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Dirty Computer

Dirty Computer by Janelle Monae is an important concept to understand because she is breaking barriers of what it means to have an Afrofuturism. Before analyzing the concept of the film its important to know how she also incorporates the use music to state her statement. The film is sci-fi and it's set in virtual reality future, the protagonist who is an android named Jane 57821 realizes she wants to become human again. In this society, humans are referred to as computers and not as human beings. She tries to break free from the society who is forcibly controlling her and her friends. What I love about the film is that incorporates music and in a sense we are able to feel her feelings. She wants to break free because she feels, loves, and laughs. She’s holding on tight to her personality to what makes her her. And in that society you are seen as dirty.

In the beginning of the film Jane says, “They started calling us computers. People began banishing. And the cleaning began. You were dirty if you looked different. You were dirty if you refused to live the way they dictated. You were dirty if you showed any form of opposition. At all. And if you were dirty. it was only a matter of time.” This intro explains the overall concept of the film and what Janelle Monae is trying to state. This is terrifying future because of how technology and humanity will connect. What I also like about the film is because as she says “you are dirty if you looked different” this is something that is actually happening today on the LGBTQ community and people of color get treated in America. It's a scary thought to think something as technology that help society advance could be used against us. In a sense, Dirty Computer could be seen as a warning for the future. But also as a message to the present to stop listening and trying to adapt into society. To stand up and speak out in what you believe in and to never lose your humanity.

Janelle Monae is more than just an artist because of how she uses Afrofuturism. But I also enjoy the film a lot because she connects with a great author, Octavia Butler who also works with Afrofuturism. Octavia Butler has a novel called, “Parable of the Sower” and is a work about Afrofuturism, she envisions a black future through sci-fi and speculative fiction that is drawn from their cultural and historical heritage. The novel begins in the year 2024 set in Southern California that has become a dystopian landscape. California is ruined by corporate greed, inequality, environmental destruction.

The protagonist, Lauren Olamina, lives in California and like most of the country, society has fallen into deep decline, but the lucky people like Lauren’s family still have homes, food, and water. They live in a neighborhood, surrounded by a wall, police protection has declined in which they must defend themselves from the poor and the emaciated people who wait hoping to steal from the community (Butler 11). Lauren grows up in a terrible future and a lot of the book is focused with religion she has created, Earthseed. She soon leaves her community as a survivor and travels with other survivors and eventually begins walking north with a growing community, the first members of the Earthseed movement. Although, Octivia Butler’s novel is science fiction, it is important to understand because she focuses on Afrofuturism by drawing science fiction, history, and religious texts to draw attention to the past and current challenges Black people are facing in the US and she images a terrifying future of what might happen next.

It is important to understand both Dirty Computer and Parable of the Sower because each introduce a dystopian future of inequality. Butler is a famous black author that began the movement of Afrofuturism to influence other authors, artists, etc to create their version. Which is exactly what Janelle Monae created in Dirty Computer because she still connects to black culture roles and roots. It’s pretty crazy how both artists gives us a warning of what America might become. Dirty Computer argues that marginalized identities are in danger of losing the freedoms that they have long fought for. Dirty Computer tells us that we need to celebrate what makes us different while protecting our freedom and identity because if not we are pretty close to having a future as in the Parable of the Sower.

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To be feminized means to be made extremely vulnerable; able to be dis- assembled, reassembled, exploited as a reserve labor force; seen less as workers than as servers; subjected to time arrangements on and o√ the paid job that makes a mockery of a limited work day; leading an existence that always borders on being obscene, out of place, and reducible to sex.

Donna Haraway, ‘‘A Cyborg Manifesto’’ (via neoyorzapoteca)

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We are excruciatingly conscious of what it means to have a historically constituted body.

