Group Blog

Introduction by Megan: When communities think about why someone goes to jail, most of the time the language used to respond is negative. The truth is, more than 1/3 of the amount of people in county jails are not in there because they are evil, but because they simply have no where else to go. Reality shows that the mentally ill are taking over jail cells. This stigma relating the mentally ill to those in jail corrupts them. Funding decreases, society grows angry, people lose everything. This stigma has placed the mentally ill in what seems to be a never ending cycle from homelessness to jail and back. The government will only go as far as the people want. To erase this cycle the true issues need to be put on the table of abandonment of a society who isn't capable to live a sustainable life on their own.
      - - - disabilities, stigma, jail, ethics, morals, media, government


Lauren Gantz: The media represents the mentally disabled in a severely negative fashion, forcing American's to give the mentally ill an unfair, negative stigma. News reporters constantly state that mental illness is the reason for tragic murders and crimes. And while this may be true in some cases, this representation creates a negative attitude towards all mentally disabled people, even those that may not be harmful. This vicious representation cycle started with the lack of treatment for the mentally ill. Because of this, crimes are committed and they are represented poorly within society.

Gabi Cohen: Homeless people are forced to go to jail for shelter and refuse but also because it is the only place where someone with mental disorders can get some treatment. Due to the stigma of mental illness there are very little organizations that give free mental health drugs and consultations. Jail is really the only place to go after many mental illness hospitals were shut down in the 70's. This caused a rise in homeless people because after the facilities were shutdown, the people had nowhere to go but also could not find jobs and couldn't afford a place to live.


I like what Gabi wrote about in the 70's when institutions were shut down and all of the people were released onto the streets. They were often homeless because they couldn't find jobs. I like both of these paragraphs. I think I would combined them though, and make it into one big first paragraph to describe the stigma that is brought upon mental illness in order to prove my further points.

Some potential sources and ideas for the final

Possible thesis statement: American social structure limits disabled and homeless bodies by the living conditions forced upon these people

More specifically I would write about how the homeless shelters are sketchy and often unorganized with specific examples of this. How healthcare is lacking - where they can find it, how they often do better until their medications run out and then they no longer know how to obtain it, etc.



SOURCES:

http://civilrights.findlaw.com/other-constitutional-rights/rights-of-inmates.html - talk about the legality of providing health care and appropriate living conditions in jail for the disabled. (Under the American Disabilities Act)

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/saving-normal/201303/prison-or-treatment-the-mentally-ill - proof of all of the amount of mentally disabled in jail - good quote "Today, our largest mental hospitals are our jails."
     - A side note in the article that maybe I should talk about is the criminal representation of these people and how it alters the perception of Americans on what it really means to be mentally disabled.

 - http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-26/when-jails-become-mental-asylums - very good statistics to help talk above issue stated above! Definitely going to go more in-depth.

http://www.thecrimereport.org/news/inside-criminal-justice/2012-08-the-prison-health-care-dilemma - debate on whether or not states want to provide the free health care that happens in jail - very interesting !

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/16193-more-mentally-ill-becoming-homeless-because-states-wont-help - one side on why mentally disabled people are homless

http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/Mental_Illness.html - more information on why mentally disabled are homeless made by a national census

http://www.wdrb.com/story/22195619/mentally-ill - perfect article discussing how mentally ill go from the streets to jail and back

http://psychiatryonline.org/data/Journals/PSS/3578/1380.pdf - even better article for above, definitely need to deeply read into this one!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-de-santis/homes-not-jails-or-prison_b_598237.html - a debate on why we should just put mentally disabled in a home rather than in and out of jail and how it is twisted



THINGS I NEED TO READ MORE:
http://stonesoupstation.blogspot.com/2008/09/program-that-keeps-homeless-people-out.html - program to keep people out of jails when they are mentally disabled
http://homeless.samhsa.gov/resource/the-stigma-of-homelessness-the-impact-of-the-label-homeless-on-attitudes-toward-poor-persons-21569.aspx - stigma of homelessness

Final Paper

Potential Topic Ideas:

1. Homeless people with a mental illness - in and out of jail, medication, etc.

How will your paper explore the "limits" of the body, body modification, or disability?
 Will it explore a combination of these categories?:

1. Limited social structure of U.S. makes it hard for homeless, especially mentally-ill ones, to get resources needed to have a sustainable lifestyles 
2. Why they can't get a job - lack of education, lack of medication, lack of support
3. Homeless shelters - how it's more dangerous to live in them then outside of them - usually robbed, held at gun point, shootings, etc.
4. Lack of government funding 
5. Political debate about how much "free money" should be provided for the mentally ill who are homeless (Free medicine trucks, organizations who wander the streets, etc)
6. The fact that the only real place they are safe and secure is in jail cells - provided meals, medicine, a bed, safety, etc.

