by Bianca Laureano


It’s been two great years and for my 100th plus post I thought it would be a good time to share some of my favorite columns I’ve written. Do you have a favorite Media Justice column? If so tell me what it is! (Editor's note:  Amplify editors name their own faves after the jump!) One of the reasons I like to do these reflections is because I get to see how I’ve evolved as a writer, media consumer, and in sharpening my own media literacy skills. For example, some of my earlier writings I used the term “female” a term that speaks more to describing someone’s sex assigned at birth versus their gender, such as “woman”. Although at times it is embarrassing I did this, it’s a reminder of how I’ve grown, what I’ve learned, and I’m not ashamed of having my learning and knowledge production public for others to see and learn from as well.  

LatiNegr@s to Look Out For in 2010 
This article is one that is very close to my heart. It marks the beginning of my work dedicated specifically to LatiNegr@s (also known as Black Latin@s/Afr@Latin@s, etc.). This was one of the original articles I wrote that lead to the creation, implementation, and management of The LatiNegr@s Project. This is a virtual project that recognizes and represents LatiNegr@s year round. We started two years ago especially to include LatiNegr@s into Black History Month, Women’s History Month, and Latino Heritage Month celebrations. The LatiNegr@s Project is also in its second year and we have expanded to a team of 4 and have over 180 pages of content, that’s over 1000 articles, images, definitions, syllabi, fotos, commentary, maps, and videos. Many of these have been reader/viewer submissions, which means not only the 4 of us managing The Project have generated content, but others submit as well. If you are interested in checking out The LatiNegr@s Project , submitting,  or having us come to your school or organization visit us today.

Man Up, Woman Down
This article I am very proud of because it was a challenge for me to write it as well. I really did some introspective work in examining my own ideas on violence, self-determination, and what it means to claim violence at certain times. These questions stay with me since this article as I think more and more about liberation, struggle, decolonization, revolution, and realize that we are surrounded by all of these right now in different ways. I still don’t have too many answers to these questions but I think sometimes the questions are more important than the answers.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Trust Women Week overlaps with the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade and reasserts our firm commitment to reclaiming the future of reproductive decision-making in 2012. Throughout the week, Amplify will be honoring women's experiences and voices by featuring a different story from The 1 in 3 Campaign January 21-27.

1in3Campaign - Bianca from biancalaureano on Vimeo.

by Bianca Laureano

This week marks a fantastic anniversary as I’m entering the 100th post for the Media Justice column. I plan to do a few series highlighting some of my favorite pieces, ones that I’m most proud of, that still invoke something magnificent and specific for me, and that I just really dig. I’d like to start with a mash-up of posts that I’ve written that centers and discusses abortion. As this is the 39th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Trust Women Week,  and a week where we will be featuring testimonios from people about their experiences with abortion for the 1 in 3 Campaign, I think this mash-up fits well.

What Did The Doula Do?
The first time I shared my experiences being an abortion doula was in the article What Did The Doula Do?  I was inspired by the conversation that actor Taye Diggs had on the Jimmy Kimmel show where he discussed the birth of his most recent child and how he and his wife worked with a doula. Unfortunately, the video of their interview is no longer available online, but their conversation started a public discussion about doulas and the type of work we do. Many folks only know doulas to work with people who are pregnant and carrying a pregnancy to term. What I and many other abortion doulas do is be present for the person who is terminating their pregnancy. We offer support, pain management, comfort, and compassion to people who are making a very difficult decision. There are some folks who think this type of care is not care, and they are entitled to their opinions and I hope that if they ever find themselves feeling isolated, judged, shamed, that they too have someone who can be compassionate, kind, a witness and sit with them as they heal.

La Femme Fetal
One of the first columns I wrote about abortion and how it intersected with media justice was called La Femme Fetal. It was almost 2 years ago today that this column was published and it discussed one of the only songs in the Hip-Hop genre that discussed abortion from a pro-choice lens. The song “La Femme Fetal” by Digable Planets is one of the only songs, still today, that speaks to the compassion people making one of the hardest decisions in their life need. In this post I reflected on my contribution to the question “what does choice mean to me,” and my activism within the field of reproductive justice and the legacy of Rosie Jimenez. The song “La Femme Fetal” is now 19 years old and we still remain without a similar contribution to this genre. Do you know of others that exist today? If so, please share them!

