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My favorite quote comes from Solnit’s piece.

Men explain things to me, still. And no man has ever apologized for explaining, wrongly, things that I know and they don’t. Not yet, but according to the actuarial tables, I may have another forty-something years to live, more or less, so it could happen. Though I’m not holding my breath.

Rebecca Solnit, “Men Explain Things to Me”

I found myself thinking a lot about Jennifer’s comment on my response to Solnit.

 Like how do women get criticized for calling men out after women been called animals, evil beings, and a curse upon men for thousands of years? Women are called “feminazis” or “sexist against men” because they say “I hate men” one. And I hate that there has to be such a silly divide over gender, but it’s such a divide that has followed us through history because men decided it should be that way from the beginning.

Jennifer R. Comment on “Male Mediocracy,” 03 October 2019

“Much of his social life revolved around trading them, and he learned about exchange, fairness, trust, the importance of processes as opposed to results, what it means to get cheated, taken advantage of, even robbed. Baseball cards were the medium of his economic life too. Nowhere better to learn the power and arbitrariness of money, the absolute divorce between use value and exchange value, notions of long- and short-term investment, the possibility of personal values that are independent of market values.” – M.P

There is benefit in addressing the fact that borders exist. We cannot run from situations that bring up these contact zones in fear of an igniting a controversy. “Retreating to our respective corners” would be doing the country a disservice.  While we cannot silence our differences, we also cannot allow controversy to evoke hatred. Obama notes that it was not the Reverend’s remarks that made the campaign take a “divisive turn” but our reaction to the remarks. – A.G

“Writing and rewriting, practicing, experimenting, I came to comprehend more fully the generative power of language. I discovered- with the help of some especially sensitive teachers-that through writing one can continually bring new selves into being, each with new responsibilities and difficulties, but also with new possibilities.”

Barbara Mellix, From Outside, In

“Throughout the past 4 weeks in this course, I have approached each piece we have read looking for an answer or a quick fix to these cultural differences. After listening to Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” speech, I realized that there is not a single solution. As hard as one may try, we cannot completely knock down these walls that separate us. I think that this is a clear point that Obama’s speech highlights and, while obvious, we tend to overlook this. 

Obama reminds us that we are not a perfect union, nor will we ever be perfect. However, if we don’t at least try to come together then division will persist. He affirms that our “racial wounds” are not an issue that can be solved “in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy”. This is something that America, as a whole, must work on together throughout time.”

Amanda Gen, Healing the Wounds, Sept 25th, 2019

I discovered – with the help of some especially sensitive teachers – that through writing one can continually bring new selves into being, each with new responsibilities and difficulties, but also with new possibilities. Remarkable power, indeed. I write and continually give birth to myself.

– Mellix, “From Outside, In”, closing statement

Everyone who has a notebook or journal understands that they are in no way, shape, or form, perfect. My notebook has scribbles where I’ve misspelled words, I’ve got arrows all over the pages where I’ve tried to connect my thoughts, I have random lists in between heartfelt journal entries, and sometimes I’m writing so fast that my handwriting changes completely. It’s messy and sometimes unorganized but I find beauty in the way that I let my thoughts take over the pages. If anything, I think it shows how human I truly am.

– Ashley S, response to Lambeth – “The Three-legged Dog who carried me” – 9/4/19

I think I would say that Gloria Anzaldua’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” is my favorite piece we read this semester. The way that she articulated her lack of connection from both English and Spanish speakers was intriguing. She managed to inform her audience that because she spoke a form of “Spanglish,” that she did not feel like she was part of the English-speaking community because she was Spanish, while at the same time she did not feel like part of the Spanish-speaking community because the Spanish she spoke was broken.

My favorite class response was Bridget’s response to Richard Rodriguez’s “The Achievement of Desire: Personal Reflections on Learning ‘Basics.’” I believe her response brought up interesting points about Rodriguez being a good student because he was good at mimicking his teachers.

Context: Kimberlé Crenshaw’s 2016 Ted Talk focuses on the urgency of intersectionality and  acknowledges the cultural impact of recognizing overlapping identities such as race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality in 1989 and it is defined as: the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group regarded as creating overlapping and independent systems of discrimination or disadvantage. Crenshaw refers to a case brought to court by Emma Degraffenreid that was dismissed because the Judge believed her attempt to sue on the grounds of “double discrimination” would be a preferential advantage. This is referred to by Crenshaw as “Injustice squared” because of Degraffenreid’s inability to get the job she applied for as well as the discrimination she suffered being inconsequential.

Role: I plan to use The Urgency of Intersectionality as a framework for my paper to express the impact of society’s constraints and constructions on women especially young women and women of marginalized ethnicities.

Why it is interesting: I find this video interesting because although I’d realized and lived the concept of intersectionality several times in my life as a black woman, I don’t think I’d ever heard of the phrase before watching this video. Realizing that was eye opening to me because it made me think of how little this concept is actually discussed. This concept invites you to understand the overlapping identities of marginalized people on a complex and immersed level.