COURSE BLOG for GWSS 3307: Feminist Film/Media Studies (Fall 2007)

Jena Six case sparked a disturbing trend: Nooses
The Jena Six case sparked a disturbing trend from NY to Minnesota: nooses. What does it mean?

By Audra D.S. Burch, McClatchy News Service
November 09, 2007

Across the nation, nooses -- an enduring symbol of hate born more than a century ago in the Deep South -- have been left at offices, theaters and historic ships, fire houses and police stations, on a bronzed statue of the late rapper Tupac Shakur and even at Minneapolis Community and Technical College.

READ ON...
http://www.startribune.com/484/story/1541149.html

THE STORY FINISHES WITH:
"In the Minnesota case, an assistant editor at a college newspaper hung a noose as a motivational tool. He was fired in the incident, but was cleared of bigotry. After an inquiry, the college said it found no evidence that the act was racially motivated."

HMMMMM.....

The student was suspended from his job at the school paper, but nothing further has resulted. Apparently, this "wasn't racially motivated", according to the article.

I ask:
- What is the SOLE PURPOSE of a noose (literally and symbolically)?

- What would have happened if a Black student (or other student of color like a Middle Eastern student) hung up some symbol or statement against the white establishment? I would imagine reprimand, expulsion and criminal charges (remember the "Patriot Act" which can claim many acts of p.o.c. speech as hate and be called terroristic, and punished as criminal")

- Why don't the students at MCTC organize? Why don't students understand their history and the legacies of struggle before them? Why are they having so much difficulty organizing?

We NEED to get it together.

Question: How many of you heard about this on the news?

LET'S TALK ABOUT THIS.
-R

Posted by Rae at 10:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In my recent travels and political and community work and speeches around the country, it became so very obvious that many American males are unaware of the monumental problem of domestic violence in our nation. Since October just ended and was Domestic Violence Awareness Month, this seems as good a time as any to address this urgent and overlooked issue. Why is it that so few of us actually think about violence against women and girls, or think that it's our problem? Why do we go on believing it's all good, even as our sisters, our mothers, and our daughters suffer and a growing number of us participate in the brutality of berating, beating, or killing our female counterparts?

All you have to do is scan the local newspapers or ask the right questions of your circle of friends, neighbors, or co-workers on a regular basis, and you'll see and hear similar stories coming up again and again. There's the horribly tragic case of Megan Williams, a 20-year-old West Virginia woman, who was kidnapped for several days. The woman's captors forced her to eat rat droppings, choked her with a cable cord and stabbed her in the leg while calling her, a Black female, a racial slur, according to criminal complaints. They also poured hot water over her, made her drink from a toilet, and beat and sexually assaulted her during a span of about a week, the documents say. There's the woman I knew, in Atlanta, Georgia, whose enraged husband pummeled her at home, stalked her at work and, finally, in a fit of fury, stabbed her to death as her six-year-old son watched in horror.

READ ON...

Here's Kevin's 2003 book:

Posted by Rae at 03:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)