On Wednesday, April 3, 2013, Gabriella Gutierrez y Muhs will deliver a keynote address at the Faculty Women of Color in Academia conference at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. The keynote, which is free and open to the public, will take place at 7:30 pm in the Illinois Ballroom of the I Hotel (1900 S. First Street, Champaign) and will be followed by a book signing.

For more information:

Presumed Incompetent Book and Publishers Page

The Introduction of Persumed Incompetent can be downloaded here:

Facebook Page

Re-blogged with permission from TressieMC:

I am really honored that Julianne Hing invited me to speak about higher education, race, gender, and inequality at the Applied Research Center’s 2012 Facing Race conference.

Not only did it afford me an opportunity to meet dozens of my twitter peeps but it reminded me that my work does not exist in a vacuum. The researcher’s life can be solitary. Facing Race gave me a moment to reflect upon the reasons why I do the work that I do. I am grateful.

The audience was passionate, engaged, and dynamic. They brought a range of experiences, perspectives and audiences with them into the space. One audience member reminded me of the importance of disaggregating minority groups and being specific when I speak about Asian American enrollment patterns. I promise I have the data! I’ll do better about talking about that data.

As I promised my audience I have updated the presentation slides that I totally ditched in my excitement about telling a story to an engaged crowd.

©2012 Brian Palmer
www.facebook.com/arc.org

Facing Race 2012, organized by the Applied Research Center, is the “largest national, multi-racial gathering of leaders, educators, journalists, artists, and activists on racial justice.” Refuse The Silence had the pleasure of covering the conference in Baltimore this weekend and, over the next few days we will use this forum to share video from the plenary sessions, panel recaps as well as our thoughts and reactions to Facing Race in relation to higher education.

Our founder, Morgane (@morgane_r),  and writer Nina (@ninabyte) lived-tweeted throughout the conference so make sure to check out their tweets to see what they had to say (watch for the#FacingRace hashtag).

In the meantime, here is a glimpse into the conference:

From November 15th – 17th 2012, over 1400 attendees – from students and professionals to grassroots activists and retirees -joined to share their knowledge and experience around racial justice advocacy. Though a large portion of attendees’s and speakers came from the East Coast of the United States, there were over 200 from the states of California, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Texas and even a handful who flew in from countries such as Ghana and Japan (pretty awesome if you ask me!).

Over the course of three-days, attendees were given the opportunity to partake in 60 seminars addressing topics from arts, culture and media to organizing/skill building and research/policy. And when the mental processing got a bit too heavy, all were invited to enjoy the wise words of keynote speaker, Junot Diaz, shake off the stress in a masquerade dance party, and take home free screenprints by Dignidad Rebelde.

As the fabulous Ph.D. students and education activist, Tressie McMillan Cottom, exclaims, the researcher’s life can be solitary, but Facing Race gave us all a moment to reflect on the reasons why we do the work that we do. It allowed many activists to see that our work and passions are not isolated in a bubble or frozen within the realms of new media.

On Tuesday, November 6th, 2012, the American people watched as President Barack Obama was re-elected. Though some rejoiced while others cursed in frustration, groups of students around the country gathered on their campuses to shout racial epithets and threats of physical violence to students of color.

At Hampden-Sydney College in Richmond, Virginia, 40 students “shouted racial slurs, threw bottles and set off fireworks outside the Minority Student Union within hours after President Barack Obama’s re-election,” says Steve Szkotak of the Huffington Post (According to Think Progress, the school’s president, who is black, sent an email to students’ parents calling the incident a “harmful, senseless episode,” but it is not clear whether he had plans for disciplinary action). At a protest at the University of Mississippi on Tuesday night, 400 people shouted racial slurs. Only two were arrested.

And in NYC, 16 year old High School student, Ricky Catanzaro, tweeted, “No n—– should lead this country!!! #Romney” followed by, “Only thing black people are good at is basketball #run #shot #steal,” says the NY Daily News.

