Readings

In lieu of our second Peter Elbow (April 4th) reading and to include Delpit (March 28th), please find and read the following articles on JSTOR:

Delpit, Lisa. "Acquisition of Literate Discourse: Bowing Before the Master?"

       "Education in a Multicultural Society: Our Future's Greatest Challenge"

Moffett, James. "Who Counts?"

Just a reminder that your rubrics (unused) for the first writing piece should be posted on Googledocs by Sunday, April 19th at 9 p.m.   As far as I can tell, you upload the document, then click on the share button.  You can invite our entire group to share the document as viewers.

If you have any other further questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me.  And, if I don't have a chance to say this otherwise, have a wonderful, well-deserved spring break!

Teacher-To-Teacher Conference

Dear Participants,

Check out the sidebar for a link to information about the Teacher-To-Teacher Conference at Lehman on March 28th, 2009.   Remember that participation in this conference earns you extra credit in this class (and professional development credit, I believe).   It also means that our March 28th meeting has been moved to April 4, 2009.

See you in the a.m.!

Rachel

Caroline -- draft

Sorry for the delay! My internet exploded in my apartment this weekend. Currently I am stealing from neighbors.

Here's my draft:

Love Poem From New York

At 6:30 am, the sun is just breaking
the Meer is still shadowed, the park barely stirring,
soft shuffle of cars and occasional feet.
The leaves on the sidewalk smell wet and strong.

In the lack of people, in the damp and the chill,
In the glisten of trees and the lake and the click
Of my heels in the empty new morning
I, quiet, imagine your day.

On the 55 home, fluorescent and humming,
I watch impassive as 3rd passes by,
Blankly consider the faces around me
Reflected -- distorted -- against the dark outside.

In silence, in passing, the fact of your absence,
Approaches and recedes. On the bus, in transition,
The thought of you at a distance
Glows hopeful but warmthless,
Like thin hints of sunrise,
Like light leaking from the refrigerator door.

Jenna - Bailey's Irish Cream

I used to think drinking coffee was bad. I didn’t like the way the beans could get stuck up your nose if you pushed ’em too hard. I didn’t mind the smell so much, just the taste it left in your mouth. I used to have to wash my morning coffee down with a shot of liquor so I wouldn’t have that disgusting bitter taste in my mouth all day. Anyway, I remembered from health class – the one they make everyone take in high school where they tell you over and over again not to use condoms because they’re not 100% effective – I remembered they also sometimes told us that wanting to make yourself throw up is a real dangerous eating disorder, anorexis or something. Well, Ma, she would just throw a hissy fit if she knew I went and got an eating disorder just from drinking a cup of coffee every morning! She was always real healthy-like. So I just never took to drinking coffee much.

But that was all before I met Bobby, my last boyfriend before that creep Todd. Now, Todd wasn’t half so bad as my cousin D-Roy who used to come a-courtin’ me back when I was still all innocent-like in high school. But look at me, getting off track like this! My Bobby, he was real smart. He always used to say what your Ma don’t know won’t hurt her. One day he got me up real early and we drove for a long time to this cute little café place a few towns over. It was real fancy-like, and there were big glass jars full of coffee beans all different sizes and colors lining the walls and the windows and the counter-top. Here’s the best part. Now, this little place, they let you order a cup of coffee with a shot of alcohol already in it! That’s how the Irish drink it. A man named Bailey thought it up. It didn’t taste half so bad as what I was used to! Bobby even bought me my very own bottle of the special liquor they use so I could start making myself a nice cup of coffee every morning. Now I can’t think how I ever got through the day without it! And I’ll let you in on a little secret – sometimes, if Bobby and I had a real wild night or something, I’d put in two shots of liquor. Just think of that!

