As many of you know, I'm dating a soon-to-be cop and I am the first person to jump in and say that you only hear about the bad ones, and they're just trying to do their job and get home to their families, etc., etc. However, as a radical feminist who's studied social movements for many years, I have a strong, healthy fear of the police as a whole. Even though I have no background on what's going on here, this picture terrifies me.
@kelsium: if you google "Rodrigo Rosenberg" on youtube you can see the video he made days before his death calling out President Colom, his wife and a secretary for his death (which, obvs, had not come to pass). You can also find the transcript of his speech on boing boing. Although what happened is terrible I am glad that the public has finally strated to stand up en masse in Guatemala against extrajudicial killings. Nobody cared when it was just street kids for years but now no one can deny that it's a government policy.
@AvaBaer: Every time I see/hear that, I think of the scene from Pineapple Express and just start laughing. I'm not the only one that found that movie hilarious, am I?
So the rumours that she fabricated part of her stories aren't true? Not being snarky. I'd heard that she falsified some of the stories, I'd be very glad to know that wasn't true after all. She seems like an incredible lady.
@Lolainblackglasses: For the book, she took stories of other women around her and added them to her narrative. (At least this is the way it was presented to us reading the book in High school 8 years ago) I don't think there is anything wrong with telling other's stories as well as her own, even if it isn't prefaced that way in the book.
@Lolainblackglasses: I actually just finished taking a class discussing Rigoberta. There are specific data in her story that may or may not be true - how many people died, whether her family died in the manner the book describes, who was involved in what organizations when. HOWEVER: most of the Latin American Studies community agrees that the book is entirely truthful in spirit. No one discounts the importance of her contribution to Latin American Studies, the genre of testimonio, or human rights.
Rigoberta is an incredible woman, but she is not a saint. It's unfair to expect her to be. Not every word, not every fact in her book has to be true for it to be an important piece of work. After the controversy over the book broke, the Nobel prize committee released a statement that her prize was not based simply on the book, but on her entire body of work.
Also, it is important to be aware that the main source of the controversy, which was a critique written by an anthropologist named David Stoll, never intended to deny her work's importance, or the existence of the genocide committed against Guatemalan indigenous groups. It was interpreted that way by a faction of Latinamericanists, but Stoll has always insisted that he respects the book and the work, he simply wished to apply the same level of critique to Rigoberta's account that would be applied to any other.
11/17/09
How gut wrenching. #guatemalaviolenceagainstwomen
11/02/09
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[www.salon.com]
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Rigoberta is an incredible woman, but she is not a saint. It's unfair to expect her to be. Not every word, not every fact in her book has to be true for it to be an important piece of work. After the controversy over the book broke, the Nobel prize committee released a statement that her prize was not based simply on the book, but on her entire body of work.
Also, it is important to be aware that the main source of the controversy, which was a critique written by an anthropologist named David Stoll, never intended to deny her work's importance, or the existence of the genocide committed against Guatemalan indigenous groups. It was interpreted that way by a faction of Latinamericanists, but Stoll has always insisted that he respects the book and the work, he simply wished to apply the same level of critique to Rigoberta's account that would be applied to any other.
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