*This is an article that I was commissioned to write for a campus publication called The Zine, due out next month I believe. Have at!*
-------------------------------------------------------------
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
--Martin Luther King Jr.
It’s hard not to chuckle when I think about my life before going vegetarian: a lifetime decrying the sheer wickedness of racism; a good couple of years ardently campaigning for the equality of my homosexual brothers and sisters; months expending my time exposing the truth that all oppressions, prejudices and injustices were linked. ...All-the-while sustaining myself on the flesh of being not too different from myself, that deserved the same kind of consideration I had felt vital to everything else.
Why had it been so difficult for me to come to the realization that the same patterns of oppression that had barred people of my race from basic welfare and allowed men of my preference to be incarcerated, demonized and killed at whim also justified our literal objectification of the creatures with which we share our planet? Why? Why, when the same shackles that once bound my forefathers crammed to the point of suffocation on the Slave ships, now bind cows and pigs, crammed in their stalls? Why, when the same ideas of Africans being soulless and “not like us” used to justify, their abused, mutilation, rape and murder at a whim? Why, when on the same ground where Christian settlers decimated the Native tribes, and where noted local families ran plantations where once slaves were shackled, beaten and starved new factory farms have risen? It is sickening to think that once upon a time someone looked at another person as simply a brainless, soulless object only existence to serve his needs… the same way I once looked at that Thanksgiving turkey.
Similarly, my sexuality limits my capacity to escape oppression. And it’s not just in Nazi Germany, where we were corralled into the camps, where the glances that fell on those pink triangles were little different than those glaces that fall on animals in the slaughterhouse. It’s not just in modern day Jamaica, where the violent, relentless and brutal hunt to kill the homosexual is taken up with comparable relish as the animal hunt that many people engage in for leisure. It’s the fact that my sexuality codes me as Other and bars me from the same kind of humanity and on the day that I foreswore animal-eating, I saw that an animal’s non-humanness similarly coded barred it from mutual respect.
I cannot even try to think of the number of birds, calves and pigs—once caged, despair-laden and confused as to why they were born into such a cruel and merciless existence—that have made my stomach their final tomb without being sick with guilt. It’s probably close to the number of colored voting applicants turned away in the early 1960’s by the Racist working the registration desk, or the number of times the bigot yells “Fuckin’ Fags!” today at the gay couple walking past. I implore my reader to think about this the next time you raise that burger to your face: if you at any point are or could have been the victim of an oppressive system, how could you turn around and participate in another oppression?
Friday, February 26, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
New Classroom Discourse Analysis (Class Assignment no. 3)
In class this week, we took up the critical view of education voiced by both Asa Hillard and Sleeter and Grant's "Multicultural Education" chapter. Specifically, we took up the question of how the cultural competence of the instructor affects the effectiveness of the instruction of the child.
Hillard contructs this picture of distinct behavioral styles that (to put it in the least problematic way possible) tend to create a cultural gap between African American students and White American students. As Sleeter articulates further, the kids have no concept of the instructor's cultural context and so it is up to the instructor to bridge whatver gaps in understanding the child might have due to his/her own "behavioral style" or cultural codification.
Directly linked to this is the danger of teaching a child away from his/her creativity. This goes beyond behavioral styles and cultural distiction, but still maintains the same idea of, as my professor puts it, "meeting the student where he/she is at." The video lecture by Sir Ken Robinson addresses this topic very appropriately in my opinion.
Now, as I am wont to do, I would like to critique this fractured notion of how children learn. Don't get me wrong, I think that it is more important than anything else to specialize educating methods to maximize the ways in which the individual student related to the lesson (which i feel helped me learn every language I've ever spoken effectively). I would rather the lesson be no other way than tailored to address the needs of visual learners, audial learners, hands-on learners as related to the children's individual experiences. But I can't help but acknowledge the concern I had when reading Hillard's article: In the shadow of recognizing behavioral styles that TEND to codify students along the lines of their social location (ie. race, gender, sexuality, ability, class, nationality), does there not lie a danger to deemphasize their similarities as children and common human experience at the risk of highlighting their differences.
For example, if I were a able-bodied/minded, heterosexual, lower-class, inner-city African American 5th grader, whose family has been in the country since the 1800's and began to subscribe to the "typical" urban African-American subculture in a classroom with little other demographics, a teacher imparting the lesson to me solely in "my context" at the risk of imparting the the part of the lesson that can be palatable to me as a child regardless of my social location could be denying me something as well.
