so the new rowan ellis video was hm. pretty shallow and incohesive is that a new thing or were they always like that and I just didn't notice? been a some time and a few paradigm shifts for me since I watched any of her videos so I gen don't know

I think I've finally nailed down my biggest issue with the OFMD fandom.

It's important to represent queer joy and a struggle-free queer life in fiction, full of people who accept themselves for who they are. It's great to see queer characters living and loving happily, without self-hate.

Queer struggles are important too, and should be represented.

Those who struggled - often for years, while facing a horrifically repressive society that many of us young'uns cannot appreciate - to come to terms with their queerness have worth. Those who were afraid to come out, for whatever reason, deserve representation too.

Likewise, it's important to represent disabled joy and a struggle-free disabled life in fiction - for all sorts of disabilities, but especially for those who have congenital issues that they may not consider disabilities, as they don't inherently cause deleterious side-effects like chronic pain or fatigue (i.e., many d/Deaf folks and folks with facial differences. Not so much a 'knee brace' that is literally just fanon. Don't give writers credit for creating a disabled main character if they refuse to acknowledge him as such, and his 'aid' was literally a fashion accessory that he gives to his boyfriend at one point to complete his 'look' when they're dressing up as each other. Signed: someone who actually wears knee braces lmaooooo)

But guess what.

Disabled struggles are important to represent, too.

For many of us in the (incredibly diverse and varied) disabled community, disability hit us like a truck of bricks. I went from being an incredibly fit and active young person, to being a young person who often literally cannot move their legs, because they're stuck partially out of socket at the hip and any movement is agony, or because my spinal problems mean they're spasming so hard that walking is impossible, or they're simply unable to hold my (very light) weight. A lot of us are in a significant amount of pain that able-bodied people cannot even imagine, day after day after day. A lot of us were traumatised by our disabilities. A lot of us took a long time to accept and love ourselves.

Our disabilities aren't loved. They're horrific. They're hated. They're something we continuously will be struggling with throughout our lives.

And we deserve rep, too.

And we will be upset, when that rep follows an arc that greatly mirrors what a lot of us go through, only to still say they want to die.

When a show has lots of queer rep and disabled rep, that's great. But you have to ask: what types of queer and disabled rep are they showcasing? What types are they allowing to live? What types of queer/disabled rep do they consider to have 'served their narrative purpose' when they finally attain a stage of queer/disabled joy and self-love that the other characters are on? What message does that send?

Your fave show is not above criticism, especially from the marginalised groups it is trying to represent.

At last: a shake-up, a crack in the wall, a challenge to the canon, a change to the same old list-making business of reshuffling the same old names in a slightly different order at the top.

Sight and Sound magazine has announced the result of its latest decennial Greatest Film of All Time critics’ poll and Chantal Akerman’s radically austere, disturbing and brilliant 1975 film Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is in with a bullet at No 1. This is the eerily unsettling and mesmeric three-hour-plus account of a single mother’s apparently banal life in real-time long takes, which progressively disclose an awful secret. With a fierce, cold, sustained blaze, the movie speaks to contemporary issues and questions: housework as work, sex work as work, the burden of motherhood and caregiving, the theatre of bourgeois respectability, the terrible loneliness of domestic life and female marginalisation, the unnoticed ubiquity of power and violence.

Jeanne Dielman makes this the first time a female director has been admitted to this exclusive gold medallists’ club. It has hitherto had only three members: Vittorio de Sica (Bicycle Thieves in 1952), Orson Welles (Citizen Kane in 1962, 1972, 1982, 1992 and 2002) and Alfred Hitchcock (Vertigo in 2012). Now Akerman has joined them and, like Hitchcock, did not live to see this triumph, having died in 2015.

A lot has happened in the cultural conversation since the last poll in 2012, when Hitchcock unseated Welles though without exactly changing the critical landscape. Identity and representation are now important and that is a very good thing. A stagnant set of assumptions has been stirred up, and the greatness of a modern master has been acknowledged. But it isn’t just that. Akerman’s genius and uncompromising vision, along with her compassion and human sympathy, have been pressing on the debate for some time now and Jeanne Dielman has progressed from being an unsettling rumour or cult choice, bursting through to fully fledged classic.

It is a film that poses a confrontational question to the audience, as difficult in 2022 as in 1975: what does the viewer expect to see and when? Akerman transcribes the apparently dull life of Dielman, played by Delphine Seyrig, in distinctively long, unbroken takes from fixed camera positions. We watch as Dielman sits down at her kitchen table and peels potatoes or begins to cook a meal. This scene goes on for long enough for us to think: this person is really peeling potatoes; there is effectively no difference in what she is doing here in this fictional mode and how she would do it in real life. This is happening. Without cutting away, we simply look at what is front of us, and begin to notice incidental details that would otherwise be overlooked.

But after a while, having been lulled into this faintly hypnotised state, we notice disturbing things that are slightly off, symptoms of an unacknowledged off-camera reality. It is the very polar opposite of a jump scare. Proportion and perspective are what’s in question. The long, long stretches of uneventfulness that surround the main event are not usually accommodated like this and significant things are not usually left unsignposted, and yet this is arguably a truer representation of our lived, unedited experience.

Jeanne Dielman is also a movie that reaches back to Agnès Varda’s 1962 film Cléo from 5 to 7 – which makes the list at No 14 – in its quasi real-time scrutiny of a woman’s private life, as well as Buñuel’s Belle de Jour from 1967, with its sheen of dreamlike strangeness in ostensible normality. It also reaches forward to movies such as Jaime Rosales’s The Hours of the Day from 2003 and Michael Haneke’s Hidden from 2005, in that it is about denial, about the prosperous bourgeois capacity for carrying on and ignoring suffering and violence, whether this violence is being caused by or inflicted upon you. It is a poem of stoicism and fear and pain and a kind of survival.

Elsewhere in the list, it is refreshing to see more recent films (at last) being listed: Wong Kar-Wai’s delectably unhappy love story In the Mood for Love (2000) at No 5, Claire Denis’ Beau Travail (1998) at No 7 and David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr (2001) at No 8. Ingmar Bergman’s Persona (1966) is in there at No 18 but his mighty The Seventh Seal (1957) – once a shoo-in for lists like this – doesn’t make the cut, and great European heavyweights such as Fellini and Antonioni are absent. A small worry of mine is that, as ever, comedy is pretty much frowned on, although Singin’ in the Rain (1952) gets in at No 10, with its heroic insistence on the importance of making ’em laugh.

But how exhilarating to see Akerman’s magnificent work being recognised like this.

I've been trying to get my thoughts in order about media consumption, especially in the context of the Wizarding World, and how best to steer people away from the franchise in an effective way, without falling into traps of associating media consumption with morality or activism.

There are people out there who use HP to stay alive, and I'm certainly not going to blame them for not being able to simply discard the series from their lives fully. Special interests and hyperfixations can be hard to stop. Personal thoughts on these facts are irrelevant; different circumstances have to be taken into account for an effective boycott. For me, it's been pretty easy dropping the series from my life, but I know it isn't for many others.

Something I want to address is how to handle guilt. I found it a lot easier to change habits and act when I wasn't dwelling on my guilt, whether that's moving from Chrome to Firefox, cancelling Amazon Prime, or boycotting Nestle. Feeling guilty 'cause you bought a KitKat on a bad day is not only unlikely to spur you on to doing forms of activism, it's likely to inhibit it instead. When you feel guilt, acknowledge it. Don't suppress it. Allow yourself to feel it, and then move on. From personal experience, I've found myself feeling less guilt as a result in the long run. You'll be a much better accomplice, offer much better solidarity, and be much more open to listen if you're not spurred on by guilt.

I also worry that a focus on individual buying habits runs the risk of people - especially cis allies - failing to self-reflect on how transphobia has intercepted into their worldview because, well 'I don't buy HP merch, so I can't be transphobic.' And I'm already starting to see it a little on here. Fighting transphobia, or any form of bigotry for that matter, should never be limited to one aspect of its presentation in society, and should always include reflecting on how to combat the various different ways people are complicit in it. Including themselves.

Striving for better personal habits is admirable, but I don't want it to come at the cost of effective collective means of activism. I'm much more interested in what we can do together and organised against the forces of systemic and institutional oppression, than whether you buy some sliced ham packaged in plastic once a week.

I do wonder whether having a more specific boycott could perhaps be more realistically implemented, especially as the general public is generally less aware of her bollocks than your average Tumblr user. A focus on boycotting the new Fantastic Beasts film for instance, given that trans folk, those in solidarity with trans folk, other marginalised groups the previous texts represented poorly, and D*pp fans, are all pissed off. Couple that with the poor reception of the 2nd film, and its relatively low box office performance, and we might stand a chance of a much more successful boycott.

With all that being said, minimise the spread of the Wizarding World as much as you can - not talking about it, getting rid of any merch, and yes, ideally, not watching or reading the content. If that's not possible, pirate or buy second-hand, or borrow. Don't recommend it. Don't pass it on to the next generation. Give the series as little attention and money as you can.

If you're finding it difficult to let go of the series, try out the first book of a similiar series. The Books of Earthsea by Ursula K Le Guin is a series I keep meaning to get into, and I've heard a heck of a lot of good things from (I mean it is Le Guin). Discworld by Terry Pratchett is another. Or take a look through the Fantasy Books list on Goodreads (there's even a What To Read After Harry Potter list). Feel free to add any examples in the replies or reblogs.

But also recognise that people pissed that you still consume or create fanworks for the series are doing so because of a genuine fear and anger at the damage JK is doing and fueling. And whilst there's potential arguments about the effectiveness of different tactics, I'm not here to tone police how oppressed people express their frustration at their own oppression. If people don't wish to interact, or engage with your work, because you still consume the franchise in someway, they have every right to do so.

Morgana Pendragon Character Analysis (pt1)

Introduction:

Morgana Pendragon is one of the most key characters in Merlin. Her role is integral to the character arc of all of the other leads. Her story is about how someone can let their pain consume them whole. As an abuse victim and a member of a marginalised community, she is set up for being isolated and fearful. This alienation is turned both inward and outward making her deeply dangerous to herself and others. She takes this alienation to push almost everyone out of her life and force others to suffer the same way she did. Her righteous anger at her treatment by her father and society goes to waste when none is put to constructive ends. 

She allows emptiness, fear and anger to consume her. She replaced her core beliefs with those of “others are out to hurt me” and “the only way to live is through the acquisition of power”. Her ability for both affective and cognitive empathy becomes suppressed as any joy she can drive comes from exerting control over others. She is compelled into implementing her obsessions around revenge and survival. Depression, obsessive thoughts, paranoia, fear and anger fill all corners of her mind leaving her without access to flexible thought and internal peace. 

Analysis:

At the start, she is living as a member of court and Uther’s ward. She continually butts heads with Uther. This is due to her being headstrong and fearless. This bravery and stubborn disposition causes more rifts as she is seen to be hysterical and as an object, leaving her subject to gaslighting and other forms of abuse. However, this rarely stops her from being involved when important. Morgana often works with Arthur and Merlin early on. The most key of these events being when they save Mordred. (1x08)

However, her stubbornness isn’t all-consuming, while resisting being forced to do things she dislikes she is smart enough to know when to lie and when to bend the knee. Partly because as a child and young-adult she holds a mix of respect, love and fear towards Uther. She shows skills in court life, this is deeply important to understand as it becomes a useful skill when she works against the kingdom. But in the beginning, it shows someone who lives in the duality of wanting to assert herself and someone who absorbed the social rules she was raised with. 

Morgana shows great care for those around her wanting them to be safe and happy. Often stepping up to speak on behalf of them, and generally treating even Gwen and Merlin, people considered her inferiors socially, with respect. Standing up for Gwen's dad, helping protect Elador, helping feed peasants and trying to protect Gwen when they are attacked shows her kindness and loyalty. (1x03, 1x08, 1x10-12)

She doesn’t have a consuming desire for power, no particular plan to marry into or otherwise acquire power. Her later turn to power is reactive and less of an innate drive. It also a drive to be the one who determines her future. 

When Morgana's powers start to grow we see the first shift in her character. The development of anxiety and depression colour the way she acts. It adds layers to her abuse and trauma. A great deal of gaslighting is used to convince her she is mistaken and to prevent the acknowledgement of her magic. Which we know Gaius has been hiding since she was a child visa via her prophetic nightmares. 

This alienation is from the entire culture she grew up in. When she visits the druids in The Nightmare Begins (2x03) Morgana feels free and desires to stay, she just wants to be herself. 

This is similar to the experience marginalised people experience in real life. She knows that if discovered her magic father figure/father would likely kill her. Morgana also believes her other loved ones would at the least disown her. 

In reality, there is some nuance. Merlin acts as both an agent of the system while originally trying to help her and Gaius and Gwen would not wish harm on her. But Morgana is understandably afraid and full of anxiety to reach out for help. This anxiety, confusion, fear and alienation become the way she perceives the world. Life is Morgana, then everyone else. This pain drives a wedge between her and everyone she used to care for.

Outside of the gaslighting and threat of violence, she experiences from those close to her during The Witchfinder (2x07) we see her deal with mental assault from an outside force with no support from her family as they don’t understand. This makes her dysregulation, anxiety, depression and isolation worsen. 

The next two key events in her first character transformation can be seen at the end of season two. First, Morgana meets Morgause (2x08) and automatically feels a connection to her. Second, Morgana is pushed to verbally disown Uther due to his treatment of Avalar and by extension the rest of the Druids and others born with magic. This is the final relational rupture between them:

Morgana: They are rising up against you! From this day forward, I do not know you. From this day forward, I disown you

King Uther: You will go to your chambers!

Morgana: And you, Uther, you will go to hell.

 (2x11)

We then see her move into helping Morgause try and destroy Camelot. At this point, it is driven by the anger she has for Uther and his treatment of others. It has yet to have the drive of becoming queen. Her connection to Morgause also plays a large role as she finally has a person to be close to without the artifice of court life over it. Morgause gives her a choice and with that an illusion of power. At this point, there is a more powerful member of their team. Morgana ends this attempt at Camelot almost being murdered by someone she considered a friend. (2x12)

We then have an interesting moment in her character arch in her year away from Camelot. This time away changes her from someone who while willing to hurt Uther didn’t seem driven for the destruction of Camelot, to one who will hurt everyone. There is also a reprieve from the fear-driven to more controlled anger by the assistance of Morgause. 

We are never told what happened in the year. All we know is he stayed with her sister and likely had her hatred of Uther entrenched even further. Her worst tendencies towards vengeance over justice and ego over compassion are reinforced. This shifts her schema farther into negative ones and worsens her ability to think in shades of grey.

When she does return her previous ability to play the game of court life is stronger and utilised to great effect convincing everyone for a while that she is essentially the same person, except for Merlin and by extension Gaius. Gwen is the next to figure it out due to Morgana’s affect control dropping and her real emotion bleeding through over time. (3x08)

As she returns to Camelot she quickly moves to attempt another attack. This attempt is stopped again by Merlin, but in this attempt, we see new cruelty in her willingness to torture Uther and that her magic has grown. This is also the last time I believe her alienation and marginalization is her driving force. After this, I think she fully turns her internalized fear of her magic onto everyone else. Her exchange with Merlin during the battle feels genuine and not at all like manipulation or even just a justification as it becomes later, but a real motivation. She has not yet grown to shut off her empathy for everyone, only Uther and Arthur. (3x1-2)

Soon after her second attempt on the castle, we see another large shift in motivations. She almost dies and is severely injured which puts her in a vulnerable place and during this same time she learns she is Uther’s daughter in blood as well as circumstance. She learns that he never was willing to claim her or even tell her. This pushes her to act rashly, almost committing patricide. (3x05)

Her ability to be cruel in her aims continues to grow, to hurt Arthur she puts Gwen through terrible pain as well as Elyan. (3x07) We see her magic grow, her emotions grow but her ability to hide her intentions failing, at least around Gwen. Her attempts at her family's lives also continue to be cruel as she tries to kill Arthur and Uther in slow and painful ways. (3x08, 3x11)

When Morgana isn’t trying to kill the people she used to love she is trying to mess with their lives in more petty ways. This includes exposing the love Arthur and Gwen have for each other, putting their relationship in jeopardy and Gwen’s over well being. This is over her fear of Gwen being Queen when Arthur would become Queen, something that Morgana gains obsessive thoughts over throughout the rest of the story. (3x10)

Morgana is willing to kill a large number of the people at this point not only those she has a personal issue with. Though she does offer safety to Gwen thought it’s contingent on her considering Morgana to be the rightful queen. She is willing to rule by fear and threat, not understanding how to win over the people. (3x12-13). This attempt fails and Morgana loses her sister and the allies her sister made.

