Journal Entry: Neda

The article in question can be found here, along with the video in question.

Response: I am transfixed in horror watching this woman bleed to death. Her eyes roll back and men clutch her dying body. I almost feel like I am there, crying and screaming along with the others, and one man in particular – older, greyer – appears to be her father, begging her to open her eyes and stay awake. The determination these men possess to keep her alive is evident in their actions, as one man tries to dig the blood out of her mouth.

I am shocked for a variety of reasons. One among them makes me feel very MacBeth: so much blood! There is just so much blood. I am shocked at the amount, I am shocked at how it pours from every orifice, I am shocked that one human can contain so much blood. Watching it pour is watching her life gush away.

I cannot even begin to fathom the pain one must experience while watching their child pass away so gruesomely in front of them, while simultaneously being raised to an almost mythical status in the Western world as the face of the victim in Iranian politics as a result of this election. Jezebel mentions that women were especially implicated in the importance of this election, and are among the most visible protestors. Now one woman has become the face of the victim for Iran, and I cannot help but think how often this happens in society, war, politics, etc.

Why is it always women? Why do I feel like it’s always women who are being made an example of, or a victim of? Why are they more sympathetic than men?

Or am I happier to hear that, as a woman named Parisa says, that women are screaming to be heard, who are “ready to explode?” I think perhaps I am, more so than I am concerned that they are victims, although it doesn’t stop me from wondering why women must always be the victims people see and remember most.

Self-Critique: I find a lot of what I say hypocritical. I complain about making women victims and the sympathetic sex, yet I write a post about exactly why these women are victims and centre my entire journal entry around a dead woman. My concerns are obviously, and primarily, Western. My feminist leanings are evident in that I am both concerned about how women are portrayed in these events, as well as my joy that they want to be heard, figuratively and literally.

My reasons for being so shocked are primarily that I lead an extremely sheltered life. Although I am willing to educate myself on what is occurring in other parts of the world, or even in my own neighbourhood, it does not really hit home until I see a video of what is happening to people who may very well be my age. I have problems reconciling the fact that we are the same age, and that while these events might not be acceptable, they are happening regardless, and someone there believes such excessive violence is an acceptable reaction to riots and protestors. My shock is, certainly naïve, and implies an unworldliness and detachment from world events, but also implies an unawareness of crimes perpetrated within my own country in its past and present.

My first and second paragraphs focus heavily on how things look. This often happens when I am watching as opposed to reading something; I am more focused on people’s looks and reactions as opposed to my own. I tend to focus on the details, like the man who shoves his finger in Neda’s mouth to help her breathe fruitlessly, as opposed to my own reaction to what he is doing, which influences my response. Instead of paying attention to what I am thinking and feeling and simply letting myself think, I must stop and watch again and again and dilute my original response until it lacks that rawness of reaction to such a graphic scene.

Cultural Critique: Western culture predominates my response. The belief that gruesome events only happen elsewhere is evident, as well as the prevalent feminist culture. The belief that woman should be heard is implied. Western society really takes for granted that women will be heard, at least a little bit. Of course, Western society is not without its own prejudices against women, so it is perhaps not quite as enlightened as I believe it to be in my mind.

The focus on appearance is a very Western cultural view as well. I feel very cynical in believing this, but I believe that perhaps her marketability as a victim is based in part upon Neda’s actual colouring, which is quite light, and her Western-style clothing. This makes it easier for the West to see themselves in her position, as well as the ambiguous appearance of the street – it could be any street, any woman, etc. That said, it has been a while since Western society, especially North America, has experienced such a violent riot as the ones in Iran.

I often discuss my lack of awareness, which is an element of self-critique I present often accompanied with shame. Western society is two-faced on this issue; it either shoves news on a 24 hour basis in a relentless attack on television, or it advocates couch potato syndrome, which ensures naivety by pushing Westerners into a comfortable culture of ignorance of what is happening outside their very small bubble. These two extremes are very protective of themselves, and often find each other in a sort of tug of war – there is very little middle ground for people to occupy within overconsumption of knowledge and starvation of knowledge.

Journal Entry: The Oil We Eat by Richard Manning

Response: While reading the article, I became affronted by Manning's attitude towards humanity. Who was he to tell others how to eat? I was offended at how he talked about food going to the fat in our necks and our bodies, and the disdain with which he discusses people who eat meat, and the veneration with which he refers to vegetarians.

It didn't take me long to realize I knew nothing about what he was discussing. I had no idea where the article was headed. Its title told me nothing, and simply confused me. How do we eat oil? I didn't understand. Don't we eat food? I am often confused and bewildered while I read the article, and I don’t understand where he’s going with all of this until a little over halfway through, which makes me wonder if I’m dim.

