A short book reflection by Shira Devorah 

Just a few moments ago I finished Janet Mock’s memoir, Redefining Realness, My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More. I’m still stunned. I’m not much of a memoir reader, but I’m pretty sure this book has changed that.

here’s a link to buy the book on Amazon!

Thanks to a generous donation from UMBC’s LGBTQ Faculty & Staff Association, I was able to snatch up this book from the Women’s Center’s very own lending library! Over the past couple of days, I have been relishing every moment of Janet Mock and her story. Mock, a trans woman of color, takes her readers through her life from early childhood until now. In a whirlwind of wit and poignancy, she shares herself with us.

I am not ashamed to admit that I cried a whole bunch throughout this book. Mock fought tooth and nail to become the woman she is today, and though she has been through a lot of pain and oppression, she never falters in her stance as an activist. Every personal recollection comes with a lesson Mock has for her readers. She challenges us to be better people, to see others more complexly, to  be critical of systems of inequality and injustice that exist all around us. Mock allows her readers to peak into incredibly sensitive parts of her, and trusts us to learn from the barriers she faced in her girlhood and adolescence.

I think this memoir is a wonderful introduction to intersectional identities and social justice. Any person who picks up this book will be gently introduced to many concepts that they might not have been privy to beforehand.  While I feel like I know a bit about many issues touched upon in this book, I have been changed  by her discussions. Mock pushes readers to confront poverty, trans issues, multiculturalism, drug use, sexual abuse and sex work. White, middle-class people like me  are made to confront our privilege and come out of this book with a better understanding of other’s lives. I am so lucky to get a chance to grow with Janet through the pages of her self discovery.

I highly suggest this book to anyone and everyone. As a trigger warning, Mock discusses her personal experiences of sexual abuse and sex work, so please practice self care if you plan to borrow this book from the Women’s Center after I return it.

If you’ve already read Redefining Realness and need more Janet Mock in your life, check out her awesome blog!

If you want more  info about the book itself, here’s a quick interview she did with Slate back in 2014.

I first learned about Janet Mock through Her Story, an awesome web-series  written by and starring trans women, so you should totally check that out.  Here’s an Interview with Janet and Jen Richards, co-creator of HerStory.

So go out there and read, friends! I’ll be updating periodically on the rest of my summer reading books from my summer reading challenge. Happy Reading!

Happy 5th of July! Okay, so I missed by a day but it’s time for another 5 things. This post will hopefully help rising juniors and seniors find a college that fits them and their needs and navigate “the process” as many are calling it now.

1. Do your homework! – I’m not talking about geometry or chemistry here (but still do that type of homework).  There are over 4,000 colleges and universities in the United States. You have a ton of options and all that choice can be overwhelming. For many of you, you haven’t had a say in your education to this point. Study up on a variety of schools that offer a few majors that you are interested in. There are a plethora of resources to help you such as the Princeton Review’s College Search, Big Future from the College Board, and US News Best College Search Tool. Check with your high school to see if you have access to Naviance. These will let you sort schools based on size, location, areas of study, cost to attend, and a number of other factors. Make a list of 10 or so colleges to put some additional work into once you have identified them as schools of interest.
2. Start Local – We need to take some small steps before we really get running. Check out local area universities or colleges on a weekend that you are free. Explore a large, medium, and small school (keep in mind those are all relative to your preference) that are relatively close to home. You may not be interested in that particular school but it can help you gauge the scale of the university and if you would fit in at that university. Try contacting the Admissions Office at the school for tour dates/times.
3. Attend a College Fair – Chances are, you will have a college fair in your area (or within an hour drive) this coming fall. College admission representatives spend months every fall bringing their universities to you. These fairs are great opportunities to ask a lot of different institutions about your future! Avoid pitfalls though (I may make a future 5 Things about college fairs) but talk to schools you haven’t heard of, gather information, ask questions that will help you past application requirements, and decide if the university requires more of your search time.
4. Visit “Your Schools” – I really struggled with placement on this list item. Certain students may have this as a last step depending on resources or distance of a university from home. You can do all the research in the world on a school but until you step foot on campus, you will never really know if that place is going to be “home” for the next four years. This is called a lot of different things but most admissions professionals call this “fit.” The feeling a student gets where they are comfortable to study, live, explore, build relationships, and a 1,000 other things. Colleges and universities are a lot like people in the sense that they have different values and views on the world. Taking the time to visit your top universities is a critical step in the college search process.
5. Pick Your 5 – This piece may be the most important (and I’m stealing it from a colleague of mine). I personally believe the single biggest pitfall in the college search is the concept of a “dream school,” or a single school that you are putting everything into. It creates a lot of negativity in the search where other schools are treated like inferior options and are in some cases labeled “safety schools.” The alternative I recommend is getting a “Fit Five” or five schools that you would be more than happy to attend if you are accepted and the schools financially work with your circumstances. These five schools can look very different as well, academically, socially, physically, and geographically. That is perfectly fine. It allows you, as a student, to focus your time, effort, and energy on a selection of schools that are manageable to visit, contact the admissions officer, plan a visit, and work on the application all while maintain a busy high school life. This approach gives you choice while avoiding a lot of the negativity associated with the college search process.

