I did it on purpose.
When my student worker at KSU asked how I wanted my Queering the South course flyer to look, I just said, "Caltlin, it should be very Southern and very queer. Have fun with it." I was delighted at the result. It gave the usual information, and right smack in the middle of the page was a confederate flag in rainbow colors. My only stipulation was that it always be printed and displayed in color so viewers would get the full impact.
Within two weeks of its display outside the Gender & Women's Studies office, it had been ripped down twice. One time, a student took it up to the dean's office to complain. A couple of months ago, a colleague who had displayed the flyer on her office door for me told me it was ripped down. I have to admit that when I heard reports like that, I said a secret, "Hell Yeah" of disruptiveness. But last week was different.
I walked into the office on Tuesday only to find our secretary and student worker standing there looking from the window where the flyer had been re-posted to me. They looked a little shaken, so I asked what was going on.
They told me a male student had just passed by the rainbow flag flyer, stopped to look at it, commented to his buddy, and then made a fist and hit the window. They didn't know what to say; neither did I. "He hit the window?" "Was it a bubba?" I asked. "We think so." We just stood there for a minute, and then Caitlin showed me the flyer she was about to display for my spring class on Queer Popular Culture, which she had taken pains to make equally provocative. What she handed me was black and white print on green paper. My disruptive, subversive spirit was rising. "Do me a favor, Caitlin", I asked. "Print my flyer in color; make sure all the pics are in color. And make the large heading in rainbow print." Caitlin smiled knowingly and turned toward the printer. But I wasn't quite done.
I went in my office and took down the rainbow flag that had been the background for my bulletin board behind my desk. I called for Stevon, our office decorator, who appeared at the door with his ruler. Together, we hung the flag from my second-floor office window, where it could be seen by most folks heading to the Social Science building. I'll admit Stevon was slightly frustrated at my impatience with measuring properly before attaching, but otherwise I was quite pleased with myself. I shooed away Stevon and his ruler, and placed the flag in the corner, which made perfect sense to me.
The next day, I got a message from a student on my facebook page. "Dr. Whitlock," it said, "I have never been so proud as when I looked up on my way to class and saw the rainbow flag, but, to represent the queers well, would you please center it in the window?" I sighed and called for Stevon.
Saturday, October 04, 2008
It's Hard to be Blue in Paulding County, Georgia...
I really do feel bad for the elderly man in a wheelchair fundraising for the rescue mission and for the Atlanta Journal Constitution salesman who had set up outside of the Hiram Walmart in Paulding County. They just happened to be set up on the wrong day. They were, as it turns out, collateral damage in a local political skirmish.
I've been thinking it's about time for me to start putting my actionsvwhere my words are, so lately, i've been looking for ways to ease my way into becoming a social activist. I've sent the Obama campaign a little money and checked "yes" in the box next to "I'm willing to volunteer to help Barak." The other night, a volunteer called and asked me if I meant it. I told her yes. She almost started crying and told me, "You're the last person on my list. Everybody else was like, 'no, sorry, I' can't right now," so thank you. I figured this was my chance, so I volunteered for the next event: a voter registration drive at the Walmart in Hiram. I was very excited, actually, to begin my new life as an activist; I could see visions of becoming radical--if I could figure out a way to protest without my Mother seeing me on tv. She has told me she'd better not see me protesting anything. Ever.
So, I drive up to Walmart to meet the organizer, Claude. When I walked up, Claude was packing up his folding table, collapsable camp chairs, and clipboards. He was even taking down the little red, white, and blue ribbon he had attached to the folding table. He was on the phone with the supervisor. It seems that the assistant manager had just come outside and told him there had been complaints about the set up. People were suspicious at giving personal information to canvassers in front of Walmart. First, they were afraid of identity theft; and next, the complainers thought the registration drive smacked of partisanship.
Pretty soon, the manager came out and did a clean sweep of everybody set up on the sidewalk. Us, the rescue mission guy, and the newspaper salesman.
I told Claude I was under the impression this had been cleared with the Walmart people. He said they had been set up here for 14 days in a row. He said it probably just depended on the manager on duty. Then it dawned on me.
Two weeks ago, Sarah Palin was still the golden girl. John McCain was still the maverick. Wall Steet was riding high, and we had a plentiful gas flow in Georgia. And this day--the day of my newborn activism, each of those conditions has changed. Obama is pulling way ahead in the polls, and the locals are not liking it at all. So now, instead of just smugly passing by the voter registration table (for it is well-known in these parts that registering voters is a democrat strategy), they want it gone. Immediately. So they go tattle to the manager.
I think Claude said it best, as he was putting the camp chairs over his shoulder. "They can't stop this," he said. "They're desparate, but this is gonna happen." Yes, Claude, I believe it is.