This subject is entirely foreign to me. I have never given much thought to where my food comes from, how it is produced, how processed it is, how it is transported, etc., especially when I began dating a man who worked at a rendering plant. I have seen the piles of bones, feathers, and carcasses dangling, and once I had, I didn’t want to know anymore. I realize now such ignorance is not doing me or the world in which I live any favours.

I suddenly feel disgusting, having recently eaten, and want to throw out the contents of my fridge and pantry.

Self-Critique: My last phrase was a gut reaction, made out of disgust with what my brain has just processed from a subject I never wanted to know anything about, in part because I knew it would be something I would not want to hear. My response is one of confusion, shock and disgust, born out of a desire to hide my head in the sand and ignore the evidence being thrown at me. I am in a territory I know nothing about due to my lack of desire to listen to what anyone would say on the topic, and that must is certainly evident in my reaction.

I find my own two questions interesting and naïve at the same time. It is so clear to me from my wording that I had never even considered taking the time to think about what food is, how I might define it differently from others, and how childlike it is to call it “food.” My ignorance surrounding the topic is then amplified when I realize just how much energy goes into producing food. I had not connected the dots, as I’m sure many other thoughtless Canadians have not, to realize how much energy was being wasted in the production of food.

My food values are strange ones, certainly. My family would sit down every night for dinner, and there would always be the same components: meat, vegetables (sometimes ignored), and usually some sort of pasta and bread. When I got older, I watched my father struggle with his weight (mirroring my own struggle), and went on a very unhealthy crash diet, which caused him to critique heavily everything everyone else so much as considered eating. This triggered an opposite response in me to eat as badly as possible, which included many processed and prepackaged foods, eaten and wasted by the bucket load. My response obviously shows my ignorance of the content and waste that I was shoving into my body; I should mention it is not only my ignorance, but my willful desire to remain ignorant of what I was doing, wasting, eating. Perhaps this is why, after having read such a revealing article, that I feel so disgusted with myself, my fridge and my pantry.

Cultural Critique: There are many cultures present in my response. First and foremost is the perpetuated culture of ignorance that media and the government enforces because it would be disastrous for people to find out what agriculture really does. At the same time, it might not be quite so disastrous, due to the culture of apathy and passivity, which seems particularly bad among Canadians, not only in regards to specific cultures, but in regards to all cultures that require them to change, or to actively participate in change. This passivity is completely detrimental to our current and future lifestyles, but because it requires not only someone to step up and take charge, but also for other people to follow and take charge of their own lives, going outside of the “accepted” norm, no one wants to go against the grain and take a chance to change.

Food culture in Canada and Western society is interesting. It seems the more we “progress,” the faster we want our food, regardless of its quality – it must simply taste like food and give us energy. That said, food culture can go in a few different directions. Some people go completely organic, or vegetarian/vegan, and take their food consumption very seriously. Others develop one of the types of eating disorders due to the obsessive qualities people propagate surrounding food and body culture. Finally, there are those that just seem not to care, so long as they are getting food somehow, either from the fast food counter or the grocery store.

All of these cultures clash to bring us a majority of people who are apathetic not only about what they are consuming, but also about how it is being brought to them. That final subject is often not even considered, until very recently, i.e. the 100 Mile Food Challenge. That said, the media makes people feel they are aware, and this awareness only goes so far as people possibly picking up something with the organic label at the store to make them feel better about themselves. This tactic is convincing and allows people to continue to ignore the real problem, as opposed to addressing it head-on, which is what people are claiming they do. This contradiction is due in most part to the apathy culture I referred to earlier.

This is a vicious cycle, and one many are unwilling to address with honesty and thoughtfulness, instead preferring to sit at home and pretend the organic label on their fruit is really a contribution to a better industry.

Journal Entry: "Students Shot In Front Of A Camera"

The video I discuss in this journal entry can be found here, which I found via The Daily Dish.

Response: The title of the video is simple and straightforward. People are crying out and throwing rocks. The camera is blurry and unclear at times. A lone woman's voice cries shortly before shots ring out at 1:07 in the video, gravely wounding at least one student in view, surely more are wounded off camera. It triggers a shockwave in me, as the woman yells piercingly.

I'm shocked. I can't understand why such a response comes from someone with the clear high ground, but physically and in weapon. Rocks in a crowd versus a riot policeman's gun? Where is the justice in that, when all they want is answers? I don't understand why they aren't allowed the answers they want, nor do I understand the amount of violent response. This is only a single video, unedited, and I wonder how they got it on YouTube. I can't understand what they're saying, but you can hear the emotion in their voices, especially what sounds like a woman's voice, after the shots are fired.

I've watched the video several times. Each time, I don't see the threat; I just see angry people, who are not nearly violent enough to deserve the response they are given. They respond angrily to the shots: one man hurls a rock in anger while simultaneously trying to move an injured man to the side with others. I wonder why this is happening.

