GLG Weekly Round-Up

This week in pop culture: Awkward Black Girl and Twilight. But most of this week’s links give space to the recent unrest of college campuses (unrest is perhaps an understatement): a couple on Penn State & rape culture and then a myriad of links on the violence on UC Berkeley and the UC Davis campuses.

Great post on Awkward Black Girl from Francie Latour: http://www.boston.com/community/blogs/hyphenated_life/2011/10/to_be_young_awkward_and_black.html

In honor of the premier of Breaking Dawn (the second to last installment in the Twilight series), a post from the Hairpin on Bella and weepy, frustrating, and not terribly powerful heroines:
http://thehairpin.com/2011/11/our-bella-ourselves#more

A thoughtful blog post at Ms. on rape culture and the ongoing trouble at Penn State:
http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2011/11/17/penn-state-teaches-rape-culture-101/

And another on Penn State, student riots, and the firing of Paterno, from Salon:
http://www.salon.com/2011/11/11/the_shame_of_penn_state/

And one more on a rather different and productive response to Penn State:
http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2011/11/13/penn-state-community-rallies-in-support-of-victims/

As a UC system alum and California native and someone who remembers the beginnings of these tuition hikes (although then they were not even close to as crazy bad as they are now), I have been avidly following the ongoings on the UC campuses, and particularly Berkeley and now Davis. Here are some posts on the Police Violence on the UC Campus:

Open Letter to UC Davis Chancellor:
http://bicyclebarricade.wordpress.com/2011/11/19/open-letter-to-chancellor-linda-p-b-katehi/

Truth be told, I have felt ambivalent and confused and frustrated and at other times supportive of the Occupy Movements. However, as result of the inexplicable violence committed against students on UC campuses within the last week (and Oakland before that), I want to throw my support in their direction. There is no excuse for a University (for example, the Chancellor of UC Davis) to order violence against students protesting peacefully. As the above open letter eloquently notes, the job of the University is to protect and educate its students not stifle discussion, much less command and condone acts of violence against students. So for more on the Occupy California ongoings, including information on Occupy UC Berkeley, Davis, and LA:

http://occupyca.wordpress.com/

And on UC Davis redesign: http://boingboing.net/2011/11/19/after-pepper-spraying-incident.html

And on demanding the Chancellor’s resignation: http://thesecondalarm.wordpress.com/2011/11/20/ucdavis-chancellor-video/