Category: Blog English 110 (Page 2 of 2)

1. Question: Can social cohesion eliminate feelings of shame in terms of AIDS and mental health?  
2. Possible answers: It could get more people informed on these unspoken topics. Also, people that have these unavoidable disease may find more people that they trust. This leads me to another question: Why do people that have mental illness or aids feel shame? Some answers might include: In today’s society, majority of individuals are not educated in these fields. Both are unspoken topics that must be shed to light. Because AIDS and mental illness is not present in majority of people today, being different is what brings these individuals to shame. Another question: Is social cohesion a realistic thought considering how judgmental our society can be? (LGBT)
3. Position: Social cohesion may not be able to completely eliminate feelings of shame, however, it could definitely create a decline. Growing up, if children are taught that is it okay to talk about such hard subjects then this will continue onto generations onto generations causing these illnesses to be a norm. For example, in Uganda, it became part of their culture to talk about AIDS with their community, according to Epstein even taxi drivers would talk to their passengers about it. In terms of mental health, Anne Hallward’s podcast, Safe Space Radio, provides people with a safe place for those suffering or survivors to share their stories. Sharing stories is part of the healing process.

Thesis: Cultural morals in Uganda and Safe Space Radio are aids in forming social cohesion in which may reduce feelings of shame in individuals who have AIDS or a mental illness.

According to Helen Epstein, social cohesion is “…the tendency of people to talk openly with one another and form trusted relationships” (Epstein 116). I had explored the Safe Space Radio website and had looked through all of the tabs at the top. I think it is very important to see the variety of topics that are talked about on this show. It shows the significant amount of important topics that are silenced in today’s society. I believe Safe Space Radio may lead to social cohesion depending on the situation and the person that is listening. I had listened to the episode called “Silence in the Body with Matthew Sandord”. In Matthew’s case, he had gotten in a car accident at the age of 13 and lost his sister and father. He wanted to overcome the silence in his body. Eventually he became a yoga instructor in teaching others to listen to their bodies to experience the movement and strength of your body. His story was extraordinary how he could be so positive after having done through a life changing trauma. Although, this story is so uplifting, it could cause others to feel shame for not going through a trauma and still feeling depressed in which could discourage them from sharing their stories. On the other hand, Matthew’s look on “living in your body” is such a unique way to live life. Some may benefit from learning about his outlook on life. I believe it all depends on the person and what they have been through. Seeing someone who has gone through something as awful as Matthew have such a positive outlook on life could either inspiring or discouraging to a viewer listening.

In Eptstein’s Aids Inc the fact that differences in a culture will have effect on major health problems in their country. Uganda approaches the idea of aids in significantly different way than the citizens in South Africa. Epstein states, “…Ugandans come to terms with the reality of AIDS, care for the afflicted, and change their behavior. This in turn led to declines in HIV transmission” (Epstein, 116). People in Uganda make sure it is part of their daily lives to talk about AIDS so that people understand the severity of the disease, rather than fear the unknown like South Africans may do. Hallward makes a similar claim in her TedTalk in that  talking about the “silenced” topics in today’s society, such as mental health, will help heal and minimize feelings of shame.

• Mental health is not talked about enough today
• When it is brought to light people acknowledge it more
• The more people know, the less they will judge
• Sharing equals healing
• PROOF: Aids epidemics is declined when it is normal to be talked about.

Helen Epstein’s chapter “AIDS, Inc.” definitely shed a light on the HIV disease and how outbreaks of this disease are not being handled correctly in some parts of the world. Her main goal was to talk about the difference between South American and big HIV prevention organizations such as loveLife and Uganda and more local, smaller organizations such as Inkanyezi. She begins talking about how protests against the health minister in South Africa about millions of people being denied medicine for the HIV disease had eventually led to the creation of the loveLife organization. The loveLife organization’s goals were to both “…overcome the limitations of similar campaigns that had failed in the past and, at the same time, to avoid dealing with the issues of AIDS treatment and care that had become so controversial” (Epstein, 111). I feel that this organization had good intentions behind it to decline the HIV rate. loveLife mainly just talked about protective sex rather than the HIV disease itself. . They even made Y- Centers where young people may do a variety of activities, such as playing sports, hanging out with friends, or even playing on computers. Y- Centers seemed to be solely focused on the social aspect of it rather than what the goal of the organization actually is.  I believe that the organization got too caught up in the publicity and money that it lost sight of what really matters and that is informing young people about real world situations about HIV and not just how to prevent it. South Americans still had the mentality that people with HIV must feel alone ashamed about themselves. Nearby loveLife is Inkanyezi. Inkanyezi is a small, local organization that is ran by mostly all volunteers. The majority of people that go there are poor people of the community that loveLife would not accept. The morals of this organization seemed very similar to those of the people in Uganda. “The loveLife Y-center did little to help young people deal with such confusion, stigma, and shame” (Epstein, 115).Contrary to that, Inkanyezi and Uganda had different approaches than those of loveLife. It was just to talk about it, in Uganda their HIV rate had fallen about two-thirds by just talking to people “…not about sex, but about the frightening, calamitous effects of AIDS itself” (Epstein, 116). This connects with the ideas of Hallward in that sharing stories and talking about the aspects in life that are hard to talk about is how we heal. The HIV decline in Uganda is proof of Hallwards claims. Overall, this reading made me realize the actual reasons of why HIV is skyrocketing in South America. It is not because of health care but it is about the culture. If it was in the norm for people in South America to talk about HIV and the real, nasty parts of it then I bet their HIV rates would also significantly decrease.

