The Kids Aren't Alright

So... It's Maus week 2. I feel like there may be a general sense of dismay due to the fact that everyone has to come up with ANOTHER Holocaust-based blog post. But contrary to what I am pretending the popular belief is, I am just teeming with opinion (hard to believe, I know).

childhood comics = gold

So the thing is that earlier this week we talked about why comics were the appropriate medium for Spiegelman and all that jazz. (...All that jazz? Did I really just say that? What's wrong with me? The sleep deprivation must be getting to me...) My very good friend, Shreya Subramanian, even said that it was to help readers distance themselves from the horror of the Holocaust. She reasoned that comics are associated with the innocence and happiness of childhood. While I agree with her reasoning, it got me thinking (rather, rethinking). What if Art Spiegelman didn't mean to distance readers from the horror, but actually immerse them in it? The entire book is kind of a detailing his immense struggle to understand the concept of the Holocaust, so maybe he is trying to put the readers in that same situation.

Archie Andrews and his friends

For me, comics are associated with childhood and happiness and innocence all of the way. I grew up
with 2 older cousins always by my side, both extremely infatuated with the adventures of Archie Andrews and his friends. Jughead, Hotdog, Moose, Midge, Veronica, Betty, Reggie, and the rest of the gang. My cousins had a huge bookcase just full of Archie comics waiting for my little fingers to grab them and dive in. In fact, Archies were such a huge part of my childhood that when I'm feeling too stressed to function, I pick up an Archies and transport myself to Riverdale. I've always considered books to be something magical, waiting to take me away to some place new.

So that's what my mind went to. The fact that books took it somewhere else. The entire time I was reading Maus I was trying to picture myself walking the streets of Poland with Vladek. But I just couldn't do it. Because it was a comic, supposed to be childish and pleasant. It was so hard to imagine myself younger (when I used to read Archies so often I talked about them like I lived them) reading this secondhand account of a horrible history. Then my mind got going... and that is when this idea took place in my head.

What if the reason that Art Spiegelman decided to write Maus as a comic was to remind readers of childhood? It would remind them fully, constantly, perpetually, that the children of the Holocaust had no childhood. The innocence that the general public associated with comics was gone. The children of the Holocaust had their innocence stolen. Blackened even... like the ink on the pages. Throughout the story, the mice are shown as shaded in when they connect to their horrible and scarring past. The borders that the readers touch, the only part of the book that they feel (literally) is that white innocence. The entirety of the piece is to emphasize that we will never connect to the same amount of pain that the victims of the Holocaust did. We, the distanced audience, are reading this story on a medium that takes us back to childhood, while those children in the story never even had one.

It's 2 am and my brain is working quickly so try to keep up.

In Tae Kwon Do, we learn the symbols of each belt color. White symbolizes purity and innocence, which is what Art and the audience really embody. Unable to go back to the past, they live an innocent and sheltered life. Black, the color of the ink and the history, symbolizes maturity. The only thing the readers have is their innocence, and the one thing the mice in the story have is that maturity that was forced upon them.

the Criminal Minds cast

It's quite like the kind of feeling I get when I watch Criminal Minds and there is a kid involved. It's the best TV show. If you don't watch it I would highly recommend it, unless you have a problem with violence. A lot of the episodes in one way or another incorporate children. I think most people end the show feeling happy. Yay! They caught the bad guy! He's going to jail! They did it! They made the world a better place! But not me. I'm always stuck at the end. What happened to those children? Did the trauma of their abduction impact them later on in life? Did the knowledge that their father or mother was a murderer push them to act in violent ways too? Did they develop emotional problems? Psychological ones? Could they sleep at night? Were they always afraid of repeating their trauma? Just like Art Spiegelman's mice, the children in the show lose their innocence at a young age. They no longer regard the world as a perpetually happy place.

These questions and many more run through my mind almost every single time there is a child on the TV show. Where is their innocence? What about the Jewish kids under Hitler? Where is their innocence? Even little Richieu was victim to this horror. "He got killed... he was only five or six" (Spiegelman 15). Not only did the Holocaust steal his innocence, happiness, and childhood-it stole his life too.

Maybe this makes no sense, maybe this makes a lot of sense, but when I look at the comic, all I can think about is childhood. And all I can think about is how the children in the story and in real life never had one.

