Everything's better when it's parodied! -
I did not think Gyote’s “Somebody that I used to know” could get anymore amazing…
That is until Samberg and Killam digital shorted the heck out of it. Oh My.
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White Privelege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack -
I am thinking that we need to lobby to have Peggy Mcintosh’s self revelation about her privilege as a white woman read into the ear of every new white baby that is born. What do you say? cut the umbilical chord and then a short recitation? I’m thinking it would be truly beneficial…
and for those who engage more with social commentary through the use of imagery, here’s one persons take on the invisible knapsack that makes a whole lot of sense in a simple way:
http://elusis.livejournal.com/1744514.html
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“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding… And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy”
- Kahlil Gibran “The Prophet”
I was driving home from work the other day and I heard this song come on the radio. Not knowing who it was entirely but having a vague idea that Chris Brown was in it I waited to hear who the featured artist was. The DJ announced that the song was the bi-product of a Chris Brown and Rihanna collaboration. For a minute I was shocked, and then I realized that despite Rihanna being financially independent of her abuser, not residing within the same residence as her abuser, having been separated from her abuser for some time now…she is still susceptible to the same statistical reality that women who survive intimate partner violence will return to their abusers because of the psychological conditioning that abuse has on our understanding of what we are worth and deserve.
This post is not to pick on Rihanna, her decisions are her own. My hope is that her lived experience of violence that was publicized for all to see and her discussions thereafter about not staying silent about the issue — help bring her to back to a place that does not forfeit her own self-respect.
The cycle of abuse is something that needs to be understood, and I am not saying that this Rihanna and Chris Brown collaboration will be the cause of thousands of people staying in or returning to abusive relationships but the use of these two songs, to be dismissive and romanticize an abusive relationship by hyper sexualizing it and using omissions of love as if nothing had happened, is a disservice to the people who might have drawn strength from Rihanna’s discussions of empowering oneself after being brutalized.
To anyone who is currently going through or has been through or is thinking of returning to a relationship where they are berated with verbal abuse or silenced through physical means, please look at the cycle of abuse and understand that abusers are charismatic beings who manipulate our feelings of vulnerability and understand that by following an abusive act with a compassionate gesture, that the survivor (I do not like the term victim) is drawn into this cyclical process of belief that things get better, because these micro instances of “regret” shown by the abuser in their eyes will lead to an entire transformation that renders the aggressor forever apologetic. The reality is it will not.
I cannot go to work everyday and support survivors of intimate partner abuse and then listen to this trite returning from a shift, and not say something.
NEVER SETTLE. BATTLE FOR WHAT YOU ARE TRULY WORTH. LET THEM BE THE DESTRUCTION OF THEMSELVES AND NOT YOU. LET THIS BE THE CONSTRUCTION OF A STRONGER SENSE OF SELF.
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Subhan’Allah!