All Events
Race Matters Series
“Sometimes Rugged, Sometimes Nice, and Sometimes Just Plain Mean”: Black Children and Racialized Gender Identity
Dr. Denise Isom
MCC Theater
Please note that our Winter 2024 in-person events will require masks due to the rise in COVID-19 and flu activity within the region. The MCC will provide masks to attendees on site, as needed.
This presentation and discussion draws from two qualitative studies of African American Children and their racialized gender identity. We will discuss the meaning making world of African American children, particularly how they expressed their ideas of gender and racial constructions (“Blackness”) and the intersections of race and gender- racialized gender identity. Their words and lives revealed an externally “earned” maleness, centered on performance, as well as an ideal maleness oriented around caring and relationship. Femaleness was seen as strong and complex, yet sexualized by a male gaze and silent in the face of it. The children displayed a strong sense of the racial projects which surround them and their resistance to them. The idea of Blackness centered around the body, lack, and deviance, functioned alongside their contrasting definition of Black as triumphant in the face of struggle, and as a testimony to overcoming.
Speaker Bio:
Dr. Denise Isom received her doctorate in Socio-Cultural Anthropology of Education from Loyola University, Chicago and is currently serving as Interim Vice President for Diversity and Equity & CDO at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Her Master’s in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in Multicultural Education along with a B.S. in Engineering and B.A. in African American Studies were earned at the University of California at Davis. Dr. Isom’s areas of expertise include- racialized gender identity, ethnic studies, sociology/anthropology of education and whiteness.
Black Campus Life
Professor Antar A. Tichavakunda
MCC Theater
Please note that our Winter 2024 in-person events will require masks due to the rise in COVID-19 and flu activity within the region. The MCC will provide masks to attendees on site, as needed.
Antar A. Tichavakunda is Assistant Professor of Education at the University of California Santa Barbara. Born and raised in Washington, DC, Tichavakunda is a product of DC Public Schools. His first book, Black Campus Life: The Worlds Black Students Make at a Historically White Institution, is published with SUNY Press. He employs Black intellectual thought and sociological theories to better understand and support marginalized communities in higher education. In this lecture, Tichavkunda will draw from his book to highlight the dynamism, tensions, and joys of Black student life at historically White institutions of higher education. Join us for a reception in the MCC Lounge following the lecture, sponsored by the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs!
Co- Sponsor: Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs
Lunar New Year Bingo
MCC Lounge
Please note that our Winter 2024 in-person events will require masks due to the rise in COVID-19 and flu activity within the region. The MCC will provide masks to attendees on site, as needed.
Ring in the year of the Wood Dragon with food, luck, and fun for all! The Asian American Studies Dept. and the MultiCultural Center invite YOU to join us in the MCC Lounge for Lunar New Year Bingo. You could win an awesome prize!
Co- Sponsor: Asian American Studies Department
Cup of Culture
Feminist on Cell Block Y + post-film panel with Success Stories Program
Success Stories Program
MCC Theater
Please note that our Winter 2024 in-person events will require masks due to the rise in COVID-19 and flu activity within the region. The MCC will provide masks to attendees on site, as needed.
Richie Reseda is a convicted felon who had been serving time in an all-male prison in Soledad, California, for armed robbery since he was a teen. “The Feminist on Cellblock Y,” a documentary produced by filmmaker Contessa Gayles, follows Reseda and his fellow inmates as they participate in a rehabilitation program centered around feminist literature. “We cannot challenge our harmful behavior without challenging patriarchy,” Reseda says in the film. The screening of this film will be followed by a panel discussion featuring coaches from the Success Stories Program.
Speaker Bio: Success Stories is building a world free of prisons and patriarchy. We see individual and systemic acts of harm as symptoms of patriarchal beliefs that can be transformed. We deliver a 12-week curriculum that helps people who have harmed to get clear on the people and goals most important to them, as well as obstacles, like patriarchal beliefs, they've placed in their way. After graduating, Alumni receive support and programming from Success Stories for life. Success Stories Program works in places where people have committed harm and/or are survivors of systemic harm, such as prisons, jails, group homes, re-entry programs, and schools.
Co- Sponsors: Pages for Individuals in Prison, Success Stories Program
