inters3ctional-blog

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Reflection 2

While we spoke before about how intersectionality in religion, race, and gender interacted and provided additional discrimination, Persepolis, Sarkesian’s video, and Trev all provided a unique persepctive on the cultural issues surrounding gender. Persepolis provided a greater insight about how religion and gender intersected (similar to Home Fire), but it also focused on how immigration and war affected these two aspects of the protagonist's life. Sarkesian’s video brought us back into modern day and allowed us to view a whole new industry, video games, and how the discrimination that women faced in that industry could affect women and young girls. Finally, Trev was a story about a young trans boy that demonstrated a younger perspective about what life is like when your gender identity doesn’t match with what you were assigned at birth. All three of these stories/videos demonstrate the cultural importance of gender identity and how it affects people in modern day.

In Persepolis, gender identity isn’t spoken about explicitly but it is a subtext in many of the panels where Marji is rebelling against the fundamentalist regime and their insistence on her wearing her hijab. There are many ways for a young girl and developing teen to express their gender identity. Often, experimental hair cuts, dresses, and make up are what girls to do express their gender and experiment with their looks. Unfortunately, many of these things have been outlawed in Iran at the time of Marji’s childhood. Even as a “tom boy” who prefers to sword fight, many of these things are important to a girl. Instead of showing off a new haircut, however, Marji is forced to cover her hair at all times when outside the home. Make-up and dresses and other forms of “beauty” or “attention drawing” characteristics are heavily looked down upon by the fundamentalist and the army that enforces the laws. While you can get away with a little bit of make-up, it all really depends on how generous the army is feeling that day. Thus, war and society place many expectations upon young Marji and disable her from expressing her gender identity in the ways that she wishes.

In Sarkesian’s video about women in video games, gender identity has been taken from the female characters in the games and placed in the hands of men. Rather than encouraging women to design characters that represent actual women, men are often the ones drawing and animating hyper-sexualized women and placing them in positions as damsels in distress. Women in video games have little to no agency over their own gender expression and are seen societally as little more than arm candy or a prize to be won at the end of the game (such as in Mario). 

Finally, Trev was perhaps the most explicit story of how gender identity can affect someone’s life. While Trev was young when the events happened, the story was written from his perspective as a young boy by an adult, giving a greater insight into what was happening at the time. Not only did Trev experience verbal harassment and discrimination in his school, his family life was also fracturing. And while Trev did not necessarily experience any physical abuse that we know of, his father left (even though it’s hinted that he had been wanting to do that for a while) after Trev transitioning to presenting as a male became too much for him and he realized therapy couldn’t “fix” his child. At school, in Kindergarten, Trev was unable to go to the bathroom as the young girls prevented him from entering the women’s restroom, recognizing that he was different. The teacher, not knowing quite what to do with him as he was so different from the “F” on her roster, did nothing to help the situation and ultimately Trev had to go back and be homeschooled for another year. All of this because Trev dared to express his gender identity publically. Rather than conforming to his mother’s wishes and wearing the dresses and bows and pretty things, Trev protested loudly and insisted that he did not want to wear the public expression of femininity. And while Trev’s mother did not necessarily hate or harass her child as his father did, she also did not fully accept Trev and wished that he would turn into something “sugar and spice and everything nice”, something associated with the powerpuff girls. 

Overall, gender identity is an important part in how people present themselves in society. While many conform to what society thinks they should look like (even if that conformity is forced such as in Marji’s case), those that do not, such as Trev, are seen as an abnormality in society and often face extreme harassment (see blog post 6).

[inters3ctional-blog]

Blog Post 6

While many people have heard of the recent controversy surrounding the trans population in bathrooms, these same people probably never given thought to gender before the controversy was brought up. For a majority of the population, gender is simply something that is. We often don’t acknowledge it unless it’s in regards to our differences as men and women or in the form of discrimination against women. Even then, gender is seen as something inherent to ourselves, something set in stone from birth and unchangeable and, in fact, many of us never think about change being necessary. Maybe we’d like a smaller nose, less freckles, or to lose weight, but we don’t often wish we were born in a different body entirely as many trans people do. This lack of visibility is inherently harmful to young children like Trev who often go through these thoughts unnoticed, knowing they’re different but not quite able to tell others why. 

