I played with Frost. It was October. If only I had learnt from Ray Bradbury that October was a grotesque Country where you should only step foot if you are looking to be assaulted by the skeletons your mind shoved in a closet on purpose in the first place. It was October, silly.

I opened the closet, and out walked Robert. He brushed off the Frost from his shoulders; it must have been cold and dusty behind the Doors. Or he was tired of being cold. He walked out. And I stepped into his Home Burial.

I fell deep. The door was wide open and I fell damn deep. I told myself all I had to do was pull apart the words and reconstruct them into a window. So I sat on the narrow, creaky staircase and listened attentively to Frost and his wife. But slowly – I found – slowly, I was listening to myself. And I had the same voice as his wife.

I was accusing. I was hurt. I was pushing away. I was losing. I was missing. Home Burial. 

There wasn’t a way to pick out my own words, care about his, and try to assemble a window which might cast light on our conflict. What we needed to was to smash open the windows we already had, and get some fresh air.

I was overwhelmed as I fell deeper and deeper into Frost’s Home. Or was Frost just pulling out some things that already existed deep in the back of my closet?

 Lay them on the table. Let me hear you say what you already know about them, but use a different voice so you can hear yourself do the talking. 

In class, we discussed the concept of power feminism and whether or not it is helpful to feminism as a whole. Many people felt that power feminism was individualistic and working within the patriarchal system that already exists to gain power, hurting those who are oppressed by the system along the way. I then began to wonder about the concept of empowerment within feminism. Feminism, at its most basic level, is the belief that we are all equal despite our gender. However, we live within a patriarchal system. How can the concept of empowerment work so that all everyone oppressed by the current system can gain equality? So that it's not really "power" feminism, but rather "empowering" feminism? Should power really be a goal at all? Is a hierarchical system coming into play when we consider the concept of power?

I was going to make a post about "Freedom's Silences" in Edgework by Wendy Brown, until this article came up on my facebook newsfeed. It's a really great read! It is entitled "Your Silence Will Not Protect You" It opens with how when we are young we are told to simply ignore the hateful comments people make towards us about who we are. Then the author makes this statement "I decided that I wasn’t going to be sorry for standing for what was right – that I wasn’t going to be sorry anymore." We cannot live our lives being silent we are opressed and put down by others. Being silent will not change things. I agree that being silent does have its place and in certain circumstances it can be effective, and even powerful, but when one is attacked head-on, one cannot be silent! We have to defend and stand up for ourselves. Calling others out on their actions may be hard, it may be uncomfortable, but we have to do it. We cannot live our lives in a comfort zone when other attack us. If we chose to be silent when we are openly attacked, we accept the attacker as more powerful and/or correct. We have to speak up. "We must be held accountable for our voices, but we must also be held accountable for our silence." I am all for choice. We are all independent indivduals who have the right to make a choice. But we must accept the consequences of our choices. We must accept the consequences if we choose to be silent.

I'm wondering, in light of our conversations about queering and cripping time, what you all might make of a talk focusing "on the slow end of this tempo spectrum, on creating opportunities for students to engage in deceleration, patience, and immersive attention...."? See The Power of Patience.

In my workshops on building effective blended courses, I talk about the importance of metacognitive skills for learning, and how faculty can use blended learning to help students develop and exercise those skills.

Maryellen Weimer posted a great article on Faculty Focus, describing quick exercises you can use to start a course off with a metacognitive reflection. I think they could also work as mid-semester reflections, as a chance to reflect on a course experience thus far and make adjustments as needed. You could introduce the exercise the same way, but follow with a debrief discussion or writing exercise that prompts students to compare their best experience with their experience in the current course so far and think about ways to incorporate elements of the former into the latter.

Lilly Allen’s new music video Hard Out Here has gotten a lot of buzz in the media. After watching the video very closely and then reading the lyrics I’ve been debating with myself whether or not this video is feminist or not. The message that Lilly is trying to give off in the video is extremely powerful. She is encouraging women to be independent and get through barriers that are set in front of them solely because of their gender. She’s also touching on the double standard presented to in society.   All those points she’s tying to touch on are powerful but who is she speaking for? As she states in the beginning of the video “Don't need to shake my ass for you/cause I’ve got a brain” but she has 5-8 other women shaking their ass and touching their crotch. They’re all half naked while she’s fully clothed. She’s continually referring to women as “bitchs” in her video. We can’t possibly expect men to treat us any differently if we are treating ourselves this way. How can one combat this negative stereotype about women being objects if in the video women are objects. Did she really need to zoom into the butts and show women hyper sexualized to prove a point? Have we gotten this bad in society that we now need to have women half naked to listen? This video doesn't just make me question the white supremacy but feminism it self. Who is feminism fighting for? White women? Women of color? Both? 

I wanted every one to know that the full text of the whole issue of
Radical Teacher on teaching in carceral institutions is now available on-line through Pro-Quest,
and I'd like to recommend that we read (@ least!)
Artif Rafay, "An 'Impossible Profession'? the Radical University in Prison" and
Robert Scott, "Distinguishing Radical Teaching from Merely Having Intense Experiences While Teaching in Prison."

I really enjoyed our conversation last Wednesday; coupla other things i want to remember:
* if we go in talking, we're not attending to the "series of lock boxes "we have to go through
--what about the possibility of our "going in silently," the better to attend to what's happening around us?
--the danger/vulnerability of doing so-->"the more casual we are, the more protected we are"
--sara s's project has got us "sensing" the environment there, attending to what it looks like-->
--but flip this: what does the environment think of us?

Preparation:
Anne will print off/bring in the memos to get us/materials into Riverside
each of us will send to Hayley a paragraph we've selected for discussion
Hayley will select one of these and make 15 copies (for the black out poetry exercise)
everyone will bring the sharpies they have (also black crayons?)
Sara will bring multiple copies of the code-switching article;
Hayley will bring all remaining copies of Life on the Outside, along with extra paper and pencils

Lesson Plan:
I. Sasha: welcoming everyone, getting them to put on nametags,
finding out who read how much of the book, and inviting a
general sharing of what folks liked/didn't like/noticed/want to talk about...

In response to Celeste's good questions about what the trouble is with power feminism--is it about representation? (or is it about achieving power @ the expense of others?)--and in furtherance of EmmaBE's observation that power feminism is about getting power for yourself, rather than trying to redistribute/break down the structures of power, I promised to share w/ y'all a passage we read and pondered in my prison book group: Elaine Brown's A Taste of Power, her very compelling memoir about growing up in North Philly, having her consciousness raised about class and race issues, becoming a Black Panther, becoming the head of the Black Panthers, and then leaving the party: