Inspired by Sin

By E.J. Choi


AUTHOR'S WARNING: This is a dark, dark one-shot I wrote in memory of Jang Ja-Yeon & countless other hopeful actresses who took their lives too early. There is CUSSING, and very MATURE content up ahead. 

When she's born, she's not beautiful, but that's okay, because, as her mother lovingly puts it, "beauty isn't always natural and artificial can be a good thing". After a few years of strict diet regiments, a few years of nose jobs and lasers cutting into her skin to form double-eyelids, she's so pretty and maybe a little generic, like the rest of a population obsessed with appearance.

But that's fine, fabulous, because she'll be famous, like those other girls who re-shaped their jawlines and cut lines into their eyelids, lines speaking of fame and adoration and simply, paradise.

----//
She speaks softly, smiles sweetly, even when rough hands graze the skin of her thighs too purposefully for the incidents to be accidents. She doesn't lose her countenance when a bespectacled man sidles up to her after the dinner party and orders her to meet him in the bathroom in five minutes because he's the head of the company that's supposed to introduce her to the world of media and entertainment and fame.

She doesn't let it break her, doesn't let herself think when he's behind her, thrusting her roughly into the smooth quality of the bathroom stall door, hinges squeaking as he pants into the back of her neck. She feels pain, warm liquid, and finds that she can grab at nothing to keep herself standing. 

She had always thought that her first would be in a hotel bedroom, looking into the eyes of the man she was fucking, wanting to be there.

But I do, she says to herself convincingly, ignoring the way his worn hands squeeze her tender hips. I want to be here.

And as he shrieks in an undignified manner near her ear, telling her he's coming, she believes that this is the right way to fame.

And it is.

----//
After one, comes more, and this time, she's on her knees, dress rumpled, hair mussed as she takes him in her mouth, closing her eyes to drown out the sound of old-man-ecstasy. Her tongue is near numb as it works on him, and her thoughts are no longer tangible.

The first fuck got her her first main role in a romance drama.
The fifth fuck got her a supporting role in a movie.
The seventeenth fuck got her a respectable award.

His fingers tangle in her hair and she winces with something more than pain. He demands more, more, bitch, moreand she takes it all, takes it all in, and wonders if she's as bitter as he tastes.

----//
She had never believed in "beauty is a curse" until now. Now, when she's being pushed into expensive covers and her cheap dress is being ripped in half. He looks at her with a perverted gleam that makes her eyes close tightly and her hands tremble as they betray her to him without a fight. His thin lips bruise the neck of her skin, too rough, and his fingers pull her hair, too hard.

She keeps her mouth shut, because now she knows. She knows that no one is ever going to come save her, not when she wanted this in the first place.

----//
She glows in the pictures.

----//
"What did you expect?" says her manager, as he zips up his pants. "Did you think you would live a celebrity's life with your integrity intact?"

----//
She clings onto this kind of life for two more years, two years of empty compliments and fleeting praises. Panic rises in her throat when she realizes she's not as famous as she used to be, not as famous as the younger girl who snagged the role she was supposed to get, oh god.

I need more surgery, she thinks frantically, refusing to admit her steady descent to nothing. Doing my nose should be good, eyes even better.

----//
To her credit, she's not really considering death as an option until she sees the rope on the set of her drama, abandoned in the corner.

----//
The worst thing, she speculates before her neck breaks, that could happen, is if death asks her for a quick fuck in exchange for a ticket to heaven. Because she knows she'd rather go to hell with whatever she's got left than enter heaven with nothing but sins littering her body.

Rights Violations and Housing Concerns in New Orleans

By Joeva Rock

On August 29th, 2005, the United States watched as New Orleans, one of the country’s oldest and most culturally vibrant cities, was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.  The country watched as the usually lively and energetic city was devastated by the storm.  Images of people on their roofs waiting for assistance, and displaced peoples packing into the Super Dome could be seen on every news station.  Although other areas were affected by the storm, none were hit as hard as New Orleans, which, prior to the hurricane, had been dealing extensively with issues surrounding “historical, structural and institutional racism” (Amnesty International 1).  These problems were exasperated by the storm as certain members of the community were treated differently in terms of relief measures.  While it is easy to acknowledge, as ex-Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) director James Lee Witt said, that all “disasters are very political events,” the ways in which post-Katrina responses played out were especially political, in such that it was extremely obvious who was being most disadvantaged by the disaster.  

The victims of the federal government’s negligence were the people of New Orleans.  Katrina caused “the largest displacement of people since the … Dust Bowl” as “[m]ore than 1.5 million people were directly affected and more than 800,000 citizens were forced to live outside of their homes” (Department of Homeland Security).  This type of dislocation of people is not common in the US, and state and local governments were ill prepared to handle such large numbers.  New Orleans had a similar problem.  Before the storm, roughly 450,000 people lived in the city limits, a majority of which were African-American.  Almost 90% of the city and its people were affected by the storm, “with seventy-five percent of those individuals being African-American and more than twenty-nine percent living below the national poverty line” (Amnesty International 1).  New Orleans lost almost half of its population the years following the storm, and has still not regained much of it.

