Here, There, Everywhere

Despite not being a Protestant, I find myself often weighed down by the Protestant work ethic, most often online . . . So for weeks I have been writing my posts and trying to keep up varied conversations as if stopping is akin to a great and heinous sin against g-d. And if not Him/Her, certainly against myself as I want to engage certain ideas and people, and b/c part of my need to push away from the screen has everything to do with a certain pair of muppets who have once again discovered my blog and made it all about them in the real world in which we must all work.  (Seriously, boys, its time to get over it ok. You know what you did. I know what you did. I haven’t told yet, and its been years, so move on.) And as I write this drivel passing itself off as a post, I think: maybe the sin is in speaking when you should be quiet. And despite my allegiance to Audre Lorde, there are times when silence is best.

Anyway, this morning the thought came to me as I was crafting a response to the unexplained editing of a comment I made on a feminist blog. I left a comment somewhere pt.ing the author to a place where I had said a similar thing to what she was saying, just days before, and agreeing with her sentiment. She edited my comment so as to remove any reference to her thesis having been said by someone else, somewhere else, prior, before approving it. When I left my comment, I actually thought we’d had a moment of synergy. Now I wonder if she read my thoughts and then wrote her own and is now trying to cover it up as the accolades pour in. If that is true, the sad thing about it is that both the internet and feminist media theory are dotted with the same thought repeated in multiple ways over an extensive period of time. It isn’t my thought. It isn’t her thought. It is a thought many of us have, and some of us have published on, if we do what we do long enough.

To me there is a fundamental difference between intellectual property and collective experience. It is like when my students discover Phenomenal Woman for the first time, and gush with excitement about how it says so much about their lives and their feminism. For them, the experience is unique and empowering, for me it is a regularized occurrence that has lost all of its excitement b/c I see so many girls have this moment in classes. And yet, I don’t look at them with my bored face and say “Thank you Sally but you do realize Ebony had that experience 15 years ago when I first taught that poem so please sit down and think of something original to say.” Nor do I call in Sally, Roberta, Minh, & Dolace  and all the other girls who wrote on the poem and say “which one of you first experienced this b/c the rest of you cheated.” It is not, after all, the same as sitting down to read an acclaimed philosophy text that basically recreates Audre Lorde but only cites men and the author’s own head as the source so that students who don’t read feminist texts all over the country will cite him instead of her and think he is brilliant. These things are different. The reasons, obvious.

As I looked at the edited version of my comment, turned from a comment of sisterhood to an open adulation of the speaker’s brilliance that I never made, I thought “perhaps the sin is in speaking when you should be quiet.”

we’re on a blog break.

International Transgender Day of Visibility

Today is international Transgender Day of Visibility. Even if your area does not have a specific meet-up or celebration planned, you can plan a gathering to honor Transgendered folks and their rights with your friends, colleagues, or in your community.  Make a commitment to talk about transgender identity and transfeminism today, and to work harder to talk about it everyday.

En Honor

Cesar Chavez y sister

Cesar chavez with Robert Kennedy y wife Helen

Cesar Chavez, Coretta Scott King, y Dorothy Day

What Sorts of People Series on Eugenicisim, Philo, and Disability

The bloggers over at What Sorts of People have been posting both the video and transcripts from their 4 person panel at the Western Candian Philosophy Associations annual conference over the last month. As Implied by the title of this post, their panel addressed Eugenicism, Philosophy, and Disability. I’ve been reading the transcripts with keen interest not only in the ongoing links between eugenicism and thinking around disability rights but also the legacy eugenicism has within the university.

For those unfamiliar with eugenicism as a doctrine/pseudo science, basically eugenicists believe in controlled reproduction for the “good of society.” It is predicated on the belief that savagery and civilization are inherent qualities linked to specific races, locations, classes, and abilities. Only certain groups (white, able-bodied, upper class, heterosexual, etc.) should reproduce. Often, we talk about eugenicism in terms of race and culture since the most widescale examples of eugnicism include Nazi Germany and the forced sterilization of Indigenous and Puerto Rican women under a law penned by George W. Bush long before he was made president. However, eugenicist interference in the reproductive rights of women has a long history with regards to dis/ability and incarceration, as well as any number of poor women, women of color, and other marginalized women. That history can be traced to prominent feminist canonical figures like Margaret Sanger, current pregnancy prevention programs like C.R.A.C.K, and ongoing discussions about the sexual and reproductive rights of differently-abled people in national and international news.

