By Any Other Nerd

White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson My rating: 5 of 5 stars Anderson skillfully deconstructs an unspoken but prevalent theme in the US history of race relations since well before the Civil War: white rage. Directly and indirectly, she shows how the often stereotypical assumption of African-Americans as being unwieldy or out of control (that is, having "black rage") is largely a matter of projection of a white rage. White rage has historically over-reacted to each attempt by African American and other marginalized peoples to establish an equal footing as put forward in the US's founding documents. Thus, she shows from the Civil War to the presidency of Barak Obama, how viciously and brutally dominant white culture has reacted. Whether it was de-facto enslavement for unemployed African Americans in the post-Civil War era, the rise of segregation, the intentional exclusion of compensation for African Americans who fought in war, ...

So I’m running a day-long training on Digital Service Learning through NERCOMP (the regional organization of EDUCAUSE ).  The day-long training will consist of a series of small-workshops on the intellectual and practical considerations around using digital tools in the process of service learning.   NERCOMP regularly runs these Professional Development Opportunities (PDOs) on a variety of topics.  They usually run from 9am to about 3pm and include a one hour lunch.  The trainings are broken up in a variety of ways from rapid-fire short 20 minute sessions to 3-4 longer (1-1.5 hour) sessions.  They are usually a mixture of theoretical, practical, and hands-on and participants (mostly from higher ed) walk away with a mixture of new ideas, skills, and contacts.     Care to Join Me I'm looking to find others that are working with faculty on service learning (with a digital angle) or faculty that are doing digital service learning projects to parti...

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie My rating: 5 of 5 stars Adichie's short book (what's the equivalent of a novella in nonfiction? Long-form essay?) is a collection of short essays that stem from her TED Talk exploring how and why feminism is a necessity for all societies. She connects her personal stories and experiences to the larger discourse on feminism and draws useful analogies for many to understand and appreciate about its place in the 21st century throughout the world. It's a quick read that can refuel some while also introducing complex considerations about feminism to someone just exploring it for the first time. View all my reviews Did you enjoy this read? Let me know your thoughts down below or feel free to browse around and  check out some of my other posts! . You might also want to keep up to date with my blog by  signing up for them via email. This work is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-Share...

Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi My rating: 5 of 5 stars If there is a single book that can structurally explain how racism permeates the history and mythology of the United States, then Kendi's book is if not the book, then certainly a contender (having not read all of them, I cannot say, but having read many books on race, this one is among the best). Kendi traces the history of the United States' approach to, discourse on, and political consequences of racism from the colonies in the 1600s until the present. He does this by exploring the lives of five pivotal figures in the history of racism who span all five centuries of US history: Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. DuBois, and Angela Davis. Kendi posits three ideologies that are found in various forms throughout the history and the works of those with whom he presents: racist, assimilationist, and anti-racist ideo...

The Making of Asian America: A History by Erika Lee My rating: 5 of 5 stars Where do I begin with this review besides just saying, "WOW!" I knew about some of the aspects of this book such as strong anti-Asian immigration laws and racial discrimination in the US toward Asian-Americans since the 1800s. But Lee provides a meticulous and nuanced exploration of the history of migration and representation within the Americas since the 1500s. She traces the history of discriminatory practices by different American countries that challenge, limit, devalue, or pit against one another the many different immigrants from the numerous Asian countries. In doing so, she helps the reader understand the denial of identity and culture that comes with the term "Asian American", and how it masks the distinct experiences, cultural dynamics, and sense of history that different immigrants from Asian bring with them. In tracing the history to the present century, Lee fur...

White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son by Tim Wise My rating: 5 of 5 stars Wise's memoir of his own awakening to systematic racism in the United States is a powerful and useful tale for white people to read and reflect on their own experience. From his early upbringing in the south to his education in New Orleans and early days of activism against the David Duke campaigns in the 1990s, Wise explores the ways in which he has succeeded and failed in being an ally to non-white people. But what Wise does best throughout the book is to mark with clarity the ways in which the privilege afforded him by being white created opportunities or nullifed threats that would have existed for him, were he not white. Additionally, he is great at unpackaging the ways in which investment in whiteness doesn't harm just non-whites but does damage to white people as well. For anyone looking to better understand how one can strive to address and engage with the racial str...

I'm not entirely complete with the summer session--after all, I've got 3 papers to still write in the next month but I am done with the courses themselves and am poised to finish these papers, thus, completing the first 1/3 of credits for the program.  24 credits in just over a year.  It's been intense to say the least but I'm glad I've stuck with it. This semester has been a bit more emotionally rougher than I would like.  I had the malaise of the first week, which was hard to get through and then the massacre in Orlando happened at the start of the second week.  Though I was able to recenter myself by the end of the first week, the start of the second week with the shooting, shook me up some more and the inevitable hate and bigotry that spewed forth from many pitting bigotries of all sorts against one another and alienating so many people also cut deeply.  The rawness of that coupled with the reminder of the potential harm that "education" as a systema...

March by John Lewis My rating: 5 of 5 stars These three graphic novels capture John Lewis's first-hand account as an activist in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. From his upbringing in Troy, Alabama to his entrance into college and earliest political experiences, the story provides his bird's eye view and experience in striving for a nonviolent revolution in the face of overwhelming white supremacy, oppression, and violence. His experience in the 1960s is paralleled with the inauguration in 2009 of President Barak Obama, providing a beacon to the harsh and vitriolic culture to which both Lewis and Obama (and for that matter all African Americans) were (and continue to be) subjected to. Through the three volumes, Lewis touches upon the leadership of the Civil Rights Movements, the different factions, and the challenges of trying to find the best courses of action to take. The book is both a history and a primer on attempting to change a racist culture that is worth ...

TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking by Chris J. Anderson My rating: 4 of 5 stars Anderson, the head of TED, the central repository for engaging ideas in small 7-18 minute speeches by many key industry leaders (of almost every industry) presents a concise and clear guide to organizing and preparing to give the best speech of one's life. Focused largely on giving a "TED Talk," which is not necessarily every talk one is likely to give, Anderson walks readers through everything from different approaches on preparing, to technical considerations to delivery styles and wardrobe questions. He draws upon many of the most famous TED talks to illustrate the best examples of what he is discussing and while he does refer to bad examples, he usually is vague on the details, sparing the targets (and probably himself from lawsuits). I appreciate Anderson's ability to pull together different aspects of a speech and clarify with each, what is the ess...

As can be told by  my earlier post , this week has been rough.  I ran into challenges a lot about what I was doing and why.  I'm still not sure I'm entirely out of the miasma but I'm in a slightly better space. Monday rolled into Tuesday, wherein I had two presentations to work on.  One of which, I won't lie--I got a bit more persnickety than I probably should have but I couldn't resist.  I'm not a big fan of unnecessary and meaningless work and the presentation wherein we were supposed to summarize 70-100 pages of findings from a book that had 20-year-old research in it (in some areas, that's ok, but when we're talking about who our students are--it's irrelevant), seems like a tremendous waste of time given all the other things we could do.  The other presentation I was a bit more fond of, but because of poor planning, we didn't get to it.  (Note to educators, use your time in the class wisely and if you scheduled for many people to present, d...