No, Not Girl Scout Cookies Too!

This is an absolute shame. Because of the economy, the Girl Scouts of America are putting 2-4 less cookies in boxes. These include thin mints, short breads, peanut butters, and other cookies. And, they're making those lemon sandwich cookies smaller. The organization says, "Our bakers cannot continue to absorb these rising costs." Had I known that this was going to happen, I would have ordered extra boxes to make up for the fewer cookies. This is so not right. President Obama needs to hold a press conference over this. Seriously.

Bringing B(l)ack Back!

While there has been some commentary on what an Obama victory means for mainstream America, some have taken it to another level...

UPDATE:
Diary of an Anxious Black Woman has posted Mark Anthony Neal's interesting commentary ("Is Michelle Obama'sAss Off Limits?") on Michelle Obama's backside. I encourage you to check it out because I think it raises interesting questions about what it means to be fit in America, while still, um, having a big phat/fat ass.

In my WRA 125 class today, we looked at sample advertisements composed by former students as examples for students design their own multigenre remix projects. With one ad there was a VERY slim African American woman eating a burger, saying, "These burgers be good for my booty." My students were highly critical of this ad because for one, it wasn't clear which burgers/which restaurant was being advertised. Second, the woman in the ad who claimed to be eating the burgers to make her backside larger, obviously had NO BACKSIDE! Not only was her booty slim, but also, her butt was shadowed by the brick background of the ad, and therefore, less visible.

The notion of body parts and fitness is worth discussing (and complicating) at greater length. While I'm less certain whether or not First Lady-Elect Obama's behind should be the target or focus of these conversations, representations of Black female bodies should nonetheless be addressed both critically and intellectually.

Why College Student Needs a Composition Class

This proves why teaching writing courses (and any literacy-related for that matter) is still relevant: So that you don't have to prove that you can read and write even if you do supposedly have a college degree, and even if you are governor of a state. In other words, if you were taught the communicative skills (oral and written) necessary to appear educable to the general public--and if you paid attention, went to class, etc. while taking those courses-- you wouldn't have to ink 7 million big ones to prove that you can read or write. Seriously.

P.S.
Happy Birthday, Mom! I love you!

Need Someone Ask?

Is she racially insensitive or just really dumb? I'm more inclined to think the latter (seriously); however, I wonder why anyone would have to ask whether or not the term "colored" is an acceptable term for African Americans. Based on the images that appear to the left, what do you think? Need someone really ask? Duh! %&^%&%^

To Do List 2.0

1. Praise God that we have the victory!
2. Laugh
3. Find that inner peace and return back to calm since the anxiety of the election is over
4. Return to cooking and baking hobbies that have been neglected since dissertating/writing/election
5. Find something else to do with my Web surfing time now that the presidential election is over, maybe search for new cookie recipes to try?
6. Be proud of my new balance between work and life (we'll see how long this actually lasts!)
7. Work on Afrafeminist Teacher-Research Methodology Chapter
8. Finish Revise/Resubmit article and draft cover letter summarizing the major revisions
9. Tidy up another book chapter proposal
10. Work on Race(ism) and Writing Assessment Chapter
11. Begin planning WRA 125 Spring 2009 course
    

Did Anybody Notice the Silent Woman?

I found it quite interesting how silent and stoic Sarah Palin was at McCain's concession speech. Before providing a bit of commentary, a few disclaimers: First, I acknowledge that neither VP candidate vocally addressed the crowd, and second, it's obvious that she'd appear sad since they loss. Nonetheless, it still noteworthy that a person who was so vocal as attack dog would be so silent in defeat. Also worth mention is her silence during McCain's gracious and classy concession speech. From a critical feminist perspective, I'm left to wonder at the significance of her silence. The Republican party got Palin to do their dirty work, but kept her silent while they showed a more gracious side, not such a positive portrayal of women in the party. I could be reading way too much into this, but my gut tells me that I'm not. Just a thought.