A few weeks later Krissy-Lee, she’s the town drunk, she told me that Barbara-Ann told her that Sally Johnson was with her beau Marty at the same little café I was just telling you about and she saw my Bobby there with another woman! Well, was I a-waiting for Bobby when he came home that night! And when he did his big old head ran right into my bottle of liquor. For his sake it was a sure good thing I had finished off the last of the liquor that day or he would have gotten himself all wet. That night I was feeling pretty bad about the whole thing and I went to find some company at Big Bull Tavern. That’s where I met Todd. Todd told me that he had had a pretty bad day too on account of his pussy cat dying. I felt real bad and we talked for a while and the next thing I know I’m pregnant! I also talked to that Sally Johnson at the Tavern that night and she told me that it was Bobby’s sister who was with him at the café. Well, there’s something mighty wrong with that Bobby if he’d go a-cheating on me with his own sister, but I try not to think about it too much. Anyway, I had some other things sitting on my mind back then.

The first thing I was thinking about was what to name the baby. I liked Janie if it were a girl and Todd Jr. if it were a boy, but when Todd up and left me three weeks later that name was out of the question. I didn’t much mind that he left. He had this real annoying habit of sleepwalking and opening our bedroom window in the middle of the night. He used to say my house stunk worse than a fish market. I wouldn’t know, having never been to a fish market. It would get real cold and I didn’t think that was too good for our baby. Either way, I was curious when one night he didn’t come home from his job at the auto-mechanic. I took my purse and my coat and I walked all the way 1.5 miles to Mr. Jones’s shop. When I finally got there I was real tired and cold on account of it being November and Mr. Jones himself offered me a nice cup of coffee to warm me up. He didn’t have any liquor, so I declined real nicely. Then he told me that he had fired Todd that morning on account of him stealing one of them cars he was supposed to be fixing. Todd doesn’t know he’s fired, though, since he drove off before Mr. Jones got the chance to tell him and he hasn’t been back since.

Well, talking to Mr. Jones made me real happy that Todd was gone because I wouldn’t want a car thief helping raise my baby! So I thanked Mr. Jones for all his help and was about to walk back home but Mr. Jones – he’s a real gentleman – he said 1.5 miles was a long way for a pregnant lady to walk so he offered to drive me home himself. I was real grateful. When we got home I wanted some company so I invited Mr. Jones inside, but he said he had to get back to his shop. After a while I started to get a little sad and lonely and was thinking about going back to the Big Bull when all of a sudden the doorbell rang! I thought to myself it must be Todd. I was gonna give that creep a piece of my mind. But it wasn’t Todd, it was Bobby’s sister. She said she was worried cause she hadn’t seen Bobby in a while and she thought I might know where he was. Now, usually I wouldn’t be inclined to be nice and friendly-like to my boyfriend’s secret lover, but as I said I was lonely, so I invited her in. We had a nice long talk. I made her a cup Bailey’s Irish Coffee and she said it was even better than the ones they served at the café. Then I told her all about how it was real nice of Bobby to take me to the café and get me drinking coffee in the first place. One thing led to another and soon she knew I was pregnant and in need of a name for my baby, on account of Todd Jr. being no good anymore. She said she always liked the name Donald, like the duck. Well, that got me laughing and then she started laughing and we were both laughing and talking for a long time. I guess the four pots of coffee I made kept us up all through the night. It was real nice, having company like that. I never had a real friend I could talk to before. So after we had been talking girl talk and sharing our secrets all night I figured I could tell her where Bobby was. I took her down the stairs to the basement and the smell got real strong. She almost couldn’t stand it and started to turn back but I guess that was when she saw Bobby cause she screamed real loud. My ears are still hurting from it.

After that I knew it wouldn’t be long till the cops came to get me so I went upstairs and packed my suitcase. Sure enough, not an hour later, there they were. I’m not too worried. The nice men who picked me up told me they have good doctors here who will help deliver my baby when the time comes. I’ve decided to name him Bailey after the wonderful person who invented my coffee. I do wish they knew how to make it here. That is the one thing I am really going to miss.