This video both illustrates the gap of the cultural styles of the instructor and that of the students and the problems that it creates with regard to educating students, and also examines critically the way in which both the students and the teachers are reduced only to their behavioral styles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVF-nirSq5s
--TAHS
Hillard contructs this picture of distinct behavioral styles that (to put it in the least problematic way possible) tend to create a cultural gap between African American students and White American students. As Sleeter articulates further, the kids have no concept of the instructor's cultural context and so it is up to the instructor to bridge whatver gaps in understanding the child might have due to his/her own "behavioral style" or cultural codification.
Directly linked to this is the danger of teaching a child away from his/her creativity. This goes beyond behavioral styles and cultural distiction, but still maintains the same idea of, as my professor puts it, "meeting the student where he/she is at." The video lecture by Sir Ken Robinson addresses this topic very appropriately in my opinion.
Now, as I am wont to do, I would like to critique this fractured notion of how children learn. Don't get me wrong, I think that it is more important than anything else to specialize educating methods to maximize the ways in which the individual student related to the lesson (which i feel helped me learn every language I've ever spoken effectively). I would rather the lesson be no other way than tailored to address the needs of visual learners, audial learners, hands-on learners as related to the children's individual experiences. But I can't help but acknowledge the concern I had when reading Hillard's article: In the shadow of recognizing behavioral styles that TEND to codify students along the lines of their social location (ie. race, gender, sexuality, ability, class, nationality), does there not lie a danger to deemphasize their similarities as children and common human experience at the risk of highlighting their differences.
For example, if I were a able-bodied/minded, heterosexual, lower-class, inner-city African American 5th grader, whose family has been in the country since the 1800's and began to subscribe to the "typical" urban African-American subculture in a classroom with little other demographics, a teacher imparting the lesson to me solely in "my context" at the risk of imparting the the part of the lesson that can be palatable to me as a child regardless of my social location could be denying me something as well.
This video both illustrates the gap of the cultural styles of the instructor and that of the students and the problems that it creates with regard to educating students, and also examines critically the way in which both the students and the teachers are reduced only to their behavioral styles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVF-nirSq5s
--TAHS
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Innovative Advocacy
Today, my campus' Queer organization had it's sophomore GSA conference for the local High School LGBT organizations. Our keynote speaker was Christopher (err, something) from Campus Pride in Connecticut.
In the informal Keynote Speech, Chris talked a lot about the theme of being an advocate for the Community. Specifically, he stressed that one can be an advocate without being an active advocate. In other words, to be an advocate, one need not lobby Congress, and stand on picket lines and make his/her entire existence a political dry-erase board. In my understanding of Chris' point, to be an advocate is to use whatever opportunity one sees to spread understanding of what it means to be a Queer person and why change is so important. It is also making these opportunities whereever possible.
This speech really got me thinking about the nature of activism, and how it can pervade multiple scenes. This thought occured to me once before when researching Stacey Ann Chin http://www.google.com/search?q=stacey+ann+chin&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7GGLR_en , whose career as a slam poet/poetry performer is her activism; it is how she is an advocate.
So what new ways of Activism can we (yes, we) think of? Slam Poetry contests and performances? ...Yes. Blogging? ...okay, that was easy. What about song-writing? What about Facebook status' (sparingly)? What about on occaison wearing a shirt voicing support of same-sex couples? What about in painting?
One thing that I've been really thinking about for myself is being a comedian. (yeah I know, but bear with me). I'm a pretty humorous guy. I mean, I'm part of three systemically marginalized and stigmatized demographics... I need sarcasm to survive. With my ability to manipulate the English language, and my ability to relate to people regardless of discrepancies in life experience, I think that being a comedian would be a great field for me as well as a great opportunity to make people think critically. EVERYONE loves to laugh. And, incidentally, humor also works as a great way to approach subjects that people are sometimes afraid to be confronted with. As a matter of fact, the more I think about this, the more I like this plan. I may have to think about it some more though.
--TAHS
In the informal Keynote Speech, Chris talked a lot about the theme of being an advocate for the Community. Specifically, he stressed that one can be an advocate without being an active advocate. In other words, to be an advocate, one need not lobby Congress, and stand on picket lines and make his/her entire existence a political dry-erase board. In my understanding of Chris' point, to be an advocate is to use whatever opportunity one sees to spread understanding of what it means to be a Queer person and why change is so important. It is also making these opportunities whereever possible.
This speech really got me thinking about the nature of activism, and how it can pervade multiple scenes. This thought occured to me once before when researching Stacey Ann Chin http://www.google.com/search?q=stacey+ann+chin&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7GGLR_en , whose career as a slam poet/poetry performer is her activism; it is how she is an advocate.
So what new ways of Activism can we (yes, we) think of? Slam Poetry contests and performances? ...Yes. Blogging? ...okay, that was easy. What about song-writing? What about Facebook status' (sparingly)? What about on occaison wearing a shirt voicing support of same-sex couples? What about in painting?
One thing that I've been really thinking about for myself is being a comedian. (yeah I know, but bear with me). I'm a pretty humorous guy. I mean, I'm part of three systemically marginalized and stigmatized demographics... I need sarcasm to survive. With my ability to manipulate the English language, and my ability to relate to people regardless of discrepancies in life experience, I think that being a comedian would be a great field for me as well as a great opportunity to make people think critically. EVERYONE loves to laugh. And, incidentally, humor also works as a great way to approach subjects that people are sometimes afraid to be confronted with. As a matter of fact, the more I think about this, the more I like this plan. I may have to think about it some more though.
--TAHS
Thursday, February 18, 2010
School House Rock
Let's just talk about this for a second:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twFs9Vk6F0A
For those of you born after 1992, this educational Saturday morning mini-special used to air during the cartoon line-up that was marketed and watched by millions of young elementary school aged children in America during the 90's. "School House Rock" became a favored segment among adults and kids alike for introducing the young ones to elementary concepts of linguistics, policy making and history.
Now the problematic stuff: Ummm, everything! Obviously, school house rock actually does have a net positive effect on the education of children. It really does a commendable job on both making common facts palpable for the learning mind as well as making it fun and memorable. Clearly the perspective is very interested insomuch as how history is presented. in this video alone, so many narratives are lost of the Native settlers, the trafficking of Sub-saharan Africans as well as European and Chinese immigrants. And the problems only start there.
This problem is what Multicultural education seeks to critique and I find this a great illustration of how blind common perspectives of history can be to the equally valid experiences of "other" people. But Thank God THAT doesn't still go on to this day...
--TAHS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twFs9Vk6F0A
For those of you born after 1992, this educational Saturday morning mini-special used to air during the cartoon line-up that was marketed and watched by millions of young elementary school aged children in America during the 90's. "School House Rock" became a favored segment among adults and kids alike for introducing the young ones to elementary concepts of linguistics, policy making and history.
Now the problematic stuff: Ummm, everything! Obviously, school house rock actually does have a net positive effect on the education of children. It really does a commendable job on both making common facts palpable for the learning mind as well as making it fun and memorable. Clearly the perspective is very interested insomuch as how history is presented. in this video alone, so many narratives are lost of the Native settlers, the trafficking of Sub-saharan Africans as well as European and Chinese immigrants. And the problems only start there.
This problem is what Multicultural education seeks to critique and I find this a great illustration of how blind common perspectives of history can be to the equally valid experiences of "other" people. But Thank God THAT doesn't still go on to this day...
--TAHS
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
The More Things Stay the Same (Class Assignment no. 3)
This week's presentation touched on the ways in which "tracking" programs in modern American education fail to give students even opportunities to both improve and succeed.
As the reading assignment by Christine Sleeter discussed, the current discourse and policy of United States education systems places a very clear emphasis on performance. The "No Child Left Behind" act demands from educators high marks on standardized testing as evidence of actual education in the classroom. In reality it is forcing teachers to teach kids how to produce the results required of the federal government, causing them to learn even less. Consequently students are stratified based on the promise they show to test well over time. The unfortunate truth that shadows this fact is that the better performing kids tend to be the ones with greater access to educational resources and a tradition of education in their family (class privilege) and a greater understanding of the cultural context that the schooling is coded by (white privilege).
