The safety pin movement is an interesting concept to think about within the frame of coping with community. Wearing a safety pin is supposed to signify self-identifying as an ally in the midst of the increased violence and hate crimes in the last week. Identifying people, where one could conceivably predict their behavior, could lead to increased preference. Kaplan in Humanscape says, “One cannot check the intentions of intruders if one cannot recognize who does and who does not belong. It is not only essential to recognize who belongs in one’s community...it is also necessary to predict their likely behavior” (p. 265-266). Our social and physical environments are being manipulated and affecting the ways we cope. Isms have always been present but othering and violence is increasing. Previously when I have thought about coping, I have thought about comfort. But what about coping as a community? Safety pins have been critiqued as passive and misleading. Perhaps they aren’t the best way to socially cope in this changing and violent environment. In such a non-preferred environment, I am thinking about collective coping and how I can be proactive and inclusive. I am currently trying to cope by being uncomfortable and supporting marginalized communities in action.
Thoughtful application of the concept of community in the context of the election results.
ReplyDeleteIn last Thursday's lecture on Territory, I also see applications. It occurred to met that with the election results my "world-view" felt imminently threatened. I believe this is because the territory that I had built for myself in my safe, liberal An Arbor bubble was turned on its head. While the territory that I describe is no doubt a "public" territory, or rather it falls closer to the public continuum of space, I had developed a way of processing information in that space. Specifically, I believed that our society was moving in a specific political direction, which aligned with my political and personal beliefs, and I felt very comfortable in that public space. Then, with the election results, this changed. My idea of the public space became something that I was not familiar with, where I didn't necessary know how to process the information and opinions that I was receiving.
I believe this is why many students and colleagues of mine have felt so overwhelmed by the election. Their perception of their "safe space," their territory has been threatened.
To conclude, in class we talked about how an individual can be overwhelmed if their personal/private territory is threatened (recall the example of the burglar in the entryway versus the bedroom), but it is worth noting that we can also be severely impacted if our public territory, our society, is changed or not well understood. We must now go out and explore this new world to better understand it, to understand where we fit in it. Only then will we be able to identify a step forward.
Thanks for this comment Missy! I concur with your sentiment. In thinking about the territory of campus in terms of coping, the results of the election, the slew of hate-inspired incidents both on and off of campus, and the explosion of arguments I've seen pop up on social media have pushed me to find restorative settings while simultaneously narrowing what I feel is safe territory to do this in (safe territory being defined not as personal preference but in the information processing perspective as a familiar place of refuge where I can restore). To draw from Dr. De Young's lecture last week, the university has ceased to be a place where I feel I can easily make predictions of the behaviors of others. Your question about coping as a community got me thinking about our lecture today. Perhaps we as a school need to develop a mindfulness plan for students that continues to maintain each of our territories (private, semi-public, and public). I imagine this is going on already on campus but in terms of the socio-fugal and socio-petal designs we've discussed in class, perhaps we need to point out to students where they can go to attend to their own attention restoration in socio-fugal settings that provide space and solitude for mindfulness while also finding ways to bring people together in solidarity using socio-petal designs. Given the fear individuals feel, I think this requires a buddy-system for now, which is crushing, but also could be a good use of the safety-pin movement.
ReplyDeleteI also think pin movement is a great example of coping with communities. By wearing a pin, one increase one’s identity in terms of developing the sense of oneself and gaining sense of being needed. It is a good strategy for people to cope the depressing result of election.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I also see the downside of pin movement as a coping strategy. When people wear a pin, people actually set up a conceptual boundary or territory for themselves. While people may feel better by doing so, this movement may also unintentionally separate people from their allaies. Being inspired and touched, when I am deciding whether to wear a pin or not one day. But I turned out to feel lost and upset. I suddenly realize that I have always been preferring to talk to people without a pin rather than the opposite. Why?! Now, thinking in the lens of coping with community and territory, I realize that as an international student, I feel a loss of my own identity for either choices as I can clearly feel the boundary people set up for their groups. Therefore, I cannot cope with this large community together. Unfortunately, pin movement may undermine the ultimate goal of itself, which is to eliminate boundaries among the people.
On the contrast, holding funeral is also a behavior that people help themselves to cope with loss. But ritual-like funeral help them set up a boundary from the past not from their friends who are still be with them. Therefore, all the people are able to cope as a united community.
People need boundaries to cope, but in the scope of whole society, sometimes less boundaries actually may give people chance to cope with a larger community.
ReplyDeleteThank you for bringing this up, Missy! As a forever minority (being half of different race is not “good” enough in Indonesia, moreover when your family has a diverse religion, while interfaith marriage is not legally supported by the government), I actually feel warm when I see the pin. For me, it is a really good coping mechanism to build my conceptual territory: I am in a safe place, it might not be home but it can be a place of refuge.
On the other hand, I realized that defining human by race or country might also be another coping mechanism, a conceptual (can also be object based) territory within a bigger community. For example, when I was in Cambodia, I found an Indonesia family run an Indonesian restaurant near the apartment. Since on the day one visited the restaurant, and speaking my mother tongue (for the first time after a while of not using it in real life/ not digitally as in text, or call), I automatically build my territory within these people, a place where I feel comfortable, safe, and function effectively.
However, I think what's important about coping to race is the acknowledgment of differences is just as simple as being diverse rather than being unequal. And also the coping mechanism should come internally, not externally. For example, as I internally realized myself as Indonesian, I might create a conceptual territory when I meet another Indonesian in Ann Arbor, but I will not build a conceptual territory as people of color when I around people of color because that term is unfamiliar to me, and not the boundary that created by myself or my community, thus it doesn't give me the same effect in coping as when I surrounded by Indonesian.