Part One

It’s cold outside and Aunt D’s door is bolted. Dion lies down above her top step. His limbs draw, almost instinctively, into his chest.

She grabs her father’s pant leg and tugs gently. “I’m sorry we’re late,” he says. “I know what it means to you. It’s just that the tracks didn’t clear in time.” A door swings open behind them and the empty hallway fills with bodies. She leans against his leg. “Some things,” he says, turning toward the noise, “we can’t control.” The girl wants to tell her father that it’s okay, but the noise of children is too much. She saves her words, shuts her eyes, and waits.

Dion’s bare feet press against the marbled floor near the open door. A boy, backpack swinging, thrusts through the opening towards the girl. Dion lunges and plants himself in front of her. The girl releases from her father. Dion flexes and feels a great hole pass through him. He looks back over his shoulder. The backpack swings wide and scrapes the girl’s face. Her eyelids open to dust grey bulbs and tears spill into her mouth. The father kneels down, and pulling the girl into his chest, holds her there.

“Up!”

Dion blinks, and in the moment he sees her eyes and hand, he’s clenching.

She slaps him.

“Don’t say it.”

“Wasn’t going to.”

“What the fuck wrong with you?”

He braces himself again and speaks.

“Nothing.”

She slaps him.

Half as hard as my mom used to, Dion thinks.

Aunt D starts again.

“Well hell, something wrong with you. You been mumbling to yourself like yo brain gone.”

She limps up the steps, hitching on her right knee, and coughs hard twice at the top. Emphysema, Dion thinks, as he rises from the cement. Now standing upright, he shoves each hand into a jacket pocket. Aunt D turns and looks back at him all shocked, and he pretends to look shocked too. A stream of cool air slides across his face and he thinks about saying something more.

“What?” Aunt D leans toward him. “You crazy?” She snaps at his right eye. “Looking at me like that.”

She slaps the top of his head.

“Like you gonna say something.”

Her voice resonates.

Dion feels overwhelmed and can only mouth the words. He thinks of the girl in the dream, drowned by noise, and a pang of resentment rises in his gut. He thinks about his distance from her.

Aunt D pulls a set of keys from her back pocket and holds them in front of his face. “These what you waiting for?” They dangle and clang and he stares past them, unmoving.

In a second the key disappears in the lock and he’s watching the door open and close. He stands there awhile, touching his ear. Probably not even bruised.

***

Dion wakes to the dry creak of the top bunk. He pushes the sheet from his chest and rotates his head on a thin pillow. He lifts a wristwatch from a stack of books and its face falls into a sliver of light. 6:00. Half an hour until breakfast.

Leaning on his right side, Dion lifts Bronx Noir from the stack. He opens the cover with his left hand and the binding guides him to “Hothouse.” He presses his fingers against the book and looking at the title, realizes he’s read it. A new need for the story rises within him, circulates, and he begins.

At the turn of the fourth page the girl on the ATV finds the guy, a fugitive stranded in a blizzard. It’s the dead of winter in the New York Botanical Gardens and they find refuge in the conservatory. Inside, everything is silent, still – another world. This is the part he wants. He whispers the words, containing them within a rhythm that, he feels, gives them life: “Amazed, gulping moist vanilla air, he stood amid long rows of orchids, gardenias, who knew what else. He was no gardener. Back home you didn’t need to be. Back home these plants didn’t need you. Here, they had to have pots, drips, lights, towering glass walls to save them from vindictive cold, from early dark, from wind that would turn their liquid hearts to solid, choking crystals. Here, soft generosity had to be guarded. He started to walk, farther in. He wanted to walk to the tropical core of the place. He wanted to walk home. Each step was warmer, lovelier, more dreamlike. But when he got to the giant central room…” Dion looks away from the page, wanting the rest to disappear. He doesn’t want the guy and the girl to find the hole in the conservatory roof and watch helplessly as the plants freeze. He doesn’t want the guy to die and he doesn’t want the girl to leave. He wants them to just sit inside, ingesting the humid scents. That’s it. Not even talking much or having sex or anything like that. None of that matters. Dion closes the book and imagines the plants flourishing.