The statistics that Christine Sleeter serve to cement both the matter-of-fact inequalities that an "average" classroom will have as well as the inability for and educator to simply assume the obstacles of each student based on racial or ethnic indicators. I was personally surprised at just how many families were living below the poverty level. I was also surprised at my previous lack of consideration for issues regarding class privilege before reading just how problematic it can be.
The idea of tracking holds much to be explored in terms of identifying why children fall "behind" in schools. Then I thought about the reading assignment on John Mercer Langston. It went through the history of education being extended as a right to African Americans shortly after the American Civil War.
To review quickly, there was (imaginably) widespread resistance and opposition of the fiercest kind to the increasingly progressive policies that expanded the rights of Black Americans to educate themselves. States began to use all manner of tactics to keep down the numbers of educated Blacks in their jurisdiction as people tried to scare Blacks and Whites alike from pursuing advanced Black education. Why? What were they afraid of? What did they have to lose so long as they had white privilege anyway? Could they not have simply gotten over it so long as they didn't have to comply with intergration? Then, author Judith E. King-Calneck made no bones about the true worry of the conservative White America of that time: "the fear was that too much freedom, especially for Americans of African descent, would disrupt the social order."
CAPITALISM (that bastard)--while obviously not operating independently of racism, social exclusion, alterity anxiety, negrophobia, classism, etc.--is to blame for this! Calneck also maintains that nineteenth century writers established the discourse that is still employed today of "schooling as an equalizing power." That just can't happen in a capitalist economy.
In elementary school we are taught that Capitalism is amazing because anybody can make it. The truth was far more complex. Anybody can make it on the backs of those who don't. Where there is capitalism, there is a hierarchy. There is Whites with full access to a proper education, and there are Blacks who face a myriad of structural obstacles to getting the same. There are the kids in class that are promoted through schools with good marks because they are included in the track of kids that "perform better" than the kids that "fall" behind because less is expected of them, and who face a steep curve of under-performance, just like the system originally intended. Cap Bad.
To reform the education system so that no child is truly left behind, so that everyone truly does get ahead, we need to critique the Beast that is Capitalism. Tear that mother down.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN_AOVWirzo
--TAHS
As the reading assignment by Christine Sleeter discussed, the current discourse and policy of United States education systems places a very clear emphasis on performance. The "No Child Left Behind" act demands from educators high marks on standardized testing as evidence of actual education in the classroom. In reality it is forcing teachers to teach kids how to produce the results required of the federal government, causing them to learn even less. Consequently students are stratified based on the promise they show to test well over time. The unfortunate truth that shadows this fact is that the better performing kids tend to be the ones with greater access to educational resources and a tradition of education in their family (class privilege) and a greater understanding of the cultural context that the schooling is coded by (white privilege).
The statistics that Christine Sleeter serve to cement both the matter-of-fact inequalities that an "average" classroom will have as well as the inability for and educator to simply assume the obstacles of each student based on racial or ethnic indicators. I was personally surprised at just how many families were living below the poverty level. I was also surprised at my previous lack of consideration for issues regarding class privilege before reading just how problematic it can be.
The idea of tracking holds much to be explored in terms of identifying why children fall "behind" in schools. Then I thought about the reading assignment on John Mercer Langston. It went through the history of education being extended as a right to African Americans shortly after the American Civil War.
To review quickly, there was (imaginably) widespread resistance and opposition of the fiercest kind to the increasingly progressive policies that expanded the rights of Black Americans to educate themselves. States began to use all manner of tactics to keep down the numbers of educated Blacks in their jurisdiction as people tried to scare Blacks and Whites alike from pursuing advanced Black education. Why? What were they afraid of? What did they have to lose so long as they had white privilege anyway? Could they not have simply gotten over it so long as they didn't have to comply with intergration? Then, author Judith E. King-Calneck made no bones about the true worry of the conservative White America of that time: "the fear was that too much freedom, especially for Americans of African descent, would disrupt the social order."
CAPITALISM (that bastard)--while obviously not operating independently of racism, social exclusion, alterity anxiety, negrophobia, classism, etc.--is to blame for this! Calneck also maintains that nineteenth century writers established the discourse that is still employed today of "schooling as an equalizing power." That just can't happen in a capitalist economy.
