Social Justice Problems Poem

Fed up With being fed up With the feds up In your constitution Man, hold up I said hold up Your arms in protest Expose that target on your chest Make your bullseye Make eye contact So black They can't No. [They don't Wait.] They won't [Oh. Right...]they're too colorblind To see you Don't shoot Don't shoot till you see the whites... Don't shoot if you see the whites in your eyes You might not see color But you can distinguish shades of gray areas Staying alive is hard work [work] Jody calls out B-more, Be more than the violent thug Falling to your death in the hole/pit America's dug Ferguson! Wait He said, Fuck Her Son Fuck her, son She don't matter Our lives don't matter But #AllLivesMatter looks good/better on a t-shirt (in print) If all lives matter How come they don't take yours too When our lives cease to exist In memoriam we become famous On Facebook [pages] Hashtags replace headstones Look God we made it Virtually... https://m.facebook.com/notes/courtney-queenbelove-hickerson/social-justice-problems/10153135160622562/?refid=22&ref=m_notif¬if_t=note_comment&__tn__=C

For Research Methods (On Critically Conscious Research: Approaches to Language and Literacy Research)

The Hyphenated African

             This week’s reading really inspired me to be creative. This concept of critically conscious narrative/counternarrative made me think about how to use narration to “de-Other” by allowing someone to “imagine the mind of the oppressed and to see, and perhaps vicariously experience, the world through their eyes” (Willis et.al 112). My friend and I were brainstorming when she came up with the idea of writing a narrative about racial identity, but exchanging our narratives with one another in order to get both the experience of being “the other” as well as getting to see the world through someone else’s eyes (I think I said that right). Basically, the idea is that each person starts to write their own story, you trade papers with one another, and then you add on to the other person’s story from your own perspective. Once we made sense of it, we decided to add my mother and my niece to the equation.

                

            We chose to write about the different perspectives in the racial identity of being African-American, and whether or not the “hyphen” is the absence or presence of identity. We call it: The Hyphenated African. My friend is east African, and she wrote about identifying as “African”. I wrote about identifying as just “American”. We had my mother write about identifying as both African and American—hence the need for hyphenation (mainly because she was around for the all the name changes, movements, and racist stuff). Then I had my niece write about how she identifies herself, because she is mixed and requires more hyphens to define who she is (pretty perceptive for a 10 year old). Here’s what we came up with:

Zam Zam: Growing up I was told to be proud about my heritage. I was told not to forget my history. To do so would disgrace all those who died protecting it in the civil war in Somalia. My mother even took it so far as to check the "other" slot when filling out documents asking about race. Even though we were naturalized as US citizens, she refused to check African-American. She refused to consider she was hyphenated in any manner. Eventually this rubbed off on me. You see I'm not a first generation--- I'm an immigrant like my mother from Somalia. I came here at the young age of 5, at times I'm so Americanized that I relate more to the American culture than my African one. However, in the end, I can tell I don't fit in the African-American culture. The label doesn't capture the collective experiences I've had in my lifetime. I may look African-American but I identify myself as African who is American. I am not hyphenated nor will I accept that label.

Me: I am not African. I am not from Africa. I am from America. I was born on American soil, to American parents, and many of my ancestors were Native American. I am more than just the descendant of former slaves. Although it is a part of my history, I refuse to allow slavery to define my identity. You cannot “hyphenate” me. You cannot “Other” me, create a separate label for me, but still allow me to be an “—American”. I was an American before there was an America.  

Mom: Our ancestors were brought from Africa as slaves to America. Our people helped to build this country, and because they were slaves they never got any pay for their work. Without the work of slaves there wouldn’t be an America. Our ancestors earned the title of American. The best way to describe Black people is African American. Black is an acceptable way to refer to us, or Negro if you know how to pronounce it correctly.

Ladybug: (Note: because of her age I had her answer questions rather than write a paragraph)…

            Q: What are you? (Name all).

                        A: German, Irish, French, Indian, Black, White, Black-Frenchman

Q: Are you African? Why?

A: No, I don’t think I’m African because out of all the parts I’m made of that’s not on my list.    

            Q: Are you American? Why?

A: Yes. Because I am free. An American is someone that was born and raised in America.

            Q: Are you African-American? Why?

                        A: No. Because I’m only American which is halfway not fully African American.

For Research Methods (On Critically Conscious Research: Approaches to Language and Literacy Research)

CDA, Critical Ethnography, and some other stuff...


Where to begin? There is so much information covered in this section 500 words just isn't enough to cover it all. There were a couple of parts that stood out to me the most. First, was the part about CDA--mainly because Dr. P. had us write one about a movie for class last year. Thinking critically about a movie takes all of the fun out of it--you develop this critical consciousness and have a heightened sense of awareness to everything. Next thing you know, every movie, every TV show, every commercial is racist and sexist and homophobic, and you're walking around in awe of how much of this stuff you were completely oblivious to. For example, Dr. P. had us read an article he wrote about the movie Shrek. I wasn't really interested in the movie before, but I never thought about it beyond it being a kid's movie with Eddie Murphy playing a stupid donkey.  After reading his article, I was amazed at how much racism I missed and had to go back and watch the movie. You can check out the article here.

