Some Brown University mathematics professors were confused and dismayed this month to learn that the university planned to admit 20 percent of its next freshman class completely at random — by putting names in a hat and drawing them out.

The Brown professors were reacting to an e-mail message they received from a colleague reporting on his work on the university’s Admissions Advisory Committee. Complete with the sort of verbiage and citations one might expect in a report from an august institutional panel, the memo outlined the reasons Brown was going to “merit-blind admissions” and the comparable actions of peer institutions. Naturally, professors reacted to this memo, with some expressing concern about random admissions. Had they followed a link provided in the memo, they would have realized that there was no cause for concern. However irrational many people find elite private college admissions, it isn’t in fact being replaced with drawing names out of a hat...

(IHE full article here)

Martin Luther King, Jr
April 3, 1968
Memphis, TN

Sometimes, during our long and cold Minnesota winters, I play a trick on myself. I go out to my sunporch--a small, enclosed, window-filled space that heats quickly if the sun is shining, no matter how low the outside temperature. There I sit on my porch swing, close my eyes, and pretend that the warmth I feel is the warmth from a distant island. I am far, far away from here (I tell myself)...The waves are mere steps from me, and palm trees are swaying languidly overhead, cool breezes carress my skin (I continue in reverie). After some moments of this, I open my eyes. Only then am I fully aware that I am not on some palm-dotted, sun drenched isle, but in the frozen tundra of the northern USA.

This moment of realization always fills me with an oppressive sense of sadness and regret. I tamp down this sense only because I have so much to do--bills to pay, journal articles to draft, children to drop off or pick up. And I figure that at least for the few moments that I was self-fooled, I may have soaked up enough vitamin D to ward off any unpleasant ailments for another few weeks.

A couple weeks ago I was actually sitting on an island in the middle of the sea with the waves and palms and all that. I was vacationing with my family in Hawaii, on the island of Ohau. At one point on the beach, I closed my eyes and pretended I was back home in my sunporch instead, only pretending to sit on a beach. I needed to ensure that I captured any additional sense-details that I could carry with me to use this coming winter.

The first sense I attempt to nail down is the breeze. I conclude that "cool breeze" is different qualitatively and not just quantitatively from either a "hot wind" or "cold gale." In other words, it is not just a wind midway between these two. For example, a cold wind is so unique that I often refer to it with its own folk name, one that--if you do not already use it--is difficult to explain without you just experiencing it first hand: "the hawk." There are also phrases, metaphors and such for the cold. "Cold as a witch's left...um...breast." (Insert other folk name--slur?--for breast.) I am not sure of the origin of this comparison. But somehow it fits, no matter how nonsensical or misogynistic such a statement may be.

There are similar comparison's for heat: "Hot as hell," for example, simply and concisely sums things up. I can think of no such sayings, however, for the cool breezes I experienced sitting on the beach in the city of Ko Olina. But together with the warm sun, such breezes constituted an almost living system-- the sun-breeze continuum, call it--interacting to both calm and excite, keeping me in a perpetual state of intentional, but moderate motion.

Then there were smells...

Over the summer I have gotten in the habit of buying fresh flowers for our home every 2 weeks or so. I was surprised to find how happy seeing these splashes of beauty made me, and I have vowed to continue this habit. But I have also been surprised at how smell-less most of these flowers have been. Perhaps they put something on the flowers to make them last longer (they do stay beautiful a surprisingly long time) that interferes with their scent? Perhaps I am just too spoiled by super strong fake scents that squirt out of a can or waft from a wall plug that I can no longer appreciate the subtlety of "real" flower scents? I do not know. But many times I have been taken by the beauty in my vase, then walk over to bask my face in their scent only to smell only the slightest hint of aroma--or nothing at all.

This lack of smell, however, is not an issue on the island. There the scents are confident...arrogant, even. They will not be ignored. Together with the equally bold colors--and combined with the sun and the breeze--these smells create another active entity enlivening the atmosphere and influencing my actions within it. (The sun-scent-color-breeze continuum...)

And what about those waves? I have read of waves being "gentle" or "carressing," of waves "lapping" at folks' feet, even of ocean water feeling as if it is "baptizing" someone. Well, I think any one of these characterizations alone is not quite correct. The water and waves have a much more complex personality than this. At the point where the waves wash up against the sand they are, indeed, fairly gentle--playful, even. Waves taunt my daughters by--yes--lapping and licking at their toes. Their trickster nature makes them flow over the girls' sand castles, removing from them their form and detail. Yet the waves' builder character enables them to create their own art using sand as medium: cooling hot sand, compacting and smoothing loose sand, even inserting small shell fragments as if adding objects to a sculpture.

