this
A
Week in
cademic Affairs
SOMETHING MORE…………….P2
PHI ALPHA THETA…………….. P2
PONDERINGS…………………... P2
March 17, 2017 / Volume 15, Issue 9
ACADEMIC EVENTS…………... P2
NOVELS OF THE WEEK…….... P3
KAPPA DELTA PI…………..….. P3
FACULTY/STAFF NEWS
Modlin and Nicholson
Recognized for Their Service
ty Excellence in Community
Service Award on Tuesday,
March 14.
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
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Academic Affairs celebrated the
spirit of service by honoring
Carolyn Modlin, Professor of
Education, and Lewis Nicholson, Associate Professor of
Criminal Justice, with the Facul-
Thomas Collins, Professor of
Sport Management,
Timothy Hayes, Assistant
Professor of English
Cynthia Nicholson, Associate Professor of English.
Danny Moore, Provost and Vice
President for Academic Affairs,
commented, “Dr. Modlin, Professor Lewis, and the other finalists are the types of people
that Theodore Roosevelt had in
mind when he implored an audience to ‘do what you can, with
Julie Parker
Kevin Misenheimer
Michael Butrico
Ben Thorburn
Seok Yoon
Attended the Healthy
Horse Seminar: Get
to Know Your
Horse’s Brain on
March 5-7 in Siler
City, North Carolina.
A neuropsychologist
led the seminar (for
those wondering).
Presented “Eengagement in the
Classroom” at the
North Carolina Computer Instructor’s
Association Conference in New Bern on
March 7-9.
Attended the Collegiate Band Directors
National Association
Conference on
March 15-18 in Kansas City.
Attended the American Choral Directors
Association National
Conference on
March 7-11 in Minneapolis.
Presented
“Globalization in
Physical Education:
Incorporating Blogging” at SHAPE
America on March
14-18 in Boston.
w
The Art of Zulay
Zulay Romero is a senior majoring in
studio art. When Zulay is not making
art, she is serving as the Chief Presidential Ambassador and Vice President of
the Honors College Student Association.
ments to engage with individuals in a
way that inspires them to step out of
their comfort zones. If I were to assign Zulay a life’s motto it would be
‘the best connections are made unexpectedly.’”
Since Zulay’s arrival on campus, she has
made an impact on the lives of her fellow students by making them feel like
they belong at Chowan, always going
the extra mile to build community culture.
Because Zulay wants to use art to
help people reconnect with themselves and discover, or even work
through, their psychological problems, she has applied to and been accepted into a graduate program in art
therapy. Art therapy is a form of expressive therapy, in which clients,
facilitated by an art therapist, use the
Provost Danny Moore commented,
“Zulay has this ‘art’ of taking small mo-
The unexpected.
Modlin and Nicholson were two
of five finalists for the 20162017 award. The other finalists
were:
what you have, where you are.’
They have brought those words
to light—day in and day out.
They have been a catalyst for
action, affecting change on
campus and improving the quality of life in our local communities.”
creative process of making art to explore to their feelings.
Such a career is fitting for the art of Zulay.
Something
More
For many of us, Christmas
really isn't Christmas until the
first songs
of the seasons are
heard. The
celebration
of Christmas is
linked to
familiar
and beloved tunes
that retain
their popularity by
being heard and sung year
after year.
“Jingle Bells”
Written in 1857, “Jingle Bells” is
included in almost every Christmas musical, even with lyrics
that do not mention the nativity
or the Christmas holiday itself.
It was originally titled “One
Horse Open Sleigh.”
“Up on the Housetop”
It was probably written in the
1860s as the character Santa
Claus began to emerge as an
icon in America and is the first
song to focus entirely on Santa
Claus. Benjamin R. Hanby is
credited with the authorship of
this song.
“Toyland”
Written in 1903, the song
comes from Babes in Toyland,
an operetta written by Victor
Herbert.
Phi Alpha
Theta Inducts
Eight Students
on March 15
Ponderings
of the
Provost
Nothing changes.
It has been reported that when Dylann
Roof entered Emanuel African Methodist
Episcopal Church in Charleston, South
Carolina, in June 2015, where he murdered nine African Americans, he said,
“You rape our women, and you’re taking
over our country, and you have to go.”
The fear that African American men rape
white women – the myth of the black
male rapist – has a long history, dating
back to slave insurrections. By the latenineteenth century, whites politicized this
fear and fabricated black-on-white rapes
to justify racist violence. Lynchings and
massacres fill our history books with examples of the white power structure
“defending the honor of its women.”
The Wilmington (NC) Racial Massacre of
1898 was the culmination of a statewide
Phi Alpha Theta, the history honor society, inducted eight students on Wednesday, March 15.




