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  • Field Notes

    Field Notes
    2026/07/14

    Listen to this week’s issue of Field Notes!

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    -Nicole

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    14 分
  • The Signal

    The Signal
    2026/07/07
    THE SIGNAL EPISODE 001[00:00:00] Please note that the Architecture of Meaning was designed to be a safe space where we take care of one another and ourselves, so please pay close attention to any advisories listed.This episode examines difficult social issues and may include discussions of racism, sexism, violence, abuse, discrimination, or other forms of structural harm. In some cases, I quote historical documents, media, or public figures using language exactly as it originally appeared. These quotations are presented solely for educational and analytical purposes and should not be understood as endorsements.This episode includes occasional quotes containing racial slurs or other offensive language. These terms are spoken only when necessary to accurately examine historical sources, media, or public discourse. Listener discretion is advised I’ve been teaching college sociology for more than 20 years, and somewhere during the first few classes, I often ask my students a couple of important questions. The first: who are you? How do you [00:01:00] identify? Whatever that means to you, who are you? The second question: how do you know? Simple enough, right?For some, these questions elicit an immediate and decisive response. I’m Black. I’m a woman. I’m gay. For others, the answer is more complex. For instance, I’m a Black queer disabled single parent. But for some, the question is one they’re ill-prepared for. Many of my students respond with, “I don’t know. I never thought about it before.I’m just regular, I guess.” A shocking number have actually responded that they are, and I quote, “Just a mutt, I guess.” And when prompted to tell me how they know who they are, the divide deepens even further. For some of the students, hands pop up in the air immediately. I realized I was a girl when they wouldn’t let me play football at school, or I realized I was Mexican when the school forced me into ESL classes even though I already spoke English.There’s always a defining moment, if [00:02:00] not a series of defining moments, that not only tell us who we are but also tells us our place. I knew I was different because I was crushing on Greg and not Marsha on The Brady Bunch. These students are eager to unburden themselves, to share their stories. They are eager to be heard, while other students just listen quietly and uncomfortably.Some with flashes of recognition when they recount that time a Black family moved into their neighborhood, puzzling over why they moved away so fast and then suddenly recalling, “Oh yeah, there was a fire on their front lawn or something, so they left, I guess.” Another remembering how her Black friend stopped talking to her at school when she didn’t invite her to her ninth birthday party because the other parents didn’t want her around their kids.Notice something? Who are the students with the quick and thoughtful answers that have clearly contemplated these questions organically their entire lives? The marginalized students. Whether it’s white kids who grew up in extreme poverty or Latin kids who people assume aren’t American, [00:03:00] or the Black kid like me whose identity is grounded in the moment my best friend’s mother leaned out the window in a thick Eastern European accent and shouted, “Get away from that nigger All the way through eighth grade, she and her little brother never spoke to me again other than to call me racial slurs as they spit at me and threw rocks at my head as we walked to school.That’s how I began to figure out that I’m Black and what that might mean for me throughout my life. I was seven, eight years old. Now, other students who had the privilege of going through their lives discovering who they are one day at a time, never even considering the question of who they are or how they know.White Americans are taught not to discuss race. That’s why it’s so uncomfortable for students in my classes, at least at first. They’re so often taught that if you so much as acknowledge race, you’re a racist. I’ve actually had students whisper the word Black the way your grandma used to whisper the word cancer.[00:04:00] I’ve never had a professor who was, you know, um, Black. While it is wildly problematic, I can’t help but laugh as I clutch my invisible pearls with false shock that I am indeed Black. How did you know? I then remind them that I know that I’m Black. It’s no secret and not anything we have to fear acknowledging out loud.We then work to unpack all of our understandings of our identities, whether visible identities or invisible. What does it actually mean to be a woman or a man or white or Black or queer or straight? How do we decide which of these identities is safe as a society or dangerous or worthwhile or even worthless?And maybe an even harder question, are you seen by the world as who you are? Or are you seen as someone the world has socially constructed? Because those aren’t always the ...
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    28 分