Week 1: Trenton Guarienti

Trenton Guarienti

Section A02

Week 1

 

 An Ivory Tower to be Broken

Academia is often thought to be the paragon of excellence, the highest one can rise is many circles is to fight your way through college and gain a degree in your field, and it is an incredibly lofty goal. However, as Fight the Tower: A Call to Action for Women of Color in Academia shows, this pedestal we put the academe on often doubles as a shroud for a myriad of internal problems. As a white, cis male I have never had to deal with most of the systematic issues that plague our society firsthand, and this reading has been an invaluable insight into just how harsh that environment can be. The issues I have experiences with my sexuality, from being the punchline to too many jokes to being erased in countless forms of media, are of a similar nature to these but a completely different extent. Even with my own issues, I know that I have certain privileges that cannot be ignored and that require work to truly understand how others have experienced some of the same issues. In a similar vein, I began to realize that many of the people in this class will share some of the experiences expressed by Professor Valverde, which will provide a space to further understand the struggles of others and how those relate to the larger societal system. The main question I have at this point becomes what can we do about these issues, specifically in regards to other oppressed groups without either alienating either group or by creating similarities when two experiences are simply incomparable.

Valverde, K. C. (2013). Fight the Tower: A Call to Action for Women of Color in Academia. 

     Presumed Incompetent, 12(2), pp. 367-419.

Blakeney, Kyol. “Understanding Systematic Oppression and Institutionalised Racism. Kyol Blakeney. 

     TEDxYouth@Sydney.” YouTube, YouTube, 2 Sept. 2015,

     www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SBFdtqW0GM.