Today's trend, tomorrow's trash

By Sofía Mendoza (undergraduate Business Management student, level 6 English)

Fashion has always been part of our culture. It is a way of expressing ourselves. Getting dressed is part of our lives, but is this reason enough to end the entire planet? The textile industry is the second most polluting on the planet after the oil industry. Despite this, our consumer society led us to change the trend model of the textile industry. Nowadays, the textile industry has a fast fashion instead of the four seasonal trends previously used. Today you don't buy clothes, you buy garbage.

Keeping up with fashion these days is very difficult, irresponsible and useless. It is expected that every two weeks new clothes are bought, and tons of garbage are thrown away. On the other hand, having excessive amounts of clothing has never been essential to humans. In fact, on average 20 pieces of clothing are produced per year for every person on the planet. This fast fashion model makes us believe we are buying clothes at low prices, but the truth is that we are buying disposable clothes which will soon become garbage for us and the world.

Fast fashion companies produce at the expenses of the destruction of the planet, inhuman treatment and violation of their worker’s rights. For example, the 85% of micro plastic contamination in the oceans comes from the domestic washing of synthetic garments, as simple as washing polyester clothes can send 1900 microfibers directly to the ocean. Also, most of this companies prefer to have their factories in underdeveloped countries where they are not forced to have good conditions for the people who work for them. All this proves the damage that can be caused by buying more with less.

All in all, fast fashion shows that the only thing that can do quick is to end up the planet’s resources and landscapes. The humanity should start thinking about our excessive consumer mentality, because buying what we really need allows us to save money, help the planet and feel good about ourselves. There are some practices that as individuals we can carry out to reduce our environmental impact with the rational use of fashion: buy national clothes, buy clothes from companies with sustainable production processes and fairly treatment to their employees, buy second-hand clothes, rent or borrow clothes if it is for single use, take care of the washing cycles, repair our clothes before thinking of throwing them away… Remember, there is no more sustainable garment than what already exists.

Beauty far way from our senses

By Daniel Felipe Vargas Pérez (3rd semester undergraduate Economics student, level 6 English)

Daily we are bombarded with stereotypes and margins about the beauty of things and people. Nevertheless, beauty has a meaning that goes beyond what we can see, as it is shown in the film The Most Beautiful Thing, directed by Cameron Covell. 

With a perfect combination of a pacific background sound and a familiar atmosphere, the plot alows us to be in the shoes of this outcast boy called Brandon, well acted by Nick López, whose life is permeated with solitude and the monotony that shelters him under the deep social isolation that he lives. On the other hand, Brandon'sl life is not as bad as it seems. Things take a 180-degree turn when he meets a girl called Emily who can't speak and goes through a similar situation to him. 

It is here when an unexpected plot change appears and  loneliness becomes the bridge between their lives. For Brandon an opportunity to take a different attitude and get ouf ot monotony. And for Emily,  with an exceptional and natural performance of Analisa Gutiérrez, the chance to have in her life a person who can encourage her to do things she couldn't have done without Brandon´s support. 

The film takes us to the deep chambers of our soul, where we can ask ourselves about the connection we have with people and how that connection is built throught support and empathy. In summary, this is a film that awakens in us reflection and introspection, about values and human affection. Which leads us to questions like: Is life really always as sad as we see it? And with its argument, the film could answer: there is always something to see beyond the simplicity of what our eyes show. 

Aporophobia

By Karen Julieth Cubides Sarmiento (1st semester FIGRI student, Level 6 English)

Imagine living on the streets without a house, food or money. Traying to survive with nothing more than a few clothes. Hoping to have, at the end of the day, some food to feed your family. Imagine walking entire days through a new country looking for a new future. Or beg to others for money to live with the minimum life conditions possible. Moreover, hearing your children and family complain of hunger and tiredness because the situation. In addition to all this problem, the discrimination takes place, or as the philosopher Alicia Cortina calls it: aporophobia.  The massive immigration of Venezuelan people to Colombia has increase the levels of poverty, and in consequence, the aporophobia has become more evident. Venezuelans must do a long trip to arrive a new country where they don’t own nothing, and probably, where they don’t have anyone to help them.

Aporophobia: this term was introduced for the first time in 2017 by Alicia Cortina. It is the fear, phobia or social rejection to poor people. As Cortina says, it’s related to xenophobia, racism and other types of discrimination. An aporophobia’s important characteristic is that it’s mostly directed to foreign poor people, like migrants and refugees. “Nobody complains that an Arab sheikh is installed in a European country, nor to facilitate the residence of a famous soccer player.” (Perez, M. 2018).  

Nevertheless, we don’t need to go to the other side of the world to demonstrate that aporophobia is an actual issue. In Colombia, there are some clear examples of it. One of those is Farmatodo, this is a big Venezuelan drugstore supermarket chain. When this company set up in the country it was well received because the company’s owner is part of a rich family and it’s a rich company. But, unfortunately, the Venezuelan poor migrants aren’t received in the same way. And this is because they are poor.

On the other hand, it’s no secret that some Venezuelan people came to Colombia to do illegal activities, such like steal or participate in drug trafficking. Also, with the arrive of thousands and thousands of people, the situation for the less benefited Colombian families has get worse because the employers prefer contract Venezuelan employees to pay them less salaries, increasing the unemployment for Colombian citizens.

Finally, it’s true that everyone must deal with different situations, some are luckier than others. The respect is the key to a peaceful coexistence, so before discriminating or attack a migrant we need to ask ourselves if we would like to be treated with hate. In other words, we must “put ourselves in the shoes of others” to understand their situation and avoid the aporophobia. With the understanding of the citizens and the help of the government through public polices, Colombia would be able to escape of the effects of the aporophobia.

