I find it difficult to understand Richard Davis's assertions of “cultural differences” and how Afghans “behave” in juxtaposition to the apparently homogeneous “us” here in the U.S. The underlying colonial message suggested we are more civilized in our behavior and it might be “difficult” for us to come in contact with our new Afghan neighbors. Moreover, I was disturbed by the level of racism, supremacy, and misleading information throughout his piece.
Davis asserts that the “political world [Afghans] come from [...] is immersed in bribery and abuses of power.” Davis either has historical amnesia or ignorance, a characteristic product of our education system.
After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the U.S. armed fundamentalist militias, wreaking havoc on the country and giving rise to Taliban power in 1996.
The post 9/11 U.S. presence in Afghanistan (an abuse of power, by the way) was accompanied by the familiar guise of noble humanitarian missions to “liberate” women. People may remember Laura Bush and her 2001 impassioned radio address to fight for the dignity of Afghan women, as if Afghan women were passive actors, obscuring the decades of political work of women activists in their own country.
You may have seen the Solidarity Friday demonstrations on the Pliny Park corner that began last summer and continued into the fall. In-person actions were paused due to Covid restrictions, but we continued meeting (via Zoom), learning about our shared concerns, and building our coalition. In the ongoing work...
The awareness around intimate partner violence (IPV) has been brought to the fore with the COVID-19 pandemic - media attention has highlighted that globally, women already experiencing abuse are at risk of heightened violence along with a general proliferation of IPV overall during the pandemic. Pandemic or not, however,
At the Opiate Public Forum on June 20 at the Brattleboro Central Fire Station, Dr. Kate McGraw opened by calling the current rise in opiate-related overdoses and deaths in Windham County a “health crisis” - echoing the “public health crisis” discourse taking place on a national level. Dr. McGraw's words were followed by many throughout the evening voicing that addiction is a “disease” - again, in line with the national conversation happening around the issue. This wording and “disease model”