So this has been a bit longer winded than most 5 Things but I sincerely hope it helps. As always, you are welcome to contact us at UMBC’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions with any question. Leave a comment below if you have questions or if you would like me to write about a specific topic for a future “5 Things With Ed.”

Happy belated Independence Day and enjoy this wonderful week!

-ED

Are conservatives going to start shooting people?

The Beltway Right is defending so-called “assault weapons” because they are the final check on government repression. After Alex Jones’s typically bombastic performance on Piers Morgan, Breitbart.com contributor and controlled opposition Ben Shapiro appeared to play the “reasonable conservative” across from the C-list celebrity hacker. He argued that the American people need AR-15s because they provide a concrete way to resist the state. Piers Morgan was of course indignant, arguing that the military could easily kill any Americans that dared oppose them.

Let’s leave aside the obvious conclusion that the likes of Piers Morgan are fantasizing about the military mowing down conservatives. We already know that progressivism has grown to love the police state. What is more interesting is even the simpering castrati of the Beltway have taken a break from denouncing the “black genocide” of abortion, condemning Nazis like Chuck Hagel, and urging more immigration to indulge in their own dreams of righteous violence.

They are, after all, correct—the Second Amendment, is, as they say, not about deer hunting. As America’s military is well into year 11 of the War in Afghanistan against illiterate tribesman armed with antiquated weapons, the likes of Shapiro seem to have a better grasp on the potential of insurgency and guerrilla warfare than Field Marshal Morgan.

That said, even though they’re right, what are conservatives really saying here? Let’s spell it out. Resisting government tyranny with rifles means that Americans will someday shoot the servants of the state when some line is crossed. This means killing police officers, soldiers, security personnel, and, presumably, politicians. Forget euphemism: are conservatives willing to say what they are actually proposing?

Of course, a typical American conservative would protest that he’s not saying we should shoot people now, but at some future point when a line is crossed. Some of my more dedicated libertarian colleagues are fond of saying that “we are at that awkward point where it is too late to work within the system but too early to start shooting the bastards.” Fair enough. Who do we shoot and when? Where is the line?

Is it when the government starts telling you what you can do with your property? Well, we haven’t had that right since the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and various additions, court rulings, and regulatory expansions have restricted it further. While the abuse of eminent domain hasn’t quite reached Chinese levels, the Kelo ruling from the Supreme Court gives government the right to confiscate your property for minimal recompense, in order to help the investments of the rich.

How about government taking your children from you? Well, they can do that. It can be because you lost a divorce case. It can be because the government doesn’t like the names you gave them. It can be over your political beliefs. It can be over your religion—assuming they don’t just kill your family in order to “protect” them, like they did atWaco and Ruby Ridge. It can even be just for the hell of it.

How about telling you what you can eat or drink? Well, the government sends armed men to arrest people for drinking raw milk in the land of the free. And don’t you dare try to open a lemonade stand.

Shutting down your business and destroying your livelihood? Well, that happens all the time. It can be because of the “environment.” It can be because of “racism.” It can be because of regulation. It can be because they just don’t like you.

Waging wars of aggression based on faulty information? Well . . . conservatives, at least some of them, tend to like that. But yeah, we do that too.

That’s it! God! People fight in the name of God. Will the dreaded American Religious Right rise in righteous fury against the Babylon on the Potomac that sanctions infanticide, celebrates gay marriage, and wages unrelenting war against Christianity in the public square? Actually, evangelicals are more likely to die for the Beast, though they are despised by their masters. And the main concern of evangelical leaders right now is that America doesn’t have enough Mexicans.

What about freedom of speech? It’s true that the United States still has the First Amendment. While it is used to defend pornography, obscenity, and various other filth, in theory it should actually protect political speech. In this country, it does. You won’t be arrested for saying something politically incorrect. The state will just help your enemies have you fired, threatened, stripped of property, defamed, and physically attacked.

But you won’t be arrested. Definitely not. That only happens in dictatorships like Great Britain, France, or Germany, which presumably American conservatives are willing to overthrow.

Arbitrary taxation? Sending “swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance”? Hounding people to the grave so the government has more money to give to powerful bankers? Yup, yup, yup.

Ah! Discrimination. We can all agree the oppressed should rise up against that. Well, whites are discriminated against in jobs and education. Schools defame them as a group. Minorities and immigrants receive preferential treatment when starting a business, making it difficult to compete. And the real problem the country faces is . . . white privilege.

Well, at least you can vote your way out. Like when Michigan outlawed affirmative action. Oh wait . . . actually the courts threw that out because they said it would hurt minorities. The law is the law, unless a Leftist says it will make blacks feel sad. Then it doesn’t count. So that doesn’t work either. Same with Proposition 187 in California a decade ago. Good thing that immigration never had any bad impacts on California.