A whisper tugs him from thought. “Hey, you awake down there?”

Dion sits up, making sure he is. “Hey you, down there.” Dion looks down at the book. “You awake?” He squeezes it with both hands, compressing the pages. “Why don’t ya say something?” Dion thinks about the guy in the story, stranded in a blizzard. About how, at the moment before death, the girl’s voice pulls him back into consciousness – back into feeling.

“I’m awake, I guess,” Dion mumbles.

“You not sure?”

“I mean, yeah, I’m awake.” Dion pulls the sheet back over his chest.

“Good,” she says. “So I got here last night and you and those two in that bunk over there were sleeping and I’m pretty good at keeping quiet, ya know, minding my business.” She peers over the edge at Dion below. Suddenly she’s smiling and reaching down. She offers her hand.

“Kelly. And you?”

He mutters his name and her hand meets his. The touch and release of flesh feels strange.

“Looks like you’ve been here awhile,” she says, noticing the stack of books.

“Yeah, eight years. Aunt D says eight years.”

“Wait. You mean Ms. Darius?” Kelly asks.

“Yeah, Aunt D.” Dion thinks about how to explain. “But we don’t really talk to her much. Only when the married people come once in awhile.”

“What does she have you say?”

“I don’t know, just that we’re good. That we’re smart and that she helps us with school. And that she shows us how to behave.”

“Oh,” she sighs, picturing Aunt D putting on a show for the visitors.

“It was a white woman last time and she had me read one of my books. That was about a year ago.”

Kelly blinks. She leaves the image behind.

“Okay, but what’d ya mean she says eight years? Don’t you remember the day you came here? Or maybe who brought you? Or why?”

“No, I was seven.”

“Well maybe you wanna figure that out.”

“Yeah.” Dion pauses. “Maybe.”

He waits for Kelly to speak. For the first time, she’s slow to.

“Well I’m only here a few days. I’m gone once I find my dad.”

She jumps from the top bunk, landing next to his bed.

Dion sits up straight. “Well, why do you want to find your dad? Isn’t he the reason you were living with your mom?”

Kelly hesitates for a moment and then redirects the question. “Hey, so...wanna be my boyfriend for a bit?”

The thought of it rises, but she drowns the words. “Oh, come on, it was just a joke.” Dion sees her smile and feels its heat, as if it could sear skin. “What, no laugh?”

Dion finds the words and speaks. “I don’t really want to be anyone’s anything, and besides…”

“Get movin’ up there!” Aunt D’s voice fills the room, cutting him off. “At the table. Five minutes. No messin about today.”

Her words echo and settle into the wood.

Kelly starts toward the door.

“Hey, wait a second.”

She doesn’t. He follows.

“Maybe you should give her a minute.”

She keeps moving. When Dion reaches the doorway she's already halfway down the rotting stairwell. She stops on the landing and looks back up.

“I need to ask Ms. Darius about my dad.”

He eases down the first two steps, creaks on the third, and then starts moving faster.

***

Krizia - Draft 1.5 [Draft 1 was just a little bit different]

I talked to a lot of people and thought about a lot of things today. Sometimes I felt victorious. And other times, I felt the lack of color in the area surrounding my cold body. Most of the time, I feel like a spectator. If the people I watched and observed could read my mind, they'd puff their chests out and think, "I am the type of person that other people only wish they could be." And they would be right. In my case, at least.

I remembered and noticed a lot of things today. Like how he'd always open the door for me. He'd always put the toiled seat back up after peeing. He always smiled at me with that crooked smile he was so ashamed of. He knew my favorite foods...that my favorite colors are black and white.

