Metamorphosis 2019 Centos
​(Created from Titles in the Magazine)

Raven Joseph 4/20

When I reflect upon the year 2019, I think of many things. I think of the Power and Privilege that Felicity Hoffman and Lori Laughlin abused when they cheated their childrens’ ways into college. I think of how they simultaneously crushed the Dreams of students like myself who may or may not have difficulty getting into schools because of this.

I think of mass shootings that ended the lives of children simply wanting to go to school. I think of the teachers that had to offer reassurance to crying students. I think of how they may have gone home themselves, letting out a cry or a scream as the weight of the world weighed heavy on their shoulders. See, this is the world and how it works; we put our teachers at the frontlines of battles that they shouldn’t have to fight. We are left with weakened soldiers. 

At the root of all of these events is optimism for the year 2020. Three months in and it hasn’t been the greatest but it’s not over. I am committed to making this year one of the greatest years for Me. I will spend the rest of the year finding myself, exploring what I like and who I like, working to create a better me inside out. 

2020 will get better for us all. 




​Chelsey Jara 4/20

I feel Inside Out, 
My Reflection is a A Weakened Soldier, 
I want to Scream, but I need Reassurance. 
The Truth is, I’m Ready To Fall. 
Before 2019 I’d say No Problem,
Now The Rain is enough to make me feel Alone.
There’s Hypocrisy In the Air, I’ve sworn,
I’ve promised with A Speech
that I'd stay Normal. I’m not anymore. 
He, Leviathan, the biggest threat to my
Hopes and Dreams, convinces me of 
The Beauty of Destruction. It tells me
It’s okay to destroy the Puzzle Pieces. 
It’s okay to Wish You Were Different.
But At the Root it's Me,
I can’t blame it on Rough Weather.
Listen, right now I’m fragile. 
I’m In the Middle of uncertainty.
Am I no longer A Modern Day Stoic?


The Beauty of Destruction
Thomasine Fletcher 4/20

When Dreams become all we have to hold on to,
And the blood of my people has run dry,
My Blood will boil,
And our family tree will lose a leaf, but
At the Root it will never waver,
Though The World’s Smallest Earthquake may cause no damage to the surface,
The World and How It Works will never change,

My people’s blood will still be spilt,
Their very breath stolen from them,
The Opposite of Life has always been death and that will not change,
When will The Hammer of History stop causing us pain?
The Reassurance that we will not fade into black no longer calms us.
We still fear the death that will surely come,
But A Weakened Soldier is still a soldier,
So we will continue on,
Changed,
Scared but never still,
Our voice a roaring lion that can never be silenced.

We, Inside Out, turned around, backwards or even reversed,
Are lost Puzzle Pieces.
We have lost our way,
But the cry of our people will never be forgotten.
Our Screams ready to claw its way out of our throats,
As if to say This Is the Real World,
This is a problem we can not walk away from,
Accidents happen,
But the death of a child will never be one,

We shoulder through Rough Weather,
Ready to Fall at the slightest move of a cop
Listen,
No Problem will ever be big enough for an unarmed child to be shot and killed.
The Hypocrisy, In the Air chokes the breath out of our lungs as we repeatedly cry out
“I can’t breathe”
The Beauty of Destruction is fatal and leaves behind The Darkest Scars,
That can and will never be forgotten.


​“Na•ture”
Sam Sims 4/20

Me,
A weakened soldier,
Caged in flesh and bone. 

My blood, 
At the root,
The opposite of life.

We,
Beauty of destruction,
The world’s smallest earthquake.

The house by the sea, 
The decaying city,
Ready to fall.

I know you’re gone, but…
It’s nice to hear your voice.

This is the real world,
Alone--
No problem
The truth. 

Na•ture,
Inside out

Pointless sobs...
At your convenience

​

Responses to "Wears Jump Suits. Sensible Shoes. Uses Husband's Last Name. By Deborah Tannen
Click to read article

The Weight of Womanhood
Raven Joseph 4/20
​
    It was really hard for me to gather my thoughts after reading this article, simply because I just don’t have much to say about my own womanhood. As a matter of fact, when I reflect upon my 17 years on Earth, I must admit that my identity as a woman is towards the tail end of my initial observations. I automatically think of my existence as an African American, I think of being a Christian, I think of being the child of an immigrant, but my womanhood doesn’t hold as much weight as it seemingly does for Deborah Tannen.
    I feel like my womanhood stuffs me into a box -- one marked with a black Sharpie that reads words I cannot see. Unsure of its labels, I am confined to a lifestyle already set for me, one unbeknownst to me. According to Wikipedia, “markedness is the state of standing out as unusual or divergent in comparison to a more common or regular form.” It baffles me that men are to be considered the “common or more regular form,” When dictionaries and society both continue to show us that men are the most powerful entities in this world, I feel as though we may be fostering confusing thoughts in children's heads. They walk into Macy’s and see a shirt that says “THE FUTURE IS FEMALE” but they read history books that tell shallow stories of white men working to “Make America Great.” How can young girls believe in #girlpower if they don’t see women in positions of power around them? I believe that America makes it hard for young girls like me to acknowledge their womanhood in a world full of deceit. 


