By Karissa Lopez
In the summer of 2020, Brittany Broski, also known as ‘Kombucha girl’, posted a Tik Tok saying, “The Nicki Minaj thing… that’s a meme, obviously. So when someone quoting that or when someone says ‘period,’ sis,’ ‘snatch,’ all that, it’s very much like internet culture”[i]. Shortly after posting, she took the Tik Tok down after receiving responses from her viewers who were trying to educate her on the issue of appropriating AAVE. Many of these comments highlighted the harm that can be caused to the Black community by a famous white content creator condoning appropriation of AAVE by labeling it as internet and meme culture, exposing her vast audience to an explanation and perspective that aided in perpetuating this appropriation. Brittany Broski then began tweeting apologies, acknowledging her mistake, and inviting a larger audience into a discourse about the issue and ways that the white community of Twitter can do better. By gaining knowledge and comprehension of AAVE’s crucial role in identifying the Black Twitter community, Twitter users can better understand the risks that Black Twitter is exposed to, and how the perpetuation and justification of the appropriation and misuse of AAVE poses as a threat to Black content creators, as well as the community of Black Twitter itself. Historically, oral communication has held a position of great importance within the Black community, often being used to resist subjugation and oppression from various dominant and oppressive groups[ii]. This importance has been translated on Twitter in the age of social media[iii]. Not only is the app focused more on the use of oral language within written posts, but it also allows a space for users to challenge mainstream and dominant narratives, giving Black users the space to extend Black oral culture[iv]. The Black Twitter community has almost always been in existence as a space for user-generated content that is both culturally relevant and informative[v]. However, other users only began to acknowledge this community recently, as many content and hashtag trends began to originate from active Black Twitter users. Because of this, Black Twitter continues to gain attention for its response to current issues and events that are often trending after short periods of time. For this reason, many mainstream media outlets search Black Twitter for content and ideas[vi]. Often, content and ideas taken from Black Twitter become part of the dominant narrative within mainstream media; however, Black Twitter and the users that make up this community are rarely acknowledged or accredited for generating them. Examples of this appropriation of Black Twitter, or more specifically AAVE, can be found both on and off the app. Terms like “on fleek,” “period,” “sis,” and “bae” are frequently regarded as “trendy” language often used on social media, and occasionally in interpersonal verbal communication[vii]. However, these terms were taken from the Black community and made part of the mainstream narrative, encouraging non-Black users to adopt them into daily usage. Large corporations have even adopted AAVE into their marketing campaigns, profiting from this appropriation without accrediting the Black community[viii]. In 2014, both IHOP and Taco Bell took to Twitter using the phrase “on fleek;” however, at the time, these brands “[weren’t] effectively recruiting those who have the strongest grasp on the demographics they’re marketing to”[ix]. Without recognizing the risk that is posed to Black Twitter through appropriation, the discourse and activism that are concurrently taking place on Black Twitter fall short of the audiences with which it needs to resonate most. Approaching Black content creators with appreciation, rather than appropriation, can help to give space to Black voices and messages, as well as provide support to the activism that is taking place on Black Twitter. The community of Black Twitter is formed around identity, predominantly in the language of AAVE, which has a deeply rooted history in Black culture, dating back to chattel slavery[x]. This identity has been a target of oppression for many years, in several contexts the Black community has been criticized and othered due to their use of AAVE in settings outside of social media[xi]. The adoption and renaming of AAVE as internet slang and “stan culture” serves to be highly offensive to the Black community, because it not only erases the Black culture that non-Black users are stealing from, it normalizes the use of AAVE when a non-Black individual is speaking; however, it does not end the stigma and internal racial bias that is often aroused when a Black individual speaks using AAVE. The normalization of the use of AAVE among non-Black users of Twitter, without addressing the stigma and internal bias that is often used to oppress Black individuals who use AAVE has proven to be harmful to the Black