A DJS Journey

This illustration feels radical but probably not far off. When on Friday [June 26] we celebrated ‪#‎ MarriageEquality‬ SCOTUS ruling I Googled "pride", "pride celebration", "pride flag" hoping to find images of a rainbow of people celebrating love and all I could see was a cloud of white men, white women, white drag queens, white twinks, white bears, white leathermen, white trans people, white politicians, white old couples crying, white vets, white protesters, etc. I was looking at the world's most powerful search engine with access to millions of images of crowds and in the sea of rainbow flags I struggled to see color. This made me very sad as we built LGBT rights movement on the wave of Civil Rights Movement. We have a cultural preference for light skin, this is not a question. Whether it's racism and/or trend inspired is not worth arguing. Naming incidentally successful artist, politician, or musician of color does not suppo...

Students enter our universities with various characteristics.   Some have had pre-college experiences such as taking Advance Placement high school classes.   Some are first generation students of color.   Others are returning students who commute and also have various family obligations. No matter what students bring with them when they come to school, I believe an environment should be in place that is affirming, not just welcoming.   Welcoming, to me, still means that I am a visitor, that I really don’t belong to the community, but people are going to go out of their way to make me feel comfortable.   Welcoming does not feel permanent to me, but temporary, like when I leave, the people and the place will return to what it was before I came.     Fit, or the environment in which students enter into, must be flexible and equitable.   Students should be able to enter most universities with a strong sense that the universi...

What does diversity mean to you? For the past two weeks, a few of my peers and I have asked students who have passed by the dCenter to answer this question. This dCenter project was to figure out what the student population, outside of our dCenter folks, thought about (if they did) diversity. This interactive, write on a window project, has been an eye-opening experience. As woman of color, I stood outside of the dCenter with markers and asked random individuals who walked by to answer this quick question. First of all, I felt a bit uncomfortable asking random students to do this quick task. Second, I was asking a crowd of white individuals what they thought diversity meant to them. Lastly, it never occurred to me how hard of a question I was asking until I watched students stand in front of the window, with marker in hand, for what seemed like a very long minute as they formulated their thoughts into a sentence or word... or realized that this question made some students uncomfor...

The idea I’m about to discuss is better experienced than explained, so I will begin with the experience first before I jump into the nitty-gritty. Describe the color red to someone the next time you get a chance. You could try and describe what your bedroom looks like back home. Describe anything you like, it really doesn’t make a difference to the point I’m about to make. Even if you perfectly painted the picture in your head, down to the very last detail, the person who is on the receiving end of your description will never be able to see the picture in your head. We are all effectively blind to your thoughts. These situations are brought about by the qualia within human language. .....What? Qualia, singular quale, are situations or identities that cannot be described because we each experience sensations differently. Pictured from left to right: Beau Smith, Kimberly Roman, Nellie Moran, and Andrew Morris.  Yeah yeah, ok, but what about things I don’t see, what ...

You know what really grinds my gears? (Yes, I have been known to watch Family Guy #nojudging).  White guys who take up a lot of space.  The guy who is so unaware of his size, gender, race, class and who tries to intrude on my physical space.  The guy who tries to hug me constantly, even though I have told him numerous times that, you know what, hugging, really ain’t my thing.  That one dude who thinks it’s funny when I ask him politely at first, but then with more force, to back the F-UP!  This man who believes that the more he tries to come into my personal space, eventually, I will let him in.  He is going to take it, by force, and nothing, I mean nothing, is going to stop him from trying. Dude, White guy, MAN!  Please.  This isn’t funny.  Your continual disregard for my personal space, my comfort, my safety, my wishes, and adamant rejection of your advances are not funny.  Are disrespectful.  Are wack as hell.  Are uncomfo...

I have often witnessed Orientation Guides attempt to describe the Diversity Center to new students, and while many hit key points, I have never heard a succinct and satisfying way to describe it. So, here's my attempt:  I want you to envision the Diversity Center, but picture it as a box shaped void, devoid of the people, couches, colors, and identity. Begin filling the box with words; good and bad, gendered and non-gendered, hateful and kind. Now, add ideas to these words, let them flow from your mind and into this space. Some of these ideas attract each other, others repel, still others spin about each other seemingly engaged only to disappear into the growing mass of thoughts whirling about in this void. While you're envisioning this conglomeration, picture your parents and your great-great-grandmother. Picture the president and your high school bully. Picture the world wars, and picture smallpox. Include the native people displaced and destabilized in colonial countrie...

Clanddinin and Connelly (2000) state, “our research interests come out of our own narratives of experience and shape our narrative inquiry plotline” (p.121).  My own interest in social justice education is both professional and personal.  I have had a career in multicultural affairs for nine years.  I support students from various social identities and work to create awareness of dominant and subordinated identities, ally as a verb and not a noun, and microagressions.  Personally, W.E.B. DuBois, in his seminal work, The Souls of Black Folk spoke of “double-consciousness” or two selves that are in conflict with who we are and what people expect us to be.  I have spent most of my life being an “Other” but also know what it’s like to “Other” someone else based on some of my dominant identities.  As a multiple identity being, I in fact belong to two worlds, one of privilege, and one of an empowered person of color.  Meaning that I understand racism, o...

My social media timeline catalogs photo moments of pride, celebration, mischief, and bad decisions. Despite the many incriminating photos of me with red cups and distasteful Halloween costumes, someone outside of my network would describe me as a young educated woman who is active in the outrigger paddling community and enjoys throwing a good house party. You see, I am White, and because of that, my race will provoke a positive narrative of my character regardless of my actions. #iftheygunmedown went viral after the murder of Michael Brown, a young Black male from Ferguson Missouri as a statement against the media’s radicalized and bias narrative of Black people. In the case of Michael Brown, and many other stories of people of color, the media chose photos to share with the public that depicted a single story of who he was and one that played into a negative stereotype of his race. People who have shared posts with this hastag present two photos: one of them in graduation ...