Category: Seminar Weekly

Jennifer Diaz

February 27, 2017

SOS Com Alt

Sem Pre-Write

Word Count: 297

Passages:

“What Brooks also calls “too-muchness” produces moments of spectacular visibility that exceed the advertisers’ intended and literal meanings. In the era of conspicuous consumption the “too-muchness” of the black and Asian bodies as represented in these trade cards is of key importance. The affective excess and semiotic overload of these images encode the use of disgust to facilitate and accompany the white bourgeois consumers disavowal and enjoyment of commodity pleasure.” Pg. 150

“…reminding me that the archive, and in particular the archive attached to minority presence in the Americas, is always either incomplete or inconsistent, always subject to the control and interests of its organizers and institutional location.” Pg. 151

Tompkins 2012;

“What is clear now is that the West’s fascination with the primitive has to do with its own crises in identity, with its own need to clearly demarcate subject and object even while flirting with the other ways of experiencing the universe.” Pg 367

“Contemporary working-class British clan playfully converges the discourse of desire, sexuality, and the Other, evoking the phrase getting “a bit of the Other” as a way to speak about sexual encounter. Fucking is the Other. Displacing notion of Otherness from race, ethnicity, skin-color, the body emerges as a site of contestation where sexuality is the metaphoric Other that threatens to take over, consumer, transform via the experience of pleasure.” Pg 367

News Media Context:

Is Arizona’s Ban on Mexican-American Studies Legal?

Does an Arizona law banning Mexican-American studies curriculum in public schools intentionally discriminate against Hispanics? That’s the question a federal appeals court has claimed warrants a trial.

http://www.ewa.org/blog-latino-ed-beat/arizonas-ban-mexican-american-studies-legal

Discussion:

When Arizona wanted to ban Mexican-American Studies from a Tucson School curriculum, it was the ruling-white classes display of power. And although this doesn’t have anything to do with commodity pleasure, although we might be able to argue that public education is commodified, especially higher education, it is a direct reflection of their power and they received pleasure from excluding this piece of history, taking this “bit of the other” and doing with it what they wanted. In this case the bit of the other is history and what they do with it is deem it illegal and not credible.

One could say that Arizona, which was once a part of Azatlan, which is what we call Mexico today, may have a bit of an identity crises regarding their past and present. Why would they want to share the history of the people who once roamed and “owned” this land? That history is not needed anymore, because it doesn’t pertain to the current ruler. Minority presence in the United States has always been tampered with. Photographer Edward S. Curtis took photographs of “the modern Native American.” His work was hailed as the most ambitious work in publishing since the production of the King James Bible. He captured beautiful shots of indigenous people, dressed in traditional clothing and interacting with horses, just like they used to. There is one photograph of two men sitting in front of a teepee with “all of their material items.” But one item was too modern and ruined the image Curtis wanted to portray. In order to keep the staus quo and the beauty of the natural, primitive, native, Curtis “photoshopped” the clock that sat amongst the mens items. It was just too like our world to be a part of this picture.

Jennifer Diaz

February 20, 2017

SOS Com Alt

Sem Pre-Write

Word Count: 287

Passages:

“Rose is taught not to leave the bread to burn: “I must give my whole mind to it…[I] sat watching over it all the while it was in the oven till I was quite baked myself.”

“Christies declaration of independence and Rose’s concern to be able to support herself, are materialized in the kitchen, where making bread requires intellectual labor and willpower as well as the correct ingredients.”

“Though much changed between 1837 and 1876, Alcott remains rooted in the original Grahamite racial imaginary linking body to place, attesting for the fact that, brief as his appearance was in the public eye, his work laid the foundation for food discourse that was foundational to the nation.”

(Tompkins 2012: 134, 142)

News Media Context:

Immigrant Moms Were Told They Can’t Have Jobs-So They Started Their Own Tamale Co-op

Employment options can be extremely limited for undocumented immigrants who can’t work legally. These single moms are relying on each other.

“On a broader level, the tamales and coffee represented the mothers’ efforts to create an opportunity for self-sufficiency, to foster collective economic empowerment, and to forge a path forward for themselves and their families.”

http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/gender-justice/immigrant-moms-were-told-they-cant-have-jobs-so-they-started-their-own-tamale-coop-20160531

I strongly believe that cooking is one of the most empowering activities an individual can partake in, no matter what genitals you carry. It is a way to directly support yourself. You are building yourself up, nurturing your body, whether you are in love with yourself at the moment or not, you are loving yourself.

I really appreciate how Alcott highlights the need to be present when you are cooking. Rose watched the bread until “she was quite baked herself.” She embodied the bread before consuming it. She was with the bread before it was within her. These practices of being present and staying committed to your nutrition could be healing and transformative practices.

Rose’s family were opposed to her leaving and becoming independent. The United States were opposed to these single immigrant mothers becoming independent, and yet both groups ended up finding a way to find self-worth. In the media context article, the women prepare traditional tamales from Mexico and Guatemala, and traditional coffee from Ethiopia. Our bodies are always going to bring up an image for whoever perceives us. These womens bodies and livelihood are still linked to the place where they came from. I feel like the United States has a different perspective on body and place when it comes to Latin food, at the very least. We have taco trucks and Mexican restaurants everywhere. At some point the idea that eating someone elses food will make you like them was forgotten in order to enjoy the satisfying and budget friendly tacos. It is a social phenomenon now to consume tacos with your loved ones. I am curious about where the lines are drawn now a days in regards to food, body, and place.