Anthony Northcott
Kelly Smith
Tomekia Smith
Courtni Williams
They are:





Raven Barnes
Zachary Cooper
Amber Cunningham
Allison Gupton
Regina Jones
Democratic campaign to recruit white
votes by focusing on white women’s fears
of African American men. Democrats had
lost control of the governorship and the
legislature in 1896 and the Wilmington
Board of Aldermen in 1897 to a biracial
coalition of Republicans and Populists.
By Election Day, these lyrics appeared on
the front page of the W ilmington Messenger:
Rise, ye sons of Carolina!
Proud Caucasians, one and all;
Be not deaf to Love's appealingHear your wives and daughters call,
See their blanched and anxious faces,
Note their frail, but lovely forms;
Rise, defend their spotless virtue
With your strong and manly arms.
They did rise. Two days later, on November 10, Alfred Waddell, a Democratic
leader in Wilmington, led a white mob of
about 500-armed men into the economic
heart of the city’s African American community to protest an editorial published in
the W ilmington Daily Record, an AfricanAmerican newspaper. Claiming the editorial had defamed white women, Waddell
and his men rampaged through the community, burning buildings, strip-searching
Trey Gilliam, Assistant Professor
of Religion, gave the keynote address at the induction ceremony.
Nothing has
changed.
black women, and shooting black men in
the back. By the end of the massacre, no
one knew how many African Americans
had died in what Wilmington whites labeled the Wilmington Race Riot, a common naming tactic to shift blame to African Americans – the blame the black man
syndrome.
Blaming the black man worked. In the
wake of the massacre, the Winston-Salem
Journal published a story that immediately blamed African Americans. “The
Blacks to Blame,” blared the headline.
The accompany story explained, “there is
no doubt that the negroes are responsible
for the precipitating of the race war” in
Wilmington.
Nationally, the massacre made the cover
of the November 26 issue of Collier’s
Weekly. The coverage favored Waddell
and his men, blaming Wilmington’s
blacks for the violence. The cover illustration even depicted armed African
American men as the aggressors.
sparked a massacre in 1923. In 1931, nine
black youths were arrested for sexual asTo paraphrase Glenda Gilmore in her essault in Alabama for rapes that never ocsay, “Murder, Memory, and the Flight of
curred. The rushed trials, which led to
the Incubus” (in Democracy Betrayed, ed.
eight convictions and death sentences and
by David S. Cecelski and Timothy B. Tyone mistrial, occurred under the watchful
son), when
eyes of a
all else had
lynch mob.
failed North
Emmett Till,
Carolina
an African
Democrats
American
– loss of the
teenager,
governor’s
was murseat, the
dered in
legislature,
1955 after
and comallegedly
munities
making sexthroughout The Wilmington mob posing in front of the Daily Record.
ual
advances
the state,
on
a
white
including
woman
in
Mississippi.
Wilmington – they used the only status
left to them: their status as white victims
Racist rape or black-on-white violence
of black violence. If they could successaccusations have not faded from Amerifully blame the black man, they could be
can life. For example, in October 1989,
loved again.
Charles Stuart of Boston, Massachusetts,
shot and killed his pregnant wife, Carol.
Fabricated stories of black-on-white vioHe blamed a black man for the crime. He
lence continued after 1898. The Tulsa
knew if he said a black man did it, white
“race riot” of 1921 started after whites
people would believe him no matter what.
accused an African American boy of assaulting a white girl in an elevator. In
Blaming the black man worked. Few
Rosewood, Florida, an accusation of rape
questioned Stuart’s account of the murder.
In December, police arrested thirty-nine(Continued on page 3)
Academic
Events
Saturday
March 18
CU Visit Day
Sunday
March 19
Alpha Lambda Delta Honor
Society Induction Ceremony, 2 pm (Turner Auditorium)
Tuesday
March 21
Passport to Fall (No Undergraduate Main Campus
Classes)
Alpha Chi Honor Society
Induction Ceremony, 7 pm
(Vaughan Auditorium)
Thursday
March 23
Last Day to Drop Classes
with a W
Edible Book Festival
(Whitaker Library)
Friday
March 24
North Carolina State Mathematics Contest
Saturday
March 25
Phi Alpha Theta Honor Society Regional Meeting
Novels of the Week
The Blood Miracles by Lisa
McInerney
young Ryan Cusack, getting into
trouble and trying to grow up.”