While Trev noticed and was able to recognize that he was a boy and not a girl pretty early on, this realization often doesn’t come until much later. And even if it does, it can be inherently harmful to the individual to tell anyone that they are different. While things are quickly changing and acceptance is becoming more the norm, that wasn’t always the case. For a trans individual like Sylvia Rivera, even those in the gay community did not respect her or want her involved with them. So if the LGBT community doesn’t want you, and society as a whole doesn’t want people like you, you’re left trying desperately to hide a secret that should never have to be hidden just to fit in. This hiding or even coming out with the risk of backlash are both extremely stressful situations for anyone, much less a child, to go through. And as we talk more and more about intersectionality, we’ve spoken on a variety of issues that intersect, but we didn’t talk much about what it’s like to be trans.

For many in the trans community, “passing”, or the “ability” to have others perceive you as the gender you identify with without needing to tell them, is an extremely important characteristic. For those that are able to pass as the gender they identify with, things like bathroom bans often aren’t as big of an issue. If no one can tell that you’re not a cis woman, who cares that you go into the women’s restroom? On the flip side, if you don’t conform with gender norms or are seen as unusual for your gender, there’s often added staring and people who believe you should be something you’re not. This has evolved into much of the mainstream media claiming that trans women are actually men who just want to molest or rape “actual” women in the restrooms. And while there is no real data to back this up, it’s been a widespread belief among people against trans individuals. Trans women are especially targeted because of this belief, but trans men are also at risk when trying to enter men’s restrooms. While it’s not believed that they are there to stare at men as much (after all, society still doesn’t give “women” sexual agency), it is believed that they should not enter the restroom of their choice for their own wellbeing. It’s been argued that trans individuals should not enter men’s restrooms in case a man sees them as different and does harm to them. These are just some of the problems that trans individuals face from society, but they often also face discrimination from their own families and friends, not to mention by healthcare professionals. In this study, trans youth often talked about the “verbal harassment and physical assault” that they experienced from family members who did not approve of them. Slurs were thrown their way at school from those who did not understand them or who were taught prejudice and they would come home to a family that did not want them. And while it wasn’t all bad for those who were able to find others like them (such as the ones who transferred to a school for LGBT people), it can be difficult to find these support networks in more rural areas. 

Finally, trans people often also face discrimination in healthcare. While women are often not believed and told that they’re simply experiencing period pains, pre-menopause, etc, trans individuals face even greater harassment. For many, it’s difficult to convince doctors that they need to be on hormones and that they will not change their mind. In addition to this simple inability to transition medically, trans individuals often cited that they experienced sexual harassment, especially by men wanting to “turn them straight” and a lack of access to knowledge about HIV and other STIs and also access to mental health resources. Mental health resources are a whole area where these individuals should definitely have access to therapy if only for someone to talk to about all of the difficulties that they go through.

Overall, trans individuals experience a significant amount of discrimination in all areas of their lives. From verbal harassment at school to physical abuse at home to the inability to gain access to vital healthcare services, being trans is hard, and it’s often not talked about.

[inters3ctional-blog]

Blog Post 5

Privilege can be seen as many things. One could define it as an honor to be allowed to do something (such as “it’s a privilege to meet you, Speaker Pelosi”), an allowance that can be taken away (using the computer is a privilege, not a right), or as something in society that enables you to bypass many of the prejudices that others face. While all of these things can be defined as a privilege, I want to talk about the privileged. That is, the people in society that do not necessarily receive the same discrimination that others receive, especially men. 

