More on Crabs

Sadly… Alisha and I have yet to partake of Maryland’s famous crabs here. However we attended some cool things today and I shall recount them in chronological order.

We attended the panel: Top Competitive Papers in Voices of Diversity

An Advanced Intercultural Communication Project exploring the Relationship among DNA Ancestry Profiles, Narrative, and the Social Construction of Race (top paper) – Anita Foeman, West Chester University

This was such an interesting paper! Unfortunately we walked in too late to hear the whole part of it but it was about testing persons’ DNA and tracing the ancestry then recording some of the reactions to the information that the test revealed. Like… how does a “white” person react when she finds out she’s got african blood? How does an African American react when they discover asian and european blood? How are these reactions different? What does that tell us? It changes how we see ourselves and how we define others around us. Like, all of a sudden the idea of “foreigner” is quite different. Her research including people of all sorts of different backgrounds and her stories were so great. Fascinating research! And she really knew her stuff.At first I was a bit leery about DNA definitions of race but I think Dr. Hostetler explained it well enough to my irrational mind that I don’t have a problem with it.  It isn’t really a DNA definition of race but a mere… look we have the DNA from this area of the world oh so long ago and you look like you have some of that so… Yeah, awesome!

Domesticating the Muslim Other: A Critical Investigation of Aliens in America (top student paper) – Joseph Saei, College of Charleston

I have never seen the TV show Aliens but now I sort of want to. Joseph explored the different myths that he thought were being played upon in the show. His presentation focused on the myth of the model minority working withing the US society’s perspective to earn tolerance. He was of the slave type as a Pakistani exchange student in a midwest white family who are clearly not as hardworking. So it’s a domestication of Raja (the protagonist) but not as an individual phenomenon but in making the Muslim body more reachable. What is clear from his presentation is that there was a lot more going on in his paper than he disclosed in his short ~ 15 minutes. It was refreshing that his criticism was balanced. He was like… look the show makes a good multi culturalism argument and is trying to do something for the placement of Muslims in the american mindset but it falls prey to some pretty big issues. For example, he touched on how raja’s character development takes a backseat to the family’s angsty teenager. really interesting paper and I felt like I could have some fascinating talks with him over coffee or whatever by the way he made such poetic correlations to what he was doing. I can’t remember what they were now. I think one was a harlem ren poet. I was feelin’ it at the time. Those kinds of people have magical minds and I wanna be in company with ‘em.

True Blood: The Narrative of the Living Dead – Meredith Hitchins, College of Charleston

I smiled all the way through this presentation. The presenter was SO dynamic. Great flow and very funny. She performed a narrative structure. Her initial question was about the captivation that True Blood is capable of. What is the appeal to vampires anyway? Her argument was that the show reflects cultural discourses on: (1) sexuality (2) discrimination and (3) gender and power structures. I had no idea that the show updated our idea of TV sexuality with a vampire form of AIDS (Hep D, apparently?). Also the taboo coupling updates and normalizes the issue of inter-racial and homosexual dating. That this is placed in the South is clearly a heavy factor in the power of these examples. Lastly she discussed the relationship between Bill and Sookie and how it is much more complicated than a traditional female submission. Really cool pop culture rhetoric stuff and considering how put together the presentation was I can only imagine the paper was that kind of impressiveness.

What are They Like? Non-Expert Definitions of Stereotypes and their Implications for Stereotype Maintenance – Anastacia Kurylo, Marymount Manhattan College (she used to be an adjunt at St. Johns and this is part of her dissertation)

Parts of this presentation I missed because I was sitting on the floor and all sorts of me was getting numb. Then in the back of the room I discovered that hot air is supremely uncomfortable while wearing a cashmere sweater so I stepped out for like two minutes.

Her presentation was huge. She discussed in detail the inaccuracy and the many (4) inconsistencies in expert discourse on Stereotypes – what they are, what they mean, judgments about them. So her question was if experts can’t get it a good grasp on it, can non-experts? What do they have to say.