In elementary school we are taught that Capitalism is amazing because anybody can make it. The truth was far more complex. Anybody can make it on the backs of those who don't. Where there is capitalism, there is a hierarchy. There is Whites with full access to a proper education, and there are Blacks who face a myriad of structural obstacles to getting the same. There are the kids in class that are promoted through schools with good marks because they are included in the track of kids that "perform better" than the kids that "fall" behind because less is expected of them, and who face a steep curve of under-performance, just like the system originally intended. Cap Bad.
To reform the education system so that no child is truly left behind, so that everyone truly does get ahead, we need to critique the Beast that is Capitalism. Tear that mother down.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN_AOVWirzo
--TAHS
Monday, February 8, 2010
Article Review... Please
So my campus' Queer Publication has permitted me (as TAHS) to write for them again. After two issues of censorship by the former self-hating editor, my voice is now allowed to be heard. Unfortunately, in addition to my token "Angry, political" segment, the publication also needed some filler. So I wrote up a little blurb on stereotypes, because that's something I can always sound off on. Below i pasted the 518 word rough draft, still unsure about my satisfaction with the quality of my work...
Suggestions?
"'Gay Industries'
(The Rainbow Workforce)
The stereotype that’s easiest for Straight America to consume of Homosexuals encompasses a very flat lifestyle of partying, shopping with the Straight Girl and exploring ways in which he can bend gender norms in every act that he does. But for those who dare to muse beyond this single dimension of the homosexual, a host of other questions arise in connection to life as a stereotype. And not just questions like “where does he shop?” and “what race is he?” (both of which have obvious answers explicit within the stereotype itself). They are questions of, “what classes does he take?” “what does he eat?” and “where does he work?”
Specifically this last question is something worth exploring. Using popular representation of the gay stereotype in decades past as a crude lens, one can easily find that there are indeed “Gay Industries.” These are jobs filled with noticeably high populations of homosexuals. Now, we can look at the obvious “Gay Industries” first as they are the common and timeless associations we make with the stereotype. Doris Day’s 1961 movie, “Lover Come Back” provides evidence of the discursively homosexualized profession—in this case it is the interior design business. Not much has changed with that. It is important to note that, since decades like the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s were marked by heavily heterosexism and sexual repression, it takes one quite a great deal of effort to even locate the homosexual in popular culture under all the coding. That being said, we have a host of other obvious industries including the fashion industry, the number one circle wherein societal norms are flipped to the point that any male designer is gay until proven straight (Ah, gotta love those binaries). This industry is explicitly linked to the make-up industry, and salons. Really anything that involves the outward appearance of a person or a space really.
As my mother once off-handedly put it to me, the marketing branches of many firms and such in the States are another niche for the gay man. This is something I’m particularly pleased with: using our epistemic advantage to get those heteros spending. And so we’ve filled other jobs wherein a keen epistemic advantage serves a crucial role. Just try wikipediaing “List of LGBT writers.” You can spend days going through that one. You don’t really have to rack your brain to think of jobs that are compatible with the gay stereotype. Decade after decade, the image of us is the same. Stylists, bakers, tailors, artists, wedding planners… these jobs seem to dwell on the aesthetic, the frivolous, the inconsequential; making the lives of our straight counterparts more pleasing—if only visually.
Dare I be bold and ask… why? Why the gay mind must be so wont to aesthetic contributions to society. Why our stereotype is only of white bourgeois effeminate males presenting straight folk with clothes, and food and beautiful houses and gardens. Why we are easier to digest that way. Dare I question this paradigm and delve deeper? Nah. After all, I’m gay! And I’m just supposed to be covering the facts that matter to my queer little mind: the ones on the surface."
Suggestions?
"'Gay Industries'
(The Rainbow Workforce)
The stereotype that’s easiest for Straight America to consume of Homosexuals encompasses a very flat lifestyle of partying, shopping with the Straight Girl and exploring ways in which he can bend gender norms in every act that he does. But for those who dare to muse beyond this single dimension of the homosexual, a host of other questions arise in connection to life as a stereotype. And not just questions like “where does he shop?” and “what race is he?” (both of which have obvious answers explicit within the stereotype itself). They are questions of, “what classes does he take?” “what does he eat?” and “where does he work?”
