Malala Yousafzai – Blind Injustice

October 24, 2019January 23, 2020

Another Mystery Blogger Award!

I recently found out that I have been nominated for another blogging award—this time, another Mystery Blogger Award! I want to thank Ospreyshire’s Realm for the nomination—please give the blog a visit! I also thank Okoto Enigma for creating the award; you can find a link to Okoto’s blog here.

As for the rules:

Put the award logo/image on your blog.
List the rules.
Thank whoever nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
Mention the creator of the award and provide a link as well.
Tell your readers 3 things about yourself.
You have to nominate 10 – 20 people.
Notify your nominees by commenting on their blog.
Ask your nominees any 5 questions of your choice; with one weird or funny question (specify).
Share a link to your best post(s).

I’ve already done the first four on this list, so now to the three things about myself (and these are three other things I haven’t shared before):

While I have my own talents, playing a musical instrument isn’t one of them. I went to a public school that taught violin for a time and then recorder for a time, but I wasn’t exactly the best talent ever at either instrument.
I was into singing, though…in choirs. Between 5^th and 12^th grade, I was always in my school’s choir, singing at school Masses.
I still enjoy singing, even though I haven’t been in a choir since 12^th grade.

As for the questions I was asked, here are my answers:

What makes you an innovative blogger in your field? In my field (social justice blogging), I focus on injustices we may be blind to and/or blindly commit. I think this makes me innovative because most of the time, the injustices that we want to focus on as bloggers are only injustices that end up in the news.
What are issues that you’re passionate about? There are a lot of issues I’m passionate about, such as racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism, indigenous rights, ableism, immigration, and economic justice, just to name a few.
Who are three famous people that you would want to have coffee with? I’d love to have coffee with Archbishop Desmond Tutu as well as Malala Yousafzai for similar reasons— I admire how they integrate their faith with their work (Anglican in the case of Archbishop Tutu, and Muslim in the case of Malala). The third famous person I want to grab coffee with is a choice that may create controversy with soccer/football fans who read my blog…because I’d like to grab coffee with Jürgen Klopp, the manager of Liverpool Football Club. I’m not even a Liverpool supporter, but he’s a funny guy with major interests and passions similar to mine (football/soccer, faith, and, apparently, walking).[1]
Why do you blog and what are your goals for your it? I blog so that people (myself and others) can hopefully be aware of some of these injustices we may’ve been blind to or blindly committed in the past. My goal is for that awareness to spread on those “blind injustices.”
Would you rather own a house that’s attached to an ice cream company or one that’s attached to a chocolate factory? Yes, that’s my required weird/funny question for this award. Haha! I’d rather own a house attached to an ice cream company! With a chocolate factory, I would end up limiting myself to chocolate. But with an ice cream factory, I could have chocolate ice cream if I’d like, but I could also choose to have something other than chocolate if I wanted.

Here are my nominees (with links to their most recent posts, as of the time I was drafting my award acceptance). This is in no particular order:

My questions for you all are:

What are you passionate about, outside of the topics you blog on?
What made you want to blog on the topics you now write about?
What do you enjoy the most about blogging?
What is the biggest piece of advice that you think new bloggers need to hear?
Are you a superstitious person? If so, what is your biggest superstition? (That’s my funny/weird question.)

Three of my best posts (these are different from the posts I shared the previous time I accepted a Mystery Blogger Award) are:

“Men and Mental Health”: Given the suicide crisis with men in the United States, I thought it was important to really raise awareness on this topic. It looks like I was successful at that, with 115 WordPress likes as of the time of drafting this post!
“Racism Exists Where You Don’t Expect It”: This post, which I wrote nearly two years ago, is a favorite because I was able to turn a negative (racist writing in my neighborhood, including on my own family’s car) into a positive (this post on how racism exists where you don’t expect it).
“Addressing the Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting”: I was worried about the quality of this post because I wrote it literally the night before publication. But, looking back at the timing of the post (mere days after the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh), a blunt and relatively unfiltered view of just how deep anti-Semitism really was/is was maybe what was needed at that time.

Congrats to my nominees, and once again, thank you to Ospreyshire’s Realm for the nomination!

[1] Klopp’s undergraduate thesis was on walking. Additionally, when he was the manager of Borussia Dortmund in Germany, he enjoyed taking walks from his team’s stadium to his home after matches.

