Race Monologues

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNeB39l9fac

Lewis and Clark College holds a multi-cultural symposium ever year in which one event is especially catching. The Race Monologues gathers students from all over campus, people who I walk by everyday on my way to class, to tell their stories about race and how it has affected their lives. The last two years I have attended the Race Monologues I have laughed, cried, and related to students of all different colors, cultures, and upbringings. Every year I went I knew that I had a story just as powerful as them, I just wasn't sure how to tell it. I have always felt that I had something to share, and I think this year I finally have the words. Not only do I want to share it with all the members of my community in Portland, OR, I want to share it with the community that built me.

Every Sunday I will be attending a writing workshop much like is shown in the linked video above. We write a piece and bring it to share and discuss with our peers. I will be posting my weekly piece every Sunday evening. I'll be posting the prompts they give me, so feel free to follow along and write a piece for yourself. On November 9th we will be preforming a longer piece at the symposium in a spoken word format. I will hopefully be able to video tape the performance and post it to the blog.

MISS aims to empower women through exploration of culture and identity. Here is the beginning of my journey.

This first piece was written in response to the prompt: write a letter to someone or some institution with the things you wish you would have said to them/it. This is the little bit I got down on paper:

I had seen pictures of Alaska. 
Back in Washington angsty and 13, my family crowded around the desktop to see our soon to be home, creating a pixel deep understanding. Two years later when I met you, I was still looking at life like internet pictures. Laughing with you was like looking through old film slides. Holding this little arctic community up to the sun, you were the light shining through the film. A culture, a community,  and a family, illuminated before my eyes. 

-Hannah Atkinson

Men for Miss

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Here at school I get to work and know a lot of wonderful people. These people teach me so much, and in everything I learn I remember where I am from. I was inspired to write these pieces by my boss, and the Area Director (a professional who lives on campus and oversees the dorm life, insuring safety and wellbeing of residents): Logan Thurnauer.

He expressed to me how strongly he feels that for rape culture, domestic violence, and sexual assault to end, we have to engage men. On another occasion he defined a term I had always heard but never understood. He said: “Being an ally means taking responsibility for something you may not have done, because it is an injustice.”  To me, in the case of men supporting women in the struggle against rape culture, this means not all people (men specifically may feel prosecuted) are guilty of causing harm to women. Rape culture, violence against women, sexual assault, these are all big things that as an individual one may not be responsible for. What a person can take responsibility for in being an ally is the fact that this happens, it is an injustice, and if you are a man you may have more power in this society to do something about it.

Piecing these things together I realized that the way that men can be involved in this dialogue is by being an ally to women. Allies can support women through education and advocation. To understand the problem puts us in a better place to defeat it, and one voice can make a big difference.

As a way to help me better understand the part men play in the social ills facing women I am reading  “The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love” by bell hooks. bell hooks is a woman who considers men to be a crucial part of the feminist movement for equality. It caught my eye when I saw Logan reading it, and he quickly loaned it to me. Each week I will be posting about a chapter of this book: the main ideas and a review of the concepts. 

bell hooks starts off her introduction saying: "The male bashing that was so intense when contemporary feminism first surfaced more than thirty years ago was in part the rageful cover-up of the shame women felt not because men refused to share their power but because we could not seduce, cajole, or entice men to share their emotions -- to love us." Does anything come to mind when you hear this quote? How does this quote highlight the difference between men and women? What do you think of feminism? I'd love for any responses submitted as a reply to this blog or emailed to us at missmovement907@gmail.com. Next Thursday we'll explore the introduction and first chapter and the concepts of patriarchy and male love.

-Hannah Atkinson

MISS's New Blog: missmovement.tumblr.com

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MISS is now running a blog on the site Tumblr. Please follow us if you have a tumblr or visit our site at missmovement.tumblr.com! Tumblr is a blogging site on which you can post writings, quotes, and pictures of your own or others (as long as properly cited) while also reblogging posts from fellow tumblr blogs. This makes for a very open forum for cultural expression as it accommodates a wide range of media. It is a place of a lot of political exchange and a place where I have found the strong voice of empowerment for women. It is where I first came across the concepts of rape culture, slut shaming, and the love your body movement which are gaining popularity in the realm of the world wide web.  Jacqui and I will continue to write pieces for our blogspot. We will at the same time post writings and pictures on Tumblr and incorporate empowering and educational media from people around the world.
Another very important feature of our Tumblr blog is the accessible submit link. We would love for our blogs to be more of a collaborative dialogue including all of you. Please feel free to submit to either of our blogs: through the submit link on Tumblr or by emailing us at missmovement907@gmail.com to contribute to our blogspot.

-Hannah Atkinson