Specifically this last question is something worth exploring. Using popular representation of the gay stereotype in decades past as a crude lens, one can easily find that there are indeed “Gay Industries.” These are jobs filled with noticeably high populations of homosexuals. Now, we can look at the obvious “Gay Industries” first as they are the common and timeless associations we make with the stereotype. Doris Day’s 1961 movie, “Lover Come Back” provides evidence of the discursively homosexualized profession—in this case it is the interior design business. Not much has changed with that. It is important to note that, since decades like the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s were marked by heavily heterosexism and sexual repression, it takes one quite a great deal of effort to even locate the homosexual in popular culture under all the coding. That being said, we have a host of other obvious industries including the fashion industry, the number one circle wherein societal norms are flipped to the point that any male designer is gay until proven straight (Ah, gotta love those binaries). This industry is explicitly linked to the make-up industry, and salons. Really anything that involves the outward appearance of a person or a space really.
As my mother once off-handedly put it to me, the marketing branches of many firms and such in the States are another niche for the gay man. This is something I’m particularly pleased with: using our epistemic advantage to get those heteros spending. And so we’ve filled other jobs wherein a keen epistemic advantage serves a crucial role. Just try wikipediaing “List of LGBT writers.” You can spend days going through that one. You don’t really have to rack your brain to think of jobs that are compatible with the gay stereotype. Decade after decade, the image of us is the same. Stylists, bakers, tailors, artists, wedding planners… these jobs seem to dwell on the aesthetic, the frivolous, the inconsequential; making the lives of our straight counterparts more pleasing—if only visually.
Dare I be bold and ask… why? Why the gay mind must be so wont to aesthetic contributions to society. Why our stereotype is only of white bourgeois effeminate males presenting straight folk with clothes, and food and beautiful houses and gardens. Why we are easier to digest that way. Dare I question this paradigm and delve deeper? Nah. After all, I’m gay! And I’m just supposed to be covering the facts that matter to my queer little mind: the ones on the surface."
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Defining Multicultural Education (Class Assignment # 2)
For this past Monday's section of my "Multiculturalism and the Practice of Education" class, we read an incredibly engaging paper by Dr. Geneva Gay called "Synthesis of Scholarship in Multicultural Education." Herein, Gay offers a litany of possible and employed definitions for Multicultural Education. Now, as I said in class, while I do like a little bit of everything from each definition the fifth bullet point was the proposed definition that worked the most for me: "Institutionalizing a philosophy of cultural pluralism within the educational system that is grounded in principles of equality, mutual respect, acceptance and understanding, and moral commitment to social justice."
Why do I favor this definition of Multicultural education over some of the others offered by Gay? Well, this one, cited from Baptiste 1979, makes a point to highlight the practice of Multicultural education as an institutionalization, philosophical and principled. Moreover, it highlights "understanding." Understanding, for me, is the be all end all for all forms of Multiculturalism. Other definitions fell out of favor by citing the combatting of discrimination, prejudice and histories of oppression. These definitions implied that multicultural education is needed only in nations with systemic discriminations and histories of oppression--a theory that I am completely in disagreement with.
Wayne Au in his book, "Rethinking Multicultural Education" pursues the institutionalizing of culturally pluralism. In the interview with educator Christine Sleeter, the issue of colorblindness arose. Echoing the sentiments of the 90's racial discourse, the question pointed to the attitude of teachers to "not see a child's race." That is truly the worst. Fortunately, Sleeter shared my attitude and contested that taking a colorblind approach is a teacher's failure to understand his/her students and thus ineffectively curtail the education to that student. Denying the importance, as Sleeter puts it, of the child's background really proves to create an educational atmosphere that is anything but multicultural.
I must say that nothing really bugged me about any of the readings, which is rare. I do feel that I must re-emphasize how important understanding one another is to building social bonds as well as successful eductaion. My ability to understand another person will influence greatly how I relate to that person. How will a person who's not Caribbean know how to approach me as an American if they don't understand me. How will a White teacher know how insulting it is for a black student to be considered a credit to his race or essentialized as black if that teacher doesn't understand sufficiently the way the Black experience processes it all?
There are many people and things I don't understand that I should to augment the ways in which I approach people. As a vegetarian it helps when people aren't always down you're throat saying I need protein. (They have a grave lack of understanding of the vegetarian lifestyle due to the carno-logocentric food pyramid as constructed by our Western pattern diet). http://youtube.com/watch?v=e5uAQwVIwY As a Caribbean American, it helps when people understand that my culture cannot always be compared to Jamaica and that American pop culture is more infectious in Trinidad than you would think. I think that an education that is truly mutlicultural can address these things, not explicitly, but rather by incorporating considerations of other lifestyles in classes such as US History and Health/Nutrition classes. Basically, a pradigm shift (or reform) in education is needed to created this desired result.
