Monday, August 04, 2014

Stolen labor


There is a one day delay in getting to the incident I referred to Wednesday, because something came up that is time-sensitive.

Of course Wednesday was talking about efforts to silence women. I don't have time to work with all the aspects of the dehumanization that comes into play in its many aspects. There is a trend in society now to not value people or there work.

That can be something as simple as people not paying for music because they don't have to, even though they like the music and the people that make it. It can take the form of not paying interns, or offering to give freelancers exposure instead of money, because you can get away with it.

Sometimes, it can go like this:


I felt sick when I read this. I contributed to that Kickstarter. I felt like it was an important story, which is still true, but the tellers are falling into some of the same historical patterns that have created the story. I don't think there are bad intentions, but there is a lack of realization of where there should be credit, and permission, and boundaries.

The filmmakers do seem to be learning from this, and trying to adapt:


That is still ongoing, but already better than the next story:


In the college's own response they refer to plagiarism, and then put it aside. There are horrible messages here for the students, and again, over and over there is this erasure, and discounting. Sometimes it is accidental and sometimes it is malevolent, but when you erase people in the process of doing projects about the erasure of people, there is a special level of amazement.

Tomorrow one topic that will come up is enacting labor, and so today's post is probably helpful for providing examples of what the costs can be, and why it is not always worth it. However, the real reason that I am posting this today is for this:


They are trying to turn a negative into a positive, to raise the same level of funding that someone thought their work was worth if done by someone else, and then to expand the educational efforts, because they will not be silenced.

Please help them out.

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