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When I heard about how PTSP Bayanihan's Student Empowerment Networking Day (SEND) took off the year after I left...
AND...
That they still expect BIG things this year...
I feel like the subject of this video...
I can't believe people actually call it SEND now, like it's an institutional thing that just naturally happened. Oh, of course, SEND, Student Empowerment Networking Day, as if I wasn't looked at as a crazy for changing the name, Bruin 4 a Day, of something PTSP had done for a while.
But I believe it had to be done to fit more with what we were trying to accomplish: building that community feeling and building those connections between people. It was about giving that genuine feel you belong at a place like UCLA...even if they say no...you gotta believe...you still belong.
I guess it's great that SEND doesn't have to worry about all those organizing snafus I hit, but now, I'm hoping for quality. If there were a few things I wished for, I wish I had all the soljahs who were with me at the beginning there and we put more in place to follow-up with the students afterward and continued the dialogue we had established. I believe that's the heart of the work.
One of my history professors whom I am big fan of once said that the "work of public history is really important." At first this was a "No-Shit, Sherlock" moment, but then it got me thinking, "how out of touch are these academics with real people?" "How can public history, essentially what people learn NOT be at the top of their priority list?"
This was before I learned how horrible grad school is, how graduate school can be a cult, how academics would never wish graduate scool on other people, that academic journals are the way to establish a career, that reputation is everything.
When hearing my aspirations during the summer, my current executive director told me that my work would work for the people and not those in the ivory tower.
I've taken that to heart and now I'm just interested in everything, and that includes picking up the language and the knowledge from many different disciplines. I've signed up for a bunch of academic crap.
But here's something I don't understand at all.
The H-Net listserv process of rejecting people who want to sign up for their list-servs. In the listserv you get messages about conferences, seminars, job announcements, calls for papers, occasionally queries. I signed up for a bunch, from H-MEMORY to H-URBAN to H-WATER because I am interested in each of those subjects but I don't know that I've been rejected by any except by the H-PEACE Listserv.
What the fuck is up with that? Is there some type of limit to their emailing capabilities. Of all the groups to exclude me it's fucking PEACE STUDIES.
Compounding my anger is that there's an application for H-CPPCC or whatever H-POPULAR CULTURE. However, to be accepted to that Listserv, you have to fill out this bullshit application listing all your academic credentials. I have NONE except that B.A. degree from a few years ago, so I have no point of entry really unless I "explain" to them why I need to be addded. WHAT THE FUCK?
I just want to add to my knowledge, what's the problem with that? Does it cost something of them for me to add? Did they want to prevent people from disrupting conversation, what the fuck?
I wonder if this culture of elitism in academia is what ultimately drove the unabomber to react the way he did: living in anarcho-primitivism and sending bombs to university professors.
Why do we have to remember marketing pitches from Tony the Tiger or Ronald McDonald? Why can't it be fun to remember stuff like the 1862 Homestead Act or stuff like the eviction of residents from what is now Dodger Stadium? Why can't history be fun?
He was selling computer classes all the way in East LA. I don't think anyone was buying right here in middle LA.
Entering from the side, it looked like something important was going on as a mass of people were hearing someone speak --- like immigrants on Ellis Island all cluttered together waiting for instruction to get into the United States.
Orientation day at John Marshall High School for the incoming Freshman class. Interesting opportunity for me to observe and ultimately "anthropologize" the happenings of the school. And that. . .is what I'm doing as I type this.
There was barely any room to enter as every tagged-on, even-leveled wooden seat stamped with numbers in the dank little 1000-seat auditorium was taken, with the walkways packed with parents and students. The roof was the kind of old school roof with holes in it that might've been the thing when googie was the architecture of choice. Googie was last seen barfing out its World War II-inspired tiny-hole-filled and extra sharp lettering on coffee shops and bowling alleys from the 50s. Think Jetsons with Googie. The lights were barely functional to operate a nightlight. It's not that we needed them at 10-11 am in the day, but they were on, I guess just to contribute to the decrepitness of the quality of education these kids would be exposed to the next 4 years. On top of this atmosphere that could drag, drub, and sweep the enthusiasm to learn from Sesame Street, the stage that these 1000 seats and parents were facing popped out one monotone speaker after another. And another. And another. That's why I left.
