Dear Colleagues, I love the new website. It will do a lot to increase the organizations visibility in this scholarly community and introduce new and returning graduate students to the GSCA and M.U. Ms. Cargile did a fine job!!!!!! However, I am concerned about the use of term minority on the website. The literal meaning of minority is less than 50 percent. To many people, however, it implies underprivileged or disadvantaged. Many people see and use the term minority as a neutral term for any person of color. The term has been used as a sort of shorthand when folks have worked as advocates for the oppressed, crafted policies that strove to diminish the socio-economic-political disparity and inequities that exist between people of color and white folks. I don't believe that in the spirit or minds of any graduate student of color at Miami University, that there is the sense that they are inferior, underprivileged or disadvantaged. Some of us have endured trying circumstances, but we are no less capable, brilliant or confidant than the next person. Many of us have experienced the attitudes of the misinformed, that thinks less is expected of students referred to as minorities. We can't promote an ideologue that in any way paints us as being aberrant, different or less than. Our families and communities have never lowered their expectations of us and we don't go around calling ourselves minorities by habit (or do we?). Numerically graduate students are a smaller student community at M.U., but we have to think of ourselves as a whole and a part of the world, not a minumental fragment of a majority population. We are fully committed and invested in our success as scholars, teachers and researchers and that in no way implies that we enbrace mediocrity or inferiority. I'm hoping that the website as a public communication medium can highlight the fact that the GSCA is for graduate students of color (all students of African, Latin, Asian, East Indian, Native descent) period and their allies. In closing every since I've been here the GSCA has had an overwhelmingly African-American student focus, despite that its name implies a different reality. Major outreach to all the graduate students of color needs to occur ASAP. The graduate school has all of our vital statistics and the constructed term 'race' is marked on our files. This information can be used to remove the facade of community and really start building one wholistically. If anyone on this list finds my comments inappropriate, positive or engaging cool... We can have a dialogue, after all this is a discussion list, not just a posting list :-) Love and Peace, Yolanda R. Brown ----------------------------------------------------------------------- LIVE THE WORDS...REAP THE REWARDS! Don't be a spectator in your own intellectual life! Thomas Jepsen To decide to live at the level of choice is to take responsibility and be in control of your life. Arbie M. Dale “Self worth cannot be verified by others. You are a worthy person because you say it is so. If you depend on others for your value it is other-worth.” Wayne Dyer-Your Erroneous Zones Be prepared, curious and vigilant! Yolanda R. Brown Be the change you wish to see in the world. Mahatma Gandhi Vision looks inward and becomes duty. Vision looks outward and becomes aspiration. Vision looks upward and becomes faith. Author unknown Conventional education makes independent thinking extremely difficult. Conformity leads to mediocrity. To be different from the group or to resist environment is not easy and is often risky as long as we worship success. The urge to be successful, which is the pursuit of reward whether in the material or in the so-called spiritual sphere, the search for inward or outward security, the desire for comfort--this whole process smothers discontent, puts an end to spontaneity and breeds fear; and fear blocks the intelligent understanding of life. J. Krishnamurti ============================================================= The information transmitted is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from any computer. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp