Showing posts with label white supremacy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label white supremacy. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 08, 2023

sil #2: Indigenizing the academy (part 1: concepts)

[core topic]

This is part of an ongoing series 
on strategically inclusive leadership. 
Read the introduction here.

Before COVID, I went to MacEwan University on several different occasions to attend seminars and symposia. Outside, they fly the Treaty 6 flag. On the way in, I noted that each entrance has a land acknowledgement posted in both English and Cree, on a formal plaque.

There is a wonderful Indigenous Student Center with several staff, a resident Elder, cultural ceremonies, tutoring and other educational supports. There are introductory Indigenous awareness courses.

Allard Hall, the university's new Arts and Culture Building, has an atrium named after Elder Jerry Woods, who served as an elder for MacEwan and other institutions for many years. A display on the second level of the atrium commemorates him and his legacy at the school. It has a plaque with his picture and a statement in the middle, with a picture on one side and a framed ribbon shirt on the other. MacEwan also commissioned Christi Belcourt and Isaac Murdoch to create a mural for the university.

Treaty acknowledgement plaque, at entrances to MacEwan University.  Rectangular silver plaque, with abstract turtle symbol incorporating an Inukshuk, a buffalo, an eagle and the Metis symbol, above the Treaty 6 Territory Land Acknowledgement in Cree and English
Today, these kinds of things tend to be fairly common for many post-secondary educational institutions in Canada. Thirty years ago, were educational institutions doing anything of the sort that I shared about MacEwan?

Not in the slightest…

The foundation of education institutions here in Canada, whether at an elementary or high school level or post secondary, is a Western colonial cisgender heterosexual patriarchal one. Did I miss anything in that description? This includes a denial of what happened to indigenous peoples in Indian Residential Schools, and an insistence on conformity to the dominant culture. This education acts as if Indigenous people were from long long ago and ignores their present reality.

We are going to look at some important concepts  of indigenization and the academy related to the above example. Then we will see how these concepts could apply in a roughly parallel way to other organizations and businesses. Finally, a few comments on what we as strategically inclusive leaders can - and cannot - readily do about this, as people involved in ERGs or community organizations.

Thursday, November 10, 2022

[God must be a black trans woman...]

Dr. Christena Cleveland's book, God Is a Black Woman, is definitely worth a read or three.


White handwritten style text says, "God is a Black Woman" and "Christena Cleveland, PhD". Image shows the face of a Black woman,  wearing a white, black and red scarf with circular patterns. Background is a rich blue and around her are gold patterned discs. She is looking to the right.

Here's a quote from an interview done with Dr. Cleveland on the Queer Theology podcast:

"And so when the Black Madonna says, I'm completely reordering the pecking order per se, it means putting black trans women at top - on the top.

So when I say if God's a black woman, then she must be a black trans woman. Yeah, I was surprised. I, I shouldn't have been because my trans friends have talked to me about TERFs [trans-exclusionary radical feminists], but I was surprised by how many people - TERFs - were really upset that I included black trans women in my discussion of God as a black woman. And it did make me more, more convinced because that, that behavior suggests that TERFs don't think that trans black women are sacred."

From https://www.queertheology.com/podcast/459/


Find out more about this book and Christena Cleveland:

http://www.christenacleveland.com

https://www.instagram.com/christenacleveland/

Sunday, June 05, 2022

a Venn diagram in honour of Queen Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee

 

Orange circle labelled "Very fashionable" has the name "Laverne Cox" inside of it. Blue circle labelled "Very high ranking official in unrepentant colonizing empire" has the name "Caesar Augustus" inside of it. The circles are positioned to overlap slightly, and in the overlap is the name "QE II" for Queen Elizabeth II. Image by Rob Goetze @robgoetze. June 2022




In the midst of many people celebrating the Queen's Platinum Jubilee - 70 years of being in power as queen -- and celebrations that include Queen singing songs to the Queen -- this is what is floating around inside my head.