Well, there is one thing which definitely serves as the definition of tyranny. If government can seize you, without trial, without charges, without counsel, and then have you killed, that is tyranny.

Oh . . . actually they do that too.

Here’s the problem. You have a country where whites are officially discriminated against by the government and have their earnings savaged by taxes and inflation. They work long hours if they are lucky enough to find a job so they can subsidize people who hate them. They send their kids to schools that teach them they are evil. Meanwhile, other laws are openly ignored so non-white immigrants can displace them from jobs, resources, and political power. If, out of desperation, they join the armed services, they will be sent to die in wars fought for the benefit of someone else. In fact, one of the people they are supposed to be fighting “for” will probably be the one who shoots them. And there’s no way out.

All of this exists today in what used to be our country. Elsewhere in the Western world, it is actually worse. What is more likely—that National Review publishes a call to take up arms or that it pushes a new editorial about how conservatives can win minority voters with talk about the economy?

That said, there is an answer as to when people will finally be ready to start shooting back. People will use their guns against the government . . . when the government comes to take their guns.

Of course, this has it all backwards. The guns are supposed to protect something other than themselves—property, family, liberty, anything. Instead, Americans are only willing to use their guns in order to defend their guns.

The fact is this country is far more repressive, tyrannical, and totalitarian than anything we revolted against the British for. As James Mason points out about His Majesty George III, “This man could have been called a lot of things, but he couldn’t be called evil.” The American government, as a collective entity, is evil. Yet here we are, pretending we are free, defending our revolutionary heritage when all of the critical battles have already been fought and lost. If self-government means anything, we’ve already lost it. If tyranny means anything other than “scary uniforms,” it’s already here.

Conservatives aren’t going to shoot anybody. They soil themselves when someone calls them racist, and we are supposed to believe that they are going to take the “God bless our troops” stickers off their SUVs and start mowing down Marines?

Even though I despise gun-grabbing liberals, let me give them some unsolicited advice. Call conservatives’ bluff.

Let’s have progressives ask conservatives when they think it is right to start killing people. Let’s cut the nonsense. Let’s see what conservatives actually think they are fighting for and what they think is important. My guess is they don’t even know.

Perhaps it is better if they take our guns. At least then the Beltway Right won’t have any more excuses. We’ll be serfs, but at least we’ll be serfs without illusions. Then, maybe, we can do something about it besides bluster.

We’re so pleased that the PROMISE Dissertation House sessions are so popular, and we are especially thankful to all of the people who have been involved and who have finished their dissertations as part of the DH! Since space is limited, and since we know that everyone has busy schedules, we maintain a Dissertation House online for those who can’t join us in person. All participants in the DH who are with us in person must blog daily while they are in the session, but we invite all and all who desire to join us to come into the “DH Online.” We’ll see you there! https://dissertationhouse.wordpress.com/blog-online-challenge/summer-2016-challenge/

We’re spending part of our holiday answering messages, and we’re looking forward to assisting you as you jump in to meet your writing goals!

The Dissertation House – Summer 2016 Challenge is open! Post! Let us know what you’re doing. Are you working on… https://t.co/y1F02ZIl1z

— PROMISE: MD’s AGEP (@PROMISE_AGEP) July 2, 2016

Working on dissertations? Join coach @drwcarter & me for our @PROMISE_AGEP Dissertation House #SummerChallenge https://t.co/Xj73eaZCsP

— Renetta G. Tull (@Renetta_Tull) July 2, 2016

Coaches: Dr. Wendy Carter-Veale, Dr. Renetta G. Tull

Over the holiday weekend, the Dissertation House online opened, and we already have several students who have come over to join! The Dissertation House at UMBC which will house approximately 12-15 students in-person during the week with workshops, writing sessions, and meals, will also feature blogging activities. Since space is limited, we have invited others to join us online. This invitation extends to you. If you are working on your dissertation this summer, or if you SHOULD be working on your dissertation, we invite you to join us. Click here: https://dissertationhouse.wordpress.com/blog-online-challenge/summer-2016-challenge/

The Dissertation House – Summer 2016 Challenge is open! Post! Let us know what you’re doing. Are you working on… https://t.co/y1F02ZIl1z

— PROMISE: MD’s AGEP (@PROMISE_AGEP) July 2, 2016

Working on dissertations? Join coach @drwcarter & me for our @PROMISE_AGEP Dissertation House #SummerChallenge https://t.co/Xj73eaZCsP

— Renetta G. Tull (@Renetta_Tull) July 2, 2016

Coaches: Dr. Wendy Carter-Veale, Dr. Renetta G. Tull

Summer Dissertation House Challenge Photo Credits: Paul J. Everett, “Hot Air Balloon Summer Heat Festival,” and DarlArthurS’ “Colorado Springs Hot Air Balloon Competition,” under Creative Commons attribution 2.0. The Summer 2016 Dissertation House is co-sponsored by The Graduate School at UMBC, and by PROMISE: Maryland’s AGEP.