A little farther out the water is warm, the waves still gentle--carressing feet, ankles, lower shin. But move still farther out. Now the water is deep and cool--suddenly, as if an absolute dividing line has been passed. The waves are stronger here. They are more insistent, effortlessly moving my whole body with their strength. Schools of thin little fish call this depth their home. They will swim past me, brushing against my thighs with no fear of capture. Farther out still and the waves, cooler still, are king. I do not go out this far, as my swimming skills are not that great. Here, I know, an unexpected tide can carry a person far out to sea. Here is where people who like to court and tame wild waves paddle out on big boards in an attempt to walk on water.

The multifaceted waves add yet another package of senses--combining temperature, personality, tactility and adding them to my complex continuum of sun, scent, color, and breeze. The continuum is almost complete.

The final sense is one that I think will be the most difficult to capture while sitting on my sunporch. Standing at the edge of land and ocean, feeling the sun and breeze and smelling the smells and looking over the water and all of that, makes me feel very small in a very big universe.

Here, the world goes on forever without end, farther than my eyes can see. Water meets sky at the horizon. I see few people, but have the abstract knowledge that at that moment billions are born and living and dying. I see no stars (except our sun) in the daylight, but have the abstract knowledge that they, too, are coming into being, sending their light across space and time, and snuffing out. My concerns--of bills to pay, jobs to progress in, children to care for, tourist attractions to visit, and all manner of other thoughts--seem very small. There seems to be ample time to breathe deeply, to just sit in the warm sun and feel the cool wind tickle the small hairs on my face. There seems to be ample motivation to then stand and move on to the next thing, neither dimimished nor depressed by the transition from my prior state of calm, but instead roused and energized by it.

I can't wait for my sunporch in December.

But I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

...For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected....

~Barack Obama, 3/18/08

P.S. And Happy Birthday to AE!

Science Friday link

Today is my daughters' eighth birthday. We have already had their party--a raucus affair at Pump It Up! They've taken treats to school today to share with their classmates. This evening my husband and I will take them out to dinner and give them their gifts from us (watches with clock faces/hands and books 5 and 6 of the Harry Potter series) and from their relatives out of town.

But still, I am thinking that I should give them a gift that is more personal...more lasting and important. After thinking about this a lot--especially in light of recent current events--I think I know the perfect gift:

Feminism.

But no, not the used, second-hand feminism that I was given/took/stole, and/or re-fashioned. A new feminism.

This new feminism will not trade paternalism for maternalism, nor tokenism for exoticism.

This new feminism will see that sometimes "assertiveness" and "fiestiness" is really just the same old arrogance and rudeness, just spun and branded better.

This new feminism will not be silent in the face of 24/7 media coverage of the death of one blond-haired, blue-eyed young woman while coverage of brown and black young women who also are found dead is absent.

This new feminism will acknowledge that some fish might like bicycles.

This new feminism will involve neither "choice" nor competition among gender and race and income level and sexual orientation and age or any other aspect of personal and group identity.

This new feminism will not define different opinions as self-delusion.

This new feminism will be as concerned with rights to be mothers as with rights not to be.

This new feminism will embrace the struggles and triumphs of my brothers, fathers, grandfathers and uncles as part of its own.

This new feminism will be as concerned with the women changing some other women's children's dirty diapers, cleaning some other women's dirty toilets as it is with these other women's struggles bumping up against the glass ceiling.

This new feminism will continue to observe how the "personal is political," but will also acknowledge that sometimes your personal "ain't like mine."

This gift of new feminism definitely will not be one size fits all, and there will be no restrictions on exchanges or refunds. I give this gift openly and freely, and without expectations of a thank you card or some other repayment at some future time.

Happy birthday, girls. Hope you enjoy your day and all of your gifts.

There I belted out "Karma Kameleon," complete with Boy George-type dance moves. I participated in the singing of several other songs, including "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and I was an enthusiastic shaker of a light-up tambourine.

Now. I would not mention this at all except that photographs, unfortunately, were taken. So because I cannot at some future time claim plausible deniability, I felt I may as well come clean as a prophylactic measure, proving that I have nothing to hide. I further prove my utter lack of embarrassment by posting here what would be my ideal karaoke playlist, full of some of my favorite sing-along songs by female artists.

"Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" is playing right now as I type. Earlier I was singing along with Liza and Aretha and Barbra; jamming with Janet Jackson, Judy Garland, Jill Scott; alternately singing lead and back-up vocals with the ladies of TLC, Destiny's Child, The Supremes and EnVogue. Most of these songs were not on the extensive list of available tunes at the karaoke place and that is too bad. How can you have any kind of sing-along experience without "I Feel the Earth Move," "Bootylicious," or "Poetry Man"? I am sure any woman--or man, for that matter--would love to release her or his inner Lil Kim by rapping the female part to "Crush on You," or channel their inner pop diva by crooning "You can stand under my umbrella ella, ella" or "I don't think you're ready for this jelly" or "How come every time you come around, my London, London bridge wanna go down."

