Author: Brendan Birth

Brendan is a young professional who is pursuing a career in advocacy. While much of his advocacy is in ageism, he is also passionate about other forms of discrimination and injustice. In his spare time, he likes to serve his home church, track major snowstorms and hurricanes, closely follow multiple sports, and make lots of puns.
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September 2019 Blog News

Before going into this “blog news” post, let me say that I am thankful for all of my readers, both new ones and ones who have been around awhile. It is truly amazing to see how much my readership has grown, as well as how much engagement on my posts among my readers has grown, so I thank all who visit my blog.

That being said, there are some things that I notice with my readership patterns, and those things I’ve noticed are the basis of my two pieces of blog news today.

One thing I’ve noticed is that an overwhelming majority of my readers are from the United States. Now, that’s not a surprise, as many of the issues I focus on are specific to the States. That being said, since most of my readers are in the United States, I’m thinking that noon on Tuesdays (for my regular content) and noon on Fridays (when I do things like blog news, re-publishing old blog posts, etc.) might not be the best time for readers. After all, 12 PM East Coast time is 10 AM in the Mountain States and 9 AM on the West Coast—hardly ideal times for people in that part of the country who have regular work schedules and want to read my blog. Additionally, 12 PM on Tuesdays and Fridays are in the middle of workdays for me—something that was not the case in the past because I was a part-time intern when I started my blog. Therefore, I will publish my new posts at 6 PM on Mondays (except holiday weeks) and save things like blog news and re-published old posts for 6 PM on Thursdays (but not every Thursday, just as I don’t publish those things every Friday at the moment). This way, my posts publish right after work for many in the Eastern and Central U.S., and publish near the end of the workday for everyone else in the Lower 48 States.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that my readers seem to prefer my original content over posts I share from other bloggers. My interim solution has therefore been to not share as much content from other bloggers as I have in the past, but that’s not a good long-term solution, as I would still like to share posts from other bloggers. Therefore, I will not publish shared posts on Monday/Tuesday as I have in the past (so that I can stick to original content in my Monday/Tuesday posts), but instead on Thursdays at 6 PM, when I feel there’s share-worthy content. Note that the content I’ll share will stick with the theme of my blog, which focuses on exposing injustices that we may be blind to and/or blindly commit.

In summary, this is my new blog post schedule:

  • On Mondays at 6 PM (except for holiday weeks), I will publish new blog posts.
  • On select Thursdays at 6 PM, I will publish blog news, re-publish old blog posts, and share interesting posts I’ve seen from other bloggers. Note that I will not publish every Thursday evening, because there are some Thursdays when I will not have blog news, old blog posts to re-publish, or posts to share.

Happy reading!

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Indigenous Rights and the Amazon Rainforest Fire

A few weeks ago, the fires in the Amazon rainforest were getting international attention for the environmental damage caused. And honestly, it was important that these fires got the attention they did.

But a seldom-reported aspect of this crisis is the damage that it is doing to indigenous lands.

In terms of indigenous rights in Brazil, the situation is already bad enough under their president, Jair Bolsonaro. Here’s a sampling of what Bolsonaro and his allies have already done, in his short time (a few months) in office, even before the Amazon fires:

  • There used to be offices in the Brazilian government looking after the health and education of indigenous people. Those offices were removed under Bolsonaro.
  • Bolsonaro has defended mineral exploitation on indigenous lands.
  • An indigenous tribe has received seemingly no help after their water source was destroyed earlier this year by a dam burst.[1]

Based on all these actions, and more, from the Bolsonaro government, I can see why many indigenous in Brazil and elsewhere fear that there is a genocide of indigenous people happening there. But with the fires, the situation has gotten worse. These fires, which seem to exist for the very purpose of clearing more land for industrialism, is literally invading and destroying many indigenous lands. Given the multitude of indigenous groups in the rainforest, the destruction of forests there may very well end up being the destruction of many indigenous groups as well. This fact, combined with the fact that recently, “a Brazilian congressional committee approved a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow commercial agriculture on indigenous reserves,”[2] indigenous communities are literally being pillaged and will have no recourse for being pillaged.[3]

And this is not getting talked about enough. Goodness, I’m not sure if I have heard any American television media mention how the fires impact indigenous people in Brazil. That’s a real shame, because given all the parts of the world where indigenous lands are endangered in pursuit of monetary profit (think of the Keystone XL Pipeline in the United States as an example), stories like this need to be covered. Stories like this need to be covered so that the world can come to a reckoning of what happens when short-term profit is prioritized at the expense of indigenous people.

