Peridyd's Progress

Today's Dad's Weekend football game at Oregon State University will feature twin protests. On the one side are students who are "showing their school spirit" by putting on blackface (OSU's colors are orange and black), largely in defiance of others, who, by providing a counter protest, are attempting to remind these students of the historical roots of blackface.

The use of blackface has a long history in our country and is akin to other offensive stereotypes that have been created and used by white culture to justify racism. Since the mid-Nineteenth Century, white performers have put on blackface in order to entertain their audiences with comic representations of African Americans. The first performances were minstrelsy shows. But those of us who are a bit older (I was born in 1956) can remember seeing cartoons with Bugs Bunny et al which used blackface in the same hurtful and racist manner.

I bring this up to point out that blackface isn't an old phenomenon. I grew up watching television commercials spotlighting their products vian Aunt Jemima and the Frito Bandito, broadcasts containing the "Wascally Wabbit" doing his version of Al Jolson, not to mention occasional movies featuring Al Jolson himself in blackface.

The official campus student newspaper, The Barometer, is the original source of the problem. I never saw the issue in question (I don't really like the paper, despite the fact that it's "award winning"), but my understanding is that they ran a front page story encouraging students to dress up in blackface for today's game, and had a photo of a white student in blackface. They now have issued a non-apology apology that justifies their actions via their ignorance of the painful roots of blackface. Conversation, censorship, and racist letters to the editor have ensued.

White students claim the right to the innocent use of blackface. Those who are protesting their promise to dress up in blackface counter that there is no innocent use of blackface.

To those who are paying any attention to this issue on campus, it's clear that the conversation has a polarizing effect. Like arguments around abortion, no one's being converted.

Yet that doesn't mean that each side is equally entitled to its opinion. Some opinions, I'd like to remind us, are better supported than others. Those who support the wearing of blackface to the game today are wont to claim that blackface is a dead issue today, and they have a right to appropriate it for their innocent (football and school spirited) ends, as if blackface has somehow been cleansed of its historical and racist roots.

As Luke Sugie points out in his excellent, yet censored, commentary on the claims of ignorance being used as an excuse,

it's not surprising that the Barometer took this route. There are few (if any) serious repercussions for not knowing the history of media and ethnicity in this country, even for an award-winning student paper. After all, you can just apologize and claim ignorance, silently allow those who point out such instances to be vilified as uppity one-issue writers, and move on. But the problem when folks in dominant groups remain ignorant of the historical citations they make is that no such privilege exists for the “others,” which Jerred Taylor pointed out in his letter to the editor last Friday.

If I don't know the ins and outs of heterosexual culture, I am liable to be physically assaulted or worse by being queer at the wrong place or wrong time. Similarly, if I don't understand how whiteness is constructed and operated in this country I am liable to face serious negative social, personal, or physical ramifications. The opposite of the two preceding statements is rarely true.

I know the troubling and deeply embedded historical citation being made when someone dresses up like a ninja, slutty Pocahontas, or some other regurgitated stereotype for Halloween - even if they don't. I understand that a historical citation of a stereotype such as blackface, however accidental or well-intentioned, calls forward the hurt and pain of communities who lived or continue to live with those stereotypes. If you don't understand why the image of blackface is so powerful, even the mere appearance of blackface, it's probably because privilege has let you ignore it without consequence.

In the social justice circles I hang out with on campus, the tension yesterday was palpable. In a day of meetings and not enough time to read email, today's protests came up several times.

I fear for what might happen at the game today.

All of which is a long winded way of getting to the point of this post: where in all of these voices is the official voice of OSU? I respect Ed Ray and believe that his commitment to diversity and social justice issues is authentic. But the silence from the President's office is deafening. And the resultant vacuum ends up sounding like a tacit approval of those who would wear blackface, which, since it cannot be scrubbed of its racist roots, is wrong. How difficult would it be for one who is committed to social justice to say just that?

