USC NGOs and Social Change

11/25/2024

Are any NGOs majors still reading this page, or are the only current readers bots? Just asking for a friend.

07/20/2024

Question for Political Sociology professors: How, if at all, are you planning on being open to all students' ideas and opinions this coming semester? I'm planning on having a section about the rise of authoritarianism, but making comparisons between Trump and Hi**er works only if you don't believe Trump's constant denials of his own previous statements and actions. For ONE example: Did he really say that Hi**er accomplished some really good things? Mark Kelly, Senator from AZ, says so, and several high up anonymous sources. But Trump denies having said it.
Telling Trump supporter students that most facts that they learn from Trump/Fox/OAN are simply wrong could suck up a huge amount of class time and require careful fact checking to find out how Trump can get away with denying that he's said everything that he's ever said.
Also, I really prize my ability to listen to all students and take them seriously, and seeing the world through their eyes. There's always been a huge gulf between African American students' /taken for granted knowlege and other students' taken-for-granted knowledge; any sociology professor has already developed ways of addressing this.
But what's happening now is different. if I spend a lot of class time flatly contradicting Fox/OAN/Trump "facts," it would undermine that approach that assumes that the student's interpretation and world view can make sense of actual reality.
Addressing each incorrect fact could take two weeks per fact. For example, a course on criminology would spend weeks focusing on measuring crime rates; a course on climate change would focus on how to measure it; a course on racism would focus on documenting and measuring the effects of structural racism; a course on Mexican and Central American immigration would spend weeks reading studies that debunk myths about job loss.
But Political Sociology has to include facts about all of these issues, because these are the "public opinions" that will sway this election, and generate the waves of emotion that you can see at the RNC.
Am I the only one worrying about this? Thoughts, sociologists, and others, too??
And here are two random postcards I drew--one was to help disenfranchised voters in New Mexico re-register, a couple of years ago.

07/19/2024

Here is this week (thanks to Winslow Homer, a US painter who also painted the deforestation of New England while it was happening, in the late 1800s) -->

07/02/2024

So now we have a king? The Supreme Court is destroying any speck of democracy that this country ever might hope to have. Tell our Members of Congress and the White House to add members to the Supreme Court, impeach Clarence Thomas, and what else? How else can this be stopped? :
https://drive.google.com/.../1C4mqZhs0DklbZmEULEs.../view...

06/21/2024

Question: WHICH SHOULD I SEND TO A PRINTER, to make a few hundred copies? And: Does anyone else, in another postcard writing group, want some, if I get some printed?

I've been drawing postcards by HAND to send to potential Democratic voters, with my two postcard-writing groups. This is a SAMPLE OF SOME. I can post others later.

((...and yes, I very much know, many Democratic candidates are very awful, but a Trump election would mean no future elections and the arrests of all protesters, and he would be worse about 100s of policies that affect the whole world. We don't right NOW immediately have a third party that could get elected in time to keep elections happening).

06/20/2024

Question: WHICH SHOULD I SEND TO A PRINTER?

I've been drawing these postcards by HAND to send to potential Democratic voters, with my two postcard-writing groups. This is a SAMPLE OF SOME of the pictureS.

(...and yes, I know, many Democrats are awful, and these don't go to the most awful among them, but Trump would --> the end of elections and the arrests of all of us if we protested, and we don't right now immediately have a third party that could get elected in time to keep elections happening).

06/20/2024

Question: WHICH SHOULD I SEND TO A PRINTER?

I've been drawing these postcards by HAND to send to potential Democratic voters, with my two postcard-writing groups. This is a SAMPLE OF SOME of the pictureS.

(...and yes, I know, many Democrats are awful, and these don't go to the most awful among them, but Trump would --> the end of elections and the arrests of all of us if we protested, and we don't right now immediately have a third party that could get elected in time to keep elections happening).

05/04/2024

To anyone who's associated with USC (parent, alum, prof, student, staff):
Time to call the univ president. An email she sent yesterday said that there had to be "consequences" for "flagrant" violations of rules (carrying signs? chanting?). In other words: time to arrest protesters. Here's what someone wrote, about what to say--I liked what she wrote:
I just asked the person who answered to take my message which essentially was don’t use police to clear out the students protesters just for commencement. I’m asking that the administration work around them as this is a national / international issue and a time in history, plus students have been peaceful. We don’t need them gone for the sake of optics. Then I left my name and number and that I’m a x (professor, student, alumni/a, parent).
The number is 213-740-2111.

03/01/2022

NGOs majors: Here is a job opportunity at a really wonderful social change organization! "Retired" Americans doesn't mean "timid." They're very bold, and dream big, and care about the issues that many young people care about. (https://californiaalliance.org/were-hiring/)
Jenni Chang

We’re Hiring! CARA is currently hiring an organizer for the Los Angeles County area. This position is part-time. Please see below for details. PDF of job description available HERE. Los Angeles County Organizer-Job Announcement Title: Los Angeles Organizer, California Alliance for Retired American...

10/28/2021

I am assuming that since the USC administration is deeply concerned about the recent drugging and sexual violence at USC sponsored fraternities (and the hundreds of less recent violence like this), that posting this flyer is part of what faculty should be doing to support students. It also fits squarely within the purview of the NGOS major. If we ALL write fieldnotes about what WE have seen there, and post them in "comments," we could compare our varied, probably very contrasting perspectives, and this could become a fascinating little project for us to write, or at least think about, together. "Collective effervescence" is the term from sociologist Emile Durkehim, to describe the feeling one might get in a protest like this (his example was the storming of the Bastille, that was the beginning of the French Revolution) of unity and almost sacred focus on the common good together.

I got this DRAFT of the flyer on email today. I don't know what the speakers will be saying, though.