Which of the following qualities/categories might shape your paper? How?

1. Social class - money factor, how they can provide for their mentally ill children/family members 
2. Mass Media - the ideas of being homeless as dirty, lazy, etc
3. Government - political party feuds on healthcare, lack of money means, look up court cases on disabled and medication, etc

-List all of the viewpoints/differing perspectives on this issue that you can think of.
Is there a dominant or popular viewpoint?

1. We should provide - it is important to provide medication and better facilities for the mentally ill when they are out on the streets so they can have a chance to undo the limits put on their bodies and go back into the world. A lot of the times people believe that medication is the answer and that people should be put on it so that they can live a sustainable lifestyle in the current world we live in
2. The opposite view is that it isn't the governments job to take care of people who are "mentally disabled," in quotes because a lot of the time people with these opinions undermine the meaning of a mental disabled, making it seem less-than a physical disability. 

How is this issue represented in the media? Can you think of any particular examples?

1. Movies, homeless shelters, governmental disputes about healthcare and who should get it/how much we should be paying for others, political party campaigns and ideals, etc Obviously I need to look up more specific examples to help support my case.

What is your own opinion on this issue?

• My opinion is that it is sad that the mentally disabled people are going from homeless shelter to jail back and forward for the majority of their lives. It isn't right that people are forced out into the streets because they are unable to find jobs and our economy is terrible making it hard to support people who can't support themselves. The political debate should be swayed from wondering why there are so many "slackers" to wondering how we can help our society in America for the better as a whole. It doesn't look good seeing people wandering around under bridges or in the streets of cities because they literally have no where else to go. I will need to look up more evidence on both sides however before I can make an opinion accurately. But, for the most part I don't really know how I feel about medicating all of the homeless people, not for the reason of money, but for the ethical reasons of what those medications can do to a person long-term (frying your brain, etc).

-What secondary resources do you think could help you with this paper?

1. Movies
2. Pictures
3. Newspaper
4. Interviews
5. Case Studies

Code switching, as simple as sending a text or an email

"People see celebrities, they have money and fame, but I’m a human being. I cry, I get scared, I get nervous just like everyone else.” - Beyonce

Beyonce attempts to portray her life in the videos as an average person rather than a celebrity. However, we as the viewers may feel connected to her in that moment, but we realize this is not true as the video progresses. They start to show her posing with cameras on her, lights highlighting her best features, and the fans flowing her hair. This made me realize that this video wanted us to envy her rather than relate to her.  In the next video, Beyonce is shown laughing with her friends, swearing, being silly, acting, well what we would describe as "normal." This is shown in a parallel between "sending an e-mail to your boss," and "texting your best friend," with the differences in punctuation, capitalization, and grammar. 

The article goes on to explain that everyone does what Beyonce has done in this video, we "Code-switch." Very rarely does someone act the same way towards every single person. I can already relate to this statement because I know I act a certain way with different friends, family, and adults. This relates back to our original conversation in the difference between White ASL and Black ASL. For one, the quote at the end of this article showed the annoyance of a black ASL user towards another one when they were using white ASL. They stated, "you're signing like the white students, you think you're smart. You think you're better than us," which clearly isn't the case. This reminds me of our perception while watching the first Beyonce video where she is the center of attention. Sometimes we question whether or not celebrities think they are better than us based on their physical actions. Another comparison I made between the two was the perceptions between how we talk towards one group of people and another. In class we discussed slang, formal language, and diction, etc which directly relates back to the way Beyonce acts for her professional career and the way she would act with her friends. This idea of Code-switching makes us able to have different personalities with different people without being things such as "fake." Some of the black ASL users would talk to their white peers in the white ASL and then when they went home completely switched back to the way they learned. 

"Super-abled" or "Disabled" ?

I couldn't help but post a blog about Aimee Mullins after we watched a few clips about her during class on Monday. I loved how she explained that the reason people are judgmental is because of how society enables people to learn facts. When children are told not to ask her question about her fake legs or even look at them, it gives her "disability" a negative connotation instead of a positive one. She explains that it is normal for children to be curious, making it essential to the child's learning ability to hear positive things about disabilities sooner than later. It is the new generations responsibility to start teaching our kids not to find it "weird" when they see someone "not-whole," as the definition of disabled would say.

After Aimee Mullins looked up the connotation of the word disabled in the dictionary and found it to all be negative, she realized that these labels lead to conclusions. If these names are presented to children when they are young, it may limit or shadow their true potentials. Instead of passing on these stereotypes, we as a society need to learn how to accept it and move past them. We need to learn how to make language positive for people with disabilities and teach these new ways of speech to our children and so on. Until we can learn how to accept people for who they are, we will be living in a cold world. Aimee Mullins really opened my eyes to the potential of advocacy and what it really means to spread awareness for a cause.