Ah well. With this playlist I can now have the very best kind of karaoke experience.

One without witnesses.

Newly Tenured — at Age 68

...“If someone had told me that I was going to start on a tenure track when I was 62, I would have laughed,” [Victoria Lichterman] says.

“But now I’m 68 and indeed, it’s been there, done that.”

Lichterman, an assistant professor of humanities, received tenure at New York City College of Technology this year, having signed on as a full-time junior faculty member six years ago at age 62 after a couple years as a part timer. “She’s just one of us, who came to tenure late in life,” says Cathy Santore, chair of the humanities department at City Tech, which is part of the City University of New York. “She’s worked extremely hard and with so much energy, I worried about her because I thought she’s just knocking herself out. She wants to keep up with the younger faculty but she went beyond what some of them are doing.”

“Actually,” Santore says, “she’s teaching me about age. When I said to her, ‘Victoria, you don’t have to work so hard,’ she said, ‘Oh, when you get to my age, you’ll see….You’ll just be so delighted that you can still do it that you’d like to do it"...

Well done! BTW, one of her research topics sounds fascinating: "the history of white writers speaking through black characters."

I missed the last day of our 32 Days of Black History blogathon yesterday. But let me echo my blogging partner, Deesha, in sending out a belated THANK YOU to everyone who commented or dropped by to read. An extra big THANK YOU to our blogathon participants Tami, Inkognegro, Christina, and Chris; as well as to our guest bloggers, Connie Divers Bradley, Tambay Obenson, Laina Dawes, Christopher Chambers, Tami Winfrey Harris, Dark Star, Troy Johnson, and Frances Dumas-Hines.

I'd like to express a very special thank you to Deesha for challenging me to up my own game with her insightful analyses and wonderful writing.

Not that I was totally successful at "upping my game." I still have about a half dozen draft 32Days posts sitting around. (Including one that I have wanted to finish for more than a year.) But because "Black history" is not just for a month but really lasts 365 days a year, I will not hesitate to post these at a later date.

Until then...

Sometimes justice can be so elusive, can't it? Bad enough that often it is overdue. But then, when it finaly seems within our reach, it sometimes slips away...or we're only able to grab hold of a little piece of it...

These days eyes tend to be directed to the U.S Supreme Court, and the future of the battle over abortion choice and access. In this social context, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that historically, for many women the central reproductive struggle has not involved abortion rights. Instead it has involved the right to conceive, bear, and provide for their children, as well as the right to maintain the authority to be parents of their children. From the buying and selling of the children of African-ancestry parents to the forced placement into "boarding schools" of the children of Native American parents to current day social service practices regarding the termination of parental rights that disproportionately affect parents of color--This country has a pretty shameful history when it comes to disallowing some people their rights to become and remain parents.

A particularly egregious example of this is the history of forced sterilizations in this country in the name of "genetic fitness"--otherwise known as eugenics.

The targets of these forced sterilizations were folks who evidenced various combinations of being Black, poor, uneducated, deemed to be "promiscuous" or potentially promiscuous, deemed to be "feebleminded" or potentially so. These practices of sterilizing women and girls (and some men and boys) against their will and often without their knowledge sometimes went by the name "Mississippi appendectomies." A particularly aggressive program, however, occurred in North Carolina. From an excellent multipart program on the North Carolina efforts, "Against Their Will":

They were wives and daughters. Sisters. Unwed mothers. Children. Even a 10-year-old boy. Some were blind or mentally retarded. Toward the end they were mostly black and poor. North Carolina sterilized them all, more than 7,600 people.

For more than 40 years North Carolina ran one of the nation's largest and most aggressive sterilization programs. It expanded after World War II, even as most other states pulled back in light of the horrors of Hitler's Germany.

Some of these folks are still alive, still seeking justice--which means, of course, that they have had to come forward and publically share their stories:

In the file of Ernestine Moore, for instance, who was sterilized in 1965 in Pitt County at the age of 14, a social worker wrote that the people who lived near her were "of low incomes and low morals." Moore was classified as feebleminded, even though she wasn't.

In fact, the social worker wrote, "Ernestine has no appearance of retardation." Upon reading what was written in her file, Ms. Moore, 54, told The Journal that North Carolina should "pay for the pain" and suffering she's gone through since her sterilization.