Reflecting on No Easy Decision
When MTV (finally) did a show (not series) on young women who had abortions they called the show “No Easy Decision.” This show was the first of its kind on the network and gave a different perspective to their hit shows 16 and Pregnant, Teen Mom, and Teen Mom 2. There was a lot of talk about the series, many efforts to support the testimonios of those young people who shared their experiences. I also had some doubts about the show as Dr. Drew was going to be the facilitator. I shared those concerns in this post where I reflected on the show.  I had to admit that I was impressed with the show, the quality and lack of judgmental rhetoric and language that was present as the young people spoke. It’s a show that I’d like to see become a series where the voices of other youth can be shared and we may begin to have a better understanding of the complexity that comes with being a young person, reproductive health, access to quality care, and access to services.

Abortion and the Sons of Anarchy
If you have not seen the Sons of Anarchy I still don’t know what to tell you about yourself. In this post I discuss one of my favorite television shows Sons of Anarchy, what stereotypes I had about the show prior to watching and why I’m now in support of the series. This show is really part of a ground-breaking series where multiple perspectives we often rarely hear are shared. One of the first (and only?) times a character chooses to terminate a pregnancy, seeks support, receives support, and follows through with the procedure occurred during the third season of Sons of Anarchy. This post discusses that representation and how it was created on screen to be extremely effective and realistic. I can’t recall another television show that has had a similar storyline. Often the character changes their mind, or miscarries, or something happens where the termination does not occur. This was not the case for this episode and I am very grateful for this narrative being shared.

Online Course: Sociology of Human Sexuality Part 3
You may have read along when I was posting on the course I was teaching last summer (a total of 5 parts). This section was the discussion on pregnancy options and abortion.  We had a birth and postpartum doula join us in class to discuss what type of work they do with pregnant people. We then had a section on abortion where the history of how abortion became legal in the US was provided, along with an understanding of the laws in the US that may be state specific, and a discussion of what research has shown about the health and well-being of people who terminate a pregnancy. I remember this class and this summer very fondly. The students are amazing intellecutals and just brilliant people overall. I was very humbled and honored that students self-selected to share with the group their own personal experiences of pregnancy, childbirth, and abortion. It is times like this when I’m so thankful and happy to be a part of a community of people who find comfort in the class and learning space we create together.

I’m also extremely honored and thankful for remaining with you over these past years and interacting with readers at Amplify. It’s been more than I could have imagined and so enjoyable! Thank you all for reading, tweeting, sharing, and leaving comments. Thank you for seeing me.

by Bianca Laureano

This is a real question. What would you do with all the work/media/writing you’ve created? How would you communicate with people all over the world? How would you find new resources and information from various perspectives? Do you enjoy any of these sites/spaces online:

Amplify
YouTube.com
Tumblr.com
Twitter.com
Wikipedia.org
Facebook.com
Amazon.com
Fileshare.com

If you said yes to any of these (and hopefully you did to at least one), NOW is an imperative time for understanding that the Internet as we know it today is under attack.  I’m not overreacting, being dramatic, or exaggerating. I’m being serious and if you enjoy doing things like watching videos on your cell phone, updating your Facebook status, or blogging, now is the time to take action!

I’ve written on Net Neutrality  a few times.  This week SOPA (Stop Online Privacy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP* Act) have been hot topics. Did you notice when Wikipedia.org went dark? Were you part of the folks who did not understand why this space was not available? If so, this post is for you and will provide some important information!

Check out this 3 minute video explaining what these two bills are about and what, if passed, they will do to all of us:

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

I care about this issue because if it wasn’t for the internet our work on an inter/national level would not be the same (and I say this as someone who was organizing long before the internet was accessible). But I mostly care about this topic because of how all of us, especially youth, have found ways to express themselves, share their voices, and make change in their community through the internet. After completing 3 syllabi for this coming semester, a lot of the articles and films by media makers are online. I value all of us having the access to create, produce, and share knowledge.