--TAHS
Why do I favor this definition of Multicultural education over some of the others offered by Gay? Well, this one, cited from Baptiste 1979, makes a point to highlight the practice of Multicultural education as an institutionalization, philosophical and principled. Moreover, it highlights "understanding." Understanding, for me, is the be all end all for all forms of Multiculturalism. Other definitions fell out of favor by citing the combatting of discrimination, prejudice and histories of oppression. These definitions implied that multicultural education is needed only in nations with systemic discriminations and histories of oppression--a theory that I am completely in disagreement with.
Wayne Au in his book, "Rethinking Multicultural Education" pursues the institutionalizing of culturally pluralism. In the interview with educator Christine Sleeter, the issue of colorblindness arose. Echoing the sentiments of the 90's racial discourse, the question pointed to the attitude of teachers to "not see a child's race." That is truly the worst. Fortunately, Sleeter shared my attitude and contested that taking a colorblind approach is a teacher's failure to understand his/her students and thus ineffectively curtail the education to that student. Denying the importance, as Sleeter puts it, of the child's background really proves to create an educational atmosphere that is anything but multicultural.
I must say that nothing really bugged me about any of the readings, which is rare. I do feel that I must re-emphasize how important understanding one another is to building social bonds as well as successful eductaion. My ability to understand another person will influence greatly how I relate to that person. How will a person who's not Caribbean know how to approach me as an American if they don't understand me. How will a White teacher know how insulting it is for a black student to be considered a credit to his race or essentialized as black if that teacher doesn't understand sufficiently the way the Black experience processes it all?
There are many people and things I don't understand that I should to augment the ways in which I approach people. As a vegetarian it helps when people aren't always down you're throat saying I need protein. (They have a grave lack of understanding of the vegetarian lifestyle due to the carno-logocentric food pyramid as constructed by our Western pattern diet). http://youtube.com/watch?v=e5uAQwVIwY As a Caribbean American, it helps when people understand that my culture cannot always be compared to Jamaica and that American pop culture is more infectious in Trinidad than you would think. I think that an education that is truly mutlicultural can address these things, not explicitly, but rather by incorporating considerations of other lifestyles in classes such as US History and Health/Nutrition classes. Basically, a pradigm shift (or reform) in education is needed to created this desired result.
--TAHS
Monday, February 1, 2010
Uganda. Uganda. Uganda.
So it continues. The long saga of systemic genocide of my queer brothers and sisters has found itself in the law of another nation. Now, in the fiercely Christianized State of Uganda, the criminalization of homosexuality is, unfortunately, something to be expected. I mean, the African continent, in its unconscious (and arguably futile) attempt to appear more civil in the gaze of the Euro-American master States have enthusiastically internalized the former colonial mores that abhorred same-gender sexual relations and are now more committed to that cause than the nations that inspired such an ignorant attitude.
History review: The White Man came to Africa. The White Man immediately establishes himself as superior and wiser through physical and (more detrimental) epistemic violence. The African tribes (now haphazardly reorganized into constructed nations by the White Man) now look to the White Man as the ultimate example of how to be human and take his teachings as the law of God Himself; The White Man's dress, his language, his societal conceptions, his hair texture, his practices and his beliefs must now become the dress, language, societal coneptions, etc. of the Black natives if they are ever to be humanized like the White Man is (which is a goal they can only approach but never reach as prescribed by the terms of humanity as set by the White Man). The White Man says that homosexuality is a filthy abomination, a sickness, the cause of disease and calamity, the sexuality of savages... the African Natives take his word and pursue actions to rectify it with the utmost ferver in desperate persuit of the goal to be culturally Whiter.
These patterns of meaning production and cultural appropriation are not simply the origin story for the fiercely anti-homosexual politics that has become a trademark of the African nation-state, these patterns are being revisited TODAY (right now) behind the flag of Christ.
