Category: Event Reviews

On Friday, April 12^th, I attended Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s keynote speech in the Corey Union Function Room titled “Braiding Sweetgrass: What does the Earth Ask of Us?”  Dr. Kimmerer’s speech was completely fantastic and moving, and I’m so glad I decided to bring my laptop and was able to take notes on some of concepts she shared.  Something that really stuck out to me was her overall (Native) approach/perspective on our relationship with the Earth.  Dr. Kimmerer discussed her transition to college where she was asked why she wanted to be a botanist by one of her professors, and her response was untraditional; she wanted to study the beauty of plants.  She described in detail her relationship to plants and the Earth; that she was raised to understand that plants were her brothers and sisters.  She proceeded to make the claim that “It is not the land which is broken, but our relationship to the land.”  This perspective is very new to me, but it’s something that makes perfect sense.  She claimed that in order to move forward and save the planet we need to fix our relationship with the land, our Earth, and a way of doing that is by accepting and taking on Native thought processes.

 

Additionally, I think she made an excellent point to reference higher education’s participation in Native American people’s erasure in higher education.  Personally, I grew up just 20 minutes away from the Seneca Nation territory, however, it is mind boggling to me that even in the state of New York, where we have multiple Native reservations, the education that we, as students receive about Native American culture and history is quite poor.  I strongly agree Dr. Kimmerer’s claim that higher education plays an important role in our understanding of aspects of Native culture and its values.  I think that it can be difficult for people to change their relationship with the Earth because of how most of us were educated or raised to think about Earth and how we use it as opposed to this healthy, balanced, and respectful relationship that Dr. Kimmerer discussed thoroughly in her speech on Friday.  Near the end of her speech, Dr. Kimmerer shared her thoughts on what it means to be educated.  She said that “an educated person knows their gifts and how to give them to the world.”  Again, she shares with us a unique, but quite positive perspective and mindset.  After listening to Dr. Kimmerer, it is very clear that she deeply values education, but contrary to what most people think of as the “correct” form of education, Dr. Kimmerer strongly believes that education comes from everything around you, especially our planet.

 

Overall, I was very moved by Dr. Kimmerer’s speech.  It really opened my eyes to a perspective I had never been made aware of, but once I heard her speak more about it, this perspective sat very well with me.  I hope I can continue to learn more about Native culture throughout my academic journey because I strongly feel it will well round me not only as a student, but as a person.

In “Citizen: An American Lyric” there are a lot of ideas that are brought up regarding racism. One of them is the idea of evolving anger, how acts in the past build to something greater. Rankine brings up a video by Hennessy Youngman, and in that video he says “the anger built up through experience and the quotidian struggles against dehumanization every brown or black person lives simply because of skin color.”(24) This is powerful because in our everyday lives there are small things that in the moment may not affect us but as time goes on that small thing grows bigger, especially when recurring. For example, in 2004 Serena Williams was participating in the US Open and she was put at a disadvantage and subsequently lost the game. This was because of five bad calls. With that she left calmly and didn’t make a scene during the game. After the game Williams said “I’m very angry and bitter right now. I felt cheated. Shall I go on? I just feel robbed.”(27)A year later technology was added to be able to challenge plays, so whatever the official said was not the final word and avoided these outcomes.  Comparing that to 5 years later in 2009, there was another match where Serena got a bad call and lost her temper. But instead of keeping it inside, she let her anger out. Audre Lorde says “that her response to racism is anger. I have lived with that anger, on that anger, beneath that anger, on top of that anger, ignoring that anger, feeding upon that anger, learning to use that anger before it laid my visions to waste, for most of my life. Once I did it in silence, afraid of the weight of that anger. My fear of that anger taught me nothing. Your fear of that anger will teach you nothing.”(278) This relates to how anger is used, and in this moment what happened to Serena. She had so much pent up anger that was never resolved. She ended up cursing at the umpire and this caught a lot of people’s attention. She ended up getting an $82,500 fine and could not play for two years. During the dispute Williams used the word “again. And this can draw your attention back to the first time and how she kept all her feelings inside. So maybe there was a better way that she could have approached the unfair ruling. But when in the moment it is challenging to keep your composure. This relates to how there is an evolution of anger, a strong emotion that helps humans fight adversary. And through that 5 year period she learned to stop fearing her anger and to embrace it. For that anger is what allows her to fight for injustices in the world.

