Keith Boykin

I had heard a little bit of Keith Boykin in passing from various campus leaders that I work with from time to time, and I was intrigued by what he would have to say when he came to Champaign-Urbana. But I didn't want to get my hopes up too much because sometimes these quasi-celebrity guest speakers just disappoint.

And then half the class was there.

Keith Boykin did not disappoint.

First of all, he spoke well. He was intelligent and funny and spoke with a clear organization and he was not just interested in talking up his new book (which basically was the reason he was here). Second, he had a purpose and actually cared about what he was talking about and who he was talking about. Lastly, he has lived through some prominent moments of LGBT history and has worked on some of the strides (and setbacks) for the fight for LGBT rights. 

Half the class was present for this lecture, so that was cool.

Keith's lecture was kind of set up like a timeline of his life and the moments he encountered. I'm not going to go into all the details but Keith's life in short was born in St. Louis, a series of moving around, college in New Hampshire, worked on Dukakis campaign, taught for a little bit outside of Atlanta, was a consultant for a little bit in St Louis, went to Harvard Law, worked on the Clinton campaign, worked for Clinton administration, wrote some books, did political commentary, reality shows, etc. For a more detailed bio of his life check his Wikipedia page. Unless you're not into Wikipedia... then my summary will have to do.

While Keith's story was fascinating I found myself thinking heavily about a couple of key points that Keith brought up.

He had been participating in a live discussion on Huffington Post about an op-ed re-questioning if gay is the new black previously in the day and the point was made that even gay people can be racist. But Boykin responded, "It should not be about who is more oppressed, it's that nobody should be oppressed at all."

I recalled my work from junior year in which I questioned myself as a white man in the realm of 'diversity.' Was I allowed at this table of diversity if I had privilege in 3 or 4 realms? Was my sexuality enough to bump me enough to be "diverse?" This thought has continued to mold my work over the past couple of years and will probably always influence my work and everything I do. But I really connected with Boykin on this statement and how he thought it was relevant in today's society. We like to one-up each other by acting like we are worse-off, but if we are suffering, does it matter how much?

Boykin also quoted Audre Lorde,

“When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”

This quote was empowering and shot momentum through my body. I want to do more and not worry about my fear. Besides, in 40 years there will be people looking back who were protesting these big issues (marriage, civil rights) and say "What was I thinking?" Boykin brought up the iconic picture of Elizabeth Eckford and how the angry women following her look back today and know that they were wrong. It will be the same in the years ahead.

He also said NEVER COMPROMISE ON YOUR BELIEFS! He was referring to Obama and Clinton. Clinton passed Defense of Marriage Act to appeal to conservative voters, Obama negotiated health care to appeal to conservative voters. In the end, the conservative voters did not vote for Clinton or Obama. Basically he said if you were on the right, be on the right, on the left, be on the left. True dat.

Keith Boykin said a lot of things that were thought-provoking and inspiring. He sort of made a call to action to help out those who are bullied and upset that they would consider taking their lives. He focused on how to participate in making change and he did it well, which makes all the difference.

Here's a little video of the beginning of his coming out story.

French Romanticism... Ooo la la: Getting Physical in the 19th Century

French Romanticism and the Rewriting of the Sexual Contract - A French Literature lecture by Maxime Foerster, candidate for a position in the French History department

01/24/13 - 5:00pm - Lincoln Hall 1065

When I first walked into this lecture I was terrified. Everybody there was either a faculty member of either the French program or the Department of Linguistics or a grad student. They were all conversing in French and giving us odd looks, probably because they did not recognize us from any of their courses and did not expect anyone who wasn't a deep French enthusiast to attend this lecture.

Alejandra wrote on my paper because she is sassy.
 I re-wrote it... wrong. It would be J'aime le francais.

I was worried that the speaker, Maxime Foerster, would give his lecture en francais, but he did not. He just gave it in a sped up version of English. It was hard to keep up with what Maxime was saying, but I did the best I could. His lecture consisted of him going over selected French Romanticism works of literature and then discussing how it was relevant to the re-writing of the sexual contract (which kind of references patriarchy, gender roles, and why we perform these genders the way we do; again, it was hard to keep up with all of the concepts Maxime presented, he spoke at an incredible speed).  Luckily they had a handout which translated the passages that Maxime was reciting in French. I love handouts. Not only does it help you understand what is being presented, but you can take it home afterwards and touch it, read it, sit on the information that you heard hours ago. 10 points for Maxime for including a handout (as if my points mean anything)!

Maxime telling us about the exciting sexy things happening in French lit.

The lecture didn't really focus on sex but instead gender and the "heterosexual trouble" how men and women encounter issues with gender and hierarchy. Most of these concepts and theories I had encountered before in several of the gender and women's studies courses I had taken in past years, but there were a few concepts that really caught my eye and have made me think about my own work:

- Revolution must be devastatingly intimate

- Queerness isn't adopting new rules but instead is a rejection of a model of rules

Me looking sassy amidst a wave of French faculty.

It makes sense that revolution must be intimate but devastatingly intimate?! The way Maxime talked about it he basically made it sound like you must throw away your life, possibly even die for revolution. I guess it makes sense after more thought but still... is the only way to have revolution by giving your entire self away to the cause?

But also queerness solely as counter-culture and not as its own culture. If this is true, maybe it would be interesting not to focus on the odd behavior of the counter-culture but what is being countered.

Who knows. In the end my favorite part of this lecture was the fact that he had a handout and now I want to read the book Isidora. But the francophiles would definitely enjoy this lecture!

Beyond Energy Efficiency

I went to an event Thursday, January 17 that was about sustainability and it wan't the worst event I've ever been to... but it definitely had some issues. Some things that were covered were definitely intriguing but there were so many technical difficulties that I just wanted to get up and leave the room.

To start, the event was a webinar, which is fine but set the stage for a whole clusterfuck of issues. The lecturer and her tech geek couldn't figure out how to get their powerpoint to take up the entire screen and after six minutes of listening to them trying they ended up staying on a side-by-side view of the lecturer's view (which showed all the slides) and our view which showed the current slide. In the room where this event was held the presentation was projected onto a wall approx. 20-30 ft from my seat. I have decent eye sight, but it was impossible to read some of the information that was being displayed. Through the forty-minute lecture I constantly felt like I was missing information.

Tech troubles

The techie in our room tried to zoom in on the slide. It worked well and then for some reason she reverted to the small view? She looked at the master computer for a minute and then just sat back down, leaving us with the side-by-side tiny view. Did she believe that there would be something different on each view? I assume she did not have much experience with PowerPoint. I cannot blame her. End of story: I couldn't see the screen and it bothered me to a point where I needed to write two paragraphs about it.

On to the content of this webinar: "Beyond Energy Efficiency: Behavior Change Tactics for the Pollution Prevention Community" presented by Susan Mazur-Stommen (the director of Behavior and Human Dimensions Program at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy). ... what a mouthful.

So Susan's department is concerned with energy consumption and behavior change. They research how people act and how people change how they act. They then apply that knowledge to education and action to change environmental policies in individual companies, organizations, etc. Their mission is "to influence policy in favor of holistic solutions to energy problems" and their goal is "to give people multiple, positive pathways towards an energy-efficient future." Sounds good to me.

Most of what Susan had to say was good. She covered how good policy should respect individual choice, how the way to action isn't making presentations with statistics but instead making concrete examples visible in real time, and how we should bombard people with rules and restrictions. Cool. I agree. But then Susan started talking about how they go about changing policy through community-based social marketing (CBSM). CBSM is "not marketing" but instead a "toolbox."

Tools: Commitment - have people commit in public (like that means anything in private)
           Social Norming - make energy-efficiency sexy and the norm, no one wants to be weird (what if we do, should we then start burning down the rainforests, polluting our water sources, and killing whales? and besides... this kind of sounds like a peer-pressure tactic, which is not really good for anyone)
           Prompts - give people visible specific actions such as "Did you turn off the lights?", don't give them slogans, give them directions (this seemed fun, but bossy, but as Tina Fey says, "Bitches Get Shit Done")

We're lucky we found it. It was tucked away in Research Park.

           Convenience - make it convenient for people to be energy efficient (this made sense but she never really touched how to solve it. for example, she said if the parking lot is far away from the stairs but right next to the elevator, it creates a barrier and people don't want to use the stairs. but how do you fix that? make new stairs? tear down the building and reconfigure it so that there are both stairs and the elevator by the parking lot... that won't change shit)

She talked about behavior change campaigns that utilized all of these tools and how that was the best way to change behavior, then I left.

Afterwards I respected the information given, although I questioned a lot of the tactics suggested. I think that these tactics aren't just for environmental policy but all policy, Susan just applied it to energy-efficiency because that's what she was supposed to do.

More so, I came away from this webinar with a new-found respect for making sure technology works before an event. If I wanted to project a piece for a show and it shat all over my face ten minutes before opening, I would be screwed and it would be my fault. I don't know why they didn't have the powerpoint ready before and I don't know why they gave up at an unacceptable point. It is sloppy and really detracted from the key points we could have taken away from this lecture.


They had cookies and water so it wasn't the worst thing in the world.