Watch Big Little Lies.

Illustration by Keith Negley

I very much enjoyed Big Little Lies. As the series unfolded I had my suspicions and theories, and eventually grew worried it would let me down, but it did not.

It represented friendships and women in a very honest way and did not fall into any misogynist tropes about whether or not women can be truly supportive of one another.



Spoiler alert on these linked articles!

In Its Final Moments, Big Little Lies Transcends Its White Feminism

From THE SURPRISING GENEROSITY OF “BIG LITTLE LIES”:

In one lovely scene, Jane tells her new friends how detached she feels, as if she were peering at them from far away rather than sitting with the two of them. As Madeline chatters, Celeste stays quiet, locking eyes with Jane. The camera holds on the two of them, capturing the early alchemy of a friendship—and the suggestion that, even in mean-girl world, women might choose to be allies instead of enemies.

That's my main takeaway. I was adamant that the ending feature a show of solidarity, which seemed imminent. These women were able to talk to each other properly after really intense confrontations. Smart, empathetic women can see when they've been wrong and can see what's going on. Even if I disliked someone, I wouldn't stand for them being assaulted in my presence. Women stand up for one another much more than is represented in media and film. 

The praise Nicole Kidman is getting is deserved. And there are times Reese Witherspoon stopped me in my tracks. I wish they could each get an Emmy. They both deserve it. The entire cast was exquisite.

Highly recommended. If you can, watch it in tandem with a friend so you can talk about it.

UPDATE (April 6th), adding this:

Big Little Lies’ most riveting moments are the silent ones between womenThe HBO drama is a stunning study in the unspoken language women use to survive.

YES YES. This this this:

In seconds, and with the threatening man in question standing mere feet away, these women trust each other completely. It’s an unflinching instant of wordless recognition, an understanding so deep that speaking its underlying fear aloud is unnecessary. It’s a feeling of awful, vital solidarity — one that I, and countless other women, know all too well.

Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.

Stop blaming mental illness for violent crimes.

Just read Stop blaming mental illness for violent crimes by Dean Burnett over at The Guardian. It reminds me of  some tweets I’ve been seeing regarding the media coverage of this - and all recent - shootings. First, that "mental illness" is used as a descriptor in regards to white shooters only, whereas terrorism or other racially charged language is used with people of colour, and also, white folks are often represented with "nice" photographs - never their mugshots. Especially young white people.

Why do we only discuss mental health when the shooter is white? Muslim dude that did this must be mental unstable to justify this. #Orlando

— Hari Kondabolu (@harikondabolu) June 12, 2016

I've never seen a mugshot like this before. Oh, wait. https://t.co/7COOQTmP7V

— deray mckesson (@deray) June 20, 2016

if a black man killed a woman, they'd show his mugshot not a prom photo. https://t.co/ocRjI3U5Hh

— antonio (@antoniodelotero) June 17, 2016

1. Show us his mugshot not this innocent boy-next-door photo
2. Swimmer attacker??? try RAPIST https://t.co/eqVop9GvYR

— Chloè-Anna (@tashamac228) June 7, 2016

Convicted of murdering a child and your mugshot is not used #WhitePrivilege https://t.co/3jfRL3LWyC

— Civil Savage (@Hustle_Scholar) June 21, 2016

So has Jo Cox's murderer been called a terrorist yet? No? Thought so. Even though he fits the definition perfectly. #whiteprivilege

— Umarah (@_umara) June 17, 2016

#WhitePrivilege is rampant in the coverage of the tragic shooting of #JoCox 😢😡😪 pic.twitter.com/VzOs7xfx3X

— Cerian Jenkins (@CerianJenkins) June 17, 2016

Muslims = Terrorism
Whites = Mental Illness #WhitePrivilege

— admtnmkrz (@ATMology) June 16, 2016

#WhitePrivilege pic.twitter.com/G0ykg6XCYv

— (((Sony Kapoor))) (@SonyKapoor) June 12, 2016

These last few weeks have been heavy. 2016 is a fucking brutal son of a bitch. The Ramsay Bolton of recent years (the Game of Thrones episode "Battle of the bastards" just played this past Sunday). It's shooting after shooting. Celebrity deaths (Bowie, Prince, Anton Yelchin just died). Personally my family had its medical issues, Global Transient Amnesia, Vertigo, and Bell's Palsy (all in early 2016). It's just been exhausting. I'm tired. But the onslaught continues.

