Original Post From @seedingsovereignty

Mass Media and Society

How does mass media affect our society? Is entertainment what drives our society moving forward, and if it is, what type of entertainment are we really pushing out there? These notes discuss how media relates and corresponds pre-existing themes, like ageism, racism, sexism, and the term ‘other-ism’ and explains the origin of the ‘mean world syndrome’ from a sociologist’s point of view.

🥲

Honorable mentions:

The last SAMURAI- white.

Prince of PERSIA- white.

Just shut up.

Santa Muerte

NO. 1

A skeletal figure dressed in robes or dressed in the virgin’s shroud, Santa Muerte is both the Grim Reap-ress and the Angel of Mercy. She is the personification of death, and her full title, Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte as she is well known as, brings an ambiguous and malleable identity that is associated with healing, protection, and safe delivery to the afterlife by her devotees, as her following, especially in 21st century is being celebrated all over South America, but especially Mexico City to the United States and Canada.

NO. 2

Even though Christian missionaries and leaders condemned the religion, Santa Muerte ‘‘offers hope to a society threatened with hopelessness. In the colorful barrios of Mexican culture, the figure of Death is ubiquitous. With the lure and dangers of narco-culture, the violence among competing youth gangs, the haunting realities of an economy in collapse, and the gravel fight to survive in a Tepito marketplace; Mexicans face the reality of death on a daily basis. Santa Muerte, the image of death, protects them from uncertainties in their everyday lives. When Death is the only guarantee, it seems like Death is the only one to be trusted.’’ The worship of Santa Muerte began in the mid-20th century and was clandestine until the 1990s, were most prayers and other rites have been performed traditionally at home. Now in the 21st century, worship has become a more public thing. Santa Muerte has a male counterpart in the U.S, called the skeletal folk saints San La Muerte of Paraguay and Rey Pascual of Guatemala.

NO. 3

So, what caused the worship of Santa Muerte to become a massive, worldwide following? Drug violence, for one, and loss of faith in Christianity. ‘‘Former Mexican president Felipe Calderon’s declaration of war on the cartels in 2006 was received with praise by North American politicians, as in their view, it seemed that the Mexican government was finally taking a strong stand against the cartels and that there would be a swift resolution to the social problems associated with drug trafficking. This open war declared on the cartels resulted in an escalation of drug violence and forced several dramatic changes in the safety of Mexico and its already chaotic social scene. Military personnel, paramilitary groups, and the cartels have been fighting for control of the country and have created a state of panic in the border towns and beyond. The panic and violence in the north have begun to gradually make it’s way south and reach areas that were once ‘safe’. According to the BBC from 2006 to 2012, more than 50,000 individuals have died from drug-related violence. Amidst the drug-related instability, the once strong and influential Mexican Catholic Church has been losing credibility, support, and members. The loss of faith in the Catholic Church could be caused by many factors: general pessimism, individuals searching for other forms of faith, and the result of the church’s support for governing political parties.’’

NO. 4

Who is Santa Muerte? Anthropologists and historians J. Katia Perdigon Castaneda and R. Andrew Chestnut agree that the veneration of Santa Muerte is a combination of Catholic imagery and rituals from Meso-American pre-Hispanic gods and rituals. There is a common list of names for the goddess, such as Mi Nina, (My little girl), La Nina Bonita (the Pretty Girl), La Madrina (the Godmother), and Mi Amor (My Love)—adoring names that tighten the relationship between devotee and saint. There are darker allegations like Senora de la Sombras (Lady of the Shadows) or La Negra (the Black Lady). There is also La Hermana Blanca (The White Sister) and Hermana de la Luz (Sister of the Light). She is celebrated on the Day of the Dead, November 1st and 2nd. better known as Dia De los Muertos.

@fandomshatepeopleofcolor

Here's more info on The Woman King discourse. Tried to directly reply to your post but tumblr wouldn't let me.

Research on the Elongated Skulls

There is evidence of elongated skulls in many different places around the world. In Egypt, these skulls are often found in graves from the Old and Middle Kingdom periods. They are also found in Peru and have been used in religious ceremonies for centuries. In North America, many Native communities have traditionally worn these types of headdresses and jewelry. The presence of elongated skulls in ancient history proves that human anatomy has been changing for thousands of years.

The Egyptians appear to have used the elongated skulls as ornaments for their tombs. ‘‘The priests of the time believed that the gods would transfer their souls to the bodies of their ancestors after they died, so it was important to provide the deceased with nice things to help them reach the afterlife. They also may have had practical uses. They believed they used them to drain water from their underground temples, prone to flooding. The Indigenous people’s of Peru also used the elongated skulls as grave goods. Because they believed that the spirits of their dead ancestors resided inside the skulls, they were buried with these artifacts near the head of the body to aid their passage into the afterlife. According to the Inca civilization, it was up to the priests to pass judgment on whether or not a person was worthy enough to enter the afterlife. They also used the skulls for divination and a good luck charm to protect them from harm.’’

