Eric Stoller's Blog

In what I hope will be a trend-setting event, Stanford University has instituted a new policy for female graduate students who wish to have children while attending school.

The new childbirth policy has four components:

All female graduate students–including those in the professional schools–who are pregnant or have recently given birth and who are registered and matriculated:

• are eligible for an “academic accommodation period” of up to two academic quarters before and after the birth, during which the student may postpone course assignments, examinations and other academic requirements; and
• are eligible for full-time enrollment during this period and will retain access to Stanford facilities, Cardinal Care student health insurance and Stanford housing.
• Students also will be granted an automatic one-quarter extension of university and departmental requirements and academic milestones–with the possibility of up to three quarters by petition under unusual circumstances. (A Ph.D. qualifying exam is an example of an academic milestone.)
• In addition, female graduate students supported by fellowships, teaching assistantships, and/or research assistantships will be excused from their regular teaching or research duties for a period of six weeks during which they will continue to receive support.

Apparently, MIT has a childbirth policy on the books that was enacted in 2004. Princeton University has a childbirth policy that includes males and females who want to have children.

I applaud Stanford University for their policy.

“You think you know who you are. You have no idea.” — Tagline from Crash

This is the second time that I have watched Crash. The first time I watched it was in September of 2005. At that time, I was coming down from a life-changing, metaphorical rollercoaster ride. My divorce was finalized in June and I had come up with an answer to a question that had been bothering me for months — what’s good about being White? My answer was a simple one. I get to be an anti-racist. Prior to September, I had been reading books by Janet Helms, bell hooks, and Beverly Tatum. It was a wild summer filled with White privilege discussions and feelings of being on a fringe that I had never even “seen” before. When I watched Crash I was breathless. The story kept me captivated from the start. I was engaged from Don Cheadle’s opening narration to the end of the film when Chris “Ludacris” Bridges releases a group of refugees from a cramped van.

I screened Crash at our apartment with a group of student affairs colleagues. Trying to watch Crash with my student affairs goggles on was not an easy task. After all, the first time I watched it, I cried out during the attempted murder of the locksmith. Crash is more than a film. It is an eye-opening depiction of racism and prejudice in the United States. It feels like concentrated reality. One of my guests told me that the film should have used less symbolism. I thought about this statement for a while and I disagree. I think Crash does what is needed. It puts racism and prejudice in your face and it keeps it there until the credits roll. In my opinion, this is a good thing. White folks are almost completely unaware of racism.

My guess is that many White people who see this film think that the situations have been exaggerated for the audience. I think every single situation in Crash happens on a daily basis. Racial profiling by White cops happens. Check out Cincinnati, Ohio if you don’t believe me. The situation where the Persian store owner is trying to purchase a gun from the White gun shop owner is eerily similar to my experiences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. When I was at UIC post 9/11, non-Muslim students would say all sorts of derogatory statements about Muslim students. Stereotypes were thrown about with the force of bullets.

Crash takes place in Los Angeles and perhaps the situations in the film happen only in “big” cities. Wrong! The scene where Sandra Bullock accuses the locksmith of being a “gangbanger” reminded me of my hometown in Iowa. When hundreds of Latino families moved into town for work at the meat packing plant they were often labeled as illegal aliens, gangsters, and drug dealers, etc. Racism happens in every city, town, and county in the U.S. Racism is part of all of our institutions.

In Crash, racism is present in at least two Los Angeles institutions: the LAPD, the LA District Attorney’s office a.k.a. the LA legal system. An African American police officer said it best when he asked Ryan Phillipe’s character how he was supposed to deal with a racist White cop within an institution as racist as the LAPD. A subtler example of institutionalized racism in Crash is present in the interactions between Terrence Howard’s character, Cameron and Tony Danza’s character, Fred. Cameron is directing a sitcom and has just finished filming a scene. Fred jumps in and forces Cameron to re-shoot the take because one of the African American characters was not being “Black” enough. To me, this illustrates the media’s consistent need to stereotype all people, especially people of color.

Crash is an amazing film. Rent it, watch it, buy it, and then watch it again.

If you could ask bell hooks 3 questions, what would you ask her?

bell hooks is coming to Lewis & Clark College!

