Items

• 
  03/14/2021

  Trisha Vaughn Oral History, 2021/03/18

  Trisha Vaughn is the CPT Supervisor for a large Bay Area community hospital. In her spare time, Trisha hosts a podcast with her daughter, is an avid writer, and she is starting a small apothecary business to sell her skin care creations. In the oral history interview, Trisha shares how she has navigated through Covid-19 in both her personal life, and as an essential worker. She reflects on staying motivated and helping the people in her life stay motivated thought these hard times. Trisha describes how the social injustices and civil unrest in response to police brutality during the pandemic has affected her and those around her and about how the urgency of the pandemic has overshadowed the injustices faced by people of color across the nation.
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  2021-01-29

  A different kind of anti-mask rally

  This post is pretty important to me, in a lot of ways, mainly because of the fear it’s evoked in me, or anger, both probably. This is an advertisement for the ‘Walk for Freedom’ event, to take place outside the legislature building of Edmonton, in Alberta. This is supposedly an anti-mask, anti-lockdown movement however it would be incorrect to assume that this movement only had once face. In reality, the Albertan anti-mask movement has large components of white-supremacists, fascists, Nazis who have been seen at several previous anti-mask rallies throughout the province. During these events, local businesses which enforce social distancing, those with masks and reportedly visible minorities are subjected to verbal and physical abuse. Organizations such as the Proud Boys, The Sons of Odin are all present at these events and eagerly recruit pandemic skeptics into their groups by binding the cause of ‘freedom’ to that of bigotry and hatred. I know my description of this event seems bad enough, and may have your head scratching with how I’m essentially saying this rally is going to be full of neo-Nazi’s and white supremacists, but I just want to point out the most glaring issue present within this advertisement. Those people marching, that photo is from the ‘Unite the Right’ march in Charlottesville in 2017, they actively chose that image – and the historic fascist imagery of a torch march to be the face of their movement. Essentially, this isn’t very tongue and cheek anymore; there is going to be a fascist march on my province’s capitol. Already, counter-protestors are organizing to show up and face these people in the streets. It’s even more concerning when police and governmental figures are not saying a word about this march, we have no idea if they’re prepared for what’s supposed to come. I could go on for pages, but, I’m just scared. Alberta desperately wants to be like its southern neighbor, we elected a man who markets himself as a fiscal conservative in the shadow of Donald Trump, who has a history of advocating for restrictive policies directed towards the LGTBQ+ community and we had people take to the streets as the American capitol was stormed. They were waving American flags and thin blue line American flags, it’s just insanity, I don’t understand these people. I’m adding this to the archive because I just want to try and illustrate the tone of politics in Alberta, in regards to our pandemic skeptics. From my perspective, the anti-mask movements down in the states appear to be relatively simple, entitled and ignorant people marching for their ‘rights,’ mistaking inconvenience for oppression, I’m aware there is also a stark politicization of masks down in the States. However, here there’s a more sinister tone to it – it’s become embroiled in conspiracies of a ‘great reset’, anti-Semitism and infiltrated by organized Fascist movements to gain larger bases. I feel as if I’m rambling, but there’s just so much to say – I hope it doesn’t turn into anything as similar as America’s January 6th or Charlottesville, I hope people don’t show up.
• 
  2020-11-17

  Zoom Movie Night

  I selected this picture because it shows how my family and I have been connecting with each other during quarantine. In the image, my cousin, sister and I are watching Cobra Kai together on Zoom. This connects to the pandemic because it shows how we are not able to hang out with each other in person. Instead, we have to watch movies online. This image represents my current experience as a junior in high school as well because all of my school is online. I use the Zoom app nearly everyday, to talk to friends, to hang out with family, and even to attend my classes. While we all wish we could be hanging out in person, we cannot so we have to make do over Zoom. This also represents the period of unrest in this country because of how chaotic our faces look in this screenshot. The U.S. is pretty much crazy right now. I think we are probably all going to die.
• 2020-10-05

  The Weird Reality of Pro Sports during Covid-19

  The main point of this article is to simply address the odd time that we are currently in. It points out things in sports that were unheard of before this 2020 season. I chose this article because first of all I love watching sports, and was excited for them to come back. But, also I think this article does a good job of pointing out the obvious things that everyone is feeling and simply addressing that these times are simply just weird. This article reveals the difference of watching sports now, during the pandemic, compared to a year ago when you could physically cheer on your teams or even just eat a hot dog at a live game. This article is important because it documents the way many people are feeling about sports in 2020. I think this is important to showcase because sports have taken so many drastic measures in order to keep going. The author of this article is definitely a sports fan, but he doesn’t seem upset at the current situation of sports. He is simply stating the differences between then and now. The media is responsible for providing accurate information about the state of the pandemic itself but also providing uplifting content that will help people who are struggling through these times or content that will bring people together and uplift the community.
• 
  2020-09-27

  Tweets from Inside a Prison 09/27-10/03/2020 by Railroad Underground

  These images show the Tweets of an incarcerated person utilizing a contraband cell phone to let the outside world know about prison conditions during the pandemic. This week he talks about the ability of incarcerated people to vote would cause them to be treated better, living like a caged animal, lockdown, going outside, mental health, watching presidential debates in prison, a second Covid outbreak happening in his prison, how important family connection is, incarcerated people are eligible for a stimulus check, people of color being the majority of incarcerated people and the majority of Covid deaths, difference of sentencing of white and black people,
• 
  2020-06-22

  Choiceless Children

  This is a personal essay I've written to describe my feelings on the recent racial unrest in this country amid the pandemic.
• 
  2020-05-31

  Order Adopting Citywide Curfew During State of Emergency

  This order, written by city mayor Lew Starling, declares that as of March 18, the city of Clinton will be placed under a curfew from 8pm-6am until June 1 due to both Covid-19 and the presence of peaceful demonstrations following the murder of George Floyd