Taking this densely packed population, sitting down under a bare roof and dim lights, enclosed by bare walls, listening to and waiting for people to dictate what you're listening to and you're going to do next. Yep, this is where they would be serving their next 4 years. I guess it was their fault for having their parents.
When I walked in they were talking about computer classes, first in English, then Spanish. They were talking about satisfying computer requirements and possible trade school opportunities available from East LA.
I don't know that anyone was listening because it was all a very disengaging atmosphere between the scratched-up chairs, the people streaming in and out of the doorways, the mass of people lumped in and forced to listen to such crappery. And it was about to get a little more disengaging. Just a little.
That talk on computer classes wouild be the last attempt on Marshall's part to be bilingual.
That's also right when they decided to start talking about academics.
One about interdisciplinary work. One about honors programs. One about performing arts. Not only monotone and monolingual in the last three but these old white middle-class women were also making out-of-touch references to dead white guys in history and David Bowie. I had a feeling those references were supposed to "mix up" the program and be funny when she tried to laugh it up. A little more seriously, I also believe the one talking about interdisciplinary work was talking down on everyone because she spoke slowly and carefully --- not to make a presence, but as if instructing a bunch of 1st graders to in an arts and crafts activity.
So to recap. . .an auditorium, fully equipped with 1000 wooden seats all on one level, a stage fit for a dictator or two, no bilingual speakers to explain honors and college-related stuff, and some out of touch teachers from different cultures than the demographic they were speaking to. From all the direction-giving and the poor crappy, dense atmosphere, tt really seems like they're training kids, particularly Latino kids, to either be in prison, or some other job where they follow a long boring list of commands.
Another E-Mail. This is to stop Arnold's elimination of outreach programs. This takes about 15 seconds of your life. Here's why it's bad. And here too. I'm skeptical of them sending me bullshit in the air-mail too, but hey it's more scratch paper or something to wipe your car down with if you don't want it. And bullshit e-mail, well, just uncheck the box for updates etc. Yeah, sure it would be nice to know how many other people signed this thing, but if it was just me, least I'd be able to say that I did something.
*START MESSAGE*
FAX DAY IS TODAY!
ACTION TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT TO OUTREACH PROGRAMS
YOUR VOICE MATTERS!
The goal of Fax Day is to inform our state leaders of our opposition to the elimination of UC and CSU outreach programs and to encourage them to vote against the cuts to outreach in the upcoming budget. The first Fax Day will take place today, Tuesday Feb 24, 2004. We aim to fax as many letters as possible to local and statewide offices. For maximum effect, all campuses and constituencies are encouraged to participate, including program participants, UC/CSU students, parents, middle and high schools, and local business leaders.
There are two ways you can send your fax:
(1) Please send a fax to your local legislators. You can do so by accessing the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) website: http://ga1.org/campaign/access4all The site will prompt you to input your name, home address and zip code. The service will automatically send five faxes on your behalf. A fax letter will be sent to your local senator, your local assembly member, the senate budget committee chair, the assembly budget committee chair and the Governor. Please note this service allows only one fax to be sent.
(2) If you prefer, you may also send a fax directly to your legislator (s). Attached is a sample letter. If you prefer, your letters may be customized to reflect your individual feelings, or revised in some other way. Please review the attached letter and fax one to your local senator and one to your local assembly member. Visit your assembly member and senator's website to obtain a fax number: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html
Thank you for participating in the campaign to oppose the Governor's proposed elimination of outreach programs for the University of California and the California State University systems. Please forward this message onto anyone who may be interested in participating.