The two opening talks in the series give some historical background to eugenicism. Dick Sobsey’s “Varieties of Eugenics Experience in the 21st Century” takes a look at social connections and how societies are constituted prior to eugenicism and then after as well as a pop culture, easy access, look at some of the key concepts. In his talk, entitled “Preventing Disability: Nordic Perspectives”, Simo Vehmas outlines the basic history of eugenicism and then breaks down its impact for differently-abled people in Finland. One of the key points of his talk is the location of controlling differently-abled people’s sexual expression and sexuality as part of a control of their reproductive rights. So that they are rendered asexual and forced to be so as part of the eugenicist agenda even tho sex and reproduction do not necessarily have to be linked:

the sexual activities of women with impairments were regarded dangerous because sex in their cases resulted with great probability in a birth of a child with similar characteristics, similar unwanted characteristics.

The second 1/2 of his talk goes on to suggest that with regards to dis/ability rights the issue of “informed consent” as an out clause to forced sterilization becomes a misnomer. Which raises several questions around the reproductive rights of differently-abled women: How can consent be given? by whom? And does the failure to establish consent then mean that no differently-abled patients can be sterilized even if they request the procedure themselves?

This part of his talk also includes a discussion of how abortion was used as a eugenicist tool to enforce sterilization by requiring those getting abortions to also get sterilized. While there was no similar uniform and stated policy in the U.S., many women of color and differently-abled women have reported to being forceable sterilized during abortions or told that complications with the abortion required sterilization or hysterechtomies that are not certain were actually required. Others have reported going in for birth control and being talked into sterilization. So that these issues permeate marginalized women’s reproductive choices regardless of legal policy or illegal practice. And when we think about reproductive rights the continued failure to adequately address the impact of eugenicism on both the past and the present of many marginalized women’s lives has often translated into a racially and ability divided movement in which marginalized women are stigmatized as ignorant or arch conservative when that might not be the case.

Finally Simo questions the autonomy model that has replaced overt reproductive interference as potentially modern day eugenicism:

paradigm change in prenatal practice. Whereas previously, the main goal was prevention of disability but now the main-and this was based and it was even admitted that this goal was based pretty much on eugenic principles-but now the main goal is providing people with autonomous unlimited freedom for choice and so the success of prenatal genetic testing and various measures is measured by freedom of choice. So autonomy is the prominent value, everything is based on autonomy. In practice this means that the more tests there are available, the more choices you have and the more freedom you have. This is the kind of logic, which can be… and people actually, I think, believe this, although of course it’s not very credible, because more medicalized and technical pregnancy gets, women are more and more at the mercy of doctors who are the only ones who actually know what’s being tested and how to interpret and understand these test results.

As this quote points out, the increasing medical testing involved in pregnancy not only creates a situation where women are reliant on doctors who may be invested in unspoken prejudices about ability, race, class, and sexuality, but the emphasis on able-bodied delivery remains intact. Worse, because it now follows a freedom and autnomy script, the desire for able bodied children, testing to prevent the birth of differently-abled children, and the potential for termination of differently-abled fetuses becomes a function of “freedom.”  That language leads to ideological acceptance of eugenicism as evidenced in discussions excusing or empathizing with parents who kill their own differently-abled children intentionally or through long term neglect.

The third installment at WSP deals with naming, history, and honor. More specifically, Philosopher Martin Tweedale discusses the decision to stop awarding the John McEachran prize to students in philosophy because of McEachran involvement in eugenicist driven sterilizations of inmates in Alberta Canada. His target was primarily people with mental and physical disabilities and indigenous peoples and took place over several decades. John McEachran was also the founder of the philosophy and psychology departments at U Alberta and one time Provost. The prize established posthumously in his honor was funded in such a way that it could not be renamed nor the monies funneled into other programs and awarded through other means.

