shake that shrug off!

i've found that with the termination of my educational program, i'm losing my motivation to confront the cruel miami environment. i know it's such a silly thing, but i can't bear seeing all these other kids so happy to be here, all this youthful energy and enthusiasm i know i used to have, so content in their delightfully convenient ignorance, while i am suffering so inconsolably from the events of the last year.

i know i shouldn't be bitter and resentful towards these strangers for wrongs done to me by Old Mother Miami, but i can't help but feel they're part of the problem. it's because MU doesn't care if they get masses of mindless putty. you can build empires out of that stuff. they're worried about the free-thinking individuals, the ones who pledge their lives to changing the world rather than settling for it.

i consider MU's actions to be nothing more than an existential bitch-slap to my dreams and ideals. and that i'm continuing to go here, well, i'm fundamentally sickened to my core every day, when i wake up and realize that nothing has changed.

i sat in my "socio-cultural studies in education" honors class the other day and listened to kids making up excuses for disney, after we had just watched a documentary based on a critical content analysis of disney films and the disney monopoly written by Henry A. Giroux, a media analyst. some even went so far as to say that:

"it's ok for disney to [make films that distort reality, affirm sexist beliefs, project racist stereotypes, rewrite history to reaffirm colonialist ideology, teach young girls that their bodies aren't good enough and their only worth is in the home or as the object of male desire, etc.] it's ok for disney to do that because they are a business and their only goal should be to make money [yeah. nevermind civic responsibility to their consumers/customers. fill their own pocketbooks, that's all they should be concerned about.]"

oh, and my favorite part:
"it's really the parents' fault. they shouldn't be allowing their kids to watch it. or they should be responsible to teach their kids it's wrong."
yeah! who doesn't love a little displaced responsibility! i loves me some scapegoating! mm-mm!

and of course, when i raised questions of corporate ethics and responsibility, or raised the issue of the media's duty to the public and to informational accuracy, they just shrugged their shoulders. gave me the intellectual frown. droopy apathy... what could be worse?

as an activist, as someone who has learned to listen to my great unshakable bouts of intellectual discomfort and stir myself into action, as a student, as an academic, as an individual, i get greatly offended by others' easy susceptibility to complacency and apathy.

shake those blues! shake those shrugs from your physical vocabulary!

hit the streets with a dream and a voice! get off the sidewalk! walk the line! explode your passions outwardly.

it's the only way to survive.
-stephanie

p.s. a great song i listened to as i wrote this, i highly recommend born ruffians' "this sentence will ruin/save your life." [mp3, will be taken off soon so grab it while you can!]