Julia, a civil rights activist

Today I will be talking about Julia de Burgos. It is not unknown, by all of us, who Julia de Burgos was; but to those who don’t who she was: let me talk to you a little bit about her. Julia, which was born in Carolina, Puerto Rico in 1914, but died on Julie 6, 1953 (the reason of her death was because of a Pneumonia in transit to the hospital, moments later she was found at the streets of Spanish Harlem section of Manhattan), was a poet and also as an advocate of the Puerto Rican independence, she served as a secretary of the Puerto Rican National Party. She was truly a feminist, and because of that, a civil right activist of the women afro-Caribbean writers. But Julia was not an ordinary woman, she is considered as a powerful influence to contemporary writers, just because of her talent to express her feminist thoughts and because of her art in doing it. It is not a surprise to know how intelligent this woman was. Not only because of her poems, but because of her knowledge.  

Julia was also a teacher, and by her first poems we can found Rio Grande de Loiza, which talks about her true love to this beautiful river close to her hometown. Also, in the poems written by Julia, we can find I Was My Own Path, My Death Poem, Dawn of My Silence, and Alta Mar y Gaviota. Among the poems she had written, I Was My Own Path is the one which has had more impact on the society, because it inspire women and men with a feminist ideology, to create or empower their civil right activist sense. But the one that really catch my attention is the one called, A Julia De Burgos, a poem (also written by her) dedicated to herself. In this poem Julia contrast the “real Julia” with the “fake Julia”. This poem is like a speech dedicated from the feminist, free, powerful Julia, to that known by the society (hypocrite, submissive, selfish). I really love this poem because it is like a mirror of herself, and a can assure it also serves as a mirror to a lot of women.   

But Julia has a really interesting history. Regardless of her constant depression because of her separation with Jimenez Grullón, (and because of that she became alcoholic), Julia belong to a National Party, which its objective was a sense of independence of Puerto Rico. Also, regardless of her unemployment moments later she returned to the United State, once she left Cuba because she found an unpleasant situation with that man, Grullón (the man that she really loved); before of that, she was a teacher, a poet and an activist. It is amazing! Julia de Burgos was an activist; a civil right activist. It says much a lot about her.

Marla and our chief

Yesterday, when I was working, my chief told me to please come near his office in order to help my partner Marla. She was cleaning the kitchen of the establishment and when she ended up that task, it was the time of her to throw the trash into the garbage can. I knew that she could do it by herself, and, in effect, she looked at me with a face gesture like “seriously?”. And it was because she also knew that she could do it by herself, and not necessarily with my help. I ended up by giving her my “help”, and she stayed in the kitchen. This kind of things are really frequent. Is there a problem with letting a female throw the garbage alone? Is she incapable? I honestly think that there are other things to consider, but not those, and if so, the answer is negative. A female, like a man, can do it by herself, unless she needs another help, but not because she is female she can’t do it alone. It is an underestimate of her capacity. Actually, that is not all: there are moments when he command us (the male employs) to never come close to the kitchen –that is because it belongs to females-, and the female employs cannot come to our area. Here we can appreciate the segregation because of the “gender role”.

I really think that the problem here is the mentality of my chief. He has a really strong male-chauvinist ideology which leads to these kind of things. It is like if women, by default, are not as useful as men (treating them –the women- like inferiors). My partner, Marla, is kind of tired of this situation, and she also have this right spirit of feminist. She had have told me that there will be a time, when she will not tolerate these wrong decisions made by our chief anymore. I think, when she talk to me like that, that she will yell at him very loud, so I’m scare not to see her again in the establishment, but actually, I’m with her. I agree with her because there is no reason to think like my chief does. Women do not belong to the kitchen, furthermore, no one belongs to a determined task, a determined role.

I must confess, sometimes I think of changing of job. Not only because of that, but because of a lot of more related to discrimination. Now, talking about the discrimination to those females in the establishment, I would say I feel angry, because when the situation occurs, I feel like I need to say something to refute my chief’s order or thoughts. Sometimes I get really mad but I can’t show it; otherwise I could be dismissed. In order to not be a “rebel” employ, I also have to smile to my chief and (not agreeing with his argument) say something like: “Oh, okay chief, it is good to know that, I’ll continue with my job” and give him a smile. But inside my head I’m yelling, wanting to let him know all the things he must improve. But I cannot.

