Type
Topic
Country
The evolution of the perception and acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community in India
The LGBTQ+ acronym stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and others, so basically, people who don’t identify with cisgender heterosexual “ideals”. In the Indian case, the LGBTQ+ community also includes a specific social group, part religious cult and part caste : the Hijras. They are culturally defined either as "neither men nor women" or as men who become women by adopting women's dress and behavior. Hijras are devotees of Buhuchara Mata, a version of the Indian mother goddess (a Hindu goddess representing chastity and fertility). So, our main subject will be this community...
Media Bias: Is Objective Journalism Dead?
As a young adult, politics is everywhere. I’m 16 years old, and I’ve found that this is the age at which a majority of our population begins to form their political ideologies. And while it is impossible to determine exactly the several complex factors that affect one’s personal political stance, be it family, race, gender, religion or region, it’s undeniable that there is often one source in common from which every teenager derives their fundamental opinions: the mainstream media. Sounds trivial? It isn’t. Today’s political society is dominated utterly and unreservedly by the media. NBC, ABC...
Redefining Sexual Standards: Why Consent is Not Enough
I didn’t realize my sexual belief was different from others until I went to America. As a Christian, I firmly believed that people shouldn’t have sex before marriage. However, in western society, such a notion has become outdated as sexual revolutions since the 1960s gradually dissolved boundaries in gender relations. Therefore, as someone “from the last century,” quote courtesy of my friends, I became a deviant in this open world. Although I object to premarital sex, this is not my purpose in writing this essay. Instead, I am trying to argue here that since our sexual identities are so...
Becoming The "American" Child
My South Asian culture is something that I have always cherished. The traditional folk music and dances, flavorful cuisines, and colorful festivities native to Kerala have always managed to mesmerize me ever since I was young. But at what cost was I finally able to start appreciating these aspects of my identity as a young Indian American? I remember laying down when I was younger, perched next to our Casio stereo CD player and listening to Indian music from my native language, Malayalam, while I would sing my heart out in random gibberish, thinking that I was reciting what I thought were the...
Home of the brave
Democracy settles beneath the pact between the bad guys and the businessman it's chocked by hate and by man-made mistakes it has dust all around its edge Come one don’t let it go to waste, You’ve seen the Carpenter hills and the Arizona lakes You’ve seen the way a mother works to pay the rent it’s in the U.S.A where dreams are made Oh, democracy won’t you wake up and find us again? Looking at the railroads and trains it’s the place where technology bolted to wake and it’s here the man grow greedy and they search for fame but I know an American household by the union and a hard workday, Oh...
The Yellow Line
Leroy stood on the curb, kicking loose gravel around aimlessly. He looked at the lines and grooves in the concrete. He stared harder at them, hoping to see some sort of message hidden within. He looked up at the road. He looked at his father’s wristwatch, hung loosely around his wrist. The bus was late, he thought, as he made his way to the edge of the kerb and sat down. He looked at his hands: the lines on them looked very much like the ones set in concrete. Except those lines were set in white cement and his were set in his chocolate-coloured, breathing self. High school was usually the...
Time to quit hatred
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that." — Martin Luther King, Jr. MLK Jr said this decades ago. But still today, in this 21st century, hatred is prevalent in our society. A large number of people are directly engaged to spread hatred. And the rest of us, who are completely against this hate campaign, are in oblivion. We don't know what to do, how to confront this monstrous, abhorrent campaign. Recently, on 14th February, 2019, Jaish-e-Mohammed, a militant group attacked a convoy of CRPF personnel in Jammu and Kashmir...
Two strangers sitting behind screens, 100 miles apart and arguing
Have you ever casually scroll through your socials and find a post with tons of arguments beneath it? Happens every day. Although sometimes we may not interfere, it’s not at all easy to avoid getting your insides heated as well. I’ll start by stating what i perceived myself, the roots of these controversial posts and comments that exist anywhere. By anywhere I mean even a random post on common decency and basic human rights. Sheesh. So, why the fuss though? We can kinda agree, that any sort of stance a commenter, or post seems to have, politically, religious or cultural can be visible as they...
We need to unite
There are many crisis among all over the world, people have the spark to create change all over the world yet they don't know How to start it, and there is nothing change in this world. We have to unite For creating a change all over the world. #WEUNITEFORUS
Beauty is Never Skin Deep
The promising lightening creams displayed in nearly every store and marketplace visited are the embodiments of reinforced stereotypes, the representation of a culture with proclaimed guidelines about what constitutes as beauty, and the undoing of a painful colonial history. The seed of shame had been planted generations past; the weeds springing from it at once, constricting and suffocating. The advertisements of such products overtly displayed their message of “dark skin” needing fixing. The exhibit of dark-skinned women staring at their reflection with resentment, their smiles only appearing...
Am I next?
It is estimated that over 40% of South African women will be raped in their lifetime. Gender based violence is at the highest we have ever seen in our country and in the world. This closely showing the imbalance that lies between men and women. Men have so much power in our country that they feel entitled to a women’s body. I have gone through all the emotional stages, first I experienced sadness for the girls who had been raped and murdered at the hands of men. Then I became fearful for my life and the final stage was one of anger. I was angry at our government and every single member of...
A Letter To 2021
Dear 2021, Another year has come and gone. It's a time we should cautiously celebrate, the year 2020 is over. But many of the problems we experienced in 2020 will continue into this year. We still have a raging pandemic which has taken the lives of over 1.5 million people; may they never be forgotten. There is still social and political injustice around the world. With both of these which have each led to many deaths, we mourn those we lost. We can never forget the pain, much of which we shall still have, that this year has caused us. While we reflect on this past, we must also use it to...
International Women's Day: Choosing to Challenge
March 8th is celebrated all around the world as International Women's Day, a day where we celebrate women's accomplishments while recognising the progress that still needs to be made, and advocating for gender equality. 2021 is arguably a special year for International Women's Day. We know now that the pandemic has brought out huge inequalities on how disproportionately different groups of people are being affected. Many research studies have shown that women, particularly those from ethnic minority backgrounds, are being the most impacted by the pandemic. This year's theme is 'choose to...
Gender stereotypes are a daily action and are very normalized
”Gender stereotypes are a daily action and are very normalized” Every day in our lives, we go through situations where we saw or we are victims of a misogynist comment or action because of our gender, because of being women. To understand better the issue we are going to see some daily examples: If we are in a gym class at school, in which we have to play football, and a boy has to choose between another boy or a girl to be part of their team, the kid will choose the boy without even thinking ( he probably isn’t doing it with any bad intentions), but the problem is that this action is...
Difference is a superpower.
In a candid manor: humans are animals. We know that we are mammals; we are aware of our evolutionary origins and how, as animals, we are scientifically classified. My question is: when did this binomial system turn biased? I’d like to pull an ‘uno reverse card’ on stereotypes and dissect them- not dissimilar to their own dissection of society. So, their provenance is unknown and yet their substance is taken so legitimately, that it has placed the societal construct of our world into a shrunken mould. Placed in a cast that doesn’t attempt to repair broken bones or heal wounds- but instead, is...
Peacebuilding for and with children
Bangla New Year!
Bangla New Year's, popularly called Pohela Boishakh is the first day of the Bengali calendar, just as the 1st of January is the first day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. Pohela Boishakh is celebrated every year on the 14th of April and is a national holiday in Bangladesh and some parts of India. The greeting for the occasion is Shubho Noboborsho (শুভ নববর্ষ), meaning Happy New Year! Pohela Boishakh is celebrated since the time of Emperor Akbar, hundreds of years ago, when he introduced the Bengali calendar. The festival is celebrated by Bangaldeshis with a riot of colors, from the...
The tug of war between my cultures
'Neither here nor there.' Growing up as a child of immigrant parents of colour is not unique. So, I am sure my experience is not either. As a young child, I went to a white-majority school and would return home to my brown household. My life juggled between fish and chips and curries and naan. Like many children of immigrants, life was a wonderful collage of my cultural heritage and my everyday life in a Western country. And while I know how incredibly privileged and lucky I am, it was also a constant war over who I was. Growing up, I always saw people who looked like me presented as outdated...
Wasted Time?
Life is filled with time... so why do we feel like we are constantly running out of it? Most of the past few years of my life have been relatively normal (despite the pandemic obviously!) but every so often, this vague sense of pressure accompanies me and it’s all to do with time. Occasionally, it feels like we all have little ticking time bombs floating above our heads and they are whispering that we must make certain accomplishments by a certain point in time. And judging by the countless comments on the Youtube video for the song that perfectly encompasses this feeling of fleeting teenage...