The Scarlet 'S' Project Presents: I am the Rat

A couple weeks ago, on Thursday May 21, I went to see a play alone at Free Street Theater at 7pm. I was interested but I was also nervous. I had no idea what I was going to experience, all I knew was that the description that was posted on our public events calendar made me think I should check it out.


When I arrived at Free Street Theater I was going into it with a completely different idea of what it would be like and about what I was about to experience than what it would really be. The play "I am the Rat" was created to "address the prevalence of sexual violence in our society, and to eliminate notions that this violence is an acceptable or "normal" part of sex, youth, or our lives."

The play itself was way more impacting than I thought it would be. There were moments where I would get a sudden urge to cry and others where I could just marvel in silence at the great ability of the actors to portray their pain. Maybe it was the small personal community-theater setting that facilitated the feeling of intimacy between the performers and the audience. The Scarlet "S" Project is a really good idea. I think that despite all the media attention that these type of issues attract, little to no outlets exist for analysis and discussion, and that is exactly what The Scarlet "S" Project does.

I liked how "I am the Rat" used movement, verbatic docu-style dialogue, and mashups of media and messages to relay the audience with holistic image of the character and their experience, effectively tracking their journey as they "grapple with the expectations of gender, sexuality, trauma, and systems meant to support."

Excuse the bad quality, my phone fell in water and has this weird tinting...

The waiting area right outside of the theater itself was also very well thought out. Drawings and activities were posted on the walls and set up on tables, all revolving around the common theme of sexual consent and respect. I was a little confused as to why the play was titled "I am the Rat." It turns out it is a reference to what people say when someone tells on others, 'rats them out'.



I think it is great that events like this one are being held in community spaces. It made me want to go see more plays, even though it was very intimidating going by myself.



This picture is one I asked a fellow audience member to take. It is of me prior to the show starting. I am standing in front of the projection screen on the stage. I had no idea what I was about to experience...





















Here are some of the signs they had posted in the hallway leading up to/around the waiting area:

Langston Hughes; Harlem; Spanish Blood

On May 11, I went to a really cool event. I went to a talk held at The University of Chicago's Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture. It was a "CRES Talk":

Langston Hughes' works have fascinated me for a long time, from excerpts read in my sixth grade english class to the song that references him in the musical 'Rent'. Langston Hughes was undeniably an important and influential author.

The event I went to was titled CRES Talks presents: "Langston Hughes Travels in Harlem – The Globality of the Small Story Spanish Blood."

Langston Hughes in Harlem

Now, I've never read Spanish Blood by Langston Hughes, but after attending this talk, not only did I want to read it for pleasure but I also wanted to read it for the critical sociological view it presents, something I might have otherwise failed to analyze or give sufficient importance to had I not listened to the fascinating Sandhya Shukla (a professor of American Studies and English at the University of Virginia) passionately explain Spanish Blood and Langston Hughes' relevance to the history of the Harlem Movement and the social, ethnic, and racial climate.

The talk focused on Langston Hughes' rendition of Harlem in his works as something not solely Harlem-esque but as global. Professor Sandhya Shukla used Spanish Blood as an important example of how his works touched on broader topics, relevant globally analytical setting. She spoke about how Spanish Blood could be used to link Langston Hughes' person and political travels and how he depicted Harlem's everyday life. She argued that his work was global because the Harlem he wrote about was global. It did this "not only through depicting what is outside its borders, but by exploring what is inside" by inside she meant the experiences of the people that Langston Hughes writes about, "the differences living side by side intimately and conflictually" and the persistent but passionate desire to "transgress the authorized confines of race and place." 

Apparently, in Spanish Blood, Langston Hughes touched on the interactions in Harlem between Latino migrants and African Americans (prior to the wave of puerto rican immigrants) and astonishingly reflecting the future reality of the Harlem communities, the separation of Harlem into 'east' and 'central'. I will definitely keep in mind the things mentioned in this talk while I read Spanish Blood (hopefully this summer!).