Politically lately the rhetoric and news coverage has been tense. The UK has Brexit, the Americans have the presidential race and their gun debates, and locally it seems like the economy and jobs has been the big issue. I've been having trouble at work, my hours have been cut, it's super quiet, I just feel zero job security and its playing on my anxiety and depression.

It just feels like a tense time. And right now I feel like terms like "mental illness" are being thrown around a lot in the media, especially in regards to white shooters. Burnett's piece pulled out certain points I'd like to talk about here.

But the idea that certain mental illnesses inevitably cause violence is far more prevalent than the evidence warrants. Numerous studies have shown that those with mental health problems are more often the victims of violence, not perpetrators.

It seems out of every few stories coming out of the united states where a black man was killed by police, information surfaces afterwards about that man having been in crisis. Overall the media coverage of the last few months has been torn apart on social media because of how lacking it is. Intersectionality is rarely applied.

Mental illness doesn’t occur in a vacuum. It’s tangled up with everything else in a person’s life. Upbringing, background, poverty, general health, experiences, genetics, and so on. Essentially, if you exclude the contribution of all other possible factors, the link between mental illness and violence becomes increasingly small. It’s far more common for people to be violent if they also have a substance abuse problem. You could argue this implies the mental illness is a consequence, alongside the violent behaviour, of other issues affecting the person. So blaming mental health for crimes is often like blaming the getaway car for a bank robbery; it’s just one part of the whole situation, and not even the most important.

How is it that some of us feel it all, and some of us don't? We see it. Don't they?

You’d think if the people/media who blamed mental illness for violent crime genuinely believed that, they’d be more alarmed about the state of mental health treatment and facilities. But no, there’s rarely a mention as mental health services are put under massive debilitating strain by cuts and ignorance. We live in a world where a pensioner can’t take a bottle of water onto a plane because they might somehow turn it into a bomb and countless rights are sacrificed in the name of security, but those who think people with mental illness are all killers-in-waiting are fine with them not getting adequate help or care.

Is it all about money and power? Is it about easy blame and distraction? It's all too much these days. I need a break. A vacation. A holiday. I'm broke. My job situation is a mess. What are my options? Lately, it's been a shower and going to bed real early. It's all I've got right now.

On emotional intelligence.

The Atlantic has an article up called The Dark Side of Emotional Intelligence, which they define as:

the ability to recognize, understand, and manage emotions.

I'm not 100% on managing, but I’d say I'm practically a sharpshooter regarding the first two. The article goes over how emotional intelligence should not be assumed to be a moral characteristic, and how as a form of intelligence, it can be used for both “good and evil.”

There was no relationship whatsoever between emotional intelligence and helping: Helping is driven by our motivations and values, not by our abilities to understand and manage emotions. However, emotional intelligence was consequential when examining a different behavior: challenging the status quo by speaking up with ideas and suggestions for improvement.

Emotionally intelligent employees spoke up more often and more effectively. When colleagues were treated unjustly, they felt the righteous indignation to speak up, but were able to keep their anger in check and reason with their colleagues. When they went out on a limb to advocate for gender equity, emotional intelligence helped them keep their fear at bay. When they brought ideas for innovation to senior leaders, their ability to express enthusiasm helped them avoid threatening leaders.

This was the part that stuck with me, since the friends I value as being extremely emotionally intelligent are also the most likely to notice when something isn't fair, or is inappropriate at the workplace. We’re often quick to notice work-policies we feel to be counter-intuitive or lacklustre.

I would argue that it’s a sensitivity to environment, and to the lived experience of policy and procedure. Especially in a working environment, where we live daily. It’s also a way of reading people I’d say is akin to instinct. Reading certain cues is a way of communicating that is mainly lost to us, but was a way of surviving for thousands of years. Similarly to the way in which a cat twitches a tail in annoyance, seeing someone purse their lips or grind their teeth can signal a similar state.

I wouldn't really say it’s my ability to “express enthusiasm” that allows for a smooth description of a problem to a boss, I would say it’s a navigation of their ego, explaining a basic logic and also trying to express the benefits of the idea.

I think emotional intelligence also involves an understanding of context and environment. External factors are always at play, no matter how enthusiastically you pitch more vacation time.