So in Nashville Tennessee, there's this initiative or whatever that is going to outlaw the Honor Roll according to this CNN show called American Morning with Sole Soledad O'Brien, the former hottest (dignified) thing in news.
Anyway, an amazing amount of the viewer mail they got (or at least what they showed) was overwhelmingly not in favor of this dissolvement of the honor roll. Nearly all of them cited that this was incentive for children to reach and achieve.
Hold the record.
Let me say: You probably deserve to fail if you just do academics for attention. . .at least in college.
But removing the honor roll is in this grade school situation. Kids live off attention especially in such a big flippin' society, nation, country this is. The honor roll is a way of giving attention.
But it probably causes too much division for my liking anyway. It's not such a good thing that its gone there, but that doesn't mean it's really a bad thing. Keep it out, keep it in, this honor roll thing doesn't matter. But since people are hellbent on making Tennessee put it back, let me say why lacking an honor roll is not such a bad thing.
In my very own grade school experience, I felt that if I didn't get one of those white calligraphied awards signifying my Honor Rollhood and thus inteligence during public assembly for everyone to see, everyone would surely know I was dumb. And when I did get it, I only got the second level of intelligence instead of the holy 1st level. I got locked into thinking very early on that I was never going to be first-level intelligence which was somewhat deflating. In those days I wouldn't come near Gladys with a 10-foot pole because she was the most intimidating smart person I had ever known.
Only now am I starting to figure out that these divisions of intelligence called grades aren't as big as it is made to be. These divisions are myth, but the very definition of myth is that a problem is exaggerated, helping to lock kids' fragile perceptions into thinking that they desperately need to find one thing they're good at and keep doing it. Little things to us big people might not be so little to little people. The honor roll thing on its own is a stupid thing.
But taken into context of the whole school with sports and everything, the honor roll is just something to buffer those that have the tools suited for academics.
OK now to focus on what other people have said against this dissolvement of the honor roll.
Other people say that this dissolving of the honor roll is crap because it gives children less incentive to succeed. I wonder what group of people says this and what they have in mind. . .ah. . .yes. . .maybe the ones who see children as inherently lazy and sure to break down without rules and/or recognition.
Then another group always mentions how sports should be dissolved as well if academics are not getting the attention. I wonder what group of people says this and what they have in mind. . .ah. . .yes. . .maybe the ones who are just status-seeking elitist assholes.
E-mail I got about Arnold and the dumb moves he has made which has hurt the UC. Follow-up on this post. [Added 2/24/04] Precursor to this post. Wow, I farted and it smells like donuts.
*BEGIN MESSAGE*
Students sue governor
Petitioners: Mid-year cuts to UC, repeal of car tax illegal, misuse of power
------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Charles Proctor
DAILY BRUIN SENIOR STAFF
cproctor@media.ucla.edu
Several students and the University of California Students Association - a system-wide lobbying organization - brought a lawsuit against the Schwarzenegger administration Wednesday, alleging that millions of dollars in mid-year cuts to the UC were made illegally.
The petition - which was brought before the state Supreme Court - seeks to block the implementation of over $148 million in cuts which the governor made in mid-December to various programs, including the UC.
The lawsuit alleges that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger overstepped his authority when he bypassed the state Legislature to make the cuts.
The suit was filed on behalf of UCSA, UCLA second-year political science and Chicana/o studies student Daniela Conde, one student from UC Santa Barbara and two students from UC Berkeley. The Equal Justice Society and Californians for Justice are also petitioners in the lawsuit.
The mid-year cuts to the UC wiped out funding for the UC labor research institutes and cut outreach funding to the UC by $33.3 million.
"The reasoning behind (the lawsuit) is pretty simple - we want the government and the people of the state to understand the direct implication of these mid-year budget cuts to the university and the services they value," said Matt Kaczmarek, the chairman of UCSA and internal vice president of the Undergraduate Students Association Council.
The mid-year cuts also drained general funds that could have gone toward shoring up the governor's budget for the 2004-2005 fiscal year- a budget that calls for $372 million in cuts to the UC, Kaczmarek said.
