Letter from the Editor Dear Readers,
ED. 8 VOL 2
SPRING 2021
ROLLINS COLLEGE STUDENT MEDIA ATTEN: THE INDEPENDENT 1000 HOLT AVENUE, WINTER PARK, FL 32789
THEINDEPENDENT@ROLLINS.EDU
STAFF EDITOR-IN-CHIEF EMILY O’MALLEY CHIEF CREATIVE OFFICER CAITLYN PATEL RISING CHIEF CREATIVE OFFICER FRANCISCO WANG YU CO-FOUNDERS MARY CATHERINE PFLUG SCOTT NOVAK DESIGNERS/ARTISTS SAM ANDERSON GHINA FAWAZ ELIZABETH FLEMING LAUREN GIETZEN DASSIKA GILKEY JAIANNE GILKEY KATIE MONAGHAN SENIOR EDITORS LILY DENNEEN ALEKHYA REDDY LIZ TREPANIER TAYLOR INGRASSIA COPY EDITORS NANCY BUTLER EMILY PETER CONTRIBUTORS DARÉONE A. CHRISTOPHER DONNA DORMEUS BARBARA HUGHES TAYLOR INGRASSIA JESSICA KAVALEC-MILLER SANJULA RAJAT CRISTINA RANCANO ELIZABETH SMITH DR. RACHEL WALTON ERIKA WESCH DR. WENXIAN ZHANG Cover featuring photography by Madison Goeser Please send all letters to the editor submissions and articles to theindependent@rollins.edu
As the time comes for me to say goodbye to my beloved Indie, I find it incredibly difficult to articulate all that this magazine means to me. The small role that I have had in the production of this publication has provided me with more than I could have ever asked for, allowing me to work alongside brilliant and inventive people and introducing me to ideas that have fundamentally changed the way I perceive the world. The first time I laid eyes on a copy of The Independent, brought to me as a high school senior by former EIC Kenzie Helmick, I remember being in awe. The opportunity to work alongside the immensely talented individuals who contribute to and create this beautiful magazine seemed like a fantasy, and, admittedly, I doubted my ability to fill the shoes of my predecessors. Despite my many bouts of imposter syndrome, looking back on the seven issues I have had a hand in crafting, I can’t help but feel anything except pride. Outside of developing my design skills (which came about through a whole lot of trial and error), I have had the privilege to lead a team of gifted artists and designers, a team that has shown me the beauty of inspiration, collaboration, and individuality. I leave my position in the hands of Francisco Wang Yu, a gifted designer and natural-born artist whose ingenuity and dedication has consistently exceeded my expectations. Since my first look at his application to the design team (filled with images and illustrations of drag queens, may I add), my confidence in Francisco’s abilities has not once wavered; and although my departure is bittersweet, I could not be more excited to see how future staffs will contribute to the evolution of The Indie. Nearly five years after my introduction to this magazine, I continue to look at it with the same sense of wonder and respect that I had at the start. Since its creation, The Indie has existed as a space for critical reflection and vulnerability. It invites individuals from all corners of our community to share their raw and uncensored truth and encourages productive discourse—it is this commitment to fostering intellectual curiosity that makes this publication so special. I can only hope that I have lived up to the legacy of those who came before me and left The Indie better than I found it. Over the past few years, outside of a short-lived stint in copy editing, I have remained almost exclusively in the design realm, leaving the task of communication to the two EICs I have worked with (both of whom have led this magazine with an insane amount of eloquence and intellect) and each of the magazine’s contributors. This failure to engage in dialogue, I must admit, is my single regret. My parting advice for you, my dear reader, is to take advantage of this (albeit small) platform that we have in The Indie, and any other platform available to you, and call shit out. Among so many other issues, our community is riddled with performative activism, shallow acts of decency masking exploitative social practices and discriminatory economic policies—express your disgust, verbalize your opposition, and do better than I did. Sincerely, Caitlyn Patel Chief Creative Officer
Send some letters to the editors, we would love to hear from you!
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The Independent is published twice a year by Rollins College with issues released in April and December. Principal office: Kathleen W. Rollins Hall, Rollins College, Winter Park, FL. 400 copies distributed per issue on campus and in the Winter Park area, available at Bush Science Center, Campus Center, Cornell Social Sciences building, Olin Library, and Alfond Inn. For additional information, please see our website: theindependentmag.org.
Photography by Samantha Maris
LOVE & LOSS
IDENTITIES & CONSTRUCTS
24
Satellites Anonymous
ROLLINS LIFE 9Feminism in the Bedroom 3
Excerpts from Pathway to Diversity: The History of Race Relations at Rollins Dr. Wenxian Zhang and Dr. Rachel Walton
7
The Founding of Non Compis Mentis: How its Sisters Challenged Tradition Erika Wesch
26
Jessica Kavalec-Miller
16
Pedagogy of a Pandemic: Education and Inequality in the Context of COVID-19, Racial Justice, and Police Violence Sanjula Rajat
18
She Sang All the While Donna Dormeus
19
Unity Through Culture DaRéone A. Christopher
21
Fighting an Old Battle Under New Circumstances: Domestic Violence Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic Elizabeth Smith
One Glorious Whole Cristina Rancano
27
Growing up together, my friend Barbara Hughes
28
Diagnosis Taylor Ingrassia
excerpts from
THE HISTORY OF RACE RELATIONS AT ROLLINS full articles can be found at the Rollins Archives website Designed by Caitlyn Patel
Written by Dr. Wenxian Zhang
The 1974 Rollins/Ohio Wesleyan Football Game For the first half of the twentieth century, Rollins had a very active football program, as the popular sport provided a common experience for the campus community, and its annual ritual was the homecoming celebration held in the Orlando Municipal Stadium each November. After Rollins beat Ohio Wesleyan University (OWU) 21-13 in 1946, the next homecoming game was set for Nov. 28, 1947. However, five weeks
before game time, Rollins learned the new OWU team included an African American freshman player named Kenneth Woodward. That dilemma presented a major challenge to Rollins and Holt, since state law still prohibited mixed participation in any educational programs. Despite notable social progress since World War II, Florida in the late 1940s remained a frontier state in terms of race relations.
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The front cover of the 1946 Rollins/Ohio Wesleyan homecoming football program (Image: Rollins College Archives)
Historically, Central Florida was a hotbed for racially motivated hate crimes. The Ocoee Massacre of Nov. 2, 1920, was described as the “bloodiest day in modern American political history,”24 and the Orlando Sentinel had frequent coverage of Klan activities, such as cross burning, in the region. When Jackie Robinson arrived in Central Florida for his first spring training with the Montreal Royals in 1946, he was forced to sit in the back of the bus humiliated, and the Sanford police chief stopped a minor league game because of his presence.25 On top of that, the Orlando Municipal Stadium was managed by the local chapter of the American Legion, a conservative veterans’ organization established after WWI. Active in issue-oriented politics and seeking to promote the ideology
of Americanism, some of its followers were also members of the Ku Klux Klan. Around the same time, the Florida NAACP also passed a resolution in 1947 noting that “The existence of Ku Kluxism is a potential threat to the personal safety and the Constitutional rights of all minorities. We therefore ask our state, county, and city authorities to take vigorous action in cases of intimidation or violence against citizens by the Ku Klux Klan and other Fascist groups.”26 As a small liberal arts college, Rollins faculty and students had long supported progressive racial politics. Nevertheless, the 1947 Rollins/OWU football game had set that racial progressivism on a direct collision course with the reality of white supremacy in the segregated South. During the first half of the twentieth century, to maintain the racial status quo, white southern college leaders contractually agreed that the color line would be maintained on athletic fields. Through a so-called gentlemen’s agreement, white southern institutions avoided integrated competition by not scheduling games with integrated teams from the North or by insisting those teams leave their Black players behind. However, things finally began to change in the late 1940s; sports were used by brave leaders to challenge the political environment and eventually led to social changes and the Civil Rights Movement years later. A most notable example was the integration of Major League Baseball in 1947, when Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers. When Ohio Wesleyan, led by Branch Rickey, general manager of the Dodgers, insisted on bringing its African American player to the game, President Hamilton Holt failed to take a stand against racial injustice and canceled the game, fearing that potential violence would set back social progress in the South, even though the cancellation was against his personal beliefs.27 On Friday, Nov. 28, when the homecoming game was supposed to take place, Holt gathered students and faculty in the Annie Russell Theatre to give a lengthy speech and turned the difficult situation into a teaching moment. “May I say this to you students: you will probably have critical decisions like this to make as you go through life— decisions that whatever you do, you will be misinterpreted, misunderstood, and reviled. I have found in my own case it helps to find out which of your loyalties involved is the greater. It seemed to all of us that our loyalties to Rollins and its ideals were not to precipitate a crisis that might and probably would promote bad race relations, but to work quietly for better race relations, hoping and believing that time would be on our side.”28
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“THESE STUDENTS DEALT WITH A CONTINUATION OF UNDERLYING RACIST ATTITUDES THAT HAD BEEN A PART OF ROLLINS ... FOR MANY DECADES.” Written by Dr. Rachel Walton
The Early Black Student Experience at Rollins The number of African Americans admitted to Rollins increased steadily through 1970. You can see from the student records document below and in the corresponding chart that there were ten times as many African American students (20) at Rollins in the 1969-1970 academic year compared to the 1965-1966 school year (2).9 This may have been due to the College’s active recruitment of Black freshmen on both athletic and academic scholarships. Student reflections confirm this in many cases. For example, Laurence Martinez explained his choice to be at Rollins thusly: “Rollins was looking for Black athletes that could maintain their academic standard and I happen to fall into that category.”10 Alberta Haynes also revealed that she didn’t choose Rollins, but rather Rollins chose her: “I was totally unaware of the College’s existence until I was summoned to the Guidance Department of my high school for an interview with the Director of Admissions. He was impressed with my file… and of course I was thrilled because this was the opportunity I had been awaiting.”11 However, we should not draw a straight line between an improvement in the number of Black students at Rollins and the quality of their overall college experience. These students dealt with a continuation of underlying racist attitudes that had been a part of Rollins and the larger community of Winter Park for many decades. As trailblazers
“Black Undergraduates at Rollins,” registration document, 1970. A list (and corresponding chart showing the number) of Black students attending Rollins between the academic year 1964-1965 and 1969-1970.