So yes, there is an environmental crisis in Brazil as a result of these fires, but there is also a crisis for indigenous people in the Amazon as a result of the fires. Worse yet, unless we learn from what’s happening in the Amazon, similar things may continue to happen in other parts of the world.

[1] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/04/brazil-native-groups-protest-anti-indigenous-bolsonaro-190424182035658.html. I should note that Al Jazeera seems to be one of the few international outlets following the anti-indigenous policies of Bolsonaro.

[2] https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/afraid-indigenous-guardians-brazil-amazon-190827235511318.html

[3] I should note that the United States should not be “holier-than-thou” on indigenous rights, though.

An image of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. Antonio Campoy [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5DAn image of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil.
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Transgender Stereotypes

As I said a few months ago, I will be doing a series addressing stereotypes for LGBTQ+ people—talking about people who identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer, as well as people who are intersex and asexual. I look forward to continuing through this series.

As I am going in order of the acronyms for LGBTQ (or LGBTQIA), it is time for me to discuss stereotypes associated with being transgender. But before going into details about those stereotypes, I should start by talking about what it means to be transgender and stereotypes associated with friends, fellow writers, celebrities and others who are transgender.

The consensus definition is that being transgender means that your gender identity differs from the sex that you were assigned at birth.[1] I should note, though, that not everyone has the exact same definition of the word transgender.

Now that we’ve defined what it means to be transgender, we can start to understand what sort of stereotypes are associated with being transgender. Here are a few such stereotypes:

  1. Transgender people are not “real” men or women. People who are transgender may not be “real men” or “real women” to certain individuals, but separating the real men and women from trans men and women is dehumanizing (as if trans men and trans women are somehow “fake”). Just please avoid categories of realness and fakeness.
  2. Trans women athletes have an unfair advantage. A journalist (I forget for which outlet), when covering the success of a transgender collegiate athlete, said that trans women are forgotten when they fail and delegitimized when they succeed. It is true, though, and I should add that not all trans athletes who transition from the male category to the female category (or vice-versa) succeed.
  3. Transgender people are still fundamentally the same people they were at birth. I can’t begin to emphasize how problematic this sort of attitude is. This is the sort of attitude that leads to deadnaming, which is calling someone by their birth name instead of their new chosen name. It’s also the sort of attitude that leads to deliberate misgendering of transgender people. Having an attitude that leads to deadnaming and misgendering is problematic, because for most transgender people I know, their birth name and previous pronouns are a reminder of a period of life when they tried to live as someone they were not—a great source of pain indeed.
  4. Transgender people are predators. For whatever reason, there is this stereotype among some that transgender people are predators. Because of that stereotype, some states look at, or even pass, laws that keep transgender people from using the bathroom that fits most closely with their own gender identity. In reality, however, the overwhelming majority of trans people just want to use a bathroom they feel comfortable using, without all the harassment and discrimination. Is that too much to ask?
  5. All transgender people have/had gender dysphoria. This was something I used to think and had to unteach myself, by the way. I had to unteach myself—by remembering that gender dysphoria is when someone experiences distress because their biological sex does not match their gender identity.[2] However, many transgender people do not experience discomfort from the fact that their gender doesn’t match with their biological sex, and therefore never had gender dysphoria in spite of being transgender. I would also note that by assuming that all transgender people have/had dysphoria, it promotes an attitude, whether intended or not, that being transgender is a disorder.[3]

This post hopefully covered some of the major stereotypes associated with being transgender. If anyone wants to add to any of my stereotypes, or has stereotypes of your own, feel free to comment below!

Previous posts in my series on LGBTQ+ stereotypes:

[1] This is pretty close to the definition that Merriam-Webster had for transgender: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transgender

[2] https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/gender-dysphoria/#targetText=Gender%20dysphoria%20is%20a%20condition,the%20appearance%20of%20the%20genitals.

[3] While doing research for this piece, I found out that gender dysphoria used to be called gender identity disorder. When you connect the term “gender identity disorder” with being transgender, one can see how being transgender was considered a mental illness (not that I defend this, by any means, and in fact it was awful that being transgender was once considered a disorder).

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Cutting Civics from School Curricula: An Unjust Move

With the school year either coming up or starting in many states, kids are preparing to learn a multitude of subjects: history, English, Math, and Science, to name a few.

One subject will be noticeably absent for some kids: Civics.

Civics, which is defined as “a social science dealing with the rights and duties of citizens,”[1] can teach students about, among other things:

  1. The importance of voting;
  2. How to know who their representatives are;
  3. How they can be involved in the legislative process, by writing to their representatives about important issues (or calling their legislators);
  4. How people can use their representatives to solve a wide range of issues (provided the representative is responsive, of course);
  5. How to follow the affairs of the government in your city, state, and country.

