And Yet, After So Much... Four Decades After Milgram, We’re Still Willing to Inflict Pain

Four Decades After Milgram, We’re Still Willing to Inflict Pain
By ADAM COHEN
Published: December 28, 2008
New York Times

It appears that ordinary Americans are about as willing to blindly follow orders to inflict pain on an innocent stranger as they were four decades ago.

In 1963, Stanley Milgram, an assistant professor of psychology at Yale, published his infamous experiment on obedience to authority. Its conclusion was that most ordinary people were willing to administer what they believed to be painful, even dangerous, electric shocks to innocent people if a man in a white lab coat told them to.

For the first time in four decades, a researcher has repeated the Milgram experiment to find out whether, after all we have learned in the last 45 years, Americans are still as willing to inflict pain out of blind obedience.

For the complete, brief, and shocking (?) article click here.

Whirimako Black 'E Te Kai'

Gracias a Huia y Shelley por introducirme a la voz de Whirimako Black.

En estos dias espero que todos esten cerca de familia y de sus mas querid@s.

Let's Connect The Dots

Police in SF Bay Area investigate brutal gang rape of lesbian by 4 strangers

By LISA LEFF, Associated Press Writer
6:24 PM PST, December 22, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A woman in the San Francisco Bay area was jumped by four men, taunted for being a lesbian, repeatedly raped and left naked outside an abandoned apartment building, authorities said Monday.

Detectives say the 28-year-old victim was attacked Dec. 13 after she got out of her car, which bore a rainbow gay pride sticker. The men, who ranged from their late teens to their 30s, made comments indicating they knew her sexual orientation, said Richmond police Lt. Mark Gagan.

...

"Assailants target LGBT people of all gender identities with sexual assault," he said. "Such targeting is one of the most cruel, dehumanizing and violent forms of hate violence that our communities experience."

Skolnik said the group plans to analyze hate crime data to see whether fluctuations may be related to the gay marriage bans that appeared on ballots this year in California, Arizona and Florida.

"Anytime there is an anti-LGBT initiative, we tend to see spikes both in the numbers and the severity of attacks," he said. "People feel this extra entitlement to act out their prejudice."

click for complete article

Pragmatic Inclusion?

I’m not surprised by Rev. Rick Warren’s comparison of gay men and lesbians getting married to marriages between brothers and sisters (yes, that would be incest) and with pedophilia (yes, that would be sex with children). After all, haven’t we heard all this before and much more?

I’m not surprised that Rev. Warren believes we can be cured of being gay. After all, the miracle of medical science seeks to cure all that ails us.

I’m not surprised by Rev. Warren saying, “I want to have sex with every attractive woman I meet, but I have to control my impulses” or something to that effect in a TV interview. Mr. Warren said this with a straight face (pun intended). The interviewer worked hard to control her facial expressions, but a smirk came through.

Rev. Warren believes that being attracted to people of the same sex is an impulse that is a kin to addiction, and a symptom of a weak moral character. It’s not surprising that he echoes the failed “just say no” slogans as a response to being gay and lesbian. So, this is how gayness can be cured; just say no. Oh, by the way, that didn’t work for drug use and take a look at the stats for abstinence.

I’m not surprised that Saddleback Church does not welcome “homosexuals” who have friendships, children, families, and partners that accept them for who they are. In other words, “homosexuals” who take their own right to self-determination seriously, who see discrimination for being gay or lesbian as a violation of human rights, and who see no reason to be heterosexual are not welcome to Rev. Warren’s church.

I’m not surprised that Rev. Warren is not “inclusive.”

Nope. None of that surprises me. Hey, I ain’t 50 for nothing.

I’m not even surprised that gay men and lesbians are still the only group of humans in the United States that can be thrown under the bus for political “pragmatism” and that the only ones who care are gay men and lesbians and some progressive allies.

I wish I could say that I am surprised by President-Elect Barack Obama’s choice of this pastor to speak at this historic inauguration; to give the inaugural invocation. But I remember what candidate Obama clearly stated: Marriage is between a man and a woman. Not that I want to get married, but the fact that this fundamental right that is available to everyone except gay men and lesbians is one which President Obama will continue to deny is not that far away from the exclusionary impulses of Rev. Warren.

If you substitute “gay men and lesbians” or “homosexuals,” as these have been used by Rev. Warren and President-Elect Obama, with any other group in society today, how would what they are saying sound to you? Why is it that gay men and lesbians can still be thrown under the bus and we are expected to accept this as a form of being included?

Um, nice of you to include me, darling, but could you let me out from under this tire, I'd like to get on the bus.


Pragmatic inclusion? Let’s define that, shall we?

Here is an interesting perspective from Frank Rich of the New York Times:

"When Obama defends Warren’s words by calling them an example of the “wide range of viewpoints” in a “diverse and noisy and opinionated” America, he is being too cute by half. He knows full well that a “viewpoint” defaming any minority group by linking it to sexual crimes like pedophilia is unacceptable.

It is even more toxic in a year when that group has been marginalized and stripped of its rights by ballot initiatives fomenting precisely such fears. “You’ve got to give them hope” was the refrain of the pioneering 1970s gay politician Harvey Milk, so stunningly brought back to life by Sean Penn on screen this winter. Milk reminds us that hope has to mean action, not just words."

For the complete Op-Ed by Frank Rich titled, "You're Likable Enough, Gay People," published 26 December, click here.

Psychiatrists Revise the Book of Human Troubles

By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: December 17, 2008

The book is at least three years away from publication, but it is already stirring bitter debates over a new set of possible psychiatric disorders.

Is compulsive shopping a mental problem? Do children who continually recoil from sights and sounds suffer from sensory problems — or just need extra attention? Should a fetish be considered a mental disorder, as many now are?

Panels of psychiatrists are hashing out just such questions, and their answers — to be published in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — will have consequences for insurance reimbursement, research and individuals’ psychological identity for years to come.

The process has become such a contentious social and scientific exercise that for the first time the book’s publisher, the American Psychiatric Association, has required its contributors to sign a nondisclosure agreement.

The debate is particularly intense because the manual is both a medical guidebook and a cultural institution. It helps doctors make a diagnosis and provides insurance companies with diagnostic codes without which the insurers will not reimburse patients’ claims for treatment.