Donna Haraway, from “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century,” Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (via lifeinpoetry)

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Janelle Monáe is a genius who created a decade-long allegory for American society’s need to turn everyone into computers devoid of free-thought, expression, and anything that makes us human. She flawlessly addresses the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality as her android persona tries to navigate through a dystopian world that isn’t so far off from how we live now. Through Dirty Computer, Janelle Monáe introduces the concept of growth within the android world she’s constructed by including even more openly queer themes and moving from her signature black and white to introduce color. This growth isn’t without struggle, however, as the emotion picture clearly shows us that it feels easier to be an android than to resist and be yourself in a world that is unwilling to accept you or even let you live if you aren’t white, straight, male, compliant, and, for all intents and purposes, invisible. In this essay, I will

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♫ Pink like the inside of your, baby / Pink like the walls and the doors, maybe / Pink like your fingers in my, maybe / Pink is the truth you can’t hide / Pink like your tongue going round, baby / Pink like the sun going down, maybe / Pink like the holes in your heart, baby / Pink is my favourite part ♫

Janelle Monáe & Tessa Thompson in the official video for PYNK

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#UCSD #UNIONSTRIKE

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“The cycle of violence will never end unless we put a stop to it. Guantanamo cannot provide us justice. And I do not want politicians to use my son’s memory as justification for keeping people at Guantanamo.” -Phyllis Rodriguez, Activist and mother of 9/11 Victim Greg Rodriguez

On this year’s anniversary, join us today in urging the @whitehouse to close Guantanamo NOW. Read Phyllis’s letter and sign the white house petition today! 

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Time is running out! Join us & demand that the @whitehouse END the injustice and CLOSE Guantanamo now. Sign and share the petition now!

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Guantanamo Bay Experience

The podcast we heard over class was something that really caught my attention. I’m kind of embarrassed to admit this but before the podcast I didn’t know anything about the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and it’s embarrassing because so many huge things are happening in the world that I’m not aware of. The narrator of the podcast was 19 year old  Mansor Adaifi who was incarcerated for almost 15 year. Adaifi was one of the many men who were imprisoned without charge who were held in isolation with just men. His interview is very tragic because he tells his story in a unique way with such depth that describes the life that was taken from him and sadly he will never get back. But despite through everything Adaifi experienced he still wants to share his story about his experience in Guantanamo Bay because he tells his story about the meaning of love and how he took marriage classes. He believes as humans beings we should experience the feeling of love because that is what life is all about.

The Guantanamo Bay has been called for it to be closed and there are so many reasons to why it should. The term monster defined by Hina “are the racialized excess, the gendered leftovers of colonial/imperial conquest, of enslavement,” and if the term monster could be defined with an image the Guantanamo Bay Prison is a perfect example. It has been argued that the prison camp is criticized because most of the prisons being held there have been held without charges and without a trial. Another monstrous action of the prison camp is known for the mistreatment and abuse to the prisoners. This is such an inhuman action and it angers me of the United States is trying to cover it up and states that the prisoners are treated fairly. But that is clearly not the case because prisoners who have been set free such as Mansor Adaifi have shared their stories of the mistreatment they’ve experienced.

Mansor Adaifi beginnings his podcast stating that he himself asked why is he being detained in Guantanamo and their answer were “we don’t know.” Just as the prisoners have no idea why they are being detained, it's not a surprise that the guards don’t know either. Adaifi describes what it was like as a prisoner and everything was isolation the same routine every single day. He explains they weren’t allowed to speak to anyone that their only human interaction was between other prisoners or the guards who would beat him. His first years improsed stayed the same for the following years he would experience but then he explains that they are so many prisoners from different nationalities in which they’re able to learn something from each other and give each other classes. He refers to this as a society because they have teachers, doctors, engineers, etc and he describes a society that has no women and many young prisoners like Adair knew nothing about women and love. He explains that a detainee starts a class about marriage that Adaifi took.