Jennifer Diaz

SOS: ComAlt Sem Pre-Write

Week 6

13 February, 2017

Word Count: 204

Passages:

“Celebrity chef Tom Coliccho served braised pork belly at Gramercy Tavern in New York City, but he called it “fresh bacon” to make it sound more appetizing.”

(Newman 2013:  119)

“Although I’m trained as an economist, I am not sure how to do it. That is because I cannot account for the spiritual and cultural impacts of everything. I’m not sure that it can be done. Some economists describe this measure as unquantifiable.”

“These coal mines will be built on my familiys original homestead. I do not want our country to be the sacrificial lamb for China.”

“The Crow Nation chairman, Darrin Old Coyote, says coal was a gift to his community that goes back to the tribes creation story. “Coal is life,” he says. “It feeds families and pays the bills…”

(LaDuke 2016: 15, 22 31

News Media Context:

1.     Defund DAPL Spreads Across Indian Country as Tribes Divest

The Navajo Nation is making moves to join a growing number of tribes that have already respectfully, but conclusively, shown Wells Fargo the door.

http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/defund-dapl-spreads-across-indian-country-as-tribes-divest-20170202

2.     Obamacare Repeal Threatens a Health Benefit Popular In Coal Country

At the Pulmonary Rehabilitation Clinic in Scarbro, W.Va., oxygen tubes dangle from the noses of three miners slowly pedaling on stationary bikes. All of these men have black lung — a disease caused by breathing in coal dust. 

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/01/24/510668899/obamacare-repeal-threatens-a-health-benefit-popular-in-coal-country

Discussion:

The passages I chose from Newman and LaDukes works relate to each other on their own. The chef from New York called pork belly “fresh bacon” to appease the eaters while the Crow Nation chairman, Darrin Old Coyote, said that “coal is life,” a striking difference between the current DAPL mantra of water is life.

Darrin Old Coyote tells himself and his people that coal is a gift from creator so that the Crow can eat and pay their bills. (Did creator foreshadow capitalism back in the day?)

The articles I chose connect to the current fight Indians face with the Dakota Access Pipeline. Despite the economic “gains” that would be made possible, the people of North Dakota are more focused on the unquantifiable goods in life: their culture, their spirit, and their people.

 The second article I chose shows how these fuel enterprises value the number of jobs created over the health of their employee. So many poor Americans have been sacrificial lambs to our progress and way of life.  The canaries in the mine are sick and yet the government who said they would cover their promises back. How much is a life worth?  Is it worth a warm and well-lit home?

Jennifer Diaz

SOS: ComAlt, Seminar Pre-Write Week 2

17 January 2017

Word Count: 247

Passages:

“Hart estimates that for every dollar spent on food, 15 to 20 cents represent the raw commodities used in that product. The rest represents advertising, transportation and fuel, labor, real estate, and other inputs….’The organic, local food, and community· garden movements bring back the idea that the main cost we would like to see in our food is the agricultural product underneath,” Hart explains, and the excitement in his voice is audible. “As we look at those food systems, we bring back the percentage that is related to the underlying commodity’.” (Newman 2013: 11, 14)

“But this sense of dietary immersion in ones own elements, of burning from within, of the self indistinguishable from the “strong solution” of its surroundings …” “There are the eaters, and then there are the eaten; similarly, there are the eaters, and then there are the hungry … black bodies and subjects in these encounters fight back, and bite back, both in the white imaginary and in domestic manuals and novels produced by black authors. Although excluded from the biopolitical, nation-building imperatives of a mostly white reform movement that nonetheless often aligned itself with abolition, black authors and citizens insisted on their relevance and centrality to national narratives of bodily belonging.” (Tompkins 2012: 7,8,9)

News Media Context:

‘Agrihood’ project focuses on farm-to-table in Detroit

Detroit officials announced a partnership that will help transform a long-vacant apartment building into a community center and cafe to anchor its growing agricultural campus. The project is being touted as the nation’s first urban “agrihood,” an alternative neighborhood that’s built around the farm-to-table model featured mainly in rural and suburban settings.

http://smartgrowth.org/agrihood-project-focuses-farm-table-detroit/

Discussion:

Newmans book gave us numbers concerning how much of our money actually goes towards the nourishment we seek. Why should people who cannot afford to own their own homes be forced to support this middle person who is in the way of us eating our corn flakes? Tompkins points out that in the images of black folks that white people depict, they usually always fight back and bite back. Despite their oppression they always “burn from within” (Tompkins 2012: 7) Later in the passage Tompkins goes on to say how in all of the films and books and even in day-to-day life, black people in the nineteenth century had a sharp tongue (as sharp as their master would allow.) I was thinking about how black people are portrayed in our modern media this still seemed relevant. Most roles for black bodies in the entertainment world are the funny guy or the angry sassy girl. Then it got me thinking about how black people fight back without using direct verbal attacks. Like the way Black Panthers was formed or the abortion clinic of Chicago in the 1960’s. I learned about the Detroit “agrihood” recently; another way to fight back. It got me thinking about how else we fight back without literally fighting. Whose idea was this “agrihood” anyway? Was it someone who had melanin? Does that matter in the long run if people are being fed real food for prices that make sense? I am not sure.

Citations:

Newman, Kara. (2013). The Secret Financial Life of Food: From Commodities Markets to Supermarkets. New York: Columbia University Press.

Tompkins, Kyla Wazana. (2012). Racial Indigestion: Eating Bodies in the 19th Century. NewYork: New York University Press.

Images:

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20161201/NEWS/161209999/michigan-urban-farming-initiative-grows-plan-for-agrihood-in-detroit