order to move forward, we must step aside to make space for her. There is no choice but to be intersectional.”

Reference: https://afropunk.com/2015/07/feature-sayhername-keeping-the-movement-intersectional-by-writer-photographer-devyn-springer/

• This reply was modified 5 years, 8 months ago by Rachel Gonzalez.

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[Rachel Gonzalez]

For this week’s weekly photo share, I decided to share an image of an individual who contributed to CNN’s “Where are you REALLY from?” project. In class, we discussed the implications of individuals moving through a white space and how white folks feel the need to engage in a narrative with an individual by asking black or brown folks where they are REALLY from. Having experienced this in my own life, this kind of interaction shifts the agency from the person who gets to create their own narrative (the black/brown individual) to the individual asking the question. Questions like these are implicated in black/brown folks immediately being questioned as they move through a predominantly white space, or white-dominated space, such as the United States. This is coupled with the idea of black and brown folks being able to move through spaces just as they are, without being questioned or white folks acting upon their white fragility in seeing a black/brown folk “encroach on their space”.

Reference: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2017/08/opinion/where-im-really-from/

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[Rachel Gonzalez]

For this week’s photo share, I decided to share this picture from an ad by Pepsi, featuring Kendall Jenner. This commercial ad in particular received a lot of backlash because it portrays Kendall Jenner diffusing a particularly tension-filled protest with handing someone a Pepsi. This ad came out right around the middle of the Black Lives Matter movement and it was appalling to a little of people for the ways that media was used to try to deny the seriousness of a movement such as this. With the movement in it of itself having been started through the power of social media, it was interesting to see how it could also be used to release this ad and then simultaneously take it down due to the ad’s intentional attempt at erasing the momentum and purpose of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Reference: https://people.com/food/pepsi-ad-portland-mayor/

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[Rachel Gonzalez]

I chose this picture for this week’s photo share because it shows Emmett Till–a young boy that was killed in a Mississippi national park, near the Mississippi Delta. This relates to the topic of national parks having an origin in deep racism, and I believe this is the kind of “mental reparations” that Ta-Nehisi Coates stated in The Case for Reparations. Although it took almost 60 years for this memorial to be built, the National Parks coming to grips with their racist histories and historically being a site for deep segregation is incredibly important to the conservation of these areas. I agreed with Jose Gonzalez in the video that we had in class, that America has to face the reality of the segregative roots of this land and then collaborate to be able to move forward with the conservation movement. It is acts like that in which we can start moving in that direction.

Reference: https://www.npca.org/articles/2020-mississippi-reckoning

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[Rachel Gonzalez]

For this week’s photo share, I decided to choose an image that hits a little bit too close to home for a lot of us at UCSD. After the discussion on segregation in education this week, I decided to see how our university pales in comparison to the segregation in schools that we discussed this week. After seeing that our university only contains a 2% Black student population, and less than 10% of most other minority categories besides Asian, it is apparent that segregation within education has persisted. It is no surprise that the type of education, and access to education highly determines an individual’s upward mobility. In addition, as seen by our class discussion, the inconspicuous segregation within our schools due the long history of Black Americans being disregarded by the educational system had continued in Black Americans still being dealt “the short end of the stick” when attaining high quality education that can lead to their own personal advancement in society. UCSD is not immune to these structural forces (as seen by our demographic) and it is more disheartening than anything to realize that these cyclical patterns are still in place today.

Reference: Institutional research at UCSD: https://ir.ucsd.edu/_files/stats-data/enrollment/ugethnic.pdf

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[Rachel Gonzalez]

For this week’s photo share, I decided to share the album cover of Erykah Badu’s New Amerykah. Erykah Badu goes along with our theme of hip hop and rap artists using their music as platform for social activist movement. In this album, Badu speaks on the various ideals of living in America as a woman of color, and the idea of the “American dream”. In the first song, entitled “Amerykhan Promise”, a lot fo different voices speak on the ideal of attaining the American Dream. A thundering voice throughout the entire song speaks on America being a land of broken promises, saying that this country gives us freedom in response to us giving it everything that we have, despite this being entirely false for those who live here. I believe this song is a social commentary of the state that many immigrants find themselves in when deciding to come to the United States, and what they are willing to sacrifice in order to receive a fractured version of the American dream. This album resonated with a lot of individuals who agreed with what she had to say about the world going on around her, which is still fairly relevant due to the album having only come out in 2010. In an age where a lot of Black artists are more cautious to take a stand in our current political and social climate, it is artists like Erykah Badu who stay true to the roots of hip hop, R&B and soul.

Referance: “New Amerykah” Erykah Badu, 2010; (listened to on Spotify music)

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[Rachel Gonzalez]

I chose this photo for this week’s photo share because of our in-depth study of the Black Panther party. In the class, we mentioned how the Black Panther party is the reason that schools have the “Free and Reduced lunch program” and I did not know that previously. I appreciate that we discussed the Black Panther party in regards to the Civil Rights Movements of the 50s and 60s because, prior to this week, I had always assumed that the Black Panther party radically fought against police brutality in a violent manner. However, this picture depicts what the Black Panther party was truly about–building allies and creating social programs that benefitted the community despite who the community was made up of.