The manual — known by its initials and edition number, DSM-V — often organizes symptoms under an evocative name. Labels like obsessive-compulsive disorder have connotations in the wider culture and for an individual’s self-perception.

...


The debate over gender identity, characterized in the manual as “strong and persistent cross-gender identification,” is already burning hot among transgender people. Soon after the psychiatric association named the group of researchers working on sexual and gender identity, advocates circulated online petitions objecting to two members whose work they considered demeaning.

Transgender people are themselves divided about their place in the manual. Some transgender men and women want nothing to do with psychiatry and demand that the diagnosis be dropped. Others prefer that it remain, in some form, because a doctor’s written diagnosis is needed to obtain insurance coverage for treatment or surgery.

“The language needs to be reformed, at a minimum,” said Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equity. “Right now, the manual implies that you cannot be a happy transgender person, that you have to be a social wreck.”

Dr. Jack Drescher, a New York psychoanalyst and member of the sexual disorders work group, said that, in some ways, the gender identity debate echoed efforts to remove homosexuality from the manual in the 1970s.

After protests by gay activists provoked a scientific review, the “homosexuality” diagnosis was dropped in 1973. It was replaced by “sexual orientation disturbance” and then “ego-dystonic homosexuality” before being dropped in 1987.

“You had, in my opinion, what was a social issue, not a medical one; and, in some sense, psychiatry evolved through interaction with the wider culture,” Dr. Drescher said.

Click for complete article.

Moses "Teish" Cannon Murdered in Syracuse

By Kristen Drew
Monday, November 17, 2008 at 6:25 p.m.

SYRACUSE -- Outside of a Seymour Street home in Syracuse, friends of Moses "Teish" Cannon have started a memorial to remember their friend who was shot to death on Friday.

Police say Cannon's sexual orientation was the motive; he was born male but lived as a transgender woman.

"People believe, because RuPaul is famous, that transgendered people are no longer experiencing discrimination and that's just not true and this is an example of that," said Elizabethe Payne who started the Q Center @ ACR, an outreach group for youth.

Click for complete article

Courtesy of Roxanne Green
Moses "Teish" Cannon.

Family says Moses Cannon was shot because he was gay, and his killing should be treated as a hate crime
by Robert A. Baker / The Post-Standard
Saturday November 15, 2008, 11:22 PM
Click for The Post-Standard Article

Receta de crema de yautia y calabaza

Don't let those pumpkins go to waste! If you can't get yautía, substitute with more pumpkin and potatoes or green bananas.

Now at Holyoke Library!

Glory Hallelujah!

Conversations on the Land: Indigenous and Scientific Principles for Sustainable Communities

Conversations on the Land: Indigenous and Scientific Principles for Sustainable Communities

Date: Friday, November 7 and Saturday, November 8, 2008

Location: Alumni Lounge (Nifkin), Marshall Hall, SUNY-ESF

Hosted by: The SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF)

See you there.

Chief Oren Lyons discusses sovereignty

Washington Heights Corner Project

I am so happy that Jamie Favaro '02 is here to talk about her journey in social work. Jamie earned her M.S. from Columbia University and LMSW in 2004. Jamie's article, "Reflections of Racial Consciousness in Social Work" was published in the Journal of Student Social Work, Volume II, 2004.

Thursday, Oct. 23 at 12:30 Jamie will talk about the Washington Heights Corner Project which she founded and of which she is now the Executive Director.

12:00 refreshments.

Art Exhibit Room, Macmillan Hall, Wells College.

Jamie was also a Trustee for Wells, but resigned and here is why.

You're Invited

I am looking very much forward to seeing Jamie again.

Click on the poster above to see details.

Silvio Rodriguez Y nada mas

gracias, Inge.

What Becomes You

“How do you write about what cannot be said?”

Hilda Raz and Aaron Raz Link came to visit us at Wells this week. Aaron and Hilda were part of the Visiting Writers Series that Professor Bruce Bennett has been directing for many years with passion and dedication because listening to stories matters.

The book that Aaron and Hilda co-authored, What Becomes You, is the story of a daughter and a mother and then a son often at the window of the kitchen looking out talking and questioning.

At the reading from their book yesterday, they chose passages that they had not read before out loud in public. That is what they said before they began. I was all set to take notes.

Hilda began to read. I wrote a sentence. Stopped. I remembered that readings are for listening, not note taking. I remembered listening to Adrienne Rich and Audre Lorde. I remembered listening to John Preston talking about his growing up working-class and trying to lose his accent, which he did. Leslie Feinberg. Minnie Bruce Pratt. Aaron read from their book. I remembered that readings are stories shared. Gifts. Don't take notes.

They stood and read. Sat down. Hugged each other.

Then Q & A.

This book took 10 years to write. How do you write what cannot be said? We used keywords and wrote essays from those: “vision” and “scars.” Curiosity was what made the book possible and patience that is not gracious and not giving up. Hilda had the sex change, not Aaron. Aaron waves his arms around to signal that he did not die, did not disappear, that he was the same person all along. Transformation belongs to everyone. Discontinuity belongs to everyone. How did we get here? Without pictures. Without words. The failure of the scientific method. How do you find what you need to know when there are no keywords to use for the search?

Drive Slowly Down Rural Roads

I saw the red fox again today. This time running along by the road near our driveway. We are getting to know each other. Across the road there is a conservancy and that must be where the zorro rojo lives. The other day I was sitting having café by the vegetable garden. The crows that have built a nest in the red pines started yelling and yelling. Since they yell a lot I didn’t pay much new attention. But then I saw why there was such a commotion. The red fox eats birds and there it was walking up the driveway. We looked at each other. Just like today. This is the same red fox that was in the back yard one night late when Ellen and I came home. That night the red fox was licking the lips and I thought, “Oh, no, a feral cat got eaten.” I didn’t say that out loud. Instead, I counted. Everyone was accounted for in the feral family that night. The deer the other night that died on the road after being hit by a car, that’s because we have built things in the way of those who live here. Today, I stopped at the end of the driveway. We looked at each other. Then the fox made its way under the guardrail and crossed the road with cars speeding way over the limit. I said, “Corre, corre, get to the other side.” Maybe maybe that was what the fox said to me, too. Or maybe that is only what I thought I heard.

Please drive slowly down rural roads.

Racism Without Racists?