She had participants write out their definition of a stereotype and then she did all sorts of complicated analysis on the answers to come up with 20 themes then collapsed to 5 or 6 (I couldn’t write fast enough). So the answers were fairly across the board and still suffered problems of accuracy and consistent judgment (I think). As may be guessed, she seemed to be saying that people admitted that stereotypes serve a function. Now that I am writing about it I realize how simplistic my understanding is of what her research revealed. Ug, I’ve failed my blog followers.

MMK, well it’s late and Alisha and I are gonna work on our poster presentations for tomorrow morning. It’s gonna be cool, I think. I hope. Also, tomorrow I will be attending some panels that are about teaching. So cool.

Baltimore Aquarium At Night - The National Aquarium

In the evening Alisha and I thoroughly enjoyed the Baltimore Aquarium. We ran around trying to see all that we could before meeting up with Dr. Hostetler for dinner at an Irish Pub on the Bay. We bought matching Aquarium t-shirts (cute, right?). We also fell in love with Baltimore’s jellyfish! And I made a fool of myself in expressing a completely underdeveloped but sounded-so-cool-and-profound-in-my-head comment to some ECA professor I didn’t even know. He wasn’t impressed – no duh.

but they are still super cool:

The Object of Alisha and My Fascination

Dinner was beautiful. There were performers on the water’s edge doing 40s-60s a capella and then some guitarists. The music coupled with a gorgeous summer view and two people I really enjoy… (also salmon dinner with beer) I had a very nice evening. So much more to tell about.

From B-town

Ladies, Gentlemen and Friends,

My first full day in Baltimore for Eastern Communication Association has been pretty interesting. However, I must not start on today without outlining last night for it was magnificently magical!

After checking into our “swanky”  hotel (We have used this word, now, 50 times to describe it), Alisha and I ascended the hotel floors to our own via a glass elevator. A very nice sight. The room is pretty good and the hallways perpetually smell like just the right amount of febreeze which is glorious.

The hunger and curiosity of the city drove us out of the hotel to walk but across the street to the Chesapeake Bay. There is a small waterfall park/garden with metal art and nice lights which we wandered before reaching a swanky bank of restaurants and stores along the bay. Two things were on our minds: Cheesecake Factory (for cheesecake) and P.F. Chang’s (for lettuce wraps).

We got the best of both worlds in choosing Cheesecake Factory (my debut at the establishment). For not only did we have a charming date (the lovely Alisha and I) with a beautiful view over the night lit water but we also enjoyed lettuce wraps and fresh guac followed by Kahlua Coco Cheesecake. It was a great time! We rolled ourselves back to the hotel. But let me say quickly that lettuce wraps are awesome! Tacos only… better!

This morning was a nervous matter, for me, of getting ready with an outfit that I realized too late doesn’t really work all that well together. That’s a sad thing to figure out in the hotel. But I owned it. Hello fucked up fashion rules, my name is Alia. In any case, Alisha and I decided very last minute to attend a Lambda Pi Eta Panel about rhetorical criticism on campaigns. It seemed up her alley for her paper and up mine when it comes to my interests. These were the papers:

Campaigns and Critique: Rhetorical Criticism of Media Messages

“World War II Propoganda: We Can Do It! & Rosie the Riveter” Lori Caldwell, U. of Pitt undergrad – feminist critique on these two images. How did the US gov use campaigns to illicit women? playing on women’s emotions and patriotism. (I think this was the best paper on the panel – it did the best job of being critical from all sides)

“Truth: Manipulation of the Tobacco Industry” Lauren Filotei, U of Pitt undergrad – cluster analysis about some video anti-tobacco campaigns aimed at youth on the internet. I thought it was to be about the discourse on both sides but she really focused on just those videos which meant, as the respondent said, that it was a critique of a critique. It was a basic presentation about the images and what they meant. It could be really cool with the respondents suggestions of problematizing the message more because the speaker seemed to simply focus championing the advertisements.

