Oprah -- Terry McMillan and Her Gay Ex-Husband

First, I am a gay Jamaican-American so I am going to speak from my personal experiences as to how it relates to these specific circumstances.

I think that Johnathan has a number of issues that he is failing to deal with personally. I can understand how and why he has not taken the opportunity to reflect on these issues as the culture under which he was raised probably prohibited him from really reflecting on his self. I did not take the time out to deal with a number of my issues for quite some time, not because I didnt want to, but because I didnt think I had time to. What Terry provided John with was the opportunity to live a better life while fufilling what seems like the need for lust and love in her life. There are a number of intersections in play here. on her side we have: Class --a multimillionaire best-selling author taking a nice vacation to the islands and hooks up with a ntive local island boy, Sexuality -- the sexualization of African American men has it roots in slavery (many of which came from the Carribean--especially the "intrigue" of an island man), and Sexual Orientation -- although tied very closely to sexuality, the masculinity of the Jamaican culture does not condone nor promote homosexuality with males or females (a fact that I bet was easily overlooked by Terry -- Johnathan could not have been gay because she didnt/couldnt see him that way). Making love to a vagina does not make one straight.

With that said, I will make the following disclosures. My read of Terry's and John's behavior on the show is complicated because I didnt quite get what they were trying to do/prove. Were they mad at each other? Who was lying and who was telling the truth? I dont even think Oprah was able to get answers to these questions though she tried pretty hard. The problem with this is that Oprah is an internationally brodacasted television show that reaches millions daily. To depict gay life (esp. African American) in that aspect was deeply disturbing. It is quite sad that both individuals could not capitalize this opportunity (esp if they are trying to make up) on Oprah -- a medium that is benefical for both parties. Prior to Oprah, John had to plead is case to Good Morning America (because BET wasn't going to hear him out) and Terry sat on Tavis Smiley's show (because she wouldn't dare sit on GMA and link homosexuality to AIDS that easily).

Oprah ticked me off too with her input on the divorce precedings. The fact is he was married to the woman well over 6 years of his life as was presented with a lifestyle that was not the one he was living in Jamaica. He gave her a best-seller for God's sake. The man is being judged by his sexual conduct and his orientation. She liked it when the sex was good, but when he chooses to leave her, then there is a problem?
I dont think that John was honest on the show, he just seemed like he was hiding something, but the fact remains that he did love her and brought her pleasure (sexually and emotionally). She should be thankful that she didnt walk in on him ankles around his neck on her linens, but that he had the decency to tell her.

Power Women

Fortune Magazine just came out with the list of the 50 most powerful women in the United States.

Notable mentions: Meg Whitman #1; Oprah #4; Anne Moore #13 and Martha #21. For the complete list click here.

Annie Lennox

While I was preparing my post last night, I stumbled unto her website. I've always been a fan of hers and this website is incredible -- simple yet elegant. Take a look. Check out the video for "Why". Charlie Brown's is having a CD release party for the EURYTHMICS Ultimate Collection 19 Songs featuring 2 NEW TRACKS "I’ve Got A Life" and "Was It Just Another Love Affair" on Thanksgiving. Worth stopping by if in town.

Tea Time Discussion 1: The Conflation of Sex, Gender, and Sexual Orientation.

Does a penis make you a male? Does a vagina make you a female? How do we categorize individuals who are born with a penis and a vagina?

I asked these questions for a number of reasons. The first is that I was re-reading a couple of pieces -- law reviews in particular-- that discuss the conflation of sex, gender, and sexual orientation. Around the same time, I read an interesting post on the Carriefairfield discussion board from a member that was wondering if a recent contestant in Charlie Brown's drag idol was a "male" or "female" out of drag and wether or not that was fait to allow this person to participate in the competition. After all, would it still be a drag competition if a female was allowed to enter?

I thought about this for quite some time, as this question hit on and intersected with several areas of study. Queer theory, feminism, social anthropology to name a few. So I decided to make this the first topic of discussion in my tea time series.