From pages 40 to 55 there are small stories that are based on racist acts and microaggressions. Towards the end of that section there is a picture that is given, “plastic letter stencils, smudging oil sticks, and graphite” was used for this art by Glenn Ligon. The left side says “I do not always feel colored” and the right side says “I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background.” Both of these are repeated numerous times as it gets lower it gets darker. For me this relates to the idea of what Serena went through as well as microaggressions. As it happens more and more you get into a darker place mentally. On the surface it seems fine but there still is a lot of hidden emotion that has yet to come out. There could also be a retreat into a more common place. If the white background symbolizes a white place than the darker it gets, that could be going back into a place that is more familiar to you. That relates to the left part of the drawing, where the speaker does not feel colored because his color is no longer a part of his identity. Because everyone is the same there is no space for feeling different. 

Lastly are the examples and the story, every story is different but there is a common theme in all of them. There is an offense happening to someone of color and there isn’t much thought about it, or there is never the recognition that something occurred. There are so many examples of this happening and the strive for wanting better. Rankine finishes the chapter off by saying “just getting along shouldn’t be an ambition.” This is sadly what a lot of people go through and as someone of color, it makes it a lot harder to not fall in this category. 

 

• Why do people only care about a problem when there is outrage, rather than stopping it when the problem is small? What can we do to stop that?
• What does Glenn Ligon’s stencil drawing say to you? Are there any similarities between the drawing, Serena Williams, and microaggressions? 

 

          On Friday, April 12th, 2024 from 4:30- 5:30 pm in Corey Union’s function room, I went to Robin Wall Kimmerer’s lecture on her book “Braiding Sweetgrass”. I really enjoyed her lecture, and learned a lot about her background and where her ideas for the book came from. I liked how she started off with an introduction on herself, speaking in a different language at first was a very interesting and fun way of starting off her lecture. I think by her sharing her own background, she added a personal touch to her lecture, and made it seem like less of a lecture and more of her just talking to us. She then talked about the Nagaan ge bezhig emkwaan flag (meaning the dish with one spoon treaty belt), which was an agreement between the two confederacies that shared the same homeland, agreeing to keep the “bowl” clean and full without suffering. This idea of keeping the same “bowl” clean and full was a way of sharing and bringing the community together, focusing on keeping their shared homeland clean and respected. Instead of constantly taking from the Earth, they were being asked to protect and care for it, which was a main focal point of Robin Kimmerer’s lecture. This was one of my favorite parts of the lecture because it was a way to connect and bring everyone together, even if they were different in other aspects of their life, they all shared one thing in common, their homeland. 

           Kimmerer then went on to speak about her actual book, “Braiding Sweetgrass”. She talked about the connection between braiding sweetgrass and a girl’s mother braiding her daughter’s hair. In each of these the person braiding is caring for the other person. For example, the mother is caring for her daughter by braiding her hair, so by us braiding the Earth, we are showing how we care and can protect the Earth. Which is why her book is titled this, because of how she learned and was taught to care for the Earth, and because she wanted to show everyone else how they could too protect and care for Earth. She then went on to explain her college life, taking us through her disappointment with her advisor meeting after learning she didn’t feel like she quite fit into her major. Kimmerer talked of being a botanist, which means she cared for plants, and spoke about her confliction within learning about this in her major. She asked us three questions that she had been thinking about when she tried describing her love of plants; why is this world so beautiful? Why plants make medicine? And why plants bend for baskets? And although I do not know the answer to these questions, I found them very fascinating. Lastly, I would like to end with a quote that Robin Wall Kimmerer shared with us that has stuck with me since her lecture, “it is not land that is broken, but our relationship to land”. 

