Well, it’s Friday night and I am late to submit my blog (always being at 5 pm) since I procrastinated last night and have worked about a 9 hour shift today. I am having a really hard time deciding what to blog about, and so I scrolled through tumblr for inspiration. I found my inspiration, with a subtle undertone of fear. 

http://techland.time.com/2012/01/12/sopa-reddit-confirms-january-18-blackout-wikipedia-and-others-may-follow/#ixzz1jHT7Nu7l

In my Asian Pacific Americans in the Media class at ASU (APA 340) we have been focusing around a common theme that there are dominant voices and there are minority voices. In terms of mainstream media the dominant voice, which in America can be embodied as the white wealthy male in a suit behind a desk in the top level of a sky scraper in a metropolis, has a powerful influence over the way we as members of society shape our views of society itself. The minority voice, which in my interpretation is the voice of the individual him/herself, has always found it difficult to manifest their vision because of inaccessibility to media.

With the rise of the traveling internet, it is common for many people to have internet but have no TV, which in many ways is the most direct and dominant form of media there is. The internet has become an alternative place for people with oppressed ideas to voice their opinions. Without the internet, Angry Asian Man would not have been able to develop an enormous following and be considered a viable source for talking about race and social hierarchy short of buying a radio station. This is true for many others as well.

 The fear I spoke of earlier is the clenching grip of banning and censorship. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) which is written to strengthen copyright laws and fight online trafficking on copyrighted goods, especially against foreign websites. Now, I get wanting to protect people from getting their ideas stolen, which does happen, but this bill threatens to shut down entire domains. 

When we discussed the use of the internet to say opinions which wouldn’t normally be heard, we discussed how it is necessary for all voices to have an outlet. It is not just an outlet for those who have something good to say, but others who we may disagree with can still find people who agree with them. Although complete freedom of speech sounds like it has its drawbacks, such as people advocating hate and fear, this kind of discourse is necessary for people to have an unbiased opinion, and through the natural course of discussion, those perspectives that we relate to such as acceptance and love, will undoubtedly supersede those messages of hate. So you see, censorship is not necessary because, just as laissez-faire, the invisible hand of the economy, regulates the flow of money, the nature of discourse with keep the pool of the internet flowing.

What is the connection to SOPA? While the bill does not have anything to do with blocking free speech, the majority of this discourse that I spoke of circulates the internet. Many of the web domains that are used as a stage for discussing ethnicity, gender, government, and moral issues are found on sites such as Tumblr which is easily under the radar of SOPA. Bills like SOPA threaten the incubation chambers of our social discourse.

http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/category/black-in-america/

Last night while exploring the internet for worthy news topics, I came across a section on the CNN blog website titled “Black in America.” It is a television special highlighting African Americans and the struggle that they most often overcome, and the Black in America blog is an online outlet for articles about the show . I’d like to talk about some of these posts I saw, because I see these efforts as filling up the room for change that I have governed the purpose of this blog to. 

The first article I read is less attached to racial struggle and is more connected to the cultivation theory and the impact the media can have on us as children. It is written by Carolyn Edgar, a lawyer and a writer for social change. 

Rapper Too $hort has come out with a music video “how-to-turn-girls-out” with apparently quite suggestive and over the top lyrics. The music is targeted to young teenagers on how to get your girl off, but the writer, Carolyn Edgar, breaks it down pointing out that in reality, these lyrics are describing actions that can be interpreted as breaking many state and federal laws on the basis of sexual assault, misconduct and issues consent.

I absolutely agree that these kind of lyrics can have a negative impact on kids and their subtle understanding of the world, but Too $hort is just a platform for Carolyn’s argument, that the effect the media had before in building our perceptions (such as the asian kid being depicted as a nerd in commercials), has escalated into a much more blatant and inappropriate message. While it is easy to say that we have come along way in terms of social equality, racism, gender inequalities and religious bigotry is still flowering like weeds in between the cracks.

It is easy to get swept in the current and talk about all the negative things we can find in the media, and there is definitely a lot of it circulating around, but I am an optimist and I’d like to talk about another article on a study found on the Black in America blog.

Interracial Marriages are on the Rise!!

since the US supreme court struck down the ban on interracial marriages, the rate of these marriages has been on the rise. According to the recent study this article is based off of, not only is the rat eof these marriages rising, but the acceptance of these marriages in the General public is also on the rise. This is untoubtedlya sign of our culture on the rise towards a better tomorrow, but is does leave room for speculation. 

We have to ask ourselves, how long will it be before “interracial marraiges” are no longer considered newsworthy, and are considered normal. The taboos that have been established by the time span of the world at times are seemingly dissapating, but malicious intentions can always pervade. There is a fine line in the media between celebrating a subject and exploiting it.

angrywhistler:

Aron Demetz

This is the official documentary of a festival that I will be attending Memorial Day weekend. The Festival is called “Lightning In a Bottle” but I am posting this to address  a growing subculture that is seemingly overlooked by the majority of american culture and media.

our discussions in APA 340 revolve around how different races are represented in the media and how these representations solidify the prejudices that we all share at some level, whether we want to admit it or not. When trying to discuss race and how to overcome it, it is often difficult to find solutions:

When people try and ignore race, they can also ignore that persons culture which, depending on the individual, can be very important to their  self identification. Fear of race creates segregation and persecution, yet foreigners worry that later generations will have lost their cultural identity. In all this turmoil, it can be hard to find compromises.

The notion of a festival creates an environment where people can take themselves out of their everyday routines. Instead of identifying with others based on race or ethnicity, these people congregate because of a unifying belief that we can evolve as humans creatively, spiritually, artistically, and emotionally, where everyone has a common goal to celebrate life. 

Within the documentary one man talks about how for years different cultures have celebrated and danced to music, often time with masks. these ceremonies were meant to tie villages together and keep the close knit bonds strong. Today most ritual has gone down the drain, but the festival genre is keeping the ritual alive, absorbing and accepting different aspects from cultures and religions based on the understanding that we are all connected, and we are all right. 

While an slightly ignorant viewpoint might be to say “I don’t see color,” the mindset of the festival goer may be described as “I see your color, your color is different than mine, and we are both beautiful.”

It can be an uphill battle trying to advocate the festival genre scene. So much of what we know of as festivals (especially what i heard growing up) is painted as a hedonistic group of drug crazed people with low inhibitions. Burning man sounded like a place for Satan to spawn when I was a child, but Now I see it for what it is: A place where people congregate hoping to take each other to new heights. when you are surrounded by thousands of people who all feel the same way you do, an incredibly powerful energy manifests which everyone can feel and is conscious of. 

While the festival scene is not a race, it is a culture; a culture which is a collection of people from every race who all want to see past their differences. There are pockets of people in every state who are uniting for a greater cause. the Festival itself acts as a vehicle for conscious expansion. The festival takes you out of your comfort zone and forces you to evolve to your surroundings; and when we are taken out of our comfort zone is when we have the greatest room for internal discovery. Sometimes I feel that if this way of thinking can be extended to the whole population, there would be no evil.