In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Category: General

Open Blogging on Race and Gangs

My name is Lenka, and I usually blog over at farkleberries. I’ve been a fan of Feministe for quite some time, and although I don’t tend to blog much on feminist issues at my place, it is an issue near and dear to my heart. I hope someday I can articulate my views on the subject as eloquently as the folks at Feministe do! 🙂 It’s a happy coincidence that today is open blogging on Feministe, because I had an unusual experience last night that I’m itching to write about: my Criminal Justice Juvenile Delinquency class had four active Chicago members of the Gangster Disciples, Vicelords and the Black Souls – all currently on parole – visit as guest speakers. Even though our instructor is a retired Chicago cop with over 30 years of street experience under his belt, I have to admit that I was a bit nervous when the guests arrived. Let me put that in context.

We’ve had a streak of violent crimes in my neighborhood this winter, such as the killing of a janitor and a young woman only weeks apart in the apartment building directly across the street from my apartment building. While none of these crimes appears to be gang-releated, I still clearly picture walking home from class that January night, as remote newsvans, camera crews and reporters stood in front of the makeshift memorial at 6151 N. Winthrop where 21-year old Melissa Dorner was raped and murdered, allegedly by a man who lived in her building. The Chicago Tribune had quoted one of Melissa’s relatives, saying she had moved to our part of town, Edgewater, because several stranger rapes had occured recently in her old neighborhood. I try not to dwell on these crimes too much, but when I walk home from the train at around 10:00pm some nights, it’s hard not to see every shadow and approaching stranger on the sidewalk as a bit more malign and threatening. Will I make it home alive tonight, or will my name be on the nightly news? When murder hits this close to home, these normally paranoid thoughts seem almost reasonable.

Back to “gang night at Loyola.” Perhaps these events made me a bit hypersensitive, but it took several minutes to get used to the idea that four people with serious criminal histories (including rape, armed robbery, and murder) were sitting about ten feet away from me. I listened intently, not brave enough to ask the panel any questions of my own, a bit too conscious of my body language and facial expressions. As a thirty-something European-American woman enrolled in a private university, I knew I’d be perceived in my status as a privileged, naive outsider. Nothing that could be done about that, really. Three of the gangmembers were men in their late thirties and forties, and the one woman was by her own admission, “twenty-one going on forty.” All looked much older than their years because of hard living and prolonged substance abuse, and at some point during the evening each one said they felt “blessed” to be alive at this point. None had expected to live past their twenties, and all felt their years in “the life” were wasted time.

21-year old”Sheryl,” coincidentally the same age as Melissa Dorner was when she died, had been involved in prostitution, pimping and heavy drug use since the age of 11. She recalled the time she was discovered in rival gang territory a few blocks away from her home., when some women from a rival gang spotted her distinctive arm tattoo depicting a six-pointed star with Gangster Disciples markings. “Sheryl” tried to save herself by claiming the marking meant that she was Jewish. She was lucky that day. Instead of killing her, the rival gang only sliced the tattooed skin off her arm with razor blades.

The biggest surprise? All had talked about and thanked a woman named Adelle, the gang counselor/liaison who arranged their visit and returned them home that night before their 9:00pm curfew. Adelle is an older African-American woman who normally sits in the back of the classroom, frequently expressing her thoughts in what I sometimes perceived to be a hostile, confrontational and anti-establishment manner. After last night, I really saw her differently. Not only is she a fellow non-traditional student, but a strong woman with incredible street cred, a survivor of a lifetime in some of Chicago’s toughest neighborhoods, who understands, connects with, and helps turn around some of the world’s most difficult and misspent lives. She’s a hero in my book.

(P.S.) Thanks, Lauren, for giving us the chance to guest-blog!

Sorry Horowitz, Academics Won’t Shill for the Right

Quick intro: I’m Ryan. I’ve only been blogging for a couple months and, in that time, I have contributed to both Why Are We Back In Iraq? and Watching the Watchers. A few days ago, I started a blog called Imposter Syndrome that will chronicle my experience as graduate student in the Hoosier State. I haven’t found a home for this piece, so I thought it would be perfect for a feministe guest post. I hope you enjoy it.

(Note: This is an expanded, and more satirical, version of a letter that I wrote to the Indiana Daily Student. It was published about a month ago and can be found online here; it’s the second one.)

Welcome to the world of Indiana politics. With the first Republican Governor in 16 years and a few new Republican lawmakers (including at least one Elvis impersonator) the Hoosier State is in for a hell of a lot of interesting, and ultimately useless, legislation as a just matter of state governance. (Think Texas politics with a lot less money on hand to throw around.)

My letter to the IDS deals with HB 1531, a proposed “Academic Bill of Rights”. Now, I don’t have to point out to the astute reader that this is a great title for a bill like this. It’s up there with “No Child Left Behind” and the “Clear Skies Initiative”. Who could be against civil rights for students and professors? Who could oppose this bill?

That’s obvious to David Horowitz and Sarah Dogan, the leading figures behind the Students for Academic Freedom: It’s the pink-o commie behind the lectern, that’s who.

If you’re not familiar with David Horowitz, then consider yourself lucky. He’s the prolific civil rights advocate and editor-in-chief of the conservative outfit frontpagemag.com. I pretty much think he’s a moron, but I’ll let you judge for yourself. Let’s thank Media Matters for America for making things easier on me by sharing this beauty:

Modern liberals are socialists, they’re not liberals. What are they liberal about besides hard drugs and sex? Everything else they want to control in your life. That’s true of the Democratic Party. It’s true of the British Labor Party. They’re socialists. That’s their religion.

Horowitz made this statement for a 2004 documentary titled, “Roots of the Ultra Left”, which was produced by the Leadership Institute. Yep, that’s the same Leadership Institute that “trained” “Jeff Gannon”.

