Two Feet In | Writing and the Institution

<understatement> My father and I don't agree on much </understatement>. But I'm interested in institutional rhetoric and how institutions create rhetorical perpetual motion machines and bureaucracies to maintain their power in opposition to their mission statements and the public's mythologized expectation of institutions' purposes. Mission statements, of course, have long been useless <redundancy>pablum </redundancy> for administrators to hang in public with noble ideals based on some Americanized myths of meritocracy, etc.  My father worked for the Goodyear corporation for years. He rose quickly to regional management positions. I can't tell what the mission statement at the time was, but this is how Goodyear brands itself as a corporation today: Goodyear "Global Purpose" <http://www.goodyear.com/mission/global_purpose.html> Note the high ideals: increased value; innovation; high quality; for customers and consumers (...

The irony of this post would be that as a male, I would be explaining men explaining. The greatest advantage to education is not the textbooks or the tests -- as happy experiences as they are -- but to come into contact and conflict with ideas that are not your own; ideas that contest one's habits and world views and presuppositions with which we raised. We are the product of nature and nurture, and as a white southern male, I was inculcated into a society that assumed masculine dominance in most areas of my life. Perhaps the kitchen was the only exception; but business and religion and school (most my principals were male, right?) and politics, and the family all presented the male with the dominant voice, the authoritative (sometimes authoritarian) position of superiority, and others (read: women) accepted that relationship too easily. Because my father was the public figure of the family -- working class, he went out into the world, was promoted quickly and repeatedly, trav...

This has a bit to relate to my other (super secret) blog post this week, " Writing in the Disciplines ," where I admittedly ranted for a while about the ignorance of some professors about what the hell writing is anyway. But I've gotten past that (for the week. A new week looms). The hub-bub here is a middle school principal (-pal: "the principal is your pal") who allegedly told students not to speak Spanish on campus. That's the line that hit the headlines  with community reaction expected: Outside the board meeting, Kloecker said that the problem was Flores-Smith, not issues of culture or race. "We've been a predominantly Hispanic district for several years now," she said. "But we never had a problem until she came." Flores-Smith started the job in August. After the vote, Flores-Smith expressed satisfaction. "I'm hoping everything will die down now," she said. "We need to get back to peaceful living. And edu...

Reflections on my Whiteness III This entry was supposed to be a continuation of my reflection of my own whiteness as I went to college and then into the professional work for. That part will be quick. But, considering #Ferguson and its aftermath, I have to jump to the present instead of so much detail of the past. Private university, mostly white students; English Literature major = mostly white students. When English Literature is discussed, it is almost always the "dead white man" variety, postcolonialism notwithstanding. It's disheartening today to see syllabi of American Lit and even British Lit nearly full of dead white men, ignoring a) more women writers than we like to admit; b) American Native (Canadians use the better term, "First Nations") writers; then c) the constellation of authors of color who are routinely given only token notice. Every Lit professor knows Cisneros, but I'll bet $10 that most can't name ten Hispanic American author...

Neighborhood Centers Inc. P    ■    713.669.5231 F    ■    713.669.5292 neighborhood-centers.org A United Way Agency facebook  |  twitter  |  linkedin  |  youtube  |  g+   People Transforming Communities.  FOR GOOD. We have a number of volunteer opportunities coming up and we’d love to have you participate. Our Citizenship and DACA workshops have been a huge success because of you and as we continue to host them through the end of this year please know that we are truly thankful for your support. Below you’ll find a list of events. Please email me with any questions. We need help making calls! Who: Neighborhood Centers Inc. Date: Monday, August 15 th  and Friday, August 22 th Time:  9 a.m. – 12 noon  and  1 p.m. – 5 p.m. Where: Baker Ripley Address: 6500 Rooking St. Houston, TX 77074 Purpose: To identify new citizens Contact: Kenia Colo...