When Sarkesian came out in the gaming industry with a calm, passive, but damning documentary-like video about how women in the industry are treated (rather, the female characters in the games and not the women making the games), she received massive backlash in the form of death threats, rape threats, and a game about beating her up. She was so massively hated that she had to cancel one of her live talks for fear of the guns that her haters would bring into the show. Later, a man produced a video that explained why the industry needed Sarkesian’s feminism but “not for the reasons we think”. Today I want to discuss why, exactly, a man is allowed to decide when we need feminism and how we need it but a when a woman comes forward with a problem she receives such as massive backlash. 

First of all, the feminism Sarkesian implies we need is a transformation of the gaming industry. She calls for women to stop being portrayed primarily as helpless damsels in distress or as eye candy (or both) and for these characters to have an actual active role in the game. That is, make these characters (such as Peach and Zelda) playable rather than having them be captured in the opening scene or first 3 minutes in every game. Having role models is just as important to young girls as it is to boys and constantly seeing that women are incapable is not only insulting, but just not true. This is the type of feminism that Sarkesian calls for, and yet the man who made the other video disregards pretty much everything that she had to say as “maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not” and instead said yes, we need feminism (shocking), but we need it so that women can speak in a public space about video games without receiving death threats. And while I agree that this is a necessary step, why didn’t he receive the same sort of backlash? Furthermore, why was he allowed to comment on why feminism is needed at all without facing the same issues that women feminists receive? This is because of his privilege.

While the gaming industry has a pretty large share of women involved in playing, buying, and just generally consuming the products, it’s not perceived as such. Video games have consistently been seen as a male-dominated industry, creating what the man in the video describes as the “in group”. This “in group” is the group with the most privilege, and it mimics society in general. In games, you most often see straight white men as the leading male characters. They’re typically buffer than The Rock and always able to “get the girl” (even though we are not prizes to be won). This is exactly what Sarkesian went after— the “acquiring” of the damsel in distress. And yet one of the men in the “in group” disregarded pretty much everything she had to say. And while he did have some good moments— it’s true, women shouldn’t receive death threats for speaking out against social norms— he also didn’t necessarily recognize his privilege. Women in the gaming industry have had to fight against this norm for decades, and he disregards it with a “maybe”. Perhaps instead of using the known backlack against her for his own video, he could have done what many with privilege do not- lent his platform to her argument. 

In my oral communications class, we spoke about who is typically listened to in a public forum. Many of the types were already known (men, white, rich), but some were harder to see. Women who don’t wear makeup, for example, are typically less respected and generally regarded as lazy with no respect for their appearance. Disabled people are also disregarded as those with a speech impediment or mental illness are less respected and those unable to walk have trouble accessing the forums in the first place. All of these things combine into who can speak in a public space, who has the privilege, the honor, of speaking. And Sarkesian’s video as well as the follow up afterwards both demonstrate one of the many ways that women are pushed out of public spaces— speaking up. Women who keep their chin up and refuse to follow the unspoken norms are publicly harassed, privately traumatized, and have their safety disregarded. For simply speaking up about what many women know to be true, Sarkesian was damned and pushed out of public speaking through violent threats. While she had the privilege to make the video in the first place, many after her will likely think twice before engaging in public dialogue about feminism in video games, while men such as the one with the successful video after will continue on unaware.

[inters3ctional-blog]

Blog Post 4

In Persepolis, the main character Marji is constantly battling between what she is being told and what she actually believes. In the fundamentalist society of Iran, Marji is lucky enough to be born into a rather liberal family. Instead of enforcing the regime’s laws in the home or preventing their daughter from going out on her own, Marji’s family buys her “punk” things such as rock music, smuggles posters across the border, and actively encourages her to think for herself and read literature about the Iranian revolution. All of these things, if caught by the guardians (the semi-army that patrols the streets and forces people to obey the fundamentalist regime’s laws), could lead to Marji in jail, receiving lashings, or sometimes executed if she presented enough of a threat to the regime. Despite this, Marji is allowed to think for herself in a society that encourages anything but through the hard work of her family, particularly her father.

