social politics

Sunshine

admin — Tue, 04 May 2010 12:11:00 +0000

The doors have been flung wide open when it comes to the liberation of the modern day mother. Well, they are cracked considerably wider than they were thirty-five years ago at least. Gestating for ten years now, Sunshine, a film by Karen Skloss, eloquently portrays just how much our attitudes toward motherhood and family dynamics have changed over the past several decades.

Skloss’s film is deeply personal yet not so focused on navel gazing that the viewer can’t glean some social commentary from it. In the movie, she explores her past as someone who was given up for adoption in 1975 by an unwed, college-aged woman. Jump ahead slightly and Skloss becomes a single mother. In this day and age, her story is one that perhaps we don’t think twice about. Sure, most would readily admit that being a single mother is incredibly difficult, but it happens all the time, right? Fortunately, Sunshine shows us exactly in what ways the times have changed.

The story of Skloss’s life begins with her biological mother, Mary, who was from a fairly prominent Texas family. In 1975, Mary left home for college and became pregnant. When Skloss interviews Mary for this film, she confesses that the night she conceived Skloss is the same night she lost her virginity. Because the possibility of keeping a child would have been out of the question for her family, Mary had to check into a home for unwed mothers where she kept her pregnancy quiet, delivered the baby, gave her up for adoption, and then returned to a more acceptable path.

The film does not move in chronological order, and Skloss jostles the spotlight to her own experiences as a single mother. Gone are the days where it’s okay to refer to children as "bastards" if they don’t have married parents, but do we still judge moms who go it alone? Skloss herself admits that she looked down on single mothers before she became one. In writing this review, I almost stated that I felt being a single mother was acceptable yet unfortunate in today’s world, but Skloss' words made me pause to rethink that judgment.

When presented with Mary's father, a very conservative man with traditional values, Skloss tries to get him to open up about what happened with the adoption, but he becomes silent. Right or wrong, his values are in stark contrast to many of the young children interviewed for the film. Young girls and boys espouse their progressive views of marriage and the ability for women to make their own choices, whether it’s to have a family after getting married or to have a family without being married. With segments of Mary's father interspersed with clips of the children, it’s as if Skloss is saying that this is what was and this is what is to come. And by comparing her own experience with Mary's, Sunshine gives us both ends of the spectrum.

It’s difficult to see where these changing social attitudes are leading us. Children nowadays are learning that there are more options than the traditional family, and one can only hope those options move us toward a better place where we aren’t so confined, and where those who want children can focus on raising them in their own loving way.

Sunshine premieres tonight on PBS.

Written by: Beverly Jenkins-Crockett, May 4th 2010

Mythmakers and Lawbreakers: Anarchist Writers on Fiction

admin — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 01:00:00 +0000

Edited by Margaret Killjoy

AK Press

When the term “anarchy” is heard, most people think of the “circle-A” graffiti on crumbling buildings and the T-shirts of punk rock kids, or else imagine a state of complete lawlessness and the breakdown of society. Popular culture does nothing to dispel these collective thoughts. In theory and philosophy, anarchy refers to the absence of a state or rulers and a society in which there is no vertical hierarchy of class, but instead a horizontal equality of societal participants. Margaret Killjoy, the editor of Steampunk Magazine and an avowed anarchist, collected fourteen interviews with varying writers in the compact book Mythmakers and Lawbreakers; the common thread between the featured writers is that each is a professed anarchist, writes positively about anarchist societies, or maintains anarchist sympathies.

Reading each of the interviews, I quickly learned that there are as many varying definitions of anarchy as there are practitioners and theorizers. There is a vague commonality of a desire to see an end to free-market capitalism and democracy (the writers interviewed are mostly American and British) and the desire for complete equality and a gift- or barter-based economy, but otherwise each author has his or her own personal philosophy as it ties in to the theory of anarchy. This is not a criticism, and it does not seem as if anarchists are so loosely connected as to not have any sense of community at all. Rather, it appears as if there are just factions within the anarchist community, perhaps comparable to American democracy's political parties. Each interview in its turn is wholly fascinating to read, as the subjects are certainly outside of the mainstream, literature-wise. The most recognizable names are feminist sci-fi author Ursula K. LeGuin, graphic novel writer Alan Moore, fantasy writer Michael Moorcock, and eco-feminist/neo-pagan author Starhawk.