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“More Black students should be encouraged to come to Rollins to enhance its total environment, especially in the social and academic fields. An increase in the number of Black students would also be a powerful, integrative tool to dilute many of the archaic notions about Blacks in general, which some white students harbor as result of segregated lives.” Alberta Hayes ‘71 “Going into the classroom you could tell there were certain professors who didn’t want you in there ... And there were nights you’d see a racist sign that prohibited Blacks at a party.” Laurence Martinez ‘72 “The tone was set quickly. I came into the locker room after one of my first practices and spotted a substance like liquid in my jockstrap ... Once or twice, drunken fraternity members would call out racist names.” Chuck Morton ‘72 “There was not any overt racism from the general population of the college towards us, and not from the administration either ... [but] there wasn’t a place for us, nothing for us to identify with.” Krisita Jackson ‘73 “The most serious problems that Black students are apt to encounter at Rollins ... is the lack of communication between Black students and white students, and white faculty. There is also the problem of assimilation because Black students are afraid to remain Black.” Anita Thomas ‘73 “There is nothing here [Rollins] that Blacks can relate to; you have to make yourself happy with what is here or become very dissatisfied for four years ... But it polished me.” Laurence Martinez ‘72
Prof. Layng’s article, “Black Students at Rollins,” was published in the February 1970 issue of The Rollins College Alumni Record.
they were quite aware of their impact on campus life as well as the legacy they left for future generations. Perhaps this is why they were not silent about their experiences, both positive and negative. These students participated in interviews, contributed to a special issue of the Sandspur student newspaper, organized and chartered the BSU, and established the annual tradition of Black Awareness Week at Rollins. In 1970, Professor Tony Layng, a former student and then a Rollins anthropology professor, interviewed several of the college’s first African American students for a write-up in the Rollins College Alumni Record. Layng did not shy away from the tough issues. He asked questions like “What do you consider to be the most serious problems that Black students encounter at Rollins?” and “How do you feel about encouraging other Black students to come to Rollins?”12 In addition, during recent years, students and faculty at Rollins have also conducted similar oral history interviews about what life was like for these first early students at Rollins. Below are some quotes from these various interviews.13 Taken together these reflections show that their experiences were not all the same. They saw and experienced a variety of different challenges including harassment, isolation, assimilation, general dissatisfaction, and even the obstacle of trying to educate white students about Black life and culture. Some, like Laurence Martinez, would not set foot on campus again for decades due to the trauma he experienced (and yet he recognized that the experiences “polished him” as a person). Others like Krisita Jackson would be active advocates of the college throughout their life, viewing the four years of time at Rollins as productive and enjoyable.
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feedback: theindependent@rollins.edu
The Founding of Non Compis Mentis How its Sisters Challenged Tradition Written by Erika Wesch
I
Illustrated by Lauren Gietzen
n the Southern United States, sorority culture and college life often go hand-in-hand. At Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, the school of less than 3,000 undergraduates has eight sororities on campus, each appealing to different types of incoming women.1 While seven of these are associated with a national organization, one, Non Compis Mentis, can only be found on the Rollins campus. Non Compis Mentis, or NCM, is a local sorority that was founded at Rollins in the fall of 1970. While they are active members in the Panhellenic Council, the governing body of all sororities on Rollins’ campus, NCM sisters pride themselves on being grounded in values that contrast typical sorority stereotypes.2 Established during a time of demographic changes and disillusionment, NCM challenges traditional sorority structures and values. The collegiate atmosphere at the start of the 1970s reversed the social revolution of the 1960s, providing a place for NCM to revive the resistance. The radicalism of the 1960s in the United States revolutionized the college campus, making it a place of protests and activism.3 As students began to enter college in the 1970s, there was a “striking contrast between the 1960s and the 1970s. Like students in the 1950s, those of the 1970s had, to a significant degree, returned to ‘privatism.’”4 Overall, students “were committed to family, leisure, and career, but ‘oblivious to broader social or ideological interests.’”5 This switch decreased the amount of unity on college campuses and emphasized performance over social connections, often leaving students “disappointed,
disillusioned, drained and exhausted.’”6 These national trends grazed Rollins’ campus, sparking reactions. Inspired by the movements before them and worried about the trends of the 1970s, the women of Rollins’ chapter of Pi Beta Phi founded NCM on the tail-end of the radical 1960s. Feeling “dispirited and divided” at the beginning of the 1970-71 school year, the national sorority Pi Beta Phi decided to disaffiliate with their national organization.7 At their meeting, the women of Pi Beta Phi “demonstra[ted] an emtion [sic] that seem[ed] to be dying out at Rollins -- high-pitched enthusiasm,” showing how their switch to local hoped to inspire a new culture of “genuine concern for the problems and activities of Rollins College.”8 After intense discussion, NCM was approved by the Panhellenic Council in November of 1970 on a provisional basis.9 While they did not denounce the other sororities on campus, the new NCM women claimed that, “under the old system, [they] were not doing anything [they] could really be proud of.”10 The new women wanted to create a culture of women who were proud to be individuals, which is something they felt they did not have under Pi Beta Phi restrictions.11 By emphasizing individualism, NCM contrasts the conformity of traditional sororities. Pledging to a sorority or fraternity often places underclassmen into “comfortable,” “homogeneous,” and “protective” communities, resulting in members who are all the same, or new pledges having a “petrifying” desire “to fit in.”12 The original members of NCM, however,
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prided themselves on their individuality.13 In the official constitution, their mission statement advocated for “an unconditional family environment that promotes individuality,” and the sisters and alumni actively live up to this value.14 Their fundraising and charity reflect their values as well. While national organizations have a specific charity each chapter has to fundraise for, NCM has the flexibility to follow the passions of its members.15 Often, this includes local Winter Park and Orange County organizations such as their choice organization in 1999, A Gift for Teaching, a local organization that donates free school supplies for teachers in the Orlando area.16 The events they chose also reflected this individuality. In 1972, NCM hosted an “All-Campus Auction,” where students and faculty auctioned themselves and their services off to the highest bidder.17 The campus was abuzz, and the school newspaper featured a comic remarking how “all the fellows on the Rollins College Campus are talking about the NCM Auction [sic].... pretty neat huh?”18 Selling students on an auction block was an untraditional form of raising money for the campus’ Chapel Fund, causing a response from the whole campus.19 The values and actions of NCM differentiated them from the other national sororities on campus, showing their commitment to individuality and nonconformity. Without a national connection, NCM was able to reduce the strict limitations of their sister organizations. At the writing of their constitution, the founders advocated for limited structure in their organization. In a collection of notes on the newly drafted NCM constitution, a woman questioned a policy, writing “isn’t this against the original NC’M [sic] plans to be free of structure?”20 The original members had few required meetings or hierarchy, truly emphasizing social connection over tradition.21 Traditional national sororities are restricted by required national rules and regulations, intense fines, rituals, and chapter meetings, which are aspects that NCM minimized in their organization.22 NCM also mitigated the financial responsibility of its sisters, inviting more economically-diverse members. For traditional national sororities, “the financial commitment a sister must make to her sorority can be enormous.”23 Initiation and national fees, dues, fines, and “social expenses” are all expected to be paid outof-pocket by sorority members, and an average student can “expect to spend $30,000-$35,000 on the Greek