Marji’s family, consisting primarily of her mother, father, and grandmother, is the foundation of the education that she receives. At home, Marji is told about what really happened during the revolution and after and what the fundamentalist regime was founded on and how they threw the “real” inheritors to the revolution in jail. In school, Marji is told the winner’s side of history wherein the current regime is portrayed as the good guy that came in and rescued everyone from the evil shah. She’s forced to hit herself, wear the veil, and isn’t allowed to attend school with boys her age. During this time, Marji isn’t sure what to think about life. While school is telling her she should be conservative and believe in the revolution, her parents are telling her a different tale. Meanwhile, her friends are idolizing their parents who have been in the war and Marji wishes that she could have her own family member that went to war or was imprisoned. This time in Marji’s life is a series of her becoming enamored with something, finding out that that something isn’t as amazing as she thought, and taking a shaky stance on what she actually believes based on the lies she’s being told and the truth she discovers from it.

During the rest of the novel, this pattern repeats over and over. Eventually, Marji’s ideas begin to solidify as she speaks out against treatment she finds unfair. After getting in trouble a few too many times at school, it’s threatened that the school will call the guardians to essentially come smack Marji into obedience. The whole of society seems to be telling her to just shut up and wear the veil, but her own mother and father insist that she think for herself. These two ideologies battle within Marji until her own free will finally wins and gets her shipped off to Austria. While Austria may not be the fundamentalist regime of Iran, it’s a difficult time as Marji is still a young teenager. While Marji won’t be fed the same propaganda that she was while in Iran, she also won’t have direct access to her parents for confirmation of what information she has found is true and what lies she’s being told. It’s my belief that in Austria Marji will have a difficult time as a young Muslim woman abroad, but her experiences will finally calm the battle that has been raging inside her since birth.

Marji’s position as a Muslim woman in Iran makes this battle between what she’s being told and what she believes a challenging one. While there are specifications for men as to what they should and should not wear (for example, shave their beards and ties are looked down upon), it’s nowhere near as severe as what happens to a woman if she’s not properly veiled. Showing even an inch of hair is something that the guardians take as personally offensive and in the beginning could have resulted in the woman being locked up. While these laws do relax minimally, women are still required to wear the veil when in public. In private, as portrayed by the parties Marji went to, the rules are more relaxed but you can still get caught with alcohol and be punished. These harsh rules make it particularly difficult for a woman to rebel against the regime as even the smallest act can end with large consequences. Too much hair here, too short a sleeve there, and suddenly you’re being carted off as a “whore”. The fact that Marji still finds the courage to read more literature and decide what she thinks for herself is inspiring as she does so in the face of potential lashes or death.

While Muslim men, on the other hand, are not necessarily as likely to be arrested based on appearance alone, they do have to deal with being carted off to the front lines as cannon fodder because they’re young and poor. There’s no doubt that this is a horrendous, life-changing scenario that is unique to the men in Iran, but for the most part day to day life is pretty normal. There’s no need to cover their heads, they don’t usually wear makeup anyway, and they’re still allowed mustaches even though they can’t have beards. Thus, while men in Iran face their own form of persecution in the form of a seemingly endless war, the women of Iran are the ones facing the biggest ideological battle.

[inters3ctional-blog]

Reflection 1

Throughout the three books that we have read, the intersection between gender and various other aspects of a person (such as religion, race, etc) was a prominent social issue. In The Hate U Give, the intersection was between race and gender while in Home Fire, the intersection was between race, gender, and religion. Station Eleven was a bit trickier to weed out the intersection as it wasn’t something prevalent in modern society, but the intersection between gender and survival was the most prominent. Rather, the intersection was the question of how survival for a woman is different than survival for a man. In all three books, the stratification of gender was extremely prominent as life as a woman was portrayed in juxtaposition to life as a man. 