OP-ED COLUMNIST, By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: October 5, 2008

One of this season’s fallacies is that if Barack Obama is paying an electoral price for his skin tone, it must be because of racists. Not so — the evidence is that he is facing what scholars have dubbed “racism without racists.”

Click for complete article

And check out a talk by Yale University Psychology Professor John Dovidio: "Diversity speaker examines an ‘old virus’ In ICSD speaker series, John Dovidio puts ‘aversive racism’ under the microscope to find widespread bias" By Aubrey Henretty

Nuestras Abuelas: Su esperanza, nuestra fortaleza

ABOUT THE EXHIBIT
Nuestras Abuelas: Su esperanza, nuestra fortaleza
Their Hope, Our Strength

Nuestras Abuelas/Our Grandmothers is an educational-historical exhibition that celebrates the legacy of powerful female figures in the lives of contemporary women leaders in the Latino communities in the region. Most of the photos in the exhibition have been published by La Prensa del oeste de Massachusetts as part of the popular series Nuestras Abuelas that started in December 2007 and continues through December 2008.

These photos have been published accompanied with creative texts written by Latina community leaders talking about the memories and most influential legacy of their grandmothers in their life.

The photographs will be on view at the Central Gallery at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst, Sept. 25 through Oct. 25, 2008. Then, in November, a complete exhibit will be on display at the Holyoke Library.

"Illegal Immigration"?

Cultural Competence

The Cross-Cultural Classroom
By Christina Shunnarah

Developing cultural competence is a process of inner growth. In order for me to be as effective as possible with the students I work with, I must continuously engage in a process of self-reflection. To be able to know others, especially diverse others, one must know the self. So the growth of a culturally competent educator starts there. We must look within for a deeper understanding of who we are before we can adequately address the needs of our students.


Click on title of post for complete article. It's brief, but good.

"gender determination lab:" The XY Games

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
The XY Games
By JENNIFER FINNEY BOYLAN
Published: August 3, 2008
China’s gender tests for athletes are likely to produce the wrong answers and in the process ruin the lives of the innocent.

Illustration: Vivienne Flesher

Familia

Video por Natalia.

indigo girls - live 2/3

Time for a musical interlude. Un intercambio musical.

Remembering Will (1984 - 2007), Wells '05

Dear President Ryerson,

At the student meeting tonight, we were encouraged to write to you about why we love Wells, the way it is, why it doesn't need to add biomales ("real" men).

So, one odd-liner to another, I thought it would be important to write about loving Wells and preserving tradition. As resident Bear said, this is a "single sex, many-gender" school. As a member of the class of 2005, I offer you 2'05 reasons I love Wells.... in no particular order. I can't speak for others. goodness knows, most actually complain about the geese, etc. but these are just 205 things I, myself love about Wells (if you all think of better ones, write them!) and I could come up with another 1800 to make it 2005, but neither you nor I probably have time for that.