experience” over five years.24 Therefore, sororities and fraternities “disproportionately [attract], and [court], middle- and upper-class undergraduates.”25 Being local, NCM eliminates any national fees and tries to keep their dues as low as possible.26 By reducing the financial commitment, NCM is able to break the classism of traditional Greek life and provide opportunities for women who would normally avoid sororities. Today, NCM continues its tradition-breaking by reducing gender and social restrictions. As a progressive organization, NCM has been a leader in providing spaces in sororities for those who identify as nonbinary. Non-binary people do not necessarily identify as male or female, and there have been questions on how they fit into the binary Greek system that emphasizes brotherhood and sisterhood.27 Various sororities, including NCM, have taken steps to amend their constitutions to include those who “want to be in them.”28 Annually, NCM holds a chapter-wide meeting to amend their constitution, allowing sisters to propose changes as the values of the members evolve.29 In the 2010s, NCM even considered leaving the Greek community because they felt it did not align with their vision for the sorority. To avoid Panhellenic restrictions from Rollins and “[symbolize] another large psychological step away from tradition,” the women of NCM debated becoming a service organization like Rollins’ Pinehurst Organization.30 Pinehurst’s members live together and have their own community, but without the requirements of the Panhellenic Council that did not align with NCM’s value of individuality.31 The sisters who wanted to remain a sorority, as well as various alumni, voted against the decision to disassociate, but the debate still remains contentious within the sorority.32 Fifty years later, NCM still embodies individuality and independence on Rollins’ campus. While national Greek organizations are fighting against their stigma of being “classist, exclusionary groups,” NCM has no problem following the rules it set for itself at its founding.33 Reacting to the radicalism of the 1960s and rising passivism in the 1970s, NCM established itself on principles of individuality, inclusion, and freedom, avoiding the restrictions of national organizations as a local sorority. Their uniqueness continues to impact Rollins and provide a model of inclusion for Greek life across the South.
“While they did not denounce the other sororities on campus, the new NCM women claimed that ‘under the old system, [they] were not doing anything [they] could really be proud of.’”
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feedback: theindependent@rollins.edu
FEMINISM IN THE BEDROOM How we enact gender norms in our intimate lives and how we can challenge them
Written by Jessica Kavalec-Miller
Illustrated by Sam Anderson and Francisco Wang Yu
O
ur culture is saturated with sex. Companies use smoldering models to advertise their products, our favorite shows have copious sex scenes (ahem, “Bridgerton”), and musicians capitalize on the appeal of seductive performances. I take no issue with sex being part of the public discourse, but that’s just the problem—it’s not a public conversation. Even with our sex-saturated culture, sex is taboo, not usually discussed in honest and authentic ways. Yet, our sex lives are central to many of us and play a part in our well-being and happiness. In the last few years, I’ve noticed how gender inequality impacts our intimate relationships. Social norms, specifically patriarchal norms, insert themselves in our romantic relationships in insidious ways. If you notice them and don’t want to abide by them, these norms can cause conflict in romance— especially in heterosexual relationships where gender roles are subconsciously expected and enacted. It is easy to fall into roles that our parents and grandparents played because these are our social models. But simply because a behavior is a cultural norm doesn’t mean it is emotionally healthy or allows us to live our lives to their greatest potential of happiness. One of my favorite metaphors for gender inequality references the movie “The Matrix”. The world that the main character, Neo, lives in is not real—his body is submerged in a weird liquid in an enclosed pod, and he lives out his experiences in his mind. Robots took over and now use human energy to power themselves. The robots extract this energy from humans by putting them all in aqueous pods, and they live their lives in a simulacrum of reality without knowing the truth. Rebels call this hyperreality “the matrix.” Once you are aware of the matrix, you can defy the laws of physics while in
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the matrix and do really cool stuff like run on walls and basically be a superhuman ninja. (If you haven’t seen The Matrix and you like cyberpunk and film studies, please treat yourself). Cultural norms, like the matrix, are invisible. We can’t see them, and they are normalized, so many of us don’t question them. Many of us are not aware of how strongly these normative habits influence us. It is emotionally easier not to challenge social norms, just as it is easier to keep living in the matrix than fighting against robots and overthrowing a hierarchical system. But once you begin to see the matrix of the patriarchy, you can’t un-see it. I can’t un-see it. Sometimes, I feel like it is in the air we breathe and that internalizing and enacting these oppressive norms are somewhat inevitable. Thankfully, once we realize and reflect on this insidious oppression, we can challenge it. Challenging the status quo is becoming more and more common. It is inspiring to see people question why things are the way they are rather than accept and perpetuate oppressive social structures. Movements and campaigns like #MeToo, #TimesUp, Black Lives Matter, and Heforshe all work on challenging the “imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.” I am grateful for these movements that aim to wake our world up. One particular oppression I think it is time to wake up to is how men and women enact gender norms in romantic relationships. I know I have fallen into these traditional roles when dating men and probably will subconsciously continue to do so. It is hard to behave differently from these social standards when there are few models and much disempowerment. These gender inequalities in romantic partnerships pervade various spheres of our lives. They crop up in domestic circumstances like household chores and childcare. The Second Shift explores how, unlike men, women come home to work their “second shift” of domestic duties after their paid workday.1 Men certainly perform domestic, traditionally “female” chores (cleaning, laundry, cooking, childcare, etc.) more often
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than fifty to seventy years ago, and therefore also have a second shift to some degree. However, there is still a significant gender divide in this area in most heterosexual relationships. These gender roles also play out in heterosexual sexual interactions. Some social justice researchers are beginning to think about sex and sexuality as matters of “intimate justice.” I love this phrase, “intimate justice.” Often, we think of our public lives when we consider how social oppression operates in our world. The term “intimate justice” asserts that gender inequality also involves issues in our homes and how we interact with the people with whom we have intimate relationships. These people can include our partners, our siblings, our parents, and our friends. As a student of psychology and gender studies, I’ve always been interested in romantic relationship dynamics, with a particular curiosity about sex and sexuality. This interest probably has to do with my sex education being virtually non-existent and (perhaps paradoxically) because I grew up in a liberal household that encouraged curiosity. I also wasn’t having many lived sexual experiences and didn’t see any porn until nearly twenty. So, naturally, as a person who grew up entrenched in academia, I turned to books. I have a whole twenty-five-inch shelf on my bookcase dedicated to intimate relationships, romance, and sexuality from multiple fields of study: psychology, sociology, biological anthropology, primatology, sexology—et cetera, et cetera. The topics range from hookup culture, solo-sex, niche sexual cultures, consent, and just straight-up sex books about improving sexual experiences. Many of these books are from feminist perspectives and have been educational and empowering for me. I brought a stack of them with me when I did a guest lecture for a healthy psychology class. I share them with and buy them for my friends. Many of my friends and I openly discuss our sex lives and are feminists. Yet, we still find ourselves falling into stereotypical gender roles and living
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In the same patriarchal vein of men being privileged in many other areas of life, male pleasure has long been privileged over female pleasure.
in the patriarchal matrix. We began to wonder, what, in Gaia’s name, is going on? One of the most clear-cut indicators that gender equality is not present in the bedrooms of heterosexual couples is “the orgasm gap.” Also called “the pleasure gap,” the phrase has two meanings, but both suggest gender inequality in heterosexual sexual experiences. One definition is that there is a difference between “men’s perception of if women orgasmed versus women’s reports of their own orgasms”: 85% of men think their female partner orgasmed, whereas only 64% of women report having orgasmed.2 The term is also used to refer to the disparity between women and men regarding having orgasms in partnered sex, as men tend to orgasm more often than women in heterosexual sexual interactions. I think this latter definition most directly points to how patriarchal norms insert themselves in our intimate relationships. One study found that “91% of men versus 39% of women reported usually or always experiencing orgasm in partnered sex.”3 Other research reveals that 65% of heterosexual women report reaching orgasm in partnered sexual interactions.4 Women having fewer orgasms than men in bed has nothing to do with women having more difficulty reaching orgasm. This discrepancy has everything to do with context. When comparing heterosexual women with lesbian women, lesbians orgasm 86% of the time when in bed with their partners.5 Studies show that women climax 92-95% of the time during masturbation, which indicates that women certainly know what is pleasurable to them.6 In turn, this statistic also suggests that women’s male partners are not privy to the knowledge of what their female partners find pleasurable—or, perhaps, that they do not prioritize female pleasure. In the same patriarchal vein of men being privileged in many other areas of life, male pleasure has long been
privileged over female pleasure. In casual encounters especially, the average man is far less concerned with their female partner’s pleasure than when they are in a committed relationship with a woman.7 This is not the case for women. Regardless of relationship status, young women “often reported concern about [a] hookup partner’s pleasure,” even though they are aware that their male sexual partner is not very concerned about their pleasure.8 Here are some young men’s self-reports about their sexual inconsideration of female pleasure in hookups from Armstrong et al.’s interviews: “If it’s just a random hookup, I don’t think [her orgasm] matters as much to the guy.” “[Her pleasure] is more important if it’s in a real relationship than if it’s a one-night stand.” “You definitely feel more investment” in a relationship than in a hookup. One man explained that in a “one-time hookup thing” he would not be concerned about his female partner’s orgasm because “I guess [a hookup] is more of a selfish thing.” “I’m all about making her orgasm” when the ‘her’ is defined as “girlfriend her. In a hookup her, I don’t give a shit.” Some men cared about their female partner’s orgasm equally in hookups and committed relationships, but these men were few and far between. Now, women can absolutely still feel pleasure without having an orgasm, but it’s safe to say that orgasms are typically the height of pleasure during sex. So why aren’t women asking for equality in bed, even if it’s a hookup? Some felt they didn’t “have the right” or weren’t comfortable asking for their sexual desires to
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be met in casual sexual interactions.9 And considering the statistics regarding the orgasm gap, even when men are more invested in their female partner’s pleasure, women still aren’t experiencing orgasms as often as men. If all of this doesn’t reek of gender inequality, I’m not sure what does. Many other patriarchy-influenced behaviors, beliefs, and stereotypes demonstrate the absence of equality in heterosexual romance. These patriarchy-fueled ideas include: the overvaluing of intercourse; the notion that women should be able to orgasm from penetrative sex alone (on average, only 18% of women can); the lack of men’s education about female anatomy; how porn depicts the female orgasm and thus perpetuates misconceptions about female pleasure; and the under-valuing of foreplay, to name a few.10 As we think holistically about intimate justice, all of these elements converge. To achieve equality in our romantic and sexual relationships, we need to consider these multiple elements. But how can we combat patriarchal sexual norms right now? Becoming aware of all these inequities is the first step. If you’re a woman who is unsure of what brings you pleasure, practicing solo-sex (my favorite term for masturbation) and figuring out how you like to be touched, and especially what helps you to orgasm, is a great first active step. Then, if you have a male partner, you can explain what you like and what you need him to do. When we orgasm, we release a lot of stress, so you’re essentially practicing self-love and self-care when you practice solosex. And I think women practicing self-care challenges
social conventions because cultural norms teach women to be the nurturers of others, not to nurture themselves. Challenging the stereotypical sequence of sexual interaction (i.e., foreplay>intercourse>male orgasm>sex over) with alternative sequences that involve more attention paid to female pleasure is also a great step forward. This subversion could involve extended foreplay and the woman orgasming first. Again, see resources for further information. To challenge sexual norms, we also have to have discussions with our partners about these topics; multiple discussions, not just one. It is best if these discussions are had before sexual activity, so partners are on the same page once they’re having sex. If you are in a relationship, I would recommend having conversations about sexual pleasure preferences long before sex is on the table. Perhaps have a discussion, say, over lunch or dinner, or instead of watching Bridgerton. If you’re not in a committed relationship, I’d recommend having these conversations before having sex with someone. Even if you’re only interested in hookups, I would still say to talk to your potential partner about your sexual preferences because having this conversation will increase the likelihood of you enjoying yourself—especially if you’re a woman. This is intimate justice in action. When we initiate these conversations, we advocate for ourselves. Sex should be pleasurable, sensual, comfortable, and reciprocal. Sexual double standards that put male pleasure before female pleasure perpetuate gender inequity. If we cultivate equality in heterosexual sexual relationships, we will be one step closer to achieving gender equality in all the rooms in our homes and other areas of our lives. We will be one step closer to dissolving the patriarchal matrix if we bring feminism into the bedroom.
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Pedagogy of a Pandemic
Education and Inequality in the Context of COVID-19, Racial Justice, and Police Violence Written by Sanjula Rajat
Illustrated by Francisco Wang Yu
E
ducation in 2020 and beyond faces challenges from a global pandemic to international uprisings against police violence that will reveal whether education can be a liberator or becomes yet another force that cements existing inequalities. In “Pedagogy of The Oppressed,” Freire contends that people must be active agents in the process of their own liberation, and that, to do so, they must engage in the dynamic process of education. Applying his theories to the context of education in 2020 amidst the global pandemic and struggles against police violence, Freire’s liberator rhetoric can lend a new lens — especially when feminist critique of Freire is taken into account. The coronavirus pandemic has drastically affected the ways in which we socialise with each other, and education consequently has had to face a new set of problems and challenges to navigate. Given the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on the low-income and Black and Indigenous communities in particular, the role of education systems as either exacerbating said inequalities or in acting as a tool for the liberation of the marginalised becomes particularly fascinating to explore. Issues of equitable access to education become pronounced as schools move online: time zone differences and differential bandwidth affect the ability of students to effectively engage in the process of education. The ways in which colleges in the United States handled the pandemic have inequality-laden consequences that are vital in examining the function of higher education today. As the pandemic caused a wave of college closures and exacerbated financial instabilities, many low-income and international students were forced into unstable housing situations after being suddenly kicked off campus in March.1 Bogost suggests that colleges reopened despite COVID-19 numbers and the high risks of transmission because they were influenced by red-state governments as well as a need to charge full tuition and maintain enrollment rates; students wanted to be on-campus and not sacrifice the true
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“college experience,” which has more to do with social interactions than education. Essentially, the pandemic acts as a threat to the academic experience, and exposes and exacerbates class and race inequalities that prevent students from accessing a fair education. As Mojab puts it, the pandemic has laid bare the “profound racial, patriarchal and class scars of colonialism and capitalist imperialism.” Freire’s theories on pedagogy as a means to revolutionary social transformation are deeply pertinent. Given the circumstances of 2020, the politics of this pandemic are, therefore, a crucial aspect of the conversation about education. Therefore, a consideration must be made of the inordinate and disproportional impact that COVID-19 has and continues to have on Black and Indigenous communities as well as the antiBlack racism of police violence and the role both play in maintaining the settler colonial system that is still in place in the United States.2 The belief that a radical upheaval of the system as opposed to attempting to enact change within the system is justified and vital. In fact, Pratt even suggests that, when talking about disease and racism, the latter, “however well intentioned, will only re-entrench the suffering and death they seek to ameliorate,” and therefore stresses the need for radical social transformation. The necessity of an alternate approach to schooling both in strategy and enactment is clear, and ideas are put forth about how to renew the schooling process and how this moment “offers a rare opportunity for radical systemic change.”3 Deweyan ideas about the capacity that education has and the ways in which it should work in defense of democracy are highly relevant. This
renewed purpose of schooling as constructed under a world that reckons with a worldwide pandemic and uprisings against police violence must also account for the ways in which we see various inequalities be exposed and aggravated under these conditions. Therefore, in trying to apply a pedagogy for liberation in the climate of 2020, a reckoning needs to be made with how critical pedagogy can be applied, of course, in times of a global health crisis, but also how it can be applied to the format of online learning. Maboloc notes the ways in which online learning and the physical separation that students have both from educators and other students can make the experience impersonal and an impediment to the formation of meaningful connections, potentially causing difficulty in realising what they term the “ideals of learning.” Maboloc argues that this new digital landscape can redefine meanings and that it can provide a “new democratic space” geared towards the empowerment of students and teachers alike, and that the pandemic provides us an opportunity to reimagine teaching. Even as a sudden shift to online pedagogy raises many concerns, not the least of which is the unpreparedness of students and educators to adapt to what is, for many, an entirely new mode of teaching and learning in the landscape of what Morris terms an “underdeveloped, untheorized digital pedagogy,” many remain optimistic about the ways in which the experience can be constructed to be meaningful and even transformative. So even as Morris notes the inadequacies of traditional online learning models and the haphazard ways in which they are adapted to fit the needs of colleges in the context of the pandemic, he suggests that there is potential for
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“
Higher education must be envisioned as a path to anti-fascism and a tool of liberation rather than a maintenance of the existent social order, must actively resist systems of domination and oppression, and must construct individuals that find themselves empowered to act in opposition to oppressive systems.”