February 27, 2018February 24, 2018

Ageist Responses to Florida Shooting Survivors-Turned-Activists

“Well, let’s ask ourselves, do we really think—and I say this sincerely—do we really think 17-year-olds on their own are going to plan a nationwide rally?”

“The big question is: Should the media be promoting opinions by teenagers who are in an emotional state and facing extreme peer pressure in some cases?”

“I absolutely know these children are heartbroken. But I also know they probably do not have the logistical ability to plan a nationwide rally.”

While some of the conspiracy theories about the Florida shooting survivors-turned-activists has both gotten attention for all the wrong reasons and been debunked (and rightfully so), the ageist sentiments such as the ones in the quotes above (all of them coming from prominent political commentators) should not just be debunked but also called out for what it is: ageism.

Ageism—defined by me in a blog post many months ago as “a form of discrimination where people are judged based on the age they are or the age they look”—is very apparent in some of the ways people are viewing and judging the shooting survivors-turned-activists. By saying that these teens are not capable of organizing a nationwide rally since they’re seventeen, or shouldn’t be promoted just because they are “teens in an emotional state,” we’re judging them as being too young (and therefore incapable) of doing certain things. And by promoting such messages about these teens not being capable of certain things because they are teens, we’re actually promoting ageism.

But it’s not enough to say that people are ageist for saying that high school kids are not capable of being activists on a national level. I urge us to go a step further, by promoting narratives that debunk such ageist thoughts. I urge us to promote the story of Malala Yousafzai, who became internationally known for advocacy at the age of 12 and nearly died because of her advocacy. I urge us to promote the story of Mo’ne Davis, who at age 16 has gone from being a pioneer (a girl starring in Little League Baseball, a sport traditionally for guys) to launching a shoe collection that benefits impoverished girls. I urge us to promote stories like that of my fellow Dickinson College alum Noorjahan Akbar, who was featured in major publications as early as when she was 19 and 20. Stories like these are the most powerful rebuttals to any notions that young people are not capable of doing something special just because they’re young.

People of a wide variety of ages are capable of doing special things. Young people are capable of doing special things. Old people are capable of doing special things. Middle-aged people are capable of doing special things. Ultimately, there are some things that do keep us from doing great things, but age is not one of them.

February 6, 2018February 5, 2018

Why We Should Avoid Revenge

There have been times in my life when I felt wronged by someone. In many, if not all, of these instances, I was tempted to seek revenge on the person who wronged me. Most of the time, I didn’t give in to this temptation. But on a couple of occasions, I did.

I know that I am far from the only person who considers revenge against the wrongdoer. In fact, a recent blog post had to do with the Trump administration seeking revenge against the United Nations, which voted against Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

However, I make a call for all of us, regardless of political affiliation, religious beliefs, or personal views on other matters, to avoid revenge.

One problem with revenge is that revenge is so focused on “getting even” with someone that we fail to consider how our “getting even” might hurt the supposed wrongdoer, or hurt others who have nothing to do with the situation in which we were wronged. The Trump administration’s decision to cut American funding to the UN is an example of this—the administration’s desire to get even with the UN after the vote on the Jerusalem issue will end up lessening the UN’s ability to deliver humanitarian services, and as a result will hurt people who have absolutely nothing to do with Trump’s decision or the UN vote. While I hope that our struggles with revenge will not have consequences as potentially catastrophic as the example from the Trump administration, revenge nevertheless has the potential to hurt others.

If we seek revenge, we could also hurt ourselves. For example, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie sought revenge on the Mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey because he didn’t support Christie’s campaign for a second term as governor, and the result of that revenge (closing lanes on the George Washington Bridge) was a scandal that ended any hopes of Governor Christie becoming President Christie in 2016. Examples like Christie’s demonstrate that it really is in our own best interests to avoid revenge.

Critics of my anti-revenge message might say the following: “What about seeking revenge for unjust actions? Wouldn’t that be okay?” Actually, that is not okay. The most effective movements for human rights in recent decades, and the most effective human rights activists, urged people to avoid revenge. Mahatma Gandhi once said that, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” Malala Yousafzai didn’t “want revenge on the Taliban, I want education for sons and daughters of the Taliban.” Martin Luther King Jr. said that, “Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, rejection, and retaliation.”

I will, however, go one step further than simply urging us to avoid revenge. We should “bless those who persecute us” and “love our enemies,” as Jesus Christ (another proponent of peace) said. We should do what Gandhi, Malala, and Dr. King did, and respond to hatred and hurt with love and compassion instead of revenge.