March 21, 2008

YM Blog-a-thon Update: Violence

Posted by Jamilah King at 2:46PM

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Here's a quick update on the Youth Media blog-a-thon focusing on violence. This is the second of our monthly Youth Media Blog-a-thons organized by YO! Youth Outlook Multimedia and WireTap in which youth bloggers connect around issues that affect our lives. Below, you'll find young folks from across the country address everything from the wars abroad, violence on our streets, feminism, every-ism, depression and more. Read, comment and spread the word. There's also still time to participate! Holler to find out how.

Oh Dang! posted an interview with rapper, former gang member and community organizer Bambu on how he addresses violence:

"Violence is violence. I support the people's right to armed struggle, self defense. I understand the root of violence in our culture and I in no way condone the taking of lives for nothing more than petty beef. This is where my personal beliefs start to fuck with me, because if someone tried to hurt anyone close to me, instinctively, I don't want them breathing anymore. By nature, it may be wrong, but that's my honest feeling."

http://www.ohdangmag.com/archive/features/bambu.html

YO! Youth Outlook brought up an important point: Why it easier to find information on war abroad than on war at home?

"I think it is pretty distressing when I can search and find almost instantly – the total number of soldiers who died in the Middle East during the last five years but can't get a clear number of the individuals murdered in the Bay Area – or even the United States as a whole."

http://www.youthoutlook.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=18bd8016b47e314300b9687141216dc7

Boston Progress Radio talks about how hard it is to escape violence in Boston:

"We are all products of our times. If you're 11 when bombs started falling again in Afghanistan and Iraq, now that you're 16, how do you view the world? More than 80,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed by the US, you know, the liberators. The heroes. The good guys. So how are we supposed to believe that violence isn't the answer? It sure seems like it's the answer…doesn't it?"

http://www.bprlive.org/2008/03/19/hard-to-escape-violence/

A young writer offers his story on internalized violence, family and transphobia:

"The night before that, I had lay awake in my parents house, witnessing evening turn to night, turn to morning again, haunted by a different set of images. A body hanging limp from the ceiling fan; one floating face-down in the tub; corpses sprawled and pale—pills scattered— blood pooling on the beige carpet. The bodies were mine—all of them."

http://jaysplayground.blogspot.com/2008/03/on-violence.html

Another young writer talks about how she perceives violence in her hometown of Karachi, Pakistan:

"It is a lot easier to comment on how NOT to talk about international violence. On how talking about an entire nation of close to 200 million people as the Most Dangerous Place in the World and a Failed State from a cozy conference room in Washington DC is not only simplistic and unproductive but also downright [insert adjective here: racist, orientalist, Islamo-phobic, being a bitch]."

http://jaysplayground.blogspot.com/2008/03/talking-about-violence-at-home.html

Pistol Play in Hunter's Point:

"I think people don’t cherish life enough these days. I mean it would drive me crazy to have someone’s death on my conscience."

http://youthoutlook.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=15f121d94dc7e2ed4f28ccd3d62abb7e

Vanessa Huang gives her reaction to the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq:

"My political positioning and strategic choices in challenging sites of violence have evolved over the last five to seven years from involvement from a congressional district office to a more local focus, partnering with folks outside of the state to challenge imprisonment... "

http://graniterainbow.wordpress.com/

On violence against women:

"...when I think of violence, I think of women. It's an association that is natural for me, primed in some evil way by the forces of our society and my own conditioning."

http://jaysplayground.blogspot.com/2008/03/women-on-my-mind.html

And then here I go airing my dirty laundry all over the internets again:

"I need a language that adapts to the complexities of pain. Something that's more than just questions and answers, periods and exclamation points. I want to talk about not being able to talk..."

http://wiretapmag.org/blogs/warandpeace/43466

Also, don't miss our first round of blogging where over 15 young folks debated important issues surrounding the presidential election.