Professor Sandra K. Soto Gets Jeered at University of Arizona Graduation

Queer Chicana Professor (and all-around awesome academic) Sandra K. Soto got booed at the University of Arizona's Social and Behavioral Sciences commencement.  Professor Soto was attempting to discuss the ways that the anti-im/migrant measures known as SB1070 would marginalize Latinos/as.  Before she could get a sentence out the crowd jeered her. Twitter drama ensued.  Most people said it was inappropriate for Professor Soto to use the event as a "political soap box" further highlighting the success of the conservative right in advancing the idea that Universities and institutions of higher education should be depoliticized places where one goes to learn objective truths.  Meanwhile, if you ask me, it's pretty inappropriate for an audience of presumably educated adults to boo a woman of letters.  

Of course, what happened to Professor Soto is just another example of what so often occurs to queers, women, and people of color (or people who inhabit all of those identities) within the academy, they get shouted down and told that they're advancing a narrow agenda or only telling half the story.  The events that transpired were truly shameful, but unfortunately are becoming more common than not on college campuses.  I applaud the stand that Soto and other educators in Arizona are taking despite the attempts to silence them.  As Professor Soto urges us...we must fight for public education.

Palante, Siempre Palante! 

*tip of the fitted to: The Arizona Daily Star

Islamophobia and the McCain-Palin Campaign

As we enter into the last few weeks of the election McCain and Palin supporters have increased their racist attacks on Obama. McCain and Palin have said that Obama "pals around with domestic terrorists" and their supporters have felt free to shout "terrorist" and "kill him" at rallies. His opponents have been trying to present him to the American public as a Muslim candidate (which he isn't) in order to play on the current climate of violent anti-Islamic sentiment. Frighteningly enough people buy it, check out this clips of McCain-Palin rallies in Ohio and Pennsylvania...

Its interesting because by trying to link Obama to domestic terrorism the McCain-Palin camp actually encouraged the media to explore her and her husbands ties to an Alaskan extremist group. Keith Olbermann of course does a great job of breaking down the racism and Islamophobia in the McCain-Palin camp, check out this clip (its a little long but worth every minute)...

*Tip of the fitted to Playahata.com and VivirLatino.com

Tim Wise's "This is Your Nation on White Privilege"

Critical whiteness scholar Tim Wise recently wrote the brilliant "This is Your Nation on White Privilege" which is currently making its way around the internet. Wise does a great job exploring the blatant racism that is permeating every aspect of the 2008 Presidential Elections. As a person of color in Higher Ed, I really appreciated this point...

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.

Read "This is Your Nation on White Privilege" here

Beyonce's Blanqueamiento

Exhibit A: Beyonce at last night's Kayne West Glow in the Dark Tour concert at Madison Sq. Garden in NYC


Exhibit B: Beyonce looking damn near transparent in her new L'Oreal ad


Now since it is obvious that Beyonce has not undergone a radical skin bleaching procedure from last night's photos (courtesy of Bossip.com) can someone explain to me why the hell L'Oreal photoshopped her to make her look whiter?

I have no problem with Beyonce rocking blonde hair in a L'Oreal ad, but I have serious issues when a cosmetics and beauty conglomerate like L'Oreal deems it necessary to digitally alter her skin tone in order to make her look "appealing."

People have been attacking Beyonce but I don't think it was her decision I think that this was something that L'Oreal did. L'Oreal has denied the allegations, saying to the Associated Press: "We highly value our relationship with Ms. Knowles. It is categorically untrue that L'Oreal Paris altered Ms. Knowles' features or skin tone in the campaign for Feria hair color." They can deny the allegations all they want, and who knows maybe it was some freak accident that occurred at Elle Magazine's printer, but the message and its impact is the same: whiteness is still the benchmark for what is considered beautiful. Someone who views the ad, regardless of whose fault the photoshopping was, will be reminded that women of color will always be expected to conform to hegemonic white conceptions and standards of beauty.

People need to stop blaming Beyonce and focus on the fashion and cosmetics industries who perpetuate heterosexist and racist constructs of beauty.