OPINIONS

Netflix’s Ginny & Georgia Promotes Diversity

Akansha Das Red & Black Staff

Netflix’s recent TV show drama “Ginny & Georgia” is more than the chronicling of the Gilmore Girls— like mother and daughter bond it appears like. Taking place in affluent Wellsbury, Massachusetts, the show follows the life of a family of three that is new in town – Georgia and her two children Ginny (15-years-old) and Austin (9-years-old).

While the show starts off with a focus on typical teenage issues and “new girl” issues that Ginny faces, it continues with wonderfully complex backstories on almost all the characters that makes the show so fascinating and intriguing to watch. One of the most noticeable aspects of the show is its diversity.

From diversity in ethnicity and race to sexual orientation and diverse family structures, I was highly impressed with the way the show didn’t use standard tokenism and exploit the “IT Indian guy,” “gay best friend” and “angry, Black woman tropes,” but instead developed rich story lines for each. Seeing Indians play the role of both a girlfriend and a diner owner on the show may seem small, but honestly elevated my impression of the whole show. Even characters like Abby, one of Ginny’s friends, is more than the insecure high school girl she looks like.

Through key scenes, the show really explains how her family issues contribute to her dependency on her friends and how insecure she feels about her body image. But the show extended beyond populating with the screen with diverse characters to actually having tough conversations about inclusion. In a particularly poignant scene, Ginny and one of her romantic interests, Hunter, get into a heated debate about different ways their ethnicities are portrayed. Ginny talks about how tough it is for her when teachers and others assume that she isn’t interested in academics because she is Black and a woman. When Hunter begins talking about how tough it is to be biracial and not be Taiwanese enough or American enough, Ginny critiques him, saying that the model minority myth essentially means “he doesn’t have it as bad.”

This specific conversation about race was incredibly important at a time when the Asian-American community is facing a severe uptick in racist attacks, yet also possesses much anti-Blackness within itself.

The style of the show is also unique with a blending of light motherdaughter and teenage interactions with dark and tough parts of high school (body image issues and mental health issues) and of Georgia’s life. The style of the show enhances Georgia’s depiction of a survivor to the audience. Seeing and hearing the abuse she endured and the ways some her illegal actions were arguably survival mechanisms provides an interesting complexity to her surface-level sweet and innocent nature.

But the show is not completely perfect. Singer Taylor Swift did respond with backlash to the show for a joke Ginny makes about her mother saying she goes through men “faster than Taylor Swift.” I agree that Taylor was right to call the show out for this sexist comment that judges Swift for a characteristic that we have a double standard of men for. Despite this, I believe that the show is well worth the watch—especially if you are looking for a quick, well-designed and unpredictable storyline.

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Burmese People Fight for Democracy in Myanmar

Paul Collier Red & Black Editor

A month and a half ago, the Myanmar military (Tatmadaw) began a coup that has left 235 dead and 2,330 arrested, including a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Tatmadaw troops have also seized Myanmar hospitals and universities in an attempt to further consolidate their power over the country.

The protests begun as a result of an election in November 2020, in which the aforementioned Nobel Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, led the National League for Democracy Party to a major victory, earning enough parliamentary seats to form a new government. Despite international election watchers claiming there was no fraud, the Tatmadaw eventually overtook the government and imprisoned Suu Kyi for inciting fear and alarm and breaking COVID protocol, which are simply charges to keep her arrested because they don’t want her in power.

This is because she has fought for Myanmar democracy since 1989, when the military first created a major suppression of democracy and renamed the country from Burma. With their leader arrested and their democracy stolen, Burmese people began simple protests by banging pots and pans and dancing in the streets.

When the Tatmadaw tried to oppress this protest, riots broke out, with Molotov cocktails being thrown by protestors in retaliation to Tatmadaw soldiers and police firing into crowds with live ammunition, while Burmese people have had social media repressed by the military government to keep the atrocities committed against them from being broadcasted to the world.

Now, Myanmar is swiftly falling into debt as food and fuel prices increase, and 38 journalists have been arrested as information is repressed, including AP reporter Thein Zaw, whose trial is this week.

Following U.S. sanctions against Myanmar and the withholding of 1 billion dollars in governmental funds held in the U.S., no action has been taken by the United Nations, though Thailand seems to be allowing refugees to shelter along the border. Furthermore, a member of the NLDP has been killed in police custody.

The international community also has little desire to help because Suu Kyi did not condemn or fight against the Tatmadaw for persecuting Rohingya Muslims, leading her to falling out of favor despite her continued popularity in Myanmar, which should also be noted to be properly called Burma, as that was the country’s name before the first major military takeover and Myanmar is only its more formal, Anglicized name.

Within this name erasure and condemnation of Suu Kyi is a key aspect of the rest of the world’s response: they continue to not care.

They placated the militaryran government for far too long, empowering them to eventually carry out a takeover of power like this one, leaving the Burmese people without much hope, and now our media tries to find inspiration in their fight despite the world’s assistance in perpetuating the Tatmadaw injustices by respecting the choices of a government that does not respect its people.