In The Hate U Give, the main character Starr was being portrayed as a black woman from the very beginning. Her worries about not being portrayed as an “angry black woman” at her prep school versus worrying about how she fit in at the parties back in Garden Heights gave an insight as to how Starr worried everyday about being perceived as too much of one thing (being portrayed by a single story) rather than people viewing her more holistically (blog post 1). After witnessing Khalil being shot to death in an instance of police brutality, Starr’s single story changed from one of the only black women attending the prep school to a witness. From that point on, Starr’s worries about how society viewed her shifted (blog post 1). Instead of worrying about how she needed to avoid using slang words or being too into political movements, Starr was worrying about people thinking she and Khalil were doing something wrong or that she was connected with a drug dealer. Rather than owning up to being the witness the news channel spoke of, Starr tried her hardest to hide that part of herself away, to not be considered a snitch (blog post 1). As the story progressed to a national level, Starr tried even harder to fade into the background as more and more people in her life (such as her mother) told Starr that she needed to remain silent so that she herself wouldn’t be in danger as a black woman. This intersection between her race and her gender put Starr in a uniquely challenging position as society would only see one part of her personality, no matter if she spoke up or not. Instead of seeing her as a victim, much of the world saw her as someone with a responsibility to speak up for the black men dying. 

Working in tandem with the previous book, Home Fire added another intersection to the previous race and gender: religion. The way society views Muslim women, as opposed to Christian women or white women in general, was juxtaposed directly against how society views Muslim men (blog post 2). While both are viewed negatively in the current political climate, the women are viewed as oppressed by their religion and as actively working to not conform while the men are seen as terrorists or jihadi soldiers. Aneeka’s interaction with a man on public transport (where he spit on her) as opposed to Eammon’s ability to freely walk through the city without worry is a direct contrast as to how women are viewed in society (blog post 2). Furthermore, the home secretary’s stance on how Muslim women should stop wearing the hijab in order to blend in better to society is another contrast. Muslim men aren’t targeted as directly in their expression of faith in Britain; women, on the other hand, are being told how they should practice their faith. In this manner, the women in Home Fire and in The Hate U Give both experience different forms of assumptions from society. The women in Home Fire are viewed by others as those that need saving or teaching while Starr is also presented as someone who needs saving, but from herself and her community rather than from her religion.

Finally, Station Eleven presents perhaps the most blatant description of how women are viewed by society through the viewpoint of other characters. As a child, Kirsten is viewed as a doll with a predestined life. Miranda takes one look at Kirsten as a child and assumes she knows everything about what her life will entail (blog post 3). Society makes this assumption with many women. Poor women are seen as having a life working multiple jobs with long hours, women that aren’t conventionally attractive are seen as those who will never marry and adopt many cats, women that don’t want children are rebelling and will want one later, etc. This book in particular shows how you can never assume someone’s life. Rather than growing up rich and famous, Kirsten lives on the road with a traveling symphony and has to protect herself from murderers, cultists, and rapists (blog post 3). Miranda never would have suspected that. Being a young girl as opposed to a young man means that you will constantly be judged by society on the basis of appearance alone.

Overall, women in society are judged on a harsher basis through the intersections between their gender, race, and religion. Women are seen as too angry due to their race, oppressed through their free expression of faith, and too pretty to be anything other than arm candy. While a boy’s life can become anything they want it to be, a woman is expected to abide by the labels society has thrown at her and be careful of being labeled by a single story. 

[inters3ctional-blog]

Blog Post 3

Station Eleven presents a unique perspective on gender in a post-apocalyptic society. While it doesn’t include brain-eating zombies or a nuclear fallout, this novel gives us something much more realistic: death by an extreme flu. While the event itself happens primarily in one singular death (Arthur) and then subsequent flashbacks, Station Eleven focuses on what happens in the future after the pandemic has already wiped out the mass majority of the population. While most human beings agree that an extinction-level event would be disastrous, others say that taking an impersonal perspective may us to view it in a different manner. This impersonal perspective is one that our own protagonist Kirsten takes as she nears her own death. While she has many regrets, she does not necessarily feel remorse for dying. There are things she wishes she had done, could do, hadn’t done, etc, Kirsten thinks as if she’s been aware her life was only fleeting the entire time. Through flashbacks, however, we know that once upon a time her life was very different.

