English

Hair is a physical marker of difference onto which social signifiers are imprinted. Hair of all kinds is reshaped and chemically altered by different processes in order to exploit socially established notions of beauty. In this way, hairstyles and hair function as social capital. Nevertheless, hegemonic interpretations of Black hair and hairstlyes inscribe additional levels of cultural and political meaning onto the ways that Black womyn decide to style their hair.

I handed this in to Anne on time and worked myself up to posting this. I am anxiously going to leave this here for public record/ a beginning to getting some closure from this experience. Have a great break everybody! Hydrate, rest easy, listen to the music you love, dance, love fearlessly. 

-Liv 

i've been avoiding this.

where you were when we began this 360° process, where you are now, and what’s been happening in between. How-and-what have you been learning? Where do you think that the edges of your learning now lie? In what ways has your understanding been expanded, challenged, or complexified in this 360°? Be sure to include reflections on the degree of your critical, active engagement with the portion of the cluster devoted to the creation of our exhibit. 

this zine will always be a work in progress because identity is always a work in progress.

Interring Black Humanity

What does a grave give to a body? Perhaps not to a body, but to the survivors. To the loved ones. To those who remember. To history. They say you die twice: once when you stop breathing, and a second time when somebody says your name for the last time. But what if the subject experiences systemic dehumanization, social death, before they reach their last breath? In this essay, I will focus on Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Suzan-Lori Parks’ Getting Mother’s Body, and Alice Walker’s search for Hurston’s graveto highlight how the burial of Black bodies is significant to the construction of humanity in a White supremacist society.

earlier in the semester, i remember someone saying in jody's class that "safety is knowing what will happen when things become unsafe." (i wish i could remember who said this, but it's stuck with me.) these past few months, i was unprepared for the ways and times that this 360 felt unsafe. by the end of the semester my only focus was to make it through class without having a panic attack. for my final project i have created the safety planning tool that i needed way back in september, based on a model used in support work for folks who have experienced sexual harm.

“Funny All Her Life”:

Race, Place, and the Coming-Out Narrative in Getting Mother’s Body

P1: Introduction

A. Introduce character of Dill

B. Dill’s identity is not explicitly named, though implied throughout the book—no “coming out” moment

C. Trans theorists of Color call the uselessness of (and privilege imbedded in) the coming out narrative

D. Thesis: “Coming out” in the traditional sense would be useless and damaging to Dill—rather, by living openly but without claiming a community or label, they can protect their life and home.

P2: Dill’s “Secret”

“He told her, ‘Of course you will deliver abroad,’ and asked which she preferred, America or England... Aunty Uju chose America, because her baby could still have automatic citizenship there.” (Adichie 102)

The Book of Salt, as the title would suggest, takes many approaches to salt. Binh continually comes back to it to enrich his storytelling; like adding salt to food, adding salt enhances the themes, narrative, and messages of the story. The immediate association between Binh and his story and salt is for cooking, as he’s a cook. Salt is many things in Truong’s novel: it adds to metaphors and recipes, creates stories by words and by senses.

Only a few things are assigned at the moment of birth. Even name can be held off from reporting: height, weight, parental identification and nationality are really the only identifiers an infant has immediately. From then on, it affects most things about that person’s life, including what rights and resources they should have access to and how they move in and out of countries and communities. Taiye Selasi’s TEDtalk “Don’t ask where I’m from, ask where I’m local” calls to shift from nationality to locality when determining how geography affects identity. She offers a defining framework of “3 R’s: rituals, relationships, restrictions.”  This uses cultural practices, important people, and identity-shaping privilege to allow people to choose for themselves regional identity markers.