Waiting to Hear: Where are the voices of the Title IX Signatories?

Often times with feminist issues and leaders, if you are not with them, you are against them. Sometimes we fear to ask questions of our feminist leaders, for fear of seeming contrarian. I am not. However, Trying to speak out with an alternative vision for feminism can be particularly difficult for fear of being perceived as being a chauvinist, a self-hating feminist, or as Gloria Steinem said, “If you are not a feminist, you are a masochist.”

However, I am feminist. A large majority people in the Yale community, including myself, thought something had to be done about the way Yale handles cases of sexual harassment and assault. However, judging by the general sentiment I have experienced, many people in the Yale community are more frustrated than pleased with how the 16 signatories of the Title IX complaint went about their way in reforming Yale’s sexual grievance system in near secrecy, without any community lead up or dialogue before going to the Federal government.

I know that what the Title IX complaint is trying to do is reform the institutional inner workings of Yale's policies surrounding sexual harassment and assault. I agree something had to be done, but the fact that there was no public lead up calls into question some of the tactics they used. Of course they got results, but I often wonder at what expense? Especially when they have not voiced their complaints in the Yale student community as directly as they have to national news... The result is a lot of miscommunication on campus. A lot of frustration. A lot of unnecessary sexual jokes and at times, hostilities towards what has been called an "unnecessary and wasteful investigation." As I overheard someone at lunch the other day, this was an "Egregious waste of Federal spending on an investigation that could take place internally." I disagree that this was a waste of spending or a waste of time---something had to happen! However, I think that there has to be major clarifications about the nature of what the Title IX complaint entails, how it was created, etc.

Basically, what I hope and expect is that the public representatives of the Title IX Signatories step forward and explain directly to their peers the nature of their investigation and what it entails, and more importantly, why they chose the tactics they did with so little lead up. If we are to follow our feminist spearheads, we want to know what exactly they are saying.

I just really hope that the Yale community clarifies something that could be potentially divisive in the student body. Title IX can be a very positive step for change, so long as we accept it as such and not misconstrue or misconceive its implications.

Title IX: From a Closeted Feminist

Yale is undergoing a federal investigation by the Office of Civil Rights for violation of Title IX after a group of 16 Yale students went to the feds with complaints of sexual harassment and discrimination of the Yale campus, particularly after many incidents (like DKE shouting, "No means yes, Yes means Anal," the "Yale Sluts" incident done by frat boys, lack of more serious action in punishment to bring about a more equal and zero-tolerance environment for sexual discrimination). If found guilty, Yale could lose $500 million of federal funding under Title IX.

Just to bring attention for more news:

The Yale Herald

From Broad Recognition

The Yale Daily News

Article to be coming soon either here or in another outlet.

A few things to consider:

1) Why not a larger emphasis on the biggest problem: the internal labyrinth of the inadequate sexual grievance review system at Yale? (This is undergoing some reform, but still....)

2) Why not a lead-up on the part of those 16 girls? Why not a larger community movement This grievance comes out of no where, unbeknownst to the Yale community until the Feds were notified. We need a campus movement primarily before we bring in the Feds to solve our problems.

3) Hopefully this will lead to more investigations into sexual harassment/discrimination in hazing both at Yale and around the country. One can hope.

4) How does the average Yale woman feel about this? Most support some sort of reform and investigation, but tend to think we should go about this in a different way, with a lot more community dialog. (Just from talking to a lot of women on campus)

5) What will this do to Yale's Title IX funding?

UN Digital Media Lounge! Follow Me!

All of you ghost followers who do not "officially" follow my blog, now is the time to click the button and make it official!

Why?

This Wednesday (and possibly Thursday) I'll be in NYC reporting from 92nd Street Y for the UN Week's Digital Media Lounge, covering stories I pick up from visiting world leaders and "do-gooders" trying to reach the UN Millennium Development Goals! I'll be there covering stories almost every hour from people like Zainab Salbi, founder of "Women for Women International," Nancy Lublin, CEO of "DoSomething," Tamara Krenin, the Executive Director of Women and Population for the UN Foundation," Kenna, the Musician and founder of "Summit on the Summit," Lupe Fiasco the Musician and Global Do-Gooder, among Many Many more!

Check it out: http://www.unfoundation.org/your-role/partners/un-partners/un-week-digital-media-lounge.html

Shout out to Sandbox Network for helping me get the passes and from the lovely ladies from the online version of The Yale Globalist international affairs magazine.

So follow me to get daily updates on the exciting happenings!

Struggle at Yale

Yale is a struggle right now. Sights to be seen :

1) Naked run through Bass. Give some laughs to kids in a basement who haven't seen sunlight for days.

2) Camping out in Saybrook Library, beware of the porn playing on computer monitors. Some Yalies get bored and play pranks.

3) Every computer now has a tab open to Twitter.

4) You see someone in an ugly sweater Tuesday. You see that same someone in the same ugly sweater Friday.