Adaifi story about wanting to learn about the idea of women is something that is unique because it describes how isolated this men were because they had to take classes to learn about the meaning of love. I personally have never experienced a romantic love but I know the love of family and it makes me sad because Adaifi is so excited about the idea of love because for him that is life and the detention has taken so much so I feel that he holds on it to very dearly because that’s something he can control and won’t let the camp take that away from him. He explains how the marriage taught him how to flirt, body language, etc and he also explains what he would write in a love letter. What really caught my attention about his story of love is how badly he wanted to experience love. He explains how they were surrounded by animals like cats, snakes, birds and explains that if they were caught feeding the animals they would be punished but Adaifi didn’t care. His explanation really got to me because he says that by feeding the animals you can feel the love and with that love he was able to feel happiness. That  story really affected me because his idea of love could probably be a big concept of his survival and a reason to fight. Another story he shares was that they pretended to have a huge wedding day and that was a very lovely memory to him. Despite everything Adaifi and the detainees were living they found something lovely to share together and that is something the camp will never take away from them. The day he was released he was sad to say goodbye to his “brothers” but also because he was shipped to a country that he knows no one, he doesn’t have a society. Adaifi still hopes to find love.

This podcast is very powerful because it explains the kind of life prisoners lived in Guantanamo detention. Manser story is a tragic one because all he wants to live now is to experience love. I truly hope he would find it one day and that the Guantanamo Bay will close soon so lives won’t be taken away just as Mansor’s was. What also makes this podcast powerful besides the story is how it is formed. The kind of tone used in the background creates a sense of mood. When Mansor is telling a bad experience you can feel the tone change because of the music used but when he tells us about the wedding day the tone is happy and that made me feel happy because although he was living something horrible that day was beautiful for him. The podcast also uses a cool technique that when the music fades away in the background you feel the different scene. It’s strange because you can’t see anything but you know there’s a new scene and it was because he would continue telling a different story. Again I hope Manser can find love and I’m very happy he was able to share his story.

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As of today, Guantanamo has now been open LONGER under President Obama than under President Bush. Sign the petition to close Guantanamo NOW.

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We are imprisoning the wrong men for all the wrong reasons.

Releasing the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay will require  US Government officials to do something it is not used to doing, and something it does not like to do – admit it was wrong. It is wrong to hold these men for more than a decade, wrong to torture them, and wrong to deny their release.

This is why I believe more than 80 prisoners at Guantanamo, who have not been charged with any crimes, who have not had a trial, and who have been cleared for release are still there, wasting away in solitary cells.

If the US Government does not act to release these prisoners, they will be forced with the reality that they are losing public confidence. It is up to each of us to tell government officials that they are wrong in continuing this inhumane injustice.

Please read the following letter by SAMIR NAJI al HASAN MOQBEL.

Here’s an excerpt:

ONE man here weighs just 77 pounds. Another, 98. Last thing I knew, I weighed 132, but that was a month ago. I’ve been on a hunger strike since Feb. 10 and have lost well over 30 pounds. I will not eat until they restore my dignity. I’ve been detained at Guantánamo for 11 years and three months. I have never been charged with any crime. I have never received a trial. I could have been home years ago — no one seriously thinks I am a threat — but still I am here. Years ago the military said I was a “guard” for Osama bin Laden, but this was nonsense, like something out of the American movies I used to watch. They don’t even seem to believe it anymore. But they don’t seem to care how long I sit here, either. When I was at home in Yemen, in 2000, a childhood friend told me that in Afghanistan I could do better than the $50 a month I earned in a factory, and support my family. I’d never really traveled, and knew nothing about Afghanistan, but I gave it a try. I was wrong to trust him. There was no work. I wanted to leave, but had no money to fly home. After the American invasion in 2001, I fled to Pakistan like everyone else. The Pakistanis arrested me when I asked to see someone from the Yemeni Embassy. I was then sent to Kandahar, and put on the first plane to Gitmo.

Read the rest here: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/15/opinion/hunger-striking-at-guantanamo-bay.html?_r=0

Samir has been cleared for release. He’s being painfully force-fed by tubes being jammed into his nose, into his stomach. He’s being stripped of all dignity, all due process, and any shred of humanity.

We are doing this. If we don’t speak up, the deaths of these men, who have not been charged with any crimes, will be on our hands.

