Weekly update January 18th (by the skin of its teeth) Ok lets call it 19th!
Added 2021-01-19 00:56:44 +0000 UTCHow are you beloveds?
I submitted the draft of my book for proofs (galleys) on Friday and then re-wrote a section over the weekend and re-submitted again this morning! Whoop. So I’m now free…. to catch up on everything I have let stack up while I’ve been writing it….
Still struggling to make sense these ‘interesting times’ we’re in. I miss boring times. I mean the days are generally boring as hell but the events seem seismic.
Last week Ireland saw the publication of a report that is the culmination of a five-year investigation the notorious ‘mother and baby homes’. Now don’t be misled by the pastoral sounding name. These religious institutions for unmarried mothers and their children, operated as both orphanages and adoption agencies and the investigation “chronicles deprivation, misogyny, stigma and in some cases shocking levels of infant mortality, adding up to a blistering indictment not just of the institutions but the wider culture of oppression that sustained them”. Disappointingly but perhaps not surprisingly the report states that "While there is no direct evidence of different treatment or institutionalised racism in the records, a number of sources suggest that individuals may have had a negative bias" not only a contradictory statement, but one which conveniently disregards the body of evidence that there was both different treatment and institutionalized racism, which is apparent from accounts of survivors to documents in the public domain! Its particularly disappointing that after the huge BLM movement that developed in Ireland last year, this opportunity to address Irish racism is being ignored!
The abuse that was meted out to women and children in these places beggars belief. I can’t tell you how many people I know who are affected by all of this. The ongoing impact of this system, which was only abolished in 1998 remains huge and largely unacknowledged in Ireland.
I’ve been asked to share this petition, so please take a look, sign and share.
Whilst online platforms are super powerful in terms of bringing attention to cases like this and putting pressure on the right places, I’ve also been thinking about social media and its discontents. In the past in this space Ive written about the the ways words and concepts are used and abused, and the way the language of social justice and liberation has become untethered from meaning (and the fact that anyone who points out that these concepts are being distorted, runs the risk of being accused of elitism or ‘gate keeping’). This is just another of the many examples of how social media is increasingly a regressive space, one where the potential for transformation it once promised is resolutely squandered and it becomes increasingly a destabilizing force in our societies. I think schools need to really consider teaching students how to critically engage with information online and introduce some sort of basic understanding of critical theory so that young people (older people need it too but at least the youngers are still at school) can make greater sense of the ways in which ‘truth’ is being abused online. At the same time, when we are governed by cynical thieves, I imagine the chaos creates precisely the type of conditions they can manipulate to suit their own agenda’s, so perhaps there’s little hope of that type of intervention in the curriculum, at least not until we are governed by people less corrupt.
Speaking of the less corrupt, of leaders who embody principled integrity today is Martin Luther King Day,
I’m really interested in some of the lesser known dimensions of King’s work, and what he was planning just before was assassinated in April 1968.
King announced the Poor People’s Campaign in November 1967 describing it as “the beginning of a new co-operation, understanding, and a determination by poor people of all colors and backgrounds to assert and win their right to a decent life and respect for their culture and dignity” (SCLC, 15 March 1968). Many leaders of Native American, Puerto Rican, Mexican American, and poor white communities pledged themselves to the Poor People’s Campaign.
The Campaign went ahead in May 1968 but was in many ways overshadowed by Kings murder (and JFKs). King was, similarly to Fred Hampton of the Black Panthers, assassinated when he started to focus on uniting the poor across racial divides. Hampton founded the Rainbow Coalition in April 1969, he was killed in by the Chicago Police Department in conjunction with the FBI in December of that year. How sway!
Before I sign off, I should mention I’m part of this line up, along with some total g’s so join in if you fancy. My event is Jan 27th. But it runs from Jan 25th – 29th https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/the-irish-times-winter-nights-festival-five-nights-of-online-events-1.4457199
Take care of yourselves x
