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Race & Gender

To elaborate on this weeks topics in MCO 435, I want to share my thoughts on how I interact with race and gender issues. I am a white woman, and I understand the privilege that holds. I am outraged by the discrimination and hate that occurs day to day in our society based on race, gender, sexual orientation, and I feel called to do something about it. At ASU, I am in a scholarship program that focuses on cross-sector collaboration to solve social issues. In this program we divide into mission teams focusing on different areas of societal problems. My mission team is Racial and LGBT Equality, and we organize and implement campus and community events to bring awareness to race and LGBT issues. On a personal level, I speak out and shut down any discrimination I hear, and educate other white people on respecting the values and needs of every community. When it comes to these topics, it’s vital to support and promote the ideas of people of color above my own. They are the voices we should be listening to and respecting when it comes to conversations of race and gender, because intersectionality plays a huge role in racism and sexism. Please check out the work of Kimberlé Crenshaw, she is a lawyer, scholar, and activist who is profoundly knowledgable in the topics of race and gender.

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This is a TED Talk by Kimberlé Crenshaw; she is a lawyer, civil rights advocate, philosopher, and leading scholar of critical race theory. She coined the term “intersectionality” in 1989 to explain the unique collision of multiple forms of exclusion, and this video explains her ideas and passion behind the concept.

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This is a digital copy of a poster that hangs in my room. I got this as a gift, and it’s from an artist named Kristin Joiner who allowed the Unitarian Universalist Association to share her design. This sign well represents my beliefs and I’m proud to hang it on my wall.

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The main problem with All Lives Matter is it's a response to Black Lives Matter.

KevOnStage

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As a Communications major, I find reading academic publications to be a great way to learn more about a topic. While researching the subject of gender and race, I found this publication analyzing how the themes of racist online abuse towards Serena Williams during the 2015 Wimbledon Championships connects to a larger issue of online environments making black female athletes seen as “other” in virtual spaces. This is a blatant example of how social media can perpetuate issues of gender and race.