In many of the flashbacks that were previously mentioned, Arthur or his many wives/affairs are reminiscing about life. In one particular flashback, his ex-wife Miranda looks upon Kirsten as a porcelain-like child and predicts exactly the future she will have based upon her looks, childhood career, and likely eventual wealth. All of these assumptions are based around her gender primarily-- who she will marry, how she will look, how perfect her teeth are, etc. Pre-apocalypse, Miranda assumes Kirsten’s main worry in life will be her own superficial concerns-- looks, wealth, etc. She likely would never have been able to predict that this child’s concerns will actually be to kill or be killed, to travel in danger or settle in relatively less danger. Miranda never would have expected that this doll-like child would have killed three others while nearly being killed herself. This flashback is a primary example of how gender roles in Station Eleven are changed almost completely.

While Kirsten doesn’t remember much of her life before the flu (or even the first year after the event), she has flashbacks that give her perspective on how different her life is now. The biggest example of how her own gender situation has changed is the stark contrast between Kirsten on stage, watching Arthur die and Kirsten watching the prophet and boy die. As a child, Kirsten watches Arthur stumble and fall, one of the first victims we see of the Georgia Flu. She’s crying, gasping, etc. and the male paramedic is trying to make sure she doesn’t see what’s happening with Arthur. While this is partly because she’s a child, it’s also important to note that not allowing women to see “gory” or “gruesome” scenes has been a running part of society for millennia. Twenty years later, however, she has a front row seat to the boy shooting the prophet and then himself. In the post-apocalypse, none of the boys are rushing forward to make sure she doesn’t stare at the bodies too long or see the gruesome bullet wounds. Instead, they were hiding from death as Kirsten was the one sacrificing herself for the others. While I’m sure they would have tried to prevent the situation, it doesn’t change the fact that the men were no longer Kirsten’s knights in shining armor; instead, she was her own hero and villain at the same time.

As her own hero, Kirsten saved herself from disaster more times than I can count. She killed three men that would have otherwise killed or raped her and she helped catch fish to eat so the symphony wouldn’t starve. Kirsten and the other women of the symphony are also fully included in the scouting routines, the watches, etc. The leader of the entire symphony is a woman. All of these things would be less likely to happen before the apocalypse. In some ways, women in this society were freer than they had been previously-- no need to worry about makeup when makeup doesn’t necessarily exist on a broad scale anymore.

On the other hand, the prophet’s village showed how women were treated in this society on the opposite end of the spectrum. While Kirsten was able to do just about anything, the prophet forced multiple women-- one would have been as young as 12-- to be his wives. While forcing a woman into marriage (even if said “woman” is actually a child) isn’t anything new, it didn’t happen as much in areas like Toronto and Canada as a whole. Furthermore, marrying multiple women was not only discouraged before the collapse, it was illegal. These four or five wives were kept in the gas station and presumably not given many freedoms at all, forced to serve at the pleasure of the so-called prophet. In this manner, the lives of women captured by cults such as these decreased in freedom. Overall, Station Eleven shows both sides of the coin in relation to women in this society. Some women are given the ultimate freedom-- the ability to do anything a man would have been able to do-- while others’ freedoms regressed into that of a more medieval time. 

