Yale Owes Corey Menafee a Free Education not just an Apology (Response to his viral actions to racist iconography on the campus of Yale)

Many years ago (too many to say as I’m that old) I used to be a dishwasher myself, not unlike Yale dishwasher and custodian ‪#‎coreymenafee‬

Mr. Menafee has officially made history as being the most profound dishwasher ever. And let’s be honest, it is from him, and actions from other everyday folks like him that huge civil rights movements start from.

His actions however dramatic and extreme while working on the Campus of Yale University seemed to be that of his literarily ‘smashing post colonialist iconography.

And as FYI, his actions summarized as being the following: Corey, while on a break in-between his two minimum wage style jobs; had been walking by a near 200 year old build that had been exhibiting a very old and quite offensive sounding slave/master stained glass portrait within the historical building’s windows.

So I ask you? Was he being unreasonable? Or was he simply speaking up about outdated and racist historical iconography? Not unlike those sad sick people for whom that collect old WWII Nazi dinner plates. It also reminds me of the difference between remembering those horrors of America’s past versus glorifying those items.

So, why think about this? Imagine if we all spoke up about things like? Wouldn’t this world might just become a better place for all of us. Especially in a country where so many people often mistake outdated and racist iconography (and or thinking) as being some part of being a ‘greater’ more ‘traditional’ part of our lives, history and or culture.

He has since been given his job back and has been given funds via Go Fund Me, yet I really don’t think that simply giving him his job back is enough.

My most important point regarding #coreymenafee is that if Yale really wanted to truly apologize to Corey and Black people everywhere-then how about giving Corey a fighting chance via a full ride scholarship to Yale? I mean wouldn’t that be at least a start to Reparations for Americas sad sick past of Slavery?

I think so.

 

 

 

 

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A very cool Law professor’s response to BLM shirt complaint. (I know this guy and he’s amazing!)

 

Simcoe…Great at Being so very Bad

Captain Simcoe, the best worst villain on AMC since that often sociopathic teenage ‘Todd’ from Breaking Bad.

Roukin (for whom plays Simcoe) also has a cool sort of perspective on the dance that historical fact, character, and fiction have to coexist with; especially  when adapting for both the small screen, & for the sake of an overall unifying story arc. One my favorite dramas this summer besides, Game of Thrones and SundanceTV’s Cleverman.

AMC Turn’s Bad Man…

What Makes Bad Writing?

Some great tips on how to stay true to both yourself and to those stories that you’ve been toiling over for oh so many years…..

BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog

We’ve all read a bad book. Most of us have read a bad published book; many of us have read a bad manuscript, perhaps a friend-of-a-friend’s, that we were obligated to read to the bitter end. And then tell the author something noncommittal and encouraging.

You just don’t know what you did there!

You make it all seem so spontaneous on the page…

You…literature…wow.

Truly bad writing–rather than slickly-crafted airport thrillers, or blandly-told stories that somehow tap into the zeitgeist to sell millions–is, Toby Litt writes in the Guardian, “a love poem addressed by the self to the self.”

Litt discusses “excuse writers”:

Bad writers bulwark themselves against a confrontation with their own badness by reference to other writers with whom they feel they share certain defence-worthy characteristics. They form defensive admirations: “If Updike can get away with these kind of half-page descriptions of women’s breasts, I can too”…

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Women & Politics: Hillary & Before

I’m reposting this essay on sexism and women in politics from the 538 blog because, yes we do live in a sexist society/backwards country:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-calling-hillary-clinton-unqualified-smacks-of-sexism/

For me, when I think of women in politics, I don’t just think of Hillary Clinton as most people do, I think of my father; (for whom was a Connecticut politician) and his old boss former governor of Connecticut Ella T Grasso.

Governor Grasso was the first woman ever elected to become governor of any US state without having been married to a former governor. I only know this because she was a close friend of my father’s as they worked together at the state capital building in Hartford or as I used to call it as a kid ‘that gold domed place.’

Unfortunately for her, Ella died while in office due to Ovarian Cancer.

She said this in the late 70s about what she thought of having a female POTUS in the White House:

“I would not be President because I do not aspire to be President. But l’m sure that a woman will be President. When? I don’t know. It depends. I don’t think the woods are full of candidates today.”

Now Grasso wasn’t super liberal and was even kind of well; right leaning (she was very anti-abortion rights), but I suppose when it came to certain topics, maybe she might have thought to herself:

“Maybe I should I appear to be conservative when it comes to women’s and or social issues, as it might get more male votes…and or show my persona as still bowing to male supremacy?”