community. Redefining AAVE for what it truly is, rather than internet slang or “stan culture,” can grant the Black Twitter community protection against exploitation and appropriation. Although this is predominantly an individual responsibility, it is also the responsibility of higher profile accounts and influencers to acknowledge their past and present appropriation of AAVE, clarifying to their followers the distinction of their actions of appropriation and the participation of using popular memes and internet culture within their content. [i] Overs, Bria. “An influencer got backlash for claiming Black slang terms belonged to internet culture. It highlights a common problem online.” Insider. August 8, 2020. https://www.insider.com/brittany-broksi-tiktok-aave-internet-culture-slang-appropriation-chile-2020. [ii] Lu, Jessica H., and Catherine Knight Steele. 2019. “’Joy is Resistance’: Cross-Platform Resilience and (Re)Invention of Black Oral Culture Online.” Information, Communication & Society 22 (6): 823-37. Doi:10.1080/13169118X.2019.1575449. [iii] Lu and Steele, “’Joy is Resistance’” [iv] Lu and Steele, “’Joy is Resistance’” [v] Williams, Stereo. "The Power of Black Twitter: On any Given Evening, Black Twitter Will be Dominating the Top 10 Trending Topics in the U.S. but if this Constitutes such a Strong, Galvanizing Movement, then Why is it so Marginalized?" The Daily Beast, Jul 06, 2015.http://login.proxy.seattleu.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.proxy.seattleu.edu/newspapers/power-black-twitter/docview/1702113936/se-2?accountid=28598. [vi] Stereo, "The Power of Black Twitter” [vii] Rose, Naima Autumn. “AAVE Is More Than Just Your Internet Slang.” Dear Dark Skinned Girl (blog), July 22, 1010. https://deardarkskinnedgirl.com/2020/07/22/aave-is-more-than-just-your-internet-slang/. [viii] Stereo, "The Power of Black Twitter” [ix] Stereo, "The Power of Black Twitter” [x] Lu and Steele, “’Joy is Resistance’” [xi] Lyiscott, Jamila. 3 Ways to Speak English. Accessed February 1, 2021. https://www.ted.com/talks/jamila_lyiscott_3_ways_to_speak_english/up-next
0 Comments
This is now my 20th time going through the routine of the first week of a new quarter or semester: I read the syllabus and then have a week-long panic repeating to myself how will I get all of this done? You’d think by the time I got to doctoral studies, I’d get over the first-week panic fest, but the truth is the further you continue in school, the more work there is and thus, the more panic. There will always be students who don’t do the reading and wait until the last week before finals to even glance at the final paper, but that isn’t me and it never has been. In my high school experiences and later as a teacher, the school district pushed specific ways of taking notes, specific ways of reading, and specific ways of learning. The truth is, there is overwhelming evidence to suggest that we don’t all learn the same way so why are we all taught to learn the same way? Our brains each take in information and process it differently. Our studying should therefore be different to accommodate the unique ways in which we learn and not the systems in which we learn. I know that Cornell Notes and outlines work for some people, but the truth is, they do not work for me. I could have headers and Roman Numerals until I’m blue in the face and it will always be a sea of letters and numbers that are completely unmemorable. Once I committed to trashing my old, prescriptive ways of studying, I started to do much better in school. However you learn, it doesn’t matter if it is not the same as the person next to you, find ways that make studying and most especially reading most effective for your learning style. Here are some of the weirdest study strategies and techniques that have worked for me over the past decade: 1. TIMELINE: At my undergraduate college the classrooms were open for students to use for studying when classes were not actively in session. In my master’s studies, I would stay at my elementary school (where I worked as a teacher) and use the white boards there. Either way, in many language-based history classes (or anything where a timeline is significant), making a giant timeline on the whiteboard, slowly adding things helped me study and also helped me better understand how different historical events were related. This strategy is not really so much about memorizing the exact dates, but rather seeing how events, writings, discoveries are related. (Shown is from an Italian Opera Class). 