We Are All Sexual!

Hey Guys!

Yesterdays class was great! I think everyone really had great points and asked the right questions. In class we really focused on the actual verses the socially constructed differences between people with and without disabilities. We touched on the social and financial difficulties that arise from sexually intimate relationships with in the DD community. Unfortunately, in class we were unable to really discuss the actual assessment for becoming sexually consenting as an adult with a developmental disability. As I mentioned briefly in class, each agency relies on evaluations from different psychological clinics to assess participants for psychosexual functioning. I contacted a few clinics to receive a voided copy of the evaluation but all declined to send me the forms. However, I did find an overview of the guidelines that YAI uses to evaluate it's participants.

 http://www.yai.org/services/staying-healthy/4-for-better-health/2012/january/4-for-better-health.html

This evaluation is a risk assessment. No one can definitively evaluate the choices any individual will make in every situation, and there for evaluators are weighing the likelihood a participant will make a knowing choice in most situations against the risk of being sexually victimized in these same situations. Based on the above criteria an evaluator, who deems the risk low enough and the knowledge of healthy sexual behavior high enough, will distinguish the patient as sexually consenting.

My Question to each of you is: do you think these criterion are an effective indicator of a persons ability to sexually consent and why? Do you think a risk assessment is a proper way to assess sexual functioning and why?


Also for anyone who is more interested in the topic her are some amazing videos that I found while researching. I highly recommend watching them. However, if you find the video uncomfortable, you are not forced to watch it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Pq4Gs-QnCs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA020ShNQr8

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/07/30/i-have-cerebral-palsy-and-i-enjoy-having-sex)

Thanks again for your attention and valuable insight into my topic!

Solidarity!

Hey guys! Thanks for being a part of my workshop on solidarity. I hope you enjoyed the class as much as I did. As I mentioned during the seminar, I have often found myself struggling to work in solidarity with my clients and coworkers. In one scenario I found myself extraordinarily upset at one of my bosses and a schlew of clients for showing up an hour and a half late to  a presentation that I had worked very hard to put together only for the boss to not acknowledge that she was so late to the workshop and for the clients to fall asleep during or not pay attention when I was speaking. I felt extremely disrespected and wondered why the clients didn't respect my effort more. The truth is that I wasn't really seeing them or their experiences, but rather holding them to the expectations that I grew up learning as a person of a privileged position. I expected my clients to know the things that I had been taught  growing up as I did. But they didn't, of course, because most of them didn't get the sort of opportunities that I did. I wasn't seeing this, wasn't thinking about our differences as constructive. I got caught up in what separated myself from them and became angry and disrespectful instead of using it as an opportunity to grow and learn. I let differences "divide and conquer" instead of "define and empower".

My question for the blog is, how do we see solidarity in our experiences in our internships? How will the ideas we discussed and explored in class impact the way we interact with our coworkers and clients? What does it look like to live in solidarity with everyone we encounter despite our differences?

Resumes and Reputations

To begin, I would like to thank Lidia Shelley and Hester Lyons for taking time out of their day to come and speak with us regarding professional development. This class was very informative and I feel much more confident that the professional writing will improve after being a part of today's class. One specific point that seemed to resonate throughout the entire class was the idea that each cover letter, resume, and email we send to a perspective employer is a direct reflection upon ourselves.

That being said, I would like to open the blog this week with a couple of questions and I hope to see more questions follow!

For my first question, I would like to touch upon post-interview etiquette. After interviewing, is it recommended to send an email to the interviewer, thanking them for this opportunity? I have been told that this is an execellent way to stand out.

I also thought the conversation about word choice was very interesting. That being said, is it important to avoid certain words in a resume or an interview? (e.g. Instead of saying if I get this job...should we say when?) 

Thank you again for joining the Verons today in an effort to help our professional growth. It is truly appreciated!

Silence and Voice

First off, I want to thank all of you for creating a safe-space that allowed such intimate, and enriching dialogue. I thought it was great how we were able to tie in the previous weeks into today's session. Based on today's session I noted similar themes for being silent, voiceless or even silencing: family and culture. Although there were many deeper reasons for choosing to be silent (fear, shame, heroism, survival, traumatized). There were some moments of the discussion that I feel I should reiterate:

• Sydney & Marina stating a different form of being silent is by moving away from "home". Although this may also be interpreted as leaving a message to family members and communities. 
• Danyeli and Prof. Waterston questioning, "at what point does it become us silencing them? What is the line from conformity to silencing?"
• Prof. Rose addressing how to provide the most effective form of communication towards individuals with opposing views "Me speaking my truth has been more effective". 

The topic of silence and voice also correlates with our job placements and the attitudes that we see once we are there of those individuals within the system. Therefore, I ask you all the following, at your placement, do you know the "stories" of the individuals in the program? If so are there common themes that cut across the stories? If you don't know their "stories", why don't you. I know that there is a mix between what kinds of client interaction there is within each agency. For those who do research I ask, how is the population discussed in the research being silenced? How has the research silenced that population?

*Also, if you are interested in viewing short clips of individuals who were silenced during their preteens, there are various videos on YouTube under Mortified. These videos show adult individuals reading their middle school/ high school diaries in-front of a live audience. Here is a trailer of the short film that was produced of all the performances.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3DmdV9XByY

Stigmatization: thinking like a terrorist.