I noticed a hole in my stockings as I was getting ready this morning. I took out my little sewing kit from my pajama drawer and got down to business. While noodling around for some needle and thread, I found an unfinished toy I had been working on as a Christmas present for his cat. It sounds absurd, I know. But he really liked them. He really, really liked them.

"No one has ever done anything like this for me before." Thinking about that comment still makes me smile. I hadn't finished this one because it was my "test piece" and the stitches weren't coming out quite like I'd expected. Then again, nothing ever really comes out quite like you'd expect.

Don't you hate how the moment you think you've purged your life of someone, they just come back again? In the form of something...a dream, a nightmare, a business card stuck in an old book that you had been using as a book mark...or in the form of an unfinished cat toy in a sewing kit in your pajama drawer.

I'm dating someone new now. He has cats too (what's with me dating guys who have cats?). I stared at the paw print patterned cloth, examined the sky blue thread. For a moment, I considered finishing this one and giving it to my someone new. But who would want a gift that wasn't originally meant for them? I'll go to the store, pick up some cloth and catnip, and make him new ones if I have the time. Maybe. We'll see.

I wonder if I'd given him the chance, whether or not he'd be the type of guy whom I could walk our dogs with every night. I wonder if there's anyone better out there, and I worry that there might not be. I wonder if our differences were enough for me to make the decision that I did, and then I second-guess not putting more thought into it. I should have asked him what he expected of our relationship and what he expected of me, instead of just, well, running away.

'twixt 'tween

This is the walking enigma of a woman on the brink
A splash of vanilla in a world of cinnamon and chocolate
Lost, wandering past the snow covered brownstones
(as cold as it is, it leaves a sweet memory and it’ll be back soon)
Out of place, drowning out the bodega’s borchata with the hardcore on my headphones
Here I am. Is this not what I wanted?
A lifelong dream achieved.
But am I Mom? Officer? Doctor? Nanny? Or just machine?


I'm caught in that place between child and adult,
between student and teacher,
Melly and Miss,
West and East coast,
hopeful and homeless,
between self-confident and confused.

I guess that's always been me.

The Tweener.


Yes, still stuck in Seattle in the autumn, leaves turning, always changing.
I am a girl on a moped, helmet down, scarf flying in the wind as I drive into the city skyline.
I savor the sweet smell in the air just before it starts to rain.
I am an acoustic rock song played by a hippie in a cafe.

I am that second wind at 1:45 AM that makes you decide to stay up later.
Because I am like a hummingbird, wings always moving always buzzing always go go go.
I AM HOLDEN CAULFIELD, AND I'M ON THE VERGE OF A BREAKDOWN!!!

...

but I am that sweet taste of coffee on your lips, mmmmm.... now everything's gonna be all right.


Because this is my dream achieved, a lifetime in the making -

and I'm only a quarter of the way there.

The noises of traffic and drilling added a background droll to the constantly moving surroundings of people rushing around the city streets. There was something very calming about being able to just walk home. Yes, there was lots of reading and work to be done at home, but right now was her own time. Who knew the forty minute commute would actually serve as a means to regain sanity? She could listen to music and enjoy people watching without worrying about what she needed to accomplish before tomorrow, this was her time to unwind. It was strange that the somewhat chaotic streets were calming. The city could be strangely isolating, full of people but of people that are all in their own little universes, who only snap out of them to yell at slow walkers or taxis that are too anxious to get to their destinations. However, even in this sea of self-contained people, there was some sort of common connection; every single one is just as crazy as the next. Everyone is rushing and self-contained together. Even on the worst days of teaching, somehow the sight of people rudely pushing one another to get on and off the subway was consoling and served as a reminder that out of all of these people, someone had to love their job and yet still felt the urge to be in such a hurry.
This idea that the city kind of made people crazy or somehow instilled this belief that if they are not rushing, they are wasting time, made her feel sane. Her occasional uneasiness was the city’s fault, not her own. Somehow these spectacles worked to break her out of her own urgency. Was pushing past the little old lady gathering her grocery bags or the three year old preoccupied with his juice box really going to save that much time? She felt like she could be an observer, somehow slow herself down and yet still be in the middle of this rushing. It was the kind of control that she needed to regain after a day of some extremely uncontrolled classes. She could control whether she waited the thirty extra seconds to get on the train or whether she wanted to partake in the Olympic dash for seats. The city had a strange way of making her relax. She even found the ever present concrete of the buildings and sidewalks pleasant, for they made her that much more aware of any tree or plant, even ivy was refreshing, a tiny burst of green surviving in hostile territory. The city had a way of reteaching her what was important, and could do it in one simple walk home.

