With our year together as members of the CAP: Global Citizens stream coming to an end, we all shared one last collective opportunity to enjoy the CAP program. This Friday we were all able to attend a peer run conference and showcase which featured presentations created by CAP students. For me, attending the showcase was a wonderful chance to enjoy some of the students and works of other CAP streams. It was interesting to see the range of different social issues taken up by various stream groups, as well as hybrid groups which contained members from numerous streams.

One presentation by the Philosophy, Political Science, and Economics stream (PPE) which really intrigued me was “Occupying Media: Public Space and Arendt”. The presenters spoke of the power social media held as a primary informant of news and culture. They also spoke to the power of voice the internet provides for certain groups. This presentation not only tied in well with our discussions from Sociology and Geography concerning social conflict and the power of physical boarders; but also our ASTU classes vigorous investigation of voice.

Another interesting presentation that stood out, was Amelia’s exploration of Vines. She did a wonderful job of investigating its deeply rooted social connections, but also of exposing possible backlash from its popularization. Our unconscious decision to empower short seven second videos into becoming powerful tools of socialization could be potentially detrimental. Vines as a form of cultural representation do not create what Carter would call an accurate “societal memory”.

As our year comes to an inevitable close and our classes begin to tie up, it’s intriguing to look back on our CAP program. In a year of social unrest (i.e. conflict in Ukraine, Turkey, and Venezuala) and major international events (Sochi) there could not have been a more interesting time to be a member of the CAP: Global Citizens stream. Rather it be discussions based in our individual classes, or those awesome free roaming collaborative discussions our stream teachers held, the Global Citizens course truly brought together many of the current issues circulating in the international community and incorporated it into our academia.

For many aboriginal people the residential schools established in the 1870s represent an era of pain and suffering. For over a century the experiences of the aboriginal people were ignored and unheard. This process of neglection is described by Whitlock as “unclaimed experiences” (Soft Weapons 78). These psychological traumas compressed in the hearts of those abused compounded into overwhelming amounts of emotional pressure. The aboriginal people suffered a social epidemic of substance abuse and self-harming as methods to cope with the scarring memories.

It was only on June 11th 2008, over 120 years after the first residential schools were established, that the Canadian Government issued a formal apology. Eventually the Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC), was established with a 60 million dollar budget over 5 years. One of the TRC’s goals listed is to establish a “complete historical record on the policies and operations of residential schools.” However, with accounts based off of purely voluntary participation, the biases cannot help but to be skewed.

The absence of voices from school operators, teachers, and other students will form gaps in our understanding of the residential schools. These archival silences will inevitably effect “…the impact on societal memory” (Things Said and Unsaid: Power, Archival Silences, and Power in Silence 217). As strange as it is, for once the social structure (the residential schools), will be the marginalized group, and the individual agents (survivors of the residential schools) will be the dominate voice heard.

What opened my eyes to the possible existence of alternative opinions (regarding the residential schools), was our visit to the UBC Museum of Anthropology’s St. Michael’s Residential School exhibit. There on a wall of mainly anguished and depressing accounts, I found several positive first hand depictions of the residential schools; one of them even describing the schools as a “pleasant” place to be.

The majority of our knowledge about residential schools comes from voluntary accounts of first hand survivors. People who seek to have their stories heard, in an effort to educate and also confront their own traumas. With no significant rebuttals offered to broaden our view of what happened, the residential school system will be document by the TRC, and recognized by humanity as one of the greatest violations of human rights in modern society.

On the morning of January 23rd 2014, I was meant to roll out of bed, still drowsy and half awake, log onto my laptop and proceed to cnn.com and be confronted with the crisis that was unfolding in Ukraine. I should have sat there staring in slight disbelief at the news that two protesters had died, being hit by live ammunition fired in a conflict between police and protesters. My mind should have drifted to the significance that was the first deaths associated with the protests in Ukraine, and I should have been imagining the political and international sh*t-storm that was about to begin. Instead CNN screamed “Justin Bieber Arrested“!