the cultivation of a “transformative digital pedagogy,” one that embodies, especially in times of crisis such as this, a cooperative learning experience that is focused on liberation and the very real human connection between teachers and students that exists even in digital modes. Before it turned into a means of surveilling students out of mistrust, he argues that the screen was an imaginative endeavour and that can be a way of building connections with others. Still, despite these arguments for the ways in which online learning can be adapted to be transformative and ways in which higher education can implement Freire’s liberatory pedagogy, there remain challenges in the college context that must be considered. One important aspect to examine is the ways in which education everywhere “remains intertwined with systems of oppression, including racism and capitalism,”4 and either inadvertently or systematically maintains and reproduces said systems of oppression. Marxist and neoMarxist thinkers have argued that schooling reproduces and legitimizes class inequality. In their theory of the correspondence principle, Bowles and Gintis suggest that the values learnt in schooling correspond to the exploitative ‘logic’ of the capitalistic workplace. Althusser presents an argument along similar lines suggesting that schooling serves to shape individuals to fit in with the needs of a capitalist system, and learn values such as submission and conformity to rules and to authority figures. In light of these critiques of education, Freire’s model of pedagogy remains increasingly relevant and important to education. The influence of Marxist thought on Freire’s revolutionary ideas and pedagogical approach is clear, and his writing can be read as a response to and acknowledgement of these Marxist critiques of the traditional top-down pedagogical model practiced in schools. Freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed emerges as an attempt to restructure education so that individuals can be active agents in their own emancipation rather than being subjects of an oppressive educational process. Having noted the ways in which education in
2020 serves to uphold the oppressive systems in place, we must look at how it can be altered to serve the needs of democracy and anti-fascism. Connections between theories of education and Deweyan thought to anti-fascism are also an essential component of this conversation. However, since Deweyan democracy is focused largely on the will of the people, and education models constructed under those beliefs are focused on creating citizens for democracy, a new set of problems emerges. Namely, the will of the people and the majority opinion may not be consistent with anti-racist and antifascist revolutionary aims. In fact, populist groundswell has the capacity to aid and abet fascism in many ways. As Crick notes, a new form of fascism exists today, one that exists in a form he refers to as “democratic fascism.” It is vital, therefore, to conceptualise higher education as more than a means to empower students to become democratic citizens and liberate themselves because that has the potential to be an approach that legitimises the status quo. Rather, it must serve to empower individuals to take an actively oppositional stance to all forms of fascism and give them the power to stand up for the liberation of all of the world’s oppressed. Essentially, higher education must be envisioned as a path to anti-fascism and a tool of liberation rather than a maintenance of the existent social order, must actively resist systems of domination and oppression, and must construct individuals that find themselves empowered to act in opposition to oppressive systems. As Susarla notes, “education is a very powerful and transformative force, provided we first transform education itself.” She specifically discusses the context of higher education in India and the ways in which educational institutions continue to be tied to the function of educating students for the purpose of economic success rather than teaching students to question norms and challenge inequality. Still, it is clear that the idea that education must serve as a ground for radicalization and a way to unfetter individuals from the shackles of undemocratic ways of thinking has its limitations. Higher education remains expensive and inaccessible to a large proportion of
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students in the United States, which means that the college environment is not particularly diverse and is limited in terms of class and race, with White upperand upper-middle class students being the population that is served. The institutions themselves, while often espousing seemingly progressive stances and often appearing to value diversity, these commitments remain largely surface-level, and institutions embody, if anything, a neoliberal ethos that ultimately does not challenge the status quo in any meaningful capacity. They remain almost inextricably tied to the capitalist structure and contribute to its maintenance and reproduction over time. The class-segregated nature of higher education and the underrepresentation of working class students in academia in the United States means that education itself in certain contexts is an indicator of class (and race) privilege, which is important to note because it affects the ways in which critical pedagogy can be applied in the classroom. Freire’s text focuses on how the oppressed can be educated about their oppression, but the challenge here becomes how to educate the privileged about oppression. As Nicholls puts it, “the central difficulty of this project is motivation: how does one teach in emancipatory ways to students — both the privileged and those who are hoping to attain privilege through their higher education — who want not to transform the status quo, but to embrace it?” Freire’s insistence, therefore, that in the struggle of the oppressed towards liberation and a recouping their humanity, the part of the privileged “must be forged with, not for, the oppressed,” is vital.5 As George Floyd’s murder by the police reignited the Black Lives Matter movement and sparked a wave of protests against police brutality worldwide, it also led to the formation of book clubs on anti-racism primarily catering to White people.6 Phruksachart refers to the readings as “the literature of white liberalism,” which is
a vital part of the conversation about education in 2020 to recognise the ways in which it often falls short. This phenomenon, of White people thinking that they can, as Phruksachart puts it, “read their way out of trouble,” is not new, but in the wake of the 2020 uprisings is particularly stark. Many serve to posit anti-racism as a personal journey and, ultimately, these book clubs do more to ameliorate White guilt about racism than galvanise action. This White liberalism remains tied to capitalism, and it allows White liberals to think about anti-racism as a project that is not intimately and inextricably linked with anti-capitalism and anti-colonialism. They are “palatable, dematerialized forms of anti-racism sanctioned by the state, capital, and elite institutions that crowd out radical antiracisms that refuse to disentangle racism from capitalism, patriarchy, and settler colonialism,”7 and do little to affect radical systemic change. Johnson refers to this cycle of White people pretending to care about race whenever it is a popular topic of conversation while Black people continue to endure injustice and statesanctioned violence a “racial ouroboros.” Education in 2020 must contend with all this and more, and Freirean models of education that stress that work be collaborative rather than top-down are as essential as ever in creating an approach to education that is genuinely empowering; that is, geared towards our collective liberation and a complete commitment to stand in solidarity with the oppressed and work to recognise the ways in which the world can be reimagined to be truly equitable. Radical social transformation is the path to our collective liberation, and education can be a means to that if it can be construed such that it values collective liberation under a radically altered world over the dubious “liberation” offered within the constraints of a capitalist society.
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Written by Donna Dormeus Illustrated by Elizabeth Flemming
She sang all the while. They tried to take her womanhood, Cause they could not take her child. On their boats they piled, Body after sullied body. She sang all the while. Her beautiful body, they defiled. They stole the milk from her breast, Cause they could not take her child. They bled her dry, They broke her back, She sang all the while. Long after she has died, Her children dance a new song, Cause they could not take her child. And when they erased her history Tried to overwrite their crimes, She sang all the while, Cause they could not take her child.