What YOU can do NOW

• Call your Senators and tell them to vote NO on SOPA and PIPA next week (the week of January 23, 2012). Find out where your representative falls regarding this issue and how to contact them here. http://www.savetheinternet.com/pipa-whiplist
• SHARE this information with your friends and people who are your contacts.
• Blog, darken, and/or share your thoughts on SOPA and PIPA on social media that is threatened.
• Read more about what is going on and educate yourself. A few good spots include Save The Internet, Free Press  and Save The News.  

*IP stands for Intellectual Property

by BIanca Laureano

By now you’ve heard of the ABC television show “Work It.” A triflin’ and low rating show that features two middle aged men (one racially white another Latino) who dress up as women to secure employment in the US. Yes, you read that correctly; at a time when women still don’t make as much as men (and where transgender people don’t make as much at all!), when the feminization of poverty is still a part of our society and world, and when transgender people are still the most oppressed, underemployed, murdered, invisible and erased members of our communities.

ABC Chief Paul Lee states he “doesn’t get” the big deal about how harmful “Work It” is based on GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign's activism around the show and their efforts to challenge it coming to air. Lee states he doesn’t “get it” because he loved the movie “Tootsie.”

What Lee and others fail to see is that these are characters that are created so that we can laugh at them. These characters are performing stereotypes and misconceptions of what we assume to be a challenge when people “dress up” as the opposite gender. The characters perpetuate a gender binary. These characters are making a choice to dress up which gives the illusion that sex and gender are choices that people can simply change their mind about.

Others that fail to see this problem: some Puerto Rican activists. For the past week I’ve received so many emails about how Puerto Ricans are represented on “Work It” by Latino character Amaury Nolasco, who plays a Puerto Rican character. The “dehumanizing” and “blatantly offensive” comment where the “culture was attacked by an insensitive stereotype”  by Nolasco’s character who states: “I’m Puerto Rican, I would be great at selling drugs.”

This statement took less than 10 seconds to say and hear. Because of that 10 seconds a huge storm of protest has erupted among Puerto Ricans.

My heart breaks here. All of this mobilizing and protesting for one line by a character, yet NOTHING from any of the grassroots organizations, such as Boricuas For A Positive Image, celebrities or community activists that have jumped on this protest about how Puerto Rican and Latin@ transgender people are impacted by this show. There is an overwhelming silence. Where is the alliance building with transgender activists? Where is the joining with GLAAD and HRC? Where is the mobilization beyond targeting me as a Puerto Rican, but not as a human being that values all members of our community, especially those who are harmed the most?

The images and video that have been created around the challenging of ABC by Puerto Rican activists are very single issue when we are not a single issue people! The messages being sent: Transmisogyny is alive and well. We don’t care about your gender we care more about your ethnicity (and only if it is Puerto Rican). We don’t care how something may harm and dehumanize the Puerto Rican transgender community unless it impacts us directly.

I understand this response especially since Puerto Rico has been struggling with drug trafficking, drug use and abuse, and drug related crimes for decades. One of my most vivid memories of Puerto Rico was in 1995 when armed US military would line the streets and randomly pull cars over and check for drugs. It was a scary time, and those times remain today, especially with the high murder rate in Puerto Rico  (and a number of those murders are of transgender Puerto Ricans and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer Puerto Ricans) and when the stop and frisk experiences of Latin@ and Black youth living in NYC and in-school arrests are ridiculously high.

What I don’t understand is how can “activists” separate these issues so easily? If we stood with our transgender community in fighting this show when it was being created and knew it centered a Puerto Rican actor who was misrepresenting Puerto Rican transgender women, would we be here today? It’s possible we would, it’s also possible our voices as Puerto Rican consumers, Puerto Rican media makers, and Puerto Rican people would have resulted in a similar apology and a more quick removal of the offensive show. When we partner together to support and make change for our most oppressed members of our community we all benefit.