“Herbal Essences’ ‘Organic’ Campaign” Melissa Marullo, U of Pitt undergrad – Cluster critique – what kind of images showed up most often and what were they doing. She discussed the sexualization of the advertisements and outlined the necessity of the company to do it as it was failing then the company’s hailed success as sales went up. She did a thorough job of outlining the organic elements and linking it to the orgasmic ones. the respondent made a great comment in that we can wonder what the implications are of replacing the male in traditional sex acts with a consumable product. critique that up the wazzo.

“PETA: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals” Phoebe Nixon, U of Pitt undergrad – feminist critique but Alisha and I are wondering how that was. She started out great with some ads for us to look at. She outlined well what a fem crit can be 1. explore the gender construction 2. explore the patriarchy and it’s ability to perpetuate itself or how to reform it. She didn’t seem to do that in the presentation (the paper may be a different story). She said that fem crit is useful with PETA images because feminists align themselves with other oppressed groups. Then the student discussed how the animals are depicted as lesser, helpless and unwanted. but… I don’t know. She didn’t have a reason for why only the ads she showed us. Her reason was because these were the ones that supported her argument. but eh. PETA has gotten into trouble for objectifying women inadvertently when trying to help the animals out in a Catch 22 (not to mention the “pure white” racist issues that may be there too). It would have been awesome to hear what she had to say about that.

They were interesting and very well written presentations. The subject matter was really great! And I applaud these girls for doing the panel. The greatest part about the presentations, for Alisha and I, is that we are right there. What these students worked on is something we can definetly see ourselves doing in terms of quality. So….

The next panel was sponsored by Voices of Diversity and it was so GREAT! for a later post though because Alisha and I are going to the Baltimore Aquarium like right now because it’s only a few blocks away and some shindig is going on with ECA. Lots of thoughts running through my mind. Much worry about the poster session tomorrow. I love having this experience and especially having it with Alisha.

Dis-covering Hu-man

Dear HC friend,

We conversed a few days ago on a topic that fascinates us each: music. After sharing my perspective on some songs and artists, you commented that I seem to talk a lot about feminism. I take it hard[core] but that I shouldn’t base my life on just that. You suggested that I could just be human. Your words shook me. Not because I felt that you were malicious or unkind. I am pretty sure that I accurately read a friendly tone of concern especially because you spoke from your own experience. What affected me so deeply was (1) the disconnect between your world and mine and (2) the difficulty of explaining myself to you. I was struck by a feeling that explaining my positionality and worldview to you might be impossible.

I had no response for you that night, dear friend. But I have one now. Please, hear me out.

Human. Hu-man. I don’t know what it means to be just human. I don’t understand what the neutral qualities are that men, women, children, Latinas, Japanese, the poor, the deaf, the extroverted and the white, middle-class college girl share. So to “be human” is problematic for me. Cultural norms dictate behavior that’s not inherent to being human. Gender roles are just a part of that but for women, especially, it is a huge part of it.

As I identify primarily as a woman, I am concerned with how women/I are/am constructed/defined as. And because I have been, for so long, constructed/defined in relation to men – as what he is not (Simone de Beauvoir) – I am not sure I trust what I have been told to believe about being human. I am especially critical of what to believe about how I should fulfill “humanness” in my female body.

It follows then that I examine when I am talked about. I read song lyrics, advertisements, social conventions and more to deconstruct the multiplicity of meanings that may be imbedded. I hold that language is powerfully disciplining and forming and we must be vigilant in critically examining it. (we can talk later, if you like, about why I think this) As music is ideologically loaded, I think that the amount of feminism I brought up during our exchange was reasonable.

You might ask me to kindly shy away from that F word, but understand that you are simultaneously asking my to shy away from myself. I am unlikely to say very much if you do not encourage me to speak freely from my world to yours – across and in spite of the distance.

Our exchange was very valuable to me. I love the music you sent me.

With Thanks,

Alia

What were those lyrics again?

How cute is this? This kid isn’t all that different from most of us who listen to music. I was listening to a Nas song that was beating up Jay-Z and stupidly asked my boyfriend if it was supposed to be mean or something like that. I hadn’t been paying attention to the words. He sent me the silliest look.

