Communicating Gender, Race, and Class: 2020

For this post, I have selected the new Netflix show "#blackAF" and the concept of a networked counterpublic. Dr. Sarah Jackson discussed this concept in a video on our course blog that came from her extensive research on hashtag activism, particularly in the Black community. According to our course reading, a networked counterpublic intends to draw mainstream attention to the needs and voices of marginalized communities. Examples include #BlackLivesMatter, #SayHerName, and #Oscars SoWhite. "#blackAF" is no exception. In the new  Netflix  series named after that networked hashtag , released in its entirety April 17, 2020, an affluent Black family navigates the privileges and struggles of wealth in a society founded upon race stratification that tokenizes Black success. According to a CNN article: " The main preoccupation of '#blackAF' is the spiritual and intellectual challenge that being filthy rich poses, as Barris luxuriates in his opulent ...

For our last reading and discussion topic this semester, it is significant that we were planning to discuss stereotypes of Asian Americans during our last week, even prior to the increased racism perpetuated on Asian Americans following misperceptions of COVID-19. As with earlier posts, please read through the material from all the links (including the one in the previous sentence) and view the included videos to contribute in an informed, respectful conversation below or on the Scholar discussion forum. We begin with a screening of this clip sharing some of the history in which the myth of Asian Americans as the " model minority " emerged. An article from the Urban Institute illuminates some of the economic realities that debunk the myth. Research published by the National Association of Independents Schools provides tools to intervene in the myth from an education context. Highlights from Ch. 39:   “Are Asian Americans Becoming ‘White’”? by Min Zhou: Zhou ...

The Ch. 24 reading by Donovan Lessard examined the ways that common urban ideologies of revitalization regard particular groups of gay people as valued citizens because of their class status and race while they render other groups of LGBTQ people as invisible. Lessard's case study illuminates spatial processes of urban decline and renewal that lead to differential perceptions of the value of queerness to a neighborhood, exacerbating existing race and class divides among LGBTQ people. Since I cannot access the original book that the Lessard article came out of, I have supplemented a PDF on a similar topic, listed as "Redefining Home in the Land of Inopportunity," on Scholar. The Scholar article discusses extensively issues of media (in)visibility as a crucial, structural, intersectional understanding of LGBTQ inequality in housing. To discuss queer spaces, let's take a hyperlocal look at the story surrounding the closing of Hershee Bar , one of the (formerly) olde...

53. “(Re)Imagining Intersectional Democracy from Black Feminism to Hashtag Activism,” Sarah J. Jackson Sarah J. Jackson - #Hashtag Activism: The Rise and Influence of Networked Counterpublics from Engagement Lab on Vimeo . Jackson writes about the intersectional lessons of the Black Lives Matter movement, which can be traced to the legacy of the larger Black freedom movement and also to the more recent work of millennial Black activist organizations like the Dream Defenders and the Black Youth Project 100. These recent movements have been created or heavily influenced by Black feminist principles. Millennial movements have eschewed the respectability politics that guided the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s and have worked instead to center the voices, experiences, and knowledge of those most often at the margins. Black Lives Matter, founded by Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi, and Patrisse Cullors, has insisted on radical intersectionality: Garza writes that the org...

32. “Loving Across Racial Divides,” Amy Steinbugler In spite of dramatic positive shifts in public attitudes toward racial intermarriage, only a small percentage of people in the United States date and marry across racial lines. Steinbugler’s research explores the ways that race impacts daily life for interracial couples, finding that racism continues to shape everyday life in three primary ways. First, because of racial neighborhood segregation, many interracial couples face challenges of belonging and ease in residential spaces. Second, in spite of intimate relationships, interracial couples may not share the same perspectives on race and racism: White partners in  interracial relationships  can reflect the attitudes of many White Americans who question the scope and severity of contemporary racism. Finally, interracial couples sometimes reflect the power of racial-gender stereotypes within their relationships. Some highlights: Current public attitudes toward racial ...

The course  blog  post for this entry seems to have some technical visibility issues when published that I cannot fix. This same post is in the Scholar Discussion Forum . Highlights from Ch. 30 “LGBT Sexuality and Families at the Start of the Twenty-First Century,” Mignon R. Moore and Michael Stambolis-Ruhstorfer Moore and Stambolis-Ruhstorfer review and summarize current research literature on LGBT families . Major research streams include research into the politics of defining family to include same-sex couples, population characteristics of same-sex parent families, and the legal and cultural challenges faced by parents and children in same-sex partner families. A few key findings they highlight include: Continued public ambivalence in the United States toward the inclusion of same-sex couples in definitions of families An increasing number of lesbian- and gay-parent families in the United States Same-sex parenting as more c...

The two readings assigned for Wednesday's discussion extended earlier conversations about controlling images and media representations. Read the summaries and click on the links to read/skim and/or view the supplemental materials for your comments.  Please note, this is not optional. All students are required to post a comment or a question for each post. From Ch. 46: In life history interviews with Latino men, Vasquez-Tokos and Norton-Smith found two recurrent themes: gangs and sports. Most respondents had not been involved in either gangs or sports, but they felt forcibly constrained by these  controlling images , which had limited their educational opportunities, access to jobs, and sense of self-expression. Whereas prejudice involves negative emotions and stereotypes, controlling images are systemic and cultural instruments of power. They are not individual ideas, but rather ideological collective  representations  that offer “strategies of action” that bri...