There are many theories about how elongated skulls came to exist. One theory is that they are the remains of an extinct race of people that lived on Earth thousands of years ago. These "giants" may have lived alongside the Native Americans or descended from an earlier human civilization during the Ice Age. Another theory is that they were created artificially using clay, metal, or wood molds. ‘‘As the Spanish colonized the Americas, many different cultures were exposed to new ideas about science and medicine. As a result, many of these people began experimenting with new ways to create artificial body parts. Besides tattooing, intentional scarring, piercing, and teeth sharpening, intentional cranial deformation is another form of mutilation of the human body and is associated with the cultural background of society. It has been related to religion, aestheticism, beauty, or facilitating tribal identity.’’

Unmute !

Blog #1 : my definition of being alone

I should have started this, this week, but today I feel like I should write this down. Or at least write it here so I don't feel alone. And that is my problem, I guess. Going to a small college was supposed to be a good thing for me, a way to make friends. And I did, for the first two weeks I came to Wells. But they promised we all would go out to eat, and they all drove off without me, texting me 'Sorry'. Did I mention that we all live in the same floor? As if I didn't have enough problems, today, a Thursday, November 1st, my stupid teacher, who's only job is to ease freshmen into the stages of college. Whatever that means. Anyway, he asked me, flat out in class, if 'don't you have friends?' Leaving the rest of the class to snicker and whisper just pound enough for me to hear, answer for me, 'No.' I assured my mother that I would be fine like this, but I'm not. That I'm here for my education and that's that, but that's just an excuse, and a dumb one at that. I feel like I haven't left the Bronx. Cause that's where I'm from, and if you don't have a mean face, you look vulnerable, and my face hasn't been like that in four years. The four years I've been in high school. But I don't think I've let it go. And that may be my problem, having a stone face.

Being poor is dangerous. Being POC while poor? Even more dangerous.

NO.1

The question, ‘‘Is being poor dangerous’, an easy question to answer for those who suffer from being poor. Yes, it is highly dangerous, spiritually, emotionally, and physically. People usually move to cities in the U.S, and cities are segregated. Each person, family, etc. has a different background, therefore they have a different connection with others unlike themselves. That means different habitus’ and different inequalities, for those who are not rich.

NO.2

This all has to do with the economic structure, between poor, middle class and rich. Segregation is everywhere, and in cities, it is an intermix of ethnicity, citizenship, indigeneity, and class, and when they are intertwined, they create systems of labor, respect and suffering. The physical differences in the conditions of life, especially barbaric. Throughout the hierarchy of suffering, the opportunities decrease and the social hardships increase as you go down the ladder, and depending on what race you are, the more dangerous, psychologically strenuous and physically stressful it can be. Everyone is structurally vulnerable, and each person can participate in what is called the Gray Zone.

NO.3

Primo Levi defines it as the knowledge of the corrupt system but trying to survive within it, whether you’re at the top or at the bottom, and when you are at the bottom, the system is designed to make people remain there. For Mexican workers who choose to make the difficult journey to work in the strawberry fields in Southern California, they are kept segregated by race, class, and citizenship, they have limited opportunities to afford the basic needs we use every single day, either access to affordable healthcare or able to get a decent paying job. Collective bad faith, or as Nancy Scheper-Hughes calls it, is the self deception to help you feel okay about the work you do in the moral gray zone. One example would be the strange concept of naturalization, like black deaths at the hands of police officers. A more basic definition would be seeing an oppressed people and saying that they like being oppressed, making you feel better about the injustice. Since we see it go on for so long, the moral injustice, we normalize it, or that it just part of ‘the game’. The game is to thrive, survive, and suffer in the social world, where you are both dominated and dominant. We justify it because they are different, and say it is normal.

NO.4

‘‘For decades, experts have agreed that racial disparities in health spring from pervasive social and institutional forces. The scientific literature has linked higher rates of death and disease in African Americans to such ‘social determinants’ as residential segregation, environmental waste, joblessness, unsafe housing, targeted marketing of alcohol and cigarettes, and other inequalities; Racism, other researchers suggests, acts as a classic chronic stressor, setting off the same physiological train wreck as job strain or martial conflict: higher blood pressure, elevated heart rate, increases in the stress hormone cortisol, suppressed immunity. Chronic stress is also known to encourage unhealthy behaviors, such as smoking and eating too much, that themselves raise the risk of disease.’’ From How Racism Hurts—Literally.