Tokens & Substitutes: Reflections on Aestheticized Values

Tokens & Substitutes: Reflections on Aestheticized Values

Of the many titles that big name American cities such as New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles have been assigned, they are also congested arenas of grid-structured city blocks that leak aestheticized visuals and conceptualizations of liberalism, diversity, art, modernity "at-its-best", and the creme-de-la-creme of "beauty". As these concepts--and it should be mentioned early on, effect the quality of life for subjects of the 21st century--both inform and project out of social, political, private and public spheres of American life, they remain prioritized discourse in a rather hypocritical and ironic fashion. Another way to approach this notion is to ask oneself: do these values actually exist or, are they merely abstract concepts that are entertained for centuries and now made into watered-down versions of themselves? When one pierces into this self-proclaimed archetypical city of the 21st century to investigate their existence, is one guaranteed to witness the values that define one's quality of life?

Is the more compelling item for consideration buried in the term "investigation?” An investigation of this nature—presumably academic as well as social in the raw sense, in that its realities are manifested on a simple level and a more complex level—requires an examination, a study of a problem comprised within a system. It is an inquiry into the particulars of this problem. Thus, an investigation of both the existence of these values and the ways in which they manifest themselves means one needs to simultaneously pay attention to the larger system from which they are produced in this manner.

Speaking more concretely, consider the example of Barak Obama’s presidency. His appointment to President of the United States was, and always will be, a climactic turn in American history, because for the first time in American history, a black male leads the nation. For the first time, the embodiment of core American values—which, up until now, have been no more than concepts scribed in the American Constitution—has seemingly executed itself (no pun intended). If the theoretical elements that surround this event reveal themselves in practice then there seems to be no dilemma, for the values themselves transgress being mere concepts and actualize themselves, which is their purpose. (Recall the Structuralist and Post-Structuralist premise that language is use, and that to understand the meaning of a word—we can also say a value here—one need observe that word’s usage.) That is, the ways in which these values unfold, how they play out, is what they really are. As mere concepts, print on a page, ultra-sensual sounds in a speech, they exist only theoretically.

On this matter, the theoretical element of these values, one can consider Barak Obama’s presidency a success insofar as the idea of a black male president goes. The total actualization of a black male president has yet to pass. The fact that his presidency was and still is celebrated in such an exuberant manner suggests that we are still far from full acceptance of the values in question. In other words, Obama as the first black President of the United States is theoretically a success, and more than that, because he is President in reality, it is a success in action. His presidency has taken the word “diversity” and put it to use. Nonetheless, that this event marks a shift in history, that it is celebrated, demonstrates that this event is not typical, but unique. Much like the passing of a birthday once a year, so to is the inauguration of a black male president; it is rare, a canonical event. This isn’t to say that we have not made advances to actualizing the great values we proclaimed at the start of American civilization. Such a claim would be unfair and simply invalid. Obama’s presidency is, for sure, a step in the right direction. The point is that so long as such events remain climactic and call for celebration, they values from which they are born will remain only partially fulfilled.

