Comic Corrective

researching, renaming, reclaiming

An out of work workaholic is the worst kind

Jul 28

Posted by ramika gourdine in Creative | No Comments

I don’t see anything inherently bad about my self -described status as a “workaholic.” It is simply the way things are in my reality. I opt to take the maximum credits allowed every semester. I choose to do a complete overhaul and redesign of the college newspaper simply because I’m editor, and in some warped way feel it’s my duty. I am almost never online with less that four tabs open on my browser, because to do one thing at a time would be a waste when I can do so much more. Throughout the entirety of the school year, I watch my classmates and colleagues get away with doing minimal work, so I know it’s possible to be marginally successful on such a path, but for some reason, I just can’t allow myself to follow in their footsteps. Instead, I’m that kid who will go nights without sleep so that I can do every page of the reading, every review question and if I feel the need re-write my paper for the fifth or sixth time, when I know the first could have been a B.

So what does a person like me do during the summer when there is no homework to be done, no papers to write, no more newspaper chores to do, nothing to work on? What do I do when all the journal submissions and conference proposals have been sent off, and I am just waiting for responses, for requests for revision? Quite simply, I go crazy. Read the rest of this entry »

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Greek Life: At OU, things are different

Jul 21

Posted by ramika gourdine in Criticism | No Comments

You would be surprised at how much shit I get from some of my closest friends about being in a sorority…actually, you probably wouldn’t. With all the portrayals we see in the media — “The House Bunny”, “Legally Blonde”, “Greek” — it’s no wonder we get such a bad rep. In reality, though, there is more to sorority life than drinking, having rampant sex with fraternity brothers and being ditsy empty-headed dolls. The hardest part of convincing people of that is when recruitment comes along, and all the Potential New Members (PNMs) and their families know about Greek life is what they have seen on TV, in a movie, or what they have heard from their friends at huge state schools.

If I only had a nickel for every time I have to tell someone: “At Oglethorpe, things are different.”

This past Friday was the second of two summer orientation events at Oglethorpe that we call Passport. The incoming freshmen come to campus, have tours, meet others from their class, ask questions, register for classes…all that fun stuff. As newspaper editor and an admissions volunteer, I was there walking around, meeting people and generally trying to give these scared new students a friendly face they would know in the fall. With no letters on, it had not even occurred to me that there there were people from other sororities scoping out the new class, and trying to make a good first impression for their sorority. From what I saw, however, they were doing a pretty bad job of it. Read the rest of this entry »

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Gay Penguins: You've got to be joking

Jul 17

Posted by ramika gourdine in Criticism | No Comments

I will be the first to admit, when I first saw this video, my response was laughter. It had been sent to be as a link a friend had tweeted.

Only after I had caught my breath from my hearty chuckle that I realized it wasn’t all that funny. I mean, yes, penguin relationships of an kind are funny in that “aww…look at the penguins looking awkward in their tuxedos” kind of way, but soon it hit me: this was CNN breaking news! We are at war, the economy is worse than its been in decades, the potential first Latin American Supreme Court Justice is in her confirmation hearings, and what we call one of our most dependable and reputable news outlets is putting in the time, energy and money to put out video packages on penguins, with the only actual news part of it being their sexuality?

I thought it was a joke. It had to be a joke…or at least I thought so until it was followed by a story of a family who was almost killed as their minivan burst into flames in the middle of the roadway, leaving one disabled relative stuck between the flames and a dividing wall. I’ve seen a lot of cruel jokes, but that was too far, even for CNN. It had to be real, which made me question a few things: Do we really want to discuss sexuality issues and pull them to the forefront enough for the homosexual relationships between penguins in a zoo becomes news? Is that really publicity to help “the cause”? Because quite honestly, I felt it was more of a mockery, a grab for ratings and attention, and the creation of a mental bond between the ridiculousness of the situation, and the reality that affects millions.

Sexuality, in one way or another, rips apart families everyday, and more than you realize. So, if it makes you feel its less serious because there are cute penguins on your screen, good for you. If not, then you  and I are of a similar frame of mind. And for those who think that it just isn’t that serious, or that it’s a cute story to break the monotony of disaster and bad news, keep in mind that everything you see in the media is put there for a certain reason by someone with an agenda. I may not know what their intentions were, but then again, neither do you. And when we are all ignorant of them, intentions mean very little in comparison to interpretations of the meanings in the final product.

There are a lot of people for whom such a story is interpreted as the light side of gays, and their ability to “go straight” when the right person of the opposite sex comes along. And it is such an ideology that forces thousands into the closet, drives countless young people to suicide and even more to deep, dark, depressing places they just can’t seem to get out of. I would now, for a while, I was there.

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The "F" Word: If only hypocracy began with an "F"

Jul 16

Posted by ramika gourdine in Criticism, Uncategorized | No Comments

This is something that I have been thinking about and going back and forth on with a close friend of mine.

Here’s the deal: Feminism, or at least the Third Wave is supposedly all about telling stories, raising voices and finding a space of inclusion through deconstruction. Much of what is happening as a result of this ‘new feminist activism’, however, is more alienation and division than ever before. We are now living in a world where womanists, ecofeminists, liberal feminists, socialist feminists, radical feminists, post-colonial and third world feminists, french feminists, post-structural and post-modern feminists, multiracial feminists, libertarian feminists, and the list goes on and on, all claim to be true feminists, who have adopted the ideology that will free women and make for the best society, while attempting to silence all other “feminist” voices as not being as productive or meaningful as theirs.

The theoretical beginings of the feminist movement, and its third reincarnation, spout off idealistic rhetoric of a full standpoint, within which all aspects of an individual’s multitude of momentary and long-term idenities are brought into a senes of critical and optimal consciousness to deconstruct all power relations within the heirarchies and ideologies that intersect to construct societies. There are not many problems with standpoint theory its self that I would want to note, but instead wth the attitudinal practice that is using this theoretical approach to silence those who disagree with not only feminist mindsets and limited consciousness, but also with the dominant racist, capitalist patriarchy we like to call ‘the norm’. Read the rest of this entry »

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Silencing and Sexual Difference in Heidegger and "the jews"

Jul 15

Posted by ramika gourdine in Criticism | No Comments

Jean-Franscois Lyotard’s early work, Heidegger and “the jews”, takes on the issue of the Other, the Stranger, the Foreigner, however, you choose to label this group, specifically as it pertains to the Holocaust, so that he can then take his findings and apply them on a broader scale. For the past week or so, I have been slowly making my way through the dense, reader-unfriendly, yet terribly fascinating text, but Chapter 6 in particular caught my eye.

In this chapter, Lyotard takes on sexual difference. He provides a brief, yet detailed examination of the subject by calling attention to what it is not, rather than popular conceptions of what it is, in order to arrive closer to a true definition of the term “sexual difference.” This method, in my opinion, is because the very nature of difference is what it is not. It is not representable, because in representation, definition and categorization, one would be choosing one method of judgment, therein silencing and devaluing others. His discussion calls attention to the problems of binary gender constructions in that as long as we attempt to organize, divide and rationally conceptualize gender, we are forgetting and excluding entire groups as “others” (or in Lyotard’s terminology: “jews”) faster than we can begin to understand all that we are destroying. Read the rest of this entry »

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