After being defeated and having to flee the castle with her dying sister she spends a year moving around with her ill sister while also gaining more strength and becoming a fully-fledged High Priestess of the Old Religion. 

In an attempt to take the castle again she has to kill her sister. Something that caused her great distress as Morgana believed Morgause was the only person who understood and loved her. This event causes great suffering to all, it’s also when Morgana adds her obsession with Emrys along with her obsessive thoughts over Gwen and Uther. 

During this first period of exile, she recruits Agravaine to be her spy and aid within the court. They seem to be united by a common cause but Morgana doesn’t treat him as equal, adopting the belief she hated so much from Uther, treating others as tools. 

She also accepted a standard of living that is much below that of the ward of the king. Her way of dress and acting also shifts, she’s still cunning and driven but while now being the master of herself she is more erratic and seems to feel just as out of control and obsessed as she was when living a lie. Her affect control, impulse control, regulation and social regulation deteriorated. Fear also returns to being a driving force. (4x01-2)

Morgana succeeds in killing Uther in The Wicked Day (4x03) by cursing a necklace and Agravaine puts it on Uther so that when Arthur uses magic to try and bring back his father from a fatal injury he dies faster. Planning to finally kill her father she also wishes guilt and pain on her brother.

We then see Morgana use both strength and her ability to manipulate to work Queen Annis to try and kill Arthur. Morgana is not against using her history to use another person. However, Annis sees through her when Arthur shows honour and points out that Morgana is much more like Uther than she realises, and in saying this it also refutes the point Morgana tried to make early in the episode that Gorlois was who was her true father. This is true in both the biological sense but also through the fact that Uther spent more time acting as her father and had generally known her own life. This statement also acts as a trigger causing her to show extreme emotions. (4x05)

One of the key lines of dialogue we have to see where Morgana’s mindset is at during this period is 

Morgana: Don’t think I don’t understand loyalty because I’ve got no one left to be loyal to

This is important because it shows that the isolation that started by The Nightmare Begins has enveloped her. Now she is no longer even fighting with or for anyone she has devoted herself to revenge and survival.

We also see the fear that drives Morgana as at the site of Emrys her first reaction is flight. During their battle, we see that they are almost evenly matched in magical power, though Morgana only really gets through due to Merlin not being willing to act decisively still. (4x06)

Morgana's obsession with Emrys becomes almost all-consuming. Morgana gives away the most emotionally significant thing left of her sister to obtain information on Emrys. She tries desperately to find the information torturing a man who spent her childhood helping to take care of her. But a layer of contradictions exists as he also tried to make her doubt her reality and is helping the person destined to prevent her ascension to queen and to kill her. This complex relationship is important here for the emotional repercussions of what seems like a straightforward attempt to extract information. (4x07)

Morgana shows no regard for even the laws of life and death gain in her quest in Lancelot Du Lac (4x09) bringing Lancelot back to life. Morgana does not even to directly finish her quest to take the throne but to ruin her once friend, and closest confidant's chance at happiness. This is driven by an obsession with her past nightmare about Gwen becoming Queen. Though of course, it has the added benefit of breaking her brother's heart. The only show of emotional connection we see in her is the fear underlying her actions and her musings on the emptiness the shade Lancelot has. 

During The Sword and The Stone (4x12-13), we see Morgana take over the castle by using Agravaine for treason. Morgana is not only ruthless in what would be considered warfare but takes initiative to be cruel to the peasants willing to let them starve to gain control. She then tortures Gawain, Elyan and Gaius not only for information but just because she gains pleasure from it. The ability to empathise with those she deemed her enemies is no longer existent, even those who have not directly harmed her. Her depressive states and emotional nubbing is only broken when she can exert control over other people. She is choosing to hurt others for her pleasure. 

This is their first battle when both Morgana and Arthur understand who the other is. Morgana calls him as her “dear brother” as a taunt. We then have this exchange:

King Arthur: What happened to you, Morgana?

King Arthur: I thought we were friends

Morgana: As did I. But alas, we were both wrong.

King Arthur: You can't blame me for my father's sins.

Morgana: It's a little late for that. You’ve made it perfectly clear how you feel about me and my kind. You're not as different from Uther as you'd like to think.

King Arthur: Nor are you.

Morgana: I’m going to enjoy killing you, Arthur Pendragon. Not even Emrys can save you now.

We see Arthur is hurt by what happened and truly did love Morgana and doesn’t like having to fight her like this. And Morgana is consumed by the pain of the past to the inability to care for the present. Arthur, however, is not giving her the power of acknowledging her as his sister. He still says “my father”. He compares her to their father and triggers her anger. We see them attempt to fight, Morgana is unable to use her magic due to Merlin and panics. 

She gathers herself, able to make her escape even coming close to killing Gwen. She then almost dies only being revived by Aithusa, who becomes her closest friend from this point on. (4x13)

We then have another time skip of over two years. Two of those years Morgana was being tortured in the pit by The Sarum. This has the effect of taking an already traumatised individual and layering two years of severe chronic trauma on top of it. She has less control of herself as a result of this and loses the little bit of impulse control she had. 

We first see Morgana after this when she is searching for the Diamair to try and learn how to beat Arthur. Morgana can capture and lure Arthur to her by kidnapping his men and using spies. She almost finds what she seeks but the creature itself has no wish to be used by her making her search futile. We also see her not even consider a father being willing to do something dangerous to save his daughter, her own acquired lack of compassion colouring her judgement. 

This is also the re-introduction of Mordred, a character that acts as the turning point in the rest of the narrative. Seeing Mordred shows some of the only real joy we see from Morgana since her sister died years back. She, however, pushes him away due to her display of rage and dysregulation. Mordred stabs her literally in the back. (5x01-2)

One of Morgana's most cruel attacks is used to try and turn Gwen into a weapon by torturing her for days, breaking down her psychological defences leaving her open to manipulation. This leaves her under control of Morgana thinking that Morgana cares for her. While this is mainly a spell able to be broken there is a part that relies on Gwen's psychology of being compassionate so she will be sympathetic to Morgana’s story and trauma. With the long psychological attacks and this play on Gwen's compassion, we see Morana essentially form a trauma bond. She manipulates Gwen’s perceptions and emotions in a way that is very similar to emotional abusers. 

 This act also kills Elyan in Morgana's attempt to harm Arthur (5x06) During this control we see how strongly Morgana used it to make Gwen not only a weapon but also they feel like they are friends again, being lonely might have been part of why he chose this method and less of a direct method like she did with Merlin. (5x07-8) 

Once Arthur is aware of her curse on Gwen he sets out to break the magic but is almost thwarted by the Dochraid who tells Morgana of his plans to save Gwen. This is interesting as the Dochraid is one of the few magic beings who truly side with Morgana betting on her strength of will over Merlin’s. Morgana is then forced to face off against the one thing other than her dragon, Mordred. Mordred puts up a good fight even saving Merlin’s secret. She felt conflicted in harming him and ends up losing to his surprise attack. (5x09)

After her plan with Gwen fails he returns to her full-tilt hunt for Emrys. She hunts the Catha for information causing terror across multiple kingdoms, then excruciatingly tortures him to try and find out. Hunting anyone down who might know these plans however fail because Alator and Finna believed in something larger and were willing to suffer and die. Morgana no longer understands the bigger picture her idea of a world free for magic isn't her leading drive anymore. After this incident, Morgana is seen to have declared all-out war with Camelot. (5x10)

Mordred acts as the last domino to fall into place before the final battle between Morgana and Arthur Pendragon. When Kara is killed and Merlin and Arthur were the drivers behind her execution, Mordred becomes angry enough at the system of Camelot to move to side with someone he saw as dangerous and broken. He gives Morgana the information she needs on Emrys. (5x11)

With Mordred by her side, Morgana makes her final move, forging a sword just to kill Arthur and finalizing the amassment of an army. She clears the way by removing Emrys from the situation, giving her and Mordred a clean shot at Arthur and the army of Camelot. However, she underestimates Merlin and we see her lose much of her Army and Mordred. This causes Morgana despair as she has to bury the last person she loved. One of the few things that could even start to pierce her depression is ripped away. 

This loss isn’t enough to stop the endless patterns of a compulsive need to take out revenge on Arthur. 

The final moments of her life she taunts her brother in his death claiming a victory. It’s however short-lived as Merlin kills her with a dragon fire-forged blade right after she claims her immortality. Her pain consumed her, and as the death of her father there is no triumph in hurting her brother as all it does is open her up for her death. (5x12-13)

I’ll tell you who SOPHIE was - she provided me with the soundtrack to my existence.

SOPHIE - a futuristic goddess, an ingenious music producer, ethereal visionary, a trans icon.... just an icon generally speaking - tragically passed away at the age of 34 in Athens, Greece after falling off a rooftop whilst attempting to capture a picture of the full moon. Her gut wrenching death brought me to tears. This is the first time a famous person’s death has affected me so deeply. Her bold, hyperkinetic approach to producing musical art was so impeccable and refreshing considering so much of modern day’s music tends to sound incredibly predictable. Whilst alive, visionary SOPHIE generated a following of intensely adoring, dedicated fans. Honestly, don’t EVER mess with a SOPHIE fan. Trust me!

She worked with the biggest popstars, rappers, K Pop groups, rappers and upcoming artists but still remained so humble despite her enormous talent. However, she hadn’t reached household name status during her life. Sadly, many people only had heard of SOPHIE after her tragic and unexpected death. This motivated me to write a piece dedicated to this beautiful and timeless mastermind. I do acknowledge that its been exceptionally challenging to summarise how SOPHIE impacted my life onto only a few pieces of paper. However, its the least I can do. Therefore, I present to all of you my written tribute which shall focus on how her extraordinary music has featured during key moments of my lifetime and expanded my initially narrow knowledge of beauty, gender and identity like never before.

Let’s commence this written tribute by travelling back in time to when I had just turned 15. During that time period, my disposition was extremely introverted. In all honesty, like almost all teenagers suffering the displeasing side effects of bloody puberty, I was barely approachable. I adopted the entire persona of a full time punk kid wearing a thick leather jacket whilst applying extremely heavy kohl eyeliner and dying my hair jet black - which looked devastating. I would also scribble quotes associated with the punk ideology and act like some pretentious snob towards anything that was unrelated to punk, industrial or rap music. That was the most rebellion I exuded at the time (trying not to feel complete despair as much as possible for my former teenage self)

That captious mentality caused by teenage angst was erased the minute I listened to a snippet of the musical force of nature named ‘BIPP’ by SOPHIE on a Swiss MTV sponsored advert. The high pitched vocals singing ‘However you’re feeling, I can make you feel better’ provided by Marcella and overall catchy, hyperkinetic production mesmerised me like there’s no tomorrow. Nothing had captivated my imagination like the timeless ‘BIPP’ did so I typed aggressively and rapidly into the Google search engine straight away. I had to know who the mastermind lurking behind this masterpiece was. I had to know of the mastermind who provided me with this pivotal musical epiphany. Then the capitalised name ‘SOPHIE’ popped up right in front of my eyes.  

After listening to ‘BIPP’ in its entirety on repeat, I instantly began to read up on SOPHIE and stumbled upon her 2013 interview on BBC Radio 1 with SOPHIE where she concealed her identity by having her 5 year old niece respond to the host’s questions instead of herself. At the time, I assumed Sophie had implemented a voice changer to project the voice of an infant. SOPHIE’s dry humoured response, namely ,,I’ve got a cough!’’ to the host’s bewilderment over the child sounding voice stood out for me. Earlier in her career, SOPHIE’s anonymity prompted much speculation in the music industry and press. I always perceived this bizarre, hysterical act of Sophie’s as a ‘two middle fingers up’ to our environment fuelled by mainstream culture, especially how so many people obsess over notable figure’s personal business and public image instead of their artistic accomplishments far too often. This has to be the ultimate moment my own curiosity for Sophie’s ingenious musical productivity became insatiable. Later on, I would await the 2015 McDonalds commercial anxiously to have my ears blessed with her gratifying track ,Lemonade’ over and over. The synthesised sounds that fizz like pop rocks. Nabihah’s crisp vocals which repeat ‘Candy boys, c - c - candy boys’. The overall ear worm appeal of the track. Flawless!

In the meantime, I discovered that Sophie happened to be a very well known affiliate of the divisive,unique PC Music label based in London, England. During the time period, I was - to be quite frank - not an avid bubblegum bass or hyper-pop listener in the slightest. I worshipped bands such as The Clash, Dead Kennedys, Rammstein,Tool, The KLF and additionally adored rap music ranging from N.W.A to Eminem. They totally divert  from the hyperkinetic, exaggerated take on the pop genre embraced by the PC Music label. However, my teenage idols and SOPHIE objectively share something fundamental in common - Through their trailblazing musical output, they push every single barrier possible and deconstruct what constitutes as ,normal’ in modern day society. Even just after releasing her first full length album ‘Product’, SOPHIE embodied a bold form of rebellion against society’s conventionality and unforgiving temperament by incorporating lyrics alluding to a mostly genderless nature and sexual fetishes eg BDSM. As an extremely naive, self conscious teenager, all of this completely perplexed but intrigued me. Any glimpse of art connected with an attitude of non conformity resonated with me in practically seconds and continues to even at 22.

This longing for anything unorthodox traces back to my own childhood.  To explain some details about my background, I grew up in a rather small, very conservative village in Switzerland from the age of 9. Even uttering anything LGBT related would illicit responses ranging from loud gasps to shocked faces at my high school. As a non Swiss resident, the educational setting demonstrated to be more than challenging at times. One incident that stands out to me especially is when a classmate ranted about his disapproval of non Swiss inhabitants receiving Swiss pass and then continued with yelling ‘All my family voted for the SVP kick all of (you fucking foreign scum) out!’.Just to clarify, the SVP is the largest party in Switzerland and leans very far right politically.   As you can presume, I was utterly distraught by this disconcerting interaction and confess to losing any fragment of self confidence remaining in that moment. Luckily the Swiss MTV channel existed, which was far more on trend with the times and embraced marginalised communities. I will forever cherish Swiss MTV introducing me to SOPHIE’s impeccable, lawless music and being a form of escapism in my bedroom from the racist, homophobic climate prevailing in my village.

At the age of 17, Graduation finally arrived at the door which was an absolute relief. A few hours later, the celebration party took place in a secluded barn and my boyfriend immersed himself into the role as DJ for the night. Towards the end, he sneakily included Product era classics including ‘Vyzee’ and ‘Hard’. I could barely contain my excitement. We all almost choked on the horrendous party smoke, spilt our cheap beer on each other’s outfits and chanted ‘Shake it up and make it fizz!’ and ‘I get so hard.’ Ironically, I believe my Swiss colleagues didn’t exactly recognise the discernible sexual connotations exhibited throughout the song which causes me to giggle ever so slightly looking back. However, it felt liberating hearing SOPHIE’s fiercely electronic, transparent music and seeing my classmates enjoying it - especially as all you would hear on most music outlets there was either dreary Indie or Luka Haenni - the Swiss equivalent to Justin Bieber. That’s the most I’m able to recollect from that peculiar night - aside from a trampoline burning to the ground due to someone placing a candle on it. After all that jazz, a thrillingly new chapter for myself - and even for SOPHIE - would unfold.

At 17, I returned to my place of birth, England, and enrolled at Sixth Form in the South to complete my A Levels. I initially felt extremely elated to move back to England and finally entering the era of adulthood in my life. However, the atmosphere at Sixth Form and in the South of England seemed ... so unfamiliar to me which was heartbreaking. My mind had totally adjusted to a Swiss and my mind endured unsettling feelings of anxiety during the entire first year at British college. However, SOPHIE’s music once again presented itself as a form of therapy for me. She released the ethereal, stunning ballad ‘It’s Okay To Cry’ during this time period. After watching its music video and deciphering the lyrics I realised... Oh my goodness, SOPHIE just came out as a transgender woman! I recall being touched by the exquisite, idiosyncratic song featuring 80s style synthesised arrangements. SOPHIE’S bravery mesmerised me. I knew in that moment, Sophie would revolutionise the music industry, especially the habitat of music production dominated by cisgender, heterosexual men. She proved my initial predictions right - and on many occasions.

The day after SOPHIE released ‘Its Okay To Cry’, I overheard an energetic conversation carried out by a few of fellow openly gay and trans classmates who I’m still acquainted with to this day. They couldn’t contain their excitement about SOPHIE.