My hope is that Puerto Rican activists today learn about the anti-oppression legacy that civil rights activist Sylvia Rivera,  a Puerto Rican-Venezuelan New Yorker, has left us. And then share her legacy and not keep it just for ourselves, but speak on it to youth, our elders, other Latin@s, everybody! To learn how you can support the Sylvia Rivera Law Project visit their website. 

by Bianca Laureano

My last post was a reflection of the many questions and myths I hear from the youth (and sometimes adults) I provide HIV education and prevention in NYC. This post is one where I’d like to discuss a topic I hear almost every time I do a session, especially with youth of Color: HIV was created to eradicate people of Color. I hear this as well from people who identify as queer, lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, and questioning (not so much asexual as this is not yet a sexual orientation they have come to completely understand).

When I hear this statement I know, with every bone in my body, exactly what this young person (or adult) is talking about. I know where that comes from, and how that fear is very much a reality. After all, it wasn’t too long ago that women of Color and women and men with disabilities were forcibly sterilized;  researchers in the Tuskegee Experiment  ,examining the racial differences of Black and White men infected with Syphilis, did not offer the cure to Black men or their families); and oral birth control pill experiments among Puerto Rican and Haitian women - with these being just the experiments the public knows about.

The experiences and beliefs that people of Color and people who are not heterosexual are hated, devalued, and dehumanized still exists today. Just take a look at some of the campaign marketing for some US presidential hopefuls; and how popular culture all over the world speak and write about us.  Only six years ago a study by Oregon State University and Rand Corp. released data  showing that almost half of the 500 Black people living in the US surveyed believed HIV was man-made, by the government, 25% believed it was created in a government lab, and 12% believed the CIA created and dispersed the virus. So, when I hear this argument or belief for why and how HIV is a part of our lives, I get it and I respect it as well.

I do not attempt to debunk such beliefs. My role as an educator is to help people critically and analytically think about various topics, usually sex, sexuality, and decreasing the risk of becoming infected with HIV. Thus, I don’t go on about how “conspiracy theories” are wrong, or useless as that is a judgement that would not be helpful for working with the group and may isolate the person who shared and others who share a similar ideology. Instead, I often remind them that however HIV got here, it is here and if we are HIV negative it is our responsibility to remain negative. And if people are living positive, they are powerful and important people in our communities that can help HIV negative people also stay negative.

The last time I heard this was last week. A young person of Color who identified as queer stated that some people believe HIV was created to get rid of us. I told them “you are right!” Because that young person was right; many people believe that and share it with others. I also stated that one way to “give the middle finger to” the people who did create HIV to eradicate us, is if they are negative, to stay HIV negative, to survive. That will be the ultimate revenge. Every time, I’m talking 100% of the time, when I say this the person who shared that perspective agrees with me, as do many of the people present. Reminding youth and people of Color and queer people they can survive is powerful.

This also leads to an important conversation on testing. That getting tested is the only way to know your HIV status.

Now, if I were teaching a entire course of HIV than that is a different amount of time and objectives. I would completely engage with such perspectives, interrogate, deconstruct and analyze them. However, when there is less than one hour to get so much information in, sometimes recognizing that conspiracy theories do exist and ways to connect them to survival and prevention is the best and most “real” way to address the topic. Plus, many of these “conspiracy theories” have yet to be debunked completely because of the histories mentioned above.

If there is time to explain the origins of HIV,  I usually stick to the more widely accepted belief that is connected to the consumption of certain types of primates in hunter-gathering communities or those primates blood infecting a hunter. This is a great way to talk about our mucus membranes found in our mouth and throat. I also make some connections to E.coli  which students have often heard of, and how important it is to cook meat for a certain amount of time at a certain degree of heat as this helps kill off various forms of bacteria.

Because most of the research on the origins of HIV are centered in Western Africa, and US specific infection centered in Haiti, people of Color are at the center as is colonialism. This is another reason why when hearing these ideas I am not quick to judge or debunk them specifically because they are real for so many people. Colonial legacies alone are real and many of us are still surviving what comes with being colonial subjects, kinship, and offspring.