The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence compiles facts about the prevalence of DV in the United States, including these statistics . Gendered violence must be examined through a lens of intersectionality if we are to have more compassionate communication about victim/survivors, as well as abusers. We read Rosemary Clark 's 2016 essay from Feminist Media Studies about hashtag activism in the context of domestic violence. Below is a short news clip about one of the viral stories that ignited the #WhyIStayed online movement. Here or on the Scholar Discussion Board be prepared to discuss one of the following questions: 1. How is intimate partner violence an important issue for gender/race/class and feminist discussion? 2. What dominant discourses exist around DV? 3. How does hashtag activism invite intersectional feminist organizing? 4. What outcomes did #WhyIStayed lead to? Please note, this is not optional. All students are required to post a comment or...

42. “The Myth of Immigrant Criminality and the Paradox of Assimilation,” Rubén G. Rumbaut and Walter Ewing Although some of you may not have access to the book, the information in that short reading is available from the American Immigration Council . In a post-9/11 climate of fear and ignorance, assumptions have flourished that immigration and criminality are associated. However, systematic evidence shows that crime is not caused or even aggravated by immigrants to the United States, regardless of their legal status. Crime rates in the nation have declined even at the same time that immigration rates have increased. Among all ethnic groups in the United States, immigrants have lower incarceration rates than those who are native-born. For all ethnic groups, incarceration rates are highest among high school dropouts, yet immigrants who are high school dropouts have lower incarceration rates than other high school dropouts. Although immigrants’ risk of incarceration increases the l...

35. “Michael’s Story: ‘I Get Into So Much Trouble Just by Walking’: Narrative Knowing and Life at the Intersections of Learning Disability, Race, and Class,” David J. Connor  Connor analyzes the intersections of learning disabilities with race and class through the narrative of Michael, a young, Black working class man with dyslexia. Using Michael’s own personal narrative, Connor applies  Collins’ domains of power —structural, disciplinary, hegemonic, and interpersonal—to examine the discourses of disability, race, and class that organize  domination  and oppression in Michael’s everyday life. In the structural realm, the interconnected forces of segregated housing patterns, limited schooling options, and restricted opportunities for employment serve to limit and constrain Michael’s experiences.  In the disciplinary realm, the ultra-bureaucratic realm of special education, pervasive criminalization, and labor management practices form a sprawling apparatus th...

We continued our discussion of intersectional education issues, this time particularly for undocumented Latinx students. Ch. 34, “Academic Resilience Among Undocumented Latino Students,” William Perez, Roberta Espinoza, Karina Ramos, Heidi M. Coronado, and Richard Cortes Undocumented Latino youth face additional risk factors and sources of stress above and beyond the challenges of biculturalism they share with documented Latino youth. Perez et al.’s study examines the role of protective resources in mediating the academic achievement of 110 undocumented Latino high school, community college, and university students across the United States. They found that even in the presence of multiple sources of psychosocial risk (high school employment, low parental education, large family size, and alienation resulting from undocumented status), personal and environmental resources increased resilience and improved academic performance. Students with lower risk factors (protected) an...

For today's reading on the achievement gap and education debt, we will discuss the video below, as well as an article from the Everyday Feminism blog. The reading addresses that white women have benefited the most from affirmative action. Research confirms the argument that gender was a "blindspot" in the original design of affirmative action policies. Ch. 33, “From the Achievement Gap to the Education Debt: Understanding Achievement in U.S. Schools,” Gloria Ladson-Billings Ladson-Billings addresses the “achievement gap,” a catchphrase to describe the difference in academic performance between White, minority, and lower socio-economic status students. This gap has been found to be most significantly affected by race and ethnicity, with a brief review of some of the potential causes. Ladson-Billings suggests avoiding too much focus on the gap, because most of the solutions are short-term in nature, and instead to look at the longer standing “educational debt” akin...

Since both sections of class today did not view the above video, you can watch it here if you would like to continue the conversation on the blog. The second video, which links slut shaming to victim blaming in the context of rape culture. Please only view it if you feel secure and supported, particularly if you are a survivor of sexual assault. I am available in office hours if you would like to discuss further. You may also comment here for alternative participation if your comments are respectful and affirming. Finally the  LA Times  article provides more context for the video about school dress codes we opened with in class.

These are the questions we will discuss in class Wednesday.  1. Prior to the coining of heterosexuality as a term, what qualities described “true” women and men? How were these qualities specific to race and class? 2. How did an economic and labor shift in the late 19th century result in a change of how we relate to our bodies? In what ways did this lead to a medicalization of “Normal Love”? 3. We have discussed discipline and deviance in relation to ascribed identity norms. How does the invention of the category of heterosexuality intersect with how we have talked about deviance? 4. What were the specific communicative impacts of a new heterosexual category? 5.  At the beginning of the article, Katz uses the word “ahistorical.” Near the end of the essay, he talks about the importance of a “historical” view of the hetero- and homo- labels attached to sexuality. What is going on here? What is an ahistorical view of heterosexuality compared to a historical view? Why does i...

“Prisons for Our Bodies, Closets for Our Minds: Racism, Heterosexism, and Black Sexuality,” Patricia Hill Collins Patricia Hill Collins considers the intersecting relationship between racism and heterosexism. She argues that the assumption that these two hegemonic ideologies represent separate systems of oppression obscures the fact that racism and sexism rely upon each other for meaning. Without sacrificing the acknowledgement of differences in the way that racism and heterosexism manifest, the author shows that the two systems converge and that both systems affect the everyday lives of all people. In class we attempted to answer the following questions. Since we didn't get to all of them, I encourage you to make comments here answering one of the questions. I am particularly interested in responses to no. 2 and 3 since we ran out of time for this in the 10 am class. 1.      Discuss the ways in which heteros...