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Guantanamo Bay

(Robert W. Kelley. 1962)

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The Shock Doctrine

The novel introduction of “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism” by social activist Naomi Klein explains her theory about the way that force and crisis are used in implementing neoliberal economic policies. The shock doctrine, as Klein explains is used in periods of panic often following coups, wars, natural disasters and economic crisis shocked people and countries. Through the exploitation of disaster professional corporations push through unpopular “free market” measures have come to dominate the world (Klein). Klein tells an alternative history  of how this savage strategy of pure capitalism came to dominate the world. She does by exposing the way of thinking of market fundamentalist such as Milton Friedman on how they have used and perfected this strategy.  

Naomi Klein uses multiple events such as Pinochet’s coup in Chile 1973, flood waters in New Orleans, Iraq’s civil war, etc as examples of the shock doctrine. By using natural disasters and wars from the public’s pain to achieve control by imposing economic shock therapy. The shock doctrine used professional corporations are the haunted power dynamics that creates monsters. Klein vividly shows and exposes how disaster capitalism aggressively achieve control and if it doesn’t work they use electroshock. The introduction of Klei’s novel furthermore explains how, “For more than three decades, Friedman and his powerful followers had been perfecting this very strategy: waiting for a major crisis, then selling off pieces of the state to private players while citizens were still reeling from the shock, then quickly making the "reforms" permanent, “ (Klein 6) to achieve control.

The concept “orphaned beginnings” plays in this novel by everything Naomi Klein. As mentioned in her reading explains how the shock doctrine has happened for a long time. For example, shock doctrine did not begin with September 11, 2001 but posts the tragic event, shock therapy is a fully articulated new economy . Klein traces back fifty years ago, to the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman. Friedmand and his followers use this dominant ideology of the free market economic revolution. Klein explains that Friedman used this ideology because, “It was the most extreme capitalist makeover ever attempted anywhere, and it became known as a "Chicago School" revolution, since so many of Pinochet's economists had studied under Friedman at the University of Chicago” (Klein 7). Klein shows how it has exploited moments of shock and extreme violence in order to implement its economic policies is so many parts of the world from Latin America such as Chile.

One of the earliest examples of the shock doctrine was in Chile that is known Pinochet’s coup. In 1973, Chile’s democratically elected socialist President Salvador Allende was overthrown in a coup led by army general Augusto Pinochet with support from the United States. Tensions created by the coup caused the economic decline in Chile and Milton Friedman suggested that Pinochet implemented a “shock program”. As stated, “whenever governments have imposed sweeping free-market programs, the all at-once shock treatment, or "shock therapy," has been the method of choice. Pinochet also facilitated the adjustment with his own shock treatments; these were performed in the regime's many torture cells, inflicted on the writhing bodies of those deemed most likely to stand in the way of the capitalist transformation” (Klein 7) in order to implement policies.

I can’t see a future that holds accountable for something like the shock doctrine. The theory of the shock doctrine has been happening for years and it will continue to happen. I personally never realized what corporations use a crisis for their own benefit. Although I do agree that we cannot entirely account for the success of “free market” on this theory, but that doesn’t mean the countries will be held accountable for these things. But change is happening because throughout the world, social movements are learning economic decline can create opportunities for popular movements to demand and construct a more equitable society.

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#Shock Doctrine #Chilenes #human rights 

on 9/11

While most of you might think about 9/11 in the US, i mean something different when i say that the US did 9/11.

I am talking about my country, Chile. On September 11, 1973, the democratically elected socialist government of Salvador Allende was overthrown by the military, starting 17 years of dicatorship lead by Augusto Pinochet.

But did the Chilean military act alone? No, it was helped by the CIA, the tortures that thousands of chilean people suffered were taught to the military by CIA agents. It was the US’s idea to overthrow Allende, because the US couldn’t stand a democratic socialist state. The US flunked our economy, tried to discredit Allende, and when that did not work they killed him, and condenmed chilean people to almost two decades of constant terror. The bodies of several people were not recorvered, they are still missing and we still live under the constitution made by that tyrant.

Remember this, the terror your country caused, when you remember 9/11.

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Maybe the first act of resistance is to refuse to allow our collective memory to be wiped.

The Shock Doctrine, short film

(via

jackolivander

)

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This feels like a good thing to read during my last day of working for a giant corporation.