This Black History Month, I attended the African American Sport and Civil Rights event on Wednesday, February 28 at Park Center, which was presented by Susan Rayl. The purpose of the event was to tell the stories of many famous African American athletes, most of whom are not well known. The athletes mentioned were Octavius Catto, Isaac Murphy, Marshall Taylor, Edwin B. Henderson, Robert Douglas with the New York Renaissance Five, Jesse Owens, Joe Louis, Tydie Picket, Louise Stokes, and Jackie Robinson. Throughout the presentation, Rayl showed us videos that summarized the history of the athletes and the impact they had on sports. These were some of the following athletes that I did not know about before attending the event.

One of the people mentioned was Robert Douglas, the manager of the New York Rens, who became the first African American manager of an all-Black professional basketball team. The team formed during the Harlem Renaissance, a period from the 1920s-1930’s when African American culture flourished nationwide. This is around the same time when Langston Hughes wrote many of his poems that we have read in class. The Rens dominated every league they played at the time, both White and Black leagues. The Rens won the World Championship of Professional Basketball in 1939, beating countless all-white teams throughout their career. The New York Rens left their impact by forever changing the sport of basketball by proving that the sport of basketball is for everyone.

Another group of athletes that were talked about were Tydie Picket and Louise Stokes, they were grouped together because they had very similar athletic achievements. Both women were Olympic runners, but Louise Stokes was the first African American woman to compete in Olympic history. Throughout their careers, both women faced discrimination on and off the track; yet they persevered and became very respected athletes. Unfortunately, most of their legacies have been covered by the tides of history. Recent efforts have been made to remember these women and thanks to the efforts of many interest groups, the legacies of these women are still preserved today.

I specifically mentioned these athletes because, before attending this event, I had no idea who these people and these teams were. Most, if not all the audience shared similar understandings. These athletes are not well known even though they heavily impacted the way people viewed these sports. Knowing who these athletes were and their impacts on sports allows us to have a better understanding of our history. My favorite quote that Rayl said was in her closing statement, she said that “Black history is American history.” As a history major myself, not many people seem to have that viewpoint when looking at the achievements of the United States.

Overall, the event was very insightful on the unsung heroes of American sports history. While the majority of people do not know who these heroes were, they certainly know their impacts on the sports they played. Without these athletes, the face of American sports may be completely different today.

 

           I went to the event presented by Provost Ann McClellan on February 29th, 2024 from 6:00 pm- 7:00 pm, in the Old Main Colloquium. The main message and purpose of this presentation was to teach the listeners about the history and influence of media Sherlock Holmes had/has on different genres in films, books and tv shows. Ann McClellan discussed the direct impact Sherlock Holmes as a predominant white male has had on Broadway (musicals and plays), silent films, American jazz, graphic novels, dystopian fiction and fan fiction, which are some examples of genres she used when discussing the past vs present. 

           Ann McClellan started off her presentation with background information on Sherlock Holmes’ character. His history of being the most portrayed character with a mostly white fandom, called the Baker Street Irregulars. After learning about the history of the character, Ann McClellan jumped into how Sherlock Holmes was affected through Broadway musicals. “In Dahomey”, a musical from 1903, was a play that had the first African American “Sherlock Holmes” (masked as a character called Shylock in the play), Bert Williams. She also discussed heavily the ideas of Blackface and how it was used. Bert Williams, although being an African American male, actually used Blackface when performing “In Dahomey”, he used white around his mouth area to make his facial expressions heightened. Williams, among other African American actors who also used Blackface, felt that if white actors could use Blackface and make money off of pretending to be another race, they should be able to do the same. Ann McClellan then moved on to a silent film from 1918, “A Black Sherlock Holmes”. This film reconciles with white characters as African American actors. They took the character Sherlock Holmes and made it into a story following a non white detective, assumed to be Sherlock Holmes. The character was identifiable as Sherlock Holmes because of the iconic hat he wore, which matched the one described and characterized with Sherlock Holmes. And because of the book he read in the opening scene, a guide on how to detect. Ann McClellan also discussed the ties of the colorblind casting issue surrounding this film, among others. I think both of these examples from the entertainment industry showed just how bias people are, even when it comes to fictional characters. 

