Academic Writing Part Who Knows What . . .

I find it ridiculous that I get to incorporate journal writing into my academic writing time. Really! It kind of makes it fun. Besides, check out this article! You heal from trauma faster if your journal about it and download your feelings because you don't dwell on the feelings after you write. Who knew? But then again, I don't consider this traumatic. Finally turning my dissertation into publishable stuff is fun, but it's nice to reflect on what works well and what doesn't about my writing.

So what's gone well over the last couple of weeks? I had a phone conversation with a writing buddy who shed some light on one thing: I have no judgement about what people think about me. What do I mean? I sent inquiry letters to journals to see if they were interested in this article. They all wrote back that they would be interested in publishing it. My response: "That's sweet. They're just blowing sunshine up my ass." My writing buddy's response: "That's awesome! They're really interested! If they weren't, they'd tell you something like they have a serious backlog, or it's not quite appropriate, or they're only having special issues until the end of time. THIS IS GREAT!"

OK, so I think I need to print the emails with responses from the journals. Perhaps I should frame them (no really, I'm trying to remember this is a huge accomplishment!) . . .

I also sent a draft (OK, I'm realizing it's a big deal that I've completed a draft. My initial response was ho hum. Then again, Laura Belcher says that only 25% of academics actually publish. I'm really taking in it's a big deal that there's a draft) to a few people and got responses from two (I suspect the third is forthcoming). Lovely responses.

1. I need to restructure it and make my main subaltern characters the center of the story. I'm doing it (just not this minute - I'm writing this)!

2. I'm making HUGE interventions and I don't make them very clear. I'm doing this as well. This is a huge challenge for female writers (academic and otherwise), so I suspect I have lots of company here. Yes, the things we write make a contribution to some small corner, but often the implications of what we write are much larger and we don't frame it as such. Allow me to place another nail in sexism's coffin and ramp up my discussion of the significance of my article!

There's other stuff as well. But that's what I remember while writing this post!

It feels like the number of changes I need to make are daunting though. However, I've also publicly committed (see my c.v.) to having this under review/submitted shortly. Will do and submit within the next couple of weeks (ideally early next week). That's right (my typo was write, but that's a funny pun . . . ok, I'm suffering from insomnia, anything is funny at this point!), completed academic article ready for submission early next week (oh my . . . I have major citation cleanup to do!)

Cheer me on, wish me luck, however, you think about it, I'll need it. Did I mention that I'm applying for three academic jobs and am still grading midterms?

I have something brewing in my head about Ferguson, but haven't had a moment to write it. Hopefully, I'll get it out soon, but you see I have a lot on my platter that's not getting any larger.

Just saying'.

More Joys of Academic Writing

This week, it's been JOY! At last I've caught up . . . actually, I'm a little bit ahead! Last week, I reoutlined my article based on what I actually did (as opposed to what I thought I did), and I just finished up reworking my evidence to make sure it supported my argument. It turns out that while the evidence was proper, some of it didn't quite say what I purported it said. This step proved to be most helpful and help me cut some pages!

I can heave a big sigh of relief!

Dear unnamed college that requires a writing sample, it's forthcoming! Journals: WATCH OUT!

Just sayin'

EBOLA!

Scared yet?

I have to say this. I remember watching tv in the early 1980s, and news of the herpes virus emerged.

This virus was the one that Matt Groening, creator of the Simpsons, referred to as herpes-not-so-simplex, and it fueled the fear of sexually active heterosexuals and became the center of public discussions about sexuality. If memory serves me right, there were injunctions from the conservative elements of American society about the immorality of how some people (swingers) conducted themselves and how this should be a wakeup call.

And then the noise about herpes was engulfed by this new found virus that was killing gay men in San Francisco and Haitians (this was the misinformation at the time).

Yes, we call this bug HIV, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. It is deadly and worked quickly. The men who succumbed had all sorts of sicknesses before they died, including Kaposi's sarcoma, a cancer that was visible on the skin. In addition to the blame game, hysteria ensued. Think I'm making this up? Watch this: http://youtu.be/5oWu7FR-hZ0. The public openly questioned whether young people with this disease should be in school. Should people with HIV be allowed in swimming pools? Can we get it off of toilet seats? What about airplanes? Should we avoid gay people? Should we ban Haitians from coming in the U.S.?

Yes, we're almost thirty (30?) years into the AIDS epidemic, so it's hard to imagine the panic that struck the public about this. But it's true. No, kissing someone cannot transmit HIV. No, someone sneezing on you cannot transmit HIV. No, you can't get it from a toilet seat, and on and on. It's actually quite difficult to become infected by it. You have to have exchange body fluids with an infected person. There are only two ways to do that. Unprotected sex and blood transfusions. But no matter, let the hysteria proceed apace! It took years to diffuse it (and arguably, it's still a factor.).

And now we have this handsome virus, one ebola. And it reminds me of the HIV panic. Can we fly on airplanes if someone has it? What if someone sneezes? Are they ever asymptomatic? Should we prevent children who go to school with people known to know people with ebola be allowed to attend school? Yes, the same questions. And it's still hard to get. You have to come in contact with someone's bodily fluids. Chances are, if you are not a health care provider, you will not get it. If you haven't had vomit and diarrhea spilled on you, you are not going to get it. If you do not have sex with someone who has ebola, you will not get it. If you don't believe me, consult the CDC and the WHO!

But I see that science is not going to stop the fears (indeed, I had to give my partner an earful in return for her earful of fear mongering!). I have this nagging thought though. I wonder if the feelings about these diseases are more about the people who are associated with them and not about the disease itself. But that is just conjecture. Just sayin'.