The debate surrounding defunding the prize related to issues of honoring exceptional student’s work, ensuring that student need was met, and whether or not a man who had participated in heinous research should have the positive contributions of his career permanently blotted out as a result. With regards to the latter, anyone who has read my thoughts on the DW Griffith award knows that I think we can acknowledge the positive contributions of people without permanently enshrining them or honoring them or others through them in ways that erase their offenses or render them irrelevant or lesser. Nor do I believe that it would be honor to receive a prize in the name of someone who had forcibly sterilized people on the basis of a racist, classist, and ableist belief that certain groups of people should not be allowed to reproduce in the same way, I see no honor in receiving a prize named after a person who cemented the myth of the black rapist and valorized the creation of the Klan at a time when lynching, burning, and deadly beatings of black people at the hands of said group was at its height. Tweedale offers a more complex opinion in which he argues that the university was never implicated in MacEachran’s research nor did have the resources to replace the needed prize. (Can you be implicated in life of a man if you choose to honor him and others through him in a prize that does not acknowledge his offensive legacy?)

This talk arrives at WSP blog at the exact moment that historians, anthropologists, and philosophers are knee deep in discussions about ritual and honor over at Dead Voles. For me it provides another unique layer to the discussion of how we honor past academics tho clearly from a different standpoint. Given how many times we have uncovered eugenicism or unethical research in our intellectual histories, the decision making at the U Alberta and the reflections Tweedale is engaging in in the talk may provide early steps to the redress many of us involved in university level governance may one day have to take.

You can, and should, read the series at their blog using the following links

• “Ethical Dilemmas in Eliminating the MacEachran Prizes in Philosophy.” Tweedale pt. 1-2
• “Ethical Dilemmas in Eliminating the MacEachran Prizes in Philosophy.” Tweedale pt. 3-4
  
• Tweedale Q & A

They have not, as far as I know, posted the fourth and final speaker’s work on the panel. But as you can see from the synopsis here, it is well worth the read and the thinking it should raise. For feminist bloggers thinking through the discussion of how to be more accountable to differently-abled women and to engaging disability rights, the second panel discussion is a good jumping off point. (Then again, based on that last comment by Piny 3/30 at 1pm, maybe not . . .)

Latino Museum Curator Program at the Smithsonian

2009 Latino Museum Studies Program (LMSP)

OVERVIEW

Organized by the Smithsonian Latino Center (SLC), the Latino Museum Studies Program (LMSP) was established to enhance leadership and professional excellence in the representation and interpretation of Latino history, art, and culture.

The four-week program includes panel sessions, lectures, workshops, and behind the scenes access to Smithsonian collections. Additionally, fellows work with Smithsonian staff on designated projects and contribute to current exhibitions, programs, and research initiatives in progress at the institution.

Each year up to fifteen mid-career museum professionals and graduate students are selected from a nationwide pool of applicants. Participation is free and includes the cost of round-trip travel to Washington, D.C. and housing accommodations for the duration of the four-week program.

GOALS

Strengthen academic and professional excellence in the representation of Latino art, culture, and history. Provide a network among the participants, Smithsonian staff, and guest faculty. Advance research in the areas of Latino art, culture, and history at the Smithsonian. Share and promote Smithsonian Latino collections and resources.

SUMMARY

The first half of the program will cover diverse topics of discussion such as curatorial practice, education, exhibition design, collections management, public programming, and audience development. The format is designed to promote dialogue amongst the faculty and participants on a wide range of topics in the museum and cultural field. During the second half of the program, fellows will participate in a designated project. This component provides hands-on experience in different areas of museum work such as collecting initiatives, museum-based curriculum development, curatorial work, and on-line education initiatives.

At the conclusion of the program, all fellows will be required to deliver a final presentation on their project and complete an assessment of their methodology.

The goal of the projects is to encourage the teams to develop new concepts and theories, and complete research, as well as contribute to current exhibitions, programs and research in progress at the Smithsonian. Participants are required to complete all four weeks of the program.

CALENDAR

• April 17: Deadline for complete of online application packet
• April – May: Application processing
• May 15: Selection process finalized
• July 12 – August 7: Program

SELECTION CRITERIA

LMSP is open to graduate students and mid-career museum professionals enrolled or engaged in the fields of Latino and Latin American art, culture and history, these include but are not limited to visual arts, sociology, performing arts, literature, cultural anthropology and related studies. Successful candidates should have considerable research and/or leadership experiences within their field, and hold an active interest in theoretical and practical issues related to museums or other cultural centers.