Nas in Y’all My Niggas talks about the importance of understanding the words we use. While I think Nas has a fantastic point about the power of words independent of what we mean by them – I can’t help but think that this kid is having a little bit of fun. Hell, I had fun listening to/watching him. (He’s going on my Christmas list, fo sho.)

In the end, I feel less critical of myself and others who pull a “is this supposed to be mean” when they’re listening to Ether because it’s not possible to be On all the time. Even if it were, it’s probably not desirable.

Ignorant critique avoided… maybe

I almost wrote a scathing critique in this post about Lisa Flores regarding her essay Creating Discursive Space Through a Rhetoric of Difference. I was angry that I didn’t understand the jump she seemingly made from Chicana’s forming their identity and that identity being immediately connected to Third World Women in general. When she had spent so long discussing how important it was for the uniqueness of the material reality to shape a people’s identity it did not make sense that she should assume that all Third World Women working to emancipate themselves from their oppressive cultures would have the same sisterhood. Their materiality is different!

In trying to justify my angry tyraid I discovered her point. It is nestled in an understanding that identity is constructed … redefined in three stages:

- carving out a space withing which they can find their own voice – entails recognizing the labels, definitions

- they begin to turn it into a home where connections to those within their families are made strong

- construct bridges of pathways connecting them with others

-  result: chicana feminist homeland flexible enough to interact with other homelands

I’m sure that ya’ll reading that can figure out which part I forgot and got angry about. But if not, that’s ok cuz ya probably didn’t read the article and I did.  Mexican American women who feel neither Mexican nor American must create a space for themselves to be themselves, yes? For many, yes. Chicana women carve out their space and make it a home by creating what Gloria Anzaldua calls El Mundo Zurdo – the left handers world – the place for the misfits.

Lisa Flores says, “Because they may never have the connections to their biological families that allow them to be whole, Chicana feminists create a home with other Third World feminists…”

What scared me about my misunderstanding is that I almost wrote a fallacious, ignorant blog. Who knows, maybe the way I understand Flores is wrong here too. The perminancy hit me though. I must be more careful. I must ask more questions before I go about yelling (typing loudly) at the internet or in papers.

This paper is rough but I love it because the subject matter is so important. My critique on Gloria Anzaldua’s Speaking in Tongues: Letter to Third World Women Writers marches on through more reading, learning and questioning.

Many other things to write this weekend as well. I am kind of excited.

Adrienne, Audre & Alice

A Statement for Voices Unheard: A Challenge to the National Book Awards

Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, and Alice Walker

At the National Book Award ceremony, Adrienne Rich read the following statement, prepared by herself, Audre Lorde, and Alice Walker-all of whom had been nominated for the poetry award. They agreed that whoever was chosen to receive the award, if any, from among the three, would read the statement.

We, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, and Alice Walker, together accept this award in the name of all the women whose voices have gone and still go unheard in a patriarchal world, and in the name of those who, like us, have been tolerated as token women in the culture, often at great cost and in great pain. We believe that we can enrich ourselves more in supporting and giving to each other than by competing against each other; and that poetry-if it is poetry-exists in a realm beyond ranking and comparison. We symbolically join together here in refusing the terms of patriarchal competition and declaring that we will share this prize among us, to be used as best we can for women.

We appreciate the good faith of the judges for this award, but none of us could accept this money for herself, nor could she let go unquestioned the terms on which poets are given or denied honor and livelihood in this world, especially when they are women. We dedicate this occasion to the struggle for self-determination of all women, of every color, identification, or derived class: the poet, the housewife, the lesbian, the mathematician, the mother, the dishwasher, the pregnant teenager, the teacher, the grandmother, the prostitute, the philosopher, the waitress, the women who will understand what we are doing here and those who will not understand yet, the silent women whose voices have been denied to us, the articulate women who have given us strength to do out work.

Taken from Inviting Transformation, Sonja Foss and Karen Foss, Second Edition. This speech was presented in 1974 for the Poetry Award

Gloria, Oh Gloria!

