Artists With Disabilities

In Arts: A Film about Possibilities, Disabilities and the Arts, we see that individuals with disabilities often have talents in the arts, and use this talent to develop their self-esteem, express some of their frustrations and joys, and interact with the outside world.  One example of this is Geri Jewell.  Jewell has cerebral palsy, and was the first disabled actress to have a regular role on a prime-time television show.  She also is a standup comedian.  In one act, she tells the story of being in the hospital with her cerebral palsy, and her sister first suggesting she do standup.  Jewell disregarded her sister’s suggestion, believing that her cerebral palsy was too much of a hindrance.  As you can tell, she decided to eventually follow her sister’s advice, and it’s a good thing she did.  She is a very talented individual, who is using humor not only to make others laugh, but also to change attitudes about disabilities.  When you watch her act, at first all you can see is her disability.  But, as time goes on, you realize that she is just a normal person, just like you or me.

One question that this documentary addressed was the question of whether artists with disabilities should be advertised as an artist with a disability.  Some of the artists in the documentary did not allow their works to be presented as art done by a person with a disability.  They just wanted it to be art.  Others, like Geri Jewell, were perfectly comfortable using that label.  Those that don’t want their disability associated with their artwork make a good point.  They don’t want to be viewed as “different” because of their disability, and they certainly don’t want people to only appreciate their art because it was done by someone with a disability. They want their art to be art, that’s it. But, artists that do allow their disability to be associated with their art also have a purpose.  Many of them wish to prove that they really aren’t different through their art.  They are just as talented as their colleagues without disabilities, so why should they be viewed differently?  They can also serve as role models for others who are like them.  Seeing someone with a disability succeed as some of these artists have inspires others with disabilities to see past their own incapacities, to see that they can work around them, or even with them, to create beautiful things.  While those that don’t want to be associated with disabilities are focused simply on their art, on creating something beautiful for others to appreciate, those that embrace their incapacities seem to be aiming for something more.  They are trying to change popular opinion about Disabled People.  They are trying to change the world.

Here is Geri Jewell's demo reel.  As you can see, many of her roles play up on her disability, and she does a fantastic job of using that to her advantage.

http://www.imdb.com/video/demo_reel/vi1253153817/

The Shame of the Nation in CMS

I attended Vance High School in Charlotte.  While I grew up in a middle class neighborhood, there were some poorer neighborhoods surrounding us.  Many of the children who lived in these neighborhoods also went to school there.  While we had a nice building and relatively good resources, Vance reminds me of some of the schools found in The Shame of the Nation.  While I can’t find any statistics to back me up, I can say with relative confidence that I was definitely part of the minority in my school.  Mostly Blacks and Hispanics went there, while Whites, Asians and other races were hard to find.  I remember being one of only two or three white girls in several of my classes, and being the only white person in at least one class.  I could tell that several of my classmates either had not had much interaction with white people, or felt that we were completely different from them, when I was told I was the prettiest white girl they knew.  These sort of interactions were always strange for me, since I had gone to a diverse elementary and middle school, where race was not really much of a factor in any of our interactions.

One quote from the book that I could see being said in my school was this one: “I asked her if she truly thought America did not “have room” for her or other children of her race. “Think of it this way,” said a sixteen-year-old girl sitting beside her. “If people in New York woke up one day and learned that we were gone, that we had simply died or left for somewhere else, how would they feel?” “How do you think they’d feel?” I asked. “I think they’d be relieved,” this very solemn girl replied.

I was lucky enough to be in mostly Honors classes at my school, so most of the students I interacted with on a regular basis did not feel this way, but in my elective classes, I could see how some of the students could.  They were not nearly as invested in their education as I was, which frustrated me.  Didn’t they know that an education was the key to going to leading a successful, happy life?  Now I know that more than likely they were not raised to think that way.  They were raised to think that they would never amount to much, because they had the double burden of being poor and Black.  Most probably went home to families that needed them to work, not focus on an education which did not have any current benefits.  They probably hung out with peers who had dropped out of school, only to join the local gang, thinking that was the only option they really had.  They did not have the benefit I did.  They did not go to an elementary school that gave them the skills and confidence to continue in their education.  They did not have parents that had the luxury of time to help them with their homework.  They probably did not have the safe environment I did.

I could even see the segregation that can occur naturally in a community.  I remember when I applied to schools; we did not even consider Vance an option, though it was my homeschool.  I applied for two other schools, one that was well known for great programs, another was a mainly white school only a little further from my house.  When my mother discovered that I was slated to go to Vance, she asked me if she should call and ask to put me in West Meck, a school I would automatically get into since it was a continuation of the immersion program I was already in, even though it was far away, and it was well known that the immersion program there wasn’t strong anyway.  I told her no, that I would rather go to Vance, and I’m glad I did.  Looking back, I think it was the school systems way of reversing the segregation that was already happening.  All the white kids had to go to the home school they were trying to escape from.  It was going downhill before we got there, but it seemed to be improving throughout my four years there.

