The BSU in collaboration with the Society of Black Alumni are currently contemplating restarting a mentoring program in which each BSU member may be paired with an alumni for career advising. If you are interested in participating, contact the BSU e-mail address at bsu@jhu.edu.
December 1st as you all know is World AIDS Day. And as much as I think it is important to have a day worldwide to acknowledge this epidemic, it doesn’t seem to be changing how people with AIDS are being seen or slowing down the infection rates. If I had the ability to, I would erase every misinformed statement from the Pope to the everyday person that this is an illness that is preventable and is not (nor HIV) a death sentence, which Magic Johnson so easily shows. Real Talk. In this day and age, why should such misinformation continue?
Just a quick update: The Admissions Chair elections will occur on November 29.
New Stories today:
The Senate passed a motion to start debate on the health care bill Saturday, with all 39 votes for a filibuster cast by Republicans.
The IAAF’s investigation is complete and Caster Semenya will keep her gold medal from August’s world championships in Berlin.
West Africa will be the site of one of the biggest efforts to eradicate yellow fever. The goal is to immunize an estimated 12 million from the disease.
The long anticipated vote in Sudan will be postponed until Saturday to allow unregistered citizens in Darfur and residents in Kenya to vote.
From the E-board of the BSU, we would like to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving break!
On a lighter note, I saw this very interesting picture of the former Dominican baseball player. This to me brought up the phenomenon of “passing”, when persons of African (or Indian) descent try to fit a European standard of beauty by using their lighter complexions or try to obtain such skin tone or do so for an oppurtunity at a better life. But this man is a multimillionaire and a national figure in his country. The photo is at http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/chi-08-sammy-sosa-nov08,0,7519658.story. Though there may be other factors to his use of this face cream, what do you all think of this?
Thank you everyone for coming out to our meeting last night. I think it was successful in engaging debate about the lack of males in the BSU, especially in the current sophomore and freshman classes. From the experience of many males, the numbers are there but for some reason they do not present themselves as male members in our organization. A question: How can we not only persuade males to come to the BSU but get them interested in becoming members and possibly seek leadership in the organization. I wonder if we may see a predominately female E-Board in future classes.
The October 2009 issue of Perspectives and previous issues can be found at the JHU BSU website at http://www.jhu.edu/bsu at the Perspectives page.
The first issue of Volume 40 “Perspectives” is complete and can be found across campus. If you want to submit anything to the newsletter or are interested, come to the Perspectives Committee Meeting tonight at 9 pm @ Charles Commons 33rd Street Lounge.
This was posed as a question within the E-Board but we wanted to ask this to the general body. It seems to be a trend this year that our fun events get great attendance but not our more serious meetings and events. Then again, this is a serious organization. What is your opinion of the events held this year by the E-Board? What can be improved and what are we doing well?
Really, did we miss something this week? Were there any explicit reason why the turnout was so low (topic, exams,etc)?
A question popped during the Freshman Rep. nominations that I wanted both ASA and BSU members to comment on. So often, it seems that black freshmen who do become involved with the black student groups on campus are commonly members of both organizations. However by sophmore year, the alliances are usually clear and mutually exclusive. Why is this phenomenon happening and what can we do to intertwine our general bodies for the betterment of both?
Real Responses