2015 taught me that we each have a personal practice. As a Black female scholar, I am learning that what I do each day as an educator, a colleague, a community member, a relative, and a friend are parts of an evolving practice of truth-seeking and meaning-making. I am learning to develop and articulate a personal practice that is reciprocal and transparent.
Therefore, this piece is part of that articulation process.
Read MoreBy Ellen Moll, Michigan State University
As another presidential election cycle is underway in the United States, voters face, in addition to ad fatigue, mega-donors, and other absurdities of how the country currently elects its leaders, the news media’s increasing tendency to report on the “horse-race” aspects of elections. In addition to being a distraction from more substantial inquiry into the candidates’ positions, these horse-race analyses bear the added distinction of regularly reducing complex identities (ethnicity, gender, age, and others) into over-simplified, homogenized voting blocs. As election coverage intensifies, it will be valuable to look at media portrayals of Asian American voters in recent presidential elections; I will focus here primarily on mainstream news media outlets. Closer examination reveals that these portrayals are especially interesting in light of the way that Asian American citizenship historically has always been contested.
Read MorePart 2 in our series on "Horror, Ghosts, and Hauntings". Reblogged with permission, original here.
To Read Part 1 in the series, click here.
By: Maile Arvin
Yes, I am telling you a story, but you may be reading another one.
— Eve Tuck and C. Ree, A Glossary of Haunting
We met at a conference. I had just presented a paper about how cyborgs and animals are organizing their own communities against settler colonialism, imperialism and white supremacy. Animals, for instance, are everywhere making important connections between factory farming and dispossession of Indigenous lands and ways of life. Cyborgs (Black and non-Black) are major leaders in protests against police murders of Black youth, as they are similarly criminalized and killed in the streets.
Several male professors, all human but one cyborg, challenged me. Were not my ideas rather romantic? they asked. I don’t know anything about cyborgs or animals, or race or colonialism, but I doubt what you say is really the case, they challenged flatly, eyeing me as if in disbelief not just of my arguments but of my very existence, standing plainly in front of the blue of a projection screen recently vacated by Powerpoint.
Why don’t you focus more specifically on the five-year historical period when humans realized animals were sentient and communicate across species? Now that’s a very interesting time period, they droned, their voices echoing around me as a familiar anger expanded in my chest. Still, they concluded, everyone knows neither animals nor androids have empathy. I met their arrogant stares with my own disbelief.
“I was speaking of solidarity, not empathy,” I said. Then I walked out of my own panel.
Read MoreYes, there was a death in McKinney, Texas.
Have things settled down in McKinney? Are we done with that incident now, while we talk about #Rachel? It looks like we’re kind of moving on. Eric Casebolt, the officer in question, resigned from the McKinney, TX police department. Greg Conley, McKinney’s Chief of Police, has issued a public apology and went so far as to call Casebolt’s actions “indefensible.” Mayor Brian Loughmiller has pledged to work with the community to help reconcile parties involved. We are (thankfully) processing our rightful rage. There have been organized protests and many well-written critiques of the incident. As a result, policies will probably be reviewed and may even be revised. Department curriculum may be altered to train officers differently. Maybe McKinney will mandate body cameras and integrate its ranks with people of color and more women. There is likely to be a civil suit. So...are we satisfied? I ask because I am sensing a pause before the brush off and forward motion. Just in case the shift is near (or has already happened), I’d like to interject with some very, very important news: There was, in fact, a death in McKinney.
Read More