For my capstone project I wanted to display a form of community service to the school by helping other students on their mental health. I was thinking, what is a more newer but still school appropriate way of getting the students to talk about their mental health. so I wanted to make a bulletin board for students to write down how they feel about their academic challenges or how to handle personal life in school life. It’s easy for a student to be stressed out when dealing with mental health issues, so the bulletin board I wanted to make I wanted to help students to feel more open about how they feel about school and how we can handle mental health and classrooms better. Mental health is important in schools for a bunch of reasons. For me to complete my Capstone I was talking to a lot of my family members because in my dad’s side of the family we struggle a lot on mental health. I was just talking to them about their experiences dealing with mental health and how it impacts the family. It’s hard dealing with mental health when your family isn’t so supportive of your decisions or can’t understand you when you go through something.

The first thing I want to talk about is how in The Handmaid’s Tale they aren’t allowed to look at magazines because they are outlawed. The whole idea of them being outlawed is because it will think of individuality and in Gilead which is a sin because the women are only supposed to think about bearing children. It also tells how women should dress, in the book it describes the colors of what the girls wear, and they all have no individuality for them to stand out from the rest. Sexuility has a lot to do with it too because in some magazines it shows nudity and skin and the point of being a “woman” is being modest for men so you can find a good husband because that’s what men like. One quote I found interesting was,“Staring at the magazine, as he dangled it before me like fish bait, I wanted it. I wanted it with a force that made the ends of my fingers ache. At the same time I saw this longing of mine as trivial and absurd, because I’d taken such magazines lightly enough once. I’d read them in dentists’ offices, and sometimes on planes; I’d bought them to take to hotel rooms, a device to fill in empty time while I was waiting for Luke. After I’d leafed through them I would throw them away, for they were infinitely discardable, and a day or two later I wouldn’t be able to remember what had been in them. Though I remembered now.” It reminded me of how women would have been inspiring the world with their creativity and showing their difference in the world.

Shopping was a big part of Gilead. The handmaid’s would grocery shop mostly everyday for their households, and it was a part of their “culture” since they did it a lot. This relates to the shopping bags because it shows what is acceptable for what women should do, and how a woman should accomplish her everyday duties. How women are viewed in the society like all women are good for is to bring home food and shop in piers to “safety” What roles a woman should play in being a handmaid.

The difference between modesty and immodesty is one tells more about what kind of girl you are. Modesty plays a big factor in in this book because the men believe that the women get raped or SA because of the clothes they wear. It also has to do with the bible, in the bible the women shouldn’t be showing no skin because it gives a man right to stare at her sexually and you would be a whore if you didn’t cover up. “Two-thirty comes during Testifying. It’s Janine, telling about how she was gang-raped at fourteen and had an abortion.But whose fault was it? Aunt Helena says, holding up one plump finger. Her fault, her fault, her fault. We chant in unison. Who led them on? She did. She did. She did. Why did God allow such a terrible thing to happen? Teach her a lesson. Teach her a lesson. Teach her a lesson.” Men try to explain this by covering up and we as women wouldn’t be seen as sexual beings.

We look over the men who watch the women when we walk by. We either have two emotions, Fear or Fancy. Most women are caught by fear when men creep upon girls who look and act a certain way for their personal gain, others fancy when men even breathe in their perimeter liking the attention that they bring. In the book “The Handmaids Tale” the women are like helpless swimming fish in the water needing to find its mate before they die. These ladies are forced to reproduce and have very strict rules in the land of Gilead.

The men uses the women for sex. Sex is important to the men to repopulate for a “better” lifestyle than what was becoming of the world. Women are seen as just to make babies and help out with house work, If you can’t repopulate that means you are less than a woman, therefore the only thing that makes you a woman is you have a vagina. One quote I found interesting was, “I don’t want to look at something that determines me so completely.” meaning to me, women are supposed to not step out of their comfort zone and to obey the man. Men are the leaders and they control the women so they are supposed to follow and not be determined in a sense of not being free and taking control. It goes into sex too because the handmaid doesn’t seem to be enjoying sexual benefits from the men in the book more so rather just doing what they are told to do..having babies.