A claim that Hallward made that I can resonate with is the overall idea that telling our stories can change the world. When I was in high school, I was in a class called peer leaders and we were partnered with an organization called the NAN Project. The NAN Project’s goal was to just get people talking about mental health and letting people know that it is okay to talk about. Volunteers with this organization that suffered from mental health would come to classrooms in my school to tell their stories. The speakers would tell the class how nerve wracking it was getting in front of an audience, but that they do it in hopes to help someone else and that is is part of their healing process accepting that they suffer from their mental illness.  This can somewhat correlate with the speakers in Hallward’s radio station, she says all of her guests say the same thing, “Its was so painful. If telling my story will help one other person, I will do it.” In addition, Hallward has experienced this herself when sharing her story about her dad. She begins to heal after sharing her story. She says, “It was just so terrible and I was there on the side of the road feeling so much compassion finally for my own sadness and it was that healing; I told the shameful story..”. Through this quote it supports both the speakers from the NAN Project and Hallward’s claim that telling our stories can change the word and also help heal one as an individual.

There are definitely connections between the message that Hallward and Davis portray in her excerpt is that they both promote sharing how you feel. Like I had said before, Hallward says that sharing silenced stories is what changes the world. Similarly, Davis is one to set apart from the group and take action in something she doesn’t agree with when no one else will. When watching the dog fight happen right in front of a young Davis and many other shaking heads, she writes, “I couldn’t stand it any longer; I rushed in and tried to pull the dogs apart.” Both Hallward and Davis are very influential in their messages they want to share with the world.

University of New England was very fortunate to have Angela Davis come for the 32nd Martin Luther King Celebration. Come to find out that in 1964, MLK was here on UNE’s ground when it was known as Saint Francis College. Davis talks about it was ironic that it was such a long fight to dedicate a day to acknowledge the long fight that King, along with many others, had to fight for their rights. This movement, known as the Black Freedom Movement, gives a much deeper understanding of discrimination. In addition Davis began to mention how women are uprising in today’s society. I also have noticed that. Although, I am not much into politics, I find it so empowering how these women took a stand and take risks to support what they believe. Angela Davis talked about how she found a connection between racial violence and gender violence. Growing up, she has experience much racial violence including the bombings of the church and shootings in her neighborhood. In addition, there was many cases of sexual assault. Rosa Parks was major topic that she talked about, not because she did not move to the back of the bus but because she was not as acknowledged for her involvement with other protests such as Scotsborough Nine. She also talked about current events going on such as Black Lives Matter protest. She believes that it should be changed to All Lives Matter because once black lives begin to matter then we will know that All Lives Matter. One issue that is being brought up today is the issue with R. Kelly. It emphasizes how much young black girls lives are not mattering as much is today’s society. I can connect with this because I have just watched the new documentary “Surviving R. Kelly”. Watching that film made me almost sick to my stomach as to how much he was able to get away with. I feel that if it was young white girls rather than black then the situation would have been handled much differently. Alos, I believe that money had a lot to do with R. Kelly getting away with as much as he did. This can also be said about Donald Trump today. Davis talks about Trump’s idea on building a wall and how it can create more violence while in reality most immigrants are women and children trying to escape from violence in their own countries. Davis is very active in human rights in Palestine. She recently had been offered a Human Rights Prize but it was then rescinded because of her involvement with Palestine. I believe that Davis does not need any prize for her efforts in human rights. Her impact will be just as effective as any prize would be. She ended her speech by relating back to quotes by Martin Luther King. She talked about how he would said how justice is indivisible. Hearing Angela Davis talk about her outlook on both past and current events caused me to think about these events in a different perspective.

Angela Davis is an African American women is an activist and writer who was born in Birmingham, Alabama. She lived with her mother and father, Sallye and Frank. Frank owned a service station while Sallye taught elementary school. She advocates for gender equity, prison reforms, and alliances across color lines. She grew up in a neighborhood that was bombed by the Ku Klux Klan in which provoked her to fight so hard. After moving out of her hometown, she attended Brandeis University and then onto graduate school at University of California, San Diego where she eventually was able to teach. However, throughout her time at the university she had participated in many groups such as the Black Panthers. The school had gotten ahold of this information and fired her. In addition to participating in these groups, she was a strong supporter of the Soledad Brothers. These three men were inmates and were accused of murdering a prison guard after many other African American inmates were killed. Davis and many others had thought that they were being blamed due to political issues within the prison. During trial in August of 1970, there was efforts for the Soledad Brothers to escape. In this plan, there ended up being deaths of many innocent people. In Davis’ involvements, she was sentenced to prison for two reasons: the guns were registered in her name and she was claimed to be in love with one of the men. She spent about 18 months in jail but was then released. Upon release, Davis began traveling and lecturing around the world and then returned back to teaching. Recently, she has spoken at the 2017 Women’s March and became co-chair member. Throughout all of her journeys she was writing. Some of her books include Angela Davis: An Autobiography (1974), Women, Race, and Class (1980), Women, Culture and Politics(1989), Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003), Abolition Democracy (2005), and The Meaning of Freedom (2012).

Davis and Hallward have a very similar reason to drive for social change. Both of these women have been through hardships in their lives. With Hallward’s father having dementia and Davis growing up in a community where she was looked down on based on her color and experience much violence in her everyday life. They both began fighting for change because of what they have been through and what they have seen others go through in which makes them that much more passionate about what they do. A similar strategy that they use is sharing their stories. Through sharing their stories, they both hoped to benefit others. In Davis situation, it provided everyone a reason to fight with her with first hand stories of real life experiences of the discrimination of the oppressed. With Hallward, sharing her stories meant showing others not to have shame in being different and to show how talking to someone will heal you. Both of these women are very courageous in their fights and it is inspiring to see the changes that they have and will make in today’s society.

https://www.biography.com/people/angela-davis-9267589