Voice of Witness form: Theresa Martinez
Theresa Martinez's oral history goes into detail about her childhood and what led her to prison. Martinez was taken away from her heroin addicted parents at the age of five and put under care of her grandparents. Eventually, her mother gained custody and under her care she was able to do whatever she wanted; by the age of twelve she was arrested for being a runaway and using PCP. From then on Martinez was in and out of prison for the rest of her life, going from being addicted to PCP, to heroin to crack cocaine. Her last offense landed her in prison for using crack after a relapse, and there she was misdiagnosed with HIV. She received treatment for HIV and the medications gave her side effects that damaged her body and after almost a decade of treatment, she was retested twice and the tests came back negative. Martinez tried to receive justice by petitioning for a hearing wit the chief medical officer, then the medical lab, but her efforts came up short. Martinez emphasized on how much the prison system strips you of your dignity and rights, in the oral history she was living with multiple medical issues that weren't properly treated and after she was released she served on the board of Justice Now, advocating for doing more about injustices towards women in prison.
After reading this oral history, I did a little more research on Martinez and discovered that she found out the prison had a contract with a pharmaceutical company so it was beneficial to them to misdiagnose women with HIV and other illnesses so they could administer medication to them. It is crucial to capture stories like this because it shine lights on an issue that's not openly discussed very often: I had never heard of an incident involving misdiagnosing inmates for financial gain and having no repercussions until reading this history. I chose to read this one in particular because I was curious as to how you could misdiagnose HIV and the information that I received was horrific. This story opened my eyes to a new issue; we all watch Orange is the New Black and Wentworth and think, these stories have to be far off from the truth but in reality, there are many aspects in the shows about women prisons that are true, and even more issues that aren't even depicted in television. Martinez had been stripped of her dignity, prison officers stole from the women and pushed them to the edge and the people who were supposed to be helping prisoners are poisoning them with medication that they don't need for the sake of financial gain. Women's prisons, and probably all prison systems, need to have more light shined on them because these types of issues are inhumane and unacceptable. Martinez left the prison and decided to be an activists for injustice against women in prison, and though I appreciate her efforts, one should not have to go to prison and have to recover from terrible treatment in order to fight for women imprisoned. There needs to be more done for women's treatment from the "outside world," the world that could actually make a difference in changing the ways of these women's prisons.
Homelessness Forum
Though I did not get to visit Moore Place, our discussion on homelessness was really eye opening. The clip with Anderson Cooper emphasized on something I had never thought before; its better for us economically to house homeless people. I try to be as objective as possible, thinking from every perspective possible and I think that our government doesn't have hope in homeless people so it doesn't push for aiding them. However, if we can show the government that assisting the homeless is actually beneficial to our money driven economy, more aid money will be pushed towards that cause. In order to better the lives of homeless people, and allow them to take the first step to becoming a more productive citizen, they need to be housed. That's something I've never considered before.
The content we watched and read challenged my original notion of homelessness because I had never considered the concept of providing homes for homeless people, I always thought the best way to go about dealing with homeless people was educating them and basically giving them the tools they need to become independent, even if that included rehab, job interviewing skill workshops etc. I think places like Urban Ministry do an excellent job of doing this, and statistics have shown that these types of shelters and programs work, and to think people want to get rid of them to make the city more aesthetically pleasing and economical is devastating. We should be focusing on building up these shelters to better the economy that's already present, focus on the now and worry about the later, later. I also think it'd be an excellent idea to stop trying to get rid of homeless people not homelessness by implementing housing services like the ones we saw in Tennessee. I think we need to address homelessness by providing homes, but address homeless people by figuring out how people got there, preventing them from getting there again by all means, and provide programs for people at risk of becoming homeless. As a society, we need to focus more on preventing homelessness to begin with. Prevention is a lot less costly than treatment.