Young Beauty Kills

"You will never look better than you do right now," Shiver is told about the female race. The younger you are, the more beautiful you are. There is a point where you peek, and then after that, you fall. Women in general are judged harder than men are based on the standards that society and the media puts on them. Women attempt to stop reality from kicking in by buying anti-aging cream, cover up, make up, and dying their hair --- all of this to stay young and hip. On the contrary, men are able to get women regardless of their age if they have money and status. This reminds me of the difference between say, Hugh Hefner, the man in charge of Playboy Bunny, and Betty White. Hugh Hefner has young women all over him who are beautiful and sexy and more than willing to be with him even though he is old and wrinkly while Betty does not get any younger men. When men are "aged" they are mature, when women are "aged" they are old. Many women say their time is "running out" to find a man simply because of their age. It is not a common thing to hear a man say that. Though this is a stereotype, it can be seen in movies, the media, books, and in real life. Shiver takes this original statement, "you will never look better than you do right now," to heart because it was a smack in the face by reality. Is it fair that women have a heavier burden then men do? No. But that is the life we live in. This causes problems with self-esteem, makes girls become obsessive with their looks and appearance in others eyes, and worst of all, it makes people try to be something they aren't to fit in and find a mate (some getting surgeries and bottox to feel accepted). 


Some even go to extremes with eating disorders, explained by Bordo. Bordo describes this body modification as "thin-body-as-a-coat-hanger paradigm," meaning that the new way to change our bodies is to make it extremely thin. In my mind, a body modification is something that is not naturally occurring that you choose to do to yourself. An example of this would be as simple as getting an ear pierced to as complex as putting a magnet in your finger. Unfortunately  the body modifications brought up by Bordo of anorexia and eating disorders all can have huge damaging effects on the body of boys and girls of all ages. 

Roxanne Edwards

For starters, I was impressed with the fact that we were going to be watching a video about a female body builder. Most of the time we hear about men working on their muscular outline, and women doing other things for fun. However, Roxanne appeared to be someone unique in my eyes, just from the original idea of what she represented in the female culture. Already having knowledge about Raymond in Body and Culture, I figured that Roxanne may be similar to him, robotic, emotionless, repeating the same daily routine over and over again. However, Roxanne shocked me because she had a lot to say for herself, and didn't just let her body do the talking. (I would like to point out that I don't know if this difference had to do with male v. female or if it was simply just a coincidence that Roxanne didn't just let her body speak for her brain and her mind.)

She was already going out of the loop, transforming her womanly curves into finely defined muscular shapes. She stood up for the idea of a woman, making them out to be strong instead of weak and delicate. She lets all of us know that women are all strong in their own way, but it was her goal to show it outwardly through her toned body. She was okay with pushing away ideas of the perfect woman in a feminist mindset, having big breasts and big hips, making the definition of a woman so much more than society conceives it to be. However, the photos she posts express that she still is a woman by the clothing she wears and also the style in which she poses. What I really enjoyed about her is how okay she was with herself. She wasn't just okay, she was great. She loved herself for the toned body she had, but she also loved herself for being a woman. Unlike a lot of the male body builders, she wasn't just boasting about her own accomplishments, she was expressing the beauty in other women and what they've done in their lives to make it worthwhile and feel the same sense of accomplishment as she should. I really like her because she wasn't overbearing with her own thought processes. Although the video was about her and what she has done with her structure, she didn't make me feel like there was anything wrong with not looking like her. She didn't make me feel like less of a woman because I didn't want to live the life she did. In fact, she made me feel almost better knowing that she acknowledged that every woman is strong in their own ways. She told the viewers that women should  be able to "define" themselves however they want to be - whether it be muscular, toned, thin, chunky, tall, short, etc, because no one in the media can tell them they aren't wonderful. This message, in my opinion, should be shared more often. In commercials and advertisements directed towards men, they often try to make the other men watching or reading feel worthless, building up a false hope in their minds that they can work hard enough with a product and in the end receive the same outcome. Roxanne didn't give anyone false hope, she pushed individual dreams outward and told everyone to embrace what they want to do or be.

Overall, Roxanne is a great role-model for the female community. Whether or not you believe in toning yourself to the extent she did, you have to appreciate her for believing in her own self-worth, and others. She not only talked highly of what she has accomplished, but she talked highly of other women as well. I only wish more people could speak out in this sort of tone, especially directed towards teenagers. I feel like if more people, both men and women, had the courage to come out and swear and be honest in the same ways as Roxanne, the way people take in messages from the media could go from negative to positive in terms of self-image.