Dear All, 

I hope that today’s class was really educational for you. I am very thankful for M. German for letting us see the problem of terrorism from totally different perspective. The recent hate crime against three Muslim college students in North Carolina is an ugly example of Islamophobia in the United States. Unfortunately, it is not an isolated case. Leading up to and following the 9/11 attacks, the human rights of Arabs and Muslims in the US have been increasingly threatened by anti-Muslim rhetoric, airport screenings, traffic stops, detentions, deportations, and hate crimes. In my view, that is the shame that there is no real discipline that studied terrorism as Michael German pointed out. Maybe, he is right. However, that is the shame that academic institution and other NGO’s often fail to think about the issues of stigmatization of Muslim community. In general, such problems are not that widely discussed as the challenges that  African-American or Latino communities face. Anyhow, the purpose of this class was not to inspire you to advocate for the rights of Muslim people in the US or in the world. Instead, I was aiming to make you think about other groups of people who are stigmatized in today’s society. What are the other groups of people whose needs social justice activists often fail to address?  

Fourteen years after 9/11, the struggle against international terrorism is at a crossroads. Policy debates on whether to how to proceed with any counter-terrorism strategy is beyond difficult. The line between these programs and human rights violation that may lead to radicalization has become increasingly blurred. In my view, such programs as CVE have the right to exist in order to govern our society from potential violence. It is obvious that there is no ideal program that might be effective and perfect for each side. However, I believe that there is a way to turn stigmatization of particular individuals and groups into reintegrative “mindfulness” that will assist members of both groups in understanding each other. As future social justice activists we are not able to design governmental policies. However, we are able to propose solutions. We have the right to be heard. If you were going to develop a community outreach program in the New York City that should serve to prevent the emergence of “violent extremism (CVE)”, what would that include?

Propaganda, War, and Patriotism: The Deleted Scenes

 
Uncle Sam has been calling to young Americans for decades. He calls to Americans much like ourselves, boldly declaring that he WANTS YOU. He wants US. Many Americans answer his call. They believe it is right to protect those you love and the country you live in. Dulce et Decorum est. But is it right to die for one's country? Should this call to war be answered? Uncle Sam is asking US to fight for his war....well...why can't he fight his own war? Furthermore, who is Uncle Sam?

Today, we focused mostly on the meaning behind propaganda and if it is ethical to use it. Now, I would like to ask you if it is right for someone to die for their country. I believe the level of patriotism found in the phrase "Dulce et Decorum est" can be compared to the heroism of the Thanes in Grendel. The Thanes lived to be heroic. For example, when Unferth attempted to kill Grendel, he knew he was dying a hero, even if no one else knew it. Grendel refused to end Unferth's life and he was forced to live on knowing that he had failed, and his idea of heroism was ruined. In Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum est," Owen attempts to fight this idea that it is right and just to die for one's country with gruesome imagery and the brutal reality of war. Is the death we witness in war justifiable if we are fighting for the "right" purposes? Do the ends justify the means? Or does the reality of war break this illusion of Dulce et Decorum est? I would love to know what everyone thinks about this.

Also, I would love to hear everyone's thoughts on Jessica. Jessica is constantly being pushed to the background in Dirty Hands, and yet she is a pivotal character when it comes to Hoederer's death. Would Hugo have been able to accomplish his mission without the "incentive" from Jessica? I also believe it is important to look at the insidious sexism within the play. We see Hugo trying very hard to prove himself as a "man," which leads him to take on the task of being Hoederer's assassin. However, later on in the play we see Hugo professing his love for Hoederer to Olga. How is this insidious sexism seen throughout the play and do you think it plays an important role in the outcome?

I hope everyone enjoyed my class today and I look forward to your responses!

Grendel & Good Luck

Welcome back, Verons! It was so good to see you all this morning (even as we missed Brenda and Bekah).  I'll be honest: when I woke up today I was not in the mood.  But your smiling faces and serious engagement with the text reminded me of why teaching in the Vera seminar is my favorite part of my job.  When I look at the syllabus brimming with creativity and critical thinking, I know I will miss some exciting weeks this spring.  I wish you all the best of luck as you take the helm of the seminar and I look forward to hearing how we have some classroom legends in the making.

While there was much we didn't get to in our time discussing Grendel, it tends to lurk, rather like Grendel himself, around the margins of our subsequent conversations.  Even today, we could see how Grendel's story was relevant to the effects of isolation, or to the stigma experienced by family members of criminals, or how a young "man" (?) eager to find himself might find his identity in violence, or how stories that are so attentive to some kinds of violence (it is a profound critique of war/war culture) can be rather blind to others (representation of women, for example).

I'd like at least to start off the blog by having you share something we did not get to at all: question #6.  Taking either your topic for this semester or your agency, what might be a "Grendel" story?  If Grendel asks us to question long-standing assumptions about the narrative of heroism (and its need for a monster), what/who would make you turn your topic on its head?  What stories don't get told in the conversations surrounding your topic or within your agency?  Are there things that just don't get questioned?  Why might that be?

Feel free to respond briefly and then jump back in to continue the conversation with another comment later.