Saturday, January 30, 2016

Noma Dumezweni as Hermione Granger




**This was published on my tumblr page: arianaburrell.tumblr.com on Jan 19, 2016. I forgot to repost it here.
 

Image compiled by @alwaysdragxns on twitter.
A few weeks ago I mentioned the Ava Duvernay Barbie dolls. JK Rowling wrote a play called Harry Potter and the Cursed Child which takes place nineteen years after the end of Deathly Hollows. Noma Dumezweni has been cast as Hermione, to the delight of tumblr and millions of Harry Potter fans. JK Rowling defended the casting choice and responded with this tweet in regards to some of the backlash.




I always loved the racebending on tumblr for all media. I’m really excited that the same content is being shown with multiple races present. Between this news and Hamilition’s existence, it’s nice to see me represented in mass media as something more than our history. 
I’ve been trying to stay on top of the news regarding the refugee crisis. I thought about housing, food, education, assimilation. I never thought about citizenship. In America, you’re automatically a citizen if you are born on American soil. A simple law, easy to understand. In other parts of the world that is not the case.  In Syria, citizenship can only be inherited from the father. Many refugees are single mothers entering Europe without nationality papers. There are millions of people that can’t vote or gain or employment or exist fully in any country because they don’t have citizenship anywhere. This guardian articlegoes into more detail about a problem that I didn’t know existed but will have a huge impact for millions of people. 




“You probably knew a girl like me in grade school: a girl that mostly kept to herself, didn’t talk much and hardly ever raised her hand in class. You probably knew her as “shy” and “quiet” and “introverted,” adjectives that pair well with “bookish” and “nerdy” in an attempt to make it seem like you knew more about her personality than you actually did. If you were friends with her, you knew she just took awhile to “warm up” to people. If you weren’t, you had no idea how much she had to say…” 
I read this article on femsplain and said “this is me”. I was and still am the quiet, bookish girl who has a lot to say but most people don’t know that when first meeting me.
“…Women need to speak differently than men Mr. Johnson. Our voice inflection needs to go up at the end of sentences or we’ll seem too “headstrong.” We need to apologize for speaking. And then apologize for apologizing. We must pepper our speeches with “I don’t know’s”,“ maybe’s” and “excuse me’s…”
When you edit yourself each week for your youtube channel you become hyper aware of your speech patterns. I do this all of the time. Apologizing before speaking, starting a sentence with “I don’t know” so I don’t come on too strong. Too many “wells” and “maybe” instead of stating my point.  






“I wrote Ribcage in response to a moment in time where someone used my vulnerability for profit. In the most irrelevant and unexpected way, I was asked about my history of sexual abuse on a live television talk show. I felt humiliated and enraged that my abuse was used as a tool for ratings. After the show, I wanted to shut down. I thought, “why continue to be open about my trauma if it is going to be used in a way that harms me?” After some healing and a lot of thought, I knew that I had to continue my path of speaking out, and that the incident that happened on television was an opportunity to educate, rather than shut down. I’ve learned one important thing: no one is ever entitled to your story, and no one can tell it the way you can. I still believe in the power of vulnerability; that openness is the key to empathy, and that empathy is the key to honest, human connection. Though Ribcage is a dark take on vulnerability, it’s a real one. It’s mine.”

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