Having a terrible emotional war with myself. It’s stupid and selfish. BUT according to Gloria Anzaldua, writing is the most freeing, empowering activity that I can do. In writing I am supposed to be able to reveal to myself aspects of me that I never knew. She writes:

“Why am I so compelled to write? Because the writing saves me from this complacency I fear. Because I have no choice. Because I must keep the spirit of my revolt and myself alive. Because the world I create in the writing compensates for what the real world does not give me. By writing I put order in the world, give it a handle so I can grasp it. … To discover myself, to preserve myself, to make myself, to achieve self-autonomy… To convince myself that I am worthy and that what I have to say is not a pile of shit.”

This passage is great! …and problematic for me too. She isn’t talking to me. This excerpt is from her Letter to the Third World Women Writers. Pretty much not me. So I don’t know where my spirit of revolt is coming from. She also discusses the need to write because others are erasing her. My suffering can’t be compared to the erasure felt by a Chicana lesbian (shame on me for even thinking about comparing our experiences but honestly, how else do you try and connect with a piece?) Also, while I believe I try to write to put order in the world, I often wish to write about things that are academic but not too personal. I’ve no intention of making a diary entry right now about my personal problems… just a little discussion about Anzaldua and rhetorical criticism. I just need order right now.

So this passage serves two purposes. First, it justifies to myself my desire to write while also getting started on the topics I want to write about.

Today I spent some time studying Anzaldua’s Letter and two questions popped into my head. The first question is one of content. I am not sure how to understand her when she asks women to write. The second is one of method as I study her. I feel uncomfortable fashioning a rhetorical criticism on a creative work like this letter.

First Issue: She wants women to write but write what?!  Peppered throughout the letter are the poems of Cherrie Moraga. Really very beautiful words! They seem to function as examples of other third world women writers writing about their experiences without the distance of academic language and form. They are creativity. They also illustrate whichever point Anzaldua (I’m gonna call her Gloria now) is making. For example, she discusses the limitations that “we” feel and transitions into Cherrie’s poem about writing in poverty. So I can gather that when Gloria says “we” should write she is encouraging creative writing.

Here’s my issue with that: I don’t write poetry. Nothing in me says “let’s write a poem.” Instead my brain says “you really should ‘cuz it’s supposed to be what cultured and intellectual people do.” Even though Gloria discusses how hard it is to make yourself write, I think that creative writing is my weakest, weakest, very not strong point. It is a painful and uncreative process for me. So what am I to do? (assuming she thinks that white first world women can also benefit from writing.)

There are other excerpts to look at in this letter and I think that these can save me.

-She quotes Kathy Kendall who talks about what she thinks Audre Lorde wants women to do. “Audre said we need to speak up. Speak loud, speak unsettling things and be dangerous and just fuck, hell, let it out and let everybody hear whether they want to or not.” (pretty cool)

-Gloria also quotes Naomi Littlebear, “Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage.” (a proverb, no?)

-Then there is Luisah Teish’s words to white feminists uttered in hopes of explaining that third world women writers face very different barriers… like starvation.

I would not call these examples of creative prose. They seem to be on the other side of the spectrum. These ladies are revealing the reality of their lives. They are discussing how to take up arms so that against a sea of troubles (roaring) they will not be ended (silenced).

Gloria uses poetry, proverbs, and naked narrative to fashion a super creative letter (I’ll explain why this is a thorn in my side next). She encourages creativity but wants raw experience put inside of it. I am not gonna score high on creativity (Cherrie’s poems… amazing) and I am not sure what my unextreme experiences can offer in narrative or proverb. These seem like big giant statements stemming from big giant oppressed experiences. I just don’t know if what I put together about debate, rhetoric or whatever would be of much worth to her.

Second Issue: For one of my final papers, I want to do a rhetorical criticism on this Letter. But I am so lost! One of my professors has this cool technique that I thought I would try and in using it I discovered how nonlinear her letter seems… especially at the end. The technique is really super simple. Just order the piece in the margins. So next to the first paragraph I wrote “creation of audience.” And in a few other places I partitioned paragraphs off and titled them “characterizes ‘we’” and “problem.” However, by the last page I couldn’t do it anymore.

