jasmine @jasminee@scholar.social

Decolonization is an ongoing struggle

Who's that in your AVI, Jasmine?

That's a screenshot from the film Irma Vep (1996, Olivier Assayas) with Maggie Cheung.

Besides being a fantastic and dizzying/disorienting film, I have a soft spot for it bc I first watched it in a class with Prof. Yiman Wang, who would advise my undergraduate thesis! Here's the essay that she wrote on Maggie Cheung and the film Irma Vep: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/492536

I think that the conditions are similar (exorbitant rent, low wages, hostile administration) but the culture of the two campuses really shapes how radical demands in a graduate worker contract like “500 affordable housing units in Ann Arbor” is received/understood/even talked about publicly

I think it’s really cool that UCSC has mobilized so many grad students and so many undergrads for #COLAnow — I wish it were possible to do this at my institution. I think its rather impossible for many reasons (lack of a radical student body, lack of radical union leadership, class and wealth behind the university, etc)

I wish I could share details about this bullshit but I can't

all I can tell you is that not a single HR department in a university should be trusted!!!!!! thanks

UCSC's motto is "the original authority on questioning authority"

L M A O

It is [incredible/mind-boggling/ridiculously fucked up] that UCSC would rather

- threaten international PhD students with deportation
- threaten participants in the wildcat strike with employee termination
- send riot cops to beat protestors blocking an intersection

UC Santa Cruz's admin would rather do all those things than grant a living wage and cost of living adjustment

not only did admin at UCSC threaten international students with being reported to ICE for participating in the wildcat strike,

Janet Napolitano, former head of the Department of Homeland Security, threatened all striking grad students with termination if they did not call off the strike

fuck the UC, fuck janet napolitano

https://www.digitalstudies.umich.edu/people/job-opennings.html

The Digital Studies Institute is searching for a full-time lecturer beginning in the Fall 2020 semester (September 1) in any of the following areas: Race/Gender/Class & Digital Access, Video Games, Game Culture & Industries, Apps and Mobile Media, Social Media, Digital Humanities, and/or Digital Rhetoric"

Salary is expected to be $53k reflecting 100% effort for 9 months (paid according to a University Year 12-month schedule)

from Black Rose Bay Area’s twitter:

“Some of those cited and released today were given 14 day academic suspensions — a condition of which is a ‘stay away from campus’ clause.

All who were cited and live in on campus housing (dorms, etc.) are being left functionally houseless for the next 14 days.”

https://twitter.com/bayareabrrn/status/1227778627376316416?s=21

UCSC is responding to the strike and blockades at the base of campus with full on riot cops

16+ students were arrested by campus pigs. Think about how many cost of living adjustments are being poured instead into cop overtime. FUCK that. #COLAnow

Its a good idea to follow this struggle on Twitter or Instagram, especially because I am not physically in Santa Cruz to provide updates.

Yesterday a Food Not Bombs member was arrested for bringing water to the strikers. Fuck the UCPD, fuck cops, #COLAnow

I currently have a hold on my student account for $120 because the University of Michigan charges *me* to work for them. Fellowships cover student fees. Why don’t our tuition waivers and stipends also cover them??

Strike starts today! Solidarity!!!!!

https://payusmoreucsc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/wildcat_daily_10_Feb_picket.pdf

The administration of UCSC is trying to get undergrads to snitch on their striking TAs by reporting if their classes are being canceled next week during the strike

But many undergrads are reporting false classes, or writing in “i dont snitch” in the form. I love it!

I will post some flyers describing the demands from my union to HR/the university later — some of the demands are Real Cool

“The UCSC chancellor makes over $400,000 a year [1] AND receives a $6,500 housing stipend per month, meanwhile graduate students have to live in one of the most expensive cities in the country [2] on less than $25k a year.”

Support the wildcat strike fund here:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-fund-for-striking-workers-at-ucsc

*cost of living adjustment

grad students are going on a FULL ON strike at UCSC on Feb 10!!!!!!! Escalating wildcat strikes when your rent is 80% of your grad stipend is a righteous and cool thing to do! A cost of living adjustment is WELL overdue! All solidarity with UCSC grad strikers!!!!!! Fuck the regents, fuck the UC, give them a COLA now!!!

#COLAnow

Tung-Hui Hu, A Prehistory of the Cloud (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2015).

really love this book so far

apparently i am not allowed to post on social media during bargaining

Instead, I will post that grad student unions are important, and that frankly, being hostile to academic HR overall is a good idea

HR just walked past me as I am eating soup and looked frightened by me

Bargaining starts in 30ish minutes but honestly, I want lunch and I gotta go get some

I am excited to see and hear which ways HR will be condescending and terrible, because it seems that very few of the demands that have been put to HR have been accepted.