#oberlin commencement

[nonesuchrecords]

Congratulations to Rhiannon Giddens, who will deliver the keynote address at Oberlin College and Conservatory’s Class of 2024 Commencement ceremony on Monday, May 27, which will be livestreamed. Giddens, who studied opera at the Conservatory and graduated in 2000, will be awarded an Honorary Doctor of Music degree during the ceremony. "A consummate musician, equally noteworthy for her accomplishments as a performer, composer, scholar, lyricist, and more, Rhiannon Giddens stands as one of the most important creative and artistic voices of our time," Dean of the Conservatory William Quillen says. "Throughout her work, Giddens has brought to light previously overlooked or suppressed voices and histories.” Read more here.

[mimosita]

[Every day of your lives is practice in becoming the person you want to be. No instantaneous miracle is suddenly going to occur and make you brave and courageous and true. And every day that you sit back silent, refusing to use your power, terrible things are being done in our name.

Our federal taxes contribute $3 billion yearly in military and economic aid to Israel. Over $200 million of that money is spent fighting the uprising of Palestinian people who are trying to end the military occupation of their homeland. Israeli soldiers fire tear gas canisters made in America into Palestinian homes and hospitals, killing babies, the sick, and the elderly. Thousands of Palestinians, some as young as twelve, are being detained without trial in barbed-wired detention camps, and even many Jews of conscience opposing these acts have also been arrested and detained.]

Commencement Address Audre Lorde, Oberlin College

May 29, 1989

[lowcountry-gothic]

We are citizens of the most powerful country on earth—we are also citizens of a country that stands upon the wrong side of every liberation struggle on earth. Feel what that means.

Audre Lorde, commencement address at Oberlin College on May 29, 1989

[sisteroutsiders]

Audre Lorde's 1989 Commencement Address to graduates of Oberlin College

Audre Lorde

Oberlin College

May 29, 1989

I congratulate you all on this moment of your lives. Most people don't remember their commencement addresses. Next year, when someone asks you who spoke at graduation, I wonder what you will say. I remember she was a middle-aged Black woman. I remember she had a nice voice. I remember she was a poet. But what did she say? After all, there are no new ideas. Only new ways of making those ideas real and active through our lives. What you most of all of do not need right now is more rhetoric. What you need are facts you don't ordinarily get to help you fashion weapons that matter for the war in which we are all engaged. A war for survival in the twenty-first century, the survival of this planet and all this planet's people.

Thanks to Jesse Jackson (Poem)

The US and the USSR are the most powerful countries in the world but only 1/8 of the world's population African people are also 1/8 of the world's population. 1/2 of the world's population is Asian. 1/2 of that number is Chinese. There are 22 nations in the Middle East. Not three.

Most people in the world are Yellow, Black, Brown, Poor, Female Non-Christian and do not speak english.

By the year 2000 the 20 largest cities in the world will have two things in common none of them will be in Europe and none in the United States.

You are all so very beautiful. But I have seen special and beautiful before, and I ask myself where are they now? What makes you different? Well, to begin with, you are different because you have asked me to come and speak with you from my heart, on what is a very special day for each of you. So when they ask you, who spoke at your commencement, remember this: I am a Black feminist lesbian warrior poet doing my work, and a piece of my work is asking you, how are you doing yours? And when they ask you, what did she say, tell them I asked you the most fundamental question of your life—who are you, and how are you using the powers of that self in the service of what you believe?

You are inheriting a country that has grown hysterical with denial and contradiction. Last month in space five men released a satellite that is on its way to the planet Venus, and the infant mortality rate in the capital of this nation is higher than in Kuwait. We are citizens of the most powerful country on earth—we are also citizens of a country that stands upon the wrong side of every liberation struggle on earth. Feel what that means. It is a reality that haunts each of our lives and that can help inform our dreams. It's not about altruism, it's about self-preservation. Survival.

A twenty-eight-year-old white woman is beaten and raped in Central Park. Eight Black boys are arrested and accused of taking part in a rampage against joggers. That is a nightmare that affects each of our lives. I pray for the body and soul of every one of these young people trapped in this compound tragedy of violence and social reprisal. None of us escapes the brutalization of the other. Using who we are, testifying with our lives to what we believe is not altruism, it is a question of self-preservation. Black children did not declare war upon this system, it is the system which declared war upon Black children, both female and male.