Courtesy Financial Times

Opinions 15 Meghan Markle Made an Anti-Institutional Symbol

Akansha Das Red & Black Staff

After Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s tell-all interview with Oprah aired on Sunday, March 7th, many conservatives took issue, from Candace Owens casting Meghan as a hysteric faking suicidal thoughts to tear Harry away to Ben Shapiro and Piers Morgan saying the timing of the interview was especially insensitive as Queen Elizabeth’s husband Prince Phillip lies in a hospital bed. This has many wondering why right-wing activists are so quick to defend the monarchy, especially after Meghan revealed she was having suicidal thoughts and her mental health took a deep dive in the toxic environment of the royal family as her security was revoked and she dealt with racism from the family and the press.

My initial thoughts for this stark defense by the right is what the royal family represents. Though largely ceremonial, the Royal Family is a deeprooted institution that has survived for many decades by maintaining the status quo and this continued view of perfection. In a world where America is finally to change its institutions and address systemic “isms,” the royal family’s immobility to do so may be solace for much of the right. Trump supporters so desperately want to return to a nostalgic way of being in the country echoed in “Make America Great Again” and the British Monarchy encapsulates that romanticized nostalgia.

Yet as POLITICO reports, the debate also represents one of the most fundamental disagreements between liberals and conservatives: How much of our life is determined by our individual actions and how much is determined by the systems and institutions we live in? Conservatives may be able to dismiss Meghan’s very frightening claims of suicidal thoughts and allegations of racism because they can argue she simply didn’t “stand her ground” or fight it off for long enough. Yet many left-of-the-aisle individuals argue that the toxic environment that she was living in didn’t even allow her seek help and, therefore, even if the unfair press coverage (which was also laced with racism) and other troubles were endurable, she wasn’t given the tools or support to do so. In very contested debates, very rarely is any side completely virtuous and the other completely evil.

As we tackle the issue of the rightwing response to the Meghan Markle and Prince Harry interview, we need to keep this in mind. For “throwing out the baby with the bathwater” and completely dismissing all claims they make along with taking away their right to freedom of press while introducing governmental intervention is a dangerous and slippery slope towards censorship. This treacherous dynamic played out with outspoken critic of Meghan Markle Piers Morgan, the host of Good Morning Britain. Piers Morgan was fired by the network after comments he made questioning the validity of Meghan’s allegations of racism and whether she did experience suicidal thoughts. I personally agree his comments were offensive and believe that the network was well within their rights to ask him to leave as they did not feel he represented their values. Yet, I found it interesting that a branch of the U.K. government, U.K. Media Regulator Ofcom, was beginning to investigate the case. For a democracy to function, freedom of expression is critical, and this requires that the government and press maintain a distinct relationship.

A complete silencing of conservatives by the government should be viewed with the same scrutiny as if such were happening to popular progressive figures such as Bernie Sanders and AOC for simply speaking their opinion.

Courtesy US Weekly

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry answer Oprah’s interview questions.

Democrats Stall on Defunding Police Budgets

Paul Collier Red & Black Editor

In recent weeks, conservatives have been fighting for reasons to defend police departments after major cities made commitments to defunding police in the summer of 2020 and using that money in community rehabilitation programs and violence prevention programs instead.

A major target for this has come from the House Democrats considering a 20 percent increase in federal police budget following the attack on the Capitol. The same day these measures were considered, the House passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, to reduce police brutality and aggression committed against Black Americans.

Conservatives are right in questioning this action. We know that a key part of the risk coming from defunding police so rapidly is that communities will become, for a time, more dangerous as violent crime increases in prevalence and police departments struggle to respond. The goal is long term, as prevention education begins to deter violent crime in communities.

The Democrats that publicly supported defunding police departments to begin focusing on education knew this, and their seeming opposition for it in protecting themselves seems hypocritical for many Americans fighting to take these next steps forward. However, conservatives railing against the Democrats efforts seem to also not be aware that his defunding on a wide scale hasn’t actually happened.

According to Bloomberg, the aggregate decrease in police budget across the 50 largest U.S. cities was 5.2 percent, but the general expenditures relating to law enforcement increased slightly. Even in cities where Democrats built or gained majorities, like Phoenix, Atlanta and Omaha, police budgets are set to increase this year.

In fact, 24 of the 42 major cities controlled by Democrats will be raising their police budgets in 2021.

This is not to say focus on the issue hasn’t increased, but the point is moot if action isn’t being taken. This also means the House Democrats are exemplifying the results of efforts in cities across America to reduce police budgets. Conservatives are essentially fighting against this increase for no reason; it might be an easy way to call out hypocrisy to earn political points, but it’s difficult to call out hypocrisy when Democrats aren’t trying to defund police across the board.

They simply aren’t doing what they’ve been called on to try to do by their constituents. We do not have the time to wait for racial injustice and police brutality to spread.

Democrats need to actually take the first steps to defund police and make their communities safer—they need to give something for conservatives to actually fight against—and they need to do it before Democrat voters completely lose hope that change is going to happen.

Courtesy CBS News