1. The look and Feel of Faculty Parlors
2. Safe Space
3. The Big Dyke Party
4. Openness around trans* issues, in class, the WRC and life
5. Getting the door for 400 talented, smart, independant ladies who don't need me or anyone else to get the door for them
6. Because we steal dryer sheets, but we report stolen money
7. Because it was Henry's conservative school to pen up "ladies" for the Cornell Boys to marry, but it is now one of the safest places for liberal thinking, freedom of religion and lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, queer, questioning, heteroflexible and allied students.
8. The lake
9. Being a bellringer
10. Odd/even songs
11. Asking boys, "who owns you?"
12. Being able to write about sexuality in my short story writing class
13. The sunsets
14. The ghost stories
15. That oddline won the first odd/even game
16. The social life crystallized on desk graffiti
17. The view from the top of GP
18. The hayride
19. The Gigs & 8's
20. That protests actually *work* here
21. Intense political dialog
22. The tree by Weld where I met my partner
23. ...that I can say "my partner"
24. Seeing red vans when I'm away, and expecting to find the Wells logo on the side
25. Watching seniors act silly at champagne breakfasts
26. Sex Collective
27. Chatting with my professors
28. Having been a freshman elf
29. Being able to wander into Dean Morales' office
30. Trans* friendly speakers
31. Getting tapped for "boy parts" (singing, and on stage)
32. Joking about changing the meaning of the freezing lake
33. Being a bellringer
34. Being up to my ears in club responsiblities
35. School acknowledgement of Transgender Day or Remembrance
36. Sitting in the dining hall, and chatting about so-and-so's boyfriend, and the other girl's girlfriend
37. Greens
38. Vagina Monologues on Valentines
39. Chatting with staff
40. Maypole dancing
41. Dean VanVechten asking, earnestly and without consequence, which bathroom I use.
42. "Singles Awareness Day" --Feb. 14
43. Knocking on the computer-lab window in Weld to get let in
44. Knowing security by name
45. Being able to chat with anyone in the dining hall
46. Talking to parents while their kid tours
47. Selling Vagina Mirrors at spring weekend
48. Watching 30+ girls get really, really drunk at Junior blast without them ever having to worry at all about rape.
49. ...bribing my freshmen
50. Going to conferences, and knowing everyone before we even leave.
51. Jokes about B.U.G.s and L.U.G.s (bi until graduation and lesbian until graduation respectively)
52. Japanese Club
53. Being devoted enough to sit through hours and hours with the very talented members of the Student Diversity Committee as we figure out how we work.
54. Sundae nite... every sunday night.
55. the courtyard
56. Having a religion major here officiate my commitment ceremony
57. Reading ANYTHING that is purple/yellow as oddline... even when I'm off campus
58. Knowing the dining hall staff by name
59. legends of recent alums
60. wandering around my dorm in an A-shirt and boxers... without worrying about males trying to prove who the "real man" is.
61. Singing oddline lyrics to the radio when nobody is around
62. wandering the forest behind Macmillian
63. Babysitting for WILL students
64. Being able to ask a ride from anyone
65. the Ithaca area in general
66. the spirits in GP
67. Walking into every dorm and feeling completely at home
68. giving roses to seniors
69. Ongoing sarcasm rivalries with the tech guys
70. Using the gym without funny looks
71. Having pagan ceremonies in the lakehouse
72. Consoling Dean Green
73. Being able to talk to the Med Center doctors about hormones
74. Being able to ask really sensative questions
75. Being asked really sensative questions and being able to respond without fear.
76. The real sense of attachment we have to our professors (most evident when one leaves)
77. The light-hearted jokes and rumors
78. Freedom of thought, and sometimes even speech.
79. The marks in the sidewalk to Dodge: "It's a baby"
80. Chatting casually about charting menstruation at the senior table.
81. arming people with knowledge
82. Internships based on what really interests us
83. Advisers who actually advise
84. ...and professors who actually teach (I'm a TA, and I'm really grateful that I'm not teaching the classes or grading the papers)
85. The sor of trust we had when the printers were in the computer labs
86. The trust we have in a library that has so many exits... we still check books out.
87. Chalking the campus for Nat'l Coming Out Day
88. Ooh.. and the turnout for Day of Silence
89. Tea Time
90. Speaking up in class
91. having good feminist lunches... entirely by accident, at a random table in the dining hall
92. Having an alum president who actually reads e-mails
93. ...ok, and that Dean Green cooks us Soul Food
94. feeling really supported in all my hair-brained ideas
95. Finding friends at the ever-repainted grill
96. Hearing stories about expeditions to the fargo
97. That my fellow students can be themselves, in a way they cannot around bio-men
98. Being asked why I'd choose Wells
99. Really having to have struggled to think of "12 things at Wells that really get to me" during freshman year
100. Knowing that Pleasant is a name and not an adjective ::Shudder::
101. Hating everything the republican club stands for, but being friends with the chair and other members
102. Having people tell me, after the "go co-ed?" student meeting that they value my opinion and wish I had spoken up
103. Getting to challenge male stereotypes and essentialist thought about what a "woman" is... and what a women's college is
104. Forming "families" that go beyond Wells sisters: I was Papa Will
105. ...my partner was Mama Kim (Hannan)
106. ...our friend was Grandma Hillary (Green)
107. ...our freshman sisters were Aunt Dominique (?) and Aunt Bobby-Jo (Bly-Owens)
108. ...and the kids were Baby Tina (Morse-Fish) Kim (Juul) and Kirsten ?
109. Watching Madonna in a Women's Studies class
110. Having a professor chat openly about identity politics in relation to her own sex life
111. Professors having time to chat at all.
112. Having the houses of professors so close I can walk there if I missed office hours. ;)
113. Being on good enough terms with the president and my professors to include smilie-faces in an e-mail
114. Being delegated to set up a round-table discussion for the Women's Studnies Department
115. meaning something by "when the lake freezes over"
116. joking about braiding leg hair
117. Going to class in PJ's...
118. ...worried that one is late, only to find the professor strolling in right behind
119. old pictures of the Belltower, an evenline team, and maypole dancing
120. That students are backing an initiative to include gender neutral language in the constitution
121. Being able to brag about how many days we've gone without showering
122. Being able to have sex-toy "tupperware parties"
123. re-empowering "dirty" words for female-genitalia
124. Minerva. Athena is my patron diety, so it was really exciting that we have a statue of Minerva.
125. Having face-time to plan independant projects. With a dean, even.
126. Having the dirt on which staff and faculty are going out on maternity leave...
127. Going for evenline flag-hunts in the middle of the night.
128. Confusing parents as I help them move their daughters in on the first day.
129. Knowing looks when I wear a yellow tie and purple shirt...
130. ...or paint a purple goatee on my face for the sing-off
131. Being able to sprint across campus if I need to
132. Chatting with freshmen about where the pipes run behind the walls, and how not to put their beds against that wall...
133. Romantic dinners on the balcony of Weld
134. Getting haircuts from students
135. sitting in the shade of the sycamore
136. The Peachtown Native American Festival
137. Silly costumes for Mainly 80's
138. Hanging out in Dean Dan's office
139. Chatting about near-careers and distant babies
140. Having political or religious debates without fear
141. not having to lock my door
142. The look of the buildings... some of them, anyway
143. Trying to get lost in the library
144. Playing hide-and-seek in the library
145. handing down stories about our professors
146. Working out Saturday mornings with some guy from Aurora who is in the Mr. Universe Sr. category?
147. laughing as some girls insist there are too many butches, and others swear there really aren't enough
148. The defensive look of the boyfriends as the crowd together outside for a smoke
149. Knowing that some parts of the honor code just AREN'T broken.
150. Recognizing new students, perspectives, parents on sight... because we know everyone else.
151. That each of us can just be ourselves.
152. That we're almost ready to talk about class issues.
153. Funny hats at convocation
154. Getting assigned to take pictures of seniors jumping into the lake
155. The Peachtown children yelling as they play outside my window
156. Reading old books that time has forgotten.
157. taking the elevator to the healthy living floor out of laziness
158. napping in the AER
159. Opportunities to teach, grow and reach beyond Wells
160. The feeling like I want to buy a house in Aurora and live here forever
161. Bonfires by the lake
162. Harvest dinners by Foundations, Interfaith forum
163. The Onyx on a lazy afternoon
164. The comfy chairs in Barler and the library
165. Tears in my eyes when I get back from long breaks... I end up feeling like Wells is... the Promised Land
166. the former fountain-mound hill just west of GP.
167. Watching freshmen in love
168. The strong participation for everything... even giving blood
169. A gym I can use without being accused of going to look at te boys
170. students, faculty and staff that areally trying to understand how to deal with me, especially Professor Penniman who once said, "So, Will... when I'm talking about you (you know, behind your back) should that be 'he' or 'she'?"
171. Falling asleep in my friends' room by accident... in perfect safety
172. Security being able to recognize my coat and remind me that I left it in the oter wing of Macmillian
173. Doing homework on the treestand on a clear autumn day
174. Watching people from other regions complain about out "horrible" winters
175. Watching people become true leaders in a few short years
176. Being the Collegiate Representative for the Women's Resource Center (oh, the irony)
177. Having a dining hall staffperson give me legal advice toward my name change.
178. Recognizing most of the "I love ..." scribbles on the desks
179. And that most of them are other Wells folks!
180. And the number of woman+woman signs in general
181. That a Dean would stop me and say, "You look tired; let's schedule an appointment and chat"
182. That I can always check on my professors by going to the library and asking their wives!
183. ZAP! panels
184. dressing any way I want
185. professors who care enough to chide me when I skip class
186. Having buildings that are 4 stories or less.
187. Scenery
188. A chance to be on teams, etc.
189. Symposium
190. Awareness in general
191. Being small enough to really know everyone's face, if not name, and probably some snippet of gossip about each name, even if you can't connect it to a face.
192. "The Wells Web"
193. Being able to poll the computer lab about anything
194. Running sophomore smash in flip-flops
195. Crawling back into bed after 3 consecutive firedrills
196. Being able to chat with the president of collegiate
197. Stepping up to the bat to help with May-Day traditions and helping to gender-neutralize the constitution
198. The geese (I live across from a pond so they're very comforting to me)
199. The kindness of Aurora folks
200. Being able to borrow a CD from anyone
201. Leaving my coat, my bag or my homework anywhere
202. Keeping guests overnight
203. Looking out for each other
204. The squirrels!
205. Being able to call each other out on stereotypes embedded in our speech.