Ricky Boden, eleven, Staten Island, killed by police, 1972. Clifford Glover, ten, Queens, New York, killed by police, 1975. Randy Evans, fourteen, Bronx, New York, killed by police, 1976. Andre Roland, seventh grader, found hanged in Columbia, Missouri, after being threatened for dating a white girl. The list goes on. You are strong and intelligent. Your beauty and your promise lie like a haze over your faces. I beg you, do not waste it. Translate that power and beauty into action wherever you find yourself to be, or you will participate in your own destruction.

I have no platitudes for you. Before most of you are thirty, 10 percent of you will be involved with space traffic and 10 percent of you will have contracted AIDS. This disease which may yet rival the plague of the Dark Ages is said to have originated in Africa, spontaneously and inexplicably jumping from the green monkey to man. Yet in 1969, twenty years ago, a book entitled A Survey of Chemical and Biological Warfare, written by John Cookson and Judith Nottingham, published by Monthly Review Press, discussed green monkey disease as a fatal blood, tissue, and venereally transmitted virus which is an example of a whole new class of disease-causing organisms, and of biological warfare interest. It also discussed the possibilities of this virus being genetically manipulated to produce "new" organisms.

But I do have hope. To face the realities of our lives is not a reason for despair—despair is a tool of your enemies. Facing the realities of our lives gives us motivation for action. For you are not powerless. This diploma is a piece of your power. You know why the hard questions must be asked. It is not altruism, it is self-preservation—survival.

Each one of us in this room is privileged. You have a bed, and you do not go to it hungry. We are not part of those millions of homeless people roaming america today. Your privilege is not a reason for guilt, it is part of your power, to be used in support of those things you say you believe. Because to absorb without use is the gravest error of privilege. The poorest one-fifth of this nation became 7 percent poorer in the last ten years, and the richest one-fifth of the nation became 11 percent richer. How much of your lives are you willing to spend merely protecting your privileged status? ls that more than you are prepared to spend putting your dreams and beliefs for a better world into action? That is what creativity and empowerment [are] all about. The rest is destruction. And it will have to be one or the other.

It is not enough to believe in justice. The median income for Black and Hispanic families has fallen in the last three years, while the median income of white families rose 1.5 percent. We are eleven years away from a new century, and a leader of the Ku Klux Klan can still be elected to Congress from the Republican party in Louisiana. Little fourteen-year-old Black boys in the seventh grade are still being lynched for dating a white girl. It is not enough to say we are against racism.

It is not enough to believe in everyone's right to her or his own sexual preference. Homophobic jokes are not just fraternity high jinks. Gay bashing is not just fooling around. Less than a year ago a white man shot two white women in their campsite in Pennsylvania, killing one of them. He pleaded innocent, saying he had been maddened by their making love inside their own tent. If you were sitting on that jury, what would you decide?

It is not enough to believe anti-Semitism is wrong, when the vandalism of synagogues is increasing, amid the homegrown fascism of hate groups like the Christian Identity and Tom Metzger's American Front. The current rise in jokes against Jewish women masks anti-Semitism as well as women hatred. What are you going to say the next time you hear a JAP story?

We do not need to become each other in order to work together. But we do need to recognize each other, our differences as well as the sameness of our goals. Not for altruism. For self-preservation—survival.

Every day of your lives is practice in becoming the person you want to be. No instantaneous miracle is suddenly going to occur and make you brave and courageous and true. And every day that you sit back silent, refusing to use your power, terrible things are being done in our name.

Our federal taxes contribute $3 billion yearly in military and economic aid to Israel. Over $200 million of that money is spent fighting the uprising of Palestinian people who are trying to end the military occupation of their homeland. Israeli solders fire tear gas canisters made in america into Palestinian homes and hospitals, killing babies, the sick, and the elderly. Thousands of Palestinians, some as young as twelve, are being detained without trial in barbed-wired detention camps, and even many Jews of conscience opposing these acts have also been arrested and detained. 

Encouraging your congresspeople to press for a peaceful solution in the Middle East, and for recognition of the rights of the Palestinian people, is not altruism, it is survival. 

In particular, my sisters and brothers, I urge you to remember, while we battle the many faces of racism in our daily lives as African Americans, that we are part of an international community of people of Color, and people of the African diaspora around the world are looking to us and asking, how are we using the power we have? Or are we allowing our power to be used against them, our brothers and sisters in struggle for their liberation?

Apartheid is a disease spreading out from South Africa across the whole southern tip of Africa. This genocidal system in South Africa is kept propped into place by the military and economic support of the U.S., Israel, and Japan. Let me say here that I support the existence of the state of Israel as I support the existence of the U.S.A., but this does not blind me to the grave injustices emanating from either. Israel and South Africa are intimately entwined, politically and economically. There are no diamonds in Israel, yet diamonds are Israel's major source of income. Meanwhile, Black people slave in the diamond mines of South Africa for less than thirty cents a day.

