(micro)aggressive Scripps: A Place Commentary

Stephanie ParkSOC 124

Inspiration

• "Diversity" a hot issue for Scripps: PACDI, new Strategic Plan for Diversity

• Combining lived experience as a fourth-year Scripps student with the analytical frameworks from this class

• The personal is political - and so is cultural geography

Place Biography - "A Diverse Place"

• What do we mean by a “diverse place?” How does such a place become necessarily racially coded? And how does implicating a dialogue around race consequently affect the type of place that a space has the ability to become?

• How can we compare the construction of a “diverse” place to that of a “normal,” (aka hegemonic) place?What work goes into ‘norming’ and ‘naturalizing’ a space so that it appears unraced?

Place Biography - "A Diverse Place"

• Medium: virtual representation of SCORE and SARLO

• The pictures the Media Relations department has chosen to depict SCORE and SARLO strategically employ depiction of race, public/private space, and spatial organization of bodies to semiotically inscribe and create very different places that seek to serve very different parts of the Scripps community.

• Motivation: historically grounded conflict between students and the administration over media representation of students of color

• This virtual landscape is constructed; representation matters.

SCORE vs. SARLO

• Relies solely on raced bodies to visually demonstrate the purpose and atmosphere of the center

• Frames SCORE as a ‘public’ space

• Equates ‘entire student body’ with only white students, demonstrates the unquestioned positioning of white as the 'norm'

• SARLO as a 'private' space

Further Questions for Place Commentary/Digital Media Site

• How do the places we inhabit reveal themselves as raced spaces, even when they are not explicitly designated as such?

• How are these spaces are inserted into the dominant dialogue, thereby erasing the experience of raced students from the Scripps narrative?

• How can students address, and even potentially challenge, the college’s master narrative of Scripps as a race-blind, conflict-free place?

Theory I - A Critical Conception of Place

a) Cultural geography is “shot through with structure of power, dominance, and subordination” (Mitchell xv).

b) Place does not have meanings that are natural and obvious but ones that are created by some people with more power than others to define what is and is not appropriate" (Cresswell 27).

c) A static, rooted sense of place is necessarily tied up in 'geometries of power' (Massey 5).

Digital Media Project: Site and Format

Inspiration: http://microaggressions.tumblr.com/

My site: http://microaggressivescripps.tumblr.com/

Theory II: A Progressive Concept of Place

a) "Minority youths today successfully appropriate digital media tools to speak truth to power, to enliven the promises of a digital democracy, and to retrofit ... “the digital public sphere” to suit their own generational concerns and agendas” (Everett 1).

b) Artivism: “political activism that seeks egalitarian alliances and connections across difference… [requiring] a mode of consciousness that replicates the digital potentialities and egalitarianism of cyberspace” (Sandoval 83).

c) A Progressive concept of place: instead of thinking of place as “areas with boundaries around,’ we should instead reimagine it as “articulated moments in networks of social relations and understanding” (Massey 7).

Themes: Race

"A professor would often talk about Asia and since I was the only API person in the class, would look at me after he asked the question, as if I had the answers to speak for my continent of origin."

"While i was at work, my colleagues would claim proudly that the race/ethnic studies requirement only managed to make them “more racist” than they are."

"I was once asked why groups like Wanawake exist, and why black women at our school “always eat together.” ”It’s really cliquey and exclusive,” my friend said."

Themes: Class

“Senior Class Gift - utter bullshit. Apparently if I wish to donate $100 to the Senior Gift then I get to be part of the secret Scripps alumni club. Come on, this is not an incentive for me to give $100, it is just another reminder that I can never fully be a part of this community.”

"Work-study is not a “privilege” because it gives me more employment opportunities on campus. It is a privilege to come to campus and not have to work."

"What hurts most about these remarks is that it’s not my friends’ faults that they grew up the way they did, and I recognize that they shouldn’t have to hide part of their life experiences just because one of their friend has grown up poorer than them [...] It just hurt to hear them slowly make the plans more and more expensive, that they clearly forgot that I don’t have that kind of money."

Themes: Ability

"'Why aren’t you doing hall draw?'

'Oh, because I do medical hall draw.'

'So you get a single? And air conditioning? You’re so lucky!'

Every damn year. I need a single. I need air conditioning. And I am not lucky to have a medical condition that requires those things. I’d take your cramped double if you’d take my illness, but that’s not how it works, so stop acting like people in medical rooms are getting special treatment."

Themes: Gender

"I had one of the ladies I work for in one of the Scripps Offices comment about my trans* friend as “it” when trying to ask what his gender was. And even after telling her his gender is male, she still referred to him as “she”, as in “Well HE is really a SHE”. I didn’t even know what to say to her, it was very hurtful."

"A professor for Writing 50 I had was generally problematic and called us ladies and told us to put our purses away, which assumed we all identified as women and we all had purses, he was holding up stereotypes for women and heternormativity."

Themes: Intersectionality

"I’m told that I am a person who is too white/cis/straight/whatever to do anything but listen quietly. But I don’t fall into those categories.

I don’t want to talk on the behalf of anyone. I just want to be heard, just as much as everyone else needs to be, regardless of their background or what their identity is perceived to be."

Things I've learned from this project (so far)

• Shortcomings of tumblr as an inclusive space

• The relationship between the 'layout' of digital space and how that affects the community that can/will develop

• Importance of technological literacy, especially for purposes of agency

• Redefining 'place as process'