2. MAPS: Similar to timelines, maps can be really useful in understanding how events are related to each other (geographically). While you can draw a simple map, sometimes it is easier to go to Google and Print a blank map. It takes a few extra seconds, but I find especially for a geographically focused literature class, it is a great way to organize your notes throughout the quarter. I can still see the map below from my South American Revolutionary Literature course and picture the events and works in my mind. 3. FLAGS: Flags are a good way to quickly identify a country. If you are looking at something globally and understanding where and why country identity or geographic identity plays an influence, this is a great strategy. For me, colors make memorizing easier, by making my text boxes flags, every time I think of the study (this is from a global linguistics course) I imagine the country’s flag. It makes reference and memorization easier. 4. SPEAK UP MOMENTS MARKED: I have a consistent color, (purple or pink cloud shapes shown below) that indicates what my thoughts are separate from the text. This was really helpful in my linguistics program when I was graded on participation per time I contributed to the conversation. It helped me remember what I was thinking and especially any connections to other texts that we had read that quarter. This is also helpful to me now when I am finding topics to write discussion posts about or even final paper ideas! 5. USE PICTURES AND COLORS: I am an audio-visual learner; I need both the audio and the visual. For me, the best possible strategy for taking notes involves listening to a book on tape or https://www.naturalreaders.com/online/ Natural Reader (which reads pdfs and studies out loud) and draw my notes on paper. When I am studying, I go back and color in the notes. (I use a sketchbook instead of a college-ruled notebook, available at most craft stores / at the bookstore). This allows me to not stressfully go over the concept again, get a better idea of the topic, and clarify the picture in my head even further. NOTE: I’m not an artist and the pictures aren’t beautiful or perfect, but that isn’t the point! Now I often use clipart and internet images to make it even easier! 6. MIND MAPPING: This is a strategy I used all the time as a teacher with my students. It works great for brainstorming but also for organizing your notes on a topic, especially a more complex topic. Start with a key idea in the middle and organize your ideas around making connections where you find them. Explain connections when possible. I always use yellow boxes in my notes to indicate that something is a definition. It makes it easy to find how a specific resource defined something early on in my process. Use arrows in your notes to show connections. I have recently found Lucid which is a mind-mapping software (it gives you three free pages), which has revolutionized how I take mind-mapping notes (the third picture). 7. USE THE RAINBOW WHEN ORDER MATTERS: For me, it always helps to have the order represented by red, orange, yellow, green, blue, inigo, violet. It makes it easier to remember, if I can visualize the process box, where it fits in a sequence. Especially for visual learners, there is a lot of value in having color-coded systems for note-taking. 8. STICKY NOTES ARE YOUR FRIEND: When I am writing my final paper, I lay out my topics and number them in an outline. I then go through my notebook and identify where the information fits into my outline. This page on “followership” for example, had several concepts for paragraph 34, one concept for paragraph 35 and one concept for paragraph 36. Also shown is my Master’s thesis where I went through my notes, pulled out concepts and used sticky notes so that I could organize, reorder, and reorganize the concepts for writing. 9. ORGANIZE YOUR NOTES IN A WAY THAT YOU CAN GO BACK AND FIND WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING FOR: For me, I need to have paper copies of my notes, it is a tactile experience. For others, this is a system of organized citations on Refworks or Citation Machine. The key thing is that you need to be able to go back and find your research even years in the future. Even now in my doctoral studies, I go back and use notes I took as an undergraduate student! You spend a lot of time reading and working, don’t waste it and make sure that any reading you do is useful now, but also in future projects. 10. DON’T USE WHAT DOESN’T WORK: There is no one RIGHT way to study. Studying is a very personal process that looks differently for everyone. Don’t stick yourself to outlines, Cornell notes, or re-reading the text if it isn’t working for you. Don’t be afraid to experiment and try new things. For me, some of the craziest studying has involved singing songs about biology (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAiJ2qz76zY&list=PLgYeSFNAd2seRMQO9qN5YtGBw3zf-bvkr&index=7 for example, a song I made for my students). I’ve also been known to make thousands of flashcards and put one on each step in my apartment building, running up the stairs as I get them right and flipping them over. Studying doesn’t have to be stationary, silent, or miserable. You might look ridiculous, but studying should be about what works for you!