In recent years, the state of North Carolina has agreed (story here). But, as fate would have it, carrying out this justice has not gone smoothly. Issues abound, regarding such things as where to get medical records to prove forced sterilization, whether or not such records are still available or had ever been kept at all, and adequately staffing efforts to process claims.

All signs look like justice will be delayed. Again. And my cynical side is whispering that there's a good chance justice may not come at all for these folks. Once again, they may have to make do with an official apology. For whatever (if anything) that is worth.

But. The hopeful side of me still has...hope. In the meantime, I will enjoy our State Fair this year much as I have every year since I began learning more about this country's eugenics past: With the ghostly narration in my mind of contests aimed at promoting good human stock along with the best ears of corn or plumpest sows.

(Image ID: 14) Title: Kansas State Free Fair, Topeka, Fitter Families Contest examining staff and "sweepstakes" winning family; Archival Information: AES,Am3,575.06,55

From the excellent site Image Archive on the American Eugenics Movement:

At most contests, competitors submitted an "Abridged Record of Family Traits," and a team of medical doctors performed psychological and physical exams on family members. Each family member was given an overall letter grade of eugenic health, and the family with the highest grade average was awarded a silver trophy. Trophies were typically awarded in three family categories: small (1 child), medium (2-4 children), and large (5 or more children).

All contestants with a B+ or better received bronze medals bearing the inscription, "Yea, I have a goodly heritage." Childless couples were eligible for prizes in contests held in some states. As expected, the Fitter Families Contest mirrored the eugenics movement itself; winners were invariably White with western and northern European heritage.

I've mentioned before about how important it is for me to keep such history in my mind as I continue with my interests in researching issues of families and genetics. Late summer, right before the start of another school year is as good a time as any to give myself a booster shot of memory. Memory for the "non-placers" in the clean genes fairground competitions. Memory for the folks who were denied the chance to bear children to take to fairs in the first place.

But then I got to thinking about two things. The first was how my girl Deesha dissed my girl Janet (here--see comments). "Welllll, now, Yvette.....Janet is not really a singer, now, is she...but she is a mighty fine entertainer..." That got me thinking. Maybe I should be using my limited Black history space to dispel the myth that the only thing Black folks do is break out into dance at a moment's notice. But on the other hand, of course I am not ashamed of Black artists' contribution to the world culture in the form of music that gets your body moving, right?

The second thing: The other day I went to pick up my kids from extended day care at their school. Over in the corner were a group of kids (all White, all suburban) dancing the "soulja boy." I said excitedly to my daughter, "Oooo, look, they're doing the soulja boy! I'm gonna go over and join them!" To which my daughter replied--in a theatrical, loud whisper with a look of utter horror on her face, "No Mommy, please--Please do not go over and do the soulja boy!" Now, hopefully the fear my kid expressed was at the thought of her 40-something Mom busting a move in front of her friends and not the act of dancing itself.

But. Just in case. I hereby reclaim music to move by. With this playlist I proudly and loudly showcase several decades of Black Dance music!

La-Di-Da-Di
We likes to party
We don't cause trouble
We don't bother nobody...

Sometimes it is really no deeper than that. It's not about protest and social commentary, or chilling to the quiet storm, or breaking musical barriers. Sometimes it is merely about shaking that groove thang.

With this playlist I tried to imagine myself as a DJ at a family wedding, where I'd have to please several generations of folks. So there's music to Hustle and Bus Stop to; some tunes for the Steppers couples to step to; some old school hip-hop anthems and funk jams to break dance and Bump to... And of course the Electric Slide song so that everyone can line up and dance.

Oh yes--there is even "Pop, Lock and Drop It" and "Crank Dat Soul Ja Boy" for the young folks to dance to and the old folks to either watch and shake their heads or participate in and make fools of themselves. (And yes, I know what "soldier boy" and "superman" are slang for...) And of course there is Janet! (:-P~~ @ D, LOL!)

It's all in good fun. No one's watching. Come on. Get on the floor and move something.

Thank you for visiting our 32Days blogathon project, with Deesha at Mamalicious! and me here at SITBB. We are joined by Tami; Inkognegro; Christina; and Chris.

I am somewhat ashamed to admit now that, at the time, I found this to be a liberating program. It was so rare I saw Black women in any roles at all on TV, but as powerful, kick-butt police women? That was truly a rarity. If you look at this clip, you'll see why I have a hard time admitting to this now. The show, it is now apparent, was chock full of stereotypes, demeaning images, stupid (and inaccurate) Black slang, and on and on.

Which begs the question: What does it say about me as a young Black girl and the 70s US society that I could look at something like this with a degree of pride and empowerment?

Well, while you ponder that, enjoy Teresa Graves--"the first black woman on TV to star in an hour long show"--kick some drug dealer butt!