My first article serves as an excellent starting point. I LOVE this law review and I have read it about fifty times. I HIGHLY recommend it for those interested in queer theory and queer legal jurisprudence. Queers, Sissies, Dykes and Tomboys: Deconstructing the Conflation of "Sex," "Gender" and "Sexual Orientation" in Euro-American Law and Society, 83 CAL. L. REV. 3 (1995).

I am not attempting to summarize the law review here, but I will choose a couple of sections that are relevant to the conversation at hand, and borrow a couple of the footnotes used by Professor Valdes.

The first is the discussion of sex. What is sex?
Sex as defined by Wikipedia
In humans, sex is conventionally perceived as a dichotomous state or identity for most biological and social purposes, such that a person can only be female or male. However, when the criteria which are generally used to define femaleness or maleness are examined more closely, it becomes apparent that the assignment or determination of 'sex' occurs at multiple levels. Environmental, biological, social, psychological and other factors are all believed to have some role in this process, and the complex interaction of these factors is expressed in the diversity of biological and psychosocial 'states' or levels found amongst the human population.

Wikepedia also goes on to list the "criteria of sex" that concludes sex is cumatively defined as: chromosomal sex, antigenic sex, gonadal sex, prenatal hormonal sex, internal morphologic sex, external morphologic sex, pubertal hormonal sex, and assigned sex.

Hung Up

So apparently falling off a horse and breaking your arm and a couple of ribs is not enough to stop the queen from making good music. I LOVE Madonna's -- I mean Esther's -- new album. I've already learned the dance for HUNG UP.

Check it out.

Current Read

I am currently reading Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil (Paperback)

Stay tuned for a chapter by chapter analysis. You can also check out Michael C. Ruppert's website From the Wilderness for more information on the author and his work.

Introduction to Women's Studies WS 1000

This is the best course syllabus for an introductory women's studies class that I have ever seen. I have posted the links behind all the articles and the books (via Amazon.com) that I have been able to find on the internet. I threw in some additional readings from my introductory women studies classes also.

INTRODUCTION TO WOMEN'S STUDIES
WS 1000
Banu Subramaniam

I. Course Description
This course is an introduction to the fundamental questions and concepts of Women's Studies and to the basic intellectual tools of analysis integrating economic and cultural imperialism, gender, class, race, nation, and sexualities. What do we mean by the category "woman"? Are there essential/innate characteristics that define all women? What of our many differences? How do we incorporate other social categories such as gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and nationality? How do we understand and live with our multiple identities and locations? How do these locations shape our economic, political, and cultural lives? This course will explore theories about women and gender through interdisciplinary analyses, as well as disciplinary lenses such as biology, history, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, and literary studies. We explore the diversity of women transnationally by focusing on women's status and experiences in the U. S and across the globe. The course will introduce some important theorists, thinkers, writers and activists who have grappled with the inextricable interconnections of gender, race, class, sexuality, ethnicity and nationality. We will grapple with how to conceptualize the category "woman" to reflect all the similarities as well as the many substantive differences.

II. Texts
REQUIRED BOOKS:
Introduction to Women's Studies: Gender in a Transnational World, Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan eds, 2002. McGraw Hill. (referred to as Text)
The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World, Joni Seager, Penguin USA (Paper); Revised and Updated edition, April 1, 2003. (referred to as Atlas)
Course Pack/Reader of Additional Reading (referred to as Reader)

Gloria Steinem, "If Men Could Menstruate." Ms Magazine, October 1978.

Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey, "Theories and Theorizing: Integrative Frameworks for
Understanding,"In Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives, Gwyn Kirk and Margo
Okazawa -Rey eds., McGraw Hill, 2004.
Marilyn Frye, "Oppression." In The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory. The Crossing
Press Feminist Series, 1983. (Reader)
Allan G. Johnson, "Patriarchy, The System: An It, Not a He, A Them, or an Us." In Women's
Lives: Multicultural Perspectives, Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey eds., McGraw Hill,
2004. (Reader)
Alison Jagger & Paula Rothenberg, "Theories of Women's Subordination," In Feminist
Frameworks: Alternate Theorietical Accounts of Relations between Men and Women. (Third
Edition), McGraw Hill, 1993.(Reader)
Adrienne Rich, "Claiming an Education," In Women's Studies in the Academy: Origins and
Impact," Robyn L. Rosen, ed. Prentice Hall, 2004. (Reader)
Elizabeth Minnich, "Transforming Knowledge," In Women's Studies in the Academy: Origins
and Impact, Robyn L. Rosen, ed. Prentice Hall, 2004. (Reader)
Anne Fausto Sterling, "The Five Sexes: Why Male and Female are Not Enough." The Sciences,
March/April 1993. (Reader)
Carol Tavris, "Measuring Up," in The Mismeasure of Woman: Why Women are Not the Better
Sex,the Inferior Sex, Or the Opposite Sex," 1992. New York: Simon & Schuster. (Reader)
Alan Goodman, "Bred In the Bone," The Sciences, March/April 1997. (Reader)
Teresa L. Arnott & Julie A. Matthaei, "Race, Class, Gender and Women's Works: A Multi
-Cultural Economic History of Women in the United States., Teresa Amott & Julie Mattaei eds.,
Boston: South End Press. (Reader)
Judith Lorber, ""Night to His Day": The Social Construction of Gender."" In Women's Studies
In the Academy: Origins and Impact, Robyn L. Rosen, ed. Prentice Hall, 2004. (Reader)
Kimberle Crenshaw, "Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics and Violence Against Women." In Critical Race Theory: Key Writings that Framed the Movement, NY: The New Press, 357-384, 1995.
Michael Zweig, "Welcome to the Working Class!" NYT, July 13, 2002. (Reader)
Arlene Stein, "Introduction" and "The Year of the Lustful Lesbian," In Sisters, Sexperts, Queers:
Beyond the Lesbian Nation, Plume Books, 1993, 13- 34 (Reader)
Joan Nestle, "Narratives of Liberation: Pluralities of Hope" and "My Years with the Lesbian
Herstory Archives, In A Fragile Union: New and Selected Writings. Cleis Press, 1998 (Reader)
Geeta Patel, "Home, Homo, Hybrid: Translating Gender," College Literature, 1997, 24(1): 139
-148.
Barbara Smith, "Homophobia, Why Bring it up?" In The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, Henry
Abelove, Michèle Aina Barale, David M. Halperin eds, Routledge, 1993. 99-102, (Reader)
Dorothy Allison, "A Question of Class," in Skin: Talking About Sex, Class & Literature, Ithaca,
New York: Firebrand Books, 1994. (Reader)
June Jordan, "Report from the Bahamas," On Call: Political Essays. 1995. Boston: South End
Press, (Reader)
Peggy McIntosh, "White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See
Correspondances Through Work in Women's Studies," in Race, Class and Gender, Anderson
& Hill Collins, eds., Belmont, CA: Wadsworth (Reader)
Trina Grillo & Stephanie Wildman, "Obscuring the Importance of Race: Implications of Making
Comparisons Between Racism and Seism [or The Other-isms}," in Critical Race Theory: The
Cutting Edge. Richard , ed., 199. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. (Reader)
(Poem: Pat Parker, "For the white person who wants to know how to be my friend," in Making
Face, Making Soul, Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Feminists of Color,
Gloria Anzaldúa ed., 1990. Aunt Lute Books.)
Leith Mullings, "Images, Ideology, and Women of Color" In Women of Color in U. S. Society,
Maxine Baca Zinn and Bonnie Thornton Dill, eds. Philadelphia: Temple University Press 1994.
265- 290 (Reader)
Jacqueline Urla and Alan Swedlund, "The Anthropology of Barbie: Unsettling Ideals of Feminine
Body in Popular Culture." In Deviant Bodies: Critical Perspectives on Difference in Science
And Popular Culture. Jennifer Terry and Jacqueline Urla ed., Bloomington, Indiana University
Press, 1995, 277- 313 (Reader)'
Short excerpts from A Girl's Guide to Taking Over the World: Writings from the Zine Revolution,
Karen Green & Tristan Taormino, eds., 1997. New York: St. Martin's Griffin and Listen Up:
Voices from the Next Feminist Generation. Barbara Findlen, ed., 1995. Washington, DC: Seal
Press, 1995.
Barbara Ehrenreich, "Two Tiered Morality," NYT, June 30, 2002. (Reader)
Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, "Sultana's Dream," in Inventing Women: Science, Technology, and
Gender. Gill Kirkup and Laurie Smith Keller eds., The Open University Press, 1992. 294-302.
(Reader).
Gerd Bratenberg, "Bram, the director and her family," "The Maidmen's Ball," "Ruth Bram and
her housebond - for better or worse." The Daughters of Egalia. 1985. Boston: South End Press.
(Reader)
Audre Lorde, "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House." In Feminism and Race, Kum-Kum Bavnani, ed. Oxford Univeristy Press, 2000, 89-92. (Reader)

