[CBW_Exec] cbw and social justice policy

[Lalicker, William]

Although I've already added not just my two cents but maybe a nickel to
this important discussion, here's another brief comment. Sugie raises
important points-and I like the fact that we're still discussing my
wonderful friend and mentor Sharon Crowley's incisive critique. My
answer, to Sugie and Sharon and to myself when I have to look in the
mirror (that might reflect injustice) and go to work in the morning, is
that (a) it's better that we are working in the midst of injustice, even
within unjust institutions, and working to change them; and (b) the
ultimate effect of bringing BW students into these institutions is that
the normalizing force of "academic discourse" can be subverted by the
voices and the lives of those who bring their experience and reality to
academic sites, hybridizing the old academic discourse and changing it,
de-norming it. 

 

That doesn't happen always, or easily, or justly, or the same
everywhere. But without BW practitioners and BW students, it likely
doesn't happen at all. So as long as we are working to change and
subvert institutions-actively, riskily, but not inconsequentially-my
guess (I say "guess" to assure all that I don't claim to be sure) is
that being here is more likely to make justice than being gone.

 

Good, important, complicated discussion. Yes, I want to be in a session
on this; I'm not committed to any other session yet. It would be great
to have Sharon as chair or respondent, but she is retiring from ASU and
we had kind of a end-of-career party with her at CCCC in New Orleans and
she may not  want to attend in 2009; I can certainly ask her-and seeing
this thread might kindle her interest... 

 

Thanks again, Sugie and Shannon and Susan and Peter and Marcia and
Hannah and Deborah.

 

Cheers,

 

Bill

 

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