Tag Archives: RCL

Poetry as Activism

If you’re wondering why my blog post is starting off with 3 random youtube videos,  just give me a second to explain.

For around a year now, I’ve been a pretty big fan of spoken word/slam poetry, which is basically poetry written with the intent to be performed in front of an audience, rather than read on paper. And generally, the intent of spoken word poetry goes beyond just the expression of an emotion of the description of an object or event – spoken word poets write with the intent to evoke thought, enact change, or raise awareness.

Check out one or two of the links I posted above (especially the first – it’s a personal favorite) to get a feel for the genre, especially if you’ve never come in contact with spoken word poetry before. The first deals with rape culture, the second with abortion, and the last with gender identity.

Spoken word poetry is one of many intersections between art and activism – and as it’s extremely personal, passionate, and interactive, I’d say it’s a very effective way to get an issue across to an audience.

In the first poem, “Blue Blanket” by Andrea Gibson, the realities of rape culture are conveyed in a way that’s much more effective than most logical approaches could deliver. Poetry appeals primarily to pathos – therefore, for emotional issues like rape, or abortion, or gender identity, poetry serves as a highly effective platform to convey complex issues to a broad audience and help to stir up a movement.

For me, when I heard “Blue Blanket” for the first time, I was struck especially by the last line “She’s not asking what you’re gonna tell your daughter/ She’s asking what you’re gonna teach your son” because for the first time I realized how skewed rape education is; We focus so much on telling girls not to walk alone at night, to always be careful, to avoid riding elevators alone, etc. and spend very little time focusing on teaching boys to respect women, and making sure they understand the  gravity of sexual assault.

Just food for thought and something to look into – poetry isn’t everyone’s thing, I know, but I’ve found that it’s hard to watch a substantial amount of slam poetry and not, at the very least, be moved to rethink your perspective.

Close, but no Cigar

Today I went to the free Cobra Starship concert in honor of my middle school obsession with the band (it was middle school don’t judge!). Aside from it being a terrible concert and a general waste of time (especially considering the rough draft I had yet to write), I found the premise of the concert interesting.

Like most free concerts, this show was funded by an organization backing a cause; namely, it was funded by the organization “the truth” which aims to educate teenagers and college students on the dangers of tobacco usage.

Now this I have no issue with – I would agree that it’s good to inform teens of the negative health effects of tobacco. What I did have an issue with was how they went about this.

If you go to the organization’s website (thetruth.com), you will find that they clearly state multiple times that their goal is not to tell kids not to smoke. They claim they are not against smokers, that they merely want the facts to be clear and on the table.

However, as the concert progressed, I realized that there was considerably more to it than that. During what I can’t help but assume were purposefully long breaks between acts (I attend a lot of concerts – these breaks were unnecessary), a series of very strange and quite honestly disturbing images played on the big screens on either side of the stage, all of which were aimed in some way at building a very dark and negative view of the tobacco industry.

But I’m not talking the typical “your lungs are filled with tar” images – these were much stranger and more random than that. At one point, there was a frog’s head on human legs bouncing up and down, with a speech bubble above it giving some fact about how ammonia is used to clean toilets and also used in cigarettes. And every piece of information was delivered in an equally random and disturbing manner.

Between facts about tobacco usage, however, were images clearly condemning tobacco usage. The word “SCUM” flashed across the screen over top of a psychedelic background reminiscent of the 60’s or 70’s. Sculls were a ubiquitous component of every scene. And every few minutes a short clip of demented pseudo-humans killing people and stuffing them in body bags would run.

All in all, I found the propaganda more than a little disturbing and, considering their strong assurance that they were not “anti smoking” just “pro facts”, maybe a tad hypocritical…not to mention that I’m sure the members of Cobra Starship all smoke themselves.

I just don’t think that the concert was an effective way to prevent teens from smoking, and I don’t feel dramatically more informed on the issue by any means. It was way too weird and extreme to be effective – I was more concerned with why a demented chicken head had a human body than what that demented chicken head was supposed to be saying.

This is one campaign that just really failed to click with its audience. Better luck next time, I suppose.