This is just one of the many example of human lives, martyred and sacrificed for unwavering belief, being trumped in the media by celebrity news. For some reason western society prefers to know the intimate and personal details of our cultural idols rather than a national uprising occurring in a another country. From our early years of schooling we are conditioned to believe that as dominant global powers we are the center of the universe and that all else that happens around us is insignificant in comparison.

News outlets such as CNN are both our masters and our pets. To an extent we control the news that is popular and headlined, though at the same time their choice of what they promote greatly influences what we perceive to be important. News outlets have to stop focusing on particular individuals whose circumstances are magnified due to their cultural popularity, and instead report news that actually effects people. The news must raise awareness on topics that actually matter to the world, and not just serve to satisfy our obsession with celebrities.

Anne Marie Nakagawa’s documentary, Between: Living in the Hyphen, explored the lives of mixed ethnicity individuals.Through the process of interview she portrays the everyday struggle mixed heritage individuals suffer, as they attempt to discern their own identity. During the documentary Chinese-Canadian poet Fred Wah proclaimed that his life as a mixed ethnicity individual taught him that “You get to know yourself by what is resisting you.” Through the social limitations and criticism he endured, Fred Wah gained an understanding of what it meant to be a mixed heritage individual. He further elaborated on the struggle in his 1996 biography Diamond Grill. In his book Wah illustrates what it was like to grow up, a child of both Chinese and Scot-Irish decent, and the racial expectations that strangled him.

Fred Wah, as well as all of the other mixed heritage individuals, expressed a reoccurring theme of how their own personal identities were shaped. For all of those interviewed, childhood represented a time of uncertainty and confusion. Being given a certain hereditary social status and culture, while not quite fitting in, defined their existence as living anomalies. The experience of Always trying to find a place among communities that never fully accepted them, linked those interviewed.

At some point each individual was expected to submit to a superficial racial label, produced by a misinformed conformist culture. Each person experienced some form of social limitation or resistance caused by either their external appearance or legal classification. For Fred Wah it was when his entrance into the United States was delayed because of the fact that he was classified as an Asian. Wah physically appears as a white male, though due to his legal name being of Asian decent he encountered unexpected difficulties throughout life.

For mixed heritage individuals, the cultural barriers and limitations caging them seemed unfair and biased when in comparison to their ‘pure blooded’ peers. The natural human desire to belong and be accepted is overruled by decades of ignorant ethnic classification. The cultivation of our youth is now in crisis as more and more children struggle to find communities and cultures they may identify with. Without awareness being raised and social expectations changed, future generations of mixed ethnicity are doomed to endure the same unnecessary feelings of being lost and alone.

This weekend I spent quality alone time with my dear friend the flu. Constrained to my bedroom and passing between states of consciousness and drowsiness, I dedicated my free time to watching documentaries. Beyond the dilemmas of ethics and authenticity, each documentary holds a gem of mental and spiritual stimulation.

After watching a handful of documentaries, I finally surrendered to my burning and irritated eyes. However even after an extra strength Nyquil I could not shake the feeling of katharsis. I lay in bed for what seem to be days, pondering abstractions of justice and humanity. Watching a wide range of films helped me to understand the cruel truth that is my existence.

I dragged myself out of bed and lay on the ground of my small 3×3 foot shower, embracing the warmth of the hot water. As I left the shower chills ran through my body, and I looked in the mirror only to be greeted by the familiar site of my image. My wet hair was slicked back in an ionic fashion, typically associated with wealth. It made me feel sick to my core; rotten and dirty as if I had been dragged through the muds of poverty and pollution I had seen in the documentaries.

The brutal reality finally came crashing down on me. I am nothing more than a spoiled, first-world inhabitant whom is dabbling in insignificant uncertainty. I have made absolutely no contribution to the embitterment of mankind, and in fact have only supported the widening disparity between the rich and poor. I am trapped in a cycle of consumerism and ignorance. The educational system I was brought up in taught us of these social, political, and environmental issues however it was the documentary that finally allowed me to identify the formal dualism associated with the system.

