Socialist Progressives
Related: About this forumA spectre is haunting Tuscon
Has anyone else been following this awful story about the book-bannings in Tuscon? I posted a snip about it in GD the other day: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002196596 "Arizona Schools Ban Mex-Am Studies, Angry Kids Put On Janitorial Duty"
I just caught this other tidbit from Democracy Now, in an interview with SOE Huppenthal, the core reason for this draconian ban (which resulted in school officials going right into classes in session and taking books off the shelves and rearing down posters):
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/18/debating_tucson_school_districts_book_ban
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Superintendent Huppenthal, why do you say that no one, neither a liberal nor a conservative, would tolerate it? Whats the problem with the program? And youve also said that classes such as these foster ethnic resentment. Could you explain what you mean by that and how that manifests itself?
JOHN HUPPENTHAL: Well, the designers of the classthe classes themselves, they laid this all out in a journal article. And they explicitly said in the journal article that they were going to racemizeracemize the classes. And in racemizing* the classes, there is a philosopher in South America, controversial philosopher, becauseits strictly right in his bookshe uses a Marxist structure to his thinking and his philosophy, thatand Marx, of course, said that the entire history of mankind was a struggle between the classes. So the designers of the Mexican American Studies classes explicitly say in their journal articles that theyre going to construct Mexican American Studies around this Marxian framework with a predominantly ethnic underclass, the oppressed, beingfilling out that Marxian model and a predominantly Caucasian class filling out the role of the oppressor. It really is so simplistic, but it was replete through the entire article. And a lot of things, very unhealthy.
<snip>
JOHN HUPPENTHAL: I mean, he says, explicitlyhe says, