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Highlights of The Month
The Mosa i c
Soup & Substance: Intersectionality & Feminism On Thursday, September 24th, students from all over campus gathered in the lower level of Kagin Com-mons for a Soup & Substance panel about intersectionality and feminism. The panel featured Grace New-ton ‘16, Ayaan Natala ‘18, and Marian Aden, Residential Hall Director. While eating delicious soup and breadsticks, the audience listened to the panelists answer questions about how their own identities influence their feminism, what is problematic about feminism in pop culture, and how the Macalester community it-self can embrace more intersectional feminism. In particular, Ayaan emphasized the importance of making feminism a verb — living it in every part of your life. Marian talked about how her feminism is being able to safely express oneself as they wish without judgement. Grace touched upon the problem with feminism in pop culture—using the example of Patricia Arquette's speech cutting out multiple identities or Amy Schumer's blatant racism— and how public figures often get a “pass” for saying problematic things simply be-cause they have made strides for another issue. The audience also had time to discuss these topics in small groups and then proceeded to share their ideas with the larger group. The event was very well attended and some great awareness was brought upon this ongoing concept of repre-senting diversity in feminist movements.
Monthly Newsletter from the Department of Multicultural Life
September 2015 Edition
By Grace Zhu ‘16, Lillian Hexter ‘16 and Beky Githinji ‘18
Lealtad-Suzuki Center’s Program Assistants
Dear supporters of the Department of Multicultural Life Welcome to a new academic year! I hope this newsletter finds you all well and settled into life at Maca-lester. I hope that you have had an opportunity up to now to meet Aida Martinez-Freeman, the new Direc-tor of the Lealtad-Suzuki Center. As those of you who have met her know, Aida has hit the grown running and already made her warm, welcoming presence known to the Macalester community. If you have not had a chance to meet her, please come by the LSC and introduce yourself. We hope to see you all at some of our programs and initiatives as we all work together as a community to actualize Macalester's value of multicul-turalism!
By Chris MacDonald-Dennis Dean of Multicultural Life
DML Corners! By Demetrius Colvin,
Assistant Director Lealtad-Suzuki Center
Lavender Reception The annual Lavender Reception ushered in yet another queer new year at Macalester on September 1st. During this year’s reception, the Lealtad-Suzuki Center’s Assistant Director, Demetrius Colvin, along with the Dean of Students, Jim Hoppe, and the Dean for Multicultural Life, Chris MacDonald-Dennis, welcomed a packed Weyerhaeuser Boardroom full of queer students and staff, and their allies, to a new academic year at Mac.
C-House Block Party The C-House Block Party was just as big and successful as ever! Between the music, snowcones, chalk drawing, artwork, sparklers, giant connect four, popcorn, tie-dye, and some intense water gun fights, there was something for everyone to partake in while enjoying the last rays of summer and the reopening of the Cultural House. Block party attendees also helped create a new piece of artwork rep-resenting community that is hanging in the kitchen! Thanks to all who contributed their artistic skills to the piece; it looks beautiful and is a true sentiment to the community feeling of the C-House.
DML Corners!
Gender & Sexuality (By Lillian Hexter ‘16 and Millie Varley ‘18) Four female athletes at the London Olympics were forced to have their internal testes surgically removed because of naturally high levels of testosterone. Some of the athletes felt so much pressure that they chose to also undergo “feminizing” vaginoplasty and sur-gery to reduce the size of their clitoris. Indian sprint-er Dutee Chand has been placed under the same mi-croscope for the amount of testosterone in her body, but she fought the mandate and, as of this July 2015, has won the right to run. “Although athletics events are divided into discrete male and female categories, sex in humans is not simply binary.” Facebook designer Caitlin Winner recently updated Facebook’s “friend” logo. After noticing that it fea-tured a larger man in front of a smaller woman, she decided something needed to change. Winner ex-plained, “As a woman, educated at a women’s col-lege, it was hard not to read into the symbolism of the current icon; the woman was quite literally in the shadow of the man, she was not in a position to lean in.” Even further, Winner designed a single person icon that is ungendered, for instances in which speci-fying gender is unnecessary. She concludes that Face-book is a company that supports self-initiated pro-jects and is always striving to be better — she even encourages readers to contact her with suggestions for other icons that need an update!
Economic Justice (By Elida Zaldivar ‘18 and Zeena Fuleihan ‘18) In Eduardo Porter’s New York Times article about the education gap between the rich and poor growing wider, Porter references a few key social movements and events that have greatly narrowed this gap. However, he questions the idea of stopping at progress that is not fully com-pleted, and explains how achievement gaps be-tween affluent and less privileged children is cur-rently wider than ever. Rather than racial divi-sions, today the greatest educational gap in America is caused by socioeconomic class. Due to fewer opportunities for enrichment programs and less focus on emotional and physical health, children of lower socioeconomic standings fall behind in school beginning in kindergarten, re-sulting in the large disparity in college attend-ance between affluent and less privileged stu-dents. On September 10, the city of Beijing has se-cured the contracts to develop Zimbabwe's agri-cultural, mineral and hydroelectric resources. China has also supplied Zimbabwe with exper-tise, technical assistance, and agricultural equip-ment, including tractors and agro-processing since then. They recently helped Zimbabwe in the expansion of the Kariba South Hydro Power Station, which is envisaged to generate an addi-tional 300 megawatts, the expansion of Victoria Falls Airport to promote the local tourism sector and construction of the agriculture technology demonstration center. They also have provided farming machinery and fertilizers worth $80 mil-lion.
LSC Issue Areas
By the Lealtad-Suzuki Center’s Program Assistants LSC Issue Areas research current events and policies, locally, nationally and internationally.
DML Corners!
