Protesting in the South

And donate to my Women's History Month fundraiser!

On Monday I joined hundreds of folks protesting in downtown Greenville. Unlike Oregon, where I went to graduate school, the South gets very nervous about protests, for a wide variety of reasons, not least I think is the impropriety of being loud and questioning authority. I got a stern thumbs down from an old white couple driving by, who seemed very disappointed in us. I shouted “Bless your hearts, I’ll still fight for your Social Security!” It was an overall great experience, though, to be surrounded by like-minded people and to make our dissent in this red state visible.

Downtown protest, February 17th. Local Fox News said “dozens” but it was 500 or more.

On Valentine’s Day, the (soon to be defunct?) Department of Education sent out an absolutely horrifying letter demanding that schools eliminate DEI in all aspects of their institutions, from housing to scholarships to admissions. It’s an insane letter that threatens to pull federal funding from schools if they don’t comply with the demands in two weeks, arguing that DEI programs have been discriminating against people on the basis of racial stereotypes. What it actually seeks to do is unravel the structural changes we’ve been fighting for for years to make higher education more welcoming and accessible to everyone in American society. To say that acknowledging race and ethnicity, and building programs to support all students, is somehow itself racist is doing what this administration does all the time: admonishment as confession. To be clear, this letter is directing our schools to revert back to the white supremacist institutions they have been for centuries. Coupled with rolling back Title IX protections, they’ll do everything they can to make campuses less safe for women and LGBTQ students, too.

Artwork by Kiersten Phillips.

I teach at a small, rural liberal arts college that is dedicated to serving all of our students. We rely heavily on federal funds so letters like this are a direct threat to our survival. If you have the means to donate to schools, private money can help build buffers against the weaponization of education funding by our government. (Although private funding is not immune—a private philanthropy just dropped its million dollar grant to Furman University to promote racial equity in STEM.) Last month I set up a fund to support our Women’s and Gender Studies program through a speaker series for Women’s History Month. It’s my first attempt at fundraising, but I’m determined that the Upstate and our local PC and Laurens County community needs events like Women’s History Month now more than ever. Friends and family have already gotten me to 10% of my goal for the year (thank you!!!!), and if you’d like to pitch in to help, here’s the direct link to donate.

As another antidote to despair, this week we saw Alvin Ailey Dance Theater’s Revelations at the Peace Center in Greenville. First premiered in 1960, it is the most widely seen modern dance production in the world. Created from Ailey’s experience growing up Black and gay in the violent, segregated world of Texas in the 1930s and 40s, it is moving testimony to how to find solace and sanctuary through hard times. Ailey died of AIDS in 1989 at age 58, an epidemic the homophobic federal government of the 1980s let ravage our American communities for years before coordinating any kind of response. It breaks my heart to think what he more he would have created, what more he would have given the world.

Two events to support our LGBTQ citizens in Greenville and the Upstate: February 27^th is the annual Pridefest Collaborative fundraiser at the Greenville Center for the Creative Arts, and April 3^rd is the Queer Wellness Center fundraiser at the Hyatt. Let’s party through the fascism.