[inters3ctional-blog]

Blog Post 2

As in our reading of The Hate U Give, we know that women walk through life in a different manner than men. We also know that walking through life as a woman of color is different than walking through life as a white woman. This is because these two identities (race and gender) are intersectional. While you may not be discriminated against on the basis of one of your identities (such as being a woman), you might be discriminated against in the other (such as being a person of color). In Home Fire, we see that these two identities intersect with yet another: religion. Walking through life as a Muslim woman with a hijab or any other such head/body covering is very different than walking through life without one, especially because of what certain western countries such as America or Britain associate being Muslim with. This negative association between being Muslim and being a terrorist is portrayed heavily throughout the book as Isma, Aneeka, and at one point Parvaiz are all worried about their internet usage being monitored by British authorities. At one point Parvaiz even takes his boss’s phone in order to Google some things that he doesn’t want traced back to himself (p.143). Speaking as a non-Muslim white woman, I have never felt that I had to use someone else’s phone in order to avoid being traced and hailed as a terrorist. Thus, Isma and Aneeka are not being discriminated against (in this instance) on the basis of their gender but rather their religion.

Discrimination on the basis of religion is massively prevalent in Home Fire. In the book we see a small family of three that had a jihadi father and eventually brother. The brother’s falling under jihadi leadership is seen, by the rest of the world, as an inevitability. Rather than seeing Parvaiz for the lost kid without a father that he was, they see only his odd behavior (such as not completely denouncing his father as his sister Isma or ignoring the subject as twin Aneeka did) once it’s found out where he’s been the entire time. Once society in Britain finds out that he’s been creating videos with “the State”, they take every other part of his life under a microscope to point out everything they claim demonstrated signs of him turning, despite these “signs” not being brought up before he left. Parvaiz is never once given the benefit of the doubt.

While Parvaiz was definitely discriminated against (he pointed to his two shakedowns with police as evidence), Isma also went through the same sort of discrimination in the airport (p.1) as they asked her all sorts of questions about whether she identifies as British or not (they would have never asked a white British person this). While Isma isn’t, in this instance, being discriminated against on the basis of gender she is being incriminated by her skin color and her religion. Pakistanis are especially vulnerable during these airport shakedowns as their loyalties are called into question with ridiculous inquisitions such as if they watch The Great British Bakeoff. Are they truly “British”, the officers want to know, or do they consider themselves Pakistani? These “random” shakedowns are discriminations on the basis of both race and religion rather than one or the other (similar to the video we watched of a black woman unable to get a job). 

Finally, Aneeka’s discrimination that she experiences when heading to Eammon’s apartment is perhaps the most blatant religion and gender discrimination in the book. On her way to his apartment, a man spits on Aneeka (p.92) after the home secretary (Eammon’s father) makes a speech that Muslim women shouldn’t be adhering to the old traditions of covering themselves up and that they (women like Aneeka) are only setting themselves apart as different rather than as a part of the British nation. Because Aneeka is adhering to Muslim doctrine, she’s spat on by a man and discouraged from dressing how she wants. While women are often told to cover up, Aneeka is being told the opposite: she needs to cover up less if she wants to fit in and not be spit on. While being a woman is a part of her discrimination in this case (Muslim men are not required to wear a hijab and therefor can’t be forced to take it off), being Muslim is the biggest “offense” in the eyes of other Brits. This blatant discrimination is one of many reasons Isma tries to keep her family together and under the radar. If they act like good British citizens, regardless of how it impacts their own religion, they can hopefully avoid instances where her siblings will be spat on or shook down. Isma tries to do everything right in order to keep her family safe and still ends up with Parvaiz dead and Aneeka in Pakistan with her brother’s dead body, a martyr image for the world.

Links Used:

Study of anti-Muslim sentiment post-9/11

Link to Home Fire as a book

[inters3ctional-blog]

Blog Post 1

Walking through life as a woman and as a man are two very different experiences. Then again, even walking through life as a white woman or as a woman of color are different as well. So it’s no surprise, then, that these different lenses (white woman, woman of color, etc) lead to very different perspectives on the same or similar ideologies. In the case of this book, Tupac’s motto “Thug Life” is interpreted in similar ways by the protagonist and the characters she encounters throughout her story. While Starr agrees with the perspectives of her friend Khalil and her father Maverick, she also has her own take on what it ultimately means to her as a woman of color who has gone through multiple traumatic events.