Religion & Spirituality (By Jinath Tasnim ‘16, Andjelka Radevic ‘16, and Errol Phalo ‘17)
In the predominantly Theravāda Buddhist republic of Myanmar (Burma), political tensions have been rising between the Muslim minority and the Buddhist politi-cal party known as the Ma Ba Tha. Ma Ba Tha’s legisla-tion proposals include a bill requiring some women to wait at least three years between pregnancies and an-other bill requiring Buddhist women to seek official permission before marrying a non-Buddhist man. The struggle to separate religion and politics continues to grow as political leaders like Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi of the National League for Democ-racy (NLD) and President Thein Sein continue to de-lay legislation and oppose these laws. On September 14, a 14-year old student of MacArthur High School, Irvin, Texas, Ahmed Mohamed, brought a homemade clock to school to show his teacher and was consequently arrested, accused that it was a bomb. Since the incident, Ahmed has received widespread support over social media, including tweets from Hilla-ry Clinton and President Obama. Two of the most important holidays in Jewish and Muslim tradition, Yom Kippur, Eid al-Adha, over-lapped this year on the same day, September 24, 2015.
Racial/Ethnic/National Identities (By Grace Zhu ‘16, Mitch Paquette ‘16, and Vivian Liu ‘17) The Sistahs of Reading Edge book club, Antioch, California, consisting of 10 African American wom-en and 1 white women, were kicked off the Napa Valley wine train for "#laughingwhileblack." Hoping to celebrate Sandra Jamerson’s 63rd birthday, they were instead “marched through six carriages and handed over to four waiting armed police officers.” This is not the first time the train has gotten com-plaints from mistreated minorities. Viola Davis made history at this year’s Emmy Awards, winning for best actress in a drama: It's the first time that award has gone to a black woman. In her acceptance speech, Davis seized the platform to speak on limited opportunities in Hollywood, stat-ing "The only thing that separates women of color from everyone else is opportunity...You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there." Within the past year, thousands of refugees have journeyed to Europe to escape turmoil in their home countries of Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea and others. Amidst this “refugee crisis," anti-refugee poli-tics have surfaced throughout Europe. Countries refused quotas for accepting refugees, instead rein-forcing their borders to keep refugees out. Europe-an governments must work together to provide a solution that ensures the health and dignity of refu-
gees.
LSC Issue Areas
By the Lealtad-Suzuki Center’s Program Assistants
The 2015-2016 LSC Team
LSC Issue Areas research current events and policies, locally, nationally and internationally.
DML Corners!
On Friday, September 4, the mentors and mentees of the Emerging Scholars Program came together for our annual kick-off dinner. We gathered for a delicious dinner from Pad Thai, an intentional get to know you activity, and general bonding. The evening was filled with laughter, vulnerability, and second helpings. Although Sedric was not there that night to provide the much anticipated words of wisdom, we found our-selves surrounded by engaged, insightful, and enthusiastic first years ready to delve into the Macalester cul-ture! We began the night with a circle step in activity where we asked mentors and mentees alike to create a safe community where we could become vulnerable and learn about one another. Our evening progressed with a short slide show, presented by Lilian Vo ‘18, which formally introduced the mentor staff to the mentees (nicknames, majors/minor, place of origin…) Finally, we concluded this evening by breaking out into our mentor groups (2 mentors for every 5 or 6 mentees) and spent some time reflecting on the first week of school. In Sean Mock ‘17 and Lilian Vo ‘18’s group, bonds already started to form. Two of the mentees knew each other from last year’s Extended Sampler. Another two were in the same economics class. A couple more shared the same desire to explore off campus. Yet all of them could relate to the anxiety, awkwardness, and excitement of being a first year student at Macalester. Thankfully, they will have the support of ESP as they navigate that experience.
By Sean Mock ‘17 ESP Mentor
DML Moments
ESP Annual Kick-Off Dinner
September ‘2015 Soup & Substance
Anna Dolde ‘18 & Millie Varley ‘18
C-House Block Party Fall 2015 participants
The Freeman Family enjoying the C-House Block Party
What to Look For...
Tuesdays @ 6:00pm: “In the Kitchen With…”
(C-House, 37 Mac St.)
Wednesday, October 7 @ 6:00pm: Scots Pride
Alumni-Student Mixer (QPN)
(Alumni House)
Tuesday, October 20 @ 11:45am: An(Other)
Story Circle: Feminism & Religion
(CRSL, Weyerhaeuser Chapel Basement)
Thursday, October 29 @ 6pm: Trenzas:
Reimagining Gender in Sports
(Hall of Fame, Leonard Center)
Saturday November 7 @ 5:00pm: C-House Po-
etry Slam
(A.G.Hill Ballroom, Kagin Commons)
Friday, November 13 @ 6:30pm: Trenzas: So-
cial Movements at Mac
(C-House Kitchen & MPR, 37 Mac Street)
Tuesday, November 17 @ 7:00pm: SPEAK Se-
ries—Healing Relationships in the wake of Of-
fense.
(Location TBD)
Thursday, November 19: Xpressions: Body Pol-
itics Open Mic
(Location TBD)
Christopher MacDonald-Dennis
Dean
Multicultural Life
Aida Martinez-Freeman
Director
Lealtad-Suzuki Center
Demetrius Colvin
Assistant Director
Lealtad-Suzuki Center
Afifa Benwahoud
Department Coordinator
Multicultural Life
Sedric McClure
Multicultural Counselor
Macalester Academic Excellence Center
DML Contact Information
For questions and suggestions, please contact us at x6243, Monday through Friday, 8:00am-4:30pm
or email Afifa Benwahoud at [email protected].
Web: www.macalester.edu/multiculturalism