June Jordan, "Where is the Love?" Making Face, Making Soul, Haciendo Caras: Creative and
Critical Perspectives by Feminists of Color, Gloria Anzaldúa ed., 1990. San Francisco: Aunt
Lute Books. (Reader)
bell hooks, ""Sisterhood is Still Powerful" In Feminism is for Everybody, South End Press, 2000,
13-18

Bodybuilding Updates

I have been slacking on this whole working out regime. I am trying to get back on top of the ball here, but it is hard to discipline myself to cook my own meals vs. eating out all the time. Additionally, I am trying not to drink alcohol, which means that I have to cut down on my partying time. Bummer!

Enough of the excuses. Here is the workout plan that I have crafted and plan to stick to.

Monday -- Abs
(300 sit-ups)
Alternate Heel Touchers
Bent-Knee Hip Raise
Cardio - Treadmill/Bikes
Cross-Body Crunch
Knee/Hip Raise On Parallel Bars

Tuesday -- Chest & Shoulders
Butterfly Machine
Machine Bench Press
Dips -- Chest Version
Isometric Chest Squeezes
Push-Ups (Close and Wide Hand Positions)
Push-Ups With Feet Elevated
Machine Shoulder (Military) Press


Wednesday -- Quads, Hamstrings, & Booty
Hack Squat
Leg Extensions
Leg Press
Freehand Jump Squat

Thursday -- Bi's and Tri's
Chin-Ups
Machine Preacher Curls
Lying Close-Grip Curl on High Pulley
Overhead Cable Curl

Friday/Sat/Sun -- REST

Certificate in Feminist Scholarship: Gender, History, Race, and Law

I have found the best reading list/guide to the inquiry into feminist critiques of race, law, gender and history.

Thank you Elizabeth Kolsky.

Kimberle Williams Crenshaw

B.A., Cornell, 1981; J.D., Harvard, 1984; LL.M., Wisconsin, 1985. Presently Professor of Law at UCLA and Columbia, has written in the areas of civil rights, black feminist legal theory, and race, racism and the law. Her work has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the National Black Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, and the Southern California Law Review. A founding coordinator of the Critical Race Theory workshop; coeditor of Critical Race Theory: Key Documents That Shaped the Movement, has lectured nationally and internationally on race matters, addressing audiences throughout Europe, Africa, and South America. She has facilitated workshops for civil rights activists in Brazil and constitutional court judges in South Africa. Her work on race and gender was influential in the drafting of the equality clause in the South African Constitution. In 2001, she authored the background paper on Race and Gender Discrimination for the United Nations World Conference on Racism and helped facilitate the inclusion of gender in the WCAR Conference Declaration.


In the domestic arena, she has served as a member of the National Science Foundations Committee to Research Violence Against Women and has assisted the legal team representing Anita Hill. In 1996, she co-founded the African-American Policy Forum to highlight the centrality of gender in racial justice discourse. Professor Crenshaw is also a founding member of the Women's Media Initiative and is a regular commentator on NPRs The Tavis Smiley Show. She was twice named Professor of the Year at UCLA Law School and received the Lucy Terry Prince Unsung Heroine Award, presented by the Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights Under Law, for her path breaking work on black women and the law.

Miers Withdraws Under Mounting Criticism

I hope that this serves as a wake up call to this administration to try and pick the most qualified individual for this position.


By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent 15 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Under withering attack from conservatives,
President Bush abandoned his push to put loyalist Harriet Miers on the Supreme Court and promised a quick replacement Thursday. Democrats accused him of bowing to the "radical right wing of the Republican Party."
ADVERTISEMENT

The White House said Miers had withdrawn because of senators' demands to see internal documents related to her role as counsel to the president. But politics played a larger role: Bush's conservative backers had doubts about her ideological purity, and Democrats had little incentive to help the nominee or the embattled GOP president.

"Let's move on," said Republican Sen. Trent Lott (news, bio, voting record) of Mississippi. "In a month, who will remember the name Harriet Miers?"

The withdrawal stunned Washington on a day when the capital was awaiting potential bad news for the administration on another front — the possible indictments of senior White House aides in the
CIA leak case. Earlier in the week, the U.S. military death toll in
Iraq hit 2,000.

Bush, who said he reluctantly accepted Miers' decision to withdraw, must now go through the agonizing nomination process for a third time this fall. He could turn first to the list of candidates passed over in favor of Miers, including Samuel Alito, an appeals court judge supported by many conservatives, administration officials said.

Democrats urged Bush to nominate a moderate. "The president has an opportunity now to unite the country. In appointing the next nominee, he must listen to all Americans, not just the far right," said Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) of Massachusetts.

Bush, after weeks of insisting he did not want Miers to withdraw, blamed the Senate.

"It is clear that senators would not be satisfied until they gained access to internal documents concerning advice provided during her tenure at the White House — disclosures that would undermine a president's ability to receive candid counsel," Bush said shortly before leaving for Florida to assess hurricane damage.

There were few regrets on Capitol Hill, from either party. Republicans control 55 of the Senate's 100 seats, but several GOP lawmakers were wavering on Miers amid intense lobbying from conservative interest groups.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist spoke with White House chief of staff Andy Card Wednesday night and offered a "frank assessment of the situation in the committee and in the full Senate," Frist spokesman Bob Stevenson said.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called Miers capable but added, "This clearly was the wrong position for her."

"The radical right wing of the Republican Party killed the Harriet Miers nomination," said Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who had recommended Miers to the president. "They want a nominee with a proven record of supporting their skewed goals."

Whomever Bush picks, a united GOP caucus holds the upper hand. Democrats would have to use their 44 voters (there is one independent) to try to block the nomination procedurally, a move loaded with political and logistical hurdles.

Republican consultants predicted that Bush would satisfy the conservatives who helped him to two election victories and now want their due. "The conservative movement has made it fairly clear from their standpoint that they would like someone that many people have been fighting for, or involved in these battles over 30 years," said consultant Greg Mueller, who was deeply involved in the Miers nomination fight.

While conservatives cheered her withdrawal, Ralph Neas, president of the liberal People for the American Way, said the decision demonstrated that "ultraconservatives are so determined to swing the Supreme Court to the right that they pounded their own president's nominee into submission and now demand a nominee with unquestioned far-right credentials."

Miers' withdrawal means the justice she was chosen to replace,
Sandra Day O'Connor, will delay her retirement further. O'Connor has been a swing voter on numerous emotional social issues, and more are set to come before the Supreme Court.

On Nov. 30, the court will hear arguments on New Hampshire's parental notification law for abortion. In late November the court may decide whether it will hear the Bush administration's appeal of a 2003 federal law that bans the type of late-term operation known as partial-birth abortion.

Before the president chose Miers on Oct. 3, speculation had focused on her and two other Bush loyalists: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Bush's longtime friend who would be the first Hispanic on the court, and corporate lawyer Larry Thompson, who was the government's highest ranking black law enforcement official as deputy attorney general during Bush's first term.

A senior administration official said Gonzales and Thompson would probably run into similar criticism as Miers. They are Bush confidants with sparse records.

Other candidates mentioned frequently include conservative federal appeals court judges Alito, J. Michael Luttig, Priscilla Owen, Karen Williams and Alice Batchelder; Michigan Supreme Court justice Maura Corrigan and Maureen Mahoney, a frequent litigator before the high court.

Bush promised a new nominee "in a timely manner." Miers will remain White House counsel.

A second senior administration official said it had become increasingly clear that her nomination was facing a collision on Capitol Hill that needed to be prevented.