UPDATE:
From Newsweek:

McCain himself rarely spoke to Palin during the campaign, and aides kept him in the dark about the details of her spending on clothes because they were sure he would be offended. Palin asked to speak along with McCain at his Arizona concession speech Tuesday night, but campaign strategist Steve Schmidt vetoed the request.

This perhaps seems to confirm my suspicions....

It's still sinking in

Scene One:
I find myself reminiscing on this whole 2008 campaign and thinking back to EARLY 2007 when a colleague (Chicago native) asked if I were voting for Obama:

Colleague: Are you voting for Obama
Me: I don't know; I really don't know much about him. I think I'm leaning Hillary Clinton, but I'm not sure.
Colleague: Have you read his book?
Me: Nope
Colleague: If you do, you'll definitely vote for him!
Me: We'll see.

Scene Two:
December 2007, I'm in the faculty commons room making coffee when one of our department secretaries is also making her coffee

Colleague: We have the chance to make history. Imagine that! A Black man in the White House!
Me: (half-heartened) Yes we do; that would be amazing. (I'm thinking that Obama doesn't stand a chance, but it's good that she's inspired, so I won't burst her bubble).

Scene Three:
Late December 2007/Early January? 2008 An Ohio State Representative invited me to local Ohio caucuses that pick the delegates that would go to the Democratic National Convention. She wanted us to vote for her to serve as one of Hillary Clinton's delegates. At that point I was still undecided, so she insisted that voting on delegates doesn't mean committing to a particular candidate. When I arrived at the center to vote for delegates, I felt so guilty going into the Clinton caucus to vote when I saw all the energetic Obama supporters. I felt like such a traitor, but voted for Clinton's delegates anyway. When I arrived home late that evening, I found out that Obama won the Iowa caucus! At that point, I'd made up my mind, became inspired, and jumped on the Obama wagon.

Needless to say, I'm still inspired!

If Thangs Couldn't Get Mo' Racist/Crazy

The latest mayhem and foolishness...

I'm still tryin' to figure out why this fool thought someone would wan't to fondle her you know what! So sad.

When Rhetoric as Persuasion is Counterproductive

An interesting post from my dad. Not to piggy-back too much on his post, but, I do think we have the tendency use rhetoric and argument to try to persuade others to see things our way. And I think this is in part the fault of thinking about rhetoric only in terms of persuasion. Seen in this way, rhetoric is only useful if we can use it to strengthen our arguments, hence, persuade people that our argument is correct. When does rhetoric become the art of persuasion and when does it become something else? When does rhetoric become a mere means of stylin' and profilin' for purposes not exclusive to argument? I think rhetoric as persuasion really applies to this election. On one hand, we say the candidates use rhetoric to persuade/strengthen their chances of being elected. But for voters, we use rhetoric to persuade others that our candidate is the best. And we've seen people use rhetoric to persuade a certain campaign that racist tactics are unfair. The moral of the story: Quit tryin to persuade people that racism is wrong. We know that. It's time that we work on ourselves.

The John McCain As a Freshmen Writing Student?

Steve Krause, a former prof of mine at EMU, has an interesting commentary about John McCain using quotes out of context to bolster his claims about Obama as a shady terrorist. Here's an interesting excerpt from his post. I encourage you to read the whole post though:

Besides the obvious and rather desperate smear McCain is trying here, a tactic that seems especially ugly given that the world economy appears to be ending, what bothers me personally is the bad freshman writing mistake that McCain is making here. I’ve seen plenty of students who take this tactic, cherry-picking quotes in order to make a point no matter what the evidence they are quoting really says. In other words, if McCain was a first year composition student and he handed in a paper about how Obama is a terrorist with this claim about Ayers, I’d probably circle that line “Obama lied about him just being my neighbor” and write something like “What is the full context of this quote, John? Do you really think that was the intent of your source? Is this the full story? It sounds like you’re twisting the words here.”

Speech Acts, Rhetorical Theory and Verncular Literacy (or a Lack Therof)

A reader of my previous post emailed me a question directed at my assumed criticism of Sarah Palin's use of folksy language/vernacular:

For someone to be such a proponent of African American Verncular [sic] English, how can you criticize Gov. Palin for drawing on a different dialect? Isn't that hypocritical? Isn't it about what you say and not how you say it?