By Maddy
As someone who is a serial procrastinator, it has been an ongoing trial and error to try to get myself to be more on top of and ahead in assignments. Sometimes, I enjoy the motivation that comes with the pressure of waiting until the last minute to complete an assignment on time. Even though the pressure is motivating at times, it can also be extremely stressful. After talking to different people and researching various methods to try and solve my problem, I thought I would share some useful strategies if you are also looking for ways to beat the procrastination cycle. Full disclaimer, I am not an expert in the psychology field nor on the subject of procrastination. These are just some tips that I have learned from research or more knowledgeable people on this subject. Research has shown that the brain associates objects with events (Kelly). A common association might be turning on a stove and the action of cooking (Kelly). These types of object and event associations can be applicable to pretty much all daily tasks such as work. For example, sitting at a desk might be associated with work or school. Based on this research, I try to keep my work station strictly for work. I do realize that Covid has made keeping distinctions between spaced difficult. However, I try to keep things separated as much as possible. Even some small examples of keeping separate spaces might be not bringing a phone to the work desk. Second, I try to set realistic expectations for myself. I notice that I tend to get caught up in completing everything right now. But really, I might not have the time for that or my mind might not be up for that. One helpful tip that I learned from an individual in the psychology field is to chunk things down to help yourself start the work. Most of the time the procrastination stems from an avoidance of wanting to start the work in the first place. When thinking about completing the work it is helpful to set up ways for the work to be at least started. To help me chunk down the work, I tell myself to just work for 5-10 minutes straight. Then, the work can get started and I am able to brainstorm or do a little reading. If I decide to work for longer, then great! If I need to revisit what I am working on, then I might take a 5-10 minute stretch break. By telling myself, “okay just brainstorm some ideas for my paper in the next 15-20 minutes.” then that's going to be most effective to get the work started. After the work is started, then you might realize that you are in a productive work flow and you might want to brainstorm for another 15 minutes. It is also important to take breaks. Especially during covid, my ability to stay focused has been lowered because of constantly staring at computers or being on Zoom for long amounts of time. It is important to remember that breaks are important for getting things done. It is unrealistic to force yourself to work for 5-6 hours straight on a computer with no breaks and no one wants to do that. I like to take things hour by hour. Working for 50 minutes and then taking a break for the last 10 minutes works for me to manage my time effectively. One thing that helps me to manage my time better is to use my calendar app to plan out all of the work I have to do that day by the hour. That way I have a plan for the day and I can see how much progress I need to make on a paper or project at any given moment. It is important to go in with the expectation that a calendar plan is just a plan. It just serves as a way for you to manage your time and have a tentative idea for the day’s work. Hopefully, some of these tips that I find useful might work for you also! Works cited: Kelly, Morgan. “Subconscious Mental Categories Help Brain Sort through Everyday Experiences.” Princeton University, The Trustees of Princeton University, 2013, www.princeton.edu/news/2013/04/10/subconscious-mental-categories-help-brain-sort-through-everyday-experiences. My aim for writing blog posts centering the LGBTQIA+ community is not to fuel pre-existing controversy, but to encourage conversations around subjects that can be difficult. I share my own perspectives based on what I have learned from studying history and present observations. So far, I have learned that there are many things that are not truly “new” and the people who are affected by the decisions that are made as a result of discourse and legislation don’t just go away, regardless of the outcome. Some examples of this are the persistence of gender diversity within different Indigenous cultures worldwide despite genocide and forced conversion to Western norms.
Unfortunately, harm has been done to people who do not conform to gender roles both in the past and in present-day, even within BIPOC communities. Taking on this topic was a big decision that I have had to reframe many times as it is different than what I usually address. In some ways it is personal, but I don’t want to speak for or vilify other communities by only addressing what is happening today and not providing context and nuance to what has happened in the past. My aim this topic is to honor gender diversity across cultures that many may not have known of. However, to adequately do that, I believe the forms of oppression they have faced need to be shared as well. While I have done some additional research, much of my analysis for this post in particular has been drawn from research I have done for classes in the past, and I will share sources throughout as well! In a U.S. history class I took last year, I had the opportunity to research the fundamental differences in gender roles, gender identity, and gender expression held by the Europeans and a few different Indigenous tribes living in the Western Hemisphere. One of which was the fact that some Indigenous tribes were matriarchal, matrilineal, or both, which was not the case in most European societies. One example of a society that was both would be the Haudenosaunee Five Nations, who had perhaps one of the greatest native influences in the area among the Colonies (Brown, "Economic Organization and the Position of Women among the Iroquois"). This differed greatly from the widely-held Western Christian belief at the time of contact that the man is the ordained head of the household as Christ was the head of the Church. The term “Two-Spirit” that is used widely today is an umbrella term or generalization, as there were and are many different terms and genders used and recognized across many Indigenous cultures. For example, the Cheyenne, Cree, Shoshone, and Yup’ik nations all have three or more terms of their own that they use to identify their Two-Spirit tribal members (Pruden and Edmo, "Two-Spirit People: Sex, Gender & Sexuality in Historic and Contemporary Native America”). Two-Spirit individuals today fulfill a role of another gender outside of the binary that only makes sense in the context of their respective culture. For this reason, they should not be conflated with the identities of being nonbinary, genderqueer, or genderfluid. Some of their roles have included acting as mediators, medicine making, or facilitating ceremonies. Those who were perceived as deviating from Western gender norms were called “berdache” during the Spanish colonization (Pruden and Edmo). Due to this clash in beliefs, missionaries early on oppressed Two-Spirit people openly and some chiefs did little to protect them or forced them into hiding in order to protect their tribes. However, as there are still Two-Spirit people present in the affected cultures today, the efforts of European settlers were ultimately not successful in permanently enforcing gender conformity. One thing that I took away from this research in the context of comparing it to what was and wasn’t included in the textbook we were using is that while the Western traditions that many are familiar with today have been very binary and patriarchal, this has not always been the case in the history of the Americas. I will be posting at least another couple of posts that center on gender diversity in different cultures in the near future, though there may be other topics in between them. Again, I am in no way an expert in regard to the nuance of these identities and how they fit within their respective cultures. With that said, I think it is important to challenge the widely-held belief that everyone always have and do fit into boxes that have imposed on many and to honor those who have been affected for generations. -Bek Works Cited and Further Reading: "A Spotlight on Two Spirit (Native LGBT) Communities." NCAI Policy Research Center, 2015, www.ncai.org/policy-research-center/research-data/prc-publications/A_Spotlight_on_Native_LGBT.pdf. Brown, Judith K., "Economic Organization and the Position of Women among the Iroquois", Ethnohistory (1970): 151-67. Harlan Pruden, Se-ah-dom Edmo, "Two-Spirit People: Sex, Gender & Sexuality in Historic and Contemporary Native America”, National Congress of American Indians (2015). https://www.ncai.org/policy-research-center/initiatives/Pruden-Edmo_TwoSpiritPeople.pdf By Salem Almheiri Writing is taught as a craft, a form of art almost that we develop and hone over time. For some people, becoming a better writer means nurturing the ability to conjure up “strong” words with ease, while for others it might mean maintaining a cohesive and well-developed prose throughout one’s argument. These are certainly ways one might claim they are good writers, but there are not-often-talked-about strategies one can incorporate into their writing process that can substantially improve the inclusivity and quality of their writing. There are simple steps to make writing accessible for a wider range of readers. To make your writing more