Awesome Growth

23 Friday Mar 2018

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college students, diversity, diversity & inclusion, equity, flight attendants, inspiration, motivation, social justice, Southwest Airlines, spring break

I have been on 7 planes in the last three weeks. One of the planes was headed to Florida. It’s spring break time (actually, I was headed there for spring break to meet up with my family) so there were several college students headed south to catch some sun and a break. Being on the plane with the students made me think about my own plane rides back and forth to college in Ohio from 1968-70. What a big difference 50 years makes. Wait! What?! 50 years?!!!! Where did it go?!!

Anyway, one of the other things I was thinking about in this context was the diversity of the flight attendants. On the flights I had a female attendant who looked to be in her 50s. I had a few male attendants. A gloriously effeminate male, a flight attendant with an accent, a flight attendant who was clearly overweight, and several who were very brown. All were wonderful at their jobs. What a difference from when when I was flying on planes as a student back when the student fare (do they still have that?) for the flight between DC and Toledo was $14. Airlines had strict rules about who could be flight attendants. The rule was pretty much that you had to be young, good looking, thin, white, and above all, female.

Back in the day, Southwest Airlines, one of the flights I took, was sued by males wishing to be flight attendants but not allowed to be because they were male. Southwest argued that being female was a bona fide occupational qualification for being a flight attendant. Thank heaven the court disagreed. Now, one of my students told me her Southwest Airlines flight attendant was a male with bright blue hair. I love it.

None of the attributes that I named about who my flight attendants were this time around did a thing to get in the way of them being perfectly fine flight attendants. (What makes us think we should try to fit people into molds to make ourselves feel more comfortable?)

I could not be happier that times have changed such that they are now able to do so.

What Ricky Simone the hip hop artist can teach us

25 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by dawndba in Uncategorized

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academia, Donna Brazile, hip hop, Morris Dees, Ricky Simone, Robin Morgan, social justice, Southern Poverty Law Center

One of the reasons I love academia so much is the opportunity it provides for expanding your horizons in all sorts of ways, both expected and unexpected. I never tire of doing that.

Within the next few days, we will be visited by Morris Dees, chief litigator for the Southern Poverty Law Center and the only one I know of who bankrupted the KKK by winning a lawsuit against them (there may be others who did it, but I don’t know of them), Donna Brazile, the CNN political commentator and political strategist, feminist extraordinaire Robin Morgan, as well as the world famous journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault, the first black female undergraduate for whom one of our buildings is named. Absolute Nirvana for me.

On Friday I had the distinct pleasure of going to a Women’s Studies Friday Lecture Series performance by none other than hip hop artist Ricky Simone. In addition to working full-time in student affairs, and being a PhD student, Ricky Simone is also an incredibly prolific and courageous hip hop artist and a tireless social justice activist who works for peace and understanding for all. Not only were we treated to her great PowerPoint presentation on “Hip Hop’s Side B: Social Activism,” but she performed. Wow. I had tears in my eyes. Her piece, “Homos” was profound. Homos as in homo sapiens. She’s worth taking a look.

She will never own this (I know her), but just by living her life, Ricky Simone teaches us that you don’t have to be confined to one category/box/label. You can be a PhD student at a prestigious university and do hip hop. You can be a serious activist, and a clever poet. You can have dread locks and be a professional. You can wear sneakers and be serious. You can be shy about public speaking and break out and dance and perform your hip hop.

Ricky Simone’s life example, incredibly clever and insightful lyrics to her hip hop beats, and her courageous, passionate, quest for social justice has lessons for us all.

So, here’s to you, Ricky Simone. Keep up the GREAT work of making the world a better place for us all in whatever way you choose.

Thanks for teaching us there’s no need for labels.