I can now see the full negative effect that segregation can have on a schools population.  My senior year, they opened up a new high school nearby.  My neighborhood and several of the neighborhoods surrounding us were moved there.  I recently read an article that called Vance “the most dangerous high school in CMS”, with 111 arrests in the past school year.  While Vance may not have been the safest place when I was there, it definitely was not as dangerous as it is now.

I’m glad I went to Vance.  I believe I still received a very good education there, and my eyes were opened to a culture I probably would not have seen had I gone to another high school.  I have a better understanding of what students there went through, and some of the problems they are probably still dealing with.  I’m also very saddened by the road it’s going down now, and hope that CMS will work to improve it in the future.

http://www.14news.com/story/15084366/vance-hs-has-111-arrests-last-year

Concerted Cultivation versus Natural Growth: Is One Better Than the Other?

Throughout this semester, we’ve discussed education and the impact that segregation has on children’s education.  Poor Black kids typically end up in schools with little resources, broken down facilities and a different mindset that sets them up for underachievement.  They grow up believing that they will never be able to achieve what other white children in other schools can.  One aspect that was not explored was the difference between Concerted Cultivation and Natural Growth.  Annette Lareau discusses these differences in Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life. 

Lareau defines Concerted Cultivation as a parenting method typically employed by middle class parents.  These parents believe in structured activities, such as soccer and band.  They encourage their children to debate with them, and often let their own decisions be swayed by their child’s arguments.  These parents are also very involved in their child’s school life.  Their confidence around people of authority, such as teachers or doctors, rubs off on their children.  This method raises children who have a sense of entitlement, or believe that they are equals with everyone surrounding them, including adults.  These children are able to navigate their way through institutional settings, a skill which will help them down the road when they are applying for colleges and jobs.

Natural Growth, on the other hand, is used more in working class and poor families.  These children participate more in unstructured play.  They have closer ties to their community and families, and kinship ties are especially important.  Because their parents are more focused on providing life basics, such as food, shelter and security, they often do not have as much time to become involved in their education.  Children typically do homework on their own.  Their parents also seem to have a lack of confidence, and even some mistrust in front of authority figures, especially those that are more educated than they are.  This mistrust is passed on to their children.

While the benefits of Concerted Cultivation, such as a heightened vocabulary and a confidence in front of authority figures, help middle class children navigate through institutional settings, therefore bringing them more benefits later on life, the benefits of Natural Growth are not as lauded.  Despite the fact that children who grew up under Natural Growth are better able to utilize unstructured time and know how to create ties with a community, among other things, these children continue to face the same challenges that their parents before them did.

The real question is, how do we break the cycle?  Do we create programs for lower class children that gives them the benefits of Concerted Cultivation at the cost of the benefits they would receive under Natural Growth?  Do we work to create a society that utilizes the skills these children are gaining?  Or do we mix both?  I Have A Dream is a good example of a program that does both.  While the kids receive the benefits of Concerted Cultivation in the focus that is put on school, they also receive the benefits of interacting freely with their peers and community, as well as some unstructured play time.

A Double Dose of Discrimination

In Marked: Race, Crime, and Finding Work in an Era of Mass Incarceration, Devah Pager discusses the stigma associated with a previous conviction, and how this stigma affects job searches for previous convicts.  While White males are affected by the stigma of conviction, Black males are affected even more.  In her study, Pager found that out of 150 audits, White men without a conviction were called back 34% of the time, while White men with a conviction were called back 17% of the time.  Compare this to the 200 audits performed by Black men: the man without a conviction was called back 14% of the time, while the man with a conviction was called back 5% of the time.  These statistics show us that it is ridiculously to get a job if you are a black man, and you can pretty much forget about it if you have a conviction.

Pager gives one explanation for why it’s so much more difficult for a black man with a conviction to get a job: “With respect to the individual being evaluated, we know that the more closely and individual matches along multiple dimensions of a stereotype, the more powerfully that stereotype will be activated. Racial stereotypes triggered by the appearance of a young black man (already containing an age, race, and gender profile) are further intensified by the revelation of his criminal past. Subtle and perhaps unconscious concerns about black applicants are at once confirmed, weakening any incentive to give a young black man the benefit of the doubt.”  This stigma impacts Black men simply because society almost expects young Black men to be dangerous criminals.  This message is taught to us in a very subtle manner, so we feel guilty when we assume this about individuals, but once we know for a fact that they have been to prison, our initial suspicion is supported, and we feel we are allowed to act on our suspicion.  This double dose of discrimination is especially unfair for those that have gone to prison for something small, such as drug possession, have the skills necessary to hold a job, and are still turned down.  It often leads to participation in more criminal activity, leading them back to jail. 