And, as always, there's also power at play. There are power-dynamics and hierarchies. When we describe emotional intelligence as being a major root to standing up to the status quo, we can't ignore the way in which identity politics and privilege inform our relationship to that structure.

I can't help but think of "emotional intelligence" as a classed term. There's privilege in it. It's academic. Also, considering the original researchers define emotional intelligence as:

focuses on the individual's ability to process emotional information and use it to navigate the social environment.

"Oh, you mean be a fucking human who feels things and notices stuff?"

Maybe the reason old, white academics needed the term is because they don't understand human fucking experience the way anybody who doesn't carry the privilege of white maleness does.

Tumblr: Black Girl + Mental Health.

While following the Twitter reports and conversations following the Charleston shooting last night, I followed a link that lead me to a blog called Black Girl + Mental Health.

I thought I'd share the link here. I'm not a black woman. I am however, not a racist white woman. I want to share this as a resource for POC who might find their way here. I also think that though race and racism play a particular role in the struggles of people of colour, those living with depression and anxiety have a similar internal struggle, words of encouragement to those living with mental illness are always appreciated, and should be circulated.

Race has been on my mind a lot lately. This whole Rachel Dolezal fiasco is a god-damn shit show. This article's title synthesizes what I've been feeling: Black Women Can Barely Make the News, But Rachel Dolezal Gets National Media. It makes no fucking sense that this is getting so much attention, and that the most coverage the Americas have had regarding race and racism is on a fucking white woman, when black man after black man has been murdered by cops on fucking video. It's just another example of re-centring whiteness. What the media is really saying is how much they can't believe someone would want to live the black experience in America. No doubt this story won't go away, and in the meantime we'll continue to be dealing with the media's disinterest in ongoing hate crimes and police-committed murders.

I wrote something on white supremacy and depression, and I'm trying to educate myself as much as I can, while also trying to be supportive and being mindful of the space I occupy. There aren't a lot of great resources out there for people living with mental illness, and when you compound that be adding the divisiveness of intersectionality, whether through race, culture, economics or gender and sexuality it becomes an exhausting quest to just get the smallest amount of help, or even just a kind word.

Mental health is the revolutionary political space for black people.
— The Real bell hooks (@bellhooks) May 7, 2015

I'm going to try and actively seek out resources and link to them here. There are a lot of supportive, powerful, wise voices out there, and we can all gain from hearing them.

White suprememacy and depression.

As a white person, I can't fully comprehend what it's like to be "othered" through race and culture. The only experiences I have that are somewhat comparable are gender oppression, and the prejudices/antagonism encountered for being fat. I've felt targeted and been threatened with sexual violence. I've been cussed at for being fat. None of this, however, can be compared to the insanity that is our history of white supremacy.

AlterNet has an article up on the 6 Ways White Supremacy Takes a Toll on the Mental Health of Black People. Though I knew that women are twice as likely to suffer from a mental illness than men, I didn't know that black people (this piece is written from a black American perspective) are 20 times more likely to report serious psychological distress than white people.

AlterNet interviewed several mental health professionals regarding the issue, including Erlanger Turner, a clinical psychologist and assistant professor at the University of Houston-Downtown:

“Research has shown that racism has negative psychological consequences for African Americans such as increased symptoms of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress.”

This isn't difficult to understand, the systemic targeting and dismissal of black voices, and the disproportionate incarceration of black men in particular is overwhelming and seems akin to cultural genocide. 

Lisa Jones, a licensed clinical social worker based in New York City:

“While racism comes in various forms, be it through personal experience or media portrayals, black people tend to feel hopeless and give up mentally, often feeling as if they are not good enough. Living in a society where there is constant portrayal of racial injustice (forms of micro-aggressions, ongoing discrimination, unarmed black people killed by law enforcement) can lead to chronic feelings of despair. Many, at times, will feel like racial issues will never be solved. Such negative and consistent thoughts can trigger severe depressive symptoms.”

The article goes on to list the upsetting realities (author's term) faced daily by black communities. It's an important read. Depression and anxiety is often warranted. Yes, there are times when it's a medical, nearly ghost-like possession that we can hardly explain, but there are also real, lived experiences that inform the way we relate to the world.

The systemic devaluation of you, your ability, and your worthiness is a heavy, devastating reality for a lot of people, especially for people of colour and those targeted as minorities of some kind.