Self-Critique: My shock at the video is very naïve. While I have known the riots are happening, and people are experiencing physical harm due to them, I had not been able to bring myself to watch a video of it until now. My equally naïve demand for justice seems hollow from my comfortable chair in my small apartment, where the worst I hear are sirens and revving engines.

I am reacting to this video with shock and a strong sense of injustice because I recognize how morally wrong it is, but also because I have never had to experience it personally, which somehow makes it worse in my view, despite being away that I possess a large amount of privilege (i.e. white). Although the government I have grown up with is certainly not without its problems or corruption, but it has not and I believe, perhaps naively, could not get away with what the Iranian government is currently doing to its citizens. I think that is perhaps even more naïve, given certain events in Canadian history.

I find it interesting that I seem to fixate on the single woman’s voice, due to its difference in tone around the mesh of male yelling. Perhaps I focus on the woman’s voice because I wonder if I could participate in such a riot, in such close proximity to shots – in danger of being shot at myself – and doubt that I have the courage. I also focus on the emotion in the woman’s voice directly after the shots are fired, as opposed to the harshness in the male voices reacting to the same event.

Cultural Critique: My responses in both my original response and self-critique reveal the dominant Canadian culture of detachment. By detaching ourselves from what is happening overseas, one is led to believe that it “couldn’t happen here,” or what I have heard referred to as “not in my backyard” syndrome. This belief, that things that happen in the seemingly mythical Mideast, Iraq, Iran, Afganhistan, etc., cannot happen in Canada, the United States, or other typically Western societies is not only naïve and ignorant, but also ignores the past of these societies, which has perpetrated similar crimes in the past towards its own citizens.

There is also the racist undertones in these beliefs; that only such savage, underdeveloped countries could commit such crimes, and the barbarism of the shootings are amplified in the media to such an extent that it becomes as mythical as Western society’s views of the Mideast itself.

Western society, its media and government enjoy preserving and sensationalizing the negative point of view of the Mideast and its society, for it helps its own society to forget the similar horrors it has committed in its past.

Ignorance

It has taken me a few days to make this post because the circumstances that brought this post around were difficult to process.

It was bedtime for my long-term boyfriend and I. We often talk at length before actually falling asleep, and that night was no different. Somehow, I admit I cannot recall how, we came to the subject of immigration in Canada. His tone immediately changed. Although he still attempted to keep the topic light, his tone became so negative regarding immigration I found myself taken aback. He claimed immigration was easy, that integrating immigrants into the community was no challenge at all, and he felt that being white was turning into the minority in Canada.

I was so stunned I hardly knew what topic to address first! While I hardly consider myself an authority upon immigration and racism, I also felt I could not ignore the direction he had taken our conversation. My boyfriend, whom I shall refer to as S for the remainder of this post, could not understand why I reacted so negatively towards his statement. He thought that I, as a white woman, would understand his point of view, but did not want to investigate the conversation any further.

I must inject here that normally, I would not have gone further, and would have left what he had said well enough alone, although perhaps with a stern look. I now feel that such a reaction in the face of such ignorance and blatant racist misunderstanding only helps to perpetuate it, instead of helping the perpetrator understand where exactly s/he has gone wrong.

So, I talked. I asked him to cite his sources for his wildly inaccurate claims. I asked him if he knew what white privilege was, and whether or not he understood the kind of power that comes with white privilege that others cannot attain. We argued over many things, but most of all we argued about racism in Canada. He believed it did not exist. As a direct result of this 513 course, I was able to quote different anecdotes from various articles, novels and websites I've come across, and I saw surprise across his face. I talked about how racism is often defined as power plus prejudice, and how you can still be prejudiced, but have no power. It took him a while to understand that.

He asked what he was supposed to do. He said he couldn't stop it himself, so why bother? I told him that was a cop-out, and that next time someone says something racist, or derogatory, to tell them to stop, and that it's wrong. He laughed. He said he couldn't understand what good it would do.

What I said next is something I truly believe. Standing up to something like that takes courage. Racism is such a long-standing "accepted" part of white culture that just by ascertaining only white folk are around, it must be acceptable to tell a racist joke. Simply by saying, "Hey, that's racist, and that's wrong," won't change anyone's minds immediately, but it will make them uncomfortable, like they made you uncomfortable by trying to tell the joke in the first place. By doing this over a long period of time, you will eventually realize that it is wrong, no one should stand for that sort of passive racism, and that is exactly the kind of racism that the Canadian government has been turning a blind eye to for years, such as in the situation of the Japanese-Canadians in the second World War, and ultimately, passive racism hurts people.

Writing this post was hard. I'm sure I got a lot of things wrong, and I'm more than happy to have people correct me, so I can continue to learn, think and act, and help S to learn, think and act, instead of standing by, allowing passive racism to continue.