Reference: https://www.eater.com/2016/2/16/11002842/free-breakfast-schools-black-panthers

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[Rachel Gonzalez]

For this week’s photo share, I chose this photo depicting a Black women in the living room of her home. As one can see, the wall behind her is broken down and falling apart. In the picture, she is holding a gin that states “This is our slum lord’s house”, showing a typical “all-American” home that is in good condition. In class, we discussed the various tactics to create segregation between and within cities, barring Black Americans the right to purchase their dream home. As Ta-Nehisi Coates stated in The Case for Reparations , the American home is the “hallmark of American citizenship”. This picture goes along with the same tactic used against Clyde Ross in The Case for Reparations–real estate agents selling homes to Black Americans for a more than unreasonable price, enclosing them within a community in which they are not able to receive the same resources as their White counterparts, despite their socioeconomic status. I personally find this shocking, that many Black Americans had to live in conditions such as these in order for the creation of permanent segregation that will affect Black folks for generations to come.

Reference: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/books/review/Arsenault-t.html

• This reply was modified 5 years, 9 months ago by Rachel Gonzalez.

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[Rachel Gonzalez]

For this week’s photo share, I chose this photo from the Bandung conference, briefly mentioned in Malcolm X’s speech: “Message to the Grassroots”. In this conference, various officials from different ethnic backgrounds in order to promote diplomatic unity in the face of the Cold War. I believe Malcolm X was intentional in mentioning this because leaders of various developing nations were able to discuss strategies to come together, despite various inequalities they may have also been facing coming from a developing country. In order to fully understand one another, the “white man”, as quoted by Malcolm X, could not attend. Rather than being overlooked, they demanded to be seen and acknowledged by the rest of the world in the decisions regarding the Cold War. However, it is interesting to note that this point is what Malcolm fixated on in his speech, when the entirety of the conference, as I have researched more about it, was to promote unity and reduce the gap between developed and developing nations–not to form a common enemy. It was necessary for Malcolm X to do this in his speech in order to create a response, however, and he did it intentionally by seeing the conference through a difference lens.

Reference: http://www.newagebd.net/article/13758/bandung-conference-and-its-relevance

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[Rachel Gonzalez]

For this week’s photo share, I chose a photo from the newly released film, Sorry To Bother You, a story about Cassius Green, an African American man living the United States, who moves up in a telemarketing company by “sounding like a White man” over the phone to his clients. I chose this particular scene because this is the time in the movie where he truly enters a White space being a person of color. Here, he attends a party hosted by his CEO, fully understanding his role as an African American in that space. In the midst of the calls for Cassius to “start rapping” and the other characters during the party talking in what could not be deemed anything less than speaking like a stereotypical Black individual, it is here that Cassius tries to navigate the white space while fully being aware of who he is to these other individuals. It was incredibly fascinating to see him reluctantly give in to their preconceived notions of who he is in order to please them, and to see how this experience inevitably causes him to break.

Reference: Sorry To Bother You (2018)

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[Rachel Gonzalez]

I chose this file because Time Magazine did a piece reflecting on the black soldier during the Vietnam. The rate of black soldiers drafted into the Vietnam war almost doubled that of white soldiers and their death toll was also twice as high than that of the white soldier. A quote in this article by a black general said that he deemed “fighting for freedom in Vietnam and fighting for freedom from discrimination back in the United States as the same thing”. I believe this is what MLK Jr. stated in his “Beyond Vietnam” speech, and what the true meaning of nonviolent resistance. If these black soldiers could take a stand all the way from a different country, fighting a different war, how much more should the United States reconsider who they were fighting for?

Reference: Time Magazine, http://time.com/4780493/1967-vietnam-race/

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[Rachel Gonzalez]

I chose this photo because this week we talked about the role of space in the definition of space and briefly watched a video on the creation of the suburb. I found this photo interesting because it is a newspaper ad for Levittowns in the United States during the 1950s. The tagline reads that the new homes will be “suitable for any wage earner” yet the idea behind Levittowns was so white homeowners were able to buy homes in neighborhoods away from residential areas that contained people of color. Many measures were taken to ensure that black and brown individuals could not purchase homes within these Levittowns, thus rendering this newspaper story untrue. A better tagline during this time would have been “Suitable for any [White] Wage Earner”.

Reference: http://www.levittowners.com/why.htm

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[Rachel Gonzalez]

I chose this photo for the theme of trespassing, because there has been a long and horrific history of allegations of trespassing on seemingly public spaces. This picture of children carrying a sign containing the message “free the beach” reminded me of the story of the Black man being arrested in a Starbucks due to him simply “looking like he didn’t belong there”. Like Starbucks, beaches, especially in California, are public spaces owned by Mother Nature. I feel, as human, we cannot really lay claim over them, and who is or is not allowed to occupy those beaches. Beaches are also similar to Starbucks stores in that they can portray a symbol of wealth–if you can afford a $6 latte, you can also probably afford to live close to the beach in California. There are just too many parallels in the theme of trespassing, and I wonder when people of color will no longer be deemed by society as “looking like they just do not belong”.

Reference: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/connecticuts-beaches-were-largely-limits-african-americans-through-1970s-180969494/

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