Public microagression& rejection (Parks& Rec)

Aggression lives under many identities: passive, blatant, physical, verbal, cyber, political, economic, hidden.  It also thrives in many homes; it festers in workplaces, businesses, schools, public, homes, on the global stage, and even in Hollywood.

Professor Sue clarified that microaggression, the "unconscious" usage of "racial epithets" to reinforce feelings of "superiority and inferiority," is just as prevalent as macroaggression, the only difference being that microaggression is harder to find since it is affixed behind a facade of cultural conformity.  In its more obvious form, aggression stems from nations butting heads like quarreling siblings.  When North Korea gets new, shiny, nuclear toys, so should America.  When Mexicans keep going into the US's room without permission, the only solution is to lock the door (or wall).

Aggression moves towards discreetness in the case of the Chinese one-child policy, which forces the growing population in while kicking girls out.  This misogynistic state of mind persists elsewhere: in the workforce.  When women take maternity leave, they are labeled as "weak" and are passed up for promotions.  When they cut their leaves short, they run the risk of insufficient childcare, as in most states, men are not granted leaves for newborn children (and women are subsequently expected to be the sole caregiver).

Or how about the fact that girls are expected—no, required—to wear a dress to our own school's graduation?  Of course, this dress shouldn't be too suggestive, as to avoid being a "distraction."  Remember ladies, we wear dresses to refine the keep-your-legs-closed mindset "proper" women have; if we are raped it must be because we failed ourselves.

How about the fact that there is nearly no representation of diversified culture in mainstream media? Or, when there is, it's done by white actors, white writers, and white producers?  Even worse, what about our alienization of Native Americans on our stadiums and baseball jerseys?  In doing this, we are literally putting them on the same level as animals: bluejays, seahawks, broncos, bears. Native American "Redskin" culture has been stomped out by modern culture for so long, it's no wonder that our divisible nation, with liberty and justice for some, is barely fazed by objections to derogatory mascots and oil pipelines. Americans may have gotten the whole "no taxation without representation" thing down, but I think we still have a while to go before we can get to "no representation without consultation."  

this reminded me of Sue's comments of the "no, where
are you really from" experiences all too familiar to
all people of color

Raising Smartphones (Raising Hope)

In 1969, the first message was sent between the Interface Message Processors at UCLA and Stanford University.  The internet was born.  The world—and how its people interacted with each other—became forever altered.  In a whirlwind of innovation, computers, microchips, cell phones, smartphones, laptops, WiFi, social media, sprung up like incessant Twitter notifications.  We became obsessed with complete strangers, checking in on them (for even trivial matters) more than we check in on our own families....

nice to see where journalism has gone in
recent years (how can you blame them, though,
when reputable print sources are being phased out
for digitized attention getters)

With the internet, great things happened: knowledge became streamlined and more efficient,  awareness for worthy causes have been able to come into the public eye, and companies have gotten their starts.  People have been given a voice, proliferating the melting pot (or proverbial group chat) of America. But that's not to say that the internet is perfect; in fact, it's far from it.  

Our world has spiraled down into a "cultural anomaly" state of dependence.  Kids are handed "smart"  devices before they learn to tie their shoes.  Our phones go everywhere with us—which is probably why they carry more bacteria than a public restroom's toilet seat.  When the internet goes blank, so do we.  To put it simply: the internet has killed communication.  

The internet has taught us how to live under 140 word limits and 10 second time constraints.  We like to rush through things, scrolling quickly while getting the most information possible—so much so that we tend to scroll past the people and world events in our lives, too.  In the darkness of 1 a.m. browsing, we're trained to be careless and impatient.  Reaching hundreds, thousands, or even millions of fellow internet dwellers at once, we've never been so alone.  

Or, even when we think we are alone, we might not be.  Webcams, public WiFi, online transactions, and dating websites are feeding grounds for cyber security threats and deception.  We allow ourselves to be lulled into a false sense of security from behind a 13" screen and a backlit keyboard, thinking the "best action...is not to be worried" as strangers hack away at our safety.  

The digitization of our world has made us believers in a society without consequences.  Just hit "delete" and all mistakes will be erased. Or let them run viral.  After all, our culture seems to idolize poor behavior.  Take the "How Bow That" girl whose claim to fame came from an exiguous middle-school-dropout education and a violent streak.  

We've been confined to the radius of available network connection for nearly all of our lives, trapped under a net of virtual social obligations.  It's hard to realize how much we rely on the internet until we are faced with, say, a power outage or data overage charges; it's also hard to admit how many excuses we are willing to make for why we rely on it so much: "I'm bored," "I can't sleep,"  "I was curious about something," "I need it for ____".  In the end, the internet won't be going away anytime soon, but what might go in its place is even scarier: our humanity.