Posted by Dennis Bennett at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Those of you who know me know that I typically use the summer months as a time to focus on software projects. I run a writing center, and during the normal academic year I teach, train, and supervise as many as 45 undergraduate and graduate student workers. So I use the summer months as a time to withdraw (a bit) from the demands of running a busy writing center to write software for the Center.

This summer, however, was quite different. Our Center hosted an international writing centers conference in early August. Five or six months of intense preparation followed by five or six days of very intense work. On top of that a colleague and good friend of mine resigned his position in the Center (in favor of a tenure-line teaching job in Bellingham, WA), and I chaired the search committee that found his replacement. Sheesh! It was a ton of work and stress.

At any rate, both the conference and the search ultimately turned out quite well. We got props for how well organized we were for the former, and I have a great new colleague as a result of the latter effort, so all's well that ends well.

Having said that, there was no time for writing software and no time for blogging. What's odd is in the wake of this surfeit (or one might well call it a "hurricane") of work, I'm finding myself oddly calmed by what I've typically recoiled from: the startup process of a new academic year. Don't get me wrong, I'm quite busy. But the labors of the known process of getting the Center and its programs up to speed for the fall pale in comparison to the rigors of my summer "vacation."

Posted by Dennis Bennett at 09:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've written earlier about the dangers of technically-illiterate legislation, but this one's from the enforcement side, and it's just so painful to read.

Indulge me a moment while I break it down:

• substitute teacher shows up for class,


• while using the classroom computer, porn pop ups appear,


• substitute teacher tries to stop the popups, but to no avail. Some of the students apparently see some porn


• parents get wind of the fact that their children have viewed human sexual acts, and


• substitute teacher is tried and convicted (?!!!) of putting the children at risk.

The school computer had an inadequate operating system, out of date ant-virus, and an inadequate firewall; the defense was not allowed to provide expert technical testimony which would have unequivocally cleared the teacher of any wrong doing.

A clueless and technically-illiterate judicial system is potentially sending an innocent person to jail.

Sentencing is March 2nd.

Posted by Dennis Bennett at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yesterday Michael Chasen, President and CEO of Blackboard, published the following press release trumpeting his company's largess toward the open source and homegrown educational online learning environment community.

Dear Blackboard Community,

I am writing to share some exciting news about a patent pledge Blackboard is making today to the open source and home-grown course management community. We are announcing a legally-binding, irrevocable, world-wide pledge not to assert any of our issued or pending patents related to course management systems or transaction systems against the use, development or support of any open source or home-grown course management systems.

We developed this pledge over several months with the help and dedication of various members of the e-Learning community, such as EDUCAUSE, Sakai and many Blackboard clients. We are very grateful for their time and counsel. Without such a thoughtful and collaborative process, this sort of unprecedented pledge for a company of our size might not have been possible.

"We particularly welcome the inclusion of pending patents , the clarification on the commercial support, customization, hosting or maintenance of open source systems and the worldwide nature of Blackboard's pledge. We also appreciate the willingness of Blackboard to continue with frank and direct dialogue with our two organizations and with other higher education representatives and groups to work toward addressing these problems of community concern ."

-Joint Statement of EDUCAUSE and Sakai Boards of Directors

"We wish to acknowledge the company's actions and express our appreciation to Blackboard in committing to continue to foster creativity and collaboration within the e-Learning community. Such a response can only benefit the teachers and practitioners, the learners, Blackboard, and indeed the wider e-Learning community ."

-Australasian Council on Open, Distance and E-Learning (ACODE)

As a longstanding and leading member of the e-Learning community, we understand that Blackboard plays an important role in promoting the open exchange of ideas, collaboration and innovation. This pledge symbolizes our continued commitment to that role by agreeing not to assert U.S. Patent No. 6,988,138 and many other pending patent applications as well as their international counterparts against the development, use or distribution of open source software or home-grown course management systems anywhere in the world, to the extent that such systems are not bundled with proprietary software. This pledge also extends to the commercial support, hosting, customization and maintenance of such applications.