How do we resolve such a problem?  Cook County has come up with a program that may help. http://chicagocrusader.com/news-detail.aspx?newsid=919 This program allows for non-violent, first time offenders to enter a year-long program that will provide the offender with several programs and services to help them adjust to “life on the outside”, such as job training, GED courses, and drug and alcohol treatment programs.  If offenders can make it a year through the program without reoffending, their felony will be wiped from their record.  This allows for these offenders to have a brand new start, not only by providing them with the skills they may be missing, but also allowing them to continue life without the stigma of conviction following them around.  This program would benefit not only the offenders themselves, but also their communities.  It allows for more people to be productive members of society, helping the communities economy, as well as making it a safer place.

Minorities in the Media

In Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?, Beverly Daniel Tatum discusses the costs of racism, and how we can fight against it.  One section in this book called “It’s That Stuff Again: Developing a Critical Conscience” discusses the importance of teaching children to recognize signs of racism, sexism and classism in popular culture.  She emphasizes that children are “are better able to resist the negative impact of oppressive messages when [they] see them coming than when they are invisible to [them].”
 I’ve recently come across an interesting method of looking at how well popular culture represents females in minorities in the Bechdel test.  The Bechdel Test, originally created by Allison Bechdel to show the underrepresentation of women in movies, has three simple rules:  1. There must be two or more female characters, 2. Who talk to each other, 3. About something other than a man.  Most people don’t really notice how much pop culture really ignores women until you apply this test to popular films.  Looking at lists that show how many movies are actually able to pass this test, women’s representation is pretty low. http://bechdeltest.com/ 
But, when you change the rules to apply to POC, you can see that it’s even worse. http://theangryblackwoman.com/2009/09/01/the-bechdel-test-and-race-in-popular-fiction/ In this post, Johnson points out how difficult it is for most movies and TV shows to pass the first rule, let alone the other two.  How many movies have you seen recently that feature more than two characters who aren’t white?  While this test doesn’t give us an idea of the quality of the movie, or even whether it has racist undertones, it does shed light on a problem in pop culture.  Because minorities are underrepresented in pop culture, it sends out the message that their thoughts and ideas aren’t important, that only interaction between white males are important enough to be represented.  It perpetuates the idea that minorities are lesser than whites, an idea that may be given less power if people in Hollywood realized what they were doing.

In the film Examined Life, Kwame Anthony Appiah argues for the importance of being a "world citizen", and presents what he believes is the best way to become a world citizen.  

When we walk through an airport, we see more people then some of our ancestors saw in a lifetime.  While our ancestors could get away with possibly interacting with only the people that are "built-in" to their lives, such as family and friends, people today must deal with the challenge of not only caring for these people, but also caring for others on a global scale.  With so many people populating the world, especially with the limited resources we have, we can't live in our isolated bubbles anymore.  We're bound to interact, and the more pleasant and symbiotic these relationships are, the easier it will be for us to share our limited resources.  But how do we make these interactions pleasant and symbiotic, especially since many of the cultures we need to interact with are so different from our own?  

Many people approach it from a standpoint that their way is the right way, which belittles the people they are interacting with.  Another method, invented by Franz Boas, is using the idea of cultural relativism, or the idea that one must view people's beliefs through the lens of the culture they live in.  In other words, one should not judge the beliefs of others, until one understands their culture.  

In his talk, Appiah addresses two different kinds of cultural relativism.  One is a sort of laissez-faire attitude, in which everyone simply accepts cultures for what they are.  While this attitude does make interactions more pleasant, it does nothing to improve different cultures.  We all remain stagnant, because we don't even discuss our differences.  Appiah suggests a different kind of cultural relativism, one in which everyone is correct, in a sense, but the differences between us are also discussed.  The goal is not necessarily to change the other person, it's more an effort to understand, as well as be understood.  This method not only keeps most interactions with other cultures pleasant, it also encourages us as people to really look at ourselves, as well as take a good look at separate cultures.  Through this, both sides are more likely to improve, without the bullying mindset that some "my way or the highway" people would bring to these conversations.

I've always wondered how exactly to deal with cultures dramatically different from my own, especially dealing with things within the culture I may not agree with.  I feel like using Appiah's version of cultural relativism could be useful in these instances.  This way, the other culture feels respected, and I'm still able to introduce my views to them.  I think it also reminds us that our culture isn't perfect either, and can be improved by listening to what people of other cultures disagree with when it comes to our culture.  Hopefully, I can use this idea when interacting with people in I Have A Dream, since the way I grew up is so much different from the way they have.