We are all part of a large bureaucratic system that rewards the elite and exploits the weak. What makes this terrifying however, is that the majority of us are aware of this. There are three stages of social activism, awareness, distress, and action. Many exist in a stage of awareness, in which they know of the issues going on, and do not care. It is easy to take for granted the blessings we view as mandatory commodities, such as hot water.

The second stage of activism, distress, is the state the majority of us exist within. We know the problem and its existence bothers us, however we feel unable to make a change. I can speak honestly when I say most of the time I am more concerned for my own well being and journey for wealth than I am for the those less privileged.

A documentaries ability to humanize a character, and make them relateable, regardless of their different life experiences makes it impossible to go on ignoring their pains and struggles. Spike Lee’s fictional film Do the Right Thing screams the need for active social movement over more passive methods, by illustrating the police forces evil crimes committed against a community who is unwilling to fend for themselves.

All these documentaries made me realize, that just learning and trying to understand the problems doesn’t actually solve anything. As I am now, I am nothing more than a innocent bystander who is guilty of a lethargic existence. If I am not helping, I am hurting, and if I am not attempting to be a hero, I am unknowingly becoming the villain by supporting an unjust system.

Popular internet sites around such as Google, Youtube, and Facebook monitor user browsing in order to customize search results and advertisements. In ways this this is convenient and sensible, however websites often take things too far. Their surveillance of our activity and promotion of content can be disturbing.

Google, arguably the largest internet titan has become a integral part of everyday life and contemporary culture. Serving as a mega online index of information, Google catalogs and organizes websites for search. The company’s widespread success is undeniable and influences so many major aspects of culture. The content of an individuals search on Google is followed and gathered. Google then uses a web of formulas in order to determine possible trends and patterns of your search, so that they may predict and provide relevant information. The formulas often take into account geographic location, country, and most importantly history of searches. By reverse tracing our IP addresses, Google is able to pinpoint our location. For example, since I live on campus if I search for “sushi”, many of the top results are sushi restaurants nearby. Contrary to popular belief, the top results Google displays are not always the most popular, relevant ones. Often times company’s will pay so that their business is one of the top results, thus manipulating the user’s relaxed acceptance of whatever Google presents.

Youtube, owned by Google, also uses many of the same techniques in order to personalize the experience. Constant monitoring of our video viewing, regardless of rather or not we are logged into an account, determines what appears on the homepage and the side bar. Yes, a customization of Youtube allows each individual a personal experience, however it also in capsules them into formulated patterns of expected interest. Keeping in mind that this is a business and website do this to generate revenue, it is saddening to think of how we are targeted as cash cows. One search of food on Youtube, and you are flooded with a sea of fitness, vitamins, and weightloss advertisements. Large markets like these are often the ones most commonly advertised.

Facebook, a multimedia online social site gathers, collects, and stores more information than any other site. Taken directly out of our personal biographies, Facebook utilizes information such as age, gender, hometown, school, and relationship status. As a male college student many of the advertisements on the side pertain to cars, credit cards and “hot singles” in my area. Facebook even takes into consideration how you interact with your friends. Wall posts and conversations are under jurisdiction for Facebook monitoring and eventually these formulated wells of information about us, become our online identity.

Advertisements and suggested content often spark areas of interest for us and provoke our exploration into that topic. Online life is becoming more and more representative of our own personal identities and values. It seems like who we are does not dictate the content shown to us, but instead the content begins to mold our character. We are blinded and shut out of information these website deem unsuitable for us, and our ignorant lives online become more and more self entrapped.

Last week during class we watched the presentations on both Six Word Memoir and Post-Secret. Both sites make emotional appeals to the viewer, creating a deeper personal connection. Their method of presentation and their overall structure greatly differ from one another.

Post-Secret is a completely anonymous user submission based site. Contributors from all over the world mail in post cards containing personal “secrets” to the sites. The director then chooses a handful from the many submissions and hosts them on the site for about a week. These secrets are completely anonymous and the submitter has no way of establishing claim.

The actual secret allows the viewer a strange voyeuristic peephole, deep into the life of a complete stranger. It also gives the contributor a feeling of relief, as they are able to share a secret without fear of personal backlash. The actual post card usually features an image that is in someway related to the secret. This visually illustrates either the secret or the emotions and feelings meant to be invoked. It helps the audience to understand and visualize the context of the secret. Sometimes though, the post card is completely unrelated, yet it still contributes a certain artistic value.