APPLICATION

The 2009 Latino Museum Studies Program application includes:

• A complete online application form
• Two (2) letters of recommendation

DEADLINE

All application materials are due in the Smithsonian Latino Center office no later than 5 p.m. April 17, 2009. Materials should be sent to: Express Deliveries: Latino Museum Studies Program Smithsonian Latino Center 600 Maryland Avenue, SW Suite 7042 MRC 512 Washington, DC 20024 Attn: Joanne Flores U.S. Postal Service/Priority Mail: Latino Museum Studies Program Smithsonian Latino Center P.O. Box 37012 MRC 512 Washington, DC 20013 Attn: Joanne Flores NOTIFICATION All applicants will be notified of their application status in May 2009. For more information, please contact Joanne Flores, Core Programs Director at 202.633.0807 or email latinoconference@ si.edu.

Earth Hour 8:30-9:30 Today

The annual event to save energy and raise awareness about environmentalism and pollution is today.  Part of the purpose of Earth Hour is to both show how much energy we use by turning it off and also to witness what conserving only an hour’s worth of energy could mean for lowering the global carbon footprint.

At the same time, like wearing a bracelet or those 5 second “hug a child” “save a tree’ PSAs, the event has not translated into any sizeable lasting change in consumption or awareness. So while I encourage you to participate tonight, I also want to encourage getting involved in long term commitment to decolonized environmentalism like that put forward by Shiva or LaDuke.

Here is a list of readings put together by Keepers of the Water to start to raise your own awareness or maybe even encourage you to start your own reading group as a first step in learning how to be a better steward of the world we all share.

The Role of Gossip Columns in Queer Identity in the Golden Age

As I sat composing my thoughts for a talk on queer media, I came across this a post at Bohemian Yankee in DC about how gossip magazines provided a glamorous alternative to the doomed queer characters of the golden age of cinema for those in the know, if not in the life. The politics of outing aside, I wonder what the current alternative is to the new rise in “doomed GLBTQI figures” in modern cinema. Is it simply the thriving queer film industry that even has films coming out of extremely oppressive or completely in denial parts of the world? Is it the presence of out gay actors on television and film, who are still so terribly few and far between? Or is it the gossipy blogs that specialize in both Madonna’s latest attempt to steal a child from Africa as praiseworthy and the dancers who back her as queer fashion icons on their nights off?

I don’t know. But at least this fascinating article distracted me from everything else today and got me focused back on the meaning of Here and Logo to an increasing queer market . . .

Here’s a taste:

Those familiar with our history know that during the twentieth century the vast majority of gays and lesbians depicted in the mass media led desperate, unhappy lives. Whether you saw the documentary The Celluloid Closet or you read old books and newspapers, in the movies and in the novels, gays and lesbians were victims of murder or suicide, or depicted derisively. As scholars ranging from Richard Dyer to George Chauncey have noted all of these images in popular culture strengthened the dominant gender and sexual norms of US culture.

Not everywhere. Gossip columns, novels and movies set in the Hollywood movie colony during the 1920s and 1930s showed complex and generally positive depictions of gays and lesbians as well as adulterers. Similar to other Hollywood publicity and gossip items the stories and publicity items linked these gays and lesbians to specific locations in Hollywood . . .

read the rest at Bohemian Yankee

“Our schools fail. Our prisons fail.”

Last night, I found myself watching an ABC special report about the prison-industrial-complex in which judges had allegedly taken kickbacks for first the creation of and then the perpetual filling of a juvenile prison. Filling that prison required railroad trials of youth “offenders”; some were trials allegedly 4 minutes or less with lawyers and testimony barred.  First time offenses and minor offenses that would normally be given a slap on the wrist were given maximum sentences. The alleged result was that judges made money and took lavish vacations while youth’s lives were permanently tainted. The show highlighted youth who could not get jobs in their chosen field, go to college b/c of  exclusion from financial aid, or who had simply been so traumatized by their convictions and subsequent incarcerations that they had simply given up on school or developed adult attachment disorders. While some of these effects were in the process of being reversed through a DOJ investigation and plea agreement, others, like lost school years or fears of social interaction or intimacy will take years, maybe even lifetimes, to address.

