7/30 Mental Illness in the Media

Mental Illness in the Media
July 30th, 7pm Ellis Library 3G61

Please read the NAMI article, and then pick a few articles from each category.

Facts:
**What is mental Illness – NAMI

Half of Us (Specifically aimed towards college students)

Stigma:
Called Manic Depression or Bipolar Disorder Stigma Persists

No Halloween Psychos

Black Men and Depression (video)

ZAMBIA: Mental illness sufferers shunned and isolated

Parallels Between Mental Illness and Sexual Violence Advocacy

Pop Culture/Media:
Target Women: Medicine (video)

Blogging Against Disablism: Bloody Torchwood

Harry Potter & Mental Illness

Britney Spears, Mental Illness and the Tabloids

Just Watch (pop culture):
Wednesday July 29th, 6pm-11, Amy's Apartment
This is a list of episodes I think would be good examples, all are about an hour long. We don't have to watch everything, whatever people are interested in or what we have time for.

Torchwood: Adrift

Monk: Mr Monk Takes His Medicine

Mental: Manic at the Disco

The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive (Stephen Fry)

House: Simple Explanation


Discussion Questions:
1. What are the stereotypes you have heard associated with mental illness? Does society have varying levels of “acceptability” for different mental illnesses? In what ways is this stigma perpetuated?
2. What are common themes about mental illness in the media? How realistic is it? How do these portrayals increase/decrease stigma?
3. Telling real life stories of mental illness is theoretically one way to combat stigma. How important/effective do you think this approach is? How does it change your perception of someone to learn that they have a mental illness?
4. How might these stereotypes affect people's willingness to seek help?
5. What role does mental health play in our individual fields? How does it related to education, feminism, genocide, sustainability, etc?
6. Working with social justice issues can take an emotional toll, or cause burn out. What can we do for self-care?

Transcultural Memory

I just read this blog about "Transcultural Memory" and it poses this question:

In an age of globalization, is it still possible to speak of local and national memory, or do the local and national always exist in implicit and explicit dialogue with the transnational? cCheck this link out and share your thoughs and think about the meeting when we talked about culture appropriation.

http://memoryrhetor.blogspot.com/2009/06/updatememory-conference.html

Topic Follow-Ups

People have been sending me some great articles on previous topics that I want to share!

Environmental Justice:
Greening the Internet: How much CO2 does this article produce?
Karma Credits

Legal Justice for Rape Victims/Rape Culture:
California officer admits to sexual assault while on duty
Why Do We Rape, Kill and Sleep Around?

Potter Fans for Social Justice!

feminine hygiene products & justice

The disposable hygiene products used during menstruation are a great example of the connections between environmental justice, health, and feminism.

From the feminist perspective, these disposal products are sold to women by convincing them that their menstrual cycle and vagina is dirty and needs to be cleaned up. In reality, women are exposing themselves to harmful chemicals (like dioxin) and risking their health in the pursuit of "cleanliness".

This is a great article on the health and environmental effects of these products, as well as alternatives: Green Your Period

7/23 Colonialism

RESCHEDULED for August 6th

Colonialism is complex. It's more than facts or figures, it's much more about emotions than it is about economics.

I tried to choose the articles below as carefully as possible to let you understand colonialism, and be able to apply it to yourselves.

You don't have to read all of them, but please do read this section from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (esp. that last paragraph):

http://homepages.nyu.edu/~sr1420/SJ/Heart%20of%20Darkness.pdf

It is very important to know the difference between colonialism and imperialism. This article is a good summary of Lenin's take on Imperialism, which is a better example than either Hobson or Schumpeter IMO.

http://homepages.nyu.edu/~sr1420/SJ/Lenin%20and%20Imperialism.pdf

Just read the 3 pages on Lenin, you're probably already familiar with Schumpeter's idea [ie. imperialism is natural], and Lenin incorporates Hobson.

Now that I've given you an idea as to how to seperate colonialism and imperialism, we can move on to what colonialism really is with the following:

"Creating" history to make and later enforce racial hierarchies, that are perpetuated after the death of colonialism:

http://homepages.nyu.edu/~sr1420/SJ/BSWM.pdf

There are few writers as talented and as powerful as Frantz Fanon. Here he discusses how he tries to break out of the "history" that has been created for him by the colonist, and how he is subverted at every turn. It's good to have some background on him since his actual ideas are rather strong. Fanon was born in Martinique, a French colony. He was a psychiatrist (heavily influenced by Freud) and later a philosopher/rebel fighter in the Algerian War of Independence.

Manufacturing a working class:

http://homepages.nyu.edu/~sr1420/SJ/Cooper%20Docks.pdf

This is a very quick summary of how ideas of a working class were introduced to Mombasa. This is only a review, but it gives you an idea about how this is a process of give and take, and not just one of domination and submission

Saving the longest for last.

Locating the Tensions of Empire: The Problem of Reproduction

http://homepages.nyu.edu/~sr1420/SJ/CCV.pdf

It's a bit long and a bit scattered, but it's a good article on how reproduction, gender, and class are so intricately linked in colonialism. I think it gets a bit confusing at the end, but just try to understand why colonialism ended using this framework.

Discussion Questions:

What do you think is the idea that drives colonialism? And how does "efficiency" factor into it?

Why are racist hierarchies formed within a colony, and how/why are they exported?

How are Lenin's idea and Cooper's work (dock workers) linked? [Essentially how does imperialism work with colonialism?]