I've been thinking it's about time for me to start putting my actionsvwhere my words are, so lately, i've been looking for ways to ease my way into becoming a social activist. I've sent the Obama campaign a little money and checked "yes" in the box next to "I'm willing to volunteer to help Barak." The other night, a volunteer called and asked me if I meant it. I told her yes. She almost started crying and told me, "You're the last person on my list. Everybody else was like, 'no, sorry, I' can't right now," so thank you. I figured this was my chance, so I volunteered for the next event: a voter registration drive at the Walmart in Hiram. I was very excited, actually, to begin my new life as an activist; I could see visions of becoming radical--if I could figure out a way to protest without my Mother seeing me on tv. She has told me she'd better not see me protesting anything. Ever.
So, I drive up to Walmart to meet the organizer, Claude. When I walked up, Claude was packing up his folding table, collapsable camp chairs, and clipboards. He was even taking down the little red, white, and blue ribbon he had attached to the folding table. He was on the phone with the supervisor. It seems that the assistant manager had just come outside and told him there had been complaints about the set up. People were suspicious at giving personal information to canvassers in front of Walmart. First, they were afraid of identity theft; and next, the complainers thought the registration drive smacked of partisanship.
Pretty soon, the manager came out and did a clean sweep of everybody set up on the sidewalk. Us, the rescue mission guy, and the newspaper salesman.
I told Claude I was under the impression this had been cleared with the Walmart people. He said they had been set up here for 14 days in a row. He said it probably just depended on the manager on duty. Then it dawned on me.
Two weeks ago, Sarah Palin was still the golden girl. John McCain was still the maverick. Wall Steet was riding high, and we had a plentiful gas flow in Georgia. And this day--the day of my newborn activism, each of those conditions has changed. Obama is pulling way ahead in the polls, and the locals are not liking it at all. So now, instead of just smugly passing by the voter registration table (for it is well-known in these parts that registering voters is a democrat strategy), they want it gone. Immediately. So they go tattle to the manager.
I think Claude said it best, as he was putting the camp chairs over his shoulder. "They can't stop this," he said. "They're desparate, but this is gonna happen." Yes, Claude, I believe it is.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
My Students and Place
Last night my graduate students presented their "Place Projects," which have become a staple of that course (The description of the project can be found on my KSU web site.) I'm always overwhelmed with my students' presentations. My guidelines are very loose: write a narrative in which you consider "what is place to you," how has it formed you as a person and as a teacher...then, design a tri-fold poster to display artifacts related to what you've written.
The instructions themselves drive them crazy. Where is the rubric, they ask. (I wrote one, but don't refer to it.) How long? References? Format? I leave a lot up to them just to disrupt their expectations of stucture. I think there's enough of that in schools already.
I tell them, on this project students never fail to go with this project beyond either of our expectations. They don't beleive me--at first. They are skeptical that they will be able to engage with the concept of place, skeptical that it means any at all beyond growing up and living somewhere or other.
But last night was the night of presentations. Students told their place stories and were visibly surprised, many of them, at the degree of difficulty, at the depth of reflection, conceptualizing place had required of them. They told stories of hard childhoods, of insecurities, of fierce determination, of loved ones lost to them in any number of ways. They (mostly) poignantly connected who and where they are with their daily lives in the classroom. Their places not only made them who they are (and I leave it to them to define both), place hasn't left them. And--and I think this is the ah-ha moment for them--they haven't really left place. Maybe I'm not doing it blog-justice in the telling. I'm not sure I can relate something so powerful, for it is a power that doesn't take hold of me every day. I just wanted to mention it here.
The instructions themselves drive them crazy. Where is the rubric, they ask. (I wrote one, but don't refer to it.) How long? References? Format? I leave a lot up to them just to disrupt their expectations of stucture. I think there's enough of that in schools already.
I tell them, on this project students never fail to go with this project beyond either of our expectations. They don't beleive me--at first. They are skeptical that they will be able to engage with the concept of place, skeptical that it means any at all beyond growing up and living somewhere or other.
But last night was the night of presentations. Students told their place stories and were visibly surprised, many of them, at the degree of difficulty, at the depth of reflection, conceptualizing place had required of them. They told stories of hard childhoods, of insecurities, of fierce determination, of loved ones lost to them in any number of ways. They (mostly) poignantly connected who and where they are with their daily lives in the classroom. Their places not only made them who they are (and I leave it to them to define both), place hasn't left them. And--and I think this is the ah-ha moment for them--they haven't really left place. Maybe I'm not doing it blog-justice in the telling. I'm not sure I can relate something so powerful, for it is a power that doesn't take hold of me every day. I just wanted to mention it here.
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