Critical ethnography also got my attention. I wish there was more information on it, but the little overview made me want to do some more research into it. I liked Quartz's idea that critical ethnography "attempts to re-present the 'culture', the 'consciousness', or the 'lived experiences' of people living in asymmetrical power relations" (Willis et. al 55). In particular, I like the use of the word "re-present" instead of represent. Instead of trying to speak for that group of people, you are using their own words to present their culture, consciousness, and experiences. Big difference to me. The one thing that does bother me about this is how women and non-whites keep getting left out of the equation. How is it possible to focus on oppression, or oppressed people and not take their contributions into consideration?

The critically conscious study of whiteness and sexual orientation both interested me as well. I am a huge fan of Tim Wise (which is why I will post his video below), and for some reason language and sexual orientation both confuse and interest me. I think this is largely due to the fact that this is still new to me, but I am also realizing that I am at a disadvantage when talking to homosexual and transsexual people. It's has more to do with identity and language, but I've found that the lines aren't as clear to me as when I am dealing with something like race. Anyway, since I love visuals I wanted to add the Tim Wise video on whiteness. Hope you like it.

For Research Methods (On Critically Conscious Research: Approaches to Language and Literacy Research)

Hegel's Master/Slave Relationship...


For some reason, Hegel's Master/Slave relationship example stuck in my mind while I was reading. Immediately, my mind went to chattel slavery and colonialism. It amazes me that Hegel could make this association with consciousness, but still believe that black people "had not historically or  intellectually evolved to consciousness and, at best, could only seek to imitate White males" (Willis et al. 9). How can Hegel acknowledge that consciousness comes from this type of relationship, and the desire for freedom, but not acknowledge the consciousness of black people who were slaves, or victims of colonial oppression? I particularly appreciated Fanon's response that basically argues black people have their own consciousness that is unique (not universal) to their experience of oppression, and not merely an imitation of white people: "I am wholly what I am. I do not have to look for the universal...My Negro consciousness does not hold itself out as a lack. It is. It is its own follower." (qtd. in Willis et al. 21).

His misunderstandings of Black consciousness (while understandable), do seem to reflect his own racism--if only in his concept of Universality. However, the book does point out that there is a "universalistic position" in the Master/Slave relationship where "slaves become conscious of their masters' dependency on the slaves' labor and obedience" (Willis et al. 10). Of course, when you add chattel slavery and good ole Willie Lynch to the equation, it seems rather difficult to make this position universalistic. In fact, it makes Hegel's idea of imitation a tad bit more palatable in the sense that American slaves didn't fully "develop a personal sense of reality based on new understandings" (Willis et al. 10). In other words, the Master used language as a tool of oppression in order to "inculcate dominant ideologies through speech and literature in the lives of the less powerful" (Willis et al. 22), and it is this dominant ideology that would be the foundation of the American slaves' understanding. The American slave, in particular, would have his/her reality shaped by, based on, the understanding of white people from the moment they were brought to this country and stripped of their own culture, language, etc., and given the language/literature of their oppressors. This is another reason I love Fanon :-).

So, seeing as how I'm a visual person, I'm really tired, and I haven't had the opportunity to throw a video in on these posts as of yet.  I found a video on Fanon. It talks about some of this stuff in there. Hope you like it.

For Research Methods (On the case: Approaches to Language and Literacy Research by Dyson and Genishi)

Generalizations Can Be A Good Thing?

            I think that the word “generalization” caught me off guard in this last chapter. I tend to want to disregard any type of generalizations as weak inferences based on perfunctory stereotypes, and/or limited knowledge or experience. Whenever I encounter a particularly obscure generalization I feel most obligated to expose any ignorance. Of course, not all the time…just usually when I am involved in a discussion about sexism or racism, and someone says something reeeeally stupid. Like when a black guy says that he only dates white/asian women, because of black women’s’ xyz (usually an independent, emasculating attitude), and never admit that his attributing a personally negative experience(s) to all black women is just an excuse to not take any personal responsibility for the failure of his past relationships and the women he chose to be with. I think it bothers me more when someone presents a generalization as an absolute fact, and not a general truth based on limited information (or personal opinion).  

            Anyway, when I really thought about it I realized that generalization isn’t as bad as I thought. I know that I generalize as well, since it is something that all human beings do in order to make sense of the world. Our brains want to place people/things into organized, categorized compartments, so we can associate new information with old information we have already placed in these spaces. That way we can “become more sensible in our actions…[by] modifying, extending, or adding to [our] generalized understandings of how the world works” (Dyson and Genishi 115). This is what is called “naturalistic generalization” in the book (Dyson and Genishi 115).