Why are we celebrating the long reigning leader of one of the world's greatest colonial powers that wreaked havoc on so many of God's children worldwide through enslavement, exploitation, extraction, actual genocide and cultural genocide?

It seems colonization is hard to kill and hard to repent of, but easy to hide and forget....

Wednesday, June 17, 2020

the invisibilizer


The Invisibilizer, by rob goetze. First panel shows a diverse group of people on a conveyor belt, heading into a machine labeled "Invisibilizer". Second panel shows only the white man coming out of the machine. One worker says to the other, "No matter what settings I use, I can't get it to make white people invisible..."

The Invisibilizer
While the Invisibilizer is a machine in the cartoon above, it is still is a reality for many marginalized people. The racist, cisheteropatriarchal systems that we live in tend to highlight their own while rendering invisible those who are minoritized. 


Verb
invisiblize (third-person singular simple present invisiblizes, present participle invisiblizing, simple past and past participle invisiblized)

(transitive, chiefly sociology) To make invisible; to marginalize so as to erase the presence or contributions of. Wiktionary.org

Friday, June 12, 2020

[brilliant critique of Vogue's whitewashed covers]


"Being black is not a crime" - Vogue critique by Salma Noor, showing black person in white dress photoshopped onto a Vogue cover, with the words "Being black is not a crime".

"Oslo-based student Salma Noor posted her own version of a Vogue cover on June 2, with the cover line “Being black is not a crime” in support of Black Lives Matter. Noor modeled for the alternative cover herself, with the help of photographer @calvin. Little did she know that the trend would go insanely viral days later—thanks in part to a June 6 internal memo from Vogue‘s editor-in-chief herself, Anna Wintour." (source)

Salma's action started a trend where people of colour did the same, tagging their images with #VogueChallenge. 

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

interest convergence


Man says to woman, "I'm against interest convergence..." Woman replies, "Did you know that it will give you an excuse to change your mind?" Man replies, "Oh really? Alright, I'm all for it." Interest convergence cartoon by rob goetze.


Interest Convergence means that you will support something that previously you were against or uninterested in, if it benefits you to do so.

Warren Blumenfeld writes this:
The late Dr. Bell of New York University Law School forwarded the theory of “interest convergence,” meaning that white people will support racial justice only when they understand and see that there is something in it for them, when there is a “convergence” between the “interests” of white people and racial justice. Bell asserted that the Supreme Court ended the longstanding policy in 1954 of “separate but equal” in Brown v. Board of Education because it presented to the world, and in particular, to the Soviet Union during the height of the cold war, a United States that supported civil and human rights.

In like fashion, I posit that evangelicals and other conservative Christians, as they see more and more people supporting and more states passing civil and human rights protections based on sexual and gender identity and expression, and more and more people are leaving those religious institutions that have not caught up as welcoming congregations, evangelicals seemed to have “evolved” somewhat from dictating policies to at least debating varying perspectives. Whether they will eventually soften their stands is another matter.

Quote from: Can LGBTQ people ever forgive Christian evangelicals for their sins?
Author: Warren Blumenfeld
http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2016/04/can-lgbtq-people-ever-forgive-christian-evangelicals-for-their-sins/

Friday, July 08, 2016

apology from the Baton Rouge Police Department


Alton Sterling and Family. Picture from Twitter
In memory of Alton Sterling, age 37, killed by Baton Rouge Police Department officers who responded to a report that a man selling CDs had threatened someone with a gun. July 5, 2016.


















we just want to say

father of five in red shirt
selling CDs outside store
someone called in
an altercation

die Bullen pinned him to the ground
he's got a gun one shouted
the other did his sworn duty
and gored him to death

Forgive us
we had hoped to spar with a white dude
but the night was dark
and his dance card was full

poem by rob g



Read the story here.

Last stanza in poem refers to this:
If only #AltonSterling had this luxury. pic.twitter.com/uueoZE5eDP

This is a false apology poem in the style of William Carlos Williams. If you are new to my blog, be aware that this is a social commentary blog. Most posts are rather frank and some are hard-hitting. Read more about this blog.