Books and Abolition

As conversations surrounding police violence and prison conditions come to the foreground, the topic of abolition is increasingly relevant.  The safety of marginalized people, such as those who are Black and brown, queer, disabled, is disproportionately threatened by over-policing and surveillance.  Prison conditions from food, sanitation, and (more recently) protection against COVID-19, are dismal and lacking.  Abolition seeks to end this cycle of harm enacted by the carceral system by eliminating it: ending imprisonment, policing, and surveillance, upholding prisoners’ rights, and decriminalizing drug use and sex work, among other goals.

While this may seem like an incomprehensible ideal, abolition also advocates for life sustaining institutions.  By adopting restorative justice models, implementing free and high quality healthcare, education, housing, transportation, and social services, and strengthening community ties through mutual aid, the root causes of crime and need would be better addressed.  

Bloom Zine: Centering Pleasure in Activism

Bloom Zine Cover

Folks with multiple marginalized identities, such as trans & queer BIPOC individuals, face overwhelming systemic barriers that affect our physical, spiritual, and emotional well-being. In the context of activism, our healing, happiness, pleasure, and joy are our tools against systems of oppression.

Created with help from my friends in the QTBIPOC community in D.C. and Baltimore City – Bloom is about community, healing, and pleasure activism, all linked together through the theme of plants and nature that serve as reminders of our strength, resilience, power, and wisdom.

Together we bloom.

#maskupumbc

The topic we chose to do our activist project on for this semester was about raising mask awareness to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Our slogan was #maskupumbc. We chose this topic because we thought it was an important issue to focus on seeing as we are currently in a pandemic. This is important because there are populations that still refuse to wear masks and they are not informed enough on the effectiveness of masks, the different types of masks or the correct way to wear a mask. We sought to eliminate some of the confusion or negative beliefs that people might have when it comes to how and why we need masks.

In order to effectively spread our message, we created an Instagram account where we could post different types of infographics. The infographics we made included the different types of masks that should be worn, how to properly wear them, and general posts on the importance of the masks. One of the things we made sure to put in place was translating our infographics to Spanish in order to reach a larger audience. We also talked to our family and friends about the benefits of wearing masks to help stop the spread of COVID-19. With their help, we were also able to tell other people about our Instagram account and our message. We were also able to present our work in our Gender and Women Studies Class. 

When it came to measuring the success of our project, we were more focused on the quality of the posts that we were able to create, rather than the number of likes we got when posting. While we did our best to spread the message about our project, it seemed that people were not interested in learning about masks. We did what we could to spread mask awareness to those around us, finding success in being able to promote our project to those that would listen. When it came to reaching out to organizations, it was not an easy task. Few would listen to what we had to say because they already had their own ideas about the importance of wearing masks.

If we had the opportunity to do this project again, we would make some adjustments after the experience we had and after knowing what we know now. One thing we would choose to do differently is to broaden our topic to encompass more than just mask awareness. This was one of the biggest obstacles we faced in this project. It was difficult to brainstorm ideas for posts to make to promote our project and as a result, we found ourselves at a standstill most of the time trying to figure out what else we could talk about when it came to our topic. Another aspect we would change is starting our project and outreach earlier in the semester than we did. While we had our ideas and posts ready, we did not actually start using our Instagram account until later on in the semester. This proved to be an issue as it was difficult for us to reach a bigger audience, like we envisioned when we first started our project. It would have helped had we also gotten promotion from more organizations, but with the current state of the world, we do not really blame people for the lack of responses. The last major change we would make would be to stay more updated on news regarding masks mandates. That was difficult because of the time commitment that it required and the CDC and local governments made changes to the mandates often. If we were able to keep up with all the changes, it could have helped our project gain more traction and reach more people.