            The “propositional generalization—assertions about how a studied phenomenon was enacted in a case” was a little more confusing (Dyson and Genishi 114). Unless I read it wrong, I thought that this concept was the whole point of a case study (in general I mean), because you are relating the study of something or someone in particular to something of a broader context. Isn’t that the goal of research anyway? I don’t know, maybe I am overthinking this. I do that, too. I was also confused with the statement about where lines between the case and the phenomenon are blurred: “The detailed work of case study research thus detracts from, rather than contributes to, the analytic, comparative construction of knowledge” (Dyson and Genishi 118). The example of a study leading to the implication that a child should run around unsupervised talking to strangers seemed to be a bit of a stretch. Maybe I missed something…

For Research Methods (On the case: Approaches to Language and Literacy Research by Dyson and Genishi)

Data Collection and Analysis

It’s interesting that the reading for this week covered data collection--more specifically audiotape. I went home last week to check on my mom after she got out of the hospital, and she let me know about yet another book idea she had for me to write about. This time she wants me to write about my aunt going from rags to riches by becoming a madam. Mind you she gets a new book idea, or reworks an old one, every few weeks--and we haven't written anything yet. This is due to the fact that she still has ideas in her head, and has not put any notes down on paper for me. The problem is we haven't been able to find an easy way for her to get the words out of her head. She decided to get Dragon Dictate so she could just talk and have the words typed directly into the computer for her, but as my boyfriend was setting everything up I realized that this was getting way too complicated for her. Then he made the suggestion of her using a digital voice recorder to take notes, and found a wireless digital recorder with DNS (Dragon Naturally Speaking) that we can set up to download files directly into Dropbox. That way I can have the audio file be transcribed directly by Dragon without having to type anything. How freakin' awesome is that? I think at that moment the Heavens opened up, and angels started to sing. I think this might actually work (if she actually uses it), so be on the lookout for my first novel. 

As for data analysis, what caught my attention here is the coding. I don't think I've ever done it before, but when I think back I have seen and heard about it without knowing what it was. I remember one conversation with my dad about his study habits, and how he was working on his dissertation. He told me he had used tons of index cards, different colors, labels, etc. to organize his information. I never really thought about this again until I was helping a friend write her index cards. She had the responses from people, and had noticed patterns of certain words. She color coded each response, and used different color index cards/highlighters/pens for the different words. It was pretty interesting how she had this rainbow of data, and how easy it was to see patterns this way. I'm not all that excited about going through all of that work myself, but it seemed to pay off in the end.  

For Research Methods (Research Design by Creswell and On the Case: Approaches to Language and Literacy Research by Dyson and Genishi)

Mixed Methods and Considering the Case

So, I hate to say it, but I was kind of bored reading the mixed methods chapter. I’m sure it is because it is not relevant to my thesis research, and not because the information itself was actually boring. Anyway, it seems a lot of mixed methods research has to do with explaining mixed methods—what it is, why you are using, how you use it, who has used it before, which strategy you are using, the order you use qualitative and quantitative methods/data, the type of data (along with a visual), etc. Apparently, this is due to mixed methods research being “relatively new in the social and human sciences as a distinct research approach” (204). I’m sure there is just as much justification in the other methods of research, but for some reason this stood out so much more in this chapter.

There were two parts that I found the most interesting in this chapter, the strategies and data analysis. Honestly, I didn’t think that there would be so many different strategies in a mixed methods design. The six of the twelve strategies outlined in the chapter are sequential explanatory, sequential exploratory, sequential transformative, concurrent triangulation, concurrent embedded, and concurrent transformative. In all three sequential strategies, the data collection is two-phase with one following the other. In sequential explanatory, the quantitative data is collected and analyzed first, and secondly, the qualitative data is collected and analyzed in order to “explain and interpret [the] quantitative results” (211). Sequential exploratory is the same approach, but the order is switched—qualitative data is collected and analyzed first, and then quantitative data is collected and analyzed in order to “assist in the interpretation of qualitative findings” (211). Side note: I found it interesting that this model would make a qualitative study “more palatable” for an audience unfamiliar with qualitative research (212). The sequential transformative uses a theoretical lens to “guide the study” (212), and it doesn’t matter if qualitative or quantitative comes first or is used to support the other.

 The same is with the three concurrent strategies in which both qualitative and quantitative data are collected simultaneously. In concurrent triangulation, both qualitative and quantitative data are collected at the same time, and then the results merged or integrated/compared into two databases for a side by side discussion (213). Concurrent embedded has the same one phase of data collection, but has a primary method that “guides the project and secondary database that is embedded, or nested, within” (214) the primary method. The embedding of the secondary database means that it either addresses a separate research question or “seeks information at a different level of analysis” (214). The concurrent transformative uses a specific theoretical perspective along with the concurrent data collection, but can use either the triangulation or embedded models in its design.

The approach to data analysis that caught my attention is data transformation. Why? I don’t know…The idea of having to “quantify the qualitative data” or to “qualify quantitative data’ intrigued me. I’m not entirely sure how you qualify quantitative data, but I think I’m probably overthinking it.

Since I am already over my word limit, AND since Dyson and Genishi was so straightforward I will keep my discussion of that book really short. Basically, to me the idea here is that “adults and children interpret their meanings in particular situations through interactions with others” (Dyson and Genishi 18). The role of the researcher is to use “methods of observation and analysis [of other people’s interactions] to understand other’s understandings” (Dyson and Genishi 12). In other words, the researcher interprets other people’s interpretations of meanings through observing their interactions with other people.