In The Hate U Give, Starr, the protagonist, repeatedly mentions Tupac and his “Thug Life” motto. Throughout the book, she asks many of the important people in her life what Thug Life means to them. Her friend Khalil (who was ultimately the main driving point to a lot of Starr’s questions and realizations) said “The Hate You Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody” meant, to him, that the hate given to the oppressed minorities leads to those same children growing up and acting out as adults (p.17). For example, Khalil was surrounded by hate. His mother had taken money from a gang leader, King, and was in danger of being killed if she could not pay him back. In addition to this, Khalil’s grandmother had been diagnosed with cancer and was fired from her job for not being able to keep up with both the workload and chemo. All of these factors combined with his inability to gain a job led him to take an easier route out-- selling drugs, or the “acting out” part. While he never joined the gang officially (as we later learn, he denied King’s invitation), Khalil was running drugs for one of the biggest gangs in town to put food on the table, keep his mother out of trouble, and pay for his grandmother’s chemotherapy. Before his death, Khalil selling drugs makes no sense to Starr, even if she understands Thug Life in theory. While she knew that Khalil had it rough, she figured he should have just worked more at her father’s store, not understanding that it was more complicated than a minimum wage job could cover. After learning everything that Khalil went through, however, Starr realizes that the community and society itself didn’t give Khalil many other choices besides selling drugs for quick cash. It wasn’t until Starr had taken the time to find out more than just a single story about Khalil that she understood the choices he had made. Without stepping out of her own lens as someone who had two parents willing and able to provide for her, Starr never would have been able to see that Khalil had more resting on his shoulders than just staying in school or getting decent grades. He had a whole family relying on him and a King Lord (gang member) who was breathing down his neck. All of these things together made up her best friend’s identity, not just his selling drugs.

While Starr had not previously thought about what Thug Life meant to her personally, Khalil’s death and the discovery of his full story sparked an increased awareness of sorts on how she acted in both her home community, Garden Heights, and how she acted with her friends at a private school, Williamson High. Before her two lives began to collide, Starr was practically a completely different person in each community, even going so far as to keep her school friends from coming to her birthday parties after noticing that her friends lived in “mini mansions” while she lived in what she refers to multiple times as the ghetto (p.35). At home in Garden Heights, Starr was allowed to express her whole personality, slang, sorrow, anger and all, without worrying about being forced into a single narrative. In her own home, Starr is able to be her most authentic self as her parents and siblings know more about her than how she acted on just the one day. If Starr sobs for hours after watching Khalil die, she is safe in the knowledge that her family knows she isn’t just a crier. On the other hand, Starr is aware, in the back of her mind, that the majority-white community at Williamson would take one aspect of her personality (such as becoming angry) and run with it without seeing the whole picture. Their own lenses, that of a white middle to upper class high schooler, makes it harder for them to struggle to empathize with the “hate” that Starr has been given. While they only see her hitting Hailey (p. 342) and Seven jumping in to grab Remy, Starr’s peers don’t recognize the pain that is behind each punch as Starr defends her best friend’s memory from someone who she used to be friends with. They don’t see the PTSD and trauma that go along with seeing Khalil shot and killed by someone meant to protect them, and they don’t hear the racist comments Hailey had been making the entire time. Overall, through their own lens, the students and ultimately teaching staff don’t see all of the “hate” Starr has been given when she begins acting out. They only see her through the single lens. 

Links for further research:

Peer-reviewed study on police violence to black women here. While not cited much in the above post, it’s a useful resource for more information on police violence against more than just black men like Khalil (after all, the officer pointed his gun at Starr too). 

The Hate U Give pdf, cited multiple times in page numbers like so (p.1). 

Danger of a single story (such as when cited that Starr was worried about being perceived as *just* an angry black woman).