On the matter of token minorities, a discussion of “scholars-of-color” and “students-of-color” needs to be had. Statistics will show that the admittance of minorities into prestigious and pricey colleges and universities is growing. The livelihood of such students at these institutions remains a question tackled on a local level and a larger, academic level. (Take bell hooks, for example, who outlines one experience of being black and female in a predominantly white and male university in her essay, “Eating the Other”.) While I will speak to my own experiences and observations during my undergraduate years of college, my inclination is that these observations are not entirely unique, but that they generally lend themselves to the experiences and observations of other minorities who have (and perhaps still do) attend such academic institutions. Clubs, groups, events, and conversations to which the bulk of the audience comprises of minorities have more often than not related to the idea of diversity itself or the aestheticized manifestation thereof. “La Unidad”, or “Unity”, a club geared toward uniting Latinos was required to host a specific number of festivities throughout the school year, and was expected to celebrate Latino heritage during Hispanic Heritage Month. “UMOJA”, an African-American club also geared toward the same general, vague aim of unity blacks on campus was required to organize event(s) during Black History Month. “CCASA”, an Asian and Southeast Asian group demonstrated a similar persona, with the exception that this group, unlike the two former ones, was well endowed financially and popularly participated in and thus, hosted far more events. I often asked myself then, as I do now, does the value of diversity inasmuch as these ethnic and racial groups are concerned, actually exist? (By “value of diversity” I mean diversity as a value, not its worth). If the point is to host race-related events when convenient (i.e. Black History Month, Diwali, and when prospective minorities visit campus), is this truly about exercising diversity or about seemingly doing so? If diversity were, in fact, part of this college’s core, if diversity were an ingrained value that stood autonomously as individualism seems to, then does there need to be a division of cultural groups in the first place? Furthermore, need these groups celebrate their heritage in such a way that is apparently not for the group itself, but for the consumers who serve as its audience? Moreover, if the value of diversity actually existed in practice—without mere allusions to it—need it be investigated at all? That is, if a value is plainly evident, it needn’t be searched for. Beyond the fabricated symbols of diversity, such as the token minorities, where does full-fledged diversity on a college campus exist? (I presume that even interracial friendships and relationships encounter the dilemma, but that is a matter I prefer to hash out another time.)

These fabrications call for consideration. By fabrications I mean the people, ideas, images, structures, and events that make blatant claims to diversity, equality, superiority in “forward-thinking” and exemplary mores of a civilization. Token minorities are one such example. They exist within systems of power which they do not control, but are subject to, and in which they—consciously or unconsciously—play the role, so to speak. If diversity actualized itself, there would be no need for token minorities. If equality among the sexes truly existed, attention to Hillary Clinton’s wardrobe would not make the 10 o’clock news headlines. If such values really existed, they needn’t be assigned watered-down versions of themselves, which at bottom, are nothing more than substitutes or stand-ins; they are false silhouettes screaming the name of their respective values so as to attract attention to the fact of their existence.

Obama’s presidency speaks to the value of diversity no doubt, but it also raises the reigning issue of power, which can be perceived as the primary value that informs how and when (if at all) diversity is disclosed. Fabrications—tokens and substitutes—are constructs and as such, they have been constructed for a reason. The need to justify the existence of diversity suggests its lack of existence, for there is a difference between celebrating the thriving of a value that a people hold high and the superficial celebration via substitute heads. Celebration revolves around the aestheticization of rarities, which are allotted a time and place, but are not allowed to appear daily. So long as stand-ins for diversity, equality an

Tokens & Substitutes: Reflections on Aestheticized Values

Here We Are

Welcome, ESC 724 Participants!  

     Not only are we meeting the requirements of our uniquely hybrid course, but we're challenging notions of traditional writing and publishing.  Therefore, this blog equals awesomeness!

     Your first mission:  Post your first writing piece (or a selection) by Saturday, March 7th.  Then, post a comment to your writing group members by Wednesday, March 11th, using the protocol we discussed yesterday (affirmative, specific comments).

     Remember to bring 3 copies of your first piece with you to class on Saturday, March 14th.  

     I look forward to reading all of your remarkable writing!

Yours,

Rachel