Despite the crippling anxiety having affected me so severely at that point, I intervened and expressed my admiration for everything SOPHIE. I felt blessed attending a sixth form alongside gay, non binary, trans classmates who took pride in their identity and sexuality. It put my mind at ease being surrounded in a more progressive environment compared to the intolerant ambience pervading my village in Switzerland. SOPHIE’s music had connected me with such a progressive, solicitous and just simply amazing group of friends. They agreed with me that SOPHIE’s courageous move will impact the music world in such a striking manner and encourage more LGBT people to pursue their goals no matter how extravagant, especially an acclaimed music producer igniting the music industry like SOPHIE. Then all of a sudden they mentioned the track ‘Yeah Right’ and how it blew their mind away due to SOPHIE’s ‘badass as hell instrumentals.’ With all the shame in the world, I confessed I hadn’t heard it yet. Their facial expressions conveyed so much disappointment. One of my classmates quickly plugged their Bluetooth speaker into his laptop and then pressed the play button. From a personal perspective, ‘Yeah Right’ featuring Vince Staples and Kendrick Lamar perfectly stands out to me despite SOPHIE’s extensive and majestic discography to her name.

I contemplate the masterpiece as a pivotal moment in rap music history. Even during 2017,  Sophie began exhibiting red lipstick, latex gloves, tight clothing corresponding  to a more feminine image which totally distances from the aggressively macho image attached to the rap industry. From the moment Vince Staples commences with his lyrically cutting verses to Kendrick Lamar proceeding with his gripping and more than memorable cameo - I realised that a 3 minute long but significant moment music history in general simply named ‘Yeah Right’, had occurred. Her production on the track astonishes me due to its avant grade and timeless edge. To me, it is a masterpiece that echoes the the extremely distant future of music. I reckon we’ll be dancing to ‘Yeah Right’ at the club in 2137. For 4 consecutive years, ‘Yeah Right’ has been reigning champion of most listened to song on my Spotify account and can express with all certainty... it’s my all time favourite song. In all honesty, it cured me of my severe feelings of apprehension and anxiety at Sixth Form.

After regaining my confidence and FINALLY passing the dreaded driving test - after failing three times in a row - the first song I blasted on my speakers in my cheap, run down car was ‘Yeah Right’ and rather fittingly, Sophie’s live version of the officially unreleased ‘Burn Rubber’ whilst driving to university I was about to attend. I genuinely cried all the lyrics to the song whilst driving on the mundane roads of Southern England and FINALLY felt like a free, independent adult. Even during brief chapters of my life such as passing my driving test, SOPHIE made a crucial and ravishing appearance.

The last three years of my life have played out in a rather turbulent style. Towards the middle of 2018, the year unravelled in a fashion that I certainly hadn’t anticipated. I’ll summarise it to the best of my ability even thought it is extremely difficult to. My longtime best friend, the closest person to me, sadly died to long term chronic illness. I couldn’t articulate my utter grief into words and sadly still struggle to this day. It was a sudden blow to the heart which couldn’t be paralleled to anything else I’ve felt in my short lifetime. A month prior to her untimely passing, SOPHIE had released her acclaimed, gallant debut album ‘Oil Of Every Person’s Un Insides.’ Although OOEPUI is a extravagant, historic work of art, I shall describe how the tracks ‘Is it Cold In the Water’ and ‘Faceshopping’ impacted me.

I perceive ‘Is It Cold In The Water?  as a hauntingly riveting piece of music, with vocals sung Cecile Believe that send shivers down my spine. The lyrics ‘Earth shaking, I feel alone’ encapsulated on a personal level how I couldn’t envision an existence without my best friend by my side mocking my naturally deep, monotone voice, her showing me a piece of clothing she had just designed herself as she was an aspiring designer and hurting with laughter whilst impersonating certain celebrities.  My raging anger against the world intensified. I placed my formerly devoted belief in a higher existence under the microscope - a belief system that I unfortunately haven’t revisited ever since. ,Is It cold in the water’ epitomises the dilemma and hardship of entering unknown depths without any inkling of what overcoming the ‘cold water’ and how its aftermath would materialise, metaphorically speaking. I realised I had to place my feet in the cold water in order to heal and adjust to coping with my best friend’s death despite how petrifying the concept as such seemed at the time.

And then there’s the outstanding ‘Faceshopping.’ I’ll confess... when I originally listened to this track, I was rather, dare I say, baffled afterwards. The experimentally electronic provided by Sophie galvanised me as usual. However, as a cisgender woman who has dated men right up to the present moment, I was initially under the very ill informed assumption that I couldn’t identify with a lot of the album’s content produced by an trans woman. That display of shambolic ignorance was quickly put to rest when I analysed the lyrics of ‘Faceshopping’ with an open eye. It clicked that the song could symbolise more than one meaning. It examines the age of the internet and the lengths modern day go to in order to pass as beautiful, especially in the name of personal branding. Furthermore, the powerful track demonstrates SOPHIE’s mesmerisingly fervent opposition against what traditional values regard as beauty which is unquestionably ingenious. I feel the lyric ‘My shop is the face I front’ denotes a person’s individual freedom of complementing their psychical appearance - whether through simply makeup or plastic surgery - and evolving their true gender identity shouldn’t be shunned. As someone who has been extremely self conscious about my appearance since the tender age of 12 caused by several factors eg bullying at school, ‘Faceshopping’ uplifted my spirits and enlightened me that no influence other than my personal self shall control how I beautify my own body.

Skipping to 2020, the world has been transformed to a severe extent due to the Coronavirus infecting and heartbreakingly taking millions of people’s lives. With this almost dystopian nightmare occurring, I felt extremely poorly - physically speaking -  which had been affecting me since October of the same year. Ultimately I was rushed into hospital in December. After countless physical evaluations and days passing by whilst lying in a lonesome hospital bed, my doctor informed me that due to the severity of my current condition, the likelihood of permanent infertility is extremely high. The news put me into a state of shock. After my doctor left the room, the tears couldn’t stop streaming down my face. I had always envisioned raising my own children. Forgive me for the hyperbolic language but in that moment I felt defeated.

With the prospect of my womanhood being affected forever, I put my headphones to shut out the continuous ambulance sirens blaring outside. I pressed Shuffle Play on my SoundCloud and the first song that appeared was SOPHIE’s ‘Heav3n Suspended Livestream’ version of ‘My Forever’. Cecile Believe reiterating ‘Everbody’s got to own their body’ so ethereally, and the song as a whole proved to be therapeutic in the moment. After pressing the repeat button 20 times - at the very least - I had ANOTHER epiphany: no establishment should dictate what constitutes as femininity or womanhood. Even in the modern day society, childless people continue to be stigmatised, often branded as ‘selfish’ or ‘undesirable’ in many communities. I applaud the progress we’ve made in terms of tackling stereotypes associated with infertility. However, more work still needs to be carried out on this matter.  Although it’s only my individual interpretation of the song given the circumstances of my poorly health at the time, the lyrics reassured me that everybody’s - without a doubt -  GOT to own their body. Gosh that sounds so rhetorical!

After this pivotal awakening, I was rushed into surgery which lasted about two hours. The next day - feeling extremely lethargic - I woke up to the fantastic news that the doctors saved my physical health from infertility. I will always be so grateful for their treatment of me and my painful condition. Two weeks into recuperation post surgery, I had no choice but to exercise to boost my mental state caused by inactivity and to get my blood circulation going. As a lifelong, passionate dancer I conceptualised and performed a dance routine to SOPHIE’s club inspired, sublime ‘Take Me To Dubai’. - in front of my cracked bedroom mirror, ironically. Still, dancing again and no physical illness bringing me down felt like a individual rebirth. I was anticipating how 2021 would spell out for me - despite Covid 19 still permeating globally. 2021 finally arrived and not even a full month into the ‘glorious new year’, SOPHIE died.

I recall waking up to numerous messages and notifications capitalising the words: SOPHIE HAS DIED!’. In all honesty ... I froze. It didn’t register for about an hour. Afterwards, I couldn’t disguise the heartbreak and shock that SOPHIE was no longer with us - especially given the cause of her death. It’s been two weeks and I’ll acknowledge that I haven’t overcome the sentiment of anger and upset yet because of her untimely passing .The soundtrack to my existence is gone.

Whether SOPHIE’s musical stylings resonate with you or not, you can’t underestimate her fearless disposition and overwhelming talent. She inspired so many fans to embrace their true identity even when their environment was striving to silence them. She challenged our establishment’s shallow interpretation of beauty, gender and identity. Despite coming out as an trans woman and transphobia still being prevalent globally, SOPHIE didn’t let this form of prejudice stand in her way of achieving her dreams. Her revolutionary mark she left on the industry shall never be underemphasised by so many of us.

SOPHIE,

Thank you for everything. I will never ever forget you,

ROBS.

I’m gonna bash out a couple thoughts on this slasher killer discourse because it’s all been super interesting and I feel like I’ve learned a lot, and also I wanna acknowledge that I was a little flippant in the way I talked about the fandom (I’m not going to delete or edit any posts because I think it’s more useful to just acknowledge slip-ups rather than ignoring them).

I took kind of a jokey approach being all ‘I would love to study you’ because to me that implies that I’m a bit clueless but I find all of this fascinating, and it definitely assumed a familiarity and comfort level I shouldn’t have taken with a group of people who don’t know me personally - I can get away with saying those things to my friends who won’t stop spamming me with Lady Dimitrescu thirst memes (another thing I don’t understand which is a WHOLE other discussion, but again, I’m not judging!!), but I totally see how it could read as mocking or implying the fandom are freaks, which I absolutely do not believe!! As a lifelong horror fan who devoted years of my life to studying how narratives of monstrosity can be empowering/seductive to people from marginalised groups I want to make it very clear that I don’t pass any judgement for people who find media like this comforting or a source of identification and validation. I’ll make an effort to not be dismissive like that in the future.

I genuinely appreciate everyone who has shared their thoughts with me on this, and it has shown me a different perspective on how people engage with horror movies through character identification. I may or may not post more about the subject when I’ve had time to formulate my thoughts as a genuine piece of media response rather than half-baked rambling, but I can assure you I think it’s cool as hell that you’re forming personal responses to media and I firmly believe that the audience is an important meaning maker in media texts, and that meaning is very personal and subjective.

A final note - I can understand how my use of academic language might seem like I’m trying to take some kind of intellectual high ground, but unfortunately that’s pretty much just how I speak, which anyone who knows me personally can attest to. The nature of language is that we subconsciously (or consciously) choose vocabulary sets based on our perceived audience, and frankly I assume that the only people who read my blog are myself and a handful of mutuals who just go ‘lol, Mo is rambling again, here’s a pity like.’ So the language I use is the language that makes it easiest for me to express my thoughts quickly and succinctly for my own purposes. If anybody asks me directly about any of these concepts, I am happy to explain, and as an ex-educator, I am happy to adjust my register for audiences who have different levels of background knowledge. But I won’t tolerate being called elitist for using subject specific language that you could easily google if you were interested in engaging with my posts in good faith. If the class of 13 and 14 year olds I taught last year can understand media effects models and media studies jargon after a couple of entry level media classes, then I don’t think my use of that kind of language can be considered gatekeeping or academic elitism.

I think we can all agree that horror movies are cool, and beyond that, I’m happy to engage in well-meaning, good faith discussion, but if you don’t like my attitude/media presence/use of language/opinions, then you can block me easily and we can all go about our day a little happier.

(REVIEW) Tongues by Taylor Le Melle, Rehana Zaman and Those Institutions Should Belong to Us, by Christopher Kirubi

In this review, Rhian Williams takes a look at Tongues, a dazzling zine edited by Taylor Le Melle and Rehana Zaman (PSS, 2018), with* Christopher Kirubi’s pamphlet ‘Those Institutions Should Belong to Us’ (PSS). 

*I [Rhian] use ‘with’ here in homage to Fred Moten’s use of that preposition in all that beauty (2019) to ‘denote accompaniment[]’. This pamphlet was interleaved in the review copy of Tongues that I received from PSS.

> Onions, lemons, chilli peppers, fractals, hands, patterns, palms pressing, tears, avocados, pomegranate, mouths, finger clicking, deserts. Screenshots, flyers, placards, transcripts, textures, temporalities. Tongues is an urgent gathering in, a zine-type publication that works as a space where Black and Brown women (bringing both their intersections and the tension of distinction) enact memorial, exchange, jouissance, resistance, collaboration, support, listening. Edited by Taylor Le Melle and filmmaker Rehana Zaman, whose work generates many of the dialogic responses interleaved in this collection, this ‘assembly of voices’ was brought together in this particular format in the wake of Zaman’s exhibition, Speaking Nearby, shown at the CCA in Glasgow in 2018. But, as Ainslie Roddick explains, in ‘an attempt to reckon with the trans-collaborative nature of “practice” itself’, Tongues resists academic mechanisms that fall into reiterating the violence of individualism, moving around the figure of the single author/editor to seek to capture ‘a process of thinking with and through the people we work and resist with, acknowledging and sharing the work of different people as practice’ (p. 3). As such, ‘[Tongues’] structure, design and rhythm reflect the work of all the contributors to this anthology who think with one another through various practical, poetic and pedagogical means’ (ibid.). Designed and published by PSS, this is a tactile, sensory production: its aesthetics are post-internet, collage, digi-analogue, liquid-yet-textural, with shiny paper pages that you have to gently peel apart, gleaming around a central pamphlet of matte, heavier paper in mucous-membrane pink and mauve, which itself protects the centrefold glossy mouth-open lick of ‘I kiss your ass’ between the leaves of Ziba Karbassi’s poem, ‘Writing Cells’, here in both Farsi and English (translated with Stephen Watts). Throughout, Tongues reiterates the sensuous, labouring body as political, as partisan.

> Tongues’ multivalency is capacious, nurturing, dedicated to archiving that which is fugitive yet ineluctable; so, inevitably, its overarching principle is labour, is work. The entire collection of essays, response pieces, email exchanges, WhatsApp messages, poetry, transcripts, journaling, and imaginings are testimony to effort and skill, to the determination to keep spaces open for remembrance and for noticing within the ever-creeping demands of production. It is not surprising that this valuable collection is stalked by perilous attenuation, the damage of exhaustion. It is appallingly prescient of the first week of June 2020. Moving my laptop so that I can write whilst also keeping an eye on what I’m cooking for later, setting up my child to listen to an audiobook so that I can try to open up some headspace for listening and responding, nervous about how to spread my ‘being with’ across multiple platforms (my child, my writing, the news, other voices), I am taken by Chandra Frank’s meditative response piece to Zaman’s Tell me the story Of all these things (2017) and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictee (1982), which vibrates with ‘the potency and liberatory potential of the kitchen’ (p. 9) and movingly seeks to track and honour ‘what it means to both feel and read through a non-linear understanding of subjectivities’ (p. 10). But I only have to turn the page to realise my white safety. I am at home in my kitchen; my space may feel like it has turned into a laboratory for the reproduction of everyday life under lockdown, but it is manifest, it is seen in signed contracts, my subjectivity is grounded on recognition and citizenship. For Sarah Reed, searingly remembered by Gail Lewis in ‘More Than… Questions of Presence’, subjectivity was experienced as brutalisation, manifested posthumously in hashtags, #sayhername. (Reed was found dead in her cell at Holloway Prison in London in February 2016. In 2012 she had been violently assaulted by Metropolitan Police officer James Kiddie; the assault was captured by CCTV footage.) For the women immigrants engaged in domestic work in British homes, as documented here in Marissa Begonia’s vital journaling piece and Zaman’s discussion with Laura Guy, subjectivity is precarity and threat, their dogged labour forced into shadows. Lewis’s piece pivots around a ‘capacity of concern’ generated by ‘the political, ethical, relationship challenge posed by the presence of “the black woman”’ (p. 18), urging that such concern be of the order of care by walking a line with psychoanalysts D. A. Winnicott and Wilfred Bion in recognising that ‘in naming something we begin a journey in the unknown’ (p. 19). If that ‘unknown’ includes understanding how the British state is inimical to the self-determination and safety of Black and Brown women born within its ‘Commonwealth’ borders (#CherryGroce; #JoyGardner; #CynthiaJarrett; #BellyMujinga), and further, how its ‘hostile environment’ policies – named and pursued as such by the British Home Office under Theresa May – are designed specifically to threaten those born elsewhere, by reiterating Britain’s historical enthusiasm for enslavement of non-white labour (see the 2012 visa legislation, discussed here, that, for domestic workers, effectively put a lock on the 2016 ‘Modern Slavery Act’ review before it had even begun), then consider Tongues a demand to get informed. This is a zine about workers and working. It is imperative that we come to terms with what working life in Britain looks like (see the Public Health England report into disparities in the risk and outcomes of COVID-19 – released June 2 2020, censored to remove sections that highlighted the effect of structural racism, but nevertheless evidencing the staggering inequality in death and suffering that is linked to occupation and to citizen status, and therefore tracks race and poverty lines). It is imperative that we scrutinise how ‘popular [and, I would add, Westminster] culture perpetuates a notion of working class identity as a fantasy’ (p. 52) that literally spirits away the bodies undertaking keywork in the UK. The title of Frank’s piece here, ‘Fragmented Realities’, is exquisitely apt.

