Archive for January, 2007
Line Rider: Trading Lines and .Sol’s
Line Rider is an amazing online toy that is a combination of precision illustration, luck and sledding. Vegankid and I were wondering if we could turn Line Rider into a social experience. Sort of like a Line Rider version of PhotoShop Tennis.
Angela Davis
Angela Davis was the keynote speaker for a recent social justice conference at Oregon State University. The Your Voice, Your Conference: Awareness, Solidarity, and Action explored “how systems of oppression impact our lives and communities.”
I think I have a social justice crush on Angela Davis. More than 1,000 people attended her talk at Oregon State. Two professors from OSU had the privilege of being her students at UC Santa Cruz. Angela Davis could have talked for a week and I think we all would have listened.
Angela Davis‘ talk covered many topics including: historical memory, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Condoleeza Rice, George Bush, Affirmative Action, Diversity, Marriage, Activism, Racism, Critical Awareness and Prison Systems.
Davis talked about the importance of “historical memory” and the Civil Rights Movement. “The figure of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has been set aside and isolated and represented as the lone historical figure, so everyone else who participated in the Civil Rights Movement falls away.”
Davis mentioned that she took umbrage with the term “diversity.” She said that “Diversity is difference that doesn’t make a difference.” Her comments were extremely relevant for institutions of higher education. Enrolling students of color, women, students with disabilities, lgbt students, and students with high financial need does not mean that racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia/heterosexism, and classism will simply disappear. However, “diversity” is thrown around as if it’s a magic anti-oppression elixir. Without social justice oriented, anti-oppression oriented, anti-racist oriented educational efforts, diversity cannot affect change amongst members of the dominant paradigm.
Apparently, both Condoleeza Rice and Angela Davis grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. Davis mentioned that people often attempt to refer to Rice as her “homegirl” (cue laughter from 1,000 people) because they share the experience of growing up in the Jim Crow south.
According to Davis, “Rice narrates her life as triumph over racism.” Davis said she needs to constantly “disassociate her story” from Rice’s story. “How can I claim my story is a triumph? We’ve won some victories..some important victories…, but from the time I was quite small, I learned from my mother that it was about collective victory…community triumph, not about an individual rising above the rest. Affirmative action was a strategy designed to enable communities to move forward, collectives to move forward.”
I attempted to record her entire talk, but my pda wasn’t working correctly so I have over an hour of audio that I pieced together from 40 audio snippets.
The fidelity isn’t the greatest but the message is amazing.
“The victories that we win are not always the victories for which we fought.” — Angela Davis
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Erase Racism Carnival #8
The Erase Racism Carnival is up at Trying To Follow.
The next carnival is at Writeous Sister Speaks on February 20th. Submit posts here.
Oglala Sioux asks for regalia
The Oglala Sioux Tribe has asked the University of Illinois and the University of Illinois Board of Trustees to return the Lakota regalia that is currently being worn by UIUC’s “Chief Illiniwek.”
The mascot discussion at Inside Higher Education is a microcosm of what is going on at the University of Illinois.
Chief Illiniwek is a racist caricature. The University of Illinois and the University of Illinois Board of Trustees are sanctioning institutionalized racism.
White people in Illinois who have the institutional power to fix this unjust situation are actively perpetuating racism. That’s about as point-blank as I can write it.
A story in six words
vegankid just tagged me! Okay, here is my story in six words:
High context. Six words, not enough.
That’s my story. It sums me up…I need at least seven or eight words to tell a story 
I guess I’ll have to pass on the “story in six words” meme — Brownfemipower, Paul, Faris, Kevin, Sean, and Kai.
Heterosexism + Sexism in New York Times
My head just exploded after I read an article in the New York Times entitled “51% of Women are Now Living Without Spouses.” I find this article to be terribly vexing. It is unbelievably heterosexist and sexist.
Apparently, the New York Times’ Sam Roberts believes that marriage is only between a woman and a man. I beg to differ.
The article also contains this gem of a quote from William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution:
“For better or worse, women are less dependent on men or the institution of marriage…”
How can it possibly be “worse” that women are “less dependent on men or the institution of marriage?” My feminist hackles are at their maximum.
Please read the article and then let’s discuss it in the comments.
Enrollment Management update 1/15/07
Tuition and Legislation:
Arizona lawmakers recently passed a law that denies in-state tuition to undocumented students. Undocumented students will now have to pay the out-of-state tuition rate at Arizona’s public institutions. The cost for out-of-state tuition is about 3 times as much as in-state tuition.
Affirmative Action and admissions:
“University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor John Wiley told a legislative committee reviewing affirmative action Thursday that high school grades and test scores aren’t good predictors of a student’s performance in college.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
I believe that MLK Day is not a day off, but a day on.
Dr. King was an amazing social justice activist. He worked against racism, classism, and poverty. He was anti-war and pro-peace. I feel re-energized on MLK Day.
His words on why he was opposed to the war in Vietnam are extremely relevant in today’s landscape.
Listen to the full audio recording of “Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam”
…And nations will not rise up against nations, neither shall they study war anymore. And I don’t know about you, I ain’t gonna study war no more. — Martin Luther King Jr.
University of Illinois and Chief Illiniwek
Update #2: Debbie Reese, a faculty member at UIUC, blogs at — A Native Perspective on UIUC’s “Chief Illiniwek”. Her latest post contains an email from UIUC’s Chancellor regarding the racist Facebook group.
Update: Inside Higher Education has more information on Chief Illiniwek…
I received this in my inbox yesterday…
For Immediate Release January 8, 2006
Pro-Chief Students Issue Call for Racism and Violence against American Indians at University of Illinois
As concerned citizens of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and as faculty in the university’s American Indian Studies Program and staff at the Native American House, we wish to call attention to a recent incident of university students explicitly advocating racist violence against American Indians in general and against one American Indian student in particular.
We call on the university leadership and the university community to express public and unequivocal outrage at this incident. We also call on the university authorities to initiate disciplinary proceedings.
Apple iPhone
Apple introduced the iPhone today. The iPhone is an ipod, cellphone, and internet device. The only downside is that Cingular is the cell service provider. Apple has partnered with both Google (Maps) and Yahoo (push-IMAP email) for the iPhone. I’ve dubbed the partnership, AppGooYa.
