Uninhibited's blog

After Linda-Susan Beard's visit to our class on Thursday, i've really been thinking of silence in different ways. As I said in another post, I'm in awe at how "full" and "rich" silence is, and how she needs it in order to recharge. Listening to her speak, and watching the facial expressions showed me just how much she enjoys the experience of silence, whether she uses it as a way to confront aspects of her life that she needs to deal with or because it gives her the opportunity to do something she likes, such as gardening. Her visit left me with questions on this sort of relationship with silence is built. Is it something that takes a long time? Is it something that works for some but not for others? I would love to hear more from her about how to make silence an enjoyable experience used to recharge. I usually feel jittery and definitely notice the small moving clock, but I want a contemplative experience with silence that will leave me feeling rich and full.

After Linda-Susan Beard's visit to our class on Thursday, i've really been thinking of silence in different ways. As I said in another post, I'm in awe at how "full" and "rich" silence is, and how she needs it in order to recharge. Listening to her speak, and watching the facial expressions showed me just how much she enjoys the experience of silence, whether she uses it as a way to confront aspects of her life that she needs to deal with or because it gives her the opportunity to do something she likes, such as gardening. Her visit left me with questions on this sort of relationship with silence is built. Is it something that takes a long time? Is it something that works for some but not for others? I would love to hear more from her about how to make silence an enjoyable experience used to recharge. I usually feel jittery and definitely notice the small moving clock, but I want a contemplative experience with silence that will leave me feeling rich and full.

In our last class I was very struck first by our readings, and then by the last part of our class. It was the first time that I realized the difference between how Quakers and Catholics pray. When I go to church, it is usually accompanied with music, sermons, speeches, and lectures and just words in general. Words words words. Music music music. Even in silent prayer we're not silent because the priest leads us. This is very different from our practice on Thursday where we were each in charge with connecting with whatever it is that we wanted to connect with it. I find it very interesting that the Quakers sit in silence and wonder what such spiritual experience would feel like, to be in charge of making your own connection with God. 

Women’s sexuality is a topic often silenced by society in order to perpetuate an image of the “purity” of a woman that fits traditional gender roles.  Women are expected to keep their sexualities private and, even in private, to withhold any outstanding passions or desires. When women break these gendered silences in regards to their sexuality, a tradition is ruptured and often in order to restore previous order, shame and/or violence are used as valid responses. I saw both of these instances in reading No Name Woman by Maxine Hong Kingston. This text, exemplified the complex ways in which women’s sexualities are often a source of shame in the private and public sphere. It also describes how the outcomes of rupturing these traditions can result in unsafe situations for the women who have broken the norm. Her story, can speak to the difficulty of “breaking free” within a society that does not yet accept women’s sexual freedom and that continues to perpetuate this idea by using the silencing of existence through storytelling as a warning for subsequent generations of women.

As I said before, I really loved Zer's talk about close-up vs. bird's eye view. I wrote this paper on how this frame can be used to think about ways in which we define our identities based on the institutions that we are part of.

I really enjoyed reading Wendy Brown's essay on Freedom Silences, especially because that it's a text that can be used as a frame to read other texts, events and experiences. I also think that a big part of why I enjoyed he text so much is because I did the kind of close reading that we did in Anne's class last week. I was particularly by the way in which breaks down the traditional ways in which we think of silence and oppression as standing in contradiction with freedom and voice. This helped me recall my experience abroad last semester in which I equated having power and feeling "free" or valued with "schooling", as I called it, people's statements that posed immigrants, people of color, Muslims, the poor as inferior. In my mind, this "voice" was freeing and I needed to speak out and get angry every time I encountered such statements. Soon enough, however, it became exhausting and I no longer felt free. It's as if all of a sudden I was back in jail that I had created for myself in feeling the need to fight every battle, get upset, and then realize that the person's point of view had not changed.

I think that there are very important similarities in the ways in which actors “perform” and the ways in which we “perform.” Rigney’s reading made me think about the various social roles that we play and the ways in which we are liberated or constrained by them.  Which of the roles we play are assigned to us by society and which do we choose. Even in “choosing” social roles how much agency do we really have?  I wrote in my journal about the masks that we wear in order to perform whichever roles we need to perform, and about how some may see wearing those masks as constraining, but that sometimes wearing masks is liberating. I see some asks and “roles” as coping strategies, strategies used mostly by marginalized people to navigate these systems and this society.

Hybrid Identities; Silenced Selves

            Growing up in a country that was not my own, as I tried to adopt behaviors in order to fit in socially in school and in college, I often felt as though I was abandoning traits that were essential to who I was. In her memoir, Rigoberta Menchú talks about being a Quiché woman but not representing all factors of that identity as a result of having learned Spanish. John Edgar Wideman echoed similar sentiments in saying that the higher he moved on the social ladder, the more alienated he felt from his home, family and more specifically his brother. What is the price that those from marginalized groups must pay when attempting to achieve social mobility by adapting to the dominant culture? Which aspects of their culture and identity are silenced as they choose to highlight or give voice to other versions of the self? How are these people viewed not only by the dominant culture but also by their home culture? I often fear being called a traitor by my family and I hide my accomplishments from them to avoid being seen as “the other.” In comparing the experiences of Rigoberta Mechú and John Edgar Wideman to my own, is it worth the risk to loose a part of the self in order to help our communities and ourselves?

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/24/justice/mississippi-civil-rights-lawsuit/index.html?hpt=ju_c1

I’ve been thinking a lot about the images I have of incarcerated women, and can’t help but be ashamed at my lack of knowledge of the topic before this summer. Before this summer, the media influenced all of my images of incarcerated people. I don’t have any family members or close friends who have had any contact with the legal system in the US. I think that as a result, in high school I was definitely guilty of projecting very negative feelings towards those who “have committed a crime.” In a sense, I really placed a lot of blame on them for not making the types of decisions that my family and I have made. In high school, I do know people who ran intro trouble with the law, specifically for drug-related offenses, and I used to think that it was their fault. I probably felt that way because I grew up in the same environment, went to the same school, but somehow I ended up attending an afterschool program instead of doing drugs, I was definitely to all of the other factors that contribute to incarceration.