The extent of these racist acts stands as a morbid example of the verbal and physical violence students of color endure on campuses across the country.

It is not enough to set up perimeters banning racist language on campus, for while those barriers may silence the most racist of students at school, most students will return home with the same racist ideologies they hold in their mind. Instead, there needs to be a fundamental shift in the ways we are teaching students about identities. Students should have the opportunity to ask questions about communities outside of their own, and address the stereotypes that have been created by the societies they live in.

Read the responses by noted observers and researchers.

The article claims one reason for this is that blacks have been largely employed in government agencies, construction and manufacturing – all fields that have suffered the most in the economic depression.  Moreover, blacks tend to occupy what Dr. Frank Braconi, chief economist for the city comptroller’s office, calls the middle market in the labor force in terms of wages and education. And it is this middle market that has been the most affected by the recession.

Blacks are now required to hold a Bachelors or Masters degree to compete in the market they once occupied in order to obtain economic stability. But as most people of color know, a long list of academic accomplishments doesn’t and has never necessarily lead to the equivalent salary and benefits as our non-black counterparts.

Though I have no doubt that this study is spot-on, the reality is that people of color across time have always faced either the lowest employment rates and/or the lowest salaries/benefits.

Historically the unemployment rate for African Americans age 16 years and over has been higher than that of the total labor force:

And though the number of African Americans in the labor force that have graduated from college increased from 16 percent in 1992 to 24 percent in 2009:

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in 2010, that unemployment rates actually fall as educational attainment increases. “In 2009, the unemployment rate for African Americans 25 years and over without a high school diploma was over 21 percent, while the jobless rates for high school graduates and those graduating with a bachelor’s degree and higher were 14.0 and 7.3, respectively.”

There is no doubt in my mind that we continue to live in a society that conveniently places people of color in service industries where increased education and skills training make it more difficult for us to reach the top. Perhaps we need to stop putting all of our attention in looking at the economy and begin looking at the social dynamics that have placed “minority” groups in positions of lesser economic prosperity.

Cross posted with permission from: http://www.morganerichardson.com

Sources: 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/nyregion/blacks-miss-out-as-jobs-rebound-in-new-york-city.html?_r=1&hp

http://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2010/african_american_history/

In previous posts (first here, then here), I spoke about the eurocentric symbolism of the graduation cap and the difficulties it has given to natural haired people of color who are embarking on the glorious journey of graduating from their academic institutions.

I made a strong personal stance and stated that I would choose to break the tradition of the academic regalia by not wearing the cap at my graduation. With this, I asked that all of you do the same in honor of your self, your accomplishment, heritages, decisions to go natural and/or in support of your natural haired colleagues.

The response that I received was outstanding – Young women with natural hair, whom I have never had the pleasure of meeting, wrote to me to say that they were struggling with their graduation cap and were grateful that I had given them a space to honor who they were. Friends of friends from Europe wrote that they had experienced the same issues as graduating students, and members of my own graduating class at the United Nations University For Peace came out in numbers to show their support by removing the cap.

I was further surprised by the reaction of my universities Vice Rector and Rector, who made positive references to my decision to remove the cap, and told our class that we were “mature” in the ways that we challenged the institution, and “the cap was a symbol of that.”

The reactions of my local and global community stand as an example of the power of standing up for what you believe in. You never know how your community or institution will react unless you take action.

With that, I am sharing with you an image from my cap-less graduation. I hope that you will share yours with me as well and continue to encourage graduating students to remove the cap in the years to come.

Cross posted with permission from: http://www.morganerichardson.com

I have taken part in this tradition since the age of homemade-caps in Kindergarden. And each year, I have asked myself, “What am I going to do with my hair?” In Kindergarden, I walked across the stage with a mishap bees nest on my head (one of many attempts in my childhood made by my biracial mother to style my natural hair). In Middle School and High School, I found the solution of braids – although I admit it was a tight squeeze into those small caps. And then in College, I walked across the stage with permed hair pulled back into a simple bun.

