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Cultural Identity Activity

By ~LS~ On August 25, 2010 · Add Comment · In Feminism, I have to work?, Pedagogy, Politics, Race and Racism and tagged Tagged With: BRCC, Feminism, Gender, Generations, Louisiana, Pedagogy, Race, Sexism, Teaching, Teaching Activities

Since teaching at BRCC I have struggled with introducing issues of racism and other identity categories into the classroom. Given the diversity of the campus population, I’m not sure why. As I posted previously, the responses to racial topics are completely unpredictable.

Last semester, for instance, my students claimed that black people really do like fried chicken. Although part of that discussion was intentional provocation on some of the students’ part, I think many genuinely bought into the stereotype.

Perhaps my difficulties derive from the increasing hostility in conservative rhetoric toward people of color. The “love it or leave it,” English-only mentality is surprisingly prevalent. Although many, many white students don’t fall into this category, there are enough of them to make conversations tense and uncomfortable.

If the students of color (predominantly black, though we’re seeing a rise in other minorities) aren’t comfortable enough to [...]

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I heart Al Franken

By ~LS~ On June 30, 2010 · Add Comment · In Politics, Rhetoric and tagged Tagged With: Al Franken, Politics

I’m entirely jealous of the people of Minnesota on a daily basis. I have friended/liked Al Franken’s Facebook page and so I get posts about his work on several times a day. Jealous, jealous, jealous. He does so much good, progressive work, and he’s damned hard-nosed about it.

I get regular emails from Vitter, too, because I signed up for his newsletter for some stupid reason. They are nothing but grandstanding. I hit reply and respond with that statement on a regular basis. Vitter’s last email announcement praised his efforts to pressure “the administration” (by which I assume he means Obama) to send in the Fish and Wildlife folks and to increase the number of people assigned to the Louisiana gulf coast. Of course, in the mean time, Jindal is dicking around on calling in the National Guard.

Anyway, back to Franken. I have always liked Franken. I remember rolling [...]

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MLIS @ LSU

By ~LS~ On June 23, 2010 · Add Comment · In Academentia, Politics and tagged Tagged With: Louisiana, Politics

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A day of lessons in stereotypes

By ~LS~ On March 25, 2010 · Add Comment · In I have to work?, Politics, Race and Racism and tagged Tagged With: BRCC, For Wordies, Pedagogy, Race

Today has been an interesting lesson in stereotypes.

Lesson one:

I had a guest speaker from Deaf Services in BR come to my Interpersonal Communication class. He was dynamic and interesting and the students loved him. Before his visit, I decided to learn a little more about Deaf culture the capital D is important to people in the Deaf community). I’ve been fascinated about it ever since a friend of mine demonstrated the way that sign language is not a literal interpretation but a more poetic one. She did this by signing a song. I’ve learned a long time ago that it’s your responsibility to educate yourself about others who are culturally different rather than to expect them to translate for you. I think the most memorable statement came from Audre Lorde who said that white women expect women of color to “stretch across the gap of ignorance.” So in [...]

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Confessions of a Facebook slacktivist

By ~LS~ On March 24, 2010 · Add Comment · In Politics, The Web and tagged Tagged With: Al Franken, Facebook, Politics, Slacktivism

I was playing on Facebook Facecrack tonight when I noticed how many groups, pages, and causes I’ve joined. The accumulated weight of my mouse clicks shocked me not only because of these groups’ sheer purposelessness (i.e., the various Farmville hate groups) but also because joining generally leads to nothing fruitful even when the groups are actually meaningful to me (i.e., Southern Poverty Law Center).

Now, I could justify my joining via the route that says Facebook allows us to construct ourselves in this very strange hybrid space of reality and virtual reality. So that means that I want all these groups/pages/causes in my profile. They are little hyperlinks to represent who I am and who I associate with in the hyper-reality that is Facebook. They actually do mean something — to me, to everyone who fans or joins because I’ve done it, to everyone whose fanned or joined before me [...]

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Reality check on health care

By ~LS~ On March 23, 2010 · Add Comment · In Politics and tagged Tagged With: Obama, Politics

See? It just proves it!

Today, in the wake of the “historic” bill signed by the “historic” president, the liberal blogosphere has been crowing over the health care bill. I find this disturbing. People are cheering because the bill was resuscitated after its near death and they applaud that the bill went through with enough votes that Democrats didn’t need to rely on parliamentary shenanigans such as reconciliation. Admittedly there are those who acknowledge that the bill has little meat and that it’s basically a symbolic victory. Nonetheless, they are giddy with their success.

Well, Imma glass-half-empty kinda girl.

Hello? The Democrats scraped by tooth and nail to get this bill passed. They made enough concessions that much of the bill was gutted. Insurance stocks soared when the bill passed, right? That can’t be a good sign.

Right now, liberal folks are at once gleeful and indignant that the Tea [...]

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Cultural Identity Activity

I heart Al Franken

MLIS @ LSU

A day of lessons in stereotypes

Confessions of a Facebook slacktivist

Reality check on health care

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Cultural Identity Activity

I heart Al Franken

MLIS @ LSU

A day of lessons in stereotypes

Confessions of a Facebook slacktivist

Reality check on health care

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