Advanced Health and Medical Journalism/WNEG News Team

I’m working with WNEG-TV this semester.  It is a local news station in Athens, Ga. recently acquired by UGA.  Myself and two other graduate students are producing a series called “Harvesting Health”  we are currently on our third story with a fourth set to air this Thursday.  Check us out.

http://wnegtv.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1818:green-in-granite-country&catid=87:health&Itemid=307

You can read the article here.

Her dissection of the Morehouse Dress Code policy shows a clear lack of understanding for both cross-dressing and homosexuality.  Her first paragraph marks the beginning of a downward spiral full of skewed logic and faulty reasoning:

Atlanta might have one of the largest, most colorful gay communities in the South, but apparently none of them belong at historically black Morehouse College.

In fact, not only has Morehouse begun to progress concerning its gay students, Morehouse SafeSpace was founded in 2004 and the school consulted with members of the gay student body before instituting the policy.

Of the 27 openly gay Morehouse students present at the SafeSpace meeting, only 3 objected.

She continues unfortunately:

You could argue it’s distracting. It could be interpreted as a sign of rebellion, or worse still, it could go against some misinterpreted detail of the Bible’s version of masculinity, thus embarrassing the whole campus in the eyes of a suddenly judgmental God.

Wait a minute, let’s rewind the tape.  All of a sudden this dress code policy banning do-rags, sagging jeans, gold grills, and women’s clothes is based on Leviticus?  This is the faulty logic that occurs when one refuses to see the forest for the trees.  No one has issues with banning dress associated with hypermasculinity, but banning clothes that are not generally associated with the stereotyped concept of manhood is based on homophobia.  Her analytical ability is astounding.

Here is where I go from confusion to disappointment:

I attended Spelman College, Morehouse’s sister school, for three strong years, leaving at the tail end of my junior year because, in many ways, I saw this coming. I watched gay men toy with the idea of presenting their full selves to their critical peers, often deciding against it for fear of a backlash…I loved being at Spelman. It was the only college I applied to out of high school. But as my ideals began to extend beyond my own socialized standards, I knew I couldn’t stay.

Three strong years at Spelman College only to leave once your ideals began to extend beyond your socialized standards?  Who would be responsible for your open-mindedness I ask?  Was it the school that taught and nurtured you for three years, or was college simply the next step that everyone takes?  If those three STRONG years at Spelman taught you anything, why didn’t you apply the newfound sense of justice you developed instead of abandoning her and holding a critical eye to the system?  You my dear BECAME a critical peer.

Here comes the red herring:

The year before I left, a boy was brutally beaten with a baseball bat in a bathroom stall at a Morehouse dorm for “looking at” another student in the shower. The victim was rushed to the hospital and underwent emergency brain surgery that saved his life. The abuser was sentenced to serve two consecutive 10-year sentences in prison. Astonishingly, the campus was left divided about whether or not the incident should be considered a hate crime. Shortly thereafter, I packed my things and left.

I remember this incident.  As a college freshman entering Morehouse in 2003, I remember questioning whether or not I would be safe at a college where students were assaulted based on their sexuality.  However this anecdote is not germane to the conversation at hand.  The dress code policy is not homophobic as both heterosexual and homosexual men crossdress.

Moreover, what saddens me is that when this event took place instead of attending the events that followed that led to Morehouse College and the entire Atlanta University Center becoming more culturally sensitive, you abandoned your institution.  If you would have stayed a little longer maybe you could have been one of those people who assisted with the creation of SafeSpace and Spelman’s Afrekete.

She continues on calling on the names of James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Langston Hughes, and others; all great people both hetero- and homosexual.  But where is there place in this conversation.  We talk about people being free to be themselves whether in gold fronts or in stilettos, but are we talking about men who are being themselves or making a fashion statement?  Style and fashion are stifled on an everyday basis, parents do it to their children and I’m sure if Ms. Gates went through a rebellious phase she was told to change her outfit or remove too much makeup a time or two.  She turned out just fine from what I can tell. 

If we are talking about men who wish to live their lives as females or men who wish to be gender non-conforming then why would they wish to attend an institution whose very foundation is that of a single sex?

Are we asking Morehouse to accept men who wish to be women, or men who wish to be addressed with the pronouns “she” and “her”.  To do that would be asking Morehouse to disregard its rich history and legacy.  Morehouse is the ONLY all-male historically black college in the world.  There is no school like it and there will never be another.  You rail against the school for asking their students to “conform”, but subsequently you are asking the school to bow down.  It’s unacceptable and yet another example of a poorly thought out essay.

