The Race, Gender, and Class Project at the Southern University at New Orleans

The annual conference sponsored by the Race, Gender, and Class Project at SUNO (Southern University at New Orleans) is an interdisciplinary gathering of scholars and practitioners in all fields who are interested in the constructs and intersections of race, class, and gender. Since October 2001 I have been presenting my work on the intersections of class with race, gender, and sexuality, at the RGC conference. As a member of the conference organizational committee I invite you to contact me for information about attending, presenting, or organizing a panel at a future RGC Conference.

This is from the 2007 Conference Announcement:

The 2007 Race, Gender & Class Annual Conference will be in New Orleans from Feb 1-4 organized in solidarity with Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS) and the SUNO/UNO Race, Gender & Class Project. The theme of the meeting will be RCG Solidarity Across Borders: Natural and Social Catastrophes. We will be putting together plenaries that will focus on natural and social disasters across borders. For example, Hurricane Katrina has been called one of the worst natural disasters on U.S. soil. The aftermath of the storm uncovered human-made disasters of equal magnitude. As the world watched, the economic, political, and social systems of the US were exposed and amid this chaos glaring questions about RGC social inequality arose. This Conference proposes to examine those issues across borders (US, Latin America, Asia….)

Race, Gender & Class Contact Person Jean Ait Belkhir, ASA RGC Chair, Southern University at New Orleans, North Main Campus, Department of Social Sciences, New Orleans, LA 70126  Ph 504 280 5468, Fax: 504 280 6302, email jbelkhir@suno.edu.

Prescott College Participation

In order to show our community's commitment to RGC, SUNO, and the New Orleans and Gulf Coast areas as they are reclaiming and restoring their community's health, a group of ten graduate students and faculty from Prescott College will be presenting papers/workshops at the February 1-4, 2007 RGC Conference. Please consider attending the conference to learn more about these issues.

Here is information from RGC and SWS (PDF format) on the conference, including location, registration, and lodging information.

Here is the full schedule for the February 1-3, 2007 RGC Conference in New Orleans (PDF format). 

Here are the detailed descriptions of the sessions being offered by graduate faculty and students from Prescott College (PDF format). 

Hurricane Katrina Relief

Because of my connection with SUNO and the Race, Gender, and Class Project, I felt called following Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flooding in New Orleans to get involved with relief efforts. I made two trips to Louisiana to do some direct service in support of those displaced by the hurricane and flooding. This work is ongoing and documented on these web pages, along with information about numerous direct opportunities to provide support to those who were affected by this crisis. In addition there are links you can use to keep your voice heard as it relates to human rights issues, such as access to housing and a living wage for all residents of the United States.

The Diversity Coalition at Prescott College

Every member of the Prescott College community is enthusiastically invited to become part of this college-wide coalition to define, foster, sustain, and celebrate diversity at Prescott College. The Diversity Coalition meets on the first Tuesday of each month between September and April, from 1:00 - 2:30 and again at 6:00 - 7:30 p.m., in room 103 of the Prescott College Crossroads Center. Please come to whichever meeting time fits your schedule. We begin with an open forum to network and brainstorm ideas. The evening meeting is followed at 7:30 by the Celebrate Diversity Film Festival, which each month presents a different film that celebrates and honors living beings.

Reparations Movement and Affirmative Action

My work centers on class and the economic motivation behind hegemony and oppression, and the correlating need to build coalitions of resistance. In addition to such coalitions, individual movements or power bases that are intended to disseminate information, restore justice, and carry out action to eliminate such oppression must always guide our collective work for justice. The early holocaust of genocide committed in the United States against indigenous people of this continent and Africans and their descendents set in motion the legacy of oppression upon which this nation still stands. Manifest Destiny and the transatlantic slave trade are significant not only for their unparalleled levels of atrocity, but for their persistent effects and consequences, and therefore must be addressed with distinction—above and beyond all other justice work that is carried out by activists in the United States. The work being done through the Reparations Movement and Affirmative Action programs addresses these issues directly. Here are resources relating to reparations and affirmation action.

Other Class Focused Conferences and Associations

There are a number of associations and centers that focus on the growing field of working-class studies or that consider class as it relates to many academic disciplines and realities.

Women’s Empowerment Breakthrough! Conference

The WEB! Conference is a weekend conference for high school aged young women in the Prescott tri-city area with a mission of providing “a safe place in which to collectively educate ourselves as young women of the various resources available to us.”