5) Even worse, you smell a strong scent approaching. That would be your best friend.

6) Everyone's a bit chubbier.

7) Food has two flavors: bland and cold. Cold is a flavor.

8) Coffee is water. Coffee shops make so much money they close early. WTF?

9) I haven't seen my bed that much, but the couch in Misha's room has my faceplant in it.

10) You wake up in Arabic homework, in the middle of Arabic class--which you still have during reading week!?

Oy.

Dear Enron: Are we screwed?

Dear Enron--

I visit your tomb today to ask, how many more are like you out there? How many more clever systems are writing off debts that the public cannot see? How many more of you are hiding information and thus creating an unfair market? How many more are keeping our failing economy running on a lie?

If the system is defunct, then we are screwed. Ultimately, you failed because prices caught up to you. Even if you perfect your lies, are we safe from another major market failure? Lies in subprime markets.... lies in Enron.... Where are there more lies that will catch up when there is another change in global markets?

My question is, Enron, should I pack up and go live on a kibbutz? Should I go live on a self sustaining farm in Syria while learning Arabic--as is my dream?

Though dead, Enron, you teach me some scary things. You teach me that this is not unusual and that it is perfectly possible to cover up lies for a long time. If capitalism is suddenly based off of these lies, thus becoming a "failed capitalism," then are we screwed?

I don't like apocalyptic narratives, but this is starting to sound like one. Who needs the class on "Apocalyptic Narratives in American Culture" that American Studies puts out? This is the big daddy of Apocalypse.

Oh how I remember the days when I thought capitalism was so light and fluffy and fair, when we worshipped it at Christmas with the success of marketing triumphs at Brookstone and Toys R' Us. Communism sucks. Facism sucks. Socialism sucks. Mercantilism died. They are all imperfect eventually. What are we going to do?

God I should get some sleep. Oh Enron. I am making no sense because your class is sucking my brains out of meeeeeeeeeeee.

asldkfj ;lawueoir

Yours,

Danielle

Dear Enron

Dear Enron

cc: Activists who hate capitalism, mass media

bcc: Douglas Rae

How do you think Off-Balance sheet partnerships are in any way ethical? Just because they are legal does not make it ethical. Is not one of the first rules to successful capitalism (according to Adam Smith) transparency and freedom of information? Oh, when the days of business were noble and honorable! (At least in my nostalgia for days I've not seen).

But even more so, thank you for making capitalism look more evil than a vengeful demon mask in Japanese No drama. Thanks to you, mass media can make big business (and therefore, most business) look evil to the eyes of the world. Not only does your complexity make you unethical, your complexity makes mass media simplify you to make business seem evil. Oh if only we could reform!

Thanks to instances like this, America has no clue what's going on and they protest things they do not understand. No wonder there. But just the sound of "off-balance" sheet partnerships makes me nauseous too. Yet I am not prone to protest.

Yes, I understand you collapsed in 2001 and this story seems like old news, but why do I feel like you are still haunting me? Perhaps because I have to write a paper on you due Monday.

Sincerely,

Danielle

Interraciality for a Mutt Like Me

According to my spellchecker, interraciality is not a word. It also is not something I personally have mused over much in my life as an Eastern European-Gypsy-Cherokee-DAR-??? background.

Yet what I love about Yale is that the people around me bring up these topics to me even though I'm not thinking about them. Meet Dalia, my sweet suite mate. Dalia is a New Yorker. She is a African American Jew with the craziest, sexiest hair (definitely more than my mane). She can kick your ass in Hebrew and is a certified New York Bartender. She has a childlike laugh that makes me smile and she understands kids like no other.

She is taking a course on interraciality and hybridity and sat down on our green couch last night to talk to me about it. I won't go too much into the conversation for privacy's sake, but basically, what we talked about where notions of not being "Black enough" or how being a "halfie" often makes you "BI" racial, and not inter racial. You are not a venn diagram and a whole, but rather two separate things, divided which can make you doubt where/who you are.

For a mutt like me, I don't think of myself in terms of being interracial (in America, what you SEE in color terms is more what defines you as inter racial, being black/indian/asian/chicano, and then something.) It got me to thinking about a whole different struggle in identity that has never crossed my mind. Often times, people at Yale get down on themselves for not being "cool" or "original," by being black and japanese or indian and jewish. Yet people who think this, clearly are not thinking into nuances of the situation. The struggles, the triumphs, and the confusion. These are dilemmas I probably will never have.

So what does it mean to be a mutt? Where is my role in this conversation? I could politely sit back and listen, offer a sort of minimal understanding, and my care/heart for Dalia. I was really interested in her story. Sometimes I wonder though, should I be part of the conversation? If so, where am I valuable? As Dave Chappelle said, "Lets fuck each other till we're beige," I guess I'm already beige (my bubby swears her great grandfather had some african blood). So where do the beige talk?