And this has to be the thing that leaves a sour taste in my mouth:

I, for one, would speak out against the dress code if I was still winding away hours over at Morehouse. They might be able to hinder what you wear, but nobody can ever change who you are.

You know what Elizabeth Gates.  You had the opportunity to speak out against hate crimes when the Aaron Price incident took place, but you LEFT.  You choose to now raise your torch and sound the alarms at style and not substance.  If I were you I would stick to being a style columnist because your understanding of gender and sexuality issues is subpar at best.

Jordan Sarver is a 2007 graduate of Morehouse College.  He is currently a master’s student pursuing a degree in health and medical journalism from the University of Georgia.  You can follow me on my TWITTER page

 
For black homosexual men, the struggle is intensified. Black men begin life at a disadvantage due to the color of their skin, and black gay men are cast out by their own peers for reasons beyond their control.

 
But is the best way to move beyond the veil of Eurocentric appeasement and concealed sexuality to attack an institution of higher education?

 
It saddens me that this debate has given Morehouse more national attention than when it graduated a class of 540 black men– the largest group of African-American men ever to graduate in the College’s history. And while many continue to debate the moral or ethical implications of a dress code, the larger issue is ignored. Morehouse College and other historically black colleges and universities still struggle to be recognized as equal to predominately white institutions.

 
Using words like fascist, communist, or homophobic shows lack of understanding for the issue.

 
I argue that those who misconstrue this policy as wrong and an attempt to “whitewash” the student body have no concept of the difficulties that historically black colleges and universities experience on a daily basis.
Morehouse College does not receive federal funding like Howard University yet it has graduated more Rhodes Scholars than any other historically black college (Not an assault on Howard, but imagine the endownment without that financial gift every year). Morehouse does not have the Dalai Lama as a visiting professor, like Emory, but it also does not boast an endowment approaching $6 billion. And if one were to do a Google search on Morehouse, you would find that, before this policy, we received our most acclaim and attention when we had a White valedictorian.

 
Graduates of HBCU’s struggle to receive respect from other African-Americans and we fight to be acknowledged among our predominately white counterparts as academically equal.

 
Critics hang on to the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but we do not look at his journey through Morehouse College when all students wore suits, ties, and attended church service everyday. Morehouse is a college of status and high-regard because of what it aspires to do– shape and mold young black minds to reach back and lift up those in our community to something greater and better.

 
Detractors talk about ghetto-culture classism as if it has helped our communities.

 
Is this ghetto culture the same one that denigrates women and promotes homophobia?

 
Do we ignore the images of hyper-masculinity and hyper-sexuality that have led to skyrocketing HIV rates, convinced our children that killing each other on the sidewalk is the norm, and praised the “stop-snitching” movement that prevented people from coming forward to bring the perpetrators of these violent crimes to justice?

 
With all of our knowledge and clout, we still find ways to bring down individuals and institutions that try to instill respect into our youth. If the students at Morehouse College are unable to discern what appropriate classroom attire is, then rules should be enforced.

 
Have these students decided to wear high heels and carry purses because they want to be themselves or because they want to be seen?
I would challenge the motivation behind anyone who enrolls into a college of 2,700 men and wants to live as a woman.

 
Students are asked to cover their underwear and the college is accused of being elitist and forcing everyone into Brooks Brothers stores to buy the latest penny loafers. These conclusions are merely attempts to straw man Morehouse’s stance.

 
Why do we ask Morehouse to conduct itself outside of the rules of the professional world? If the goal of an institution is to prepare young students for the real world that awaits them, why convince them that wearing pumps will be acceptable on Wall Street?. Why encourage them that a mouth full of gold will be ignored at Goldman Sachs or at the Wall Street Journal.
Why encourage these students to buck against the trends we abide by everyday.

Ghandi, a non-Morehouse graduate, said it best, “Be the change you wish to see.”

 
Jordan Sarver is a master’s student at the University of Georgia majoring in health and medical journalism. He graduated from Morehouse College in 2007.

At 7:36 a.m. the question was asked on the social networking website, Twitter, “Is the Georgia Theatre on fire?” Within minutes, user athensganews had his answer. What followed was a web-wide discussion; users and music fans tweeting from across the South submitted pictures, first-person accounts, and condolences at the loss of the historic Georgia Theatre.

By most accounts many twitter users described hearing sirens, but no one was sure of what was happening.

Ed Morales was one of the first to report the situation. Morales is the newspaper advisor for the Red and Black, the University of Georgia’s student-run, independent newspaper. He found out about the fire from a message he received on his phone.

“I heard the sirens and there were a lot of them,” he said, “so I knew something was up and then I got the text.”