> Bookended by Roddick’s and Zaman’s radical re-orientating of the apparatus of academia – the introduction that resists assimilating each of the forthcoming pieces under one stable rubric, instead simply listing anonymously a sentence from each contributor in a process of meditative opening up, and ‘A note, before the notes. The end notes’ that counter-academically reveals weaknesses and vulnerabilities, is open to qualification and reframing, is responsive ­– Tongues constitutes a politics and aesthetics of ‘shift’. Collated after a staged exhibition, anticipating new bodies of work to come, and ultimately punctuated by a pamphlet that segues from reporting on an inspiring event that took place at the Women’s Art Library, Goldsmith’s University of London to imagining a second one in paper (the ‘original’ having been thwarted by bad weather), the entire collection has a productively stuttering relationship with temporality and with presence. As Shama Khanna writes about working groups and reading groups, workshops and pleasure-seeking in gallery spaces, this is the moving ground of the undercommons. It is testament to its intellectual lodestars – Sara Ahmed, Fred Moten, Stefano Harney, and, especially, the eroto-power of Audre Lorde. Along with Christopher Kirubi’s pamphlet, ‘Those Institutions Should Belong to Us’, which comprises a series of seven short ‘prose poems’ documenting the anguish of writing a dissertation from a marginalised perspective, the entire project of Tongues with Those Institutions is to upend academic practice, to recognise the ideological thrust of academic method, to stage fugitive enquiry. Kirubi’s plain sans-serif black font on white pages rehearses the anxious dialectics of interpellation and liberation (‘there is a need to see ourselves reflected in position of agency power and self determination in a world which does not really wish to see us thrive at all’ (part 3)) afforded by their academic obligations, but inarticulacy is a higher form of eloquence:

Even though I know at some point I am going to have to yield to these demands I feel I have to say now that I want to take in this dissertation a position of defending the inarticulate, defending the subjective and defending the incoherent, without having to arrive at a point of defence through theoretically determined foundations, but to feel them.

> Since its structuring principles are those of women’s work, and of Black and Brown experience, nurturing and shielding within the exhaustingly cyclical nature of toiling for recognition, respect, and protection, Tongues dances in the poetics of circles, of loops and feedback, of reciprocity and exchange. Recognising, however, that circularity is also the shape of repetitive strain, Zaman leaves us with a spiralling gesture, in homage to the Haitian spiral, ‘born out of the work of the Spiralist poets’ (p. 61). This ‘dynamic and non-linear’ form insists on the mutuality of the past and contemporary circumstances, is ‘a movement of multiplied or fractured beings, back and forth in time and space demanding accumulation, tumult, and repetition, adamant irresolution and open endedness…’. We are in that spiral now. Such demands must be heard, power must be relinquished, established forms of control – enacted in the streets and on our pages – must be terminated. Writing in early June 2020, this feels precarious; no one is exempt from giving of their strength.

Please pursue further information here. If you are able, these organisations thrive (given the paucity of state support) on donation:

Voice of Domestic Workers: https://www.thevoiceofdomesticworkers.com/

Cherry Groce foundation: https://www.cherrygroce.org/

BBZBLACKBOOK (a digital archive of emerging & established black queer artists): https://bbzblkbk.com/

Reclaim Holloway: http://reclaimholloway.mystrikingly.com/

~

Text: Rhian Williams

Published: 16/6/20

On Teaching: Understanding the Spiritual Place of English

What is the Place of English?

           English, as a curriculum subject, has proven itself to be the most mutable of them all. Scholars and researchers have long endeavoured to define the essence of what is taught in English: to sequester its core ethos and manifest a policy that can regulate its delivery. This has landed with its back against impossibility. The subject is abstract by definition; it relies on relativity to establish its discourse. As such, trying to quantify the unquantifiable - insofar as the National Curriculum is concerned - has resulted in the slow asphyxiation of a subject which is most fruitful when left to transpire organically. This is not to say that there should be no structure to the teaching of the subject– quite the opposite. What I am suggesting here is that English must be taught in a context that values it as a spiritual activity; it must be an extension of a channel of thought that takes its roots in a humanistic view of education. When we consider Socrates’ classic view of education as ‘the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel,’ we can begin to understand English as the subject which is most closely aligned with the original purpose of education – to inspire children to grow into their own source of light that will illuminate their future path. This pursuit is - at its core - a spiritual endeavour, and the place of English must be seen as such.

           Most trainees (which, it must be recognised, become teachers; trainees do not remain in some reactionary, limbo-like headspace for their entire careers, and it is not valuable to continually avow their experiences in this manner) regard The Bullock Report of 1975 as a viable starting point for the debate of the position of English, but the constellations of thought surrounding this were being brought into alignment decades before. The 1920s – often referred to as The Gilded Age of literature – strikes me, personally, as the golden age of thought and policy in terms of orientating the subject of English. The Newbolt Report of 1921 is the first piece of research that still exists in the collective memory of academics and teachers alike for birthing a strain of thought that worked to situate education and English in the context of an individual’s internal life. The report concentrated on the moralisation of pupils, claiming that education had become “too remote from life” (Newbolt, 1921, part 3). It says of English, “It is not the storing of compartments in the mind, but the development and training of faculties already existing. It proceeds, not by the presentation of lifeless facts, but by teaching the student to follow the different lines on which life may be explored and proficiency in living may be obtained. It is, in a word, guidance in the acquiring of experience” (Ibid, part 4). In this view, English is not the simple regurgitating of ‘popular’ opinion of ‘popular’ literature; it is not the calculated analysis of the linguistic frameworks that allow us to communicate with one another, and it is not the process of teaching content to assessment. It should be a heuristic process, awakening the child to the world inside them and working to position this inner space as entirely unique; it is causing the bird to realise that its ability to fly is innate, and does not need to be taught – only practised and explored.

           Dixon’s 1969 report, ‘Growth Through English,’ echoed the Newboltian sentiment of the place of English being in alignment with the fundamentally spiritual purpose of education. It also acknowledged that there can be various ‘models’ applied to teaching, which serve, in my mind, two purposes; first, to dissect the multitudinous nature of teaching in order to make it palatable for those whose spectrum of thought is narrower than the concept itself; and second, to excuse those subjects which have begun to ‘fill vessels’ rather than ‘kindle flames,’ so as to render them workable by way of compartmentalisation. Here, we witness the beginning of censorship in English. It is this very notion that has led to teachers of English carrying the largest workloads, and it is this vein of applied stigmatism that creates an ‘us’ and ‘them’ dynamic across contemporary institutions. This was expanded upon, then, by the aforementioned Bullock Report. 1988 saw the publication of the Kingman’s ‘Knowledge About Language.’ This marked a landmark moment in the history of English as a curriculum subject; his suggested progressive subversion of the ‘old’ ways of thinking about and teaching English led to censorship by way of government intervention. Here, the government effectively claimed ownership over English. Further regulatory measures ensued – The Cox Report of 1989, closely followed by The National Curriculum of 1990, placed English in an Orwellian place of censorship and instruction. The power ascribed to the teachers of the ‘80s was gone; the profession had been watermarked by the uniform brush of the law.

           We, as teachers of English, need to reclaim ownership of the subject which has always spoken to us on that unquantifiable, primitive level. The place of English should be within the unique space that exists between the academic and the spiritual - evolutionary and sentient, transitory in perception, but perpetuated through honour. At its core, English is – I believe - the most noble of curriculum subjects. It ventures, unashamedly, into the ambitious territory of the expansion of human experience. It dares to progress the internal story of its pupils through the study of the consciousness of others. It is the education of the spirit.

English as a Spiritual Practice

           Spirituality is a majestic and ineffable term that evades permanent definition only because of its unrivalled subjectivity. However, a definition can be approached through an acknowledgement of the factors which contribute to its process. Groen, Caholic, and Graham (Groen, Caholic, and Graham, 2012) assert that, “Spirituality includes one’s search for meaning and life purpose, connection with self, others, the universe, and a higher power that is self-defined” (ibid, p.2). In the context of this essay, it is necessary to reinforce the idea that spirituality remains entirely separated from faith. Eagleton (Eagleton, 1983) articulates how the failure of religion in Victorian Britain meant that English was able to impeach this “pacifying” space and “save our souls” (ibid, p. 20). Neither I nor Eagleton are concerned not with a religious spirituality, but with the intrinsic human spirituality that Tisdell (Tisdell, 2007) describes as simply, “one of the ways people construct knowledge and meaning. It works in consort with the affective, the rational or cognitive, and the unconscious and symbolic domains” (ibid, p.20). In this view, spirituality refers to the semiotics of the subconscious mind. In my view, it is also about transcending the self in order to exist within a constant state of mindfulness of universal context, and to understand the interconnectedness of all things. To develop spiritually is to find that metacognition and existential reflexiveness come naturally. It is the place of English to aid in the development of this process.

           According to Love and Talbot (Love and Talbot, 1999), “spiritual development involves an internal process of seeking personal authenticity, genuineness, and wholeness as an aspect of identity development. It is the process of continually transcending one’s current locus of centricity” (ibid, p.365). Ultimately, spiritual development - within the context of the English classroom - is about attempting to bring the lifeworld of the learner into harmony with the internality of an abstract or literary ‘other.’ This epoch exists both in and outside of human knowing; we can access our feeling of an affinity with a higher purpose without intention, but to harness this pursuit in an actionable and pedagogical way is the role of English.

           The Newbolt Report describes English as the “record and rekindling of spiritual experiences,” explaining that it “does not come to all by nature, but is a fine art, and must be taught as a fine art” (Newbolt, part 14). In this view of English as an art, the writer and teacher are placed as artists. I believe it is the job of the artist to try to perpetuate those thoughts and feelings which he/she feels will most contribute to a better world; art is evidenced creationism for the betterment of the collective human spirit. Indeed, those colleagues I have surveyed within my SE school demonstrate a frustrated liberality in attempting to express their view of the place of English, echoing the sentiment of the artist being asked to quantify the purpose of their work. This is demonstrative of the way in which the abstract qualities of English have been stigmatised. On the topic of English, The National Curriculum itself states that, “through reading in particular, pupils have a chance to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually” (NC, 1990). The decision for spirituality to be the note that this list ends on resonates powerfully with me. When ‘spirit’ can be used synonymously with ‘soul,’ it becomes clear that through all their stifling and bastardising policy, the Conservatives know that English lessons must be respected for the work that they do for the navigation of the soul.

Pedagogy of the Second-Guessed

           Too much government interference has willed a separation of the academic mind from the ubiquitous spirit. The objectification of the teacher within bourgeois educational structures seems to denigrate notions of wholeness and uphold this idea: one that promotes and supports compartmentalisation (hooks, 1994, p.5). Gove’s proposed new GCSE syllabus for English literature, with its emphasis on Britannica and marginalisation of the literature of other cultures (particularly, by omission, North America), demonstrates the further devaluing of empirical learning. It works, instead, to reinforce a nationalist ideology that will serve only to racialise the British education, and therefore disenfranchise the British schoolchild. This political approach is disturbingly far from the original purpose of education, and implicates Gove as a delusional philistine.

           The moralisation and eventual spiritual development of the schoolchild has been abandoned in favour of what Paulo Freire, in his revolutionary text Pedagogy of the Oppressed, labelled ‘banking education.’ He takes issue with those teachers who speak of reality as if it were motionless, static, compartmentalised, and predictable (Freire, 2000, p.71). According to Freire, this turns students into “containers” that need to be “filled,” and education thus becomes an act of “depositing” (ibid, p.72). The problem here - if not glaringly obvious - is that this model does nothing to engage the child on a spiritual level. The content of any given English lesson is ultimately forgettable; spiritual development through the analysis of the content is indelible. As such, Freire proposes an approach to education which he calls ‘critical pedagogy.’ This has been defined by Shor (Shor, 1992) as, "Habits of thought, reading, writing, and speaking which go beneath surface meaning, first impressions, dominant myths, official pronouncements, traditional clichés, received wisdom, and mere opinions, to understand the deep meaning, root causes, social context, ideology, and personal consequences" (ibid, p.129). For me, there can be no other approach. Any other way of viewing, delivering, and perpetuating education - and by extension, English - will codify education as a tool of oppression.

           I find my sentiments echoed in the words of feminist writer bell hooks (sic), who speaks of feeling a “deep inner anguish” (hooks, p.6) during her younger student years due to a deeply rooted dissatisfaction with her education. I, like hooks, was a bright child with an instinctual distrust of the ‘system.’ I had a natural gift for self-expression which was not guided by the curriculum. In fact, I remember feeling an inexplicable suspicion towards curriculum texts - I found this form of cultural dictation uncomfortable, and it led to a loathing of Shakespeare’s works and the space they occupied as a beacon for all that was British and curriculum and oppressive. However, my advanced command of the English language never wavered, so I remained a ‘worthy’ pupil in the eyes of those teachers who were clearly engaged with the ‘banking education’ model, despite my selective disagreeability. But my disdain for Shakespeare has stayed with me to this day. When this disdain was being instilled, I was dismissed by some teachers who thought that my feelings were born out of some kind of misdirected anarchy; this was not the case, and it wounded and confused me to be treated in such a way. It seemed as though I was being punished for thinking differently to my peers, when independent thought was supposed to be one of the cornerstones of English lessons. This felt like a flagrant contradiction. As a result, many teachers lost my respect. This process is still happening in classrooms today.

           hooks articulates the trouble I had with the majority of my teachers, explaining, “It was difficult to maintain fidelity to the idea of the intellectual as someone who sought to be whole – well-grounded in a context where there was little emphasis on spiritual well-being, on care of the soul” (ibid, p.6). Teachers of English are not adequate if they are not willing to engage with the spiritual side of their craft. Teaching strictly to assessment is the way to lose the brightest minds in the classroom. We cannot mobilise children by suppressing their organic tendencies. We should congratulate those students who question dogma; we should reward those who refuse to accept the status quo. For it is these students who have already accepted the paradigms presented to them, processed them, and reinterpreted them in a thoughtful and quietly revolutionary way. We must look at our collective history and remember that the hero and the rogue are so often found within the same individual.

Higher Order Thinking

           In its most recent Ofsted report, my SE school was noted as one of the most improved in its county. I believe this is due to their relentless emphasis on ‘HOT’ - Higher Order Thinking. Pupils are pushed to continually challenge and advance their own thoughts, with the crux of every effective lesson being the ability of the students to engage each other. For example, the year 9 group that I shared with a peer, (covering Willy Russel’s Blood Brothers), were asked the question, “What would you do if somebody really close to you betrayed you?” One pupil put his hand up and simply said, “Give them another chance.” This response endeared and engaged the whole class - a level of engagement that they had not yet reached. Another pupil then contributed in saying, “No, I think you should get revenge slowly.” A debate ensued about the different approaches to dealing with betrayal, and pupils were required to think about themselves and their own temperament in order to contribute. Corrigan (Corrigan, 2005) explains that, “We begin to integrate our spirituality into our teaching, reading, and writing when we allow our past experiences to inform our reading and allow our reading to inform our past experiences. We go even further when we bring our selves to the texts for new experiences” (ibid, p.3). In applying themselves to the text, pupils were able to advance with the plot on a deeper level of empathic and genuine understanding. This constituted a moment of authentic spiritual development, and the tempo of their lessons shifted from then on.

           The school is decorated with HOT-orientated propaganda, with posters stating “I don’t understand YET,” and “How HOT is your thinking?” When I asked colleagues from different departments, “What is the place of English?”, the default response was simply that it is the most cross-curricular of all the subjects; it is essential to success. Upon surveying colleagues from within the English faculty, the majority responded that it should be placed at the centre of all other subjects. When we combine these two viewpoints, English occupies the space both at the centre of the curriculum and out into all of its branches; it is omnipresent. When I surveyed ten pupils from across all years of KS3 and KS4 for their input, their responses were encouragingly thoughtful. Their general sentiment reiterated the importance of the self within English, stating notions such as, “The place of English is in the mind of the pupil.” They also referenced some of their favourite lessons as those which made the most ready use of embodied learning. The majority vote for the ‘favourite English teacher’ was the member of the faculty who had put the most thought into the decoration of their classroom. Pupils expressed a frustration with the typical English classroom working as a tiny, insular world where the facts are more important than the atmosphere. Lawrence and Dirx (Lawrence and Dirx, 2010) label this epoch ‘transformative learning,’ explaining that, “A spiritually-grounded transformative education reflects a holistic, integral perspective to learning. It seeks authentic interaction and presence, promotes an active, imaginative engagement of the self with the “other,” and embraces both the messy, concrete and immediate nature of everyday life, as well as spirited experiences of the transcendent” (ibid, pp.3-4). The students felt that they accomplished their best learning when the teacher humanised themselves by projecting their inner world onto their classroom, for the gaze of the learner must find something which its spirit can connect with if it is to remain focused.

