Hi y'all,
NPR is doing a month-long series on race, and I thought you might find this interesting. It's an examination of the development of racial consciousness in children. Check it out here. Click on "listen now" to hear the program (it's about 18 min. long).
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Tick-Tock
With the semester coming to a quick close, time is of the essence. I share Dr. Young's concerns regarding the end of the semester project. We are running out of time.At this point, I think we need to hear from more members of the class on their opinions before we proceed with any other plans. I would appreciate your thoughts/concerns so that we can progress with the project, or not. Hope you are all doing well!
Medicine in Black and White
Hello All,
A student in my undergraduate seminar sent this to me with you guys in mind.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
End of the Semester Project
Hi everyone, hope you are all doing well. Seeing as the semester's end is not far off, we really should get moving on our end of the semester project. I am waiting to hear back from the assistant to the Chair in my department about reserving Clemens 120. But in the meantime, there are other things that need to be decided.
1) We need a name for our actual presentation. This will go on flyers that we will hand out to interested parties.
2) Abstracts. I have a friend who is a graphic designer, and have asked her to help us in designing a flyer for the presentation. If we were to collect the full abstracts of all of our papers and circulate them, I wonder if that would be too much. Would people actually read through all of them? What if instead we each came up with a sentence or two about our paper, and included that on the flyer? Any thoughts/suggestions?
3) People. We need to think of groups/departments/friends or family members that will be interested in attending our presentation. We should come up with a final list, so that when it comes time to circulate the flyers and/or abstracts, we are all set.
4) Food. Although I was told that food in Clemens 120 is off limits-I distinctly recall being in that room and eating. For the TA conference I had to attend, food/drink was catered by the University. Having said that, we should think about the kind of food/drink we would like to supply. I am not sure if my department has any extra funds, so this might have to be an out of pocket expense. Perhaps each of us can chip in to help defray the costs?
5) Time. We should think about a convenient time for the presentation. When should it begin? How long should each of us speak? Those sorts of things.
Any questions/comments/suggestions please share with everyone.
See you all tomorrow.
1) We need a name for our actual presentation. This will go on flyers that we will hand out to interested parties.
2) Abstracts. I have a friend who is a graphic designer, and have asked her to help us in designing a flyer for the presentation. If we were to collect the full abstracts of all of our papers and circulate them, I wonder if that would be too much. Would people actually read through all of them? What if instead we each came up with a sentence or two about our paper, and included that on the flyer? Any thoughts/suggestions?
3) People. We need to think of groups/departments/friends or family members that will be interested in attending our presentation. We should come up with a final list, so that when it comes time to circulate the flyers and/or abstracts, we are all set.
4) Food. Although I was told that food in Clemens 120 is off limits-I distinctly recall being in that room and eating. For the TA conference I had to attend, food/drink was catered by the University. Having said that, we should think about the kind of food/drink we would like to supply. I am not sure if my department has any extra funds, so this might have to be an out of pocket expense. Perhaps each of us can chip in to help defray the costs?
5) Time. We should think about a convenient time for the presentation. When should it begin? How long should each of us speak? Those sorts of things.
Any questions/comments/suggestions please share with everyone.
See you all tomorrow.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Reading David Roediger's How Race Survived US History, I was reminded of a documentary that I saw about a year ago. The documentary is entitled Little RockCentral: 50 Years Later. It is a wonderful film which revisits Little Rock Central High School 50 years after the forcible integration of nine black high school students in defiance of the governor's orders not to integrate the school after Brown v. Board of Education. By looking at Little Rock Central 50 years later, the film shows the failure of policies and legislation that has intended to de-privilege whiteness as well as the inadequacies of colorblindness as a way to overcome racial problems in a nation where race has always mattered.
On a personal note, my Mother teaches in a public middle school in a rural part of North Carolina, about thirty minutes inland from Wilmington, NC. The school is a Title 1 school with students who are so poor that, living just a thirty minute drive from the beach, most have never even seen the ocean. The student body, in this school, is almost equally divided between white and black students with a small percentage of Hispanic and Native American students. After seeing Little Rock Central: 50 Years Later, I told my Mother about it. She decided to show it to her students and then she conducted a discussion with regard to the film. She said that she was amazed at the reaction from many of her students. Usually, the students are extremely difficult to manage and classtime is spent dealing with discipline problems, leaving very little time for actual teaching. But, after watching the film, she said that all of her students were animated and lively. She said that everyone was engaged in the conversation, and it was the best class that she has had since she began teaching at the school just three years prior. Many of her students expressed the fact that they loved the film and the discussion because they were allowed to discuss openly race which they can't do in their other classes where colorblindness seems to be the preferred solution to issues that arise with regard to race. While race is a major issue in the lives of these students, they are never given the opportunity nor forum in which they can discuss race and what it means to them. By no means, did the students in my Mother's class agree on issues that were raised, but they did get to talk openly about these issues and the role that race plays in their lives. So, I think that this is a realistic example of much of what we discuss in class. If you are interested in the documentary, it is an HBO film and, on the HBO website, there is a good synopsis of it.
