Like many others I have been trying to make sense of a seemingly endless stream of violence in the news the past few weeks. Though there have been dozens of topics to write and reflect on, I didn’t feel like I had anything coherent to say. I struggled to keep up with and make sense of not only the “facts”, but the stream of reactions and commentary that goes with them. By the time the recent shooting at the Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs happened, and the social and news media streams turned into what felt like solid vitriol and caps lock, I just shut down and curled up in bed. I needed time to process it all.
A few days before this event in Colorado I had an idea for a blog post. I had been listening to the radio and “What do you mean?” by Justin Bieber had come on. This brought back a conversation I had with a friend a few months earlier when the song hit the radio. We have an ongoing discussion on how popular songs do or don’t reinforce rape culture and issues of sexual consent for women. We had difficulty making a final determination on this song.
"a culture that is uncomfortable with ambivalence and the simultaneous existence of contradictory ideas and feelings. We want things black or white."