In Conclusion: A Philosophy of De-Stigmatisation

           I believe that it is every citizen’s duty to decode their innermost tendencies in order to consider how they can best contribute to a more harmonious and efficient global community. Because of the spiritual nature of English, it is the role of the English teacher to be a luminous example of this. hooks tells us that teachers who embrace the process of self-actualisation whole-heartedly will be more capable of creating pedagogical practices that engage the whole student, providing them with ways of knowing and learning that can enhance their capacity to learn and live fully and deeply (hooks, p.22). The obstacles to our collective spiritual development lie in the fact that any activity which involves the witness, transformation, or revelation of the spirit will always require a level of vulnerability. Perhaps, in this new and hardened world where accountability is sacrificed for pseudo-professionalism, the true place of English is being overlooked because to be vulnerable is to suffer.

           We could begin to de-stigmatise the spirituality of English by encouraging the introduction of personality testing within schools. Models like the Myers-Briggs type indicator - which separates people into one of sixteen personality archetypes - are an invaluable way of beginning to think about the self. Self-aware children are thoughtful children, and thoughtful children maintain harmony. Categorising children in new and spiritual ways will alter the level on which they accept learning. Lessons on people as explicit ‘texts’ could bring about an eventual marriage of English and ‘PSHE’ lessons, changing the conversation entirely. At a secondary level, no other subject can teach you to think critically about the subtleties of perception, of non-verbal communication, of self-awareness. How do we cope with the passage of time? Is belief in something always mutually exclusive with disbelief in something else? How do we quantify our journey? How can we acknowledge and understand the journey of others? Is it more valuable to evaluate an idea, or to accept it? Knowledge, significance, insignificance, mindfulness, harmony, intuition, love, death, legacy, personal philosophy, decisions, faith, equilibrium, experience; these are the true lessons taught in English.

UK Philosophers: It’s immoral to ask questions (about gender theory)

At a large conference, a philosophy professor gave a talk exploring the concept of gender identity. Her conclusion (apparently) was that the concept of gender identity was not philosophically sound. The group Minorities and Philosophy UK objected to the questions in the paper, declaring a philosopher asking questions to be an attack on transgendered people:

“Not every item of personal and ideological obsession is worthy of philosophical debate. In particular, scepticism about the rights of marginalised groups and individuals, where issues of life and death are at stake, are not up for debate. The existence and validity of transgender and non-binary people, and the right of trans and non-binary people to identify their own genders and sexualities, fall within the range of such indisputable topics...” 

You wonder what it is they think philosophers do!?

https://www.mapforthegap.org.uk/post/statement-in-response-to-the-aristotelian-society-talk-on-3rd-june-2019

Excerpts below the break.

Joint statement in response to the Aristotelian Society talk on 3rd June 2019--Minorities and Philosophy UK “In recent years and months, attacks on the trans community have been led by a number of prominent philosophers and are made to seem legitimate due to the unwillingness of the wider community to speak up and protect its most vulnerable members...

“In continuation of such harmful trends, today (3rd June 2019) the Aristotelian Society hosted a talk by Professor Kathleen Stock, entitled ‘What is Sexual Orientation?’. We have composed this statement for two reasons: firstly, we are disappointed that a prominent philosophical organisation has hosted a talk by someone who has so aggressively and routinely spoken out against the trans community. Secondly, we are deeply concerned by the fact that the Aristotelian Society is offering its valued intellectual platform to a paper that, itself, targets the trans community. We believe this talk brings into stark relief the current situation for trans and non-binary people in philosophy.

“In defence of their decision, the Aristotelian Society recently released a statement of support for Professor Stock’s right to engage in philosophical debate. We believe a right to engage in legitimate philosophical debate does not absolve a person of responsibility for the harms they inflict on vulnerable persons, nor should philosophical institutions encourage such forms of moral evasion. We believe that by remaining ‘neutral’ and referring to ‘philosophical debates’ in this way, the Aristotelian Society has demonstrated its detachment from trans and non-binary people and their embodied and continually endangered lives. In effect, their statement of ‘neutrality’ amounts to an explicit indifference to the harassment of trans people and their allies. In this context, we have to tell it like it is and acknowledge that purported neutrality in the face of bigotry is complicity. We believe that by hosting this talk, and also by not issuing a clear and unequivocal statement of support for trans people within the profession and outside, the Aristotelian Society has contributed to the wider harms being done against trans people...

“The right to promote hateful ideas is not covered under the right to free speech. Thus, we resist the charge that this is simply an attempt to silence and stifle philosophical debate. Nobody is entitled to unlimited and unopposed speech in academic philosophy - and we need to identify and call out forms of speech that target, oppress, and silence marginalised groups.

“Not every item of personal and ideological obsession is worthy of philosophical debate. In particular, scepticism about the rights of marginalised groups and individuals, where issues of life and death are at stake, are not up for debate. The existence and validity of transgender and non-binary people, and the right of trans and non-binary people to identify their own genders and sexualities, fall within the range of such indisputable topics. We also condemn the questioning and policing of the sexualities of gay and lesbian people attracted to, and in relationships with, trans people. This policing and attacking of the genders and sexualities of others is just one way in which anti-trans arguments mirror other anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric...”

Hi! I have a character who tortured in the past (as part of the police) and stopped for multiple reasons including getting fired (because he couldn’t do his job) that took away the opportunities to torture. MC will mention him losing his job but would this be due to deskilling or poor mental health? When does deskilling really start? Is it ok to mention that the mental health problems (anxiety and depression, alcohol addiction in attempts to self-medicate, and memory problems) showing up [1/2]

[2/2] over time since the addiction takes time to become apparent and is a response to anxiety and depression? Or are torturers simply more likely to engage in behavior that has risk of addiction (and what about gambling?) I was considering setting this story in 1930s America but don’t want to imply police torturers only exist in the past. The torturer does have support in a spouse. He’s going to ask MC with help finding a job but he’ll get fired and MC will look bad for suggesting him.

I don’t see a problem with having a historical setting for your story.Saying that torturers, of any stripe, existed in the past isn’t the same thingas saying they don’t exist now.

 I do have a little bit of information on the techniques American policeused at this time but it’s specific to Chicago and I don’t know if it maps tothe whole country. I’ll leave it out for now and focus on the rest of the ask.:)

 It’s difficult to pin down an exact starting point for deskillingbecause it’s not always well defined by researchers: it’s an observationaltrend rather than a single measurable variable.

 For writing purposes I think the best way to think about it is gettingout of practice. A police officer who is torturing isn’t engaged in any sort ofpolice work beyond a really shallow surface level.

 Imagine…some kind of puzzle game you enjoy. Practice makes you quickeras you start to recognise different patterns and approaches. If you stopplaying for a couple of months you might find it difficult to start again, you’reout of practice and not at the same level you were before.

 You could argue based on that that deskilling starts immediately, but Iwouldn’t expect to see a sharp decline immediately. The decline is also goingto be less apparent if he’s partnered with people who are actually doing policework and picking up his slack.

 That said- a former police officer told me that wherever possible he’dpartner ‘lazy’ policemen together because he said someone who didn’t work hardon the job would decrease the effectiveness of someone who did. And torturerstend to actively try and recruit people in their own units. Which essentiallymeans that while his partner may not have been engaged in torture they mightwell have been turning a blind eye to it.

 It also worth stressing that in a policing context deskilling doesn’t necessarily mean a drop inarrests. It means a drop in arrests ofpeople who are likely to be guilty. Quite a few police torturers wereapplauded for their high arrest rates before their crimes came to light. Theywere essentially picking up random people (usually from marginalised groups)and pressuring them into confessing. This can create an illusion of efficiencyand success.

 Commander Jon Burge of the Chicago police force is a good example of thatsort of behaviour.

 I get the impression that’s not what you’re going for with thisparticular character and the decline you’ve outlined seems reasonable andrealistic. However if his crimes have gone unnoticed for a long time it’spossible one of his superiors is behaving in this way.

 In terms of what he’s actually fired for,I think rather than approaching it as a question of deskilling versus mentalhealth problems it would be better to think about how those two factorsinteract.

 I honestly don’t know anything about hiring/firing practices inhistorical settings. That said, using a combination of factors would probablywork very well here because it would show the readers just how incompetent thetorturer has become. It will make his dismissal seem incredibly reasonable.

 I’d suggest bringing in deskilling by highlighting obvious things hemissed in cases. If you want to bring in other police characters having anon-torturer finding the obvious evidence the torturer missed (and hencesolving the case) could be a good way to up the emotional tension.

 Depression often impacts someone’s presentation and the amount of carethey put into their appearance, which could be classed as negative byemployers. It can also impact a character’s ability to sleep and eat normallywhich in turn would lower their performance at work because they’re usuallytired and hungry. He could easily come across as obnoxious and irritable.

 Coupled with memory problems I think he could easily struggle to get towork on time, especially during shift work. Not turning up on a night shiftwhere something serious occurs could easily get him into a lot of trouble. Hemight also have trouble remembering where he’s supposed to go if things getswitched around or change quickly (common occurrences in policing). So he mightturn up on the side of town he was working on last week when he’s supposed tobe investigating something else that day.

 This could make him come across as unreliable, uncaring or both.

 Anxiety, and anxiety attacks, could reinforce that impression in hissuperiors. To the people around him it would probably seem as though he’s proneto over reacting to situations and escalating them. Because if he’s in themiddle of what’s…essentially the ‘normal’ physiological response to extremethreat then he’s likely to respond as if he’s in a life and death situationeven when he isn’t.

 As an example: say your character and his partner (let’s call them Alex)are outside talking to a local tough (let’s call him Bob). Bob is posturing alittle and being verbally uncooperative, perhaps even a little insulting. Thisisn’t necessarily a threat and Bob hasn’t necessarily committed any crimes. Butthe torturer character is feeling extremely anxious at that particular moment.He starts posturing himself, perhaps says something inflammatory. Bob getsupset and the torturer becomes convinced he’s about to be attacked.

 A situation that could have been remained a simple chat suddenly becomesviolent. There was never really any danger, but your character is in aprofession that can be genuinely dangerous and he’s primed to see dangereverywhere.

 From Alex’s point of view the torturer has just made both the situationand perhaps the particular task they’re supposed to be doing, more dangerous.From Alex’s point of view the torturer has just dropped both of them in a lotmore trouble for no reason whatsoever.

 This sort of behaviour can make the character look unpredictable andperhaps prone to violence. That old ‘loose cannon’ stereotype isn’t soappealing when you have to deal with it every day and aren’t sure whether thenext unprovoked outburst could be aimed at you.

 I think it’s perfectly reasonable to treat addiction problems as anattempt to self medicate for depression and anxiety. I also think it’sreasonable to show his mental health problems getting worse over time.

 The current research can’t tell us much about how quickly symptomsdevelop in torturers. That’s because the research is done after these people have been torturing for a considerable length oftime. We can say, with reasonable confidence, that they’re usually mentallyhealthy before they start torturing. But I don’t think we can really judge howfast symptoms develop at this time.

 Writing it as a steady decline seems like a reasonable approach to mebecause we’re talking about repeated exposure to traumatising events (iewitnessing torture).

 I think that leaves the question of what drives addiction problems intorturers. I honestly don’t know. I’m also not sure whether any research hasbeen performed to find out. Anecdotally I know that it’s pretty common fortorturers who acknowledge they have an addiction problem to describe it as selfmedicating. Based on that I think it’s reasonable to write it as self medicatingin at least some cases.

 I hope that helps. :)

Being trans is a super complicated thing and I just kinda want to get it out of my head right now

Being trans has given me some of the best times in my life but also some of my worst

Being trans put me in a space that I ended up getting groomed in and I think that's what I want to call it now because that's what it was and it's full impact on me I haven't really fully realised I think.

It's impossible for me to parse how much it affected how I interact with people online or how I have sex - online or otherwise. I really have no idea what impact it had on me but I'm definitely divorced from it enough now to acknowledge it did have an effect and it wasnt good. Probably.

Being trans lead me to coming under attack from my parents from being shouted at so much I was dry heaving into a toilet bowl whilst being bellowed at over a flower crown to having my every photo scrutinised. Being told I had a whores name being told the internet transed me it goes on.

It lead me to drink heavily in my last year of sixth form and ultimately ended me with a pretty serious drinking problem in my first year of uni. None of these things are separate - and not just because it's do with me being trans - but that they all did play into each other my grooming sparked parental critique sparked drinking. I often thought about killing myself.

Being trans at uni wasn't scary but now it is. Now I can see the way trans people are treated in the workplace I'm terrified. I don't want to become some fall guy for someone or suffer through potential sexual abuse but these are only hypotheticals that play in my brain they're not reality of course who knows what my workplace will look like but based on other people's experiences it doesn't look great.

I feel I've suffered a sort of emotional dysphoria, I feel like I shouldn't ever have felt so bad I mean after all my parents have never threatened to kick me out, I've never truly self harmed, I'm at a good uni in a subject I like by almost all metrics my life is going pretty great yet inside a total storm has been brewing and crashing at my heart. I feel a crushing weight of problems I can't pin point. Sometimes I can't pin point them because I refuse to acknowledge they were ever problems or ever effected me. I almost don't believe when something bad happens to me I just shrug it off who cares lol I'll be fine but I'm not.

A friend of mine commited suicide because I was trans. Not that I came out to them and it shocked them so much they died but that it opened a whole world of gender problems for them because they realised they didn't need to be cis which made their life worse and then when they needed me I was abusive and manipulative and not there. Not there enough at all. I still kind of blame myself. That's a lie. I completely still blame myself. But I think that's how it should be.

Being trans has given me some really good things this isn't an entry lamenting being trans I can't deny reality I am trans and there's no point hating that. I'm trying to sort of process what being trans has *meant* for me I guess

Obviously I met Cobhalith as a result of being trans and that has been one of the most important parts of my entire life. Our love is inextricably entwined with our gender of course, having gone through the near-mandatory trauma that comes with being trans, transfem no less, we have a special bond that ties us together even when things are at their lowest I think we both know we can pull each other out we've been through worse collectively so we can fight together through the darkness ahead.

It has also allowed me to gain a unique prospective on the world. Realising how much binary thinking pervades the world. It also lead me to get involved in politics which although I regret has given me the opportunity to stand up for other marginalised communities.

It has lead to a state where I can concieve of comfortability in my own skin. It has lead to forming a few good friends.

Being trans is so much more than not identifying as your birth gender it becomes part of your soul. It imprints itself on your very being. I do like it but I do wish it was easier sometimes.

White Lie: Kamala Harris is the progressive queen we have been waiting for; as the first black, Indian, female VP all things will inevitably change for the better! Sit upon your pedestal Madam Vice President!

The reality:

Should anyone doubt the effectiveness of the US political propaganda machine, they need only look at how successfully it whitewashed Kamala’s abysmal track record as prosecutor. Our Madam VP elect is very far from the progressive her campaign slogans and your Instagram stickers have made her out to be.

I’ve been holding back from writing this post: I didn’t want to put out the sordid details of Harris’ record before the election in case I inadvertently convince some undecided voter to go the wrong way (lol at me thinking I had any such influence!) Or have someone accuse me of being a Trump supporter, heaven forbid. I also didn’t want to write this post too soon after the election, as people rightly celebrate the result after days, even weeks, of anxiety and stress. I don’t want to be that much of a party pooper! But… I did spend much of the post-election evening grinding my teeth at the multitude of ignorant Instagram posts screeching ‘KamaLove’, ‘Yes we Kam!’ or of her shimmying some dance moves. Worst of all was the widely shared video of Kamala’s post-election victory speech, where she declared:

“I am thinking about… the generations of women – Black women, Asian, white, Latina, Native American women – who, throughout our nation’s history, have paved the way for this moment.’

In Kamala’s case, women of colour paved the way in a very different sense: she figuratively stepped on them to make it as VP.

I fully acknowledge and appreciate the empowerment that comes from representation: it means a lot to have someone that looks like you rise to a position of power, especially when it is ground-breaking and breaks thick, bullet-proof glass ceilings. To be the first black, South Asian, daughter of immigrants to become VP in the US is huge. But representation only goes so far, particularly if said person has a track record of supporting or exacerbating systems that discriminate against minorities and the working class. We, in Britain, with the likes of Margaret Thatcher, Priti Patel, and Saji Javid should really know this by now.