Under the UN’s Declaration for Human Rights (UDHR), all people have a right to life, dignity, and proper housing.  The citizens of New Orleans had their human rights violated as displacement, inadequate health services and death were rampant.  Approximately 1,800 people died in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama due to flooding and other Katrina related causes.  Slow or absent evacuation tactics left thousands of people stranded in their homes, which resulted in death and illness. By not immediately providing for New Orleans, FEMA did not actively work to prevent death, and therefore failed the UN’s Guiding Principles for Internally Displaced Persons (UNGPID) as well as Article 3 of the UDHR.

 One of the biggest failures of Hurricane Katrina was the unequal access to housing after the storm, as well as insufficient temporary housing.  Housing is a major part of someone’s life, well-being, and development, and “[w]ithout adequate housing, an individual is vulnerable,… [which] compromise[es] other human rights including the rights to family life, [and] health” (Amnesty International 5).  Therefore, rights are not simply mutually exclusive abstractions; they are interconnected and impacting.  In New Orleans, people faced three key problems in terms of housing: 1) many public housing complexes were destroyed, 2) home-owners received more assistance than renters, and 3) FEMA provided inadequate temporary housing.  All three of these issues unequally affect poor, low-income communities, many of which are African-American.

The way the housing crisis was handled does not meet the requirements of the UNDHR or UNGPID, and thus, human rights abuses were committed.  Governmental inaction is in violation of the UDHR, especially Articles 3, 22 and 25, since not having access to adequate housing is dangerous to ones life and health, and compromises their access to resources.  Moreover, FEMA’s housing policies contravene the UNGPID’s demand that state governments not discriminate against IDPs since the policies a) permanently displace people, and b) disproportionably affect minority, lower-income communities.  FEMA’s actions were inadequate and discriminatory because they specifically targeted and affected low-income African Americans.  Housing, a fundamental human right, was compromised and violated for the people of New Orleans.  The debate over decent housing was not necessarily mainstream before Katrina.  The events that took place in New Orleans helped both US government and society re-examine their ideas of living standard minimums.  It also opened room for more critical examination over other public housing issues, and in that way, expanded the American human rights debate.

In conclusion, it can be inferred that through bureaucratic clutter and legal barriers (i.e. The Stafford Act), FEMA failed to meet the need of its constituents.  By not providing sufficient temporary and permanent housing for New Orleans’ residents, especially its lower-income, African-American communities, the US government was not compliant with the UDHR and UNGPID, and thus ought to be held accountable for their irresponsible actions and human rights abuses.  If the US honestly values the sovereignty of the UN, then it will admit its neglect and work to reform its domestic laws to be in accordance to international standards and covenants.

Shared Parenting

By Marnie Brookolo

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about parenting, mothering, care-taking, and the work of raising children. My male partner and I have been talking more about having kids and what we want it to be like, our hopes, and our fears.  I recently saw a short film called “Mother: The Job” which contained many moving and thought-provoking images of mothers at work: cooking, cleaning, braiding hair, caring for children, etc. The film advocates for valuing the important work that mothers do and for more family friendly policies. While I appreciate the film and other books and organizations that work towards valuing mothering I can’t help but wonder, where are the dads? First off, it is important to note that there are many types of families raising children: single mothers and fathers, LGBT parents, grandparents, extended families, and more. However, in 2 parent families with a male and female partner it seems that most of the child rearing is still the domain of moms. These messages are everywhere and even couples that I see struggle to push against this are doing so within a context that makes creating an equal partnership pretty difficult. Even cool organizations and films and couples who believe in equality in their relationships don’t seem to question this much. The film that I discussed earlier did suggest that paternity leave be more accessible and that dads help in raising kids, but where is the expectation that good dads become more than good helpers? Another organization that does great work, Moms Rising, still frames the issue in a way that situates family, childrearing, and creating a more family friendly nation as the responsibility of women, and moms more specifically. When my partner and I have children I don’t want him to be a good helper. I want him to be empowered to take on an active parenting role with equal responsibilities and equal joy. I want him to pick up new shoes for the kids when he’s out at the store and comb their hair to get them ready. For my family I hope that my partner and I can both think about the needs of our children, large and small. Through our conversations it is clear that he wants this too, but even as two people that want this we know it won’t be easy. Each family is different and will have their own desires and expectations when it comes to raising children and that’s ok. What I’d like to see are more discussions about the many possibilities that exist and could exist for families when it comes to raising children. As important as valuing mothering is I think that new language and new ways of talking about families and children is needed to create the possibility for men, especially men with women as partners, to have the opportunity, and maybe even the expectation, to participate fully in the responsibilities (and many rewards) of raising children.  I’m not sure what this looks like yet, but I’m excited to continue to explore it and hope to continue the discussion with others who want to create a space for these explorations too.