Slightly before 8 a.m., Morales hopped on his scooted and drove to 215 N. Lumpkin Street. He could see the smoke billowing from the theater’s roof as he approached downtown. At 8:10 a.m., he posted his first tweet under username “redandblack” that simply said, “Georgia Theatre on fire.”
“My phone is hooked up to our twitter account and so as I was seeing things and talking to people I was texting from my blackberry directly to the twitter,” Morales said.

As more residents of Athens got news of the situation unfolding, others took to downtown to provide their own eyewitness accounts. Among them was 23 year-old UGA graduate student, Michelle Weidner.

Taken with my Blackberry on the scene

“I learned about the fire from a Red and Black update on twitter so I decided to go check it out, take my own pictures, and post my own information,” said the public relations major from Tallahassee, Fla. As Weidner posted updates on Twitter and pictures on Facebook, friends from across the Southeast who had never been to Athens nor the theatre began asking for updates, she said.

“All of my friends who love music know about the theater’s reputation. I shed a tear when I first heard about the fire.”

According to athensganews, power was restored to downtown Athens around 12:45 p.m. Photos from several sources showed an intact structure that was completely gutted inside.

After emotions settled at the loss of the Georgia Theatre, new questions arose about what would happen to AthFest, Athens’ annual music and arts festival. The festival is scheduled to begin June 26th, and the Georgia Theatre was to play host to some of the 160 bands and solo artists’ performing. But the show will go on, athensganews tweeted that all Georgia Theatre Athfest shows have been moved to the Morton Theatre.

Twitter users were able to convey their knowledge, sadness, and hopes for the theatre through a micro-blogging site that allows only 140 characters per message.

“I saw people using both Twitter and Facebook today, initially to share the news and then to share their sadness and their memories,” said Professor Karen Russell, who teaches public relations at UGA and researches social media. She was contacted via her Twitter account for this article. “The whole point of social media is that you’re linked to others, and in times of crisis or joy you can share what you’re experiencing with them,” she said.

At the end of the day on Friday, as the smoke cleared from the Georgia Theater and most of the inside lay in smoldering ash, Weidner summed up the emotional impact of the day with one last post on her Twitter account. “All I can think about today is the loss of the Georgia Theatre,” she said. “My time in college would not have been complete without it.”

There have been books, movies, and songs about how cruel humanity is; District 9 is a film that comes to mind. But now life is imitating art and I find myself disturbed and saddened.

In a recent New York Times Magazine article, Sheri Fink explores the actions that took place during Hurricane Katrina and the days following at the Memorial Medical Center in Uptown New Orleans.

For those who need a quick recap, this hospital was the center of nationwide attention after patients were murdered in what have been deemed by some to be “mercy killings.”

I admit, to be in that predicament is unimaginable and to have to make the decisions given the situation sounds  difficult, but in reading this article and hearing these doctors speak on their own behalf, I found myself shocked and disgusted with the human psyche.

Dr. Ewing Cook went unknown to me in the case surrounding the hospital. Most people are only aware of the doctor who was charged with murder, Dr. Anna Pou. But this Cook is straight of out Heart of Darkness. His commentary has to be seen to be believed.

Cook scribbled “pronounced dead at” in Burgess’s chart, left the time blank and signed the note with a large squiggle. Then he walked back downstairs, believing that he had done the right thing for Burgess. “To me, it was a no-brainer, and to this day I don’t feel bad about what I did,” he told me. “I gave her medicine so I could get rid of her faster, get the nurses off the floor.” He added, “There’s no question I hastened her demise.”

Does mercy come to mind in this brief excerpt? Given the conditions maybe it was difficult to strategize and maybe they were tired after days without food, water, or air conditioning in the South’s sweltering heat…but when do people cease to be human?

When is it not okay to show reverence to a life, and treat them accordingly.  There is a difference between treating the problem and treating the patient; this situation unfortunately exemplifies that.

There were several problems that led up to this horrific event. The hospital wasn’t prepared for water levels to reach as high as they did eliminating electricity to the building. They were aware of the possibility, but did not feel the urgency necessary to finance a resolution. The hospital had no triage training. Triage is used in times of disaster when the victims outnumber doctors and nurses. There are several different forms of triage; some use colors and others numbers, but the overall goal is to do the most good. In the case of Memorial, I believe the lack of triage training led to the decisions made by the physicians.

There was not enough assistance from the Federal government and everyone knows that. The Government dropped the ball on Hurricane Katrina, but I cannot say why because I do not know.

In the worst of times, people are expected to unite under a common cause and help their fellow man. When chaos leads to selfishness as opposed to selflessness, it really makes you question what lies beneath. If doctors are willing to make decisions based on what’s best for them, who of us is safe?