Indeed, we should all be feminist

In my constant searching of feminist videos I found one from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, where she exposes her thoughts and experiences about this theme. But before talking about the video, I would like first to talk a little bit about her. Ngozi was born in Enugu in September 15 of 1977, and is Nigerian novel and short story writer. She has won certain amount of awards from her work, as for example, the O. Henry prize for "The American Embassy". She also won the David T. Wong International Short Story Prize 2002/2003 (PEN Center Award) and a 2007 Beyond Margins Award for her novel Half of a Yellow Sun. Ngozi's short stories and speeches have been used in a lot of academic and educational institutions, and she's also a prominent woman because of her intellectual skills; stronger woman's rights fighting sense, and because of her unstoppable spirit of equal justice. In this video called, "We should all be feminist", Ngozi shows us a little bit of her magnificent spirit.

We should all be feminist focuses in the ideology we must fight for, which is the one that state that man and woman should have the same rights and the same opportunities, in order to create a more equally world, and so, a better place to live. Ngozi start this speech mentioning that regardless of the physical difference (sexes, hormones, force capacity), woman and man should be treated equally, and that the society shouldn't focus on those differences, but in which person is more creative and intelligent. One phrase that really catch my attention is when Ngozi says "humans have evolved, but mentality of sexes and gender have not evolve". According to that, we can get noticed not only that it isn't far from the true, but actually that this true is one that we must fix. Chimamanda says, "a feminist is a man or a woman who says: yes, there is a problem with gender and we must fix it, we must do better". So, what is happening? Why do we still quite? Ngozi also says that "culture doesn't make people, people make culture". So, is it a problem with our culture we must fix? Yes indeed! Because by changing our mentality in benefit to the cause, we become changing agents, and then we will inculcate this right mentally, which is justiciable one. Once this is done, our culture will be more variated, and more equally. For example, the novelist says "what if when teaching children we focus in ability instead of gender?" This is a great suggestion that should be considered.

For me this video is impressive. The way she uses the words and how she doesn't try to persuade the audience, just because the speech itself is persuasive, is really awesome. This woman have become one of my most powerful idols, not only because of her feminist ideals but also because of her promotion of the african culture. I love this kind of humans beings, which try to fight and broke those wrongs paradigms, as for example, the one where it's stated that the woman is inferior than man as black people are inferior than white people. What is wrong with us, people? We need to stop this manner of thinking. If we continue thinking in that way, then there should be some kind of caos, as in Sodoma and Gomorra, which should lead to the extinction of humanity. I can't tolerate this kind of injustices. And as Ngozi, "I am angry. Gender as it functions today is a grave injustice. We should all be angry.".

Queen Beyoncé inculcate our ideology!

There is a movement where a lot of artists are going trough, which is feminism. Specially, those in the music industry are really compromise in giving a message that support this ideology, as for example, the Queen Beyoncé, which is presenting herself as a pure feminist. The Queen Beyoncé is the perfect example for this topic, because she use a feminist vocabulary and manners trough almost all of her videos and songs. But, regardless of her today's thoughts about this ideology, I think she didn't showed them before she decided to go as a soloist, even if those thoughts where there. Let's be honest, almost all of her songs are about love situation, which I found wonderful -that's because I am a huge fan of her, and I think everyone have to be fan and slay the queen (but that's not the point)-, but the feminist thoughts arrived to the public light some years ago. But regardless of that, she is perfect in the way she is, perfect in the way of how she transmit the feminist message, and wonderful in the way she interpret her feminist ideology. And I think it was about time that she exploited with that ideology: we needed someone so powerful as her to continue with the fight of ours rights. 

The Queen Beyoncé wants us to know that there should be a balance in the sexes's manner of thinking, and not only there, but also in our perspective of gender. We can get noticed of this, for example, in her last album, BEYONCÉ, which is full of woman's ideals and it is intended to place the woman thoughts where others can see them. The queen says that this album represent her intimates ideals, but i dare to say, that there is a lot of women and men that feel the same way. One song of this last album, ***Flawless, explain clearly her position in the theme. Here, featuring with our powerful feminist friend, Chimamanda Ngozi, the Queen Beyoncé exposes her intention in motivating women to do whatever it costs to fight to their rights. For example, by using the word "flawless" accompanied with the feminist speech, women and men (as I) feel courageous in benefit to the cause. Let's make sure all of those bitches have clear our position in the society!

So, is it bad to use the music industry to spread this kind of message? I really think it is not. It is really awesome to educate people about this feminist ideology, by this medium (music) or what ever other medium. I think the Queen Beyoncé is doing an excellent job by implementing this ideals in her music. And I also think that there should be more and more people in the industries in funding this ideology. Thats because, by educating people about sexes equality, other people can listen to them and continue the objective by spreading the message. Once this suitable  practice continue, the world will begin to be a better place to live.