An evening with bell hooks
bell hooksWednesday, February 1, 2006 at 7 p.m.
Agnes Flanagan Chapel

A passionate scholar, Bell Hooks is among the leading public intellectuals of her generation. Although hooks is mainly known as a feminist theorist, her writings cover a broad range of topics on gender, race, teaching and the significance of media for contemporary culture. She strongly believes that these topics can not be addressed separately, but must be understood as being interconnected. Like Paulo Freire, hooks sees education as the practice of freedom, Profoundly influenced by Freire, she sees his ideas as affirming her “right as a subject in resistance to define reality” (Teaching to Transgress, p. 53). She has written over 20 books including, “Feminist Theory from Margin to Center”, “Yearning: Race, Gender and Cultural Politics”, “Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life” (Co-authored with Cornel West), and “Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom”.

Born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky in 1952, hooks, received her B.A. from Stanford University in 1973, her M.A. in 1976 from the University of Wisconsin and her Ph.D. in 1983 from the University of California at Santa Cruz.

This is a ticketed event.

Tickets are no longer available.
There will be a free simulcast in Templeton Student Center, Council Chamber.

hooks’ book Teaching Community changed my views on life as a higher education professional. It is an extremely powerful book.

Apparently, I sleep very soundly. Last night at around 3:30am, a loud noise was heard by several Corvallis residents:

Oregon State Live Journal reactions

Corvallis mid-air meteor burst?

According to Wendy, the loud sounds lasted for several minutes. She said it sounded like an earthquake except things were not shaking. I was oblivious to this commotion.

What really happened???

John Kerry is asking everyone who is against oppression to sign a filibuster petition at JohnKerry.com.

Mind the gap: Income inequality, state by state
From CNN Money.com by way of BlackFeminism.org.

I am not happy with the fact that Google is censoring Chinese web users. Google’s motivation for this censorship is blatantly obvious. By complying with China’s government, Google is saying that they are still a capitalist endeavor. Google’s Senior Counsel said it in less obvious terms, “In deciding how best to approach the Chinese–or any–market, we must balance our commitments to satisfy the interest of users, expand access to information, and respond to local conditions.” Aren’t Chinese users interested in all forms of information? Even if it is listed as subversive? How exactly are they expanding access by censoring a person’s ability to find information? The last bit about local conditions is the key phrase to Google’s money driven philosophy. This saddens me greatly.

If you create, design, or manage a website, this is very important. The ableism that occurs in the brick and mortar world is found in the virtual environment within flash ridden swf files and inaccessible web pages. Please join me in creating an accessible online environment.

W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

“[Priority 1]
A Web content developer must satisfy this checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it impossible to access information in the document. Satisfying this checkpoint is a basic requirement for some groups to be able to use Web documents.

[Priority 2]
A Web content developer should satisfy this checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it difficult to access information in the document. Satisfying this checkpoint will remove significant barriers to accessing Web documents.

[Priority 3]
A Web content developer may address this checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it somewhat difficult to access information in the document. Satisfying this checkpoint will improve access to Web documents. “

OPPRESSION
by Marilyn Frye

It is a fundamental claim of feminism that women are oppressed. The word “oppression” is a strong word. It repels and it attracts. It is dangerous and dangerously fashionable and endangered. It is much misused, and sometimes not innocently.

The statement that women are oppressed is frequently met with the claim that men are oppressed too. We hear that oppressing is oppressive to those who oppress as well as those they oppress. Some men cite as evidence of their oppression their much-advertised inability to cry. It is tough, we are told, to be masculine. When the stresses and frustrations of being a man are cited as evidence that oppressors are oppressed by their oppressing, the word “oppression” is being stretched to meaninglessness; it is treated as though its scope includes any and all human experience of limitation or suffering, no matter the cause, degree or consequence. Once such usage has been put over on us, then if ever we deny that any person or group is oppressed, we seem to imply that we think they never suffer and have no feelings. We are accused of insensitivity; even of bigotry. For women, such accusation is particularly intimidating, since sensitivity is on eof the few virtues that has been assigned to us. If we are found insensitive, we may fear we have no redeeming traits at all and perhaps are not real women. Thus are we silenced before we begin: the name of our situation drained of meaning and our guilt mechanisms tripped.

But this is nonsense. Human beings can be miserable without being oppressed, and it is perfectly consistent to deny that a person or group is oppressed without denying that they have feelings or that they suffer…. Read the rest of this entry »

Why is this still considered to be okay?

Chicago Blackhawks – professional hockey team:

Cleveland Indians – professional baseball team:

Wapello Indians and Arrows – Iowa High School – Men’s teams = Indians, Women’s teams = Arrows:

Washington Redskins – professional football team: