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Race and Representation in Popular Culture – What Black Panther Teaches Us
Representation of race in popular culture is, like many aspects of media consumption, a point of social contention. Marvel’s recently-released Black Panther provides a brilliant entry point for considering some key points about the issue. And having had the chance to watch Black Panther in cinemas last week, I felt inspired to talk about it. As a white woman, what do we mean when we say representation? Does it matter? If so, why, and what can we do about it? [DISCLAIMER: I thought this movie was brilliant. You’ll probably read that a few more times in the post. While I’ll do my best to avoid spoilers, just be aware that…
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A Poem for Humanity
I haven’t written a poem in a while, but a combination of what’s been going on in the world recently and my psychology studies brought this together for me: we’re really just a bundle of nerve endings and electricity, of muscles and bones and chemicals, and somewhere beneath all of that, our thoughts, our loves and hates, our fears and hopes – our soul. Humanity Place them all ‘neath a microscope one by one. Beyond differences, an assault of similarities: kidneys, lungs and heart. Further in, a twisting acid helix underwrites an interplay of the invisible. Search a spangled web of brain tissue to try and find where thoughts…
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Racism, Marginalisation and Diversity in Writing: Who owns what?
Welcome to the newest iteration of ‘Ana’s Deep and Thoughtful Mondays’! I spent a lot of time over the weekend wrestling with what’s been happening in writing communities across social media recently, but unsure of whether I should write about it—and if I was going to, how to do so. While taking a quick tour of my Twitter feed this morning, I saw a blog post by Kaelan Rhywiol: her raw and open honesty in considering some of the issues that have been rife throughout the writing community helped inspire me to commit my own thoughts to paper (it’s a truly excellent piece and deserves reading). For this, I’m very grateful.…