Thanks for your time. Keep Wells the way it is.

Sincerely,
Will

Amy Goodman and Two Democracy Now! Producers Unlawfully Arrested At the RNC

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
www.democracynow.org

September 1, 2008


Contact:
Dennis Moynihan
Mike Burke

ST. PAUL, MN—Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman was unlawfully arrested in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota at approximately 5 p.m. local time. Police violently manhandled Goodman, yanking her arm, as they arrested her. Video of her arrest can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYjyvkR0bGQ

Goodman was arrested while attempting to free two Democracy Now! producers who were being unlawfuly detained. They are Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar. Kouddous and Salazar were arrested while they carried out their journalistic duties in covering street demonstrations at the Republican National Convention. Goodman’s crime appears to have been defending her colleagues and the freedom of the press.

Ramsey County Sherrif Bob Fletcher told Democracy Now! that Kouddous and Salazar were being arrested on suspicion of rioting. They are currently being held at the Ramsey County jail in St. Paul.

Democracy Now! is calling on all journalists and concerned citizens to call the office of Mayor Chris Coleman and the Ramsey County Jail and demand the immediate release of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar. These calls can be directed to: Chris Rider from Mayor Coleman’s office at 651-266-8535 and the Ramsey County Jail at 651-266-9350 (press extension 0).

Democracy Now! stands by Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar and condemns this action by Twin Cities law enforcement as a clear violation of the freedom of the press and the First Amenmdent rights of these journalists.

During the demonstration in which they were arrested law enforcement officers used pepper spray, rubber bullets, concussion grenades and excessive force. Several dozen others were also arrested during this action.

Amy Goodman is one of the most well-known and well-respected journalists in the United States. She has received journalism’s top honors for her reporting and has a distinguished reputation of bravery and courage. The arrest of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar is a transparent attempt to intimidate journalists from the nation’s leading independent news outlet.

Democracy Now! is a nationally-syndicated public TV and radio program that airs on over 700 radio and TV stations across the US and the globe.

Video of Amy Goodman’s Arrest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYjyvkR0bGQ

Update: Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman, Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar Released After Illegal Arrest at RNC

Save the Date: Saturday, September 20

Ted Kennedy Addresses the DNC

Battling brain cancer (with the best health care the U.S. has to offer) Senator Kennedy rose to the occasion as he has so many times before, just not that time at Chappaquiddick.

I listened. He was telling his life story, perhaps for the last time.

What I heard was a man who has dedicated his life to making health care accessible for everyone, who has raised the minimum wage, who said “straight against gay” in a nationally televised speech and meant that there was no difference in what human rights each should have. I heard a man who left a woman to drown and has since been unable to leave anyone else behind.

Is it true that we make mistakes that amount to personal atrocities and then we either try to repair the damage or deny that it happened on our watch? I think a man with brain cancer who has been under chemo and radiation for weeks to show up in front of millions of people risking his own fragile health is a man still atoning. He cannot leave anyone behind again.

For those who cannot forgive Senator Kennedy for what he did in 1969 look at his record. He has not forgiven himself. In his search for forgiveness which may never end, he has made a life out of helping those that are left there to sink to the bottom. That is his record. That has been his political life. What we do with what haunts us is another measure of who we are.

Listen to his speech.

Bush Speech on Tribal Sovereignty

Um, well, so, like... hmmmm. And now there is someone who wants to be president who doesn't know how many properties he owns.

The World According to Monsanto (Part 5 of 8)

The World According to Monsanto (part 1 of 10)

We Need To See This Documentary

"The French documentary, called “The World According to Monsanto” and directed by independent filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin, paints a grim picture of a company with a long track record of environmental crimes and health scandals." For more information click here.

Did you know that Birds Eye grows most of its corn right here? And then we buy it frozen... What are the seeds planted? How do these seeds affect native species of corn? For more information on genetic engineering and its impact on biological diversity click here.

Thoughts on Berlin

Berlin made me feel like crying much of the time.

For a European city it looks new because of all the destruction and new building. The contrasts are breathtaking. The Sony Building. The Kathe Kollwitz museum. The memorial to the murdered Jews with over 2,000 blocks of stone and uneven walkways through it has no graffiti although the wall does as does most of the city.

Ellen and I took a bus tour and went to all the sites. The tour guide was very good. Very opinionated and serious. There was none of the U.S. tendency to cheer and hyper-ventilate when speaking of "the country". It seems the Germans have learned the cost of that. She was very thoughtful and so my tourist experience was a chance to reflect on destruction, damage, and coming to terms with so much loss. I could hardly bear it. It is not what she said, she was simply being factual. She did not make anything into melodrama (another U.S. touristic tendency).

The divided nature of the city -- that wall, that wall! -- and the desire to unify but not to forget was symbolism that affected me deeply. I would say that going to Berlin helped me turn a corner in my own life after all the difficulties.

Berlin also felt very familiar. I had no sense of displacement. The food reminded me of growing up. My grandfather on my father's side was German. He immigrated to NYC to work. He met my grandmother who was Puerto Rican. She had also left home to work in los nuyores. When I was three one of my first memories is of food; a hard boiled egg in a little cupped dish. One of my favorite childhood foods was a boiled egg and a hot dog dipped in the ocean for salt. When I saw that it was a typical breakfast at the hotel it brought back a part of my life I rarely think about.

The plaques on the buildings commemorating Jewish schools which were emptied by the Nazi's reminded me of the plaques here along a "Scenic Byway" which do not commemorate the Cayuga who were burned out of their ancestral homes in the Clinton and Sullivan Campaign. There have been holocausts here and over there.