           Ann McClellan then went on to the music industry, specifically jazz music. She talked about the heavy influence Sherlock Holmes had on jazz music, different bands catered their music towards this fictional character in order to appease to the hype from the public. One song she played for us was “Dr Watson and Mr. Holmes” from 1934, she also showed pictures of different members of bands and soloists who would dress up as Sherlock Holmes (or a detective with the iconic hat, which led people to assume they were dressing up as this character), and played clips of singers having Sherlock Holmes somewhere in their song (either by word or through description). Ann McClellan lastly discussed the popularity of Sherlock Holmes through books. The first fiction novel “The Hound of Justice” from 2019 was a detective book with heavy female representation. This was just one of the many novels written surrounding detectives with a mystery story. She then turned the presentation towards fanfiction using the website Archive of Our Own. She went into explicit detail about the website itself, sharing that it was primarily used for fans to write stories about fictional characters from their own perspective. Ann McClellan gave statistics about with Sherlock Holmes fanfiction written and catagrized with tags like #SherlockHolmes. The statistics read that Sherlock Holmes was written as a non white detective in only fifteen stories out of hundreds of thousands of stories. She ended her presentation with stating that just recently there has been movement towards Sherlock Holmes being differently raced other than white, and that is one of the high takeaways I got from this presentation. Both of these examples are also excellent examples of the biases people still have, even to this day. 

Today, February 29th, 2023 at 6 PM in Old Main on the Second floor in the Colloquium Room, SUNY Cortland Provost Ann McClellan provided the audience a presentation of facts and ideas calling the idea that Sherlock Holmes throughout history is almost always portrayed as a straight white male and that’s who we picture in our minds when someone says the name out loud. However, she challenged that agenda with evidence in film and records saved and published back in the 1910s and 1920s showing movies that portrayed and cast African Americans instead of the typical Caucasian white male. I found this part extremely interesting because I never knew there was ever a movie or a book where Sherlock Holmes was portrayed as an African American. Provost Ann McClellan explained that the reason we had just seen Sherlock Holmes depicted as an African American just now and not earlier in our lives was due to systematic racism. In the 1900s, especially the earlier parts, Hollywood and movie producers tried their absolute best to stay away from casting African Americans into roles as a way to avoid controversy with the public. It was seen as better to suppress African Americans from equal opportunity in the film industry than it was to take backlash casting them. Since film producers didn’t want to cast African Americans to play roles in movies or films, they decided to have white characters use dark makeup and burnt cork on their faces to make themselves look African American. This was extremely offensive because the white people who used black faces would use it as a method to mock and make African Americans look unintelligent and uncivilized.

Despite backlash and hatred from those with racism, the post-Reconstruction Era led to an increase in race films trying to show the everyday lives of an African American family living a normal life just as a white family would instead of the rude stereotypes that white people using black faces tried depicting them as. Phillip Brogdon was a big Sherlock Holmes fan. He was the first ever African American to be selected to be a part of the mostly white Sherlock Holmes society also known as the Baker Street Irregulars. He wrote a short text titled “ Sherlock in Black” challenging the idea that race and color define the human and not the character despite novels of African American versions of Sherlock Holmes books having them wear the same outfit as the white Sherlock Holmes. The first ever Sherlock Holmes that had an African American playing the lead role was in 1903. It helped connect with the Harlem Renaissance because of the music and the sense of unification through dancing and singing and not color. Later on, filmmakers tried to use a method called color-blind casting which meant that people who would be in the movies would not be able to be picked based on race or color and they would be completely random. This was seen as a way to balance or make everyone have more of an equal opportunity.

On February 14th of this year I had the privilege to attend an event held by Christopher Ortega talking about the life of Spike Lee and how significant he is in not only the film world but more importantly the black community. Coming into this event I was pretty excited because I am pretty familiar with Spike Lee but wanted to know more about his importance within the black community. I also remember watching his popular movie from 1989 titled “Do The Right Thing”. I was pleasantly surprised when the event started and this was the main subject of what we were going to be talking about for the day. The movie takes place in Brooklyn, New York where there is racial tension between the surrounding African American community and a local Italian American pizzeria. The events between the groups end up leading to a tragic violence. 

