Alum at Communivercity seeks student leaders
Greetings All~
I am working with CommUniverCity on the SJSU Day of Service team. We are currently looking to identify student Project Leaders on SJSU Day of Service on November 4th. Please pass the word to students that may have interest in leading a service project. I know you have communication with a lot of strong campus leaders and empowered students. Please encourage them to lead a project!
- In general, they will be asked to attend one training either September 29th (4:00-5:30) or September 30th (10:00-11:30) where they will choose a project.
- Meet their community partner once in October (on site) to get logistics for the project.
- Help lead volunteers on Day of Service November 4th (approximately 8-3pm).
Please forward my email and contact information to any students that may be interested. We need to identify 40-60 project leaders by the date of the Project Leader training September 29th/30th. Or students can email sjsudos@communivercitysanjose.org
Thank You,
Monica Gallyot
CommUniverCity San Jose
Project Coordinator
September 20, 2011 No Comments
Stop JC Penney and Forever 21 from putting more sexist clothing on their shelves
Hi All,
I got this email yesterday and I think it will be of interest to those on the list. WHO THINKS THIS IS FASHIONABLE???? Consider taking 2 minutes to sign this important petition!
Thanks,
Christin Munsch
Just yesterday, retailer Forever 21 began offering for sale a shirt for girls emblazoned with the slogan “Allergic to Algebra.” And a few weeks ago, JC Penney offered similar girls’ shirts with the slogan “I’m too pretty to do homework, so my brother has to do it for me.”
Sexist slogans like these play into and perpetuate the offensive stereotype that women are innately bad at math or that being pretty is more important than being smart. By selling these shirts, the stores give their implicit support of these efforts to convince girls that, to be stylish and fit in, they must be bad at math or less interested than boys in academic achievement.
After backlash from outraged customers, the both shirts were pulled from the shelves and online stores. But how did the sexist shirts get there in the first place? Clearly, something is totally broken within the corporate culture of these retailers. There is no effective review process for the clothing sold at JC Penney and Forever 21 if offensive clothing that demeans young girls makes it to their shelves.
Tell the CEOs of JC Penny and Forever 21 that you will hold them accountable for the clothing that is sold in their stores. Demand they make a public commitment to keep sexist clothing for girls from making it to their shelves in the future.
http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/sexist_shirts/?r_by=-3608322-hYZlGCx&rc=paste2
September 14, 2011 No Comments
An Open Statement to Fans of _The Help_
Professor Ruth P. Wilson, Chair, Department of African-American Studies forwarded this entry, writing:
On behalf of the Association of Black Women Historians (ABWH), this statement provides historical context to address widespread stereotyping presented in both the film and novel version of The Help. The book has sold over three million copies, and heavy promotion of the movie will ensure its success at the box office. Despite efforts to market the book and the film as a progressive story of triumph over racial injustice, The Help distorts, ignores, and trivializes the experiences of black domestic workers. We are specifically concerned about the representations of black life and the lack of attention given to sexual harassment and civil rights activism.During the 1960s, the era covered in The Help, legal segregation and economic inequalities limited black women’s employment opportunities. Up to 90 per cent of working black women in the South labored as domestic servants in white homes. The Help’s representation of these women is a disappointing resurrection of Mammy—a mythical stereotype of black women who were compelled, either by slavery or segregation, to serve white families. Portrayed as asexual, loyal, and contented caretakers of whites, the caricature of Mammy allowed mainstream America to ignore the systemic racism that bound black women to back-breaking, low paying jobs where employers routinely exploited them. The popularity of this most recent iteration is troubling because it reveals a contemporary nostalgia for the days when a black woman could only hope to clean the White House rather than reside in it.Both versions of The Help also misrepresent African American speech and culture. Set in the South, the appropriate regional accent gives way to a child-like, over-exaggerated “black” dialect. In the film, for example, the primary character, Aibileen, reassures a young white child that, “You is smat, you is kind, you is important.” In the book, black women refer to the Lord as the “Law,” an irreverent depiction of black vernacular. For centuries, black women and men have drawn strength from their community institutions. The black family, in particular provided support and the validation of personhood necessary to stand against adversity. We do not recognize the black community described in The Help where most of the black male characters are depicted as drunkards, abusive, or absent. Such distorted images are misleading and do not represent the historical realities of black masculinity and manhood.Furthermore, African American domestic workers often suffered sexual harassment as well as physical and verbal abuse in the homes of white employers. For example, a recently discovered letter written by Civil Rights activist Rosa Parks indicates that she, like many black domestic workers, lived under the threat and sometimes reality of sexual assault. The film, on the other hand, makes light of black women’s fears and vulnerabilities turning them into moments of comic relief.
