Social Justice Event

For my social justice event Josh and I both attended a lecture on "Blogging Dissent Under a Dictatorship? Alternative Art and Civil Society in the Era of Renewed U.S.-Cuba Relations." I know right that is quite the mouth full. The talk was given by Cuban blogger, writer, and photographer Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo.

Now for those of you who are like me and don't particularly find history that fascinating I was not exactly looking forward to going. But thankfully to my surprise, the lecture was actually rather interesting. Orlando was a man who lived in Cuba for the majority of his life but left based on dissension he had with the cuban government. He left Cuba well over a year ago and has been teaching at Brown University, blogging about his experiences, and photographing anything he finds prevalent to today since leaving.

Now some of you may be saying how in the world does this connect to the authors and the articles that we read in class, well let me shed some light on that.

Johnson/Delpit ~ Orlando tells it how it is. He does not sugar coat anything and because of that he got a book that he wrote censored. He spoke out about the corruption of the Cuban government and the truth behind what really goes on in the country. Clearly people did not like him talking about this so they censored his book, arrested him multiple times, and people constantly harass him and his family. At one point he even had the secret service come and talk to him to try and silence him. This is obviously Johnson because he speaks the truth and tell it how it is. But I also can connect this to Delpit because Orlando goes against the rules and codes of power. He defies the government, speaks out against the norm, and doesn't care about the consequences. Many political activists in Latin America are killed for speaking out so he was very brave to do this.

Macintosh ~ Orlando spoke about how the government tries to keep order to the extreme, it is to the point that it makes it so citizens are unable to move from the position they are in (economically, socially). Minorities can only have rights if they respect the frame of the cuban system. This is very much along the lines of you need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make life the best that it can be. And that is what Orlando did, he found a way to get out and he took it, to come live a better life.

Rodriguez~ Orlando also spoke about the language used in Cuba. Spanish is the dominant language and if you do not speak it you are automatically at a disadvantage. It is almost required for the people of Cuba to speak both Spanish and English in order to go about day to day life, if not they are looked down upon and treated differently for not always being able to understand.

Finn (I think..... lets roll with it) ~ Cuba is at a disadvantage. They have internet modem dial-up, which immediately puts the citizens (and students) at a disadvantage. the embargo and lack of resources and advancements make Cuba a not well used trading destination and cannot be connected with the rest of the world. This connects to how students who are born in poverty and go to bad school districts are put at a disadvantage that those born to the upper middle class in a very wealthy district.

Christensen ~ Unlearning the Myths that Bind Us. The speaker opened our eyes to what is going on in Cuba and the U.S. relations with them. It took us away from how we were raised that the only thing that happened was the Cuban Missile Crisis and immigrants coming to Florida, but it is actually so much more.

If anyone is interested in learning more about Orlando and the work he does you can find his blogs online or look up his book that got censored called Boring Home. It is fictional but it has seeds of truth all throughout it.