In my urban anthropology class, I learned that people ignore homeless people in high density populations because its too much input; if you addressed and helped literally every homeless person you saw in a location where homelessness is so common, you would go insane or feel guilty that you couldn't help them all so its easier to ignore them. Though I can understand this concept, I think it goes against what our class has defined as a good citizen. If we have certain responsibilities to volunteer and help our community, those responsibilities should extend out to helping homeless people as well. Its easier said than done in our fast paced, work driven society, but I think even if you do need to block out inputs to get through your day, you should still try to stop by a homeless shelter to volunteer, donate money to shelters, or make sure you have state representatives that make homeless people a priority. If that were the case for most citizens, we wouldn't constantly hear about people trying to relocate homeless shelters or new bars on park benches, instead we would be celebrating the decline in homelessness instead of continuously pushing homeless people off the grid as if they aren't citizens themselves.
Oral History Analysis
1. What did you learn in this oral history? How do the experiences of the oral history narrator compare to your knowledge and experiences? How or why does the oral history work as a device for learning about these stories?
I learned that Harold Miller had been living in Optimist Park for 28 years and that there weren’t any parks or recreational buildings in the neighborhood. He is currently working towards getting recreational parks in the neighborhood in hopes to keep the kids out of trouble. I learned about how different his upbringing was from mine; the statement “it takes a village to raise a child” truly applied to him. Everyone in his neighborhood knew one another and if someone saw him acting out, they would discipline him then his parents would find out and discipline him again. They spent a lot more time outside doing things like fishing, hunting, playing baseball and camping. The majority of my childhood was spent outside but from what Mr. Miller said, it seems like I had a lot more indoor options than they did. Mr. Miller talked about how the people living in the neighborhood have always been pleasant, but at some time periods, the people walking into the neighborhood would bring violence and problems into the neighborhood; things have been better now though. Always the best but the actual residence have always been nice. He said there’s less trust in the neighborhood. I found it interesting that Mr. Miller was excited for the light rail, because we when we strolled in the neighborhood, the residence didn’t seem too happy about it. He believes that today kids don’t want to go to school, or learn good skills that they’ll use later. He tries his best to get the kids to listen to him, if they find out someone has dropped out or go to jail, at family reunions they try to talk to them and figure out better ways to do things. Oral histories work as a device for learning these stories because you’re talking to someone about their individual experiences, you pick up on the little details you wouldn’t get out of a textbook or a scholarly article. You get less of your own bias because it’s coming straight out of the horse’s mouth; however, you’re replacing your bias with theirs.
2. Discuss the conduct and format of the oral history. What was the quality of the questions? Could the conduct of the interviewer or the form of the questions be improved? Do you have any critiques, positive or negative? I want you to reflect on the interviewing and the conduct of the oral history and comment on what worked and what may have go ne better. Were there questions that you wanted to ask?
The format of the oral history was interview style; I did find that some of the questions were short, but informative of background details. Though they were good details, the questions asked should have had follow up questions. Also the order of the questions could have been rearranged; though it was clear to me by his voice he was older, he said he lived in Optimist Park for 28 years then they started discussing his home life, which was confusing because there was no context around what neighborhood he grew up in. I thought the question about how the neighborhood changed over time was very relevant to Mr. Miller’s current situation, considering the light rail’s construction. I felt like the interviewer could have been more interactive, there were a lot of awkward pauses in which there could have been follow up questions or even just commentary. Overall I thought the quality of the questions was good, I think I would’ve asked more fun questions just to loosen the mood a little bit; people are more open to talk when they feel comfortable with you. Wasn’t sure if that comfort factor was there.
3. What person, place, event, or historical item do you want to research further? Consider an item that will allow you to do a substantial amount of research in order to create your oral history “webpage.”
Memorial hospital
Mohammed Ali speech: I didn’t say I was the smartest I said I was the greatest
Hurricane hugo
Invisible Knapsack Reflection
I was puzzled as I started reading this article, because the author starts discussing how white people are purposefully taught not to acknowledge their white privilege and I don't think that is true at all. I don't think White people are taught anything; despite desegregation, societies today still tend to aggregate towards people who look and act like them. We usually keep our private lives private and don't discuss matters like politics and religion with guests at the dinner table to prevent controversy. That being said, it is easy to overlook things that are happening around you if you're not involved in it yourself. The other day my mom told me she always puts sriracha on her Mexican dishes and I told her sriracha originated from Asia, she refused to believe me despite the fact that a simple google search would tell her I was correct and continued using sriracha only on Mexican dishes. People get stuck in their ways, and we are stubborn. Even with proof people still choose to be ignorant, no matter what the color of their skin is.