Yes, it is about what you say and how you say it. And while I may seem judgmental or hypocritical in my criticism of her dialect, let me provide readers with my understandings of Palin's speech acts as rhetorical theory.

Here's what Palin did (or attempted to do depending on the audience perception) quite well:
She understood that her use a folksy vernacular could possess pathetic (in the rhetorical sense) appeal (ethical appeals may also be possessed, but IMO the jury is still out on this). Palin wanted audience members to consider the ways that she is no different from them,and therefore, attempted to manipulate speech acts in way that create an "Average Joe" persona. The jury's still out on whether or not voters want an Average Joe Six-Pack assuming the most/second most important office/job in the country though.

But here's why Palin's nonstandard variety of English only gets her so far. If her folksy dialect had been used to directly, critically, and intellectually answer the questions given to her by the moderator, then she probably would have won the debate. But since her folksy vernacular was often used in ways that did not answer many of the questions, for responses that were semi incoherent, and/or for responses for which she relied on cliched terminology (e.g. "energy", "maverick", "corruption")--none of which was defined coherently if at all--her one-liners are not as effective.

Here's the difference between Palin's vernacular use and what I call for in terms of the legitimacy of AAVE: AAVE speakers are often assumed to be unintelligent, not because of what they say, but how they say it. IMO, Palin's responses are less intelligent, not because of how she said them, but because of how she weakly drew on her speech vernacular as rhetorical act. In other words, she used the folksy dialect, but her responses had no substance. Had she used the folksy dialect with substance, she might have won the debate over Biden.

For those less familiar with my work, my research invests an interest in the ways in which AAVE/Ebonics/Black English, etc. is used rhetorically to make an effective intellectual argument. Geneva Smitherman has made this argument decades ago, but linguistic prejudice is still a prevailing attitude in many schools and university classrooms. To illustrate what Smitherman and I mean when we say that Ebonics speakers can speak Ebonics and make exceptional and rhetorcally sound arguments, I leave you with a poem of JB Simple gettin' down intellectually from Smitherman's book, Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black America (p. 34):

In the North
The Jim Crow Line
Ain't clear --
But it's here!
From New York to Chicago
Points past and
In between
Jim Crow is mean!
Even though integrated,
With Democracy!
Jim crow is not mated.
Up North Jim Crow
Wears an angels grin --
But still he sin.
I swear he do!
Don't You?

Now, do you understand my position?

4 VP Debate Questions

1) Who won?

2) Can a candidate win without answering any questions?

3) How does rhetorical theory inform whether or not someone answers the questions?

4) How does vernacular literacy influence rhetorical theory? Is it better to sound folksy or to sound intellectual and offer solutions?

The Article Reject Notice (Um, No, not mine)

Cnn.com posted a story about the New York Times choosing to reject John McCain's op ed piece on the war in Iraq, even though they previously accepted Barack Obama's. Regardless of your political views, this is one story at least many academics can relate to, since at some point in most of our careers we've had an article rejected from journals.

I'm less interested in the idea that McCain's piece was rejected (although I did chuckle briefly), and more interested in the reviewer's reason for the rejection. Although I haven't done that much writing for publication yet, I've seen a couple of rejection letters for articles. Some had probably cause to reject, some not, and some rejections were just excuses not to publish--rejections that could have easily fit the revise and resubmit category. The review from The Times does give McCain the option to revise and resubmit even though they intitally chose to reject it.

I don't intend to equate this process used by The Times with the way the process works in the academy, as there are clear differences. For one, McCain's piece was not blind reviewed, and one could speculate whether or not this may have had something to do with the rejection. But what's more interesting is the reviewer's response. I think this would be a good example to use in graduate courses (maybe research methods courses, or introductory courses to the professionalization of a particular discipline if they exist?) to open up a conversation about the challenges with publishing and reader responses. I also think this might work in an undergraduate courses, where teachers can use the reviewer's response to teach the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of peer review responses.

Just something to think about.

PC