The story not only highlights the corruption of a single town’s judicial system but the failure of checks and balances embedded in one of the largest growing industries in the U.S. And as I have said in previous posts, prisons redirect the labor of entire towns in similar ways that single industry factory towns were once redirected, so that the loss of the prison can literally mean the loss of the town, even if it existed prior, creating a community wide investment in the prison-industrial-complex even as the community becomes its target. In order for the prison to be profitable, there has to be a subsequent criminalization of the population and, as I have argued before, that criminalization preys upon existing oppressions. In this case, the target was poor youth, in others it has been youth of color, immigrants, young women, transgendered activists, lesbians, etc. And the books, activists, and resources surrounding this issue has made small gains but the complex keeps growing.

So imagine my surprise this morning when I read a blog article by Anthony Farley, Law professor at Boston college, about the connection between underperforming schools, literacy, and prisons. The first 1/2 of Farley’s argument is that urban schools, populated by black youth (I would argue youth of color and to a lesser extent poor white youth) are intentionally underfunded and staffed with people who are often trained (or retrained) to run them like prisons rather than schools. There is no care for the youth and no love for the craft and that translates to illiteracy and squelched hope. These in turn contribute to higher crime rates and truancy (which is itself criminalized). Worst of all it alienates young people from learning and language (language being the doorway to imagination and self-expression).

He ties this cycle to the historic push to literacy in the black community from slavery and the equally powerful push to prevent it from founding fathers who understood that literacy was a pathway to equality.  A powerful connection that I think we all need to take some time to think about, especially in light of the kinds of targeted cuts going on in higher education that are compromising the educational attainment of poor students, students of color, and young women (thru the loss of feminist services and/or WS) at a disproportionate rate.

The second half of his article discusses prison reform to help re-establish life long pathways to learning and equality for criminalized communities.

It raises some really important questions on both fronts, and offers up a solution to alienation within the prison population. So go read it and give feedback there and tell me what you think of here.

—–

images

• youth arrested for tagging. unattributed
• Shaquanda Cotton with her mother after finally being released. AP/unattributed
• urban school. unattributed

Yay Team! Or You Don’t Bring Me Flowers Anymore . . .

I’ve been having this fascinating (at least to me) conversation with Carl Dyke about a trend I noticed in the “Influential Authors” meme that would make the likes of William Chace proud. Or would it? Since after all, what the similarities are showing us is also that many of us can and do teach multiculturalism and/or intersectionality while still being quite well versed in the “great books” which actually contradicts the Chace vs UC controversy of way back when.  I digress . . .

In that conversation, Carl said the following in response to my noting Baldwin was also showing up with much regularity:

As a game, the meme invites us to choose up sides, which is perhaps Baldwin’s chief iconic appeal. He’s like a uniform, instantly identifying, friend or foe. So we read these lists, see some fraction of ourselves reflected back, and have that ‘Yay, team!’ reaction.

If Baldwin is credentialing, and as I admit at Dead Voles (Carl’s blog) I think it is in exactly the way he describes, then what does it mean for the revolutionary message(s) of Baldwin’s text? Have they been co-opted as mere intellectual cred with no substance underneath or are there more radicals among us than we think? . . .

I return to Carl’s quote not just b/c of these questions which typified our discussion there (at least in my head) but b/c it explains this nagging sense of disallusionment or possibly loss I have been feeling lately. It started with things I cannot pinpoint and with players perhaps not implicated in the concrete example that made that quote light up in my head this morning . . . The lights came on b/c 2 days ago John Hope Franklin died. Moments later, my email was flooded by black academics (of all genders) lamenting his loss and telling stories of having been inspired by the most fleeting encounters with him or reading his books. As morning broke on the first full day after his passing, universities and national newspapers alike wrote 1-3 page obituaries mourning his loss and celebrating his immense contribution. I looked at all the historians’ blogs that I read expecting to see the types of stories that, having now grown to include artists, high school teachers, and activists, threatened to max my uni allotted email bandwith. Instead, there was silence or pithy posts about other things. This morning, as I saw the loss of this great scholar compared to the decision of UMN to go digital (and yes one could argue that digitizing books is akin to losing the voices of many great scholars), Carl Dyke’s words came back to me. As I surfed across the historian specific internet highway, I was waiting for the “Yay team!” moment. I expected it. I needed it. And 2 days later, with the exception of the post just mentioned, it still has not come.

Though it will likely get me “in trouble,” I can’t help but say it reminds me of the stories Franklin told about the contradictions of being a black scholar that I mention in the post about his passing. Lately, I have been in a truly pissy place and I think it does boil down to all of the small moments in which I expected that “team spirit” and instead found myself on the wrong end of the alleyway . . .