As Cooper suggests colonialism is more than simple domination or hegemony. But how does that fit into the seemingly one sided creation and maintenance of racism? Is there any push back from those being categorized?

Social networking the good and the bad?

So I signed up to recieve google alerts for all things genocide. They come everyday and I feel overwhelmed about the amount of information, but I can't quite get myself to erase the ones I have not read. So today I have been catching up and I stumbled on this article.

At one of the meetings, I think we had talked about the power of twitter and what was going on in Iran. It was pretty revolutionary (definetly cool) but in all honesty most people could not have told you where Iran was on a map. (Bill Mahher said that previous to twitter, most people might have concluded that iRan was a new app. for iphones!)

so, as we hurry to celebrate this small victory, lets consider the side effects. Anyway, read the article for yourself and share your thoughts.

7/16 Peer Education

Peer Education
Thursday July 16th, 7pm, Ellis Library 3G61

1. How do we strike a balance between “reaching people where they are”, providing the necessary level of education, and integrating social justice?
2. Does the addition of social justice concepts automatically turn people off to a topic?
3. Where is the line between directly offensive material and tacit support of injustice by failure to address an issue? Are both equally damaging?
4. What obligation does the Wellness Resource Center and Summer Welcome have to providing information in a social responsible way?
5. Does schmoozing increase one's ability to effect social change by reaching a larger audience, or does the compromise of values weaken the overall message?

Theory of Peer Education (pdf)

Wellness Resource Center (Look at Theoretical Approaches)

Social Norms Approach
1.How might social norm approaches apply to minority communities? If someone is already outside the “norm”, would this approach be as effective?

Unicef Peer Education

Situational Leadership

Social Justice Math

Sexual Assault Green Dot Program
1.What are the pros and cons of this approach in terms of effectiveness on both an individual level and a societal level?

Additional Resources

For anyone who is really interested in learning more about the commoditization/commodification of water in our world today, I highly recommend reading Blue Gold. The people directly impacted and their reaction to commoditization is also discussed with references to the Water Wars.

Blue Gold is written by Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke. You'll probably see Maude Barlow in Flow.

I would also like to suggest Imperial Nature: The World Bank and Struggles for Social Justice in the Age of Globalization, which allows the reader to understand the method in which the World Bank passively conjures and actively sells Neo-liberal ideology such as the privatization of utilties in third world countries.

Finally, this wonderfully impassioned article in The Washington Post by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about what the President can do to help with mountaintop removal. Most importantly Kennedy's discussion of why mountaintop removal does not help local economies is refreshing.

7/9 Environmental Justice

Flow
Tuesday July 7th, 7pm, Stewart 100

Irena Salina's award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century - The World Water Crisis.
Salina builds a case against the growing privatization of the world's dwindling fresh water supply with an unflinching focus on politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel.

Interviews with scientists and activists intelligently reveal the rapidly building crisis, at both the global and human scale, and the film introduces many of the governmental and corporate culprits behind the water grab, while begging the question "CAN ANYONE REALLY OWN WATER?"

Beyond identifying the problem, FLOW also gives viewers a look at the people and institutions providing practical solutions to the water crisis and those developing new technologies, which are fast becoming blueprints for a successful global and economic turnaround.

Environmental Justice Discussion
July 9th, 7pm, Ellis Library 3G61

Water
http://current.com/items/89062429_chinas-deadly-waters.htm
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/06/we-use-how-much-water.php
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/06/how-many-gallons-of-water.php

E-waste

Majora Carter on Urban Renewal (Great one to watch!)

Pollution

Kingston Tennessee Coal Ash Spill
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/06/05/tech/main5067128.shtml
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/25/us/25sludge.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=todayspaper

Public Transit

Communities for a Better Environment

Mountain Top Removal
http://www.ilovemountains.org/resources/#mtrcommunities
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2JSGVfP8Os&feature=player_embedded

Climate Change

Food

Questions to consider

What is environmental justice?
What connections can be drawn between environmental issues and problems in society?
Why aren’t environmental issues consider social justice issues many times?
What can we do to connect the environment to the broader social justice movement?

Exercise
Pick one issue (ie food, water, toxic waste, dumping grounds, etc) and see how many connections you can draw to social justice issues that stem from those sources, or lack there of.

Example: Water -> poor water quality (ie toxins in water) in poorer neighborhoods leads to more medical problems which leads to more trips to the doctor which leads to less money in the family which keeps people from moving, improving, or fixing their homes or neighborhoods and continuing the cycle.

The Stuff we use...

So I am really getting into recyling, I have been doing it for the past couple of years, but I am now taking it to a whole new level, I am going to start gardening and composting. I am going to buy energy friendly lightbulbs as well:-) By the way this is all per-advice of Pat, my energy savy friend hihihi. Anyway my friend Julie sent me this link and if you have time, watch it. It is about the stuff we use and where they come from and where they go. http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Mental Illness in Pop Culture

For our July 30th meeting we'll be discussing the stigma surrounding mental illness and how it is portrayed in the media. Although you're probably familiar with many pop culture examples, here a list of suggested shows/movies to watch:

Mental

House: Simple Explanation

Monk

United States of Tara

Movies: Girl Interrupted, A Beautiful Mind, The Hours, Rain Man

You don't need to watch everything, but just try to get a feel for the way the mentally ill are portrayed. When watching these, consider the ways in which it could increase/decrease stigma. I'll post the related articles closer to the date of the meeting.