It is not enough to say we are against apartheid. Forty million of our tax dollars go as aid to the South Africa-backed UNITA forces to suppress an independent Angola. Our dollars pay for the land mines responsible for over 50,000 Angolan amputees. It appears that Washington is joining hands with South Africa to prevent [the] independence of Namibia. Now make no mistake. South Africa, Angola, Namibia will be free. But what will we say when our children ask us, what were you doing, mommy and daddy, while american-made bullets were murdering Black children in Soweto?

In this country, children of all colors are dying of neglect. Since 1980, poverty has increased 30 percent among white children in america. Fifty percent of African American children and 30 percent of Latino children grow up in poverty, and that percentage is even higher for the indigenous people of this land, American Indians. While the Magellan capsule speeds through space toward the planet Venus, thirty children on this planet earth die every minute from hunger and inadequate health care. And in each one of those minutes, $1,700,000 are spent on war.

The white fathers have told us: "l think, therefore I am." But the Black mother within each one of us—the poet inside—whispers in our dreams: "I feel, therefore I can be free." Learn to use what you feel to move you toward action. Change, personal and political, does not come about in a day, nor a year. But it is our day-to-day decisions, the way in which we testify with our lives to those things in which we say we believe, that empower us. Your power is relative, but it is real. And if you do not learn to use it, it will be used, against you, and me, and our children. Change did not begin with you, and it will not end with you, but what you do with your life is an absolutely vital piece of that chain. The testimony of your daily living is the missing remnant in the fabric of our future.

There are so many different parts to each of us. And there are so many of us. If we can envision the future we desire, we can work to bring it into being. We need all the different pieces of ourselves to be strong, as we need each other and each other's battles for empowerment.

That surge of power you feel inside you now does not belong to me, nor to your parents, nor to your professors. That power lives inside of you. It is yours, you own it, and you will carry it out of this room. And whether you use it or whether you waste it, you are responsible for it. Good luck to you all. Together, in the conscious recognition of our differences, we can win, and we will.

A LUTA CONTINUA [The struggle continues].

[readingsquotes]

"You are inheriting a country that has grown hysterical with denial and contradiction. ...We are citizens of the most powerful country on earth—we are also citizens of a country that stands upon the wrong side of every liberation struggle on earth. Feel what that means. It is a reality that haunts each of our lives and that can help inform our dreams. It's not about altruism, it's about self-preservation. Survival."

Commencement Address: Audre Lorde

Oberlin College, May 29, 1989

[mogulgrind9]

Black History Facts: 02/13/23

-

Educator and abolitionist Lucy Stanton was the first Black woman to graduate from college. She completed a ladies' literary program and graduated from Oberlin College in 1850. Her commencement speech was an appeal for anti-slavery.

[lboogie1906]

Lucy Stanton Day Sessions (October 16, 1831 - February 18, 1910) an Educator and Abolitionist is believed to be the first African American woman to graduate from college, completing a Ladies Literary Course from Oberlin College in 1850.

She was born as a freed inhabitant of Cleveland. Her father, Samuel, was a free-born African American barber who died before she was two years old. Her mother, Margaret, remarried John Brown, a wealthy African American businessman and abolitionist who was active in the Underground Railroad. The family often harbored enslaved runaways in their home. African Americans were not allowed to attend public schools in Cleveland, so he organized the city’s first school for African Americans.

In 1846, she enrolled in the Oberlin Collegiate Institute. In 1849 she was elected president of the school’s Ladies Literary Society, and her commencement speech was a moving appeal for antislavery.

She moved to Columbus, Ohio to become principal of a school but returned to Cleveland when she married Oberlin classmate William Howard Day, a librarian who edited an abolitionist newspaper, the Alienated American. In 1854, she became the first African American to have a fictional story published when she wrote a short story on slavery for her husband’s newspaper.

The couple moved to Buxton, Canada to teach fugitive enslaved and in 1858 had a daughter. William Day left on business for England, abandoning his family and requesting a divorce. She returned to Cleveland, finding work as a seamstress to support her daughter but remained active as an abolitionist. In 1866 she was sponsored by the Cleveland Freedman’s Association to teach in Georgia and Mississippi, where she met and married her second husband, Levi Sessions, in 1878.

The couple moved to Tennessee where she continued her philanthropic work, including serving as president of the local Women’s Christian Temperance Union. She and her husband moved to Los Angeles. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[schoolofseasonshq]

Sorting

"Attention everyone, the sorting has commenced...please give us a moment, and allow the book to speak." Came a voice, as the lights in the hall dimmed. Standing there, was the Headmaster, the God Loki his green cloak billowing behind him. He summoned the book, and opened.