Excuse me while I go crank the Annie Lennox and David Bowie duet again b/c I’m starting to believe that I’m runnin’ out of ways “to give love one more chance”

Historian John Hope Franklin Died Yesterday

The eminent historian & Harvard grad John Hope Franklin died yesterday of congestive heart failure. He is most well known for his book  From Slavery to Freedom, which has sold over 3 million copies since it was first published in 1947.

Franklin was the first black historian to chair a department at a mainstream university. He did so after completing a long stint at a historically black college. His focus on black history as part of American history helped pave the way for African American Studies in the U.S. He also silently opened doors for other African American scholars, recommending Skip Gates for a MacArthur without ever once telling him until they bumped into on another at a dinner. His research for the NAACP on Brown vs. Board of Ed more publicly opened doors for equality in education at the primary and secondary level as well.

He taught at some of the most prestigious universities in the states and England at a time when African American scholars were largely absent from these institutions, including: UChicago, Harvard, Duke, and Cambridge. His presence in these institutions reminded dominant scholars of black intellectualism and pushed them toward hiring and admissions equality (pushes they are still working on). In many of these places he was the first or second black historian ever hired. As a respected colleague, he also upped the game of historians regardless of race or research focus. He encouraged many to see their work in a new and more inclusive light.

His service to both academe and the nation is long and varied. For many years he served on the editorial board of the Journal of Negro History.  A journal that has inspired film series, hip hop songs, and still contains some of the first pieces of AfAM Hisotry within its annals. He also served as President of the following academic organizations: The American Studies Association (1967), the Southern Historical Association (1970), the United Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa (1973-76), the Organization of American Historians (1975), and the American Historical Association (1979). He sat on the National Council on the Humanities until 1979, when the President appointed him to the Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. He also served on the President’s Advisory Commission on Ambassadorial Appointments. In September and October of 1980, he was a United States delegate to the 21st General Conference of UNESCO. He later served as Consultant on American Education in the Soviet Union, was a Fulbright Professor in Australia, and Lecturer in American History in the People’s Republic of China. His service garnered him a place on the 1978 list of Who’s Who (he was #8) for his contributions to American society.

In 1995, he received the first W.E.B. DuBois Award from the Fisk University Alumni Association, the Organization of American Historians’ Award for Outstanding Achievement, the Alpha Phi Alpha Award of Merit, and the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal. That same year, Franklin received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Bill Clinton.  A sad commentary on the state of racism in America and the ongoing marginalization of academics of color is that one of the female patrons at the dinner in his honor that night mistook him for the coat checker and caused a scene when he politely declined to go fetch her coat. In speaking about the incident later, Franklin also mentioned that a hotel guest at the same hotel he was staying at before meeting with the President, handed him his keys and walked off before Franklin could tell him he was not the valet but rather waiting by the door for his own ride to the White House.  He told these stories not out of bitterness but rather to elucidate the ongoing struggle of black people for legitimacy in dominant culture and to encourage those of us with credentialing letters behind our names (PhD, MD, JD, etc.) to continue on in the face of daily discrimination our colleagues would likely not believe b/c the work we can do outweighs the offenses they can heap on us.

In 1996, Professor Franklin was elected to the Oklahoma Historians Hall of Frame and in 1997 he received the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award.

While he welcomed these acknowledgments of his work, Franklin was never more happy than when he was interacting with black activists and scholars from across the disciplines. He worked with Martin Luther King Jr, Rosa Parks, Jesse Jackson, and so many others in the civil rights movement and the activists of its legacies. Many of the second generation AFAM scholars also worked with Franklin. And as stories about people’s reactions to his passing circulate, scholars, teachers, artists, writers, etc. are all coming forward with memories of the time they met Franklin in the halls, at a dinner, or just signing a copy of his book for them, where he left a lasting positive impression.

In speaking about his own goals as a historian, Franklin once said:

My challenge was to weave into the fabric of American history enough of the presence of blacks so that the story of the United States could be told adequately and fairly

His loss is being felt throughout the academic community and I hope will be noted at the OAH going on now in Seattle. He certainly did cross borders with strength and intelligence that inspired and continues to inspire so many of us even tho many of those borders still remain.