 

While this film shows the events that take place with racial hostility the overall message it is trying to get across is to challenge the continuous racial stereotypes black people face in their day to day life. It addresses the controversial subject overall of racism and the real life problems that are going on to this day. Spike Lee was known for being able to leave this lasting thought and have you thinking about what you just saw within his films. The main dispute in this film is how there should be African Americans on the wall of fame in the pizzeria because of the community it is located in. While this may not seem like a major dispute that should result in anything serious it was a conflict between both characters. This leaves us viewers wondering about not only the conflict but the deeper root behind it. That rooting being race, this is what Spike Lee wants you to question. By doing this Spike Lee is known for opening up that introduction of race inequality to the American film scene. 

 

I came into Ortega’s presentation and event about Spike Lee knowing only a small amount of his career. I only knew him as the guy from “Do The Right Thing” and the die hard New York Knicks fan. I learned that he was a pioneer for the filmmaking industry and the black community as a whole. He pushed the envelope for the modern day American media to have those uncomfortable thoughts and really think about the mistreatment of black people in the world. And while things like violence, mistreatment, and racism still go on to this day you can’t help but appreciate what people like Spike Lee have done for not just African Americans but the human race as a whole. Although this was a black history month event people like him should be and are celebrated year round for not only what they did for their respective industries but for what they more importantly do for the communities they are proudly a part of.

On February 28, I attended the African American Civil Rights class. I was in the Hall of Fame Room 1118 in Park Center from 12:40-1:30 pm. The class was very interesting and extremely informative.  Professor Susan Rayl made a PowerPoint presentation on many popular and not so popular successful African American athletes who performed out of the ordinary and during times of extreme segregation and discrimination. 

To start off the presentation she began with Isaac Murphy and profound and smart Jockey. He was known for his intelligence which is extremely rare in the late 1800s for Black people. Also, he was known for having a really high success rate in competitions. Isaac averaged a 40% win rate which was completely unheard of and still has never been replicated to this day. Issac Murphy was so talented that his competitors got jealous that they decided to poison him before a competition and then claim to the judges that they thought he might be drunk. By the end of the whole ordeal, he was pronounced dead from being poisoned not drinking. Since it was late 1800 nobody batted an eye at it and his name was lost in history for a long time until recently when records were found of his jockeying career now his name is forever in graved in the Hall of Fame room for Jockeys. 

The next Athlete mentioned in the presentation was Marshall Taylor. Taylor was a trailblazer in the African American professional sports culture. He was the first African American to win a world class sporting event in 1899. That same year he won 22 races including the world class cycling event in the 1 mile sprint race to beat Tom Butler for the world class title During the late 1800s it was strongly frowned upon when there was an African American athlete competing, but Taylor did well for himself and just like Issac received most credit after passing, unfortunately, due to the era he was born in.  

Another person and group of athletes that was recognized during the presentation was Robert Douglas and the New York Renaissance 5. This completely shocked me When I watched this video in class, the Renaissance 5 had 2,400 victories overall and in 86 days they had 88 games and won all 88 games according to the video. I’m not sure how that is even possible, but they were breaking records left and right as the first all African American basketball team. They still hold the best record in history in the NBA today. 

Lastly, the professor talked about Jesse Owens I’m pretty familiar with Jesse Owens I’ve learned a lot about him over the years. There were still some things I learned about him that I didn’t know. Jesse Owens broke 3 world records all in the same day but what I did know was he did it all in under 44 min which is absolutely ridiculous to think about. That is an average of every 11 minutes. Another thing I didn’t know was he was 21 years old when he broke the world records and made his first appearance on the international stage in the Olympics.      