I was reminded of Britzman’s writing very much, especially her thoughts on Freud's ideas of history as a series of murders. It was very moving in a quiet way, in a silent way.

The symposium which took place at the very last day was especially significant to me after spending the week in Berlin. Offer Maurer's paper, he lives in Tel Aviv and founded the first gay friendly clinic there recently, was quite
beautiful. He approached gender as a place of being home and I think his "rearranging of the furniture" with a client of his who is a transsexual woman had many metaphors that attempted to make the place of gender moveable. Clive Aspin's paper on takatapui was wonderful in how he brought out how language and self-determination are key. Oren Gozlan took a novel approach within psychoanalytic theory. He engaged the novel, Middlesex, as a way to explore what is lost with gender and what can be found there. Offer also discussed his problem of having to gender language in Hebrew with his client. Clive is not gay, but is takatapui. The words we use to describe ourselves -- grounded in culture, not as static but as
a place for the decolonial -- was a central theme of the symposium which would be good to continue.

All our partners/spouses attended the talk. It was a family reunion with Oliva also there.

For more information on the 29th International Congress on Psychology, Berlin, Germany click here

from Lorraine

There is noise, Can you see me?
Noise bounces and splashes off the walls
The girls giggle into the sea
We throw out fish, sleek and silver
Maybe catching, maybe slipping

At the other end of the aquarium
Is a man I once knew very well
He waves and giggles and throws a fish

I dive into the aqua green
And float with the current
Above spirals and clams

Sobbing and bobbing
And being One with the great Divide

I’d like to add a word about my mother
Waving peek-a-boo
But she’s gone

In dreams and spurts
We’re all being healed
We’re all so desperate and all so glad
And spearing and babbling
And broken and catching

Catching each other up
And trying to catch and hoping to say
And slipping and giggling

We throw a net, of filaments and holes
And hope to catch the ethereal truth
And scoop the silence into meaning
To catch a moment together breathing
And sitting on a stone bench
Listen
To the sound of being heard

- Lorraine Grosslight, 2008

Chief Oren Lyons discusses sovereignty

Meg Hutchinson: Home

Still Black: A Portrait of Black Transmen

Click here to support.

Very much looking forward to this one. Long long long overdue. Please consider donating. The goal is $5,000 to complete the film by fall 2008.

Paula Gunn Allen (1939 - May 29, 2008)

Hoop Dancer
by Paula Gunn Allen

It's hard to enter
circling clockwise and counter
clockwise moving no
regard for time, metrics
irrelevant to this dance
where pain is the prime number
and soft stepping feet
praise water from the skies:
I have seen the face of triumph
the winding line stare down all moves
to desecration: guts not cut from arms,
fingers joined to minds,
together Sky and Water
one dancing one
circle of a thousand turning lines
beyond the march of gears--
out of time, out of
time, out
of time.

© 1998 Paula Gunn Allen. From Life is a Fatal Disease.

We will miss you. Your words always spoke a truth about all of us who have lost what it means to be home. You told us how we make our home within ourselves and with each other. Te agradecemos todas tus palabras que siempre nos llevaron hacia nuestro hogar. Un sitio de amor y resistencia. Nunca nos dejaras. En tu obra esta el futuro.

Paula Gunn Allen: "we never go away even if we're always leaving because the only home is each other they've occupied the rest colonized it; an idea about ourselves is all we own"

Paula Gunn Allen Online Memorial

Ride On: Jamie Favaro & The Ultimate Commuter Race

Yes, our very own and beloved Jamie Favaro (Wells '02) has won the commuter race in NYC!

Watch the video from fox News and see Jamie ride through NYC, hold a bunch of flowers as she smiles after winning the competition, and listen to her say (this is my favorite part hands down), that she didn't even break a sweat.

Yes, this is a winner, mi gente. Ride, Jamie, Ride!!!

btw: This photo is from Jamie's Facebook profile and has nothing to do with The Ultimate Commuter Race, but it does show her bike. No bikes in the other profile pics! Whatever was going on here is another story...

Country Road

At night when it’s dark with no moon and you hear that sound and then the brakes squealing, you know someone has hit a deer. You wait to hear the next sound and hope that you don't. You put on your shirt and walk down toward the road. You don’t know what you’ll see. One time a car left the road completely and ended up in the woods making a path out of small broken trees. Tonight, she stayed on the tar just a few feet north of the deer.

“Is everyone okay?” you will ask when you see the flashing blue lights of the volunteers. He walks over with the flashlight and points just beyond you, so as not to blind you but to try and make out who you are.

“Yeah, she’s just shook up. I was on my way to a fire, but thought I should take care of this first.”

“Should I make any calls?”

“No, she’s calling the State Troopers now. I have my cell phone with me, too.”

“Is the deer still alive?”

“Yeah, it’s still kicking, but I didn’t bring my pistol with me.”

You will wait and see what’s next. He walks back toward the young woman who is shaken by her damaged car, the dying deer, the darkness of this night that didn’t let her see that beautiful animal crossing the road. This country road seems deserted at night, but it's not. In the darkness, possums cross with feral cats, foxes, coyotes, skunks, raccoons, and deer. This road is in their way.

“Did you call the troopers?” you’ll hear him ask her, but her voice is too soft to hear what she says back.

“There’s a nice lady up there if you need help.” He points his flashlight across the road.

He walks toward his pick-up truck and leaves for the fire. She turns to examine her car.

The deer has stopped moving. I turn and walk toward the house. No pistol will need to be fired tonight.

Allan Bérubé's Gift to History By John D'Emilio

THE OBITUARY OF ALLAN BÉRUBÉ that appeared in The New York Times began with a reference to his MacArthur Fellowship and then moved on to Coming Out Under Fire (1990), his groundbreaking history of gay men and lesbians during World War II. Such obvious attention to these two markers as the signal achievements of his life is understandable. The MacArthur award labeled Allan a “genius,” and a book about World War II planted him squarely in the mainstream of American history. As a topic, it is readily legible to almost everyone as “important.”

I think of Allan differently. “Public intellectual” is a contemporary phrase that perhaps comes closer to capturing who he was and what he did, but even that distorts my picture of him. Public intellectual conjures images of tenured academics of high repute—my former dean, Stanley Fish, pops to mind—who, besides composing their scholarly studies, also publish op-eds in the Times and The Washington Post or essays in The New Republic. Or, these days, they blog and are quoted by other bloggers. That still isn’t Allan.