Fundamentalist Christian missionaries from America, (the not-so new visage of the White Man) have continued to pour these horror stories of the homosexual into the ears of the Ugandans. Child molesters, AIDS proliferators, God-forsaken they call us. The homosexual has become the new face of the Devil in the imagination of the Ugandans--regardless of the intent of the missionaries who minister to them. What many of these more ignorant Bible carriers fail to realize is the way historically constructed narratives about their race magnify the impact of their words ...how their words carry a different result in a Western mega-church borne of an Anglo tradition from the result of the same words in a nation with a tradition of subordination to the Anglo colonial project.
Rachel Maddow, political pundit and advocate for unmitigated Human Rights across all social locations tackled these questions in a segment entitled "Uganda be Kidding Me." In this clip, (which I watch everytime with relish), she attempts to highlight to her guest the ways in which he almost directly incites the inception of this "Kill the Gays Bill" despite his claims that he cannot be held responsible.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#34337416
The above segment is just one of a handful of interviews Maddow conducts in investigation of this frightening turn of events. Fortunately, she has the sense of responsibility to pursue interrogations of those who contributed in any way to the inception of this bill, thus exposing the true nature of the origin rising anti-homosexual sentiment in Africa.
I must note that as she exposed the direct link of American Christian activists to the atmosphere of heterosexism in Africa, my anger flared violently. Is this what happens when the precious and beautiful Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, is placed in the hands of greedy, capitalist, priveleged and prejudiced straight, white American men? These educated, first-world and supposedly compassionate people are guilty of INCREASING the violence and hate in the "third world" rather than working to decrease it.
I suppose, given the history of colonial relations between the colonized Africans and the colonizing white men, my surprise in unwarranted. What else would they do?
--TAHS
History review: The White Man came to Africa. The White Man immediately establishes himself as superior and wiser through physical and (more detrimental) epistemic violence. The African tribes (now haphazardly reorganized into constructed nations by the White Man) now look to the White Man as the ultimate example of how to be human and take his teachings as the law of God Himself; The White Man's dress, his language, his societal conceptions, his hair texture, his practices and his beliefs must now become the dress, language, societal coneptions, etc. of the Black natives if they are ever to be humanized like the White Man is (which is a goal they can only approach but never reach as prescribed by the terms of humanity as set by the White Man). The White Man says that homosexuality is a filthy abomination, a sickness, the cause of disease and calamity, the sexuality of savages... the African Natives take his word and pursue actions to rectify it with the utmost ferver in desperate persuit of the goal to be culturally Whiter.
These patterns of meaning production and cultural appropriation are not simply the origin story for the fiercely anti-homosexual politics that has become a trademark of the African nation-state, these patterns are being revisited TODAY (right now) behind the flag of Christ.
Fundamentalist Christian missionaries from America, (the not-so new visage of the White Man) have continued to pour these horror stories of the homosexual into the ears of the Ugandans. Child molesters, AIDS proliferators, God-forsaken they call us. The homosexual has become the new face of the Devil in the imagination of the Ugandans--regardless of the intent of the missionaries who minister to them. What many of these more ignorant Bible carriers fail to realize is the way historically constructed narratives about their race magnify the impact of their words ...how their words carry a different result in a Western mega-church borne of an Anglo tradition from the result of the same words in a nation with a tradition of subordination to the Anglo colonial project.
Rachel Maddow, political pundit and advocate for unmitigated Human Rights across all social locations tackled these questions in a segment entitled "Uganda be Kidding Me." In this clip, (which I watch everytime with relish), she attempts to highlight to her guest the ways in which he almost directly incites the inception of this "Kill the Gays Bill" despite his claims that he cannot be held responsible.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#34337416
The above segment is just one of a handful of interviews Maddow conducts in investigation of this frightening turn of events. Fortunately, she has the sense of responsibility to pursue interrogations of those who contributed in any way to the inception of this bill, thus exposing the true nature of the origin rising anti-homosexual sentiment in Africa.
I must note that as she exposed the direct link of American Christian activists to the atmosphere of heterosexism in Africa, my anger flared violently. Is this what happens when the precious and beautiful Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, is placed in the hands of greedy, capitalist, priveleged and prejudiced straight, white American men? These educated, first-world and supposedly compassionate people are guilty of INCREASING the violence and hate in the "third world" rather than working to decrease it.
I suppose, given the history of colonial relations between the colonized Africans and the colonizing white men, my surprise in unwarranted. What else would they do?
--TAHS
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