On a personal note, my Mother teaches in a public middle school in a rural part of North Carolina, about thirty minutes inland from Wilmington, NC. The school is a Title 1 school with students who are so poor that, living just a thirty minute drive from the beach, most have never even seen the ocean. The student body, in this school, is almost equally divided between white and black students with a small percentage of Hispanic and Native American students. After seeing Little Rock Central: 50 Years Later, I told my Mother about it. She decided to show it to her students and then she conducted a discussion with regard to the film. She said that she was amazed at the reaction from many of her students. Usually, the students are extremely difficult to manage and classtime is spent dealing with discipline problems, leaving very little time for actual teaching. But, after watching the film, she said that all of her students were animated and lively. She said that everyone was engaged in the conversation, and it was the best class that she has had since she began teaching at the school just three years prior. Many of her students expressed the fact that they loved the film and the discussion because they were allowed to discuss openly race which they can't do in their other classes where colorblindness seems to be the preferred solution to issues that arise with regard to race. While race is a major issue in the lives of these students, they are never given the opportunity nor forum in which they can discuss race and what it means to them. By no means, did the students in my Mother's class agree on issues that were raised, but they did get to talk openly about these issues and the role that race plays in their lives. So, I think that this is a realistic example of much of what we discuss in class. If you are interested in the documentary, it is an HBO film and, on the HBO website, there is a good synopsis of it.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
What Is It?
The topic of race came up again in another class I'm in (19th century American cultural history) and I thought it might be relevant to post here about it.
This week we read a book called The Arts of Deception: Playing with Fraud in the Age of Barnum by James Cook. As the title suggests, PT Barnum is the main focus but the book is more about the market revolution and the middle class in the antebellum north. The book uses specific Barnum exhibits as windows into antebellum culture in New York City, and one such chapter deals with an incredible (and at the time, wildly popular) exhibit called What Is It?
The exhibit claimed that the person/creature (described by Barnum and in advertising as "the nondescript") was a potential "missing link", and left it up to the audience to make their own conclusions. Cook argues that a big part of what made Barnum so successful was that he could take anxieties and ambiguities people were feeling, meld an exhibit around them, and thus challenge people to come face to face with issues of culture, race, and the emerging capitalist order.
At face value What Is It? certainly seems to be a blatantly racist caricature, but I couldn't help wonder if that was the point. That is, since Barnum so often attempted to force the audience to consider ambiguity, was this exhibit actually meant to call into questions preconceived notions of race? I left that class not sure if Barnum was an incredible racist or a subversive, and perhaps brilliant, opponent of racial prejudice.
I'm also curious to hear what you all feel about these images (as follows), the topic as a whole, and especially the issue of race and biology. We finished class last night being asked about the culturalists and their opinion of biology in regards to race, and these exhibits might give an early historical look at how American felt on the issue. Also, bear in mind the historical context of What Is It? Two major things to consider: 1) This exhibit came out less than a year after Darwin published The Origin of Species, and 2) This is the year Abraham Lincoln was elected President.
Enough from me, here are the images. The first two are advertisements. On the left is an advertisement put out by Barnum, and on the right one from Currier and Ives.
The next two are photographs taken by Matthew Brady in the early 1860's.
Love to hear what you guys think.
This week we read a book called The Arts of Deception: Playing with Fraud in the Age of Barnum by James Cook. As the title suggests, PT Barnum is the main focus but the book is more about the market revolution and the middle class in the antebellum north. The book uses specific Barnum exhibits as windows into antebellum culture in New York City, and one such chapter deals with an incredible (and at the time, wildly popular) exhibit called What Is It?
The exhibit claimed that the person/creature (described by Barnum and in advertising as "the nondescript") was a potential "missing link", and left it up to the audience to make their own conclusions. Cook argues that a big part of what made Barnum so successful was that he could take anxieties and ambiguities people were feeling, meld an exhibit around them, and thus challenge people to come face to face with issues of culture, race, and the emerging capitalist order.
At face value What Is It? certainly seems to be a blatantly racist caricature, but I couldn't help wonder if that was the point. That is, since Barnum so often attempted to force the audience to consider ambiguity, was this exhibit actually meant to call into questions preconceived notions of race? I left that class not sure if Barnum was an incredible racist or a subversive, and perhaps brilliant, opponent of racial prejudice.
I'm also curious to hear what you all feel about these images (as follows), the topic as a whole, and especially the issue of race and biology. We finished class last night being asked about the culturalists and their opinion of biology in regards to race, and these exhibits might give an early historical look at how American felt on the issue. Also, bear in mind the historical context of What Is It? Two major things to consider: 1) This exhibit came out less than a year after Darwin published The Origin of Species, and 2) This is the year Abraham Lincoln was elected President.
Enough from me, here are the images. The first two are advertisements. On the left is an advertisement put out by Barnum, and on the right one from Currier and Ives.
The next two are photographs taken by Matthew Brady in the early 1860's.
Love to hear what you guys think.
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