To me, the post card takes away from the secret. For a viewer the image of the post card is both entertaining, and helps to establish a deeper emotional bond. It sparks emotional response and appeals to our value of creativity and art. However, I believe the beauty should be purely based in the secret itself, and the concept behind sharing and viewing them anonymously.

Six Word Memoir on the other hand focuses on trying to tell a complete story within the six word structure. The site is based off of Hemingway’s famous six word short story “For sale: baby shoes, never worn”. Contributors use anonymous usernames, giving the site the ability to host a semi-anonymous community; made up of both contributors and viewers alike.

The actual “six word stories” range widely. Some are personal experiences, while others are larger abstracted ideas. The site does not promote either fictional or non-fictional submissions, thus promoting artistic expression and free interpretation of the prompt. Although some posts are undeniably vague, I believe this is beneficial to the community. It advocates for discussion and interpretation, stimulating discussion.

The beauty of Six Word Memoir does not come from any visuals, as no visuals accompany the short passage. It is purely from the text and context of the six words. It is completely crafted by the contributor and therefore is just as personal as Post-Secret. There is a sense of beauty from simplicity. In contemporary culture where we are bombarded constantly, and over saturated with visuals and over complicated/overly detailed culture, this site stands out. To create or feel a deep emotional response with just six words is a craft that truly deserves recognition. What makes Six Word Memoir amazing is it’s limitations, and how it makes use of different techniques to overcome those limitations.

Over the weekend I had the amazing privilege of visiting the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery as well as being able to witness some of the Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) main events. During the weeks leading up I had heard more than my fair share of TRC related chatter. In my mind it existed solely as a giant publicity stunt the Canadian government had cooked up to further their kindhearted reputation among the global community. I must admit I entered the event with skeptical mindset, however I will proudly confess I left with a satisfied mind and a giddy soul. Both the art gallery and the main event were about so much more than just truth and reconciliation.

The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery was less of an artistic expression, and more of a peephole into the life of the aboriginal people. The pieces allowed me not only a greater literal understanding of their struggles, but also an opportunity to forge an emotional connection. Joane Cardinal Schubert’s The Lesson (1989), sparked a powerful emotional response that will forever stay with me. This setting piece had the rare power to transport me back to the actual moment. It’s black walls give a sense of entrapment and gloom. The white chalk scribbles contrast brightly against the dark wall giving the illusion that they are screaming their message right in your face. The monotone precision of objects in the room creates an uneasy sense of lack of humanity and the gray floor curter contributes to the dull atmosphere. The art pieces at the gallery revealed a sense of truth I was not expecting. It was further than a government willing to recognize their wrongdoings (which in this day and age is rare enough), it was raw unfiltered emotional truth. Some of the pieces had shades of anger, sadness, and resentment, but they all spoke to a greater power. The truth displayed in this gallery was not a testament to Canadian attempts of apology, it was a truthful conveyance of the pain the aboriginal people suffered.

The TRC main event also served it’s own share of surprises. I expected Canadian propaganda to paint a picture of a blooming, untarnished friendship with between themselves and the aboriginal people they wronged. However what I saw was very different. Maybe it was because the event was hosted by a private group, but the lack of Canadian bias made the experience refreshing and interesting. The event allowed for not only the aboriginal people to tell their stories, but also people from other nationalities who experienced similar hardships. The event beautifully balanced the mourning of past tragedies and the celebration of reconciliation. Guest speaker Bernice King beautifully summed up TRC when she preached “Hate will destroy the hater more than the hated” and “Freedom is never really won, you earn and fight for it every generation”.

These two simple quotes capture the very soul of what the TRC aimed to achieve. The event was partly to recognize the past, but also to spark hope and awareness for the future. Although we cannot change what happened, we can accept our sins and those who have sinned against us, and use the experience to learn and better the community. Each generation faces its own battle of social issues, though we can look to the past to help guide us in our struggles.

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