Here, in Canada, the systemic genocide of several aboriginal generations is something we don't hear enough about. Ideally educational policy would change, and Canadians would start discussing native culture and history in our schools. The genocide of our own land shouldn't be belittled and ignored. We see this systemic genocide today, through the over-representation of native women and men in prisons, and by the pervasive issues of violence, homelessness and substance abuse in native communities.

Aboriginal women have insanely high sexual-assault and murder rates. There have been constant calls for an inquiry into the systemic roots of missing and murdered Aboriginal women, and the government is quick to downplay their role in fostering the violence.

With Barack Obama himself being a black man, I have more hope for the dialogue around race and racism in the United States taking place than I do for the racism faced by Aboriginals in Canada. Harper, when asked about a possible inquiry, said flatly:

Um it, it isn't really high on our radar, to be honest.

Boom. At least Obama is engaged. This being his last term, he could really open up a dialogue, and possibly in-act real solutions. 

I say all of this with a lot of hope and I guess naiveté. 

It just seems like we're getting to a tipping point. White, rich, Christian, able-bodied, hetero-normative dudes are now the minority. . .

With every new law that allows gays to marry, with every non-normative couple adopting a child and starting a family, with every mixed-race couple, with every young person of colour going to university, with every trans person properly represented in the media, with every woman and person of colour (or gasp, both at once) in a position of power - all of it, the narrative is changing. 

A decade ago conversations of gender, sexuality, racism and class, of entitlement and privilege, of support and of being allies, all of this only ever took place in Women's Studies or activist spaces. The fact that this is taking place over social media, and in everyday spaces must be a good sign.

It must! 

Baltimore.

What's happening in Baltimore, the protesting and rioting, is necessary. The absolute devastation of black experience is unarguably historically rooted and needs to be actively addressed and corrected.

I don't feel discussing racism is my place, since there are fantastic writers out there covering what's going on. You can go on Twitter and follow, in real time what's going on. You can watch guerilla journalism happening, and see what is and what isn't being represented by the media. 

I post on Pushing Hoops with Sticks' Tumblr just tore at me. 

i don’t think people will ever understand how tolling this shit is on black people. during the bulk of the ferguson/eric garner protests during november i fell into the deepest depression. i couldn’t fall asleep until 6 or 7 in the morning, my jaw was permanently clenched, no appetite. i had ridiculous migraines and i’m someone who rarely has headaches, i would cry out of nowhere, i felt paralyzed/paranoid in public around any white people even my own mother/friends. no one will ever understand how draining this is for us.

This is brutal. I feel so deeply for this. I don't know what it is to be black. But I've known discrimination, and I know pain. Not like this though. 

I might not be super effective at discussing everything that's going on, but I want words of support and kindness to come from me, and to be expressed outwardly towards all those marching, all those protesting, all those doing what they can while they can to fight the systems of oppression and corruption. 

Montreal has a big, thick history of protesting. We're big on unions, we're big on student strikes. There's a lot of racism here as well, the Montreal police department is part of that, as is the long history of the indigenous people of Canada. The Oka Crisis wasn't that long ago. There are ongoing reparation problems. There was a cultural genocide of natives here, and people consistently choose to ignore that. Hérouxville is still fresh. Our hands in Canada are just as dirty as the white majority of the U.S. There's a lot of work to be done. 

MLK said that riots are the voice of the unheard. We're seeing that now in Baltimore, and all across the United States. We're also seeing that locally here in Montreal, and globally as a show of support. 

I've read a few articles on how to show support and solidarity for people of colour, as a white person who lives with a certain type of privilege, and it seems the consensus is using your whiteness to confront the racism in white spaces. 

11 things white people can do to be real anti-racist allies

Dear white Facebook friends: I need you to respect what Black America is feeling right now

There's just a lot out there. I'm trying to stay abreast of the situation. It's just such a brutal time. It seems every-time I log into Twitter, there's a new name, another black man immortalized by a hash-tag. 

#Freddie Gray
#Michael Brown
#Trayvon Martin

I cannot imagine the way this demoralizes a community. I listened to Part 1 of This American Life's pod-cast on how Cops See it Differently, this disconnect between how police see what's going on, and how "regular people" see what's going on. 

All I hear in the pod-cast is the pain in the voices of those being interviewed. It's just so personal and raw. 

I just don't want to be silent and complicit in this. 

Baltimore riots: How the Western media would cover the unrest if it happened elsewhere

It's just so fucked.