Homelessness in the United States: History, Policy, & Context

https://amaples1.wixsite.com/website-1

For our project, we decided to explore homelessness in the United States as a means to educate the public. We went into the project knowing that homelessness is a broad issue, but we decided to pursue it because we think that there are a lot of misconceptions about it and how individuals become homeless. We decided to focus on key historical events and policies that impacted poverty and social and economic instability. To do this, we chose to build a website that would highlight the most important historical events and policy changes that have impacted the state of homelessness in the United States. When choosing events, we tried to think of historical events and policies that might be well known to many on the surface but had further-reaching consequences that many may not realize had a long-term impact. Because our topic was so broad, we focused on events ranging from the great depression to the present day, which gave us plenty to chose from. After brainstorming, we decided to hone in on the Great Depression and the New Deal, the Kennedys, deinstitutionalization, and the failed policy that didn’t replace it, the Vietnam War and homeless Veterans, the budget cuts of the Reagan years, and the war on drugs, the Clinton Administrations “welfare to work” policy, the Great Recession, and Covid-19.

We had originally planned on building a website whose first page featured a timeline that named these events and then would have additional pages that would summarize them. Unfortunately, our chosen website builder Wix, made this difficult with the website templates they had to choose from. So, we decided that it would be best if we rethought our approach. We ended up building our own website, whose homepage gave facts and statistics that we thought a lot of the public might not know, for example, that only 17% of homeless individuals are visibly homeless and that a large portion of homeless individuals are working and living out of their cars. The second page was designed to look like a timeline as you scroll down. We summarized the best we could in a manner that we thought would be engaging, informative, and concise. On our final page, we included links to interesting articles about policies surrounding homelessness in other countries, like Finland, who has resolved homelessness by literally just giving everyone a house who needs one.

If we could go back and do it again, we would probably try to recruit other people to join our project. We knew that this would be a writing intensive project, but I think we underestimated just how much work it would be. We also underestimated how difficult building a website would be; one group member had prior experience with Wix, but only in the case that the available templates fit what they were trying to do. Ultimately, we were happy with our outcome and think we accomplished our goals, even if the project changed along the way. We hope that you enjoy our website and come away from it having learned something new about the causes of homelessness in the United States. 

Survivor Support

Sexual harassment and violence, especially among college students, have long been a severe issue. In the past few years, however, it has received more attention, in particular at UMBC. As a result of increased public awareness, many colleges and universities have been working to implement interventions to deter and respond to rape, sexual harassment, intimate partner abuse, and stalking within their student populations. Peer support, including peer hotlines, peer counseling, and peer activism, have long been part of these interventions addressing sexual harassment on college campuses. 

So what is survivor support, and why does it matter?

girls, guys, and theys: reproductive support and sex education resources for everyone

The Creation of an Unbiased and Inclusive Virtual Support Group

The ambition for this project was inspired by the group’s personal experiences with reproductive rights and sex education. It can be extremely challenging to navigate conversations, spaces, and resources without proper support. We envisioned the possibility of a safe space where anyone who has, will, or is currently seeking reproductive resources can ask questions, find emotional support, and connect with others who have similar experiences. 

The goal was to create a place where no one is forced to go through issues with reproductive health or sex education alone. Inclusivity was at the forefront of our conversations. It isn’t just cisgender heterosexual women who need reproductive resources, anyone can be in a situation where they might need them. At the same time, we didn’t want our chatrooms to be too clinical like “Sex Education Support”, so we chose a fun name based off the phrase popularized on TikTok: “girls, gays, and theys” to “girls, guys, and theys”, highlighting an acceptance of all genders while still remaining lighthearted.

For our group to stay in contact, we immediately set up a GroupMe to stay connected and communicate with each other. After discussing different sites, we decided to create a Discord server as it allowed for anonymity (compared to Facebook or GroupMe). We spent time as a group planning out what rooms we wanted to provide and how we wanted the server to be constructed, all building off of a base skeleton that one of our members created, as they had familiarity with making Discord servers.