To eradicate any doubt, I invariably wanted the Democrats to win the US election; I am still rejoicing at seeing the physical embodiment of Agent Orange lose. But while I celebrate the end of the Trump administration, I am not necessarily looking forward to a Biden-Harris one. Biden’s shortcomings appear to be widely accepted; heck, with a slogan like ‘Settle for Biden’ even the Biden presidential campaign acknowledge he’s far from perfect. But what baffled me was the wholesale acceptance of the message that Kamala Harris was ‘IT’: there was such fervent feeling that she was a progressive saviour; a progressive queen, who’s reign would mark the beginning of a progressive new age. And all her campaign had to do was repeat the word ‘progressive’ enough times for everyone to believe it.

There is nothing that irritates me more than public figures being put on pedestals they don’t deserve. This hero-worship tends to arise from ignorance, often by design, of said person’s full history. As such, it’s another example of a dangerous white lie that serves to maintain a harmful status quo. This is certainly the case for Kamala: her presidential campaign, and later vice-presidential campaign, pedalled the incomplete and erroneous message that she is a through-and-through progressive. When in fact, she has a history of being another run-of-the-mill, tepid-in-the-face-of-injustice, neoliberal candidate that perpetuated the status quo, particularly within the sphere of criminal justice and actions against the police. I hope the events of this past year, particularly those arising from George Floyd’s death and the BLM protests, has made it self-evident that we really want to move on from the status quo.

Now, I’d hate to be hypocritical by painting her as entirely ‘bad’. Kamala has largely been on the right side of history during her time in the Senate: she introduced a bail reform bill with Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) that would encourage states to reform or replace standing bail systems that currently jails hundreds and thousands of people for simply not being able to pay their bail; alongside Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Tim Scott (R-SC), she introduced a historic bill that made lynching a federal crime; Kamala has also signed on to Booker’s marijuana legalisation bill, in a drastic U-turn on her stance on the matter; she also voted for the First Step Act, a significant (although limited) federal criminal justice reform bill that would ease very punitive prison sentences at the federal level.

Even before then, she started the ‘Back on Track’ program as District Attorney, which allowed first-time drug offenders to obtain a high school diploma and a job instead of doing prison time. Her handling of California’s ‘three strikes’ law as DA was also head of its time: under the law, someone who committed a third felony could go to prison for 25 years to life, even if their third felony is a nonviolent crime (America is a wild and incredibly draconian place). But Harris required that the San Franciscan DA’s office only charged for a third strike if the felony was a serious or violent crime. Harris also unveiled the Open Justice portal, a website that contained data on arrest rates and deaths in custody, going some way in addressing the lack of a national database for these figures and therefore accounting for the use of deadly force by law enforcement.

But then some of what she did was just tepid. When the BLM movement took off, for example, Harris introduced and expanded ‘first of its kind training’ to address racial bias within the police. However, officers had to sign up voluntarily and were only required to attend 8 hours of training – I somehow doubt this’ll do much in overturning a deep-seated and institutional racism problem within the police. As Attorney General, Harris made the California Department of Justice the first state-wide agency to require body cameras, but she stopped short of endorsing state-wide regulations on their use, leaving it free to local forces to decide how and when they could be used. Doesn’t really instil accountability, does it?

Then there are parts of Kamala’s track record as prosecutor that is plain old regressive; reminiscent of a ‘tough on crime’ era that subjected people of colour to heavy handed policing and insurmountable institutional road blocks throughout the criminal justice system. It’s not merely the fact that she was a prosecutor that’s problematic: although there are those like Briahna Gray (American political commentator and lawyer) who argue that ‘to become a prosecutor is to make a choice to align oneself to a powerful and fundamentally biased system’, I am open to the possibility that tangible and radical change can be effected from the inside. As Harris said in the New York Times Magazine in 2016, she wanted to work within a system she wanted to change, to be ‘at the table where the decisions are made’ (however, I am also equally open to the possibility that eradicating institutional racism requires a more drastic overhaul of the entire system). But rather, it’s what she did and enacted as prosecutor that makes Kamala’s image of progressive saviour so deeply hypocritical.

Kamala Harris was anti-sex work

There are people I know who would balk at this first point and think, so what? I’m anti-sex work. For a moment I thought I would give in to this sentiment and miss out this point. But that moment passed very quickly; because to do so would overlook the women of colour Kamala Harris harmed as District Attorney, and women of colour have been overlooked enough.

To address those who are choking on their tea: it is now a progressive stance to be pro-sex work, catch up with the times my friends! It’s long overdue we fully respect any man or woman’s choice to undertake sex work, as long as it’s consensual. “But but but uggghhh!!! It’s so vulgar! So unsavoury and demeaning!! How could you be for it! It’s so disrespectful to women!’ yada yada yada. Sex work is not invalid just because it’s not work you’d personally undertake. I, for one, respect and value myself and others too much to ever debase myself by becoming a management consultant, but there are people who do and they’re not criminalised for it (despite their exploitation of the working class). And you know what’s even more disrespectful to women? Telling them what they can and cannot do with their bodies or how they should make their money.

While I accept the reality that some sex workers are vulnerable and, having grown up in Southeast Asia, I can’t deny that sex trafficking is a very real problem that needs to be addressed. But I do not believe that criminalising sex work is the answer to helping the marginalised and exploited. Rather, they should be protected and given safe options of redress. Moreover, there is a difference between exploitation and consensual sexual work. And that is fundamentally where Kamala got it wrong: although she presented herself as an advocate for victims of sexual exploitation, as District Attorney and prosecutor she often conflated ‘trafficking’ with consensual sex work.

For instance, she waged a war against Backpage.com, an advertisement website used by sex workers, during her time as District Attorney of San Francisco. Many in the industry argued that it made their work secure in more ways than one: the website not only provided a steady stream of more reliable income, but also meant sex workers no longer had to take to the streets to find clients, and provided a means by which they could vet clients or make complaints against them. Harris’, on the other hand, called the site ‘the world’s top online brothel’ and pursued pimping charges against the website’s operators even after a judge tossed out the initial case on free speech grounds. Backpage’s closure left many sex workers strapped for cash to pay for their housing and medicines and even forced some sex workers to turn to more precarious kinds of work to make up for lost income. Harris continued her opposition to the website as Senator and supported legislation that further criminalised sex work across the internet.

Harris made matters worse by making sex work unsafe more generally, most notably by voting against Proposition K – a bill that would’ve decriminalised prostitution in San Francisco. Prop K would’ve redirected city resources once spent on arresting prostitutes into education and health outreach for sex workers, providing access to an array of the city’s medical and legal services, therefore opening up avenues for sex workers to report violence committed against them and improve their public health.

Harris vehemently disagreed. In a public statement (video here) she equated Prop K to ‘roll[ing] out the welcome mat to prostitutes and pimps to come to San Francisco. It would impede and interfere with our ability to investigate and prosecute cases of human trafficking…’ Moreover, she claimed that ‘Proposition K pretends to be about compassion, when in fact it is completely the opposite… it is not compassionate to the families who live in the neighbourhoods where these activities are occurring… If you want to go see Pretty Woman, go rent it.’ That’s a very long-winded way of saying that outdated phrase we’ve come to hate so much: ‘tough on crime.’

Instead, the San Franciscan Police Department and DA’s office were using the presence of condoms as evidence of prostitution and other criminal activity, which in turn posed a significant barrier to the routine use of condoms by sex workers: to avoid criminal charges, many were reluctant to carry condoms or keep them at their place of work. Evidence shows that sex workers are more likely to use condoms and have lower rates of sexual transmitted diseases where payment for sex is permitted, as in Austria, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Thailand. In the early days of the AIDs epidemic, there was an agreement between the San Franciscan DA and Health Department not to use condoms as evidence for this very reason; but this was well and truly gone as Kamala waged her war against ‘Pretty Women’.

Besides the moral and public health standpoint, there was evidence to suggest that criminalisation of sex work was ineffective – only 9 cases went to trial in 2009, the year before Prop K was proposed, and no convictions resulted from them. Even more problematic was police culpability in the ‘crime’ Kamala was so staunchly against: a 2012 USFC medical study found that 1 in 5 sex workers in San Francisco reported that police officers paid them for sex. Horrifyingly, 1 in 7 were threatened with arrest by police officers unless they had sex with them. Kamala was directing her ire to the wrong place.

Prop K would have been a more humane and effective approach to sex work, but Kamala was so against it that she maintained her position even during her ‘progressive’ stint in the Senate. Our so-called progressive champion championed a policy that is already viewed by many as backwards and unethical.

Kamala threatened to jail parents of kids who missed school

The well-being of children is perhaps less controversial and a cause that the majority of society can rally behind… Well, unless you’re a Trump supporter who doesn’t mind seeing children caged; a Tory who initially allowed children to starve during their school holidays; or you’re Kamala Harris and implemented a program that threatened to jail parents in order to solve California’s truancy problem.

Throughout her political rise, Harris has upheld her anti-truancy program as an example of her ‘smart on crime’ approach. Before the implementation of this new program, parents could be cited and fined but never faced the threat of jail time. Harris, however, thought truancy was a problem that could only be solved with an iron first. She argued that truancy was a criminal justice issue, declaring that ‘if we don’t educate these kids in the classroom, they’re going to be educated in the streets’; stating that 94% of San Francisco’s young homicide victims and two thirds of prison inmates are high school drop outs. As such, rather repressively, her anti-truancy program upped the ante by threatening parents with prosecution and adding the possibility of jail time: parents of children who are chronically truant can be found guilty of a misdemeanour and face a series of fines and punishments, starting with $100 fine for the first conviction and ending with a $2,000 fine as well as a year of incarceration. She first implemented the program in 2008 as San Francisco’s District Attorney, but later implemented it as state-wide law in 2012 as California’s new Attorney General.

To Kamala’s credit as District Attorney, the threat of prosecution was only used in extreme truancy cases, involving weeks or months of missed classes, and only after parents had been offered help by relevant support providers. Typically, when a student was found to be regularly truant, the school district would first get involved by sending out letters to parents telling them that their child was missing class. The school would then invite parents to a meeting with school staff and, sometimes, support service providers would attend to get to the root of the truancy. The next step was a meeting with the school attendance review board – in which various government agencies and social services, as well as school staff, would attend – to better understand how to prevent the truancy issues. That meeting typically concluded with a contract that dictated who was going to do what to make sure the child could attend class. Harris’ supporters have emphasised how this framework ultimately helped families struggling with poverty, homelessness, mental illness, and substance abuse gain access to the supportive services they need.

Harris, in her memoir The Truths We Hold, argued that this was the point of the program all along: ‘even today, others don’t appreciate the intention behind my approach; they assume that my motivation was to lock-up parents, when of course that was never my goal. Our effort was designed to connect parents to resources that could help them get their kids back into school where they belonged. We were trying to support parents, not punish them – and in the vast majority of cases, we succeeded.’ There is indeed evidence to show that school attendance rates did rise in San Francisco after the program’s implementation: San Francisco Unified School District data showed that the percentage of chronically truant students had fallen to 2.5% from 4% from 2007/8 to 2010/11; habitual truancy rates and overall truancy rates also fell. However, it’s unclear if the program can be credited for the change, as the school district also carried out various other efforts at the time to improve attendance rates.

But there is so much wrong with Harris’ anti-truancy approach. Firstly and unsurprisingly, it disproportionately affected children of colour: Los Angeles implemented a ticketing version of the anti-truancy program, in which children outside of school hours were ticketed and fined $250 or more, with a mandatory court appearance, for their first offence. These punitive measures were not only drastic, economically costly, and caused students to miss more school for court appearances, but had also highly racialised consequences: a Latinx student in the Los Angeles Unified School District was twice as likely to be ticketed and arrested at school than a white student, and a black student is almost six times more likely to be ticketed and arrested than their white counterparts.

Worse still, Kamala Harris as District Attorney specifically targeted children of colour in implementing the program: her office spent $20,000 on a campaign advertising a hotline and urging San Francisco residents to call if they spotted kids ‘playing hooky’ during school hours. The ad campaign targeted three historically black and Latinx neighbourhoods. Big Sister, Kamala Harris, is always watching… But only if you’re black or brown.

Secondly, if the point was never to imprison parents or punish them, and to ultimately work towards reducing the number of people who pass through the criminal justice system, then why did the possibility of prosecution and imprisonment exist at all? It is illogical to me that one would use prosecution and imprisonment as a solution to the very thing that prosecution and imprisonment brings about: punishment and increasing those who pass through the criminal justice system. In fact, a punitive approach to truancy only threatens to fuel the prison pipeline. Moreover, it is after all possible to implement the positive elements of the program – namely the framework and processes that connected struggling families with the support services they needed – without prosecution or imprisonment being a possible end point. Indeed, this would’ve probably put the program outside of Kamala Harris’ remit as District Attorney and Attorney General, and it would’ve instead fallen to the leader of the San Francisco Unified School District to implement it, but so be it.

Harris and her supporters have made pains to highlight that no parents were jailed during her time as District Attorney. Katy Miller, who helped implement the program as prosecutor working under Harris, states that at most 20 parents are prosecuted in a typically year in San Francisco, and none have been jailed. But the implementation of the anti-truancy programme state-wide has meant more conservative (read: punitive) parts of the State have not been as considerate towards families’ needs: in Hanford, California for example, one mum was sentenced to 180 days in jail in 2012 for not sending her kids to school. This is an unwelcome outcome even by Harris’ standards.

This therefore begs the question as to whether truancy should be criminalised at all? Firstly, all involved, including Harris – the anti-truancy program’s very own architect – acknowledges that criminalisation is an undesirable and unwelcome outcome. Secondly and more principally, prosecutors, the criminal justice system, and criminal punishment are far from being the answer to many social ills, truancy being one of them.

Jyoti Nanda, a law professor who runs a youth justice clinic at the University of California, Los Angeles, said she had been ‘deeply disappointed’ by Harris’ ‘fearmongering’ on truancy. And fearmonger Harris did: in a 2010 video, she boasted that a mum warned her kids, after seeing a letter from the prosecutor’s office, that ‘if you don’t go to school, Kamala’s going to put you and me in jail.’ Nanda has described the approach as ‘completely the opposite of best practices’ to help students. Furthermore, the way Harris framed truancy as the individual fault of poor parents fed into old, ugly, stereotypes about poor families and families of colour (which is, again, very reminiscent of a ‘tough on crime’ approach!) Nanda highlights that student truancy is not necessarily the problem of bad or neglectful parents, but a system of broader problems, the chronic underfunding of California’s State schools being one of them. ‘It’s using a crime lens to address what’s really a public health issue,’ Nanda says.

The reality is that more often than not issues stemming from or exacerbated by poverty are at the root of truancy – the program itself acknowledges this by putting families in much needed contact with the various support services they need. It’s therefore incredibly draconian to criminalise the issue: the threat of prosecution, imprisonment, or a fine could hurt an already struggling family financially, or take a parent out of a child’s home. A child who is a truant is probably not getting sufficient parental support or contact, because they or their parents are juggling multiple jobs, struggling with health issues and care, are homeless, in the criminal justice system already, and/or are generally struggling to make ends meet. As summed up by James Forman Jr, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning book Locking Up Our Own, in a series of tweets: ‘you’re essentially threatening people with prison when there’s underlying poverty issues that are potentially preventing them from having their kids show up to school on time.’ The last thing a child in these already difficult circumstances needs is for their parent to be prosecuted, jailed, and incur the financial and practical long terms costs associated with this. How is that mum from Hanford going to drive her kids to school if she’s in jail, or if she can’t afford transportation due to hundreds or thousands of dollars in fines? In the longer term, the criminal record she incurs could harm her future job prospects. These collateral consequences only inhibit a parents’ ability to support their children and get them to school; the program therefore carries the potential of hurting the children it intends to help. And it really need not to.

Kamala defended mass incarceration

In this time of greater awareness regarding the racism and brutality of the criminal justice system, thanks to the Black Lives Matter movement, a defence of mass incarceration is unarguably a non-progressive stance. Credence must be paid to the fact that Harris’ put forward an ambitious criminal justice reform plan during her bid for the Democratic nomination – policies that aimed to end the war on drugs and, most notably, scale back on mass incarceration have now been adopted into Biden’s presidential campaign. However, this reformist stance is the antithesis of Kamala’s own track record as Attorney General, when she defied the US Supreme Court’s order to reduce overcrowding in Californian prisons.

California’s mass incarceration problem was both chronic and infamous: at its peak, the State’s prison system was at 200% of its designed capacity. The situation was so dire that in one prison, 54 prisoners shared a single toilet; suicidal inmates were locked in telephone-booth sized cages for 24 hours at a time; and beds and medical personnel were at such a shortage that preventable deaths due to substandard and overstretched medical care occurred every five to six days. Constitutional protections for prisoners against cruel and unusual punishment is enshrined in the Bill of Rights, but for decades successive Republican and Democratic administrations ignored the problem.