The Joys of Academic Writing Part II

There's good news - I'm now only a half week behind and that is refreshing. However, I am concerned because this week involves restructuring the article and it looks like I will only fall behind much more!

I did accomplish adding more of a literature review, but that only made the article longer. I do look forward to the structural recommendations.

Still optimistic.

Hopefully a post about U.S. reaction to Ebola and HIV/AIDS later today!

Just saying'.

The Joys of Academic Writing

Yes, I'm going to try posting regularly again. And you will see my normal snarky commentary about events in the news affecting people of color and women and women and people of color and gay folk, and gay folk. But you will also see me mulling over the joys of academic writing.

After 2 years, I've finally been able to LOOK at my dissertation again. And I can tell I can turn something (fairly quickly) into an article. I've been waking up at 5 a.m. doing my thing. Except for this part: the resource I'm using (Laura Belcher's Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks . . . ") asks that you journal about how the last week felt.

Yes, I have fairly unintelligible mutterings in my handwritten notes (ok, I can read them). But in the spirit of public accountability, I'll post stuff here as well.

I'm a week and a half behind! Not because I've been knitting, eating bonbons and watching CNN/listening to NPR during the days while knitting or crocheting (I would rather do that. I'm not into filing and cleaning to procrastinate . . . GIVE ME YARN and news. Yes. I wrote knitting twice. I love it that much.). Because I actually have two writing projects, am teaching, and I'm trying to write journalism pieces as well (hey, check out http://amsterdamnews.com/news/harlem-focus/, because if you've missed this blog, you can catch some of my fabulousness there!). And it's getting to the point where the tasks take more time. It took me what feels like forever to find appropriate journals.

So as one who does try to meet some deadlines, I find this frustrating.

Now to move on to the business of buttressing my sources. Hopefully I won't be a month behind at the end of this!

Just saying'.

Snowden, Assange, and Responsibility

I've been chewing, quietly, about these two for some time because I just can't get my knickers in a knot about what they do. And I couldn't figure out why, until this morning.

I understand that we should be upset about corporations and governments going into our private lives, but I can't go there. Communities of color, to be more specific, Black people, have been in the gaze of government since Reconstruction. Indeed, the KKK was formed to right the South after reconstruction and government officials were part of that organization - yes, the sheriffs, etc. They monitored what Blacks did and said and had no problem with a reign on terror on people who challenged white supremacy. But government monitoring was alright then.

Marcus Garvey was the first prosecution that J. Edgar Hoover, that's right, head of the FBI for over FIFTY years, won! He targeted Garvey because he was terrified about the extent to which "negroes" were galvanized by his work. But government monitoring was alright then.

MLK and many others in the Civil Rights movement were monitored by the government (and frankly, I don't care if it's the NSA, CIA, or the FBI. It's all gov'mint). But government monitoring was alright then.

Countless Jews were monitored by the government because of the alleged connection between Jews and communism (another of countless stereotypes against Jews). But government monitoring was alright then.

Oh yeah, the Japanese internments during World War II. But government monitoring was alright then.

The FBI, with COINTELPRO, had informants in the Women's Movement during the 1960s. The irony was that they didn't understand what was going on during the meetings because they didn't understand what women were doing to fight sexism and the language that broke it down. But government monitoring was alright then.

Are you a Black woman on welfare? During the late 1980s and 1990s, the state governments through the foodstamp programs monitored how many children you had and sometimes forcibly made you use hormonal forms of birth control so your sort had no more children. But government monitoring was alright then.

Muslims have been subject to monitoring since 9/11/01 for no other reason than they're Muslim. But in the name of preventing another 9/11, government monitoring was alright then.

But another demographic has the possibility of being ensnared in government monitoring?! Horrors! Overreaching! How could you? Let's share all of the information that the government has collected on you!

I don't hold hold Assange or Snowden responsible for the historical instances of government monitoring. However, dumping information just for the sake of dumping information is not revolutionary action. Particularly if it's disconnected from people who are part of movements that are trying to dismantle oppressive structures in society.

The problem, as I see it, with government monitoring is that there is a nasty history of targeting those who are trying to create radical changes in society: ending racism, ending sexism, ending gay oppression, ending the oppression against workers, caring for the environment and many other critical causes. Thus, a damper can be put on trying to do this sort of work. I don't hear Snowden and Assange taking a stand against the oppression and how data collection intersects with them. It sounds like they're making a liberal critique: don't monitor me or people who look like me.

Further, people who work in these social change movements are willing to face the state for their actions, signs of real courage given what happens to people in prison. People were given trials that were a crock and served prison terms anyway. Not because they did anything wrong, but they knew that would have to happen to move the dial on oppression in the U.S. These two simply want to escape responsibility for their actions. I think this undermines the overarching argument that they're trying to make. Indeed, their argument seems to be I'll dump information and I'll go ahead and lead the cushy life I deserve (in Ecuador or the embassy). This is not revolutionary at all. And, let's not forget that Assange is not dodging charges for dumping information, he is dodging an investigation for RAPE. RAPE. By refusing to face the music on this investigation, to me, it looks like he defends his God-given right as a male to dominate women and use their bodies, no matter what they have to say about it, at his pleasure. No, I don't give a damn about his hiding out in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London. If you didn't rape this woman, man up and say so. If you did, own your actions. That would be radical. A man who owned up to raping a woman and having genuine contrition for it. But that's asking too much.

So all of this information dumping strikes me as the work of disconnected white guys who aren't terribly concerned about the overall picture of oppression in the world. Excuse me if I pay no more attention to them. Just saying'!

Feminism and Beyonce

A thoughtful critique of the critique: http://www.gradientlair.com/post/50751492514/white-feminist-critique-beyonce-ad-perpetuum-ugh