The Invisible Man: Taking Gaslighting to the Extreme

Article by Valentina Castro (undergraduate FIGRI student), with additional style corrections by Laura López (undergraduate Journalism student)

This article includes spoilers for the 2020 film The Invisible Man.

The origin of the term gaslighting comes from a 1933 play called Gaslight in which the protagonist is constantly manipulated by her husband into believing that she is going mad. This is recurrent behaviour in abusive relationships in which the abuser may even convince you that you have imagined or exaggerated the abuse he has inflicted on you. The Invisible Man, an adaptation that portrays the problematic situation of these times, shows us Cecilia, magnificently interpreted by Elizabeth Moss, and her abusive relationship with a multimillionaire expert in the field of optics, who harasses and assaults her even after his apparent suicide.

The plot is as follows: Cecilia barely manages to escape from the house in which she was confined by her partner, after which her best friend gives her refuge. Two weeks later, her sister tells her that she can now stop worrying for her safety as her husband had committed suicide. However, it doesn't take long before she begins to feel that someone is watching her, and she decides to tell both her sister and her best friend that her husband is still around. She believes that he has managed to stay unseen and that knows that he, as an expert in optics, is capable of doing something like that. Nobody believes her, and after Cecilia’s sister is attacked in a public place, she is framed for it. Cecilia is labelled as crazy and put in a mental institution. There, her brother-in-law tells her that all her problems can come to an end if she accepts that she’ll have the baby and return to her husband: the man who got her pregnant without her consent.

It feels like this adaptation was necessary because it shows how far the abuse suffered by a woman can extend in a romantic relationship and also because it responds to a current reality in which we have movements like #MeToo and the worldwide performances of A Rapist In Your Path. It is thanks to these that many women have found the courage to talk about the abusive situations they have been subjected to out loud, and feel the empathy and support of many other women who have gone through a similar thing.

The Invisible Man shows gaslighting taken to the extreme. It shows us a man who is able and willing to become invisible and fake his own death just to torment the woman who dared to run away from him and his aggressions. But not only that; it also shows us the reaction of all the people around her, who not for one moment stopped to reason what she was saying to them, even though she was the one who knew him the most and therefore knew how far he was capable of going. They put her into an institution even before asking what she thought was happening. Which also reminds us of those times when women were diagnosed with female hysteria for expressing strong emotions and therefore received the “treatment” of sexual stimulation because this hysteria was believed to be characteristic of repressed sexual desire. Does this argument of lack of sex sound familiar? This way of thinking goes back a long way and has managed to survive until today.

It is undeniable that many of us have gone through this type of situation, in which we are not only victims of the gaslighting that comes from those who abuse us, but from the people we turn to for support. They call us exaggerated, weak, and hysterical. Many of us have felt the despair of feeling that asking for help is as ineffective as shouting under water, as speaking to a deaf person. But it hurts much more, because we know that the people we are turning to are not deaf, nor under water. We feel invalidated and irrelevant, as if our testimonies, our positions, and our struggles are not in fact the result of structural problems and systematic behaviour.

This situation, which is historical in nature, is what makes the networks that are woven between women so valuable and fundamental to a democratic society. They are alliances that are formed to survive the asphyxiation of male violence against us. We invented safe spaces back in the 80's and that is when the most important theorists of feminism discovered that these feelings were not the result of individual experiences but of individualized ones, which is an important distinction. Therefore, it is important to talk, to communicate, and to be taken seriously. Only in this way can we see the root of the problem, of our oppression.

Goodbye, Little Richard

By: Juliana Bernal Barbosa (Musical Roots: An Exploration elective)

Imagine being so amazing that just by being yourself and expressing your personality you manage to create a new music genre. This was what Little Richard did; he started as a nobody and finished as one of the most important artists of all times considered the “Architect of Rock and Roll”. I think there is no soul in this world that can’t recognize “Tutti Frutti”, one of his most famous songs, but sadly his name is not as well spread as his song, at least not within the people of my generation and Latin America. I myself didn’t know him until this year. This is why I thought about writing this article in his memory.

Little Richard was not only the architect of Rock and Roll but influenced another new music genre that is Rock. Without both these music genres, I believe, none of our lives would be the same. Little Richard influenced The Rolling Stones and The Beatles and not just with his incredible talent and ingenuity but also with his amazing personality: Paul McCartney even considered him as a friend. His song “Long Tall Sally” has its own Beatles version but its story is much more interesting.

As you can imagine, Little Richard’s life was never easy, especially at the beginning. Always discriminated for being black in a world in which the system was afraid of black men getting power, money and fame. US records, radios and even people preferred to plagiarise a good song created by a black man, and that is what they did with “Long Tall Sally”. This is just an example of what hatred and ignorance can do in a society, but it was not the only bad experience Little Richard had. He was always in the shadow of white artists performing the genre he created and who also took all the fame and worldwide recognition such as Elvis Presley, whom I’m pretty sure everyone has heard of. Little Richard was condemned to fight the scorn of a system that wasn’t ready for him, as it wasn't for many other black artists.

Nevertheless, with time, Little Richard obtained lots of prizes and titles that most musicians can only dream of. He was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Recording Academy and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation, he won a Grammy and had also won lots of other recognition. Additionally, he fought hard to stop racial divisions in the music lists. In the end, there is no doubt he was an extraordinary man, with an amazing talent but also an advocate for black rights.

Goodbye Little Richard, and thank you.