Similarly, the film is woefully silent on the rich and vibrant history of black Civil Rights activists in Mississippi. Granted, the assassination of Medgar Evers, the first Mississippi based field secretary of the NAACP, gets some attention. However, Evers’ assassination sends Jackson’s black community frantically scurrying into the streets in utter chaos and disorganized confusion—a far cry from the courage demonstrated by the black men and women who continued his fight. Portraying the most dangerous racists in 1960s Mississippi as a group of attractive, well dressed, society women, while ignoring the reign of terror perpetuated by the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizens Council, limits racial injustice to individual acts of meanness.
We respect the stellar performances of the African American actresses in this film. Indeed, this statement is in no way a criticism of their talent. It is, however, an attempt to provide context for this popular rendition of black life in the Jim Crow South. In the end, The Help is not a story about the millions of hardworking and dignified black women who labored in white homes to support their families and communities. Rather, it is the coming-of-age story of a white protagonist, who uses myths about the lives of black women to make sense of her own. The Association of Black Women Historians finds it unacceptable for either this book or this film to strip black women’s lives of historical accuracy for the sake of entertainment.
Ida E. Jones is National Director of ABWH and Assistant Curator at Howard University. Daina Ramey Berry, Tiffany M. Gill, and Kali Nicole Gross are Lifetime Members of ABWH and Associate Professors at the University of Texas at Austin. Janice Sumler-Edmond is a Lifetime Member of ABWH and is a Professor at Huston-Tillotson University.
Suggested Reading:
Fiction:
Like one of the Family: Conversations from A Domestic’s Life, Alice Childress
The Book of the Night Women by Marlon James
Blanche on the Lam by Barbara Neeley
The Street by Ann Petry
A Million Nightingales by Susan StraightNon-Fiction:
Out of the House of Bondage: The Transformation of the Plantation Household by Thavolia Glymph
To Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women’s Lives and Labors by Tera Hunter
Labor of Love Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work, and the Family, from Slavery to the Present by Jacqueline JonesLiving In, Living Out: African American Domestics and the Great Migration by Elizabeth Clark-Lewis
Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne MoodyAny questions, comments, or interview requests can be sent to:
ABWHTheHelp@gmail.com
Reprinted from the Organization of Black Women Historians website
August 21, 2011 No Comments
The Problem with Affirmative Action
by Lewis R. Gordon
Reprinted from Truthout.org
Lewis R. Gordon is the Laura H. Carnell professor of philosophy and Jewish studies and director of the Center for Afro-Jewish Studies at Temple University, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Henry Louis Gates Jr., the famed African-American literary scholar and director of the Du Bois Institute at Harvard University, recently reflected the following in an interview on National Public Radio: If it weren’t for affirmative action, he would not have been admitted to Yale University, regardless of how high his credentials were and he would not have had the opportunities to demonstrate his talent over the past four decades.(1)
Gates’ admission reflects a fundamental problem with affirmative action. It works.
I had the opportunity to reflect on that out loud in a discussion at the Race and Higher Education conference in Grahamstown last month when I asked: “Are there no mediocre white people in South Africa? Is every white person hired, every white person offered admission to institutions of learning, an excellent candidate?”
My rhetorical question was premised upon what Gates and many other highly achieved blacks know and that is the myth of white supremacy is the subtext of the “qualifications” narrative that accompanies debates on affirmative action. [Read more →]
August 19, 2011 No Comments
Alum seeks support for indie record – Cartoon Bar Fight
Women’s Studies 2011 Alumnus Kendall Sallay is working with her indie rock/folk trio 
Cartoon Bar Fight to release a five-song EP titled “Tell All the Children” later this year. She is seeking financial support from friends, family, and allies for her project via Kickstarter, a unique site that accepts contribution pledges for various creative projects. Please consider supporting this talented alum! The group needs to raise $550 by September 6.