Allan was a community historian. He believed passionately in the power of history to change the way individuals and even whole groups of people understood the world and their place in it. Except for short interludes, such as the year he held a Rockefeller Fellowship at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in New York, he was always without formal—and paid—connections to the institutions that sustain intellectual and cultural work. He reported, so to speak, to the people whose history he wrote about. He most cared about how community members—LGBT folks—responded to his talks and his writings, not in the sense of craving their approval, but more as evidence that the history he uncovered was having an impact.

Click for D'Emilio's complete article honoring the life and work of Allan Bérubé.


Listen to NPR interview with Allan Bérubé by Terry Gross on Fresh Air December, 2007.

Thank you, Lisa, for sending D'Emilio's article.

When Does Puerto Rico Matter?

The other night on CNN the “pundits” were going at it. The talking heads were discussing – what else? – should Hillary stay or go and should Obama (btw: why is she called by her first name and he called by his last name?) call it a win already and say, “I accept the nomination.” Consensus was that Obama should not say he won (yet), but no consensus on what Hillary should do.

The pundits have their own terms through which they conduct their "analysis." Here are the current favorite vocabulary words, study them for your political spelling bee: Metrics, Math-That-Doesn’t-Work, Fighter, Super Delegate, Delegate, and incredibly enough, Puerto Rico.

I was listening up, my Boricua ears pricked and my Puerto Rico antenna twirling to get the best reception and then Paul Begala said, “No one asked me, but I say let's make them a state. But no one asked me.”

Um, no, Paul no one asked you, and newsflash, you cannot make us a state. Puerto Ricans would need to decide that first. This is precisely what we have been fighting over since the United States Marines invaded the island in 1898 (the same year the U.S. “acquired” Hawai’i which is to say overthrew the sovereign kingdom of Hawai’i) and “acquired” Puerto Rico from Spain as the spoils from the Spanish – American War.

For details go to the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress

Once again, Puerto Rico is important only because the island has something someone from the U.S. needs: 63 delegates that will vote for Hillary or Obama. The gold being mined are votes. “Let's make them a state” being the battle cry as Hillary and Obama dig for their own benefit, neither one of them having the courage to talk out loud about the historical consequences of U.S. military coups against sovereign nations. Here are some more vocabulary words for the political spelling bee: Displacement, Diaspora, Cultural Destruction, Environmental Devastation, Colonization, Imperialism.

Yes, words matter. And the language words are spoken in matter, too. Y en Borinquen hablamos Puertorriqueño. Nuestro lenguaje tiene sus raices en las lenguas de España, Africa, y Indigenas de los Taínos. Una mezcla que explica nuestra historia de conquista y de resistencia y que nos compromete a un futuro como un pueblo, una nacíon, una cultura. Puerto Rico es un Estado Libre Asociado. Got that, Pundito?

Hawai’i and Puerto Rico were not just “acquired;” we were invaded by the U.S. military which marched across the islands, taking towns, and cities, and our leaders overthrown. Since 1898 we have been struggling for autonomy and sovereignty. The flippant remark by Paul Begala, “Make them a state” exposes the colonial relationship as the patronizing and humiliating relationship it has been and continues to be.

And there is something about "Let's make them a state" that sounds uncomfortably like, "Let them eat cake."

Pan, Tierra, Libertad.

Today’s New York Times has an op-ed piece on Puerto Rico titled, "Puerto Rico’s Moment in the Sun." You better read it quick before the sun disappears behind another political cloud.

Syracuse Cultural Workers Prints New Poster

Karen Kerney, SCW Art Director and one of the poster’s designers, presents a copy of the new poster to Audrey Shenandoah, Elder of the Onondaga Nation, Haudenosaunee. The Haudenosaunee have been instrumental in encouraging the UN to include indigenous voices.

This is a beautiful poster and it is available in various formats. Check it out at Syracuse Cultural Workers

Steven Thomas Has It Right

Steven Thomas will graduate from Wells College this May as a psychology major and an art minor. You can view Steven's whole series -- not all of the cartoons are about psychology! -- by visiting Steven's Facebook group called, "Uncommon Ground." The group is open to everyone.

Telling it like it is, mi gente.

Ithaca City School District Found Guilty of Discrimination: Will Anything Change?

Photo: ERICA THUM / Journal Staff

Amelia Kearney, right, and her attorney, Ray Schlather, second from right, hold a press conference Wednesday at the Tompkins County Human Rights Commission to answer questions about the recommendation of a New York state Division of Human Rights judge in Kearney's discrimination case against the Ithaca City School District.

By Topher Sanders
Journal Staff

ITHACA — Amelia Kearney and her attorney met with members of the press Wednesday to give their reaction to the recommendation recently issued by a New York State Division of Human Rights judge in Kearney's discrimination claim against Ithaca City School District.

Administrative Law Judge Christine Kellet's recommendation in the case was released Monday. It includes $1 million in damages for Kearney and her daughter along with staff training to recognize discrimination and a revision of the district's discipline code.

Click for complete article

...

Perhaps other educational institutions in this region will take notice of this result and be proactive in their efforts to educate faculty, staff, and administrators with regard to the harm discrimination causes, not just to the individuals targeted by bias and prejudice, but to the whole community. Whether or not the Kearney's will be awarded the full amount of damages recommended by Judge Kellet, it's clear that the amount will come out of the ICSD operating budget. The damage will be felt by everyone in Ithaca.

The shame is that it could have been avoided but everyone in the school district turned away from what was right in front of them because they did not want to confront an "inconvenient truth"; yes, a liberal Ithaca educational institution can be racist and so can its School Board and Superintendent.

Racism is not just about people in white sheets burning crosses at night. It is also about white people who do not confront their own biases and unearned privileges which are woven into institutional practices which favor people who are white over people who are not. This systemic racism which Peggy McIntosh has written so well about is called, "the invisible knapsack." In this "knapsack" are lots of things that if they are unpacked you will see how many things white people take for granted without giving it another thought, these are unearned privileges, that people of color do not have. This is institutionalized racism which is at the very core of how schools and colleges operate.

I am sorry for the pain and suffering of the Kearneys of Ithaca. I hope their struggle for justice brings about profound change at the individual, institutional, and community levels. Don't let this happen again, Ithaca.