​Julien Sanchez Levallois 4/20

     I agree with the article. I think that social stigmas have caused fashion statements and women to go hand and hand. I can imagine why women would rather live normal day-to-day lives without their privacy being invaded. That being said, I don’t think in the world of fashion men are at a particular advantage. Yes, they can dress generically, but that is expected of them. There are times where I’d like to dress bright or bold, but due to a stigma against men dressing flamboyantly or with femininity, I feel discouraged and go back to my dark jeans and black hoodie. Both sides are victims in different schools of thought. 
    That being said, I don’t think the journalist was bashing men, but she was thinking as a woman in society, as I am thinking as a man in society. Had I not seen this article I might’ve never seen women as victims in the world of style. I think both perspectives envy each other and label themselves as victims. Perhaps both are victims, but we can’t get anywhere by focusing on our own problems.The idea that men have to dress and act manly is obviously an unconquered conservative idea from back in the day when men were seen as tall, respectful figures. And perhaps the reason women are expected to say something with their clothing is because of the old ideas that women are meant to be eye candy, and in the modern age that concept has evolved into woman’s fashion being incorporated even more into their identities. There are so many cases where conservative ideas are still huge parts of our lives and we don’t notice it because they’ve become the social norm. These ideas have infested not only society but also writing. I think something that everyone gets wrong in writing is writing female characters. This is something that even women can get wrong. I feel as though every time I see an attempt to represent a woman in the form of a character, her single defining trait is that she’s a feminist, and though there’s nothing wrong with feminism, there can be so much more to female characters than just strong, independent, not sexualized. When it’s especially a man writing, it can sometimes be scary to write a female character with setbacks and flaws, or even pain and struggle. Saying that every woman has to be Rosie the Riveter isn’t that much better than saying every woman has to be sensitive and well-mannered. The stereotypical image of women in writing hasn’t been destroyed; it’s simply been flipped on its head, making it once more, a stereotype. In writing I think a huge problem is that when it comes to minorities of race, gender, and sexual orientation, we don’t represent them correctly because we always make them a part of the movements they represent. 
     For example, in an upcoming comic book line, Marvel is introducing two non-binary twins named Safespace and Snowflake. In an attempt to represent the modern orientations, Marvel is now getting hate from the non-binary community for this offensive attempt at progressive characters. The problem with characters like this is that their single identifying trait is that they’re non-binary. Straight male characters never get this treatment. I recently watched Trainspotting, based on the novel, and I could never see a modern female shown the way Ewan McGregor’s Mark Renton is shown. It could be done, but audiences aren’t ready to see a heroin-addicted woman with society abandoning her and her friends sickening her because they remind her so much of herself. They’d rather see Captain Marvel; A flying, laser shooting super strong feminist who is literally the strongest Avenger. You can tell how different the world was back when Sean Connery forced himself onto Bond girls and was seen as a “smooth ladies man,” compared to now when female characters have turned into “perfect” beings. 
     Obviously, I’ve done what I always do and made this response about movies and comic books, but I find that movies in particular are very telling about our societal standards. I hope eventually we’ll learn to get it right.


​Samantha Sims 4/20
​
     “There is no unmarked woman.”
     In a New York Times essay, author Deborah Tannen recalls her experience at a conference with three other women and eight men. The three-day event sends her into a psychological spiral of identifying patterns in the perception of women and the “all-judgment, no-forgiveness” territory they repeatedly find themselves in. As she finds herself scrutinizing the three other women’s presentations of their unique styles and thinking about the fact that she thought nothing of the men’s appearances, several gender issues floated to the surface, all connected to a central theme: there is no unmarked woman. 
     To start, Tannen’s instinct to study the three other women closely from their clothing, makeup, and hair and make conclusions as to the “kind of” women they represented spoke to how as women, we use little things about each other to make assumptions and generalizations. A big point Tannen stresses and that reigns true is that everything on or of our person is fair game. Everything is up for judgment. How we style our hair, the clothes we chose to put on, even our names can project feminist agendas and indicate a tolerance or intolerance of tradition. A “Mrs.” with neat, straight hair, a floral blouse tucked into a pencil skirt, and a french pedicure peeking from open-toe heels says she abides by the unspoken rules of being a married woman and aims to appear “unavailable” and “professional” yet still “sexy” and “young” for her husband, even in the workplace. Meanwhile, a blood red red-head with tousled curls, shredded jeans, and a plunging top with cleavage looks like the type of woman to correct someone who addresses a group as “you guys” but also a woman who wants to be noticed, adored, and accepted by society even if she screams she really “doesn’t care.”  
     Now, take a man. A “Mr.” walks quietly into the workplace in jeans and a T-shirt. His hair is cut close to the scalp and his face is absent of a beard or mustache. He is unmarked. Based on this short description, we cannot confirm whether or not he is married nor do we subconsciously punish him for his attire, because we think to ourselves, “maybe he works at a bar or in a Target.” Why do we cut men so much slack and give even this fictional man room and time to act before we judge him and conclude we know his “kind”? Where is the patience and forgiveness for women? There is none.
     Everything a woman does or doesn’t do sends a message. Everything a woman says or doesn’t say sends a message. The narrowness of the choices men make that Tannen discusses and the elevation of masculinity in society gives men the privilege to freely define themselves according to their terms. Women are barred from such freedom and continue to even keep each other locked into cages and categories that match the “type of” woman they must be. Tannen’s article brought this to light and revealed to me that not only are women pressed up against a glass ceiling because of men’s need for power and superiority, but also our tendency to judge each other and themselves through a man’s eyes, seeing members of their sex only as incapable and wanting.