What's Chava Possum Up to Today?
A REBEL WRITER’S WEEKLY BLOG
As y’all can see, my custom portrait is done! Thanks so much to PossumMood for this adorable sketch of me, Chava Possum, in my natural habitat. If you visit the How to Support Me page, you can see a second portrait that may be cuter than this one, if that’s even possible. Please go visit their online store here!
In other fun news, this week I published a sneak peek at a brand new fictional serial called The Bellview Lunch Lady Rebellion, about how four lunch ladies' plan to rid the school of its army recruitment officer turns into a community-care revolution.
Growing up in Appalachia, the military is an ever-present pillar of the community; it represents a value system that defines each of us within a spectrum of morality. The military infiltrated and influenced more and more of my daily life as a child, especially after 9/11 and the Bush administration’s “war on terror” whose violence continues to this day. I never really thought about why there were military recruiters at my school. It’s like they had always been there— like a school nurse or the front desk staff, just another adult in the building. I never really questioned why JROTC was a thing either. The parade of students wearing light brown uniforms carrying the flag at the beginning of a pep rally felt so distant from me and my life. But now, as a grown possum, I started to reflect on how the military embedded itself in my school and the repercussions for other kids, especially Black and Brown students and low-income students, who are the primary targets of military recruiters in schools.
Over the last few years, I’ve been studying suicide and how it is perpetuated by capitalism and white supremacy and, likewise, how suicide can be prevented by dismantling oppressive systems. Naturally, I found myself reading about suicide in the military.
“Research reveals numerous physical and mental health risks from joining the military at a young age — including higher rates of substance abuse, depression, PTSD, and suicide.”
But I also learned that it’s the military recruiters who may actually suffer from some of the highest rates of suicide in the military, due to the stressful task of meeting quotas for new recruits. When I read stories of recruiters who either died by suicide or attempted it, I saw that recruitment isn’t good for the recruits or the recruiters. Who’s winning here? U.S imperialism wins at the expense of everyone else, including its own soldiers. Suicide rates in the military reveal the cyclic nature of trauma. It’s a matter of breaking the cycle and I personally believe that the first step is to get the military out of our schools.
Children are lured into enlisting by economic stressors in their lives. For instance, if you’re from a working-class family and someone falls ill, all of a sudden, there isn’t enough money to pay for medical bills or prescriptions. It’s the kids who then have to step up and help provide for their family, inevitably pushing their education into the background. When a military recruiter shows up at school saying how if you enlist, you can get a free college education, or access to healthcare, or even a path to citizenship, it sounds like a dream come true. But recruiters will only tell one side of the story, neglecting to talk honestly with children about the reality of depression, PTSD, and suicide that’s coming down the pike. If we— the community— stepped up and covered each other’s basic needs, then maybe the military wouldn’t have so much power over kids. Maybe if we did our job of taking care of one another, then kids wouldn’t have to be shipped off to war just for the chance at an education, or healthcare, or citizenship, or any of the carrots recruiters dangle in their faces. Wouldn’t it be nice if the federal government actually tried to take care of people? But we know they won’t and never will, so it comes down to us at the community-level to set the tone. That’s really what this serial is about.
It’s easy to get depressed thinking about the cycle of harm that the military keeps churning. Once you see the devastation, it’s hard to imagine solutions or means of repair. It feels insurmountable. Mainly to make myself feel better, I decided to look at one specific branch of the problem: military recruitment in high schools, and walk through how one might go about reducing the military’s influence there. Lo and behold, I found examples of real-life schools that succeeded! Enter Garfield High School in Seattle Washington. Their PTA (Parent-Teacher Association) took decisive and bold actions to limit military recruiters’ access to students. Although they didn’t completely rid the school of the military, they made substantive strides towards limiting their power.
“Recruiter visits were limited to one per semester, visits were to be announced in advance, and military recruiters were no longer free to roam through the school building. Counterrecruiters were to be invited when the military was on-site to provide information on the enlistment contract, the realities of military life, and alternatives to the military for funding college.” — Should We End Military Recruiting in High Schools as a Matter of Child Protection and Public Health?
This example really got me thinking: what other systems within our schools and districts can wield their power to protect students? What other creative measures can be implemented to get students’ basic needs covered? How can the community get involved to support students in their learning, growth, and happiness? The Bellview Lunch Lady Rebellion explores these questions, utilizing a fictional space to experiment with creative, real-world solutions to big problems.
Episode 1 will be released at the end of March, with new episodes each month. All episodes will be published here on Rebel-Mouthed Books.
Follow the story and learn more about army recruitment in our schools @lunchrebellion on Twitter.