Dear 360’ers--

I’ve been @ work this weekend (among other things!) creating a rich archive of thinking-and-researching @
/oneworld/arts-resistance-tags/research-project

http://portside.org/2015-09-28/american-slavery-reinvented

http://www.yesmagazine.org/seattle-organizers-win-city-council-votes-end-youth-incarceration-20150922

From The Veil to The Earbud:

Limits of Black Representation in Music

Double-Consciousness & The Veil

In framing The Souls of Black Folk, W. E. B. Du Bois introduces the notion of double-consciousness, what he describes to be “this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity” (Du Bois 8). This phenomenon, Du Bois argues, is majorly responsible for perpetuating internalized racism and the division of races he calls the “color-line,” the greatest issue we face today.

I remember I fought many times with my brothers through play. Then I felt various negative emotions like sadness, madness, and jealousy. However, even though it seems harmful, it actually helps children to grow up mentally. Most of those negative experiences are forgotten as time passes, and children learn how to interact with people.

Play can be problematic only when it leaves unforgettable mental scar to a child. Fortunately I do not have any experience like that, but I imagine that if children hurt someone awfully and felt seriously guilty, or if they could not make friends and were always lonely, those memories would affect their identities very much.　They might lose confidence, or, the worst thing is that they cannot love themselves through their lives.　

It’s true that play should muster fun. It should be an exit for mundane life. But play should be left as an exit, but nothing more. It can go awry when people only perceive and pursuit the hedonistic perspective of play. Adults in today’s society definitely deserve rights to have fun –so they play. Whether their methods vary, they play to relieve stress. Play is important in their lives or in each one of our lives, since even only some moments of play provide an exit and open a door of comfort amid severe reality that we are facing. However, when play slowly but gradually permeates and dominates people’s life, that’s the moment when the genuine purpose of play loses its place.

I think maybe, as with all things, one can overdose on play.

I don't mean that play is a bad thing in and of itself. I mean that, just as food is not inherently a bad thing and yet people still overeat, play is not a bad thing and yet one can still "overplay". Play-as-preparation is a popular theory, but it assumes that the player is preparing for something else, something that is not play. The play-as-preparation model doesn't work if play is the end goal... it only works if play is the prerequisite, or counter-balance, of the actual end goal. This end goal can be adulthood, or work, or a more imaginative and creative lifestyle. But it is not more play.

Often when we think of play, light hearted children running around comes to mind. One think we do not usually think of is the danger that children are often in whilst playing. As Isabell.the.polygot mentioned in her last post, she was playing in a dangerous area and became hurt. This unfortunately happens quite frequently and is often a parent's biggest fear. Most children do not think of the danger they are in when they are playing the first time. For example, a child may climb a tree as far as they can go without realizing they could fall and injure themselves. If they do fall, however, they have learned an important lesson, that they should be more careful whilst climbing trees.

One of the most problematic aftermaths of play is physical harm, which can be induced, mostly unintentionally, by any one participant upon another. However, this does not imply the need for the involvement of more than one person to be any scope of physical danger, as soemtimes it is the very act of play, that in itself leads to harm. I rememeber this piece of news from my childhood about a kid who somehow procured fireworks, and decided to play with them. Things did not go as he had planned, and instead of creating a mesemerzing display of flickering lights in the sky, he ended up with some fireworks going off towards his face and into his eyes, permanently mutilating his vision.

In situations where play is regarded as a simulation or test-area for real life preparation, play could become problematic in times when the socially correct destination is not reached. If the simulation is carried out and the WRONG conclusion is reached, this would drastically affect the way these people act in the real world. If it isn't reprimanded in play, will some problematic actions be carried out into real life situations? Or is play not the space for this repremanding? I Play constitutes an isolated space, removed from from real world consequences, until it isn't- until there is some analagy imposed by an outsider, an authoritative figure, who creates? points out? the connections between the play and the real.