Miers called the president in his private residence at 8:30 p.m. EDT Wednesday to tell him of her decision. Twelve hours later, she walked into the Oval Office to hand him her letter of withdrawal.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Miers came to the decision on her own. The administration officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the nomination, said it was clear to everybody in the White House that Bush could not afford the fight.

Polls show Bush is at the weakest point of his presidency with growing numbers of voters disapproving of his job performance and his policies on Iraq.

Since Miers' nomination, there have been widespread complaints about her lack of legal credentials, doubts about her ability and assertions of cronyism because of her longtime association with Bush.

In a letter on Wednesday, Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, sought assurances that Miers would show no favoritism toward Bush if confirmed as a justice.

Also on Wednesday night, Miers had submitted 59 pages worth of answers to a Senate questionnaire.

Are you the "Average American?"

I was watching CNN and saw this story about the average american. Take a look and take the quiz. You might meet the criteria.

ARTICLE: Queers, Sissies, Dykes and Tomboys: Deconstructing the Conflation of "Sex," "Gender," and "Sexual Orientation" in Euro-American Law and Socie

I find this piece to be ground breaking in the field of Queer Theory. I read it for the first time my senior year in high school, as my debate mentor at the time (Justine Daniels) was trying to introduce me to the "kritik" Queer Theory.
I dont think that I understood what she was talking about at the time, and didnt really until I came to terms with whom I was and the life I wanted to live.

Make sure you have Adobe Acrobat. Enjoy!

Judith Butler

I am currently re-reading a book (Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity) from my other role model. I will explain why I am re-reading this book later in another post.


Judith Butler attended Bennington College and then Yale University, where she received her B.A., and her Ph.D. in philosophy in 1984. Her first training in philosophy took place at the synagogue in her hometown of Cleveland. She taught at Wesleyan and Johns Hopkins universities before becoming Maxine Elliot Professor in the Departments of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley.

In her most influential book Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990), Butler argued that feminism had made a mistake by trying to assert that "women" were a group with common characteristics and interests. That approach, Butler said, performed "an unwitting regulation and reification of gender relations"-- reinforcing a binary view of gender relations in which human beings are divided into two clear-cut groups, women and men. Butler notes that feminists rejected the idea that biology is destiny, but then developed an account of patriarchal culture which assumed that masculine and feminine genders would inevitably be built, by culture, upon 'male' and 'female' bodies, making the same destiny just as inescapable. That argument allows no room for choice, difference or resistance.

Butler argues that sex (male, female) is seen to cause gender (masculine, feminine) which, in turn, is seen to cause desire (towards the other gender). This is commonly regarded as a kind of continuum. Butler's approach — inspired in part by Michel Foucault — is basically to smash the supposed links between these, so that gender and desire are flexible, free-floating and not 'caused' by other stable factors. Butler suggests that certain cultural configurations of gender have seized a hegemonic hold, and calls for subversive action in the present: "gender trouble" — the mobilization, subversive confusion, and proliferation of genders, and therefore identity. This idea of identity as free-floating, as not connected to an "essence", but instead to a performance, is one of the key ideas in queer theory. Seen in this way, our identities, gendered and otherwise, do not express some authentic inner "core" self but are the dramatic effect (rather than the cause) of our performances.

My Role Models

Inspired by the passing of Rosa Parks and Vivian Malone Jones, I am starting a series highlighting a number of people that I consider to be my role models in life.

The first person on this list is my former college debate coach, Melissa Maxcy Wade.

1972 B.A. History, Political Science, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. 1976 M.A. Educational Studies, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. 1996 M.T.S. Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. 2000 Th.M. Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, currently serves as the director of the Barkley Forum, a nationally ranked intercollegiate debate team, community outreach programs to urban and rural secondary schools; director of the Emory National Debate Institute, advisor on debating across curriculum to academic departments, guest lectures in various departments on political debates, communication and gender/race issues.

Melissa has founded over ten urban debate leagues across the United States. Her vision of "replacing weapons with words" allowed me the opportunity to debate for four years in high school via The New York Urban Debate League and in college via the Barkley Forum.

Thank you Melissa.

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