But whose fault was it? Aunt Helena says, holding up one plump finger. Her fault, her fault, her fault, we chant in unison. Who led them on? Aunt Helena beams, pleased with us. She did. She did. She did. Why did God allow such a terrible thing to happen? Teach her a lesson. Teach her a lesson. Teach her a lesson.” This quote was very self hatred, For years women and men have blamed other women for getting SA or raped on how they look or acted towards men, Its never the man fault for making the woman uncomfortable or touching on her. The blame when women do it tells that they self hate on women and take sides with the man which is very misogynistic .How men pray on women as if their objects are sick and they like to play victim into making girls feel like its their fault that they should be blamed on facing sexual abuse problems.

When I was little I faced those similar problems too, relating this into the real world issues, Growing up as a young black girl sexual abuse and sexualizing is common. The older generation tells me that red lipstick is “too grown” for us when in reality you should be sexualizing young black girls and we just wanted to explore makeup. “There’s hardly any point in my thinking, is there? I say. What I think doesn’t matter. Which is the only reason he can tell me things.” Is a quote from the book which tells what a woman should and shouldn’t do. How we it’s no point of thinking because we have no right to think because we are simply just “women”. A man should only tell us what to do because they are superior to us and we have no right to believe what we believe. Relating that back to me, the men in the family would always say, “always listen to your husband when he’s talking to you” so I could be a better wife but in reality its only to keep men in power and to make women feel weak-minded when they are facing issues.

“There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don’t underrate it.” Spoke to me because as ladies we tend to be hushed down when having freedom. For years when women wanted to work the same jobs as men do, or have a different opinion than men. It was never what the women wanted more so what could benefit what the man wanted. This book had a lot of feminist beliefs and it took a good understanding of what the world would become if men controlled it and we would be used as pawns in their game of pleasure and resource. We should stand up for what we want to do, and speak on it.

In my last slate post I shared my knowledge about the topic colorism. Its a hard thing to go through, it can happen with your friends even your family. I wanted to let people know they are not alone when they face colorsim. Colorism is prejudice or discrimination against individuals with a dark skin tone, typically among people of the same ethnic or racial group: Only darker skin people experience this type of treatment because they are the ones that are oppressed by it, lighter skin people benefit from it.

This is what I did to spread awareness about the issue. I made a instagram post about it, it was a three part post and all my friends were so supportive. I want to have a interesting but straight to the point tile and I think this was good. I think this is the first time I felt like I’m doing a good thing (when I post about important topics and issues on my instagram stories). It’s like I’m actually telling the story and people are my listens and learners.

Some More Slides of it And how other people Help Out Too!!

As you can see My friends helped me repost and spread awareness too about the topic. I tried my best to reach out to so many people and I think I did a good job because if I see other people liking it then it must be good for people to realize it’s that important. I think I have the privilege to share about what I know about my topic and how it effects people with darker skin tone. I know it can be hard seeing yourself if you are dark in the media or just being in life because some people can not going to except you but If you are a dark skin person, just know you matter. Everything you do and say matters and you are a beautiful person, don’t like your skin color take over you… embrace yourself and own your skin.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MncAKWLOh34CGnLtcUt6gqkXVjmCvQpIIXmC7Cxhdek/edit?usp=sharing

Why does colorsim even exist in the black community? Why should it matter if my sister is darker than me pr my brother is lighter than me. Our blackness shouldn’t define who and what we are as people, and by colorsim it separate the black community. Colorism is discrimination against individuals with a dark skin tone, typically among people of the same ethnic or racial group, and it doesn’t only happens in the black community it happens everywhere around the world. But in this case, in the black community this hold a big impact on darker skin women in particular because they are the bottom end of this.

In the media it shows how they view the black women as if she is one category and shes mostly always going to be light skin. https://amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/apr/09/colorism-racism-why-black-people-discriminate-among-ourselves this website talks about how the media and even in everyday life darker skinned people are treated differently than lighter skinned people. Colorism doesn’t work for light skinned people, they are the ones who benefit from it. The TV dark skinned best friend or the dark skinned character were always made “manly” or “ ghetto” and being gentle or kind. Colorism does appear in everyday life, a light skinned woman/ male is more likely to be married. Different pay rates are not the same if you’re darker skinned, if you are darker skinned you are more likely to to be prison time more than lighter skin.

https://sites.wp.odu.edu/bodylore/2019/03/04/colorism-within-the-african-american-community/ This site explains how what colorism is and how it started back in slavery “Colorism within the black community dates back to slavery, for the lighter men/women were considered to be “house ni*****” while the darker tones were outside in the fields. Is it safe to say the white man created color separation within the African-American society?” and Slave owners were more “nicer” to the indoor slaves because they were the off springs’ of slave owners due to the raping of women. Slave owners usually did not want to claim or recognize their illegitimate children therefore, they were given special privileges instead” the talks about how it shows in the media. how you see the main character is light skinned or white most of the time and darkskin is the second lead.