Airport terminals were once places of hello's and goodbye's. Now sterile, rooms of the dead, like purgatory, Bodiless voices come over the PA, Announcing someone's name --  about to miss a departure  forgot an item at security  an offer to stand y for extra cash. These quiet, commercial, market hallways Tell us everything good aout a city --  the best restaurants  a spa or hotel  a each or the mountains But nothing of the invisible ones --  of the poor, the old  the empty houses and unkempt lawns  the vacant factories and abandoned warehouses. Those invisibles are left secret. Everyone smiles in these marketing posters. Everyone is happy in the city beyond the terminal. Travel to and from makes you happy, and that makes us happy. Airports were once stages for movies --  drama  romance  comedy -- But they are no longer places for the public to share. We take a taxi or our girlfriend drops us off. ...

Dozens of students in Spring 2014 found it helpful to find a safe place off campus and just write  and as needed, get feedback from peers about their writing. Most of this writing was academic, but not all. I'll continue to host Write Club in Fall 2014, with some significant changes: The night will change to Tuesday .  1. This is because the LSCS Board meetings are held once a month on Thursday and I want to permit all students, faculty, parents, taxpayers to attend the Board meetings. 2. I want to avoid Wednesday night when most people who attend church do so. I realize that some people attend church on Tuesdays, but I'm trying to accommodate as many as I can. 3. I've found that too many academic projects are due later in the week. Perhaps even one or two more days of revision will help. The place will change to Aldine , specifically (for now) Starbucks on I-45 and West Road, in front of Best Buy (I hate the product placements I just dropped, but those who are look...

Staring Saturday 13 September 2014, I'm hosting a cycling ride for everyone. Here are the specifics: Second Saturday every month, rain or shine or snow, holiday or not. Meet at MacArthur High School (Big Mac) front parking lot. Ride 10 miles or so. I'll post the route the night before. We'll almost always hit Keith Weiss Park, for sure. Open to everyone, but if someone comes under age 16, I want him to be with someone over 18 for contact purposes, etc. Anyone -- gender, nationality, ethnicity, ability, age -- is welcome and encouraged. Make friends, take pictures, burn a few calories. We'll stop half-way at a local business for a guas frescas or tacos or whatever, then return to Big Mac. Twitter, Instragram, other hashtag is #aldinecycle  Rules Helmets required. You can purchase inexpensive helmets at Academy Sports (a Texas company). Water required. Please reduce, reuse, recycle. We'll also stop to refill. This is not a race . Everyone starts, e...

Yesterday in Houston at approximately 3:12 p.m. it rained. And, like many rains in Houston, it started without warning, the streets were quickly flooded, and my wipers wiped the windshield enthusiastically. I was with a friend on our way to our favorite (and perhaps only) coffee shop, Bohemeos in the East End and after turning onto Cullen, I saw a white, blond woman already drenched, walking across the street in the middle of the nowhere warehouse area. There were no bus shelters, no trees, no awnings to keep her dry.  I drove past her, thinking that I had my destination to get to, an obgligation to help my friend finish writing a chapter, it was already mid-afternoon and I had accomplished no writing myself, that she was already soaking wet and more water wasn't going to make a difference, that my new car didn't need a wet body sitting on its clean seats.  I turned around, drove up to her, rolled down the windows, asked her if she would like a ride.  Before goin...

From NPR's series, " Men in America " Boys in American public schools are suspended from and drop out of school at higher rates than girls. Black and Latino boys are suspended the most. Boys make up half of the student population in American public schools. But among those who are suspended multiple times and expelled, 75 percent are boys. I once did a bad thing when I was teaching middle school. A black boy in my class came to school with these (really ridiculous) red and yellow athletic shoes. I'm sure he thought they were cooler than shit and he likely would have impressed all his friends that day. I'm sure his parents spent more than they needed on these shoes (Acres Home -- parents, especially black parents, spent too much money on what I -- as a white male -- thought was a waste of money, such as the $120 hair treatment for a 12 year old girl who was failing school because she needed reading tutoring but her mother didn't do anything about it. You...