Culture (Op-Ed)

One for The Ouens: A Coloured Narrative

7/22/2019

By Shauneez Rigney
watermelaninmag.com

Due to recent events it seemed fitting that my next article be one that accounts for the narrative of the coloured discourse and culture. We’re reaching a time where coloured people are becoming exasperated from being “fence sitters” and living in a society that never has a place for us. We’ll make that place for ourselves now, by disrupting everyone’s perspectives of coloured people, the way we are represented in the media, underrepresented in politics, disregarded and underestimated in society. The cape flats, a place where gang violence thrives and regal drug lords build their empires. Domestic violence and all types of criminal activities are loose on the streets like a dark omen creeping around corners, robbing families of a safe place to live. On the 18th of July 2019 the residence of the cape flats felt hope restored to their futures as they watched the SANDF march eminently through the streets. The legitimacy of deploying an army to manage criminal activity, as opposed to war, brought up some conflicting opinions. Considering the crime rate of the country, the drastic way seems like the only way for change to come about. The trouble comes when we think the problem will be solved that easily when the root causes are overlooked and avoided.

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The Third Culture in Religion

6/10/2019

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By Shauneez Rigney
watermelaninmag.com

Image by Pascal c/o nappy.co

Third culture is defined as the cultural common ground one forms for themselves when they have a bicultural upbringing, in other words, being raised by parents who are from two different cultures or countries and therefore forming your own culture as a result of being able to relate, or not, to both cultures. That’s the third culture, geographically, but what about religiously? Our beliefs form part of our identity whether you believe in a God or not, practice any sort of religion or not. I’m raised in a family where two religions are practiced, Islam and Christianity, and I’ve found myself forming my own third culture between both religions which impact my beliefs of society, myself, life, feminism and even relationships and who I feel I connect with more. Forming a third culture within religion may be complete blasphemy to some because religion is seen as something that is either or, no in between, but it’s the most crucial place for a third culture to exist, it is the most important place to allow for adaptability and relativity, your culture and your traditions are a part of home to take with you wherever you go in life. Expecting people to confine themselves to one way of life, one belief system and one set of traditions is asking too much. Human beings are not one dimensional so why should our beliefs be.

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Millennials: A Contradictory Generation

5/1/2019

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by Shauneez Rigney

Image by Snappy

The whole world, has their reservations about Millennial's. Maybe it’s our unique work ethic, our inclination to solve everything digitally, the pressing urge to document every aspect of our lives, or the vast lengths we’ll go to get that perfect Instagram post. Those are just characteristics that are perceived unconventional by previous generations who have not accepted or adapted to the new world and fail to understand that although it seems like we do not have a struggle, we are constantly fighting inner turmoil’s of social anxiety and grappling with the idea of gender and sexuality and the stereotypes that come with it. Our abstract issues are disregarded but, these struggles of ours just form the natural order of societal issues, past generations fought the tangible and now, the next step is the emotional social issues that have always loomed above us and matter just as much.

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A Hijab In The Classroom Won’t Change You

1/3/2019

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by Sahrish Hadia
www.watermelaninmag.com

Image by DGT Portraits c/o Pexels

It has been a poorly-kept secret that in the last few years, tensions in Britain have been high. Brexit may have been our ‘official’ indicator – but to those who did not ‘fit the mold’, we noticed the tears in the fabric of our society long ago. As a country, we have been fraying for some time. Changing immigration laws, vitriolic attacks on innocent pedestrians, the rise of far-right groups; Britain is becoming increasingly less ‘united’ as the years progress.

Conversely, it seems that as the world is getting bigger, our minds are becoming smaller.

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The Invisibility and Hyper-Visibility of Muslim Girls in Education

12/9/2018

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by Atter Kalsi
www.watermelaninmag.com

Photo by rawpixel c/o Unsplash

"Why does the visible matter so much in this world? Why does everything seem to come down to what we see, to what is skin-deep, to what is on the surface? No matter what anti-racist science says, and it currently says we are all the same, from the same common ancestor ‘out of Africa’, young black people in Britain, those marked by physical, phenotypical, external, visible difference- those with dark skin, curly hair, almond eyes, full lips, proud noses- do not enjoy the same opportunities as young white people" (Mirza, 2009, p.44).

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It Happens Here

11/13/2018

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by Christopher Soriano
www.watermelanin.com

Photo by Devin Avery c/o unsplash

Santa Cruz is also one of the most expensive cities in the country. The city has been experiencing an influx of techies from Silicon Valley. It’s caused the housing prices to go up at a staggering rate, becoming twice as that of Watsonville. It’s pushed plenty of people out as employees from Silicon Valley start taking over, willing to commute through highway 17 just to enjoy their new conquered homes with the nice weather and the beach right next door.
Gentrification is not exclusive to Santa Cruz county. The effects are more evident in cities like San Francisco where businesses are propping up like rabbits, driving the smaller POC-owned businesses out of business. They are always the first to go.

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Day of the Dead

10/31/2018

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by Iván Sandoval
www.watermelaninmag.com

Dia de los Muertos celebrations have appeared in movies like James Bond, Superman, The Book of Life, and Coco in varying degrees of accuracy to the holiday and its authenticity of Mexican culture. Although I love seeing the festivities dear to my culture on screen, there are a couple misconceptions about what Dia de los Muertos represents to Mexican people.

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The Real Price of a Cheeseburger

10/30/2018

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by Amiah Taylor
www.watermelaninmag.com

Photo by Olu Eletu c/o nappy.co

I was talking to my father the other day about the commonalities between race talk and gender talk. What's said and explicitly represented in private conversations often falls short in real life—a marked attitude-behavior gap. This gap refers to the idea of personal attitudes not matching public behavior. This cognitive dissonance is more common than you might think. Often it comes from a lack of personal discomfort despite understanding, on an intellectual level, that an issue is wrong. It is difficult to understand the daily obstacles of a queer LGBT individual if you are heterosexual, just as it is difficult to internalize the struggles of a Black man if you’re not Black and so on and so forth.

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Never Sent, Never Forgotten

10/20/2018

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by Saint Rote
www.watermelaninmag.com

Photo by Debbie Hudson c/o unsplash

A warning drum crescendoed with every tap of your fingertips, preparing me for a battle I’ve already fought too many times before. Because you mistook my pigtails and baby teeth as a sign of child but failed to realize that I was a veteran of the war that ran rampant through my mind, a mental martyr to myself.

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