So those using home-grown or open source systems, professors and teachers contributing to open source projects, open source initiatives, commercially developed open source add-on applications to proprietary products and vendors hosting and supporting open source applications all are covered by this pledge. In addition, we have extended the pledge to many specifically named open source initiatives within the course and learning management system space whether or not they may include proprietary elements within their applications, including Sakai, Moodle, ATutor, Bodington and Elgg.

We are very pleased to take this formal step which is part of a larger effort on our part to engage more deeply with the e-Learning community and help foster greater openness and interoperability. We believe the pledge and the collaboration that brought it about will support and promote new innovation and the free flow of ideas across the global e-Learning community.

The text of the Pledge which incorporates by reference a list of frequently asked questions, as well as the announcement press release may be found on our website at www.blackboard.com/patent. If you have any questions about the Pledge, please contact Blackboard's Chief Legal Officer, Matthew Small, at msmall@blackboard.com.

Thank you again for your continued partnership.

Sincerely,

Michael Chasen
President and CEO
Blackboard Inc.

I'm reproducing the entire press release in order to compare and contrast it with the the tandem statement made by the board of directors of Sakai and Educause, an interesting counterpoint to that of Blackboard, if for no other reason than the latter's tone is much more measured.

One might well ask oneself why these leaders in technology in higher education would take such a tone. Isn't the Blackboard pledge a good thing?

Not really. On the one hand this feels like a face-saving effort on the part of Blackboard in anticipation of possibly losing their patents, patents which they never should have been granted. On the other hand, I get the distinct impression that Sakai and Educause are participating in this because they're more than a little uncomfortable banking on our legal system coming down on the right side of this issue.

I'll say it again, I have firsthand knowledge of there being prior art. I was involved with several projects that used teacher and student roles in course management systems before Blackboard existed. Setting aside, therefore, the huge issue of whether or not software should be patentable (it shouldn't be), these patents should have never been granted.

Given this fact and the home run that the FOSS community hit with last week's ruling, it's highly likely that Blackboard will be facing patent setbacks. So Sakai and Educause can afford to take a sterner tone. It seems to me as if they're just hedging their bets by participating in joint release.

To my mind they seem to be joining in this Blackboard public relations effort just in case Blackboard prevails and maintains their patents. Meanwhile, Blackboard gets to say to higher education, "Don't worry. We're not after you. We play nice. You can trust us. We're only after those who, like us, want to make a profit off of education, those, who--like us--have more mundane and less idealistic motives for being interested in education."

It will be interesting to see what Sakai and Educause will say when (and if) Blackboard's patents are revoked.

Posted by Dennis Bennett at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I don't have to tell the readers of this blog that I consider our (U.S.) legal system imperfect at best. Today, however, there's some promising news in the software patent wars. Blackboard (link intentionally left out) may actually lose its patents on the courseware management system, patents they received because they have high-powered lawyers, not because they were there first.

They weren't.

Indeed, I was involved in software projects (and so was Greg TR, a loyal reader of this blog) that differentiated between instructors and students long before Blackboard was a twinkle in a venture capitalist's eye.

This one looks promising, and since the CMS has been the centerpiece of my professional career for the last decade or so, you can bet that I'll be following this.

Way to go Software Freedom Law Center!

Posted by Dennis Bennett at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

I have found the dreamiest Firefox plugin imaginable: Zotero.

Zotero provides you with a Endnote-like database for researching, but tuned for the web. I found it this morning, and just spent my lunch hour playing with it. It has the ability to analyze web pages in order to determine quite a bit of the meta data that you need in order to keep track of your web research. Additionally, it allows you to create categories, add notes, and generally do everything that you need to do in order to--get this--output the research data into 6 different formats.

In other words it will output it to any bibliography tool.

Note: the Mozilla addons site is currently experiencing difficulties. If this plugin sounds like it's right for you, try again later.

Nice.

Posted by Dennis Bennett at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)