"I, am your headmaster...Loki, now when the book calls out your name, you will be sorted into each of your houses. Some of you will be in these houses permanently, others will change. It all depends on the choices you make, and on what the book tells of your future. The future however, is not set in stone...and whatever paths you may or may not take will determine the outcome, but this...is only the beginning of your story." Said the Headmaster, "There are four houses named after the four seasons. Spring for those whose futures are neutral, Summer for those who are good, Autumn for those who are undecided, and finally Winter.....for the evil among us."

"You mean the people who know how to have a good time." Says Harley with a laugh.

"In any case, never forget that your ending...is what you make it." Said Loki, before stepping aside. The book called each name, assigning each student to their houses.

House Spring

Lily K., Daughter of Alice

Beatrix. Daughter of Dionysus

Rosemary, Daughter of Jack Sparrow

Lily A., Daughter of Archie and Veronica

Jace, Son of Buffy Summers

Astrid, Daughter of Skwisgaar Skwigelf

June, Daughter of Daria Morgendorffer

Katie, Daughter of James Norrington and Scarlett the Redhead

Sarah, Daughter of Sarah Sanderson

Miranda, Daughter of Drak Jr.

Edward, Son of Chuck and Blair Bass

House Summer

Aziz, Son of Aladdin and Jasmine

Charity, Daughter of Edmund Pevensie

Leonard Son of Sheldon Cooper and Amy Farrah Fowler

Lana, Daughter of Carlisle and Esme

Chad, Son of Cinderella and Prince Charming

Julie, Daughter of Donatello (2003)

Jake, Son of Michelangelo (2003)

Lucy, Daughter of Raphael (2003)

Buffy, Daughter of Shaggy

Ben, Son of Belle and Beast

Henry, Son of Belle and Beast

Hunter, son of Dean Winchester

Ruby, Daughter of Rapunzel and Eugene

Audrey, Daughter of Aurora and Philip

Blossom, Daughter of Steven and Connie Universe

Hope, Daughter of Emma Swan and Killian Jones

Sierra, Daughter of snow White and Florian

House Autumn

Cora, Daughter of the Queen of Hearts

Mason, Son of Madam Mim

Lance, Son of Leonardo (2003)

Chanel, Daughter of Chanel Oberlin

Annabelle, Daughter of Gaston

Emily, Daughter of Max and Allison Dennison

Kayla, Daughter of the White Queen/Duchess of Spades

Hakon, Son of Hans

Miranda, Daughter of Drak Jr

House Winter

Haylie, Daughter of Hades

Raphael, Son of Frollo

Hala, Daughter of Jafar

Draco, Son of Maleficent

Dominic, Son of Chernabog

Ianthe, Daughter of Poison Ivy/Pamela Isley

Ava, Daughter of Mammon

Faith, Daughter of Dr. Facilier

Alexis, Daughter of Chernabog

Zachary, Son of Chernabog

Maddy, Grandaughter of Madam Mim

Mal, Daughter of Maleficent

[capocefalo]

Audre Lorde on Palestine, commencement address at Oberlin College in 1989.

[lezexplorer]

Lucy Stanton, an educator and abolitionist, was the first Black woman to graduate from Oberlin College in 1850. She completed a woman’s literary program and her commencement speech was an appeal to for anti-slavery.

[hexjulia]

i linked to the paper these screenshots are from in the post but just some quotes;

"Much of the archaeological “loot” that was divided amongst the Committee sponsors ended up overseas. Some 160 mosaics went to the United States, whereas only a dozen or so went to Paris. The mosaics that arrived in the United States are today distributed amongst museums and academic institutions. [...] Most recently the mosaic of the sea goddess Tethys, from the Antiochen bath F, was sold by Dumbarton Oaks to the Harvard Business School"

+ "Thus, the Worcester Museum without any apparent reason dismembered the panels from the corridor of the Aion House (selling three of the seven to the Allen Memorial Art Museum of Oberlin College in Ohio) and sold off to the J. Paul Getty Museum all five of the panels coming from the vestibule of the little Bath of Apolausis, dated around 400 A.D."