Lest We Forget: An open letter to my sisters who are brave

I HAVE COME home from a long stay in Mexico to find – because of the presidential campaign, and especially because of the Obama/Clinton race for the Democratic nomination - a new country existing alongside the old. On any given day we, collectively, become the Goddess of the Three Directions and can look back into the past, look at ourselves just where we are, and take a glance, as well, into the future. It is a space with which I am familiar.

When I was born in 1944 my parents lived on a middle Georgia plantation that was owned by a white distant relative, Miss May Montgomery. (During my childhood it was necessary to address all white girls as "Miss" when they reached the age of twelve.) She would never admit to this relationship, of course, except to mock it. Told by my parents that several of their children would not eat chicken skin she responded that of course they would not. No Montgomerys would.

I made my first white women friends in college; they were women who loved me and were loyal to our friendship, but I understood, as they did, that they were white women and that whiteness mattered. That, for instance, at Sarah Lawrence, where I was speedily inducted into the Board of Trustees practically as soon as I graduated, I made my way to the campus for meetings by train, subway and foot, while the other trustees, women and men, all white, made their way by limo. Because, in our country, with its painful history of unspeakable inequality, this is part of what whiteness means. I loved my school for trying to make me feel I mattered to it, but because of my relative poverty I knew I could not.

I am a supporter of Obama because I believe he is the right person to lead the country at this time. He offers a rare opportunity for the country and the world to start over, and to do better. It is a deep sadness to me that many of my feminist white women friends cannot see him. Cannot see what he carries in his being. Cannot hear the fresh choices toward Movement he offers. That they can believe that millions of Americans –black, white, yellow, red and brown - choose Obama over Clinton only because he is a man, and black, feels tragic to me.

Click for complete article.
BY ALICE WALKER | TheRoot.com
March 27, 2008

Today!

Join Linda T. Smith, Margaret Maaka, and Huia Tomlins-Jahnke to dialogue on Indigenous pedagogies and methodologies at 4:30 in Lewis Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall, Cornell University.

First Encounters of the Worst Kind: "Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy"

Cacique Agüeybana of Borikén (Puerto Rico) greeting Juan Ponce de León of Spain. Wikipedia in its short description of this painting signals that it is a greeting ceremony. Is it? This is a classic depiction -- the archetype -- of "first encounter" which has almost identical counterparts throughout the colonized world.

What did these men say to each other? They did not speak the same language, they did not know each other's ways, and yet they are shown as equals here communicating. About what? In what language? What happened next?

This morning at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual conference, Professor Alison Jones of the University of Auckland spoke about her work with Professor Kuni Jenkins and raised these questions and others in relation to the painting of the "First Sermon." This is what Samuel Marsden's "first encounter" with the Maori is called and how it is depicted in a painting. Professor Jones showed this painting as she asked us to consider a different historical narrative of "first encounter."

These two paintings show that "first encounters" were depicted in similar ways even though they show "encounters" that occured in completely different parts of the world. What does it say about who wrote history that these visual accounts, which are literally from opposite ends of the world (Borikén and Aotearoa) are so alike? What if Agüeybana wrote the book? What if the history of the "First Sermon" were written by Maori? A new world history which revisions the "new world"? What then?

The Presidential “Race”

For those who truly believe that Americans have moved “beyond race” Senator Obama’s pastor’s comments will come as a shock. But for the rest of us who live and breathe and survive in a society that clearly still harbors hate and discrimination (see, for contemporary example, the discourse on “illegal” immigrants in this “immigrant nation” built on the displacement and conquest of Indigenous peoples – was that legal?) the controversy is a painful yet also a welcome opening into multiple realities of oppression and struggles for justice.

If history is any guide or if history is predictive of future actions, Senator Obama will suffer the fate of all those who take on White supremacy in this country in ways that unsettle the status quo. So, let’s take a minute to consider the tragedy of these politics.

The “race” here is not just for President, but for what it means to race against history as a person of color, to race against the historical misunderstandings of what Sunday means to Black people of Christian faith, the role of nation building within the Black Church, the building of community and an education that sustains a future generation.

The divide made apparent between what life is like as a Black person and what life is like as a White person in this country today brings out the ugly truth of structural inequalities along racial and ethnic lines. And listen to the class rhetoric put forward by the mainstream and conservative media based on their so-called polls; White working class men will not vote for someone whose pastor says out loud that this country is run by rich White people because that is unpatriotic. Really?

The media focus on what Senator Obama's pastor said provides the fodder for divide and conquer politics. The tragic spectacle of racism is all too familiar to people of color. The pastor's words just brought it out into the open for all to see it on a national level within a national race.

But what do most people agree on? That the American war in Iraq is wrong. What do Senators Obama and Clinton agree on? That this war must end. So, let's keep our eyes on the prize here. There is still racism and classism and sexism in America. Don't kill the messengers.

“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
...
Click for the text as prepared for delivery of Senator Barack Obama’s speech on race in Philadelphia, as provided by his presidential campaign. New York Times, March 18, 2008.

March 31: Join the Dialogue

Join Linda T. Smith, Margaret Maaka, and Huia Tomlins-Jahnke to dialogue on Indigenous pedagogies and methodologies at 4:30 in Lewis Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall, Cornell University.

Concern Over Michigan Tenure Case

from Inside Higher Ed
By Scott Jaschik

Hugo Schwyzer, who teaches history and gender studies at Pasadena City College, recently blogged about the implications of the women’s studies role in the dispute.

“Anyone who reads the feminist blogosphere is aware that the most painful struggle of the past year, played out in so many places, is over the issue of the intersection of racism and sex. A number of prominent women of color have written, time and again, of feeling marginalized or ignored by white feminists,” wrote Schwyzer. “Whatever your feelings on the issue of race, gender, and intersectionality, it’s disastrous PR to have the Smith denial come at the hands of the Michigan Women’s Studies department. To a community of activist women of color, many of whom are already suspicious of the bona fides of white feminists, the Smith decision can only serve to increase a sense of cynicism about the prospects for real inclusion.”

Schwyzer — who notes that he has never met Smith — also reviews Smith’s research and particularly the impact of Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide, which he calls “a master-work of both advocacy and feminist scholarship.”

Click for complete article

Sex Crime 1984

George Orwell in 1949 anticipated sex crimes would be used for social and political control. Annie Lennox put some music to Orwell’s novel in 1984. Here we are. 2008.