Schwarzenegger's office referred questions about the lawsuit to the state's Department of Finance, which said the governor's actions were legal.
"We wouldn't have taken this action unless we were sure Schwarzenegger was on solid legal ground in executing his executive branch powers in the way that he did," said H.D. Palmer, deputy director for the Department of Finance.
The Equal Justice Society and Californians for Justice signed on to the petition mostly because they are worried about the cuts to outreach and whether they will restrict access to higher education for minority students, representatives of the two groups said.
The state Supreme Court must now decide whether it will hear the case or hand it off to a lower court.
The lawsuit's point of contention lies with two budget statutes that dictate how and when the governor can repeal the vehicle license fee, said Nicholas van Aelstyn, a lawyer representing the petitioners.
The petitioners say the governor violated one statute when he repealed the vehicle license fee without there being sufficient funds to make up for the resulting budget gap.
Schwarzenegger repealed the license fee in an executive order shortly after his inauguration, creating a $4 billion gap in the state budget - a gap Schwarzenegger partially made up through cuts in state funding.
The petitioners also say the governor did not have the power to repeal the license fee or designate cuts to the UC without consulting the state Legislature.
"We believe (Schwarzenegger's) actions were clearly in violation of the relevant statutes," van Aelstyn said.
Kirk Stark, a UCLA law professor who specializes in California law, said the basis of the lawsuit has merit but budget statutes are often open to interpretation, which may give the edge to Schwarzenegger.
However, he added that the lawsuit does raise some valid objections to the monetary shuffle game that is the state budget process.
"Ultimately, I think this case is significant less for its legal merit and more for its laudable political objections," he said.
"Stranger things have happened in California, so the Supreme Court could decide it is now the moment to do something surprising, but I'm a bit skeptical," he added.
This is one e-mail I got from the UC thing. It's about Arnold, the governor, eliminating outreach programs. Personally I have no use for them, but it seems helpful to a few of my other friends. College is elitist and white as it is, but Arnold appears to think he came in as a minority because he's an immigrate and can thus relate and eliminate these programs. Asshole move, Arnold.
SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS
Posted on Tue, Dec. 02, 2003
Arnold punches outreach
HIS IDEA FOR SAVINGS IS SHORTSIGHTED
By Joe Rodriguez
Let's hear it for Penny Saver Schwarzenegger, who wants to get rid of the colorblind programs that help Latino and black students get into college.
One of the new California governor's ideas for balancing the state budget is to eliminate test preparation, academic counseling, mentoring, bus trips to college campuses and other outreach programs that encourage and prepare minority students in underperforming schools for college.
These are the type of race-neutral programs so many opponents of affirmative action, those who believe in equal opportunity based on pure merit, were happy to see. I never expected outreach to outperform affirmative action, and it hasn't. But outreach appears to make enough of a difference.
Where outreach helps
In 2002, only 14 percent of the freshmen entering University of California campuses were Latino. A microscopic 3 percent were African-American. These numbers are nothing to cheer about, but the good news is they could easily be worse without outreach programs. A third of those black freshmen and nearly half of their Latino classmates in 2002 had received some sort of this help in middle or high school.
Without outreach, what would the flagship University of California campuses look like in the future?
``An institution essentially for rich, white kids,'' Marco Firebaugh, a Latino state Assemblyman, told the Mercury News.
Maybe not entirely white, but their campuses wouldn't look anything like the real California. They wouldn't have enough students who made the most of what they had, which is so often the case with bright minority students in urban schools that don't offer the same level of education as wealthier schools. That's merit no entrance exam can measure.
Outreach isn't a free pass. The best programs require high schoolers to study extra and require their parents to get involved, while counselors help students stay on track. These students still must perform well on college-entrance exams and essays.
While outreach works, it isn't cheap. Even former Gov. Gray Davis slashed the programs in half before he himself was terminated. Schwarzenegger would eliminate outreach completely next year, saving taxpayers $85 million.
