Sylvia Sierra
@sociolinguista.bsky.social
2.9K followers 590 following 860 posts
Interactional sociolinguist. Knowledge serf. Author of Millennials Talking Media. Interested in identity, media, literature, art, music, history. Views expressed here are my own and not that of my employer. sylviasierra.com Onondaga land
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sociolinguista.bsky.social
I didn’t think photos I took at the 2008 and 2009 Funk the War protests in DC (protesting the Iraq War) would end up as part of an exhibit one day! More info soon!
Reposted by Sylvia Sierra
pedsortho.bsky.social
Please remember that the disgust people have over Christopher Columbus is not based on some modern, 21st century “woke” ideology, but rather on contemporaneous accounts of atrocities that make many modern genocides appear quaint in comparison.

Below, are the accounts of Bartlomé de las Casas.
But too many of the slaves died in captivity. And so Columbus, desperate to pay back dividends to those who had in-vested, had to make good his promise to fill the ships with gold. In the province of Cicao on Haiti, where he and his men imagined huge gold fields to exist, they ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months. When they brought it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Indians found without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death.
The Indians had been given an impossible task. The only gold around was bits of dust garnered from the streams. So they fled, were hunted down with dogs, and were killed. After each six or eight months' work in the mines, which was the time required of each crew to dig enough gold for melting, up to a third of the men died.
While the men were sent many miles away to the mines, the wives remained to work the soil, forced into the excruciating job of digging and making thousands of hills for cassava plants.
Thus husbands and wives were together only once every eight or ten months and when they met they were so exhausted and depressed on both sides... they ceased to pro-create. As for the newly born, they died early because their mothers, overworked and fam-ished, had no milk to nurse them, and for this reason, while I was in Cuba, 7000 children died in three months. Some mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desper-ation.... In this way, husbands died in the mines, wives died at work, and children died from lack of milk ... and in a short time this land which was so great, so powerful and fer-tile... was depopulated... My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write....
sociolinguista.bsky.social
I probably could’ve/should’ve gotten together with my boyfriend much sooner, but I was very concerned with avoiding “my type” for at least the first year and a half we knew each other
Reposted by Sylvia Sierra
Reposted by Sylvia Sierra
queencityac.bsky.social
Full-throated defense of trans people is a good thing.
katelynburns.com
I wrote a little about some of the little details you might have missed in this video and why it hit me so hard as a trans person this morning:

www.burnsnotice.com/you-have-to-...
Reposted by Sylvia Sierra
sapiens.org
From the archive. Society increasingly accepts gender identity as existing along a spectrum. The study of people, and their remains, shows that sex should be viewed the same way. Read more: www.sapiens.org/biology/inte...
What Our Skeletons Say About the Sex Binary
Society increasingly accepts gender identity as existing along a spectrum. Human remains show that sex should be viewed the same way.
www.sapiens.org
Reposted by Sylvia Sierra
jamnpp.bsky.social
Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world,... I feel like I can't take it. And my heart is just going to cave in.
sociolinguista.bsky.social
the nondescript talking heads with syntax trees coming out of their mouths just isn’t gonna cut it huh
sociolinguista.bsky.social
I will never forgot the feeling of when a professor in my MEd program sent me the letter of recommendation she wrote me for my PhD applications, "for my records". So sometimes now if I'm close enough with a student I send them their letter, after the fact, just to give them that same feeling
sociolinguista.bsky.social
Blackboard ultra made discussion boards practically useless, but at least we have generative AI prompts in there now 🙄
Reposted by Sylvia Sierra
acharityhudley.bsky.social
It is the honor of my lifetime to share that @universitypress.cambridge.org will publish the @lingsocam.bsky.social's new Journal of Black Language & Culture. www.lsadc.org/content.asp?...

JBLAC fosters a transdisciplinary conversation on Black language & culture through a global, diasporic lens.
sociolinguista.bsky.social
interaction with our administrative assistant in the office kitchen just now:

me: what am I doing.
her: you're getting your hazelnut coffee.
me: yes. how did you know?
her: because, I know.
😳😅
sociolinguista.bsky.social
I went to a student run cafe to see what treats they had. maybe I'll go back sometime for an orange scone or cookie. Then I walked around & saw a study room & the food pantry. A campus tour was wrapping up in front of my building so I sat on a bench there & listened in eating my cheetos
sociolinguista.bsky.social
I'm so listless during my break between classes lately that I've just been like wandering around campus. today i started with lunch in the sculpture garden, then went to a cafeteria to scope out the options which were disappointing so I bought some cheetos. so then I walked around eating cheetos
sociolinguista.bsky.social
had such a good class just now on gender/sexuality & communication. All the queer kids were coming out and talking about their varied experiences, and then a straight guy was like this conversation is so interesting because I didn’t know all this stuff was happening on campus with the queer students
sociolinguista.bsky.social
this story has a happy ending. the student immediately admitted via email they did use chatgpt because they were nervous about the assignment. they chose the option of re-doing it for half credit. they were apologetic & expressed enjoyment of the course & all the readings so far. I think we'll be ok
sociolinguista.bsky.social
I know most male professors would prob never think twice about any of this. Idk what they would do. Just give a zero & move on with their lives? I kinda have done that before but only when a student just confessed when confronted. I have a hard time not being human when it comes to teaching!
sociolinguista.bsky.social
yes, that's kinda what happened actually the last (and first time really) I tried to have a conversation with a student about this. He didn't convince me, but the attempt to be gaslit was disheartening
sociolinguista.bsky.social
Since the in person conversation didn't really feel like it went well, I'm trying an email with the current student. Kinda just asking her what her response is and how she wants to proceed. The part I hate again is thinking how the accusation will affect her & then our prof-student relationship
sociolinguista.bsky.social
This is the 2nd time I've felt the need this semester to confront a student about this. The 1st one I had a conversation with & it def affected his behavior for a few classes, but now we are recovering and he is getting back to his usual self, with a lot of positive feedback reinforcement from me
sociolinguista.bsky.social
the thing I really hate about students doing this is it jeopardizes our relationship. I really do like my students and love seeing them learn, and want them to do well.
sociolinguista.bsky.social
Once again at a loss on how to handle work submitted by a student that is clearly generative AI. send an email? have a conversation? there's no good way to accuse someone of plagiarism let alone plagiarism 2.0
sociolinguista.bsky.social
I don’t know when why or how I got this. It’s the only pen I seem to be able to find consistently in my office and it doesn’t work
Reposted by Sylvia Sierra
noamchompers.bsky.social
Ideally, if all goes well, the blog post about your death can run without needing a note like this imo