It speaks to the seriousness of the problem that a federal District Court held in 2009 that no other plausible solution existed for getting the State to conform to a constitutionally reasonable standard other than prison release – federal courts are typically reluctant to consider prisoner release and see it as a measure of last resort. A pledge to quickly build new prisons was considered but found not credible in the midst of a recession and given California’s limited finances. The District Court therefore mandated that the State enact a series of decarceration measures to reduce the prison population to 137.5% of its designed capacity within two years (i.e. mass incarceration would continue, but at least to a lesser extent. Yay!)

However, the case (Brown v Plata) was taken to the US Supreme Court when the State appealed the District Court’s ruling. Again, the severity of California’s mass incarceration problem was highlighted when the conservative leaning Supreme Court’s judgement found California’s prison system to be in violation of prisoners’ Eighth Amendment Rights and identified prisoner release as the most effective method of ending the State’s constitutional violation in a timely manner. The verdict was split 5-4, with the conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy joining the Court’s liberals: in upholding the lower-court mandate, Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in the case, adding gruesome details from inside California’s prisons, and condemning the State for facilitating “needless suffering and death.” I’ll keep mum of the hypocrisy of this coming from a judge who ruled in favour of the right to bear arms for now.

By the time this judgement was released on 23 May 2011, Kamala Harris was newly appointed California’s Attorney General and the ruling would therefore have to be enacted on her watch. Every six months, the State needed to show that it had decreased its prison population in compliance with a threshold overseen by a three-judge District Court panel: 167% of capacity by the end of 2011, 155% by June 2012, finally arriving at the target level of 137.5% by June 2013. But, with Harris at the helm, it soon became clear that the State would not easily comply with the judicial order.

It’s worth noting that Harris was acting on behalf on behalf of California State Governor Brown, who preceded her as State AG and was notorious for his position on the issue. I’m sympathetic to Harris for having to defend an unsavoury client in this case: all lawyers have experience of this and I have no doubt that I’ll have many a client I strongly disagree with; but so often our hands are tied behind our backs, due to regulatory and ethical codes, and despite strong vehemence to our clients’ stance we have to defend them nonetheless. But it’s the way she conducted the case, which lawyers do have scope in determining, that I take issue with: Harris, on behalf of Brown, acted in complete defiance of the Supreme Court ruling.

Little to no progress had been made on the decarceration mandate and, by 2012, a report surfaced that proved the State actually intended to increase its prison population. In May of that same year, Harris’ office ‘confirmed their intent to not comply with the Order but instead to seek its modification from 137.5% design capacity to 145%,’ a modification that was not granted to them. The District Court ended up extending the decarceration compliance deadline to the end of 2013. But by April 2012, just two months before the initial deadline given in the Supreme Court decision, California still had 9,636 prisoners more than the court-imposed ceiling. The State submitted a proposal that involved relocating inmates to fire camps to fight wildfires, and prevent out-of-state prisoners from being returned. But after reviewing these proposals, the three-judge panel found that that still left California’s prisons some 4,170 prisoners over the hard limit.

Again, the three-judge panel acquiesced and arrived at a solution: the expansion of ‘good time’ credits for nonviolent offenders, shortening stays often by just a handful of months. This effectively involved increasing the sentence reductions minimum-custody inmates can earn for good behaviour, instead channelling them into rehabilitation and education programs. The State’s own expert witness had testified years prior that he did not oppose good credit measures, and that there was no correlation between length of stay and recidivism, meaning that the public was not at risk. States such as Washington, Illinois, and even tough-on-crime New York had implemented these programs with success. The Court found that the expansion of good time credits would make some 5,385 inmates eligible for release and therefore solve the problem at hand.

But Governor Brown, with Harris steering the ship, did not agree. Harris’ office launched into a campaign of all-out obstruction, refusing to answer why they could not simply comply with the request to release low-risk, nonviolent inmates in order to conform with the Supreme Court’s request. Harris office relented further: they claimed on behalf of the State that the Supreme Court had no jurisdiction to even request such a release, refusing to answer questions as to how they would implement the Supreme Court ruling, and courting a constitutional crisis. Any lawyer reading this will be clutching their pearls right now – the audacity to refuse the final ruling of the highest court in the land, can you believe!!!!

Unsurprisingly, the three-judge District Court panel replied with a stunning rebuke in their June 2013 ruling: when asked by what date the State could provide a list of prisoners who are unlikely to reoffended, the judge wrote that the ‘defendants defiantly refused and stated, somewhat astonishingly, that our suggestion that we might order defendants to develop a system to identify low-risk prisoners, a system that the Supreme Court had suggested we might consider ordering defendants to develop ‘without delay,’ is a prisoner release order that vastly exceeds the scope of the Court’s prior orders.’ The Supreme Court had in fact ruled that the three-judge District Court panel had exactly that authority in its 2011 ruling. ‘In tortured logic, the defendants suggested that the Supreme Court’s statement ‘did not authorise the early release of prisoners, or even the consideration of that question.’ The ruling went on to say that Harris’ Attorney General’s Office ‘continually equivocated regarding the facts and the law,’ to the point that the panel strongly considered holding the State in contempt.’  Ladies and gentlemen, gaslight tactics were indeed deployed by Harris’ office to the extreme.

The panel, however, did not hold the State in contempt, primarily because it would have delayed the release of nonviolent inmates further, and therefore aided the State’s obstructionist tactics. The manipulation! And all this to prevent the release of only 5,000 nonviolent offenders, whom multiple courts and experts had presented as next to no risk of reoffending or threat to public safety. Instead, the State decided to spend the time seesawing back and forth between dubious legal fillings and flagrant disregard.

Harris’ legal tactics also drew rebuke from legal commentators, who saw her legal motions as obstructionist, done in bad faith, and nonsensical. Barry Krisberg, long-time president of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, said that ‘the legal arguments that the State was putting forward make no sense.’ Andrew Cohen, Senior Editor at the Marshall Project and fellow at the Brennan Centre for Justice, believes that Harris’ behaviour may have put her in breach of California’s legal and ethical standards, which forbid filing a motion ‘for an improper purpose, such as to harass or cause unnecessary delay.’

In an endorsement of the exploitative prison labour complex, the State at one point argued that nonviolent offenders needed to stay incarcerated, because they worked as groundskeepers, janitors, in prison kitchens with wages that range from 8 cents to 37 cents per hour, and were needed in fire camps in the wildfire-plagued State. If they were released, then prisons would lose an ‘important labour pool’. Harris has recently distanced herself from these arguments, claiming that she had no knowledge of it and telling BuzzFeed News that she was ‘shocked’ by the argument. But Alexander Sammon, writer of The Prospect article ‘How Kamala Harris Fought to Keep Nonviolent Prisoners Locked Up’ casts doubt on the notion that Kamala was ignorant of legal arguments put forward in this case: generally, she was known to run an extremely centralised AG’s office, with few things coming in or going without her express sign off. Specifically, this was the highest-profile case she managed as AG, involving a ruling from the highest court in the land, concerning a decarceration order her office spent years resisting. As if any of the arguments put forward escaped her notice before they got to court.

This dogged and callous opposition to decarceration hardly conveys Kamala as being on the side of racial and justice reform. Moreover, as Sammon points out, ‘putting someone with a history of defying the Supreme Court on the Democratic ticket would significantly undermine the Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s pledge to return to the pre-Trump ear of governance, where the three branches of government are seen as coequal and the courts are respected.’

Kamala isn’t looking so progressive now, is she? A lot to take in, I know. And it’s gut wrenching to come to the realisation that someone you pinned so much hope on is disappointing in so many ways. So, let’s take a breather.

Or, are you not convinced yet? Fear not, next time we look into Kamala’s history of upholding wrongful convictions and inaction in the face of police brutality and prosecutorial misconduct.

Whatever happened to Lainey Gossip?

Lainey Gossip was the smartest celebrity gossip site on the internet. I was an avid reader for most of my adult life. You may recall my April 2016 blog post about gossip and, in particular, blind items. Well, it’s been nearly a year since Lainey posted a blind item. In the site’s heyday (pre-2017), she posted a blind roughly once a month.

Beyond the drop-off in blind items, the site has decayed in a number of ways. It’s become smug and self-aggrandising. They rolled lifestyle content onto the main blog feed, so now I have to scroll past posts about, I kid you not, baby names. (Caring about baby names is so inherently stupid to me, I feel genuinely irritated just being exposed to that content. Just name your kid something out of the primary religious text for your culture/region/family. Adam can never go out of style.)

The main thing which has turned me off Lainey Gossip is the writers’ misapprehension that the site is some kind of arbiter on social justice issues. Every other day there is a post with some insufferable moralising about feminism, equality, systemic racism, Rowling’s transphobia etc. It’s not that these are bad takes - I actually agree with what they’re saying. But I don’t want to hear it on this site. I don’t refer to gossip writers for guidance on this. Lainey is not a political activist. The writers on the site are just regurgitating ideas and lessons they’ve learnt elsewhere. This post from June was the final straw for me. The relevant part of the post is Alia Shawkat’s apology for saying the n-word during an interview in 2016. The clip of her actually saying the n-word seems to have disappeared from the internet, but basically she was describing a time when she and some of her friends arrived in a very nice hotel and how she thought of the lyric: “Nigga, we made it" from the Drake song “We Made It”. 

Here’s Lainey’s analysis:

As people have pointed out on Twitter, 2016 isn’t that long ago. And Alia was in her 20s. Whether or not you decide to cancel her, as many are doing, is up to you. 

I can’t fully account for it, but the phrase ‘Whether or not you decide to cancel her is up to you’ rubbed me the wrong way. Whether you decide to cast her into the fire for not correctly censoring herself when quoting a Drake song. Whether she is destroyed as a person forever. A worthless husk. Irredeemable. Whether her soul should be torn out and her body fed to crows. That’s up to you. The new god? It’s you, the reader of this gossip blog!

This was during the peak of the Black Lives Matter protests and discussion this year. So, in the second half of the article Lainey gets high on her own farts, like so:

While I have never used the n-word casually, and many of you may say the same, we do all engage with Black art, we do all borrow from it, consciously or unconsciously, in the ways we express ourselves, in the way I have expressed myself here, from fashion to language to GIFs. Think of how much cultural colloquial vocabulary comes from the Black community – recent examples include “lit”, “snatched”, “shady”, “flex”, “tea”, and phrasing that’s become commonplace and permanent in our language like “chill”, “dope”, “extra” – all of this comes from the creativity of Black minds. And they’re almost never credited for it.

So yes, of course, call out people like Alia for their irresponsible use of the most egregious words, but at the same time, let’s all consider how much we owe to the Black community for what they’ve given to us and for little we’ve given back in respect, appreciation, and credit. Because while the immediate urgency of Black Lives Matter is to prevent more senseless killings of Black people, the broader focus of BLM is Black dignity in all forms, and all of this is related. We can’t say that we honour Black humanity if we are erasing their contributions in all aspects of our lives.

Thanks Lainey. To be clear, I wouldn’t mind if this was the only time she’d shared an opinion like this - but this type of argument is repeated ad nauseaum across the site. She’s a therapist. She’s a civil rights activist. She knows what’s good for you. She speaks with great authority on how to solve racism. 

Fast forward a couple of weeks and Lainey is apologising for the hideous shit she used to write on her blog in the early 2000s where her takes were often racist, homophobic, and/or misogynistic. In her apology post, she wrote:

Many people object to cancel culture. My personal opinion on it is that while cancel culture is not always judiciously applied, it does have value. Sometimes people should be cancelled. And if you visit this website often, you might be thinking about whether or not to cancel me. That’s fair.

...I have been conditioned in white supremacy, and I have enabled white privilege, even as a person of colour myself, because we too, given that white supremacy is so dominant, can have bias... When I started this site back in 2003/2004, I wrote misogynist things and slut shaming things, and racist things. And as the site grew in popularity, it served as confirmation bias, that there was an appetite out there for this kind of content, and I wanted to keep delivering it. Over time, I learned and grew, along with many of you who have learned and grown. And through it all, I have talked about my progress, calling out my past mistakes and leaving much of that content on the site instead of deleting it. There are some things, though, that have been deleted because I was embarrassed and I didn’t want to be part of it and obviously didn’t want to perpetuate those thoughts. But in the process of doing that, I realised that that would be erasing history – and for marginalised people, their pain and trauma is constantly being erased and invalidated. My leaving it there to be eventually called out is nothing compared to their experience.

Many gossip blogs were like this in the nascent stage of online journalism. They called it snark - and it was very popular. I think in some ways this was to differentiate blogs from the content and coverage in traditional gossip mags. Most gossip magazines are toothless - because they want celebrity interviews and exclusives. But, in 2006, a website was never going to get an interview with anyone worth interviewing so why bother to be nice - especially because being cynical and mean was more entertaining for the average reader. A lot of the gossip coverage that occurred back then would never fly now: ridiculing Britney for shaving her head, fat shaming, cruel coverage of celebrity eating disorders, slut shaming. The edgelord humour of the early blogs was crushed beneath the wheels of progress.

I don’t care about what Lainey wrote in 2006 - I don’t think it’s nice, I don’t think it’s interesting or funny, I wouldn’t have chosen to read it. But it doesn’t change my view of the site as a whole. What it does do though, is highlight how hollow all the talk of respecting women, honouring Black culture, working to be better, being good allies, etc. is on this site. Because it’s not really about doing that shit - it’s about telling other people off for not doing it. Lainey has weaponised wokeness as her new snark. 

After the fall out around Lainey’s embarrassing old articles, a banner was added to all of the articles on the site which were published before 2013: 

She’s effectively disavowed half of the blog’s history. Lainey Gossip launched in 2004. Is it really fair to say that articles published in 2012 were posted during an early period of the site?

What is Lainey doing when she toys with Alia Shawkat’s fate like Anton Chigurh tossing a coin? She knows in her heart of hearts that she has also said things she regrets, also said unsavory things in public that she didn’t really mean. It’s so weird: can’t you see the parallels between yourself and her? Lainey is pretty clear in her apology that she’s acknowledging the problematic history of the blog because people were exposing her on social media. Were it not for this, she likely would have continued writing about problematic shit other people did 10 years ago without acknowledging that she is no better. 

Again, I want to be really clear: my issue isn’t with the articles she wrote in the early days of the site. It’s the weirdness around publicly criticising people when your own behaviour is comparably bad. What could you gain from doing that beyond reveling in the snark? Destroying someone else before the mob you helped create comes for you?

Let me remind you: THIS USED TO BE A GOSSIP BLOG with analysis of celebrity culture, movie deals, blind items, industry insider stories. Now it’s just been sucked into the culture war vortex. Ruined by the discourse. 

Gossip used to be talking about other people’s business: Speculating about which Victoria’s Secret model DiCaprio would pick up next. Investigating rumours that Jennifer Lawrence faked her tumble on the stairs at the Oscars. Analysing why a celebrity filed their divorce papers in California rather than Texas. Waiting to see which celebrity would be the first to wear Marchesa on a red carpet after the fall of Weinstein.

Gossip is a way of learning what is acceptable in society, a way of observing how others perceive and react to the decisions people make - and how behaviour which violates societal norms attracts backlash. It’s even more interesting when the subject of that gossip is rich and famous. Lainey Gossip is no longer turning out this kind of content - so where can we go for these insights?

The best barometer for conservative public opinion on celebrity movements and the related enforcement of societal norms is the The Daily Mail comments section. The Daily Mail itself seems like something of a journalistic agent of chaos: I would have assumed that they swung right, but they post pro-Trump articles and anti-Trump articles. They do not seem to have a dog in the fight: the world turns, empires rise and fall and The Daily Mail persists. 

In the ‘entertainment news’ articles on the site, no impassioned arguments are made, no particular analysis is shared: the journalists position themselves as impartial observers just reporting the facts. Occasionally a piece is clearly designed to bait the readers - for example, any time they mention the price of someone’s home in the headline... “Celebrity in $13 million mansion reminds fans to appreciate the small things” or that kind of crap. But the article itself is just a list of facts. No analysis, no reflection - just positioning. 

Also interesting to observe is that The Daily Mail comments section is typically quite harmonious. Readers generally have similar take-aways from articles and it’s very rare to see an argument break out in the comments section. It’s as if Daily Mail readers think with one mind:

Stay with wife many years? Very good. Society like this. Daily Mail readers approve.

Stay with wife many years and maybe wife is slightly overweight? Oh yes - this guy is the best. International hero. Daily Mail readers all agree: we love.

Stay with wife many years and then divorce her? Hmm let’s see how this situation develops before we judge...

Stay with wife many years and then divorce her to be with younger woman? You die now.