Margaret Killjoy (who, despite his traditionally feminine moniker, is male) is mostly interested in learning from his interview subjects how they define the intersection of anarchy and fiction, or how anarchist sympathies have defined their writing. This may be considered the theme of the book, although each writer tends to wax tangential about choice pet subjects rather than directly answering the question asked. Killjoy is an obvious fan of each featured writer and brings his own knowledge of anarchy and literature to the fore in his prepared and improvised questions.

One common thread throughout the varying writers' remarks is anarchy and its benefit to feminism. Anarchy would necessitate a breakdown of the patriarchy and optimally result in full equality of citizens. This is a beautiful idea, but I'm perhaps too cynical to accept that this could be the case; I tend to believe that peoples' inherent prejudices would still rule the day, resulting in unequal divisions of labor and other gender discrimination. This and other queries and criticisms occurred to me while learning more about the varying schools of thought in anarchist philosophy. Its practitioners, at least within Killjoy's book, are very idealistic and enthusiastic about their ideas, but also seem to think that these ideas could easily be instituted as the prevailing societal norm. This to me seems hopelessly naive. However, the book itself, the interviewees, and Margaret Killjoy are all refreshingly intelligent and passionate about their work and politics.

Written by: Natalie Ballard, January 23rd 2010

Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers

admin — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:39:00 +0000

By Tom Wolfe

Picador

Radical Chic, noun: a small clique of the New York upper elite who, in order to appear groundbreakingly fashionable, support social movements and causes which ironically are at odds with the morays inherent to their identity

Mau-mau, verb: to stubbornly and meticulously badger someone into supporting a cause; to petition while using one’s minority identity in such a way that a member of a majority is left without rebuttal

Flak Catcher, noun: poorly paid and hardly respected public officials who are often used as human shields to protect their bosses from mau-mauing (see definition)

Beginning Tom Wolfe’s collection of two essays Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, I admit I knew very little. Who or what was the radical chic? What was mau-mauing? Why were flak catchers on catching end? A child born long after the '60s, I had little beyond a layperson’s knowledge of Wolfe’s other eccentrically long titles—something involving Kool-Aid, acid, and some sort of test.

Upon concluding the book, I’m happy to admit that I now know infinitely more, not only about the kooky title, but also about race relations in the 1960s, the Black Panther movement, and the infamous evening that brought the hypocrisy of the highest New York socialites to the nation’s attention. With a constantly tongue-in-cheek tone, Wolfe walks the reader through the dinner party hosted by Leonard and Felicia Bernstein in 1970 in his essay “Radical Chic” and through the methods employed by minority groups to petition the local government of San Francisco in “Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers.” On both coasts and with two different populations, Wolfe holds up a mirror to the duplicity, irony, and hilarity of race relations.

I couldn’t help laughing as Wolfe aptly described the wonderfully humorous scenarios: Roquefort cheese balls served to dinner guests in black leather, rich Jewish party-goers writing checks for an anti-Semitic organization, minority leaders protesting against a white government for their failure to follow through, then failing to follow through with their own protests. Wolfe’s style is disarming and feels truthful, as if he’s the only person who sees each situation for what it actually is, and the actions, desires, and blind spots he reveals in people of every ethnicity serve to both humble and unite them.

Both essays were highly enjoyable, and as someone far removed from the 1960s, New York, and San Francisco, I can only imagine they would be even more interesting to someone with firsthand knowledge of those locales during this time period. Although the book was essentially about how people tried to deal with difference, I turned the last page feeling more akin to each person’s fumbling portrayal regardless of race. The best part of Wolfe’s writing is the recognition that he himself is part radical chic, part mau-mauer, and part flak-catcher. We all are, to varying degrees, and as long as there is a satirist to expose our foibles and peccadilloes, we should keep hosting parties to provide hilarity for the audiences of the following decades.

Written by: Melissa Ablett, October 12th 2009