Lyrics of the week: "If you're still bleeding, you're the lucky ones. Cause most of our feelings, they are dead, and they are gone... well I've lost it all, I'm just a silhouette. I'm a lifeless face you'll soon forget." from Youth by Daughter.

The Past Is Tomorrow

In Kung Fu Panda, Master Oogway spits some truth when he says "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That's why they call it a present." My mom liked that quote so much that she dramatically reenacts it if my brother or I appear to be stressed about "a mystery" as it is called. She tells us that today is a gift that we will only experience once. Time after time growing up I've heard someone tell me "Don't worry about it! The past is in the past!" or "It's water under the bridge!" or "Let sleeping dogs lie!" or "Let bygones bygones!" In fact, just last week I used those words in my blog post. But is the past really in the past? It seems to me like people carry it everywhere they go. Isn't the simple act of learning just carrying the past with you? You are your past. Everything you do in the future is determined by the past.

page 115 - Volume 2

Everybody knows about PTSD... which is kind of like carrying your past with you (to the extreme). Only everybody carries their past don't they? It is intertwined with our future. You cannot have one without the other. This summer my friends and I were driving up north, discussing the issue of the past and present (lol don't judge us for our choice of entertainment), and we wondered if there was such a thing as free will. Isn't every choice we make predetermined by our past? For example, lets pretend I visit a mall one day and then revisit a week after. There are two stores I can go to, but I only have time to visit one. Last week, store A had a nice sales associate and store B had a sales associate that muttered some choice words under her breath as she glared and charged my debit card. It would make sense for me to be inclined to visit store A again instead of store B. Right there, my past influenced my future. No true free will, just carrying the past with me.

In volume 2, page 115 of Maus, photographs of Vladek's past cover the panels. If you look towards the bottom, there is no page number. All of the photographs and Vladek's emotions make me feel as if this page was meant to symbolize his past. However... it begs the question: what page is it? That's the funny thing. There is no one page that symbolizes Vladek's past. It is everywhere in the book. Similar to the fact that Vladek's past is not confined to a single page, nobody's past is confined to a certain part of their life. The past is everywhere around us. It is (literally) our past, present, and future.

Vladek's exposure to extreme trauma amplified his connection to his past, but in essence, he is like the end of a spectrum for the general population. People may not realize it, but they can relate to him more than they know. Vladek's past is with him constantly in his present, similarly we all carry our past to our present. Otherwise we would basically be acting like newborn babies all day. If this is true, the past and the present blend together. It can be difficult to pinpoint exactly where your past and present are. Can you tell where your past and present begin and end?


Lyrics of the week: "It's just a story though, is it a story though? I can't tell if it happened cause it feels impossible. Don't know whether it was real or a dream, imagination playing tricks on me." from Murakami by Made in Heights. I can't tell whether my past is my present, my future, or both. 

Verma's Theory of Feminist Relativity

Bell Hooks once said that feminism is "a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression" (Hooks 1). With such a simple sentence, she harnesses the power behind the belief in feminism. It amazes me that anyone could disagree or not support it. After all, it doesn't say that it is a movement towards equality for women, a movement to end exploitation of women, or a movement to end female oppression. It's implied that true feminists do what they do because they care about all genders. It just blows my mind that there are people who don't think that inequality is an issue in today's society.

The word "feminist" itself has a bad connotation. People see what they consider to be ugly women. They think feminists are fat and aggressive and selfish and anti-male. Let me share a particularly rude post I found on the internet:

It astounds me that anti-feminists choose to ignore those feminists that look like this:

Or (the most attractive in my opinion): 

Like... everybody say a silent thanks right now for attractive men that are politically aware. 

Women with acid burns on their faces.

However, all of this does not go to say that I agree with every aspect of feminism. Do I agree that rape is an issue? Yes. In my own opinion, there is no way that you can spin this rape to say that the woman had it coming. She was dragged off of a bus and raped by 6 men, who also used a metal rod that was used so violently it damaged her intestines. Oh my god. It makes me physically sick. That being said, I think some feminists are picky about what they fight for. I can understand not fighting for something that you disagree with, but if you are going to fight for something, fight for it so that everyone can gain whatever right you are trying to make yours. Do it once and do it right. The part that I disagree with is the fact that people ignore the crazy problems around the world. Right now, feminists in America are concerned with being able to walk around without shaving their legs and having people accept it. I can imagine the replies. Don't you think physical appearances should be accepted? Shouldn't people be comfortable in their own skin? Yes, I do. People should be accepted. But I don't agree with the idea that being forced to shave your legs as a societal norm is the biggest issue around. Where are the masses of feminists fighting to end acid being publicly thrown on women in Pakistan? Read this harrowing story. I would rather have women with shaved legs than those with caustic burns on their face.