She's Beautiful When She's Angry

"Whatever mistakes have been made along the path and however the movement has been stereotyped, THE ESSENTIAL PROJECT OF FEMINISM HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE PROJECT OF HUMAN FREEDOM.”

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She's Beautiful When She's Angry is a documentary made by Mary Dore that was just recently released December 5, 2014. The documentary "resurrects the buried history of the outrageous, often brilliant women who founded the modern women’s movement from 1966 to 1971. " 

The film wasn't particularly long (92 minutes) which makes it all the more impressive how comprehensively Mary Dore was able to tell the story of the women's liberation movement without letting it feel rushed. The film was a good mix of photographs from the period, excerpted videos from the news and advertisements, and interviews of women who were important to the movement. 

This is probably the best film I have gone to see in a while. The theater that was screening the movie was the Gene Siskel Film Center. The theater was a nice mix between modern and timey. The film has been showing for some time now so I wasn't expecting many people to be at the 6pm showing I attended. To my surprise, there was a decent amount of people in the theater. I didn't have the chance to fully inspect my fellow members of the audience but from where I sat (all the way in the back, right in the middle), the group seemed to be mostly women.  As I watched the film, I felt a sudden need to jump into the screen and join the revolutionaries. I think a huge flaw with my generation is a lack of organization and drive. Maybe it is because we've grown up in a time where we have been told all about the movements that have to a major extent bettered the quality of live we as a generation experience through the struggle of civil rights, anti-war, feminist, etc. Maybe we've been told for too long that we are the lucky ones. We aren't so blatantly segregated, we aren't being drafter, we have been afforded certain rights that protect us from discrimination based on gender, race, etc. This film made me think, what have I done? Why have I been sitting idly by as I watch the world around me be blatantly perpetuated by injustices? 

I feel so lucky to have been able to watch this film. I feel more knowledgeable and better informed. I've realized I need to question my education more, "yeah, why don't I learn about this in school? Why don't I have a class that focuses on women's history?" or better, "why are pieces of my identity (and that of many others) not being included in my classes?" Sure, a lot of colleges now offer specified courses in areas like women's history studies or gender studies, but shouldn't we be learning these things earlier, shouldn't we at least be exposed to movements like the women's liberation, shouldn't we have role models we can aspire to be like, role models we can relate to? 

http://www.shesbeautifulwhenshesangry.com/women/

This makes me think of the idea of representation. As women, we still have a long way to go in terms of being respected as equals to men. There are still professional fields where women are scarce, fields like Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. 

This film made me think back to a trip I recently went to with my school. It was a Civil Rights Tour through Mississippi and Memphis, TN. We had a guy, Hollis Walker, speak to us about his experience in during the Civil Rights movement and he told us that his experience was during the "early wave of the Civil Rights era" and that the struggle did not end, it simply faded from media but that now, it is up to our generation to move forward the second wave with our "own version of the civil rights movement, how we see it should be." This connected a lot to something they said in the website for the film, the "story still resonates today for women who are facing new challenges around reproductive rights and sexual violence, as the film shows present-day activists creating their generation's own version of feminism."

"SHE’S BEAUTIFUL WHEN SHE’S ANGRY is a film about activists, made to inspire women and men to work for feminism and human rights.  " 

I definitely think i am inspired.

picture of the movie screen

Poetry Competition- Louder Than A Bomb

I started performing poetry in ninth grade after seeing a Morning Exercise in eighth grade during which the newly formed slam poetry club performed a few of their own pieces. I was instantly moved and attracted to the idea of slam poetry, aka spoken word or performance poetry. Louder than a Bomb is an event where teams around Chicago can sign up to compete. Louder than a Bomb (LTAB) is organized by the Young Chicago Authors and there are many bouts (competition groups)- I attended the finals. I was only able to see two of the bouts but I wish I could have seen all of them! Being a city-wide event, it is only natural for LTAB to attracts a huge amount of young poets, this year, there were over more than 600 young poets who competed. Some were there as part of a team doing solo pieces, others were involved in group pieces and the more out-going, strong poets (thats my own personal opinion) performed as indie poets ('independent'). 

The thing I love about LTAB is its ability to bring together people from the North side with people from the South side and West side , etc to share their unique perspectives and experiences in Chicago. The over 600 different voices that eloquently shared their lives with listeners and other performers were doing something amazing (maybe they realized it, maybe the didn't), they were challenging the status quo of our divided city with their common passion for writing and storytelling. 

Often times, spoken word is made fun of in popular media maybe because of the sometimes repetitive rhythm most performers seem to follow or emphasis on words, but thats what I like about it. It's a performance. It is emotionally filled. It can be funny. It can be sad. It is thought provoking.

The LTAB bouts I attended were diverse in topics, sound, performers, and style. Some sang in their poems, others rapped, some clapped while others used onomatopoeia. LTAB is all about identity. It is about showing who you are, what you care about, what affects you and those around you. It never fails to surprise me with the wide audience it reaches. I think that anyone can relate.

Chicago Youth Talks

This past Saturday I went to the Chicago Youth Talks that was held at the Alliance Francaise de Chicago. It was the second Chicago Youth Talks. When I made arrangements to go to the event, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. Someone who had gone to the first one told me it was kind of like a Ted Talks but with students from around Chicago/ the Chicagoland area. The description of the event was pretty accurate but also slightly off. 

Taking public transportation made the commute from my house to the event long which made me a little late. Upon arrival to the location, I had to hop the fence and ask someone who was inside to open the door for me and a couple other people who had also hopped the fence and gathered outside of the location. I entered into a small dark auditorium-like setting. The seats were mostly full, the audience was a good mixture between adults and youth (there seemed to be a bit more high-school aged students than adults). 

The speaker was a girl maybe around 16 who was speaking about visiting Egypt and refugees in Jordan. She connected her experience as an american visiting a country she had never been to to her experience as someone who's ancestors had fled the country. It was interesting how she connected two parts of her and spoke about how the experience helped expand her understanding of the world and herself. As she spoke, I was also able to connect her topic to what I've been doing in my International Relations class where I've been learning about policy in the Middle East now and through time. 

There was also another speaker who really moved me. His speech wasn't particularly long or fancy with complicated words or anything, but it was full of soul and honest emotion. He spoke about speech impediments. It was amazing how he was able to open up to a room of 40 something strangers about something he was self-conscious about, about something that made him feel vulnerable. His name was George and he has struggled with stuttering during his childhood. I appreciated how he didn't make it all about him but about respect. He told us children who stutter are more at risk for bullying and while many are able to get rid of their stutter and improve their speaking, there are many who don't and that continue to stutter through adolescence and adulthood and that those are the ones that deserve to be respected and not spoken down to.

The two girls that presented after him spoke on the idea of perfection which I thought was very relevant to my life as a senior going off to college and to how I analyze my academic experience thus far. "Perfectionism is self-abuse of the highest order," read an image on their slide-show presentation. They spoke about the increasing levels of competition among students and how that affects the way in which children see themselves. They spoke about how learning now is not just about learning but instead, it is about learning the best because failure is failure and good enough is failure and success is not good enough but the impossible standard of better than is the only thing acceptable. This connected really well to what I've been discussing with my peers in my Race, Class, Gender, and Sexual Orientation course where we realize how much these sort of things perpetuate our culture and can hinder the performance of groups of people. The two girls connected it to the theory of civilization and the hypothesis that civilizations that begin near a river have a bigger chance of succeeding than one that begins in a deserted area to children going to schools in "good neighborhoods" and how this affects Chicago, a city that is blatantly segregated by race and class.

I really enjoyed going to this event. I liked how loosely the topics where chosen. I felt like I was learning so much and gaining new perspective through the presentation of their perspectives. They made it look easy to go in front of a crowd and let loose your bare thoughts, to expose yourself to strangers.