Getting back to the actual bill, its main purpose is to protect students and professors from discrimination based on any political, religious, or ideological leanings. As far as state universities in Indiana go, this whole “controversy” has revolved around the case of Brett Mock’s experience at Ball State. As far as I can tell, he was upset that a Peace Studies course he willingly enrolled in did not discuss perpetual warfare as viable alternative to world peace. An op-ed by Ball State Pres. Jo Ann Gora revealed that “[i]n fact, Mr. Mock has never made a direct complaint to the university – formal or informal – and he waited until months after the course had concluded before first making claims in an article published by Mr. Horowitz’s online magazine.” Gee, I wonder if Mock got paid by Horowitz for that article.

Also, no op-ed would be complete without a rebuttal that doesn’t address the issues raised. More specifically, Dogan and Horowitz do not establish that there isn’t sufficient administrative machinery in place to address the discrimination of students at the hands of professors. This is because they can’t. They’ve tried, believe me. Just visit their site.

To wrap things up, I have just a few questions for those in support of this legislation. Since when are professors supposed to be high priced babysitters? If you’re so concerned with being recruited by the Communist Party against your will, why didn’t you apply to Bob Jones University? (You get a pass on this one if you did, but weren’t accepted.) And finally, do you consider yourself to be Republican, or even Libertarian?

If you answered “yes” to this last question, I think you need to clarify that position with a comment. Wasn’t it your hero Ron Reagan who claimed that “man is not free unless government is limited…. As government expands, liberty contracts”? If you want to bring government control into institutions that have shown an ability to police themselves, go ahead. I don’t think you’ll particularly enjoy the consequences. Also, stop bastardizing the word “conservative”.

Finally, to David, I’d like to express my sentiments, and those of many of my fellow Hoosiers, with what Melvin Udall tells his neighbor in the 1997 film As Good as It Gets: “Sell crazy someplace else, we’re all stocked up here.”

(For some useful information on how to fight HB1531, visit the Indiana Conference of the American Association of University Professors (INAAUP). For now, the bill is dead in the water), but it might be a good idea to make some calls to make sure it stays that way.)

Oh noes! Someone stoled my megahurtz!

I [Ben or Heliologue, depending on how well you know me] talk about a lot of things on my blog, Schrödinger’s Cat is Dead. The question becomes, now that I’m gleefully guestblogging on Lauren’s well-established and overtly sociopolitical blog, what I can talk about that she hasn’t covered and that would be of some use to people who are reading it. Though usually technology issues are a bit too esoteric for such matters, I happen to have what I think is a good topic for even the internet unsavvy.

So, you’ve got a computer, and let’s say for the sake of argument that you’ve got it hooked up (very possibly via a cable or DSL modem) to the big scary internet, a glorious beacon of information, entertainment, and hot Asian teens, but also teeming with viruses, advertisements for Viagra, and people who’d love nothing more than your credit card number.

Most people know that there are ways to protect yourself. Unfortunately, a lot of these things cost serious money, money you’d rather not spend. Making it worse, your damn kids insist on instant messaging everyone in the hemisphere and browsing god-knows-where in search of some of those Asian teens. How can you make your computer safe without breaking the bank? Easy. What follows are five handy programs you can use for free that will help keep your computer safe.

Read More…Read More…

Performance Anxiety!

My name’s Stacie and I’m from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I hate discussing where I work or what I do, so I’ll skip to the fact that Im changing all that and starting graduate school in the Fall semester. My web log is called Spitting in a Wishing Well and you can visit any time you like. I should be asleep by now, but I hate to go to sleep when there are so many fascinating things left to explore in the world. I’m not saying this to sound pretentious, or corny – I really resent sleep for this simple reason. I’ve leave you with one interesting thing about me (which I’ve already left on someone else’s site today but which you can’t read about on my web log), though this is not the most interesting thing, I’m sure – it’s just on my mind at the moment.

I LOVE giving things away through FREECYCLE (Freecycle.org) which hooks people up in communities around the world so that people can give away things they either don’t want or use anymore to people who really want and need them. I get such a warm feeling, mixed with relief and freedom, from giving away all kinds of shit I no longer need to hold on to. And, I love it.

Also, read on my web log that they are finally releasing Prozac Nation on Starz then on DVD (quoted from Slate.com).

Gams

A day late, and way more than a dollar short.

Pablo shows off one hot gam. This is seduction, folks.

Site Quirks

Charles helped me do a WordPress upgrade to 1.5. Things may be wonky around here until I get this thing fixed up real purdy.

How is the larger font size?
Any other tricks that would make this thing easier to navigate?

Ethan On Geometry

“Hey, Mom. Squares, cubes and rectangular prisms all go together.”

[pause]

“Awesome! How did I know that?”

I Never Thought I’d Be The Kind Of Person To Give My Cat Anti-Anxiety Medicine

Pablo waits patiently in his cave for the horns to appear.

The veterinarian prescribed a temporary round of anti-anxiety meds because Pablo has been so freakishly weird since the stay at the vet. It has helped to calm him down some and curb some of his more worrying behavior, like the overgrooming that has left him with a receding hairline. I’m one of those people now, those people who feed their pets Prozac and shit. Next I will begin to wean him off of tap water in favor or water bottled especially for kitties.

This just goes to prove that I can’t do something good (like adopting a cat) without it going hilariously wrong.

Friday Catalope Blogging

Alas, no pictures as all my ftp info is on the other computer. But there is quite an interesting development in the Pablo saga.

Since Pablo got home from the vet, he’s picked up a rather annoying habit of laying on the edge of the couch, flipping his head over, and scraping his forehead against the piping. These two areas are rubbed raw and it looks as though the cat could sprout horns at any moment.