accessible, for people with disabilities for instance, simply think about people with disabilities as your audience, the people you anticipate will read what you have to say; think about people with vision impairments, color blindness, hearing loss, or cognitive disability. All you have to do now is to find ways to make your writing more accessible for this group of audience. How? Well, this is why I’m writing this blog post! While technologies such as a screen reader or a Braille software helps people with disabilities access information more easily, there are strategies you can utilize as a writer to make your writing more accessible. Here’s some questions you can ask yourself as you revise your drafts: “If someone can’t see the colors, images, or video, is the message still clear? Could someone quickly scan this document and understand the material? Mobile devices with accessibility features are increasingly becoming core communication tools, does this work well on them?” (“Writing for Accessibility”). Of course, there are many more questions you can ask yourself to make sure your writing is accessible. These examples of questions are meant to help you understand how to visualize your readers and anticipate your audience’s needs so as to compose more accessible prose. Additionally, Universal Design (UD) in writing is a framework used to improve the accessibility of one’s writing, especially for readers with disabilities. Here are some strategies I adopted from Anne-Marie Womack’s paper, “Teaching is Accommodation,” which you can use as a writer to make your writing more accessible: 1. Wherever possible, use images instead of text: We all know how exhausting reading large chunks of text can be sometimes. If you know that, why not try to incorporate visuals and pictures that can communicate your message in a more inviting way than text? Using images, pictures, graphs, or schemas can help your readers scan your text much more easily. (You have to also understand that not all readers can see color, so you might want the content of the visual to communicate your message, not its colors.) 2. Make your text reader-friendly: As a writer, you have the ability to strategically format your text to make it more accessible to your audience. Here’s some tips for you: use a 12-14 point sans serif font; use 1.5-2 line spacing; break your text into smaller paragraphs with each containing 2-4 sentences only; use a dark font color on a light colored background; and bold words or phrases to emphasize parts of your text. 3. Make your text user-friendly: Fortunately, word-processing software (such as MS Word or Google Docs) provide features that can help make your writing more accessible. Here’s a few options to consider: Use a table of contents to improve your readers’ ability to navigation your writing; use hyperlinks to make connections among ideas in your writing; use headings to direct your readers’ attention; use bulleting and numbering to organize points into lists; and use tables to summarize and present data. Moreover, these strategies to make writing more accessible can also be used by educators, as teachers and college professors, too, produce a multitude of documents for their classrooms on a regular basis. You may have had students with disabilities in one of your classrooms before, and if not, you certainly will at some point in the future, so these strategies can help with making your documents more accessible for your students, especially those with disabilities. For example, the syllabus is one document composed by teachers that a large number of students often don’t read (mainly due to design issues). In “Teaching is Accommodation,” Womack shows how she used Universal Design (UD) to revise her syllabus, which might inspire some ideas to improve your syllabi if you’re an educator. Womack’s old syllabus and her revised one are shown below (notice the difference): Ultimately, for more accessible prose, you need to understand that you write for diverse readers that have different backgrounds, speak various languages, embrace a range of identities, and, as such, interpret writing differently through a unique lens that helps them understand the world around them. As a writer, the last thing you want to do is to show lack of audience awareness, which will naturally lead, in one way or the other, to opaque writing. I hope these strategies and tips help you become aware of your audience as you write, and more importantly, write prose in a way that would make it accessible for a wider range of readers, especially readers with disabilities.
Sources: Womack, A. (2017). Teaching Is Accommodation: Universally Designing Composition Classrooms and Syllabi. College Composition and Communication, 68(3), 494-525. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/44783578 “Writing for Accessibility.” (n.d.). Retrieved from https://styleguide.mailchimp.com/writing-for-accessibility/ |
SUWC Blog AuthorsAny posts on the SUWC Blog are authored by current consultants working to improve, refine and perfect our practice as peer tutors. Find a Post!
January 2024
Categories |