Month: April 2019

If you’ve read any of my blog posts by now, you might have already noticed my deep admiration for my Mexican heritage, my family, and my love for art. Growing up, I was surrounded by my rich, diverse culture, and have always identified myself as a visual artist. My Mama and sisters have always supported my art and continuously encourage me to continue practicing and creating, despite my decision to not follow any particular art career. As I reflect back on what I’ve learned in this course, I can see my transformation, primarily through my THINKing process as an artist. That is of course, learning how to SLOW DOWN not only in the way I think and approach art, but also in the way that I create and write about it. Just as Beth suggested early on in my writing, slowing down is part of the process. Drafting, walking away, returning, revising, setting it aside, and returning once again, are all things I had to learn and am still working on.

Continue reading “What This Class has Taught Me as An Artist and Writer”

In early April, Dr. Catherine Adams led our class discussion with a dialogue grounded in the current local news at the time, most notably the blackface incident, the many ensuing letters published by the Lamron, and several other less discussed bias-related incidents that occurred all around campus at the time. She spoke of what we choose to see versus what we choose not to see versus what we are in a position to see. The most important takeaway I gathered from this conversation as well as the conversations that stemmed from a message from another professor that Dr. McCoy passed on to us after the fire at Notre Dame is that now, more than ever, we need to be especially conscientious of the language we use and how it may be perceived. Continue reading “The Significance of Language”

By Lindsey Kriaris, Abby Ritz, and Helen Warfle

Many of us grew up watching Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, which is commonly referred to as one of the most wholesome shows to ever exist. And it certainly is, but in more ways than just the kindness exhibited by Fred Rogers himself— the show, which began airing in 1968, was one of the first to include a black actor in a positive role and one of the first with an African American in “a recurring role on a children’s television series.” François Clemmons played Officer Clemmons, the policeman who did rounds in Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. In real life, Clemmons was a black, gay man who, due to the prevailing homophobic attitudes of the time, remained closeted, but was embraced by Mr. Rogers both in the show and in real life, to the point where Clemmons viewed him as a father figure. The two of them remained friends until Rogers’ death in 2003.

Continue reading “Won’t You Be My Neighbor? : Representation of People of Color In Media”

In my last post, I left off briefly discussing the European powers that developed the transatlantic slave trade— a presumably three-point cycle between Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Dr. Catherine Adams, professor of history department and co-coordinator of the black studies department led a discussion in our class about the black experience during Western colonization. We looked at poetry and books to further dive into the relationship between how people talk about slavery.

This semester I am also taking a course specialized in the geography of sub-Saharan Africa taught by Dr. Rogalsky of the geography department. In this class we read the book, Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone by Martin Dugard. This book— as the titles alludes to— tells the stories of the two explorers: Dr. David Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley during their explorations of Africa to ultimately fine the true source of the Nile river in the late 1800s (which, if you were interested, is still a highly debated topic).

I would first like to point out the fact that without the native Africans, these two explorers would have little to no success or would have died pretty quickly. Stanley especially, had three to five caravans of Africans those of who carried supplies, provide knowledge about ethnic tribes and boundaries, helped with local illness, and more. Unfortunately, Stanley was ruthless and mistreated the porters to a point where in the novel the porters at one point wanted to kill him. If one porter escaped, he would send other porters to go retrieve them. One thing that I found mind boggling was that a lot of the early European porters would rename already named locations amongst the locals. After Stanley’s exploration ended his fame for the exploration aided the creation of the transatlantic slave trade. 

In our class with Dr. Adams, we discussed the appearance of the transatlantic slave trade. In the photo, it appears to be a linear system: with goods leaving both the Americas and Europe into Africa and with materials leaving Africa as well. However, one separate line holds the arrow that labels slaves going from Africa to the Americas. The more we looked at in class, we realized that the ‘triangle’ was nothing short of nonlinear. We discussed how it can be insulting to refer to things as ‘bodies.’ You call many things bodies: as in bodies of water and other types of space. That is why it is so important to reserve the dignity of those humans.