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Unity Through Culture Art by DaRéone Christopher Designed by Caitlyn Patel
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C
oming from the United States Virgin Islands and being Afro-Caribbean, the events of the past year and years before regarding the Black Lives Matter movement have been extremely emotional for me. It was not uncommon to go on social media and see debates as to whether someone shouldn’t have resisted arrest or whether the police should serve as the jury and executioner. Even on campus, we have witnessed hate crimes towards Black students and students of color. In times like this, it is important not only to be open regarding understanding and listening to minority groups, but also to understand their backgrounds and culture. I have seen many people arguing online about whether something is or is not cultural appropriation, without taking the time to understand what the actual culture is and why it is considered appropriation. In times of self-doubt and isolation, I have resorted to my art to ground myself and make myself feel like I belong somewhere. These pieces feature Black women of different shades wearing an afro and a headwrap made of a cultural fabric in the Caribbean called madras. Its bright colors and cultural ties remind me that the only way to move forward from this cycle of repeated history is to truly understand the importance of culture in regard to keeping minority groups feeling connected to their history.
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Fighting an Old Battle Under New Circumstances: Domestic Violence Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic Written by Elizabeth Smith Illustrated by Ghina Fawaz
I
s home the safest place to be during a pandemic? If you are a woman or child, not necessarily. Staying home may keep people safe from COVID-19, yet many of society’s most vulnerable individuals are finding themselves trapped by not only the virus, but also abusive situations. Domestic violence runs rampant around the world, even under normal circumstances, and victims are not always able to escape, a situation that has only intensified due to COVID-19. When some families are forced to spend more time together than usual, domestic violence can bubble up like yeast in hot water. According to an academic
article published by SAGE, “The home remains the most dangerous place for women, who continue to bear the heaviest burden of lethal victimization as a result of inequality and gender stereotypes.”1 Historically, abusive circumstances, including ones where their victims are murdered, “were usually not the result of random or spontaneous acts, but rather the culmination of prior gender-related violence.”2 COVID-19 worsens this abuse by making it harder to escape. In an article published by the New York Times, a domestic violence survivor from Eastern China reveals how the prior six years of abuse grew to a gruesome level
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during the pandemic. According to Lele, a new mom to an eleven-month-old baby, “During the epidemic, we were unable to go outside, and our conflicts just grew bigger and bigger and more and more frequent.”3 In one incident, Lele’s husband beat her with a highchair while holding their child, causing her to collapse with countless bruises and a hematoma. Lele bravely sought a lawyer to divorce her husband, but the courts postponed the case due to the virus. Without the resources to live independently and places of refuge lacking funds, Lele and her baby were forced to remain with her abuser. This is unfortunately “a pattern playing out around the world,”4 only worsened by the pandemic. China saw a significant influx in domestic violence quite early on in the pandemic with helpline calls flooding into their non-governmental organization (NGO) “Equality” as early as February 2020.5 They have also seen police reports not double but triple during COVID-19 stay at home orders.6 In China, this rapid increase in abuse is considered a “domestic violence epidemic.”7 Other countries, including Spain and France, have similar problems relating to the pandemic. French police say that “due to confinement” there was a thirty-percent increase in domestic violence by April 2020.8 Similarly, within less than a week of lockdown in Spain, there was “an influx of twenty-percent of calls to helplines.”9 Ana Bella, a survivor who started the Ana Bella Foundation in 2006 to help women in Spanish-speaking countries and has continued her work during the pandemic, acknowledged the following statement: “We’ve been getting some very distressing calls, showing us clearly just how intense psychological as well as physical mistreatment can get when people are kept 24 hours a day together within a reduced space.”10 Another Spanish survivor named Ana provides
an additional example of how the controlling behavior of abusers has reached such a severe level during the pandemic. Living in an apartment with her perpetrator, Ana was not allowed to do anything independently. Controlling every second of her life, Ana stated, “I can’t even have privacy in the bathroom—and now I have to endure this in a lockdown.”11 According to trauma expert Judith Herman, this control and coercion level compares to kidnappers and hostages; yet, during the pandemic, it is harder to escape.12 There are limited services during a pandemic to get help.13 In Italy, authorities lacked the resources for survivors to escape. It was not until after an overwhelming amount of domestic violence victims spoke up with no place to go due to infection risk that the government provided hotels for refuge.14 Some countries anticipated the domestic violence issues the pandemic would create, including citizens. When the British government took into consideration that increased domestic violence would be an issue with lockdowns, they “published a list of hotlines and apps that victims could use to call for help, but only one was specifically tailored for the COVID-19 crisis.”15 Hearing this, the community decided they wanted more protection for survivors. So, coming together, citizens created an online letter urging the government to do something more. The government’s response to the community’s outcry included police action, organizations, hotlines, and community support. They even recommended “disregard[ing] orders to stay-at-home if they need to seek immediate refuge.”16 Paradoxically, the United States domestic abuse reporting went down in numbers during the pandemic.17 Victims may not feel comfortable reporting for several reasons, “including feelings of shame, denial, intimidation, religious or cultural beliefs and practices,
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as well as fear of retaliation.”18 When schools and other facilities closed, it became harder to identify the abuse from an outside source. At House of Ruth, a safe house in Washington, D.C., they “double[d] the number of requests…however, [requests] dropped by nearly half at the hospital.”19 During the pandemic, House of Ruth opened a new facility called Kidspace, where children can be free from abuse and play like a child should, with counselors readily available for them as well. There are also extensive measures in place including “embassylevel security measures to make sure the kids are safe from the abusers they are trying to flee.”20 Around the world, people have come up with innovative ways to break free of domestic violence. For example, “Programs in France and Spain allow victims of domestic violence to report it at pharmacies.”21 Some have even implemented the use of code words. When reporting abuse in Spain, people can use “the code word ‘mask19’ to report.”22 During phone calls at the House of Ruth they used the safe word “toilet paper” if women needed to abruptly end the call for any reason.23 Children are also reported to be using social media, such as Facebook messenger, to send videos with audio of abusive situations, including sexual abuse.24 In Buenos Aires, an organization called Red Viva said, “We didn’t used to get calls for help like this…But we’re seeing it happen more during the quarantine.”25 Research shows that women and children are affected by these injustices and abuses worldwide due to the systemic issue of gender inequality where grown men feel superior over women. Some believe that this is the root cause of why abuse happens to women.26 This sense of control within the man of the house gives them “legitimate power over others in the social unit, including other (especially younger) men, all women and children.”27 Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, evidence of
abuse skyrocketed in times of crises. In Africa during the 2016 Ebola outbreak, research showed that “violence against children, rapes and teenage pregnancies all spiked.”28 Aside from COVID-19 and Ebola, natural disasters such as hurricanes and economic declines like the Great Recession ten years ago also show domestic violence situations worsen.29 An academic article published by ELSEVIER stated the following, “In fact, domestic violence reports increased by 46% in Othello, Washington after the eruption of Mount St. Helens, along with increases in reported alcohol abuse, family stress, and aggression. After Hurricane Katrina, reports of psychological abuse among women by their partner increased 35% while reports of partner physical abuse nearly doubled in the southernmost Mississippi counties. Similar significant increases in domestic violence have been reported following earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, and many other catastrophic events around the world, including the 2009 “Black Saturday” bushfires in Australia and 2010 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti.”30 Abuse within the home is considered “one of the most common forms of violence against women worldwide.”31 The United Nations “urge[d] all governments to put women’s safety first as they respond to the pandemic.”32 The abuse crisis was not always addressed with utmost importance; “as with the response to the virus itself, the delays mean that irreparable harm may already have occurred.”33 Now, we deal with the aftermath. The violence that countless women and children experience is astronomical. When confined to the home, especially during COVID-19, abusers feel entitled to even more power than before. This violence must come to an end. Organizations are trying despite the limitation of resources to provide services to survivors. Let the violence against women and children stop along with the virus that plagues the world.
Research shows that women and children are affected by these injustices and abuses worldwide due to the systemic issue of gender inequality where grown men feel superior over women.