How do you manage and discuss conspiracy theories about HIV?

by Bianca Laureano

For World AIDS Day and the week that followed I did several HIV education presentations for high school students in the Bronx. I love doing these presentations, and especially in the borough where I live, because it gives me an opportunity to work with youth that are a part of the same community. Often as a guest speaker it’s sort of a “treat” for students to hear from folks other than their teachers or academic faculty. What I realized this month was that there are some messages, inaccurate and hurtful, that students are still receiving. I wondered if I was the only one (it can’t be that I am), and as an educator I had to share.

Here are some of the top questions and myths I receive and challenge/rectify when providing HIV education in high schools (many of which include students of Color and/or working class students):

MYTH: Saliva is one of the top 5 bodily fluids that transmit HIV.

When I talk about HIV and bodily fluids I discuss: blood, semen, vaginal secretions, breast milk, and pre-ejaculatory fluid. Students, without fail, will mention saliva (or spit) as a bodily fluid. I often thank the student for their suggestion, share it’s a common belief, and go into a discussion on how one would have to consume so many gallons of saliva a person living positive with HIV must create. First, it’s hard to find someone who can produce that much spit and second I have yet to meet anyone who is that thirsty to drink all of those gallons in one sitting!

This belief that HIV is transmitted via saliva is so old school! I’m talking when we first began to see and try to understand what HIV and AIDS was and how it impacted our bodies. Folks would not drink after others who were living positive, make them drink out of paper cups, have separate utensils for them to use, and not want to come near, let alone kiss them. We’ve known better for decades, yet, this stereotype is still alive and well.

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by Bianca Laureano

Imagine it: me surrounded by a never ending abyss of papers to grade with only 2 weeks left before the semester ends. I’m writing this post because it speaks to my life right now. Now, I told my students I would have their papers to them by last Monday, only one of two classes received them. I was sick for most of a holiday break we had and could barely lift my head up. This limited the amount of papers I got to grade. Now, grading seems to never end!

There were math equations I would do to see how many papers I had to grade a day to get through them all. How much time to dedicate to each paper. This isn’t anything new. However, I realized that when I grade a paper, especially a formal paper a student submits, the comments I’m giving them, the things I’m writing in the margins, this is all a form of media. My goal is to help Amplify readers understand this form of media and to get a perspective from an educators point of view on grading (perhaps it may encourage you to go to office hours for support, ask for clarification, or see your teacher as a person too!).

I have a love/hate relationship with grading. I see how it may be useful for many students, schools, organizations and professions. However, I believe there are multiple ways to assess if someone is being critical and analytical around certain topics, to value the quality of work and participation they bring to a classroom. These are some of the things that make up a grade for a student in my class.

Grading is my least favorite part of teaching. No matter what I’m teaching, I dread grading. I think in our society we have created a grading system that is set up to destroy individual students. I have to remind myself that I don’t want to be the educator that broke a student’s spirit or drive because of what or how I’ve written a comment on their paper as I grade. There is also a balancing act between helping students learn how to improve their writing and expressing their thoughts and learning from constructive criticism.

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by Bianca Laureano

There’s always talk about virginity, at least it seems that way. The idea of virginity and who is a virgin has been discussed for generations. It probably will continue for more generations after today. Earlier last week Samantha  wrote about virginity in the article “Myths About Virginity in Glee’s ‘First Time’”  and highlights 4 myths about virginity connected to the show. One of my homegirls, Ellen, also wrote about virginity focused primarily among queer youth and answered questions such as “how does a gay or lesbian person ‘lose’ their virginity?”  and also discusses Kurt “losing” his virginity on Glee. 

I greatly appreciate all of these posts because I stopped watching Glee seasons ago. This was around the time they were just not getting a lot of things right for me as a viewer. Like many folks, I decided to spend my time not working on shows that are actually entertaining and not enraging. Nonetheless, I still find these examples important to know about and to possibly use as opportunities to start conversations.

So this post is also about virginity. It’s about virginity because I went to see an advanced screening of the film Immortals  (in 3D) which was the highest grossing film this weekend bringing an estimated $68 million worldwide.  Now, I admit that I would not have seen this film had I had to pay for it, you can read my full review here,  but there were very interesting conversations around virginity represented that got me thinking for today’s post.