Reading this article, obviously I'm not white so I don't know White people's experiences, I felt like her idea of "white upbringing/experience" wasn't true. So I decided to check the date and realized the article was from 1988; I believe our ways of teaching have changed. For instance, the first bullet on her list of daily privileges was that she could sit with people of her same race. Depending on location, most of the time I am capable of doing this if I choose to do so; there are a lot more Black people in everyday environments than I would imagine there was in 1988. Honestly the article was somewhat offensive to me, because she linked things such as financial stability and "being around people I was taught to mistrust" to what I'm assuming she expects most Black people to experience. Mistrusting may have been more relevant during that time but financial stability does not have to do with skin color at all. Halfway through the list I almost started being dismissive of her points because I don't believe they're nearly as relevant today as they were back then. I do think that some of these ideas of white privilege still apply, such as the point made about not being followed in a store and having their race's history attributed to the making of this country. The comment about the band aid tickled me because up until recently I never realized that was the purpose of the band-aid being that color.
I think that the topic of privilege is so hard to address because people are so defensive; people are quick to make things personal even though when the topic is discussed, it is not a personal attack, it is an attack on the system. Instead of listening to what the person discussing privilege is saying, most people just tune it out or deny it because that is easier than acknowledging that it is a thing that they experience on a day to day basis. It's not easy to see what you have at all times; its like someone making a because you've lived your entire life with it; its like when someone points out that you twitch your nose when you're angry, it might be something you do all the time but never noticed yourself. However, most of the time when you point out something like a twitch, you start to notice it all the time but that's not usually the case with discussing white privilege. People like statistics as proof and unfortunately that's not easy to come by in these kinds of situations.
As a black woman, I have definitely experienced the effects of white privilege; I have been picked on as a child for my black features, choked on a bus in Kindergarten and had authorities do nothing about it, whenever I go to restaurants the waiter will sometimes only acknowledge my white friend assuming they're the one with the money, the list goes on. However I will acknowledge that I am fortunate to have some privileges: my mother has a high position in the hospital I work in and without her, I wouldn't have the chance to have that job, I am educated and articulate so I usually have no problem grabbing attention, my height also helps with grabbing attention, and I have financial stability.
I think it is more important to give other's equal privilege rather than always being aware of the ones you have but I do understand that for some people, they must understand the privileges they have before giving it to others. Some things are ingrained in us, and a lot of the white privileges today are subconscious thoughts, or how were "used to them being." This does not excuse our behavior and I think the best method to stop it is to not pass down these subconscious behaviors to our children. Though I did not feel challenged about how society and privilege work, I agree with the author that we need to have those with privilege acknowledge their privilege in order to redesign the system, however, just like I felt like our guest speaker in our last class only took one step forward, I felt like this author did not give a full idea of how to end the systemic racism in our country. Making people aware of their privilege is not enough; someone reading this article is going to leave with the knowledge and possibly use it on rare occasions or make inappropriate statements to black people because they think they know all about their experiences based on an article written by a white woman who made assumptions about a broad spectrum of people without even consulting them to prove herself right(I am assuming this, but she could have in the rest of her paper). (Side note, even if she had consulted black people, that black person is still not the face of all black experiences; it would have essentially been like, oh my black friend told me "blahblahblah" so that must be the experience of all black people, I digress). After getting a broad majority of people to acknowledge that there is a problem, the system has to be monitored, regulated, and then the idea of race itself needs to be eliminated once we are all truly equal. This however, would be extremely difficult and is rather unrealistic because of a combination of stubborn people and "progressive" white people who are headed in the wrong direction, such as this author.