I can’t explain why this point is follow by that point or why she calls the body a distraction to writing (“the body distracts”) in one place but then valorizes the body in the next paragraph (“listen to the words chanting in your body”). The last bit is like a collection of proverbs with only a general theme. They aren’t too well ordered but they seemed really important to her so she smashed them in all at the end. Getting inside of an author’s head is pretty damn hard but we can try to understand their logical progression. In this letter, I feel like I have to be clairvoyant to write about the progression. I wish she was clearer, concise and traditional.

Don’t worry. I get why she’s illustrating something that the establishment might get a little upset about. The disorder might make you think more. And if she felt like this point should follow that point then what better reason does she need? It just makes it hard to dissect the piece so that I know what’s going on… so that I can critique it! Rhetorical criticisms on creative works are just hard.

At the end of the day, I am going to talk about her construction of the audience. More to come on that later.

Perferred Pronouns

I am currently enrolled in a fascinating class called “Rhetoric of Popular Culture.” We enjoyed a guest speaker a few weeks back who said something very interesting. It is this that I want to write about.

The story: The speaker’s introduction included name: Reanna and the pronoun that Reanna preferred. That pronoun is the female pronoun. She said some great things about what she does for a living and how she works to resolve conflicts amongst elementary school children. She also discussed the fascinating situations she has found herself in … most especially fascinating because the school at which she is employed is in San Francisco and such attitudes and prejudices seem out of place for such a progressive city.

While I felt that her entire message was very interesting, I was intrigued by the manner she introduced herself. I have never heard anyone else use that language or make that distinction right off the bat. She forced everyone to mentally recognize that the assumptions we often have about another’s gender identity may be quite wrong. A whole world of individuals, ordinarily erased or silent in our culture, were brought out front. It was personal too because it was a polite but loud way to say, “my identity is mine and I would like for you to respect that.” She said again and again that she didn’t like to be boxed which was beautiful because our reliance on appearance as clues to gender identity are a way to define what feminine or masculine look like and thus to box.

Why was this awesome? I felt inspired to always introduce myself in a similar manner. After all, what harm could it do? I may get weird looks. I might be treated as sick or special. But I think that the benefits can outweigh these harms. The hope would be to normalize identities that are problematized by arbitrary social standards and mores. Others may have the same brain blast I experienced… a realization that I may harmfully make assumptions about anothers identity and should be more careful of that. But more importantly, I may be able to encourage or embolden those who do have problematized identities. Maybe this could be classified as a rhetorical strategy to alter social understandings of sex and gender.

Douglas and I talked about this for awhile on the subway. He helped me realize that I was all excited about this idea without any real intention of using it the next time I am introduced to a peer, professor or salesperson. Why? It may detract from something else that I am trying to say that is not connected with identity. It could also be seen as counterproductive if I got to be known as the annoying one who always uses “that line.” These critiques are well noted. However, I am excited to use this introduction in formal arenas where I believe that I can empower and educate. For example, I think that I would like to introduce myself this way to my future students in the classroom setting. In addition, I think that I can use this strategy in persuading audiences of the legitimacy of careful speech, gender identity crises and a plethora of other amazing topics.

Yay for great words that make people think!

The Bitchy Feminist

Ladies, Gentlemen, self,

I am thinking about the word “bitch”.  Can I say it? What if  “I” is a woman who holds these things to be true:

1. women are oppressed (read caged) by sociatal constructs

2.  a firm belief in advocacy for the feminism that works to alleviate oppression for all individuals

3. words are extraordinarily powerful as they always and already shape us to see and believe things in certain ways

4. demeaning and erasing language is harmful because it perpetuates oppressive constructs

5. rhetorical strategies and criticism are excellent methods to persuade others of a better world view. They are conscious raising tools.

6. the term “bitch” is often meant with the ill will to demean a woman to an unreasonable, moody and onoray animal

What then? Is it worth all of the crap from people who use the word? Is it worth the stressful arguments to defend my choice with other feminists or family members? Am I wasting time on an issue that really isn’t all that important?