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Satellites Written Anonymously
Illustrated by Elizabeth Fleming
Of all the days it could have happened, I never thought it would be today. Not this soon. I never expected to see the message and instantly know: he’s dead. I thought we had more time, that we had years of playing at satellites, revolving around one another in our different orbits, pretending we didn’t have the courage to reset our gravitational pull. Years of pretending we didn’t want to try again. Now we don’t get to. I think I always knew it would happen this way. But I used to believe I was being dramatic, overthinking those short, vague texts. In those moments of wondering, my amygdala would hijack all sense and punch a heavy dose of cortisol through my system. I was infused with visions of what I feared the most, worst-case scenarios reeling through my mind. Eventually, I would talk myself down, but really, all I did was double cross myself with a false sense of security. I cannot fathom what you lived with, but I wish you had been braver—brave enough to speak. I wish you hadn’t felt so stuck in that dark place where you felt unwilling or unable to seek a way out. I always wanted to understand you, hoped you would consider letting me in or tell me anything even if you weren’t ready to say everything. Remember our promise? It wasn’t our time yet. Now, it never will be. I’ve always imagined my brain as a spider web
stretched farther than I can imagine. So many things are connected that shouldn’t go together at first glance, but they do—the strands link them so clearly. I’m sure there are some who know us who believe we aren’t connected anymore, that we haven’t been for a while. But we were. We are. We will be. It doesn’t matter what others think. Maybe we were only meant to be for the time we were given. A brief gravitational anomaly that sent us catapulting out toward the rest of our lives, forever changed and strong enough to grow apart even if we both wanted to grow together. My heart breaks for every moment I was not brave enough to reach out. I wish I’d said to hell with what people thought. I wish we’d both been braver. There is no changing the past, and the chance we had to shape a future together has passed. But our memories remain. I’ll keep them safe for us, woven into the threads of my life. Wherever you are, I think they’ll be safe with you, too. Blips transcending space and time, life and death. Heard in the echoes of our laughter, corded tight in the blankets of our youthful mistakes, cradled by our shared secrets, hidden in the silence of what we should have said but didn’t. At least you now know what I wanted to say. Maybe next time we won’t be satellites.
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One Glorious Whole Written by Cristina Rancano Illustrated by Lauren Gietzen
Have you ever looked into someone’s eyes And seen a strike of lightning connection? Have you ever felt your heart rise As if a part of yourself were resurrected? Have you ever cried on the earth, prostrate, Succumbed to the stones of pain and grief? In the arms of a treasured soulmate, Whose presence brought waves of relief? This is the gift of a true friend, One that not everyone knows. A love that never will bend, A light that only will grow. A seed planted in the heart, A bridge built between souls. A true, immortal part Of one glorious whole. A true friend’s loyalty runs deep. Invisible and real and unshakeable And their love for you is not cheap. But genuine and true and unbreakable. A true friend is like treasure, like gold, Only infinitely more sublime. The entwining of your souls, the light you both hold, Withstands the test of time. A kindred spirit is difficult to find. But I am certain in my mind That there is one for every soul, For we are all a part of one glorious whole.
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Written by Barbara Hughes Illustrated by Ghina Fawaz
When I was younger, I would come to your room. the room that meant nothing more besides an offering of endless sunlight for the parade of dimness and detachment. I could go to you, my friend, when your heart had been bludgeoned blue, and you were gasping for breath. I could always tell you that nothing was lost. Yes, the blue became the room. Now you seem haunted and obscured, you will leave me soon, you are being called to a different sky now. You say you are good, and I can leave, but how can I be good when you are broken behind me? You have become a ghost within the “me” of our friendship. FUCK CANCER
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Diagnosis Written by Taylor Ingrassia Illustrated by Katie Monaghan
Inspired by “Death Sentence (1881)” and John Greenleaf Whittier’s “Telling the Bees” When a beekeeper dies, someone must tell the bees. Someone must be charged with collecting swaths of black cloth and delivering them from hive to hive. Someone must speak softly of the loss to the workers weaving in and out of the honeycombs. For when the sun continues shining on, how else will the bees know to mourn? When the MRI is processed and analyzed, the doctor drapes the veil over the hive. And you must now continue to work, but in darkness. The sun will shine, but for months, you will not feel it. You will not see it through the cloth that remains draped over your eyes, the color of the rain on the day of the wake that will stream from your hair and stain the sky gray. People from other colonies will not understand why you now stumble as if blind. And you will not understand why your father had to die. For years, these are the kinds of thoughts that will drip through the shower faucet, will spill onto your pillowcase in the moments before sleep. The kinds that will flood and soak through the shoes and skin on your feet. The kinds you will want to whisper to the bees. But when the veil is lifted, won’t the blue be that much brighter? And in the wake of a loss, won’t the world have a way of remaining unchanged? The petunias in your garden will rise each morning. The mourning doves will sing sweetly to the skies: Alive, alive. Isn’t that a diagnosis in its own right? Young honeybee, the beekeeper has died. And the sun still shines. And the flowers bloom and fill to bursting with pollen. And honey gathers sweet within the hive. And your life will be happy and peaceful. Your life will be happy and peaceful.
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FOOTNOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY - EXCERPTS FROM PATHWAY TO DIVERSITY [p.3]
[24] Paul Ortiz, “Ocoee, Florida: Remembering the Single Bloodiest Day in Modern U.S. Political History.” Facing South: A Voice for a Changing South, May 14, 2010. https://www.facingsouth.org/2010/05/ocoee-florida-remembering-the-singlebloodiest-day-in-modern-us-political-history.html. [25] Martin Comas, “Sanford Park No Longer Honors Chief Who Booted Jackie Robinson from Game Because of Race.” Orlando Sentinel, August 11, 2020. [26] Harry T. Moore, “Resolutions Adopted by the Florida State Conference, NAACP, Lake Wales.” November 1947. [27] Wenxian Zhang, Raja Rahim and Julian Chambliss, “Race and Sport in the Florida Sun: The Rollins/Ohio Wesleyan Football Game of 1947.” Phylon 56:2 (2019): 59-81. [28] “Remarks by Hamilton Holt at the Annie Russell Theatre.” November 28, 1947. Rollins College Archives, Winter Park, Florida. [9] Black Undergraduates at Rollins, 1964-1970. Box 5, African American Students, Folder 7, Student Recruitment 1970s. Student Organizations and Histories, Rollins Clubs and Cultural Organizations. Rollins College Archives & Special Collections, Winter Park, FL. https://archives.rollins.edu/digital/collection/students/id/380. [10] Tony Layng, “Black Students at Rollins,” Interview, Alumni Magazine, February 1970 (page 7): https://archives.rollins.edu/digital/collection/students/id/378. [11] Ibid. [12] Ibid, pages 6-8. [13] Ibid.
FOOTNOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY - THE FOUNDING OF NON COMPIS MENTIS [p.7]
[1] Anonymous. Cartoon. Sandspur, 6 March 1972. [2] Anonymous. “Pan Hell Approves N.C.M.” Sandspur, 6 Nov 1970. [3] Castro, Micaela. NCM Pledge Class 2015, interviewed by author, 29 November 2020, notes in possession of the author. [4] G. K. “A Unique Experience.” Sandspur, 23 Oct 1970. [5] Habib, Alice. NCM Pledge Class 2016, interviewed by author, 29 November 2020, notes in possession of the author. [6] Hilberth, Nicole. “NCM Drive.” Sandspur, 29 April 1999. [7] Johnson, Gail E. Memo to Administration and Faculty from NCM. 1972, Non Compis Mentis Collection, RCASC. [8] Klein, Gil. “Pi Phis Cast Off National.” Sandspur, 23 Oct 1970. [9] Neu, Alexis. “N.C.M. Divided.” Sandspur, 19 March 2010. [10] “Remarks on the N.C.M. Constitution.” 8 Feb 1971, Non Compis Mentis Collection, RCASC. [11] Susko, Cathy. NCM Pledge Class 1972, interviewed by author, 5 Dec 2020, recording and notes in possession of the author. [12] Allen, Marco. “Local sororities amend constitutions to include non-binary people.” The Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire. 3 July 2020. [13] Bennet, Jessica. “When a Feminist Pledges a Sorority.” New York Times. 9 April 2016. [14] Callan, Sean, and Manley Burke. “Non-binary Gender in a Binary System.” Fraternal Law Newsletter. November 2017. [15] Dell’Antonia, KJ. “Sororities: Sisterhood, With More Than One Price Tag.” New York Times. 30 Oct 2014. [16] DeSantis, Alan D. Inside Greek U.: Fraternities, Sororities, and the Pursuit of Pleasure, Power, and Prestige. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2007. [17] Giddings, Paula. In Search of Sisterhood: Delta Sigma Theta and the Challenge of the Black Sorority Movement. United States: HarperCollins, 1988 [18] Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz. Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End of the Eighteenth Century to the Present. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987. [19] Robbins, Alexandra. Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities. New York: Hyperion, 2004. [20] Rollins College. “Fraternity & Sorority Life.” Last accessed December 18, 2020. https://www.rollins.edu/fraternity-sorority-life/
FOOTNOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY - FEMINISM IN THE BEDROOM [p.9]
[1] Hochschild, Arlie and Anne Machung. The Second Shift: Working Families and the Revolution at Home. New York, 2012, Penguin Group. [2] Herbenick, Debby et al. “An Event-Level Analysis of the Sexual Characteristics and Composition Among Adults ages 18-59: Results from a [6] National Probability Sample in the United States.” The Journal of Sexual Medicine, vol. 7, no. 5, 2012, pp. 346-361. [3] Wade, Lisa et al. “The Incidental Orgasm: The Presence of Clitoral Knowledge and the Absence of Orgasm for Women.” Women & Health, vol. 42, no. 1, 2005, pp. 117-138. [4] Fredrick et al. “Differences in Orgasm Frequency among Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Heterosexual Men and Women in a U.S. National Sample.” Archives of Sexual Behavior, vol.47, no. 1, 2018, pp. 273-288. [5] Ibid. [6] Carvalheira, Ana, et al. “Masturbation Among Women: Associated Factors and Sexual Response in a Portuguese Community Sample”. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, vol. 39, no. 4, 2013, pp. 347-367.; Hite, Shere. The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality. New York, Seven Stories Press, 1976. [7] Armstrong et al. “Accounting for Women’s Orgasm and Sexual Enjoyment in College Hookups and Relationships.” American Sociological Review, vol. 77, no. 3, 2012, pp. 435-462. [8] Ibid. [9] Ibid. [10] Herbenick, Debby et al. “An Event-Level Analysis of the Sexual Characteristics and Composition Among Adults ages 18-59: Results from a [6] National Probability Sample in the United States.” The Journal of Sexual Medicine, vol. 7, no. 5, 2012, pp. 346-361.
FOOTNOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY - PEDAGOGY OF A PANDEMIC [p.14]
[1] Desai, Saahil. The Real Lesson of the College Closures. 16 Mar. 2020, www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2020/03/coronavirus-college-closure-disaster-students/608095/. [2] Pratt, Scott. “To Survive Pandemics, Look To Indigenous Life.” Dewey Studies Special Issue: Creative Democracy in The Age of Pandemic and Police Violence, vol. 4, no. 1, 2020, pp. 165-173: 167. [3] Lupinacci, John. “Get It Together: Education in a Dangerous Time” Dewey Studies Special Issue: Creative Democracy in The Age of Pandemic and Police Violence, vol. 4, no. 1, 2020, pp. 102-109: 105. [4] Featherstone, Liza. “Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed at Fifty.” Black Agenda Report, 28 Oct. 2020, blackagendareport.com/paulo-freires-pedagogy-oppressed-fifty. [5] Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum, 2007: 48. [6] Johnson, Tre. “When Black People Are in Pain, White People Just Join Book Clubs.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 13 June 2020, www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/white-antiracist-allyship-book-clubs/2020/06/11/9edcc766-abf5-11ea-94d2d7bc43b26bf9_story.html.; Phruksachart, Melissa. “The Literature of White Liberalism.” Boston Review, 15 Dec. 2020, bostonreview.net/race/melissa-phruksachart-literature-white-liberalism. [7] Phruksachart, Melissa. “The Literature of White Liberalism.” Boston Review, 15 Dec. 2020, bostonreview.net/race/melissa-phruksachart-literature-white-liberalism. ww.jstor.org/stable/26758832.
FOOTNOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY - FIGHTING AN OLD BATTLE UNDER NEW CIRCUMSTANCES [p.21]
[1] Rauhaus, Beth M. Sibila, Deborah. Johnson, Andrew F. “Addressing the Increase of Domestic Violence and Abuse During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Need for Empathy, Care, and Social Equity in Collaborative Planning and Responses.” SAGE. American Review of Public Administration 2020. Vol. 50(6-7) 668–674. [2] Ibid. [3] Taub, Amanda. “A New Covid-19 Crisis: Domestic Abuse Rises Worldwide.” New York Times. April 2020. [4] Ibid. [5] Ibid. [6] Faiola, Anthony. Herrero, An Vanessa. “For women and children around the world, a double plague: Coronavirus and domestic violence.” Washington Post. 6 September 2020. [7] Rauhaus, Beth M. Sibila, Deborah. Johnson, Andrew F. “Addressing the Increase of Domestic Violence and Abuse During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Need for Empathy, Care, and Social Equity in Collaborative Planning and Responses.” SAGE. American Review of Public Administration 2020. Vol. 50(6-7) 668–674. [8] Taub, Amanda. “A New Covid-19 Crisis: Domestic Abuse Rises Worldwide.” New York Times. April 2020. [9] Faiola, Anthony. Herrero, An Vanessa. “For women and children around the world, a double plague: Coronavirus and domestic violence.” Washington Post. 6 September 2020. [10] Taub, Amanda. “A New Covid-19 Crisis: Domestic Abuse Rises Worldwide.” New York Times. April 2020. [11] Ibid. [12] Ibid. [13] Rauhaus, Beth M. Sibila, Deborah. Johnson, Andrew F. “Addressing the Increase of Domestic Violence and Abuse During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Need for Empathy, Care, and Social Equity in Collaborative Planning and Responses.” SAGE. American Review of Public Administration 2020. Vol. 50(6-7) 668–674. [14] Taub, Amanda. “A New Covid-19 Crisis: Domestic Abuse Rises Worldwide.” New York Times. April 2020. [15] Ibid. [16] Ibid. [17] Faiola, Anthony. Herrero, An Vanessa. “For women and children around the world, a double plague: Coronavirus and domestic violence.” Washington Post. 6 September 2020. [18] Rauhaus, Beth M. Sibila, Deborah. Johnson, Andrew F. “Addressing the Increase of Domestic Violence and Abuse During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Need for Empathy, Care, and Social Equity in Collaborative Planning and Responses.” SAGE. American Review of Public Administration 2020. Vol. 50(6-7) 668–674. [19] Dvorak, Petula. “Domestic abuse has risen during the pandemic. Groups like the House of Ruth are ready.” Washington Post. 1 October 2020. [20] Ibid. [21] Rauhaus, Beth M. Sibila, Deborah. Johnson, Andrew F. “Addressing the Increase of Domestic Violence and Abuse During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Need for Empathy, Care, and Social Equity in Collaborative Planning and Responses.” SAGE. American Review of Public Administration 2020. Vol. 50(6-7) 668–674. [22] Ibid. [23] Dvorak, Petula. “Domestic abuse has risen during the pandemic. Groups like the House of Ruth are ready.” Washington Post. 1 October 2020. [24] Faiola, Anthony. Herrero, An Vanessa. “For women and children around the world, a double plague: Coronavirus and domestic violence.” Washington Post. 6 September 2020. [25] Ibid. [26] Rauhaus, Beth M. Sibila, Deborah. Johnson, Andrew F. “Addressing the Increase of Domestic Violence and Abuse During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Need for Empathy, Care, and Social Equity in Collaborative Planning and Responses.” SAGE. American Review of Public Administration 2020. Vol. 50(6-7) 668–674. [27] Ibid. [28] Faiola, Anthony. Herrero, An Vanessa. “For women and children around the world, a double plague: Coronavirus and domestic violence.” Washington Post. 6 September 2020. [29] Rauhaus, Beth M. Sibila, Deborah. Johnson, Andrew F. “Addressing the Increase of Domestic Violence and Abuse During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Need for Empathy, Care, and Social Equity in Collaborative Planning and Responses.” SAGE. American Review of Public Administration 2020. Vol. 50(6-7) 668–674. [30] Campbell, Andrew. “An increasing risk of family violence during the Covid-19 pandemic: Strengthening community collaborations to save lives.” ELSEVIER. Forensic Science International Reports. 2020. [31] Rauhaus, Beth M. Sibila, Deborah. Johnson, Andrew F. “Addressing the Increase of Domestic Violence and Abuse During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Need for Empathy, Care, and Social Equity in Collaborative Planning and Responses.” SAGE. American Review of Public Administration 2020. Vol. 50(6-7) 668–674. [32] Taub, Amanda. “A New Covid-19 Crisis: Domestic Abuse Rises Worldwide.” New York Times. April 2020. [33] Ibid.
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