The protests of Hawaiians before colonization

NO. 1

In regard to cultural survival and cultural sustainability, many traditional Hawaiian practices like long distance voyaging, paddling, fishing and surfing is very important, as rom the start of the 19th century to 1970, western colonization almost destroyed Hawaiian culture. In ‘The Struggle for Hawaiian Sovereignty’, by Haunani-Kay Trask, she writes, pg.9, ‘’Entering the U.S as a Territory in 1900, our country became a white planter outpost, providing missionary-descended sugar barons in the islands and imperialist Americans on the continent with a military watering hole in the Pacific—By 1970, rural Hawaiian communities were besieged by rapid development. Urbanization brought an influx of rich haole from the American continent, who unlike tourists, wanted to live in Hawai’i. Evictions of Hawaiians lead to increasing protests, especially in communities scheduled for residential and commercial development.’’

  Examples of these protests was one that occurred in 1976, by Isaiah Helekunihi Walker with the creation of Hui O He’e Nalu (club of wave sliders) for preservation of control over North Shore Waves. He voiced concern about an endangered Hawaiian space, or ‘ka po’ ina nalu, which translates to the ‘surf zone’. When Captain Cooke arrived in Hawai’i, he believed the Polynesians were skilled navigators and surfers, as they were able to migrate, or sail, against powerful sails and winds from Asia to the pacific islands. Unfortunately, the missionaries that came decades later deduced that surfing was a ‘barbaric activity’, and with the success of the Christians, Hawaiian men and women especially, were discouraged from boxing, wrestling, or surfing, which was regarded as an act of resistance for both men and women.

     NO. 2

The cultural practices of paddling are another tradition that survived against western colonialism. It was made with canoes, and they were mostly made up from trees, coconuts, or kol trees. In ‘The story of Albert Kamilla Choy Ching, Jr.’ it explains the cultural aspect of paddling and what it means to the Native Hawaiians. ‘’Al was a natural for paddling. He had keen eye-hand coordination and excelled as a steersman. He also loved to teach, and his high school coach John Kapua had taught him enough about paddling technique during his sculling year at Kaimuki for Al to want to improve himself and others. ‘I kept coming back [to paddling] because there was a desire to get better. There never was a desire to get to the very top—-it just came. I wanted to get a little better, and then I figured maybe I can beat that guy and then the next guy…. Before you know it, there’s a lot of guys behind you and you never intended to be that way, ‘’ pg. 4. But on pg.9, the meaning of paddling delves deeper as Al explains, ‘’I enjoy watching out people learn, how they came up from nothing. And if any of them win a race in the state championship, that makes me happy, real happy. Just watching them. Because I remember when I won…. All the things that I learnt through canoeing come from my Hawaiian side. How to look at the clouds. How to look at the ripples on the water and to see how the water is running. Even navigating backwards…the canoes did a real lot for me, kept my health, kept my tradition, kept me in touch with Hawai’i.’’

   NO. 3

  This co-exists with the nature of the fishponds, that ‘’played a spiritual, cultural, and political lives of the people. To the native Hawaiians there is a direct spiritual connection between man, god(s) and nature. As noted by Minerb, the natural environment of the land ‘aina’ and sea ‘kai’ and all things contained within it are perceived to be sentient, divine ancestral forms that have extrasensory perception, and interrelate with people as a family. Thus, to Hawaiians, nature is not only conscience, ke ea o ka ‘aina (life-force of the land) but much of it is divine.’’ pg. 2 of Ancient Hawaiian fishponds.

  NO. 4

   Hawaii was a group of islands that used a social hierarchy and status was a sign of great importance. Competition, including that of the fishponds, and cooperation were ideal values, as traditionally the ideal is that of chiefly status who were obliged to care for those in there lineage. The hierarchy goes from chief, warriors, experts and craftspeople, and fishermen. Another cultural tradition is long distance voyaging, where Hawaiians sailed in large canoes and traveled across huge waves to get to the nearest land over long distance and time to discover new lands, which is what Ancient Hawaiians did. An example would be the great Hawaiian surfer Eddie Aikau who sailed long distance, over giant waves during the 70’s. The voyage is highly dangerous, as the ocean is temperamental, but lots of sailors today even, do it to feel closer to their ancestors and to remember their home. The comparison and contrast between all four, long distance voyaging, paddling, fishing, and surfing in regard to issues of sustainability and cultural survival is that by doing these activities, it was seen to the Hawaiian people as an act of resisting the degrading, humiliating andappropriating acts that colonialism brings with it, as they were immersed with the natural world.