One February 14th, 2024, at 12:30, I attended a lecture run by a SUNY Cortland associate professor of communication and media studies, Christopher Ortega. The lecture was titled “Analyzing Spike Lee”. Before going to this lecture, I had never actually heard of Spike Lee, but film has always been something I was interested in so I thought it would be a good opportunity to go and learn about African American film culture. What I learned was that Spike Lee wasn’t someone who became famous for his directing or creations of a great storyline, but based on the ideas he created and the thoughts he left the viewers with. Ortega spent most of the lecture talking about one of Lee’s films “Do the Right Thing”. In this film, there is a dispute over a wall of fame in a pizzeria. One character believes the wall should feature African American artists since the shop is in an African American neighborhood. The owner declines this idea, keeping the wall with only Italian artists. Now what I find so interesting is that Lee’s films didn’t just deal with issues of racism against African Americans. Even in this movie, the main character, who is African American, makes some racial insults about Italians. Insults are also thrown at Koreans and Puerto Ricans. I really enjoyed seeing this in his movies. Racism against African Americans has always been terrible and taken the front view, but I think it is also important to realize and recognize that this is happening to other races as well. One night, the character who got into an argument with the pizzeria owner goes back to the shop and another dispute starts. This one leads to violence. When the cops show up, one of the African Americans is strangling the shop owner. As the cops attempt to restrain Raheem, the African American, one officer begins to choke him. This ultimately ends with Raheem being killed and the police putting his body in the back of the police car and driving away, trying to save face. But there were many onlookers at this point so their actions were clearly seen. A riot breaks out the following day because of the death and that is where the film is left. 

I took a lot away from this lecture and this film. One thing is the title. The film is called “Do The Right Thing”, but what the right thing is is never specifically said. Were the boys right for wanting black artists on the wall? Or was the owner right in wanting to show appreciation to his own culture? There are many decisions made in this movie that could be picked apart and discussed about if they were the right decision. But I think the movie as a whole speaks to the separation that the idea of race has put us in and what it can make seemingly kind and good people do. The one other thing that really stuck out to me that Ortega pointed out was that in a later film by Lee, the same two cops, played by the same actors are seen on duty, in uniform. I don’t believe they had any big part in this other film, but just showing that these two cops, who murdered and covered up the murder of an African American, are still working and didn’t have any repercussions is something in itself. Lee did this on purpose. He did this to show how corrupt cops are not penalized and don’t receive consequences for their terrible actions. They are just allowed to keep patrolling our streets with nothing stopping them from doing it again. 

The even I attended was a presentation led by a professor here on campus named Yolanda Clarke. Her topic was “Black feminist thought and the heath disparities of black women at predominantly white colleges and universities”. I had taken a class with her last semester “Health disparities of the underserved” and I learned a lot from not only her class but also her as person. In the beginning of her presentation, she took time to acknowledge Dr. Antionette Candia-Bailey, an academic administrator at Lincoln university who committed suicide due to mental illness and she believes it could have been prevented if the campus had the resources she needed. She starts with the minority stress theory and explains that the theory is about the stress and experiences that members of disadvantaged groups go through that differ from the dominant culture; white. She talks about 5 social determents that give people stress. Those are economic stability, educational access/equity, healthcare access/equity, neighborhood environment and social community. These are the 5 attachments we have in our life because of our different development and experiences. I did not go through the same experiences as Beneatha did. Yes, it is a different timeline but there are people today that are still going through the same inequality and family issues as her. Clarke then brings up black girl magic. A term a lot of ladies growing up learned to be that smart, beautiful and creative woman. What are the health disparities a black woman might experience? They are stereotyped and are overall at a culture disadvantage. Because of this they have higher rates of sickness, poverty, unemployment, criminalization, divorce, infant mortality, and homelessness. I would say stereotyping is the biggest issue. Stereotyping is having a set belief of a group/culture and associating it with each person of that group. We are all different, we are all our own individuals.

            The room had students and faculty listening in. What I found comforting was that these two women sitting in front of me were staff in the health department here in Cortland and they wanted to know ways to promote the wellness of black women. They listen to Clarke and also asked questions. Clarke explained multiple ways to promote the wellness of black women on campus. To highlight a few, she talked about increasing the presence in numbers on campus. That includes students AND staff. She felt that having mentors in each department would show students that the school is culturally open and acknowledges the different backgrounds. She proposed that there should be a course here on campus that teaches black feminist thought every semester through the Africana studies department. The last thing that I think she purposely meant to leave in her final words of the presentation was that siloism does not work. It didn’t make sense for these two women in the health department to come to this presentation, learn new methods of opening up for black women and for them to not share this information. You want all of your students to feel welcome and recognized in every department. We cannot be a culturally diverse campus if we do not support ALL of our students and faculty