the reality tunnel

Over the last few weeks I’ve spoken to a number of reporters about reporting outside of their neighborhoods or experience.  One common theme that I’ve heard is the importance of using people’s own language to describe places and institutions in their communities.  Patrick Barry, a senior scribe working with LISC/Chicago, said journalists documenting community development [...]

Female scholars, game designers, new media artists and 50 teenage girls from around Chicago plan to connect and collaborate in August at an event focusing on interactive gaming and gender.

One of the interesting things about the technological world is that new, precise terminology develops really quickly. This can be confusing and a barrier to understanding things, but when it bleeds over into culture surrounding technology (e.g. newsgroups back in the day and social networking sites now), there’s great jargon that really captures cultural phenomenon.  [...]

This is a first draft of an op-ed for a group called ManUp! that I’m working with in Bloomington.  I’d appreciate any comments or feedback: April, sexual assault awareness month makes me tired.  I am tired of seeing women that I respect and care about exhausted as they do the challenging, important, but also extremely [...]

I found this spam in my Inbox.  Since starting to co-present the Building Healthy Relationships workshops and listening to Chiara’s stories about this I ‘ve become more conscious about the gender messages that mediate our day-to-day lives. From the e-mail: Hello. My name is Tessy, It is my pleasure writing you this mail as I [...]

This article came across my feed reader.  From the article: “The practice of separating girls from boys in the classroom was the norm decades ago. Now, it seems to be something of a new trend.” A few thoughts … I read a book on gender and computing that said that while girls do better in [...]

These are part of the V Week of Events. There’s lots more, but these were the ones that caught my eye. 2/6 Friday — Critical Mass & Speak Out @ 1pm, SAMPLE GATES –Take to the streets in a critical mass bike ride to raise awareness of violence against women. 2/11 Wednesday — Film Screening [...]

From my pretty removed perspective, I know that there is homophobia in some Black communities.  This dynamic has been getting a lot of attention lately due to reports, which I wrote about earlier, that Black voters in California were instrumental in the state’s electorate passing Proposition 8.  While I believe that homophobia is a complicated [...]

Via racewire, I can’t believe how much thoughtful analysis Byron Hurt was able to cram into 10 minutes.  It’s a great example of criticism without over-simplified condemnation.   Damn.

If I ever need to check my tendency towards being a know-it-all or talking over people, I’m just going to watch this video. The gender dynamic is insane as well.  I can’t imagine getting talked down to in this way by a colleague, especially when I was well researched, seemed to share the same political [...]