https://www.idsnews.com/article/2020/11/black-vocies-colorism-is-a-plague-in-the-black-community This site is actually an interview, the people who were interviewed were college students. The first question was have you ever experienced colorism before, James Stewart said, “I’ve personally not had to go through colorism that concerned me, but I’ve seen my friend go through it. Someone who happened to be, of course, African American was speaking about how they hate light skins.” I think this really speaks the truth because some people hate light skins because they are the Exception of being black. if you are a dark skin black girl you tend to see a process in which people don’t find you beautiful so they tend to get jealous and don’t like light skinned black women. They asked the same question to DeDjreanna Thames and they said, “Yes. I grew up in a mostly Black neighborhood. I had girls jump me growing up because I was too light. I was told I didn’t belong because my skin wasn’t dark. I was picked on a lot because I was very light.” This is interesting because colorism doesn’t work for lighter skin people, you benefit from it not being hated just because you’re light skin. They are the ideal type of black girl to be, they jumped you because they were envious of you, not because you were light skin.

https://www.litwi.org/blog/colorism-among-the-black-community This article brings up how colorism does exist and it does appear i the black community. It’s very toxic because some black men or men in general wouldn’t date dark skin women. The reason why i said women is dark skin men are fetishized and looked over into being “sexy” or “fine pieces of chocolate”. Dark Skin women don’t get fetishized unless they have some sort of “white features” then you would be considered “exotic”.” The “paper bag test” is often utilized in black spaces and the hiring of black people in the 19th and 20th centuries. If someone is the same color as or lighter-skinned than a paper bag, they would be allowed into space/considered for hire. If they were any darker than a paper bag, they would not be allowed in that space/considered for that job.” This made me sad because I remember my great grandfather told me about this. and how they had a brown paper bag to tell you if you are good or not. “shows that dark-skinned women are less likely to be married than lighter-skinned women.” Yes I remember reading about this, it’s crazy how people are so anti dark skin and don’t want to marry them just because their oppressors made them think that way. https://www.nccj.org/colorism-0 This site explains the difference between Colorism: Racism: And Discrimination: And telling how if you experience that you would know which one it would be. It states, “Skin tone was often the most important factor in applying for work as a person of color in the mid-20th century. Light skin was often reported on a resume ahead of any other information or experience.” This isn’t a surprise for me, a lot of dark skinned people get declined based on their skin color. “Dark skinned defendants are more likely to be convicted and receive the death penalty than lighter skinned ones. | MS Magazine” This is heartbreaking because it shows how colorism is ingrained in society, you don’t ask to be born but you still have to handle a world that will decline you just because you have darker skin. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4365794/ This source talks about how darker skin men were more discriminated against than lighter skinned men. “It is not surprising that early research conducted following the emancipation of slaves found that African Americans were influenced by colorism.” I feel like it’s black men and women should fix that in the community, it’s so ingrained in the black community that colorism is hidden by “ preference“ and they would often say “I like light skins because dark skins are….” This is colorism!! It doesn’t matter if you have a lighter skin tone you still are black at the end of the day. “Indeed this interdependent orientation may extend to African American constructions of masculinity ideals as well. For example, masculinity research suggests that African American manhood is often constructed relationally.” Some black men wants to date a light skin women because they do not want their baby to be dark, I heard in many cases that if black men wants kids they go for light skins because obviously they are the perception of beauty but also they are worried about how dark they’re baby is going to be, which is strange because skin color doesn’t matter if you make a baby, you could both be dark skin but comes out with a brown skin or a lighter skin baby.

Where I created this was in my head, the questions I asked were what I would’ve thought to ask myself if I was in lock down. These questions are made for everyone, since everyone is different. I created this was with my friends, I wanted to do a person to person interview, but unfortunately due to COVID 19, that wasn’t possible. Mental health relates to this usual year because everyone was battling great loss in the country. Love ones were at risk of getting the most contagious viruses, not to able to see your friends or family either. Dealing with wearing masks, doing mostly everything virtual, that’s a lot for the mind. It’s important to make sure that were mentally doing okay this this crazy year, so many ups and downs through the year, we need to be positive about it! So that’s why mental health is so important when these stressful events happen, it’s important to say, “Hey I’m here for you”.