The problem is that the loyalty to the movement is relative. The less of an effect it has on someone, the less likely it will be for that person to change the problem. That is my theory of feminist relativity.

Feminism is a complicated movement, but in the end, I believe that it's a good one.

Lyrics of the day: "Oh mother dear we're not the fortunate ones, and girls they wanna have fun!" from Girls Just Want To Have Fun by Cyndi Lauper (which is literally the best song to dance to and it talks about girls living life the way that they want to).

Do The Just Believe in Justice?

"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison" (Thoreau 1023). First of all, let me state a few things. First off, I love my country. Don't get me wrong. Despite the issues that I have with it, I love it. Does that mean I think it's perfect? Absolutely not. Will I voice my opinions about ways to improve it? You can bet your favorite pair of socks that I will. (Sorry, my feet are cold. A pair of warm and fuzzy socks is practically screaming my name.) This brings my to my second point. I try my best to respect the opinions of someone else, which proves to be difficult when I strongly agree to them. However, the problem with opinions arises when people try to force theirs on me. That being said, this is me stating mine, and not forcing it upon you. If you expect me to respect your opinions, I expect you to respect mine.

Thoreau's line about just men belonging in prison really struck me. He goes on to talk about how people are locked up in prison when they have already been locked out of their rights because of the law. This made me think about the recent riots in America. Oh yes. We're talking Ferguson, Baltimore, the works. 

The Baltimore Riots

The thing about the whole riot situation is that, yes, in the end, I believe the violence is wrong. But the sick thing is that the violence is needed to gain the attention of the media. Nobody pays attention to save lives. People only care about the story. I would show you a video but I'm not sure if swear words are allowed so.. 

The Ferguson Riots

Riots are horrible. Violence is horrible. But just because of some riots, the entire protesting movement was undermined. Peaceful protesters trying to change the way the country worked were pulled off of the street and thrown into jail, some even without an order to clear the streets. There is this hacking group called Anonymous. They're crazy. They released this video about the Ferguson riots. Kind of scary but kind of cool. 

I think the biggest problem in America is purposeful ignorance. Rather than address problems and fix them, some people choose to pretend like the problems don't even exist. Then, when somebody addresses them, they're tossed in jail for breaking a social taboo like demanding equality. Scary to think of, right? Those people who just want justice are the ones being deemed unjust. So what kind of twisted version of justice do they think everyone else is seeing? Do they even think we have a sense of justice?

I went to an art festival this weekend in Grand Rapids (hence my late posting) and I saw this one piece that made my heart ache. 

The piece I had mentioned

"If the young are not initiated into the village, they will burn it down just to feel its warmth." Wow. It gives me shivers down my back every time. They will burn it down just to feel its warmth. Is that what the rioters are doing? Are they so separated from normal society-not by choice-that they must burn down the city to feel warmth? Maybe. I don't know. I'm not one of them.

But what I do know is that I urge you to take a look at the world around you. If you insist everyone is equal, take an example from our school. Last year the sophomore homecoming ballot did not include a single white person on it, and going on social media, I swear it was like we declared intent for genocide or something. People were angry... why? I don't understand... what is so horrendous about being a good human being and letting people have the same opportunities as you do? Whatever. The past is the past, so lets work together to make a greater future.

Lyrics of the week: "Take these thoughts, and if they come back 'round just burn the whole place down." From Take These Thoughts by Chris and Thomas. It kind of embodies what I would feel if I were rioting for something that I believed in. "All I want is all that you possess and all I want is all that I can't get..." (to me) seems like the protesters' want for equality in the law.

To me, it seems like the Civil Rights movement never ended. It's been a constant struggle put on the back burner. Thanks for reading this crazy rant. 

America the Great, let's make you greater.