Kendall writes:
Our San Jose indie rock/folk trio, Cartoon Bar Fight, plans to release a five-song EP titled “Tell All the Children” by the beginning of November 2011. Recordings are underway, but professional CD mastering, replication, album art/design, and packaging will be pricey.
We have raised some funds for this EP through tips at our shows (a hearty THANK YOU!!!!! to all the sweethearts around San Jose who have tipped us for this album), but what we have made thus far will cover only a fraction of the production and design costs. We need this album to be the real deal–snazzy, professional and ready to send to indie labels and local radio stations so we can increase our odds of “making it” as a band.
The EP is about childhood, fairytales-turned-nightmares, wishing stars, disillusionment, and best friends.
Any funds raised over the pledge amount will simply go to printing more copies of the EP, or they will be reserved specifically for our full-length album (also in the works).
Thank you for helping fund one of our many dreams. :) We hope you’ll love what you hear–and don’t forget to tell your friends, family members, and anyone you know who supports independent music!
August 17, 2011 No Comments
Course still open: Sexualities & the Body MW 1:30-2:45pm
WOMS 169 Sexualities & the Body
Taught by Prof. Tanya Bakhru
Fall 2011 – Mon Wed 1:30 – 2:45 pm
*Learn about the politics of sexuality and the body from a feminist perspective
* Explore various aspects of sexuality and gendered bodies including identity, community, and social movements.
*No prerequisites; everyone welcome!
For more info, email Dr. Bakhru at tanya.bakhru@sjsu.edu
August 15, 2011 No Comments
Prof G featured on KPFK Radio Los Angeles
SJSU Women’s Studies Professor Susana Gallardo was featured last Wednesday night on a Los Angeles radio show, Feminist Magazine, at KPFK Radio (click here to listen, starts at 21:00). Hosts Ariana Manov and Celina Alvarez interviewed her about her website Chicanas.com, an online educational resource for and about Mexican American women. ”I created the website in 1996 so that anyone could have access to the history and issues I was learning about in graduate school,” said Prof Gallardo. She recently redesigned and updated the site.
Prof Gallardo was also featured with Cal State Los Angeles Professor Dionne Espinoza about that weekend’s conference “Against Fear & Terror” for Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social, a Chicana/Latina academic organization. The conference featured plenary speakers on immigrant organizing, Central American immigration, and transgender Latina issues.
Feminist Magazine is a weekly Southern California radio show of news, views, politics and culture with a feminist perspective…for more info see http://feministmagazine.org/
August 11, 2011 No Comments
Interdisciplinary course still open: Soc 172, TTh 10:30 – 11:45am
August 10, 2011 No Comments
Alumni offers Domestic Violence internship
July 25, 2011 No Comments
Justice for Palestine: A Call to Action from Indigenous and Women of Color Feminists
Please help distribute widely to your communities.
Anna Guevarra
Assistant Professor, Asian American Studies and Sociology
University of Illinois at Chicago
—————————————–
**For press inquiries, please contact feministdelegation@gmail.com
Between June 14 and June 23, 2011, a delegation of 11 scholars, activists, and artists visited occupied Palestine. As indigenous and women of color feminists involved in multiple social justice struggles, we sought to affirm our association with the growing international movement for a free Palestine. We wanted to see for ourselves the conditions under which Palestinian people live and struggle against what we can now confidently name as the Israeli project of apartheid and ethnic cleansing. Each and every one of us—including those members of our delegation who grew up in the Jim Crow South, in apartheid South Africa, and on Indian reservations in the U.S.—was shocked by what we saw. In this statement we describe some of our experiences and issue an urgent call to others who share our commitment to racial justice, equality, and freedom.
During our short stay in Palestine, we met with academics, students, youth, leaders of civic organizations, elected officials, trade unionists, political leaders, artists, and civil society activists, as well as residents of refugee camps and villages that have been recently attacked by Israeli soldiers and settlers. Everyone we encountered—in Nablus, Awarta, Balata, Jerusalem, Hebron, Dheisheh, Bethlehem, Birzeit, Ramallah, Um el-Fahem, and Haifa—asked us to tell the truth about life under occupation and about their unwavering commitment to a free Palestine. We were deeply impressed by people’s insistence on the linkages between the movement for a free Palestine and struggles for justice throughout the world; as Martin Luther King, Jr. insisted throughout his life, “Justice is indivisible. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
[Read more →]
July 13, 2011 No Comments
