Hey all,

Please check out this performance during a slang poetry reading. I think she touches on important ideas of identity, privilege, and inequity that we discussed.

I used it in my ESL classes and students of all ages feel inspired. Just wanted to share along.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paM03zurPQw

These pictures remind me of our last class' discussion on Gutierrez and Rogoff' critique that treating cultural differences as individual traits works as a form of cultural reductionism....

Check out this link to picts:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/behold/2012/11/28/julian_germain_photographs_of_classroom_portraits_around_the_world.html

Hello everybody,

hope you all had a nice break. I am sitting here in my cold room being all warmed up by rhizomes and desiring machines. Really, I am thinking about the ways I can operationalize Tuck's framework of desire in PAR work within the immigrant community. I am also much eager to engage with the community in ways that they are primarely the ones "holding the power to make changes".

If you are interested in digging some more into Tuck's theorazing about change and community action, I recommend you check her excellent reading/call for community activism and protagonism: "Suspending Damage: A Letter to Communities".


The following is the abstract:

"In this open letter, Eve Tuck calls on communities, researchers, and educators to reconsider the long-term impact of “damage-centered” research—research that intends to document peoples’ pain and brokenness to hold those in power accountable for their oppression. This kind of research operates with a flawed theory of change: it is often used to leverage reparations or resources for marginalized communities yet simultane- ously reinforces and reinscribes a one-dimensional notion of these people as depleted, ruined, and hopeless. Tuck urges communities to institute a moratorium on damage- centered research to reformulate the ways research is framed and conducted and to reimagine how findings might be used by, for, and with communities."

Hello,

In case you are interested, I thought I'd share with some a couple of photovoice images from a PAR project with Latina mothers. These are amongst others prompted important discussions.

Be well

Danger of the single story

Hello Everyone,

In our class on November 7th, we will be discussing closely the ideas about complications and hauntings that Avery Gordon writes about in the opening chapter to Ghostly Matters. We will also collectively view this video, which focuses on the danger of the single story - a realized danger in much of social science. Our task: how to avoid telling single, simple stories that obscure the complexity of individuals, spaces, institutions, and society.

Interesting Post on Affirmative Action

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/education/edlife/affirmative-action-a-complicated-issue-for-asian-americans.html?hp

Ojibwe: Language and meaning

Full radio show for the excerpt we listened to in class on October 17, 2012

On our Affirmative Action Conversation from last week

 

MSNBC co-host Melissa Harris-Perry has written an open letter to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas because she is not satisfied with his position on affirmative action.

Harris-Perry asserts that both Thomas and Abigail Fisher, the woman suing the University of Texas, have interpreted affirmative action “all wrong”.

Fisher was an honors student who was not admitted into the University of Texas and she says that she was not admitted because she’s white. She claims that other students in her class who had lower grades than her were accepted into the University of Texas and “the only difference between us was the color of our skin.”
Gregory Garre, the lawyer for the University of Texas said that “Fisher would not have been admitted, no matter what her race.” He goes on to say,

“Even if Abigail Fisher had received a perfect Personal Achievement Index score she would not have been admitted … because her Academic Index was simply not high enough.”

Harris-Perry argues that minimizing the accomplishments of black people is not a legacy of affirmative action but is instead a legacy of racism.

“We need generations to break down the barriers that divide us, and do you know one of the important places where that work begins? In college classrooms, diverse classrooms, the kind of classrooms that affirmative action has created. And here’s something I’ve learned as a college professor. The measure of merit isn’t the test you take to get into school, it’s what you learn after you’ve been admitted and what do you with that knowledge once you’ve left.”

Applying CRT as a framework - practice

The Unnatural Causes video on immigrant populations and health brought up a few points about institutionalized discrimination, but elided many others.

Use this thread to make any points about the video you wish, or pose questions.

I was heartened to hear one researcher ask, "What are we doing in this country that makes healthy people unwell," but disheartened that such a blunt label as 'immigrant' was used when we are speaking more specifically about institutionalized race and class discrimination.

Why Are Mothers And Fathers Still At A Disadvantage At Work?

I enjoyed reading the article about Maddow and found this post alongside it. Since several of us are already parents and others may take on this role at some point, I thought I would share this. I think the parental discrimination in the workplace is a major societal issue that is experienced very differently but equally painfully for mothers and fathers.

When my husband and I had our children, he took paternity leave under FMLA, and we were shocked both by his employer's response, "You are crazy; you'll be climbing the walls after a few days!" and the responses of our friends, "Wow! That's amazing your company let you do that; mine never would." These men clearly had no knowledge of their own federally protected FMLA rights...We had an incredible leave together as a family unit, something I will always treasure, but it did come with a stigma.

Why Are Mothers And Fathers Still At A Disadvantage At Work?

It ain't easy be awake

During break time this week, Stacy voiced a commonly felt sentiment: it's depressing, frustrating, and just plain sucks to be conscious and awake to the legacies of oppression and colonization that have shaped our world. As Stacy was saying, in every waking moment, we can find evidence and cause for concern about how power and exploitation are alive and well. But, being a social justice public intellectual also means having a little hope and faith that we can act in liberatory ways, even though you get heart gets hurt a little bit over and over again. This essay about public news figure Rachel Maddow and depression breaks it down.

Article Relevant to our discussion

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2012/09/michael_chabon_s_telegraph_avenue_can_a_white_guy_write_about_black_characters_.html

Welcome to our class blog!

Please use this space for class communications beyond our class session times. Post relevant articles, videos, and thoughts that you didn't have a chance or want to say in class.

You are most welcome!