Due Nov 17
Political Project—Proposal
Take a look at the assignment pages for the upcoming Presentation 2 and Essay 2, and consider what you’d like to focus on for this project.
In a brief HW response, highlight for us:
- the present-day issue or movement you plan to focus on
- what’s most interesting or odd about its appeal or about its tactics
- a parallel issue or movement from the 1960s—or possibly an antiparallel
The present-day issue that I plan to focus on is voter disenfranchisement. Even though every group of people technically has the right to vote, many people experience obstacles that are technically legal that prevent them from voting. I think that this is particularly interesting since it seems to occur to certain specific groups, like Black people, felons, and working-class communities. Our supposedly democratic system continues to oppress the voices of these communities by making it very difficult to vote. A parallel issue that I want to connect to this is the Voting Rights Act of 1965, in which poll taxes, literacy tests, and other barriers to voting were prohibited. Yet, even after this act, many still struggled to be able to cast their ballots, just like in the present day.
The present-day topic I plan to focus on is the #MeToo movement. Particularly, I think its tactic of finding power in numbers is interesting – to have so many people speak up about their experience with sexual harassment, abuse, and rape culture that the problem can no longer be ignored. Also, I want to dive deeper into social media’s role in the movement and a large focus of the hashtag centering around celebrities and their decision to talk about their personal experience with sexual harassment. To enrich the context of #MeToo, I plan to connect it to the women’s liberation movement and their members’ similar tactic of coming together to talk about their experiences as victims of sexism – in the form of consciousness-raising sessions – in order to rally around their joint fight for equality.
The present-day issue I plan to focus on is economic inequality. Leading the class discussion on The Wealth Gap a few weeks ago enabled me to learn more about how apparent the division in socioeconomic classes is, and I want to use the rich discussion that occurred in class as a launch pad to discover the global effects of economic inequality as well as how it parallels with the issues found in the 1960s. In particular, the sixties produced the Tax Reduction Act of 1964 and ignited the Great Inflation, which serves as key talking points on how it relates to the present day, especially given the current inflation rate and side effects of COVID. I plan to compare the policies and decisions made during the decade with the actions being taken today, as I believe it will be informative and indicative of the future and how we can bridge those class gaps.
The present-day issue I plan to focus on is the #MeToo movement against sexual assault and harassment. I plan to look at it in conjunction with the gay rights movement of the 1960s, examining how both movements approached dealing with and speaking about taboo and challenging topics in their times. What’s so interesting about the #MeToo movement is that it started out not with advocacy or action but with people coming forward to talk about and share a common experience and identify a problem that is so horrific and prevalent, and yet so difficult to talk about. People took a leap of speaking openly about that experience, finding strength in numbers, whereas early in the gay rights movement, while it was much more organized and formal, many members remained anonymous because of the stigma and hatred surrounding them.
The present-day issue I plan on focusing on is environmentalism. There are many commonalities and differences between environmentalism today and the environmentalism prevalent in the 1960s. There were different motives within the action being taken and the actions being taken on all levels, ranging from individual to national, were different than the action being taken to combat environmental issues today. The detrimental state of the environment in the 1960s led to laws and bills being passed to try and mitigate the effects of consumerism. I want to shed light on the different environmental problems caused by this consumerism and materialism, such as air and water pollution, that led to the uprising of the environmental movement in the 1960s and connect that to the ongoing environmental movement due to the deteriorating environment today.
The present-day issue I plan to focus on is the controversies the police force is involved in, especially against minorities. In my 1963 presentation, the police are consistently antagonists towards many minorities, from African Americans in the US to immigrants globally. There, the police enforce unfair laws on these minorities and then harshly enact consequences if these minorities resist. This point was a direct parallel with the police in the 1960s, where they were antagonists to the Civil Rights Movement, committing many violent acts to halt its progress. With these points, I plan to further research why the police remain against minorities and possibly find evidence of institutionalized racism within the police force.
The present day topic that I would like to focus on in LGBTQ activism. While today’s society is much more accepting of LGBTQ individuals, activism is still prevalent today. With policies proposed to ban transgender students from sports and the infamous “Don’t Say Gay” bill, activists groups such as the Trevor Project are still incredibly important. I plan to compare movements such as the Gay Liberation Movement and events such as the stonewall riots in the 60s to contemporary movements. I think I will specifically focus on similarities and differences between the stances that 60s activists take versus more modern day movements. I want to look more into how events of the past influenced the way we see LGBTQ issues today.
The present-day issue that I would like to focus on is policing and how it has changed since the height of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020. I think it is very interesting how many thousands of people can advocate for change and yet it not affect the system or even carry attention months following. I think parallels could be drawn from the 1960’s when looking at what issues black activists were fighting against back then and how similar they are to the issues we are fighting against today. I would like to analyze how the prison systems have changed, if at all, as I see it as a reflection of policing.
The present day issue I plan to focus on is environmental activism, most notably through the usage of media. Environmental activism is a nuanced issue that does not have one key method of being solved or streamlined, especially with today’s modern technology allowing everyone to have the platform to be an activist. With worldwide access to social media, actions are becoming even more important than words, and I am curious to see what media activism is most closely linked to genuine environmental efforts rather than performative activism. I’m curious to see how this compares to the environmentalist movement in the 1960s, and how efforts like organizing Earth Day have evolved from major progressive steps into dissolved attempts at change.
The present day issue I would like to focus on is the psychological impact of socioeconomic disparities on each class. Nowadays, people are often called into question in regards to checking their privilege. I would like to explore the impact made on ones self esteem, confidence, and overall success due the socioeconomic class that an individual grows up in or is surrounded with. I would also like to explore how racial factors have anything to do with such. I am interested in how this parallels to the Other America in the 1960s in which poverty finally did not look like constant hunger and homelessness, instead it was a new poverty that developed into the one we see today.