A big part of what we worked on was our disclaimer, rules, and our introductions as moderators. Our disclaimer was created to make sure that people who joined would understand that we are not professionals and to ensure that we would not be held responsible or turned to in times of actual medical emergency. Our rules laid out what we wanted our community to become: compassionate, kind and considerate of others. Lastly, our introductions worked to demystify us as people, not just moderators to our new members and to make it clear that we’re a team with a sincere desire to help and support people.

One of the reasons that we chose Discord was due to the room security functions: roles can be assigned to members, and those with certain roles can be allowed to enter certain rooms in the Discord server. A member of our team used a popular Discord bot named Zira to help with self-assigning roles using emojis: if you reacted to a specific message of hers that listed all of the roles and their corresponding emojis with a specific emoji, she would give you the role for it automatically. This would help users who are nervous about speaking directly to a moderator about being assigned a role. That member also worked with Zira to create a welcome greeting with information so that new users wouldn’t feel lost when first joining (especially if they had never used Discord before). We emailed and reached out to organizations, friends, and classmates to spread the word about our server.

During one of our meetings, the groups spent a significant amount of time thinking about whether we should change our name. In the end, we decided to keep it. We collectively decided that the name was inclusive enough and encompassed many different diverse identities. There is always room for greater inclusivity. So, in the future we aim to continue to consider the opinions of the people we serve. In addition, we struggled with not being able to speak with the Women’s Center in person. Unfortunately, that option was unavailable to us due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ideally, we would like to see the Discord server thrive as a safe place for support for as long as possible. We understand that people move on with their lives and paths change, so it was important for us to plan on how the project would carry on. Those who don’t feel that they are able to invest time into the server are more than able to leave, though many members of our team plan to stay. We are hoping to have the group established with a deep enough rotation of moderators to move into positions as needed.

COVID-19 in BIPOC Communities

The issue we chose to address in our project was the disproportionate rates of COVID-19 among BIPOC communities, particularly Black communities. Our starting point was the general Black Lives Matter movement, and in narrowing it down we decided to cater our project to the specific moment we are occupying right now. We made an infographic, to be posted on our social media accounts, with the intention of educating others on how and why BIPOC communities are being affected differently than white communities, and on what they can do in their own lives to hopefully reduce that effect.

A Book Drive for Velocity of Books

The problem that I chose to address was the discrepancy in funding between public schools. As public schools in the United States largely rely on property taxes, that means that areas with higher property taxes get more funding, while areas with lower property taxes get less funding. This means that schools with less funding have less supplies, so I chose to help a small portion of this problem by holding a book drive and donating the books to Velocity of Books, and organization in the DMV that takes books and gives them to underfunded districts.

My biggest hurdle with this project was attempting a book drive during a pandemic, as supplies were limited and people were understandably hesitant to donate. Therefore, I decided to only collect books from my friends and family, and see how many books I got out of that.

In the end, I was able to go past my goal of 50 books, as I got 56 books! I quarantined the books for five days as per the instructions of my local library, and sent them off to the organization. All in all, it was a great project, and I’m really glad I did it!

The organization that I donated to.

Decolonizing Natal Care: An Ethnographic Study on Black Birth Work

Obstetric racism experienced within the mainstream medical system — marked by health, natal care quality, and mortality disparities — poses as a major health crisis for Black birthing people across the United States, and is just one of many contemporary examples of the extensive, strained relationship with the healthcare system and the Black community. Due to these disparities, some expecting parents look towards Black alternative natal care workers (i.e., midwives, doulas, childbirth educators, etc.) in mitigating the trauma and violence often experienced in hospital settings and closing the quality gap in natal care.

Activist Project: Gun Violence at UMBC

The Problem my Project is Trying to Address:

“At UMBC there is a serious lack of training and awareness around the schools active shooter preparedness and prevention policies. Though these policies do exist they are not distributed to students or staff members, and can only be found through scouring the campus police website. This lack of awareness about safety procedures among the UMBC community may lead to a greater number of injuries or fatalities in the event of an active shooter on campus.” -from my petition