Teaching kids about these things, and more, through a vibrant Civics curriculum, should be an absolute no-brainer. It promotes civic involvement and awareness of local affairs.

And yet, it seems like Civics education is often on the chopping block in school districts, states, and even federally.[2]

When these cuts come to fruition, what this means is that many kids will grow into adults who are in grave danger of lacking awareness of the full extent of their rights and duties as citizens, ranging from voting rights to the right they have to push their representatives on major issues.

In short, hyperbolic as this may sound to some, cutting Civics is a form of voter suppression and a form of weakening our democracy. After all, if kids aren’t taught about who their representatives are, how will they know to vote for (or against) their representatives when they are adults? If kids don’t know that they can write to their representatives, what will keep a representative from going against the will of their residents, whether that will is spoken or unspoken? If kids aren’t taught how to follow government affairs, how can they cast an informed ballot when they’re adults?

For those of us who think that voter suppression and disenfranchisement starts at the age of 18, when a citizen can vote, think again. It starts when kids are taught minimal or no Civics. However, my readers (or at least readers who live in the United States) can play a role in stopping this—if you ever hear your government, whether it be your school district, your city, your state, or your country, considering cuts to Civics programs, contact your representatives and make it known just how important Civics truly is.

Please note that I will not publish a post next Tuesday, as it will be the Tuesday after Labor Day.

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/civics

[2] Apparently, Civics was among Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s proposed budget cuts. I don’t know if this proposal saw the light of day, but the fact that Civics is so frequently on the chopping block, even at the federal level, should alarm proponents of Civics education: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/04/03/special-olympics-funding-outcry-is-over-its-been-crickets-over-some-devoss-other-proposed-education-budget-cuts-think-civics-history-arts/?noredirect=on

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Why We Should Give Tipped Workers Good Tips

Every so often, a family member (usually my mom or me) is out with a friend, and the family member argues with the friend about how much of a tip to give when we’re at a restaurant. My mom and I argue for a high tip, while our friends sometimes argue for a significantly lower tip or no tip at all, regardless of the quality of service.

After seeing what minimum wages are for tipped employees in every state, I feel both vindicated and saddened. I feel vindicated that my stance on this topic is such that the higher tips mean higher wages for workers, but also saddened that these workers earn poor wages without tips.

Actually, the term “poor wages” would be a disgraceful understatement of how some tipped workers are paid before tips. Given that numerous states allow employers to pay their tipped workers little (as little as $2.13 an hour, as long as tips cover the difference between their base wage and the federal minimum wage), it’s the tips of consumers that could have a major impact on the economic well-being of people. So for consumers in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and South Carolina, you all had better give generous tips if you feel that the federal minimum wage of $7.25 is too low of a wage for people to earn.

While I just directed my last sentence at the consumers of six states, consumers from the other U.S. states and territories aren’t off the hook. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

I say this because many tipped workers earn below a living wage. The MIT Living Wage Calculator says that the living wage in the United States is $15.12 per hour for a family of four.[1] Waiters and waitresses (a form of tipped work) could earn a wage around or above the 75th percentile without having a living wage (national living wage is $15.12 per hour while the 75th percentile pay for a waiter/waitress is $13.30 per hour).[2] If we want our tipped workers to earn living wages, we need to give them generous tips.

When I bring up these points, some people say that it’s not fair for us, the consumers, to compensate for the fact that tipped workers are given poor wages. While I agree that it’s not fair, the injustice of giving tipped workers a little extra compensation pales in comparison to the injustice that would happen if we all gave low tips, or no tips at all. Even if certain employers don’t pay the kinds of wages they should, it doesn’t excuse us from paying the kinds of tips we should. The ultimate injustice with tipped workers is that the people who serve us would earn so little money that they couldn’t serve themselves and their families.

It’s our choice. Do we want humane and living wages for our tipped workers? If so, it’s time for us, the consumers, to step up our games. And yes, that means I’m going to continue paying my 20%+ tips.

[1] I should note that this is the national average. The living wage varies widely between states (and even municipalities within states) depending on factors such as cost-of-living. For example, the living wage in New York City for one adult and one child is $30.86 per hour while the living wage for two adults and two children in Boise, Idaho is $15.68 per hour. Source: http://livingwage.mit.edu/articles/19-new-data-calculating-the-living-wage-for-u-s-states-counties-and-metro-areas

[2] Source: https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes353031.htm