Restore the Roar

At the risk of sounding trite, I wanted to get into that whole “Penn State students dropped the F bomb at the Temple game” issue this week. I know anyone with a Facebook has seen countless news posts and poorly worded comment-wars on the subject, but I wanted to throw in my two cents anyway.

I get it – Temple did the same thing to us last year, it’s just a part of college football (or any sport) to do a fair share of bashing the opposing team. I don’t think it was necessarily “out of line” that foul language started to fly – in the past, that would be completely acceptable.

However, this isn’t the past. After last year’s scandal, Penn State and the students here are under a microscope. There are signs and t-shirts all over campus bearing the logo “Restore the Roar” – and it’s going to take more than pride and a good football season to recover from all the bad press we’ve received. Our “Roar” isn’t coming back without a fight.

Other universities may be able to afford to be rude, they can afford to curse at opposing teams. But when we (the class of 2016 especially) made the decision to come here, we became citizens of the Penn State community – and therefore it is our civic duty to do everything in our power to restore the reputation of that community.

I think it’s funny how so many students here are so willing to talk about their Penn State pride, to talk about how we’re not falling back no matter what, but when it comes time to represent their school they are unwilling to make small sacrifices – even as small as holding back the “F” bomb in a public setting like a football game.

Being civic involves at least a touch of selflessness – or at least the absence of selfishness. We are all part of a larger community, and, as such, we as individuals must be willing to compromise for the good of that community.

Women, Fish, Men, and Bicycles

On move in day, back what feels like a couple millennia ago, I was pleasantly surprised to find that my room mate has exceptional taste in decorations. Specifically, posters. More specifically, even, is one poster in particular, which features an image of a fish riding a bicycle with the humorous quote “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.”

Now, I’m not your stereotypical feminist or anything like that, but I did find this poster quite appealing. For one, it has a very simple design which draws the eye. But more than that, I think the slogan very effectively makes the point that women do not, in fact, need men, and that it makes it in an amusing fashion.

A fish without a bicycle is the exact state in which you would expect to find a fish; it’s natural. So by comparing the fish without a bicycle to a woman without a man, the poster makes the argument that women in their most natural state do not necessarily need men. And by using such a ridiculous comparison, it illuminates the absurdity of ever assuming that a woman needed a man to be complete in the first place.

I guess I like the poster so much because it’s a nice reminder – when society blasts us with the idea that every woman should either be happily settling herself in with a man, or else busy hunting one down, it can be hard to sit back and enjoy a little independence every now and again.

What would a fish do without a bicycle? Well, it would probably do the same thing it would do with a bicycle: be itself. So it stands to reckon that a woman should do the same – just be herself, regardless of whether or not she has a man to validate her.

Do The Right Thing (Finally)

At first I didn’t like “Do the Right Thing” – it was vaguely uncomfortable to watch. But then I realized that was the point – the racial tensions in the movie made me uneasy because as much as I would like to think that the world is a better, racism-reduced place, it’s not.

And the thing about racism is that it’s seeped in hate and ignorance. So as much as I would love to say “if Sal and Buggin’ Out could have just talked things out, everything would have been different,” I don’t think that’s true in the slightest. The thing about hate, especially racial hate, is that it defies logic and cool-headed reasoning. Sal could have presented the most rhetorically sound argument possible and Buggin’ Out wouldn’t have been any more convinced than if he screamed “I’ll do what the *$%&# I want!” That’s just the nature of hate.

I guess the issue is that once hatred is established it becomes almost impossible to surpass it – strong, illogical emotion is more difficult to uproot than argument can battle. So at that point, the question becomes is violence inevitable? Or can it be avoided?

The “simple” solution to avoiding violence in “Do the Right Thing” would almost appear to be a willful separation between the blacks of the neighborhood and the italians – if Sal’s pizzeria wasn’t frequented primarily by blacks, there never would have been an issue (then again, he wouldn’t have had any business).

The more complex issue comes into play when dealing with the civic duty of the individuals involved: Was it Sal’s civic duty to put at least one black person on his hall of fame, if only to keep the peace? Perhaps we all owe our societies a bit of compromise as citizens…After all, with the tiniest bit of give and take, Sal could have saved his pizzeria and avoided the explosion of violence that rocked the neighborhood.