The governor's best argument for elimination is that every outreach dollar belongs in the classroom.
``The merits of reaching out to underserved communities aside, the focus has been on maintaining funding for the institutions' core programs,'' said H.D. Palmer, a Schwarzenegger finance deputy.
I might buy that argument if the money were going to basic education in the poorest schools, but it won't. And even if it did, $85 million wouldn't be enough to fix what's wrong with underperforming schools in a state this large.
Instead of repeating vague promises about ending business and politics as usual, Gov. Schwarzenegger should be promising goals everybody can understand.
How about preparing every student who starts public school in California for a four-year college by his or her senior year of high school? Or for a vocation that pays a decent wage?
Mr. Governor, how about building a public school system that wouldn't need affirmative action or outreach programs, because every student, rich or poor, of any ethnicity, from any neighborhood, would receive an equally excellent education?
Funding reality
Here's one school reality the new governor must deal with: California ranks about 40th among states in per pupil spending, when adjusted for cost of living. We'll never bring statewide test scores, let alone academic achievement in the barrio or ghetto, up to par that way. But since we're in the promise-making business, how about putting California into the top ten states in academic achievement, with or without increased spending?
Now that's what I call a promise. But until it's delivered by this governor or the next one, helping promising minority students get ready for college is a good way to keep the idea of equal opportunity in higher education alive.
Rush Limbaugh recently re-signed from ESPN because of criticism for saying that one player, Donovan McNabb was overrated (which would have been fine if he just stopped here) because of the "liberal" media's hype of him and their desire to see a black quarterback succeed. The funny thing is that Rush would support Prop 54.
Proposition 54 calls for a 'color-blind' society. Ideally that's a great thing but it would work only in a society that did not have such diverse living conditions. Fact of the matter is that race is an issue because people are still segregated. Individual people still segregate themselves because they feel like they don't belong. And being segregated, they have different concerns and interests.
Prop 54 would regress from dealing with specific people's concerns and interests. It's just thinking about one part of society. The only society these Prop 54 proponents think about in proposing Prop 54 is the segment of society that seeks and thinks they get denied jobs. (In the grand scheme of things, these proponents eventually find jobs and go on to do bigger and better things like yell at poor folk, with blacks and Hispanics in mind, for failing to "work for their money.") There's more to society than those that seek jobs or college admissions.
In the rest of society, there are what you call doctors, educators, and scientists that actually need race to discover and treat trends.
Doctors need race and ethnic information to be able to treat ethnic-specific diseases because fact is that diseases are not color-blind. Sickle-cell disease gets African-Americans. Tay-Sachs gets those of Eastern European descent. Asian women are four to seven times less likely to develop breast cancer than American women; yet when Asian women migrate to the U.S., their risk of breast cancer rises by 80 percent over two decades (Breast Cancer Facts 2001, The Breast Cancer Fund, 2001).
Educators and scientists need race to discover trends of this society. For example, South Central Los Angeles, 90058, which is 59% black and 38% Latino, has five times the level of hazardous materials emissions as the next worst zip code in the state ("California's Endangered Communities of Color," Environmental Justice and Equal Protection, 1994). Or the Bayview Hunters Point section of San Francisco, where 91% of the residents are people of color, has ten times as many contaminated water dischargers on a per capita basis as the rest of San Francisco, four times as many polluted air dischargers, five times as many facilities storing acutely hazardous materials, three times as many leaking underground storage tanks, and four times as many contaminated industrial sites (Hastings West-Northwest Journal of Environmental Law and Policy, Clifford Rechstschaffen, 1996).
People living in such a diverse amount of conditions will not have the same concerns. An accented NO on Prop 54 should help keep focus on what certain groups of people are suffering from and how they are not doing well. Without a No on Prop 54, we'd would be more than just color-blind. We'd actually have to use Braille.
And no, this guy below had zero influence on my supporting of 54. But it was nice to hear him speak on Thursday.
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