Race and Ethnicity Commons^™

Recognize Martin Luther King Day, Kathleen March

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Each academic year as January nears the University of Maine begins to think again about Martin Luther King, about the day officially designated to honor his life and teachings. Like several other national holidays, this one currently does not bring with it a day off from classes at this university. Several reasons have been cited for this: one is the academic year is already too short.

Suppressing Minorities With Religion, Hillary Montgomery

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

While perusing the discussion folders in my FirstClass account recently, I happened upon the gender folder. For some odd reason, a number of files pertained to the subject of God and religion. Whatever the reason for using this folder to discuss such debated issues is no matter, rather the content of these messages really got me thinking.

Mr. Gnu Comic Strip, Travis Dandro

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

A four-panel comic strip drawn by Travis Dandro depicting a bigoted perspective of both people of color and individuals with disabilities.

Long description.

Panel one contains one figure, a highly stylized, anthropomorphized Gnu (or African antelope with along head and beard), presumably the title character of the strip, Mr. Gnu. The character is holding a cereal box in front of him. Lettering over the character's head reads: "Hey kids! I'd like to introduce a new cereal!"

Panel two contains a close up of the cereal box with the lettering, "Sammy Davis CRUNCH" over a stylized drawing of a character that …

[Review Of] Phillipa Kafka. (Un)Doing The Missionary Position: Gender Asymmetry In Contemporary Asian American Women's Writing, David Goldstein-Shirley

Ethnic Studies Review

Phillipa Kafka's clever book title turns on her deconstruction of what she sees as a simultaneous patriarchal and racist orientation of some contemporary literary criticism, akin to the unquestioned, naturalized supremacy presumed by agents of political imperialism such as missionaries. By focusing on what she sees as feminist and postfeminist writing by contemporary Asian American women authors -- specifically, their attention to gender asymmetry -- she demonstrates that we can read these works as a collective strike against the sexism of much (male) postcolonial, Marxist, and deconstructionist criticism and the racism of much (white) feminist criticism. Her readings of Amy …