The Daily Mail comments section is a glance into the void. A pit of human misery where people say exactly what they think. No subtext. No analysis required. 

They like Pierce Brosnan because he is a straight-forward nice male celebrity and he has been with his wife for a long time - his wife is a little overweight so it makes readers feel good to imagine that he might not be repulsed by the average woman.

They do not like Emma Roberts because in 2013 she was arrested for beating her boyfriend in a hotel room. This was a long time ago and not many people think about it now. She has a successful career and is well liked on social media. But that’s because those youngsters forget. 

The Daily Mail comments section does not forget. Their memory is long and their pity is scarce. They are society’s hive mind. The majority. A snapshot of what 95% of the planet’s population would think on any given subject - which actually makes for very interesting reading.

Forget about Lainey Gossip, trawl The Daily Mail comments section with me.

Occupational Therapists as political beings, becoming agents of change

Occupational therapy and politics! How do the two even correlate? That was my initial response to this topic. Then it dawned on me that this actually made sense, that there is a need for us as occupational therapists to be political beings.

The community block at Mariannridge has allowed me to view the necessity of political awareness in order to aid in the community development. The community as I have mentioned in my previous blocks is largely populated by coloured people due to the segregations act that was enacted during the apartheid era. The people of this community have in the past been marginalised and the effects are still evident.

Although OT may have over much of its history, considered itself to be ‘apolitical’, politics is something that occurs everywhere, in all aspects of life (Tansey, 2000).More of the practitioners are realizing there is a political component in the work that they do;” Occupational therapists have perhaps tended to work towards a treatment process that has been defined by medicine “ ( Pollard and Walsh,2000 ).This has been difficult to reconcile with the knowledge that the causes and experience of disability are linked to social , economic and geopolitical conditions (Wilcock,2002).When you analyse these conditions, you do see the link. The socio-economic status of many of the community members is quite low, there is a high unemployment rate due to the low educational level as a result of the high drop-out rate. Though the government has been trying to make some improvements, there is little progress, due to the low socio-economic status, as I have noticed in the home visits I have been doing, the people cannot access the healthcare services that might help them to prevent disability, mainly because they struggle to cough out the money for transport etc. When they do, in many instances with the clients I have seen, they do not get the necessary help they require at the hospitals.

The political consciousness has arisen at a time when many health practitioners have become concerned about the political nature of the challenges they face in meeting the occupational needs of the people they work with. Occupational therapists have been recognizing extremes of poverty and occupational injustice (Townsend and Wilcock, 2004).

”Occupational therapy is broadly about the experience of ‘doing’ as the basis of social participation. This requires access to the means of participation: space, facilities and resources for different forms of human action.” In the community of Mariannridge, we have been trying to understand as to how the access to these means (swimming pool for instance as that is where we are also conducting the gogos fitness programme, is regulated).

A political practice of occupational therapy is about maximizing the potential impact of occupational therapist’s engagements. There is an awakening in occupational therapy education and practice to become politically conscious as it was discussed in the tut we had this week. As Occupational therapy practitioners, we also are from the community, so we also are affected with the many issues that we might be seeing in the community or among the members we are treating. According to Kronenberg and Pollard, political consciousness allows occupational therapists to critically understand the influence of politics on human occupation and on the practice decisions that they make.

If OT is to live up to the holism that is often claimed for it, this entails the development and maintenance of a broad view of how we can be advocates for the people who are experiencing occupational injustices or exclusions. We need to become the voice for the voiceless, of those who have been marginalised whether it’s through race, culture, disability, sex, economic status and educational level.

Occupational therapists have a responsibility towards the enactment of occupation as a human right (World Federation of Occupational Therapy, 2006).’As occupational therapists, we are urged to acknowledge meaningful occupation as a right, and to critically explore occupations and disability situations in their context.’

Community membership or citizenship is enabled through occupational justice. This doesn’t just stop at the hospital exit but extends into the heart and soul of the communities we belong to ourselves. The linking of occupation to citizenship and community participation requires an awareness of the political nature of occupational therapy. “Many important political issues have their origins at the community level (Ward, 1985 and Tansey, 2000).

If occupational therapy concerns working with people towards social participation through enhancing their experience of ‘doing’ then there is an implication that access to the means of participation: space, facilities and resources for different forms of human action are important factors in enabling ‘doing’ in addition to health or disabling conditions. Many people are frequently prevented from engaging in activities which other people can access, and can benefit from, their rights to social participation are restricted. This can be because of age, gender, race, ethnicity, disability, employment status, residency status, or any of the characteristics that can be constructed as difference and thus act to separate one group of people from another which in turn can lead to restricted social participation.

Kronenberg and Pollard (2005) and Pollard (2008), how occupational therapists were citizens in a local and global combination of contexts beyond the medical and clinical arena of treatment. Approaches to occupation-based interventions should therefore be negotiated with these contexts in mind rather than imposed from a medical and clinical framework, since it is from these contexts that the socially determined aspects of clinical conditions emerge, for example due to health inequalities arising from economic conditions.

A political understanding may be of value to the profession and to its clients. In this way we can work out solutions to the problems within the community, and the political structures that shape the restrictions to occupation.

 References

KRONENBERG, F.; SIMO ALGADO, S.; POLLARD, N. (Ed.). Occupational therapy without borders. Oxford: Elsevier; Churchill Livingstone, 2005

POLLARD, N.; SAKELLARIOU, D.; KRONENBERG, F. (Ed.). A political practice of occupational therapy. Edinburgh: Elsevier Science, 2008.

World Federation of Occupational Therapists (2006). Position Statement on Human Rights. Available from: www.wfot.org

Pollard N, Walsh S (2000) Occupational Therapy, Gender and Mental Health: an Inclusive Perspective? British Journal of Occupational Therapy. 63(9), 425-431

Townsend E. & Wilcock A. Occupational justice and client-centered practice: a dialogue in progress. Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy, 2004; 71:75-87.

a compilation of note-worthy ones, deconstructed!

With the amount of times you hear politicians say a certain phrase, you can be 100% sure that Singapore prides itself on being a 'First World Country', and for good reason. We can boast of our 'economic miracle', relative social harmony and political stability that isn't a staple of countries worldwide.

Yes, we have it better than other countries.

Unfortunately, peel away the illusion painted by a pseudo-democratic and capitalistic society prioritising growth above all else, and you see plenty of dirty laundry. And where else to hide them, if not in our set of laws, which are phrased in a confusing miscellany of legal jargon that blindsides even the best of us? (well, it's possible that it's phrased as such to make it inaccessible to the public, hence stopping us from examining it too closely...but we digress.)

So! Presenting to you a easy-to-read-and-refer list on various noteworthy laws and legal situations in Singapore. We hope this gives you something to think about, and perhaps even galvanise you into action - whatever that means.

(List will be continuously updated as and if we find anything noteworthy)

1) Criminalising Gay Sex - Section 377A

The classic example. Essentially, it criminalises "any act of gross indecency [a man commits] with another male person". That means anal penetration between two men, or gay sex in short. Because it explicitly refers to the act, the government argues that no, they're not discriminating against gays. In 2015, PM Lee went on to say that gays are allowed to live their lives in Singapore, where the state does not harrass nor discriminate against them.

Obviously, the rest of society didn't get the memo.

Whatever the government thinks, formal and institutional sanctions (like laws) set a precedent that society follows. That creates an enabling culture, because society perceives that precedent as condoning their prejudice and discrimination towards the queer community. If you don't think that's true, think back towards a certain Mr Lim who threatened to "open fire" on gays in Singapore.

However, the curious thing is this - while the act of gay sex and same-gender marriage is criminalised, being gay in itself isn’t illegal. So yes, they’re “allowed” to continue working and living as best as they can in a conservative society. Funny how this sounds like how the state still wants their labour without being willing to acknowledge their humanity. What does that sound like, indeed?

2) Sedition Act

Singapore and freedom of speech rarely get along with each other. Apparently, the need for stability - be it in the political, social or economical sense - trumped the need for the right to civil expression. But if you consider the purpose of SG's government (or even the sole reason behind SG's creation) is to generate economic growth, it's only natural that freedom of speech is deemed less important. Especially if it obstructs economic activities. That's why public demonstrations, let alone protests or strikes, are banned without a permit - incidents like that can inconvenience companies, and thus erode Singapore's attractiveness as a business hub. Just think back on how the state handled that instance of SMRT bus drivers protesting about their low pay by virtue of their status as migrant workers. This line of thinking echoes a Marxist perspective on deviance, where deviance is seen as activities obstructing the interests of a capitalist state or elite.

This Act is a form of double-bind, just like racial harmony. While it does prevent - or at least, prosecute - 'seditious', hateful speech, it also fosters a culture of fear. What constitutes 'seditious' isn't clearly defined in the Act - it's just anything that is deemed to have disrupted/threatened social stability in SG. And that means certain people can misuse the Act to prosecute certain people for personal reasons, like political opponents. (Incidentally, for a state priding itself for adherence to rule of law, such ambiguity of terms seem to suggest rule by law - where the state governs the law instead of vice-versa, raising questions of “rational”, “just” laws twisted to suit state interests). Plus, starting court cases aren't cheap; just think of the legal fees involved! (So in a sense, this is kinda classist).

While some ideas are indeed too heinous to be shared - like hate speech - the point here is the culture of fear that has habituated people into subservience. The Sedition Act is another aspect of modern-day panopticon or surveillance, where the fear of being watched - and possibly punished for any deviant behaviours - gets internalised by us, so much so that we watch ourselves and others eventually - even if no such state surveillance is happening.

3) Penal Code

Singapore still keeps plenty of 'archaic' punishments; and what we're frequently bashed for is how we still carry out capital punishment. Specifically, death by hanging. Alan's Shadrake's book, Once A Jolly Hangman, revolves around our death penalty and the person responsible for hanging death row inmates - but don't look for it in the library. It's banned in Singapore. (here's a review).

Here are some crimes punishable by death in Singapore:

Drug-related offenses

Treason

Carrying/Possessing firearms

Piracy that endangers life

Perjury that results in the execution of an innocent person

Abetting the suicide of a person under the age of 18 or an "insane" person

Kidnapping or abducting in order to murder

Robbery that results in the death of a person

(Fun fact: Rape used to be punishable by death, but not anymore)

The rationale for keeping the death penalty is because it serves an effective deterrent; mainly for drug-related crimes in Singapore. While it may have merits with regard to internal security, such as terrorism and the unlawful possession of weapons/munitions, it has mainly been used against drug traffickers.

But deterrence is only as effective as the certainty that all humans are rational beings. Meaning, the death penalty is effective only if it stops drug traffickers from bringing drugs into the country. Has it? No. The distinction to make here is that those sent to the gallows are drug mules - people who carry drugs, and not the ones masterminding things - and sometimes, these mules are coerced to do so. So, is the law effectively targeting those in power in the drug trade? Or is it disproportionately affecting those at the bottom of the food chain; those who - more likely than not - have been forced into the business for whatever reason. Plus, to associate involvement with drugs purely as a failure of character, is to ignore the systemic and institutional reasons that drive certain populations (read: minorities, marginalised populations) to such things in the first place.

That's even if you want to go there. Some people would stagger at the mere mention of taking away someone's life. Like, is it even our place to do that?

On a parting note, even academics are quoted to be saying that there is no “reliable data on the effectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent”.

4) Marital Rape - Section 375

Here's a good summary of its history in Singapore.

In short, it’s legal for a husband to coerce their lawfully wedded wives into sex, even if the wife doesn't consent to it. Also, men cannot be raped. That should be enough to show how harmful this law is - in promoting gender stereotypes, the legal support of rape culture/non-consent culture, and the cementing of the functions of marriage (i.e. to produce babies). Resistance to criminalising marital rape often include reasons of “protecting the family unit” and “difficulty in obtaining proof”; reasons that clearly value the needs of everyone but the woman in the marriage. However, the Government is reviewing said law, so progress? Progress.

On a related note, forced marriages are unlawful here, according to the Women's Charter, which is a legislative act designed to safeguard the rights of women and children in Singapore.

5) Internal Security Act

This Act guarantees the Ministry of Home Affairs extrajudicial powers to detain certain people without the need of a trial, suppress subversive activities against the state, and stop organised violence towards property or people in Singapore. Before the arrest can be made, the President has to agree to this detention order - and for that to happen, they must be satisfied by the reasons behind the certain people's arrest.

By 'certain people', we mean 'threats to national security'. That makes the ISA sound benign - which it can be. Especially if used properly, such as detaining would-be terrorists.

But the ISA has a checkered past. In the years after independence, it's been (mis)used to detain 'Communists' and trade union leaders. Words that will be forever associated with the ISA are Operation Spectrum and Operation Cold Store, because those are instances in which the ISA was exercised ... but on dubious grounds. Were the arrested indeed communists, or merely left-leaning political opponents or social workers; where religion offered them a medium to influence socio-political issues and thus undermine the authority of the state? Rajah states that the state polices religion to reinforce control over public discourses and not to uphold public order, because religion offers the public an avenue to influence politics. So, the question to ask here is: who gets to decide what constitutes “threats to national security”? 

History has painted them as villains, but we need to remember how history is often a selective retelling of facts to tell a certain story. Ergo, history is subjective.

That’s not all. If you were to examine local laws pertaining to human rights, you tend to see this pattern of legally-protected freedoms...curtailed by another law. Singapore allows for public assembly and demonstrations ... but only with a police permit. Singapore allows for freedom of speech ... until it is prosecutable by the Sedition Act. Singapore ensures anti-discriminatory laws ... but only on the basis of your race, religion, and nationality. 

Is this a case of restricting certain freedoms to protect other freedoms? We don’t want to be too hasty to conclude things, but it’s something to ponder. 

6) Human Trafficking

We've covered this before in a Twitter thread on forest brothels, but the short of it is that Singapore doesn't have a law specific to this issue. As a result, recourse for victims of this crime is fragmented at best, and nonexistent at worst. According to the 2016 Trafficking In Persons (TIP) Report, Singapore is ranked Tier 2 - meaning, trafficking is a serious concern here, with the 2017 edition going on to say how we “fails [sic] to meet minimum standards in human trafficking”.

Who gets the brunt of this? Cis women. Most victims of human trafficking end up in the sex trade, but conflating sex trafficking with sex work in general only serves to undermine sex work as a profession. Plus, feminist discourse on sex work is still fragmented: divided between the three factions who see it as a moral failing/sin, structural oppression against (cis) women, or as a form of empowerment.

7) Migrant Rights

It’s curious to note how domestic helpers are not covered by the Employment Act because "it is not practical to regulate specific aspects of domestic work, such as hours of work and work on public holidays". Sure, it does make some sense, but on the other hand, you can see this as another instance of how women’s work is devalued, yet again. This is besides how domestic helpers are slapped certain constraints in their contracts that may seem...condescending. Take a look at page 46.

Then, there’s also migrant workers who work in the construction sector. And they aren’t any better off, too. The lack of a union or body to safeguard their rights (except NGOs), the stigma they face from Singaporeans, their financial and physical exploitation by their employers…in a way, you can consider migrant workers a form of modern slavery.

8) Criminalising Suicide - Section 309

Yes. It's criminal for people to attempt suicide. Yes, this rule is rarely enforced, and arguably serves as a deterrent against ending their life.

However, think of the symbolic effects. Can this reinforce the already pervasive stigma against the mentally ill in Singapore? A person, with mental illness and in need of help, is potentially branded as criminal because the law says so. Can this drive people away from seeking help? You should see the asks we get on our ask.fm handle. Do people considering suicide even think of getting arrested once they've decided to end things? (That's the reasoning given by a minister this author asked, once; where the threat of arrest will get people to think twice about their actions). But really?

More critically, why is the criminal justice system involved in a public health matter?

9) Abuse laws in Singapore

Currently, only married couples are afforded such protection. Unmarried ones? not really. So singles and live-in partners are excluded from such laws; and such laws manifest as the three exclusion orders one can slap on family members in instances of family violence. They are the Personal Protection Order (PPO), Expedited Order (EO), and Domestic Exclusion Order (DEO). AWARE explains these three orders quite succinctly.

Here's a paper PAVE wrote about this.

Why only married couples? That’s a good question. But consider this: Why not only married couples? Simple - marital violence doesn’t appear out of nowhere. Marital violence is often a continuation of, or begins from intimate partner violence...that happens before marriage. 

The thing to note about most of the above laws is this: some of them are the by-effect of colonial legislation. Yup, you heard right - they're leftovers from British colonial control! So, not very "Asian Values" of us after all, isn't it?

Hopefully, this leaves you with something to think about.

A/N: Here's a link to Singapore's social policies as crafted by the Ministry for Social and Family Development. It's a huge infodump, but it's really useful and kinda is the authoritative source for this.