This year is a bit different as I have moved away from chemical straightening and synthetic extensions, and have learned to adore the beauty of my natural afro. And so, as I looked over the graduation attire requirements given to us this week, I paused at the word: CAP. The dreaded thought came back, “How am I going to wear this cap now??”

For many people, this may seem absolutely ridiculous – I should just be grateful that I am graduating. I admit, I was thinking the same thing as I started coming up with alternatives to my natural hair for the big day – not taking my cap off until I go home so no one has to see my flattened hair, and even blowing out my hair to fit the tradition. Searching for ideas, I spent a few hours away from work Googling, “Caps with Afro Style,” “Afro Hair Cap and Gowns” and “Caps Natural Hair” so many times to find ideas and yet it seemed that virtually no had ever posted about it, at least online.

Though I was frustrated, it wasn’t until my (white) partner said that this tradition was “unfair to people of color with natural hair” that I really begin to think about it. Where does this tradition come from? Why would an institution with a multitude of races and ethnicities ask people to wear this? And why didn’t anyone at these academic institutions ever think about how it would affect us?

A little research revealed that the Cap and Gown or ‘Academic Dress’ originated from the early 19th Century Europe. As the tradition moved into the United States, committees were organized to develop the standard of academic dress. It goes without saying that people of color were neither included in this conversation, nor were they (heavily) represented within academia at the time. Essentially, the construction of the cap and gown (including shape, height and structure) never included the bodies of people like me.

But how is it that we have never considered changing this system of celebration to suit people from all over the world? How can an academic institution that encourages diversity within their system, not understand just how stressful a moment of celebration can become for us? Even in an international institution, it appears as though no one’s paradigms (or realities) have allowed them to see this issue for those of us who have learned to appreciate our natural hair and bodies.

I may end up walking down the aisle feeling completely out of place, but I will certainly not revert to an old standard of beauty and tradition that doesn’t include my physical, but also very political, identity as an African American woman. We simply cannot accept an age-old tradition that does not include all members of its communities. I hope that other natural-haired women and men (and our supporters) graduating this year will join me in shifting the paradigms by rejecting a tradition that never included us by rocking our natural hair sans cap.

Cross posted with permission from: http://www.morganerichardson.com

I applied to the University For Peace with the belief that I would be entering into an institution that had none the major issues affecting elite liberal arts universities in the United States. I believed that I would find no signs of discrimination, harassment, or violence; rather, I envisioned a community of yogis, nature lovers and progressive thinkers.  I thought of a commune.

After writing my recommendation letter to UPEACE, my former college professor, Laurie Essig, wrote to me saying that she was curious to see how this school and the concepts of peace would mesh with my beliefs. I knew she had formulated some thoughts about it, but I had no idea what they were. I mean, “How could studying Peace not relate to my work as a feminist activist?” I thought.

I kept asking myself what she meant and now, after six courses and seven months of being within this community, I understand what Laurie was thinking. The road to peace is complex… it cannot always be peaceful, is often based in patriarchy and is certainly not filled with “hippies.”

Peace is understood as the absence of war and the presence of tranquility. But peace can also be dangerously embodied as compromise and remaining silent out of fear of creating a conflict.

Around the world, UN Peacekeepers are sent out on missions to give peace to war-torn countries, and yet they themselves are often theperpetrators of violence (most commonly on women and children). They remain silent on the violence their UN colleagues place on others and often lack the gender lens to understand the specific needs of the men, women and children within those areas. They put an end to the visible signs of war, but don’t cease violence from existing within the crevices of a community.

This is the peace that I am learning about and see happening before my eyes – the silence against harassment and discrimination by an administration and a fear that exists amongst students for speaking out.

I want to still believe in Peace – I know that I would have left months ago if I did not – but not this way.

The peace that I know includes mediation, and an understanding of the world through the eyes of others. Peace is about addressing issues (always using a gender lens) rather than allowing them to exist deep within us. Peace should not be something that we seek to bring only to others, but that we try to create within ourselves.

Crossposted from www.morganerichardson.com