+ "The last case to be remarked in this brief review of atrocities is that of the martyrion of St. Babilas. Situated close to the inhabited centre of the city of Antioch, the remains of this building were excavated in the spring of 1935. This case reveals yet another aspect of the fate of the mosaics of Antioch and its environs. There is no record as to what happened to the hundreds of square meters of mosaic that were uncovered by excavation, but then left to their destiny. Amongst these figure the mosaics of the enormous cruciform martyrion. In view of their extraordinary documentary importance, they ought to have been preserved in situ. Alas, as things now stand, only a few scrappy remains in opus sectile and four dedicatory inscriptions carrying the date of 387 survive today, and these are to be found two in the Hatay Archaeological Museum of Antioch, at the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collections in Washington, and at Princeton University. Poignant in this respect are the regrets expressed by Jean Lassus, French archaeologist who served as assistant field director, about the necessity to dismember a number the pavements in order to excerpt inscriptions and extract figural panel from an expanse or geometric or floral backround! Although the former Sanjak of Alexandretta was formally ceded to the Republic of Turkey in 1938 and the commencement of the hostilities of the Second World War brought archaeological investigation to a rapid close, it is extremely surprising that there has been no systematic attempt to resume work at Antioch since then. It is quite likely that with the passage of time and thanks to the general neglect the mosaics that did remain in situ fell victim to the urban expansion of the modern city. Nevertheless, Antioch was one of the most important metropoleis of the ancient and medieval Mediterranean, and its material culture demands justice."

the way excavated houses in antioch were taken apart is uhm. well just look

sometimes even just single mosaics sliced up

[oberlincollegearchives]

If you have been waiting for the answer to our trivia question last week, here it is!

This is Archbishop Desmond Tutu giving the commencement address at Oberlin, 1987. His address, almost fittingly, came right before Oberlin College decided to divest in companies from South Africa due to Apartheid.

[oberlinadmissions]

Congratulations Oberlin Class of 2019!

 Via Oberlin College Flickr  

[oberlincollegelibraries]

Portrait collection expanding

The windows of the north reading area of the Science Library have long been accented by portraits of three notable alumni who grew up in Oberlin and had long, successful careers in science and industry.  Their portraits are in the center of the above photo:  Albert Allen Wright, Charles Martin Hall, and Lynds Jones.  These men have finally been joined by two alumnae, prominent  women whose leadership and scientific achievements have been lauded. 

Portraits of Joanne Chory '77 (left, photo courtesy of Salk Institute of Biological Sciences) and June Osborn ‘57  (right, photo courtesy of Ellen Levy) now flank the three men.  Both women received honorary degrees from Oberlin College; Chory was honored in 2019, barely a month after delivering the highly acclaimed TED Talk, “How supercharged plants could slow climate change.” Osborn delivered the commencement address when she received her honorary degree in 1993, the same year the National Commission on AIDS, which she chaired, presented their final report to the President and Congress.  Entitled AIDS: An Expanding Tragedy, the text of the report can be downloaded on Google Books.  An interview with Osborn, “What can we learn from the AIDS crisis?” was recently published in the Oberlin Alumni Magazine.

 We are honored to display their portraits in the Science Library and to celebrate their remarkable achievements. More portraits of notable Oberlin women in science are coming!

[oberlin-alumni]

Everything you need to know about Commencement/Reunion Weekend is available on the new ObieCRW app, designed by Guidebook. Download the app. 

[a-wandering-fool]

A strange thing is being done to the SAT test.

Secret Socioeconomic ‘Adversity Score’ Being Assigned to SAT Test Takers — Disclosed Only To Colleges

This is also happening.

Colleges from New York to California Now Offer Funding and Services for Illegal Immigrants

Is it any wonder why the ship is sinking?

Vermont’s Green Mountain College Graduates Final Class

More Colleges Experiencing a Decrease in Enrollment

Keystone College Cutting Majors and Laying off Staff

Hampshire College is perfect example.

Struggling Hampshire College Launches Search for New President

Commencement Speaker at Hampshire College Focuses on ‘White-Supremacist Capitalism’

Gibson’s Bakery vs. Oberlin updates:

Gibson’s Bakery v. Oberlin College trial — It’s ‘make or break’ week

Gibson’s Bakery v. Oberlin College – Trial Day 7 — Damages Expert says Show Gibson’s The Money!

Gibson’s Bakery v. Oberlin College – Trial Day 9 – “the business never came back”

Warren can’t save higher ed.

Op-Ed Calls Elizabeth Warren’s Free College Plan a Form of Vote Shopping

Elizabeth Warren Event at George Mason U. Draws Hundreds, but Not Many Students

We used to call this segregation.

More Than 75 Universities Now Hold Black-Only Graduation Ceremonies

Defying the narrative.

U. Pennsylvania Study Finds America is Less Racist Under Trump

You don’t say.

New Study Claims Democrats Over-Reported Stress After the 2016 Election

=================

A lot happened recently....