“McInerney won the
2016 Baileys prize for The Glorious Heresies, a rambunctious
chronicle of modern Ireland; this
sequel continues the story of
Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor
England, in the fourth novel from
the author of Even the Dogs. This
is a lyrical exploration of human
violence and the rhythms of the
natural world by one of the UK’s
most impressive younger novelists.”
OVERHEARD
Jay Howell : “The Russians tried to hack Chowan’s website.”
“A teenager goes missing in rural
The cover of the November 26, 1898, issue of
Collier’s Weekly.
year-old Willie Bennett, a black man, as
the suspect. Stuart confirmed that Bennett
was the man who killed his wife. Only
when Stuart’s brother, Matthew, came
forward in January 1990 to confess that he
and Charles committed the murder, did the
narrative change.
Danny Moore: “For the record, President White denies this.”
Barack Obama is not immune from the
blame the black man syndrome. In 2009,
the “Thanks, Obama” tweet and then
meme emerged to define a presidency.
White conservatives used it to blame
Obama for everything: national debt, oil
spill, job loss, bank and factory closings,
college-aged children living in their parents’ basements, etc. It was an unconscious expression of white people blaming
the black man for the financial and economic crisis Obama inherited when he
took office in January of that year.
Former Arizona Governor Jan Brewer reminded Americans of the stereotypical
threatening black man in 2012. After a
finger-pointing tarmac confrontation with
Obama and despite photographic evidence
showing her as the aggressor, she portrayed herself as the white victim of a
DEPARTMENT/SCHOOL NEWS
Kappa Delta Pi Inducts Four Students
Brewer lecturing Obama.
Donald Trump’s presidential run exploited
the idea that white America needed to be
protected from the black man at all costs.
Often referring to African American men
as “thugs,” he clearly suffered from an
acute case of blame the black man syndrome during the campaign.
Susan Smith of Union County, South Carolina, murdered her two young sons in
October 1994 by placing them in the back
seat of her car, clicking the seatbelts into
place, and rolling the car into a lake. She
then blamed a black man for stealing her
two boys. Smith knew she could direct
attention away from her by pointing a finger at a black man.
Since becoming president, Trump has continued to blame the black man to divert
attention from his struggling presidency.
On Tuesday, February 28, Trump accused
Obama of orchestrating the protests
against him. “I think President Obama is
behind it because his people are certainly behind it," Trump said on Fox News.
Trump also blamed some of his administration’s media leaks on Obama.
Blaming the black man worked. The evening news and CNN shared a composite
sketch of the black carjacker and kidnapper with their viewers. A nation of white
people hunted for a non-existent black
man. Only when Smith confessed to the
murders, did the national hunt cease.
When all else had failed Stuart and Smith
– marriage, jobs, family, etc. – they used
the only status left to them: their status as
white victims of black violence. If they
could successfully blame the black man,
they could be loved again.
black attacker, telling reporters that she
“felt a little bit threatened” by Obama. Just
another reminder that no matter how accomplished or calm black men are, they
are viewed by whites as intimidating.
Composite sketch of a conjured
criminal in Union County, South
Carolina.
Four days later, on Saturday, March 4,
Trump metaphorically portrayed himself
as the white victim of a black male rapist,
tweeting: “Terrible! Just found out that
Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump
Kappa Delta Pi, the honor
society in education, inducted four students on Tuesday,
March 14.
They are:



Tower just before the victory. Nothing
found. This is McCarthyism!” Obama, the
black man,
had penetrated
Trump, the
white victim.
An unconscious metaphor? Possibly, but, the
predominate
form of racism in America is unconscious.
When all else
had failed
Trump – the
Russian scandal, weak cabinet picks, courtroom setbacks, low ap-

Akevia Wilson
Regina Bowen
Suraya Chase
Dalles Turner
proval ratings, the poorly executed Yemen
raid, etc. – he used the only status left to
him: his status
as a white
victim of
black violence. If he
could successfully
blame the
black man, he
could be
loved again.
And why
shouldn’t it
work? Why
shouldn’t
whites believe
Trump? Racial lies are
ingrained in white culture. His false accu-
sations against Obama feed the narrative
of the racist lessons whites are taught in
their childhoods. Unless the lessons are
unlearned, whites will believe the lies.
White society long ago adopted an image
of the black man who is dangerous and
violent and prone to sexually assault white
women. It is this image that guided the
Wilmington mob in 1898. It is this image
that led to massacres in Tulsa and Rosewood. It is this image that caused whites
in Alabama and Mississippi to convict and
murder black youths for crimes they did
not commit. It is this image that Charles
Stuart and Susan Smith used to try and get
away with murder. It is this image that
haunted the dreams of Dylann Roof. It is
this image that guides the thinking of too
many white Americans today.
Nothing has changed.