Mind you, this is just me projecting my own rhetoric onto the former gov, but often when I think about what any political candidates have to do i.e. actual politicking to get votes-it makes me angry, then sad and then sick.

And yet despite all of that, I’d still like to think that Ella Grasso would be proud any of these women that have run for the national office of the President from: Democrat Hillary Clinton, to Republican Carly Fiorina, or even our underheard Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein; although I don’t think Governor Grasso would’ve been on the same side of any such neo-cons like former CEO like Fiorina, but still one has to give her respect for running against misogynist, racist types like Donald Trump.

And yes. I’d like to imagine that if Ella Grasso were alive right now; she would’ve voted for Hillary in this 2016 election via mail from her nursing home wheelchair, if she were still around.

I hope you enjoyed little my 3 cent rant on sexism and women in politics.

In the future please Just try to remember that Hillary is the not the first woman to run for office and she surely won’t be the last woman to try and run this country, but she sure is the most qualified person to run this country.

And I might even agree with those some people that have even said that Hillary should be president as she already was for a good 8-years in the 90s, although that comment would mean that she was responsible for all of Bill’s policy choices, which I do not think was the case at all as she’s always been one for whom does not ‘go along with her husband’ just to keep everyone happy.

This has been a re-edited re-posting from my IG International Women’s Day page, so please keep that and my dyslexia in mind when reading.

Best,

xo CV

 

 

 

#internationalwomensday
#makedonalddrumfagain
#feminism #iamafeminist #feminist #ImwithHer

Hello World.

I’ve been doing the following during this Spring:

I guest lectured at two different mental health themed symposiums with the Saks Institute at USC.

I finished my first year at the USC School of Social Work program.

Working with the Sexual Assault Awareness Sub-committee (Title IX) at USC.

Hosting my Kchung show.

Trying to be a person.

Trying to finish some new essays related to my memoir/book projects.

Doing Research for the Saks Institute.

Working with some activist folks at Black Lives Matter.

And then taking care of myself & the animal family.

And so, that would be why I never actually update this blog. And so now, I should be dead tired/exhausted right? I am, but not really as I’m more so just excited for what will come next.

In the meanwhile, I got to see two legendary musicians: Caetano Veloso & Gilberto Gil. In seeing these two legends play together, it was the closest thing I have come to in seeing ‘God’ if these is such a thing.

Here is a clip, and please ignore my shotty camera work and just listen:

Enjoy and please Vote, but not for that racist guy with the bad business sense and even worse ideas for this country.

Much Love,

CV

Embrace of the Serpent: mini-extended film thoughts..

In memory of my father’s birthday, I went and saw a film:about indigenous people-a topic for which he was quite passionate about; and of course it also related to ‪#‎StPatricksDay‬ in relation to the Irish people and how they were treated by the Brits. Now, if I were to start a religion and or cult, it would have to be based on this transcendent-magical film.

If you believe in anything, believe in the power of ‪#‎embraceoftheserpent‬, as it’s probably the greatest direct depiction of the immediate after effects of exploitation of Natives, and the commodification of our natural resources. This film is so very different from others as it’s more so based on the indigenous people rather than any white person’s reaction to said indigenous culture. This story is exactly what colonialism has done to all indigenous people on nearly every country, but the fact of it being an Amazonian story just makes it that much more powerful. I have no idea how or why it didn’t win an ‪#‎oscar‬ other than ‪#‎oscarssowhite‬.

Incidentally, it is the first narrative film to have been shot in the Colombian Amazon in 30years. It’s so far beyond beauty, and nearly beyond film; going on to become something else entirely.

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Can’t wait to see this, I was just reading about this slave rebellion of the 1830s in ‘The New Jim Crow.’

Nate Parker’s Harrowing Debut ‘The Birth of a Nation’ Is a Hand Grenade Thrown at America’s – and Ho… – http://wp.me/p2Xrlp-2l6O

The Neuroscience of Prejudice & Stereotyping

Read here:

In case you thought prejudice was not real…..

Here’s just one of the topics I’ve been hard at work studying and in a nutshell, “visual conditioning is very real” aka if the local news and media outlets are constantly bombarding your brain with “negative images” of either African Americans and or let’s also include Arab Americans and those who worship Islam eventually, you will develop a prejudice, so be careful and “watch what you watch.”

Be intelligent in what you ingest as a human being and as an intellectual consumer and thinker.

Today’s Idea…

“Is there anyone for whom the past doesn’t shape their experience in the present? Of course not; our our minds are always automatically comparing past experiences with present perceptions as we anticipate the next moment in time.  This comparing process is a natural outcome of the interplay among memory, perception, and consciousness, and defines the mind as an “anticipation machine.” 

  -Dr. Daniel Siegel