Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/culture/page/30/)
Posts about culture, the arts, the media, book reviews, movies etc.
As a U.S. citizen, I am to some degree complicit in U.S. systemic violence, and who gives two hoots about whether or not I enter the White House. This is not about being pure; the historical trauma and injustices we face are not new. My hope is in the refuge of awareness and awakeness.
The reinforcing messages sent from “breastaurants” like Twin Peaks and Hooters are quite clear”: inscribed gender roles and promotion of socially constructed norms of female beauty, which are exclusionary hegemonic ideologies in terms of body size and shape and standards for skin and hair type. These establishments endorse a consumeristic colonization of women’s bodies for the edification of the objectifying male gaze.
Across the cultural landscape, powerful dreamers everywhere are tapping into this same deep truth. Just two quick examples: the young organizers who formed Dream Defenders in 2013 to “develop the next generation of radical leaders to realize and exercise our independent collective power” chose a fierce and evocative name for their work. Earlier this spring, when Black Lives Matter called for voices to “help imagine a world where black life is valued by everyone, our rights are upheld, and the beauty and power that is our blackness is celebrated,” they called their action “In a world where Black Lives Matter, I imagine…..”
The Christian response to nonviolent direct action in 1963 sounded similar to many critiques of Baltimore’s uprising today: yes, injustice is wrong. But we must be patient. Don’t stir up trouble. But when you come to a dead end, nonviolence teaches you to look for a resurrection.
The mobilization of urban grassroots challenges the image of the overly professionalized and advocacy-oriented NGOs as the main civil society actors in post-Socialist countries. So, what is the state of these movements?
What kinds of messages are we sending our youth? Do we truly understand our own complicity in the bullying we see in our schools? Unless and until we grapple with the ways in which our society promotes and gives justification to such bullying, we will never truly solve these problems.
Blind and exclusive, American exceptionalism is simply nationalism as the rationale that all imperial powers use to justify their military adventures.
In condemning Dzhokar Tsarnaev to death, we would do well to remember Cain and Abel. Even after murdering his brother, Cain is shown unthinkable mercy and protection from God.
One of the Department of Art’s foundational ideas is that the local and national feed and support each other. That is essential, connections to a larger movement, to other practitioners, to other ideas.
The life of B.B. King shows us a man born into a context of grinding poverty and vicious racism, but he was also born into a family of faith. It was within his church community where he found his self-worth.