The narrative of virginity in the film were connected to the gift of seeing the future that the Oracle had (played by Freida Pinto) who is protected by three High Priestesses of various ethnic backgrounds throughout the film. The High Priestesses are there to deter those who wish to harm the Oracle and confuse them to which woman is the actual Oracle. Now, we are expected to believe the reason she has this gift is because she is touched by the gods and that it is only hers until she no longer is a virgin.

Yes, we’ve heard this story before. Lots of pressure on a woman and her virginity. What I did not expect was the Oracle to decide to give up her gift (seeing the future) and thus have sex. She decided that the pressure of seeing the world through other people’s eyes was too much. She wanted to see the world through her own eyes. As a result she decided to have penetrative vaginal intercourse, or so we are lead to believe.

What strikes me as interesting was this connection of responsibility and pressure connected to virginity. Isn’t that the truth?! There are so many ways that young women, especially young women of Color’s, virginity is connected to their being honorable, pure, good, and eventually being gifted with a relationship (often with someone of another gender), support, and everlasting love. It’s very much a constructed message directed mainly at young women. There are also many ways we and society, judge youth who engage in sexual activities and assume they are not aware of what they are doing. Sometimes they are often asked “why” they would want to engage in such activities. I’m not sure many folks would be ready to hear all the answers. Often, I find, we say “I don’t know” because it’s the closest thing we have to understanding what self-determination feels and sounds like.

So what if we looked at virginity from a different lens. From the lens of getting rid of pressure to be pure and honorable, desiring to have control over one’s life versus doing what others tell people to do. I’m basically talking about agency and self-determination here. If we looked at virginity and the choices some young people make in no longer maintaining/claiming/holding onto their virginity as a form of self-determination how may the messaging and work we do change and shift? What new challenges may we encounter? Who will be excluded from this approach (i.e. people who do not have a choice to maintain/claim/hold onto their virginity because of sexual abuse, rape, child marriage, etc.)?

I’ve thought about this topic for a very long time. How virginity is connected to a sense of morality and decency. My personal conclusion is that a lot of our understanding and ideas about virginity are connected to conquest and colonization. Some books that have helped me think more about this topic include Dr. Eileen Suarez-Findaly’s Imposing Decency: The Politics of Imposing Sexuality and Race in Puerto Rico 1870-1920,  and Hanne Blank’s Virgin: The Untouched History.  When I think about how complex virginity is, that is when I begin to understand we cannot just have one definition, one response, one reaction, and one right way.

by Bianca Laureano

If you are into popular culture in any way, or watch the news, you probably know who Justin Bieber is and that a young woman alleges 17 year old singer is the the progenitor* of her child. Reports claim that Bieber will take a paternity test,  that 20 year old Mariah Yeater requests financial assistance for her child, and that young girls all over the world are pissed off at the young woman and are bullying her and making rationalizations to act out violently!  Yeater claims she had sex with Bieber after a show he gave in Los Angeles, CA in a bathroom and that he stated specifically he did not want to use a condom because it was his first time and he wanted to “feel everything.”

I’m not on Team Bieber nor am I on Team Mariah Yeater. I’m not on any team besides Team Media Justice (yes that’s code for Team Bi). I created my team and I encourage readers to do the same. Figure out what all of the information is, and then think about how this information impacts our communities and work. That is what this post is about. What is going on regarding this child, the conversations around children of young parents, how are they supported, targeted, ignored, threatened, and what will we do to change that (if anything!?). An element of this hysteria among young people and Bieber is not that he’s no longer “available” (as he’s been openly dating Selena Gomez for the past several months). Rather, what do we lose if he is the progenitor of this child?

One of the things I do appreciate about Justin Bieber is that he not only demonstrates with his life how media can change one’s entire reality as he was “found” on YouTube (for the most part), but also that he’s been open about practicing abstinence and speaks on it freely and openly. I think it’s important for youth, especially young girls who identify right now as heterosexual, to have a image of a young person who is standing by the choice to be abstinent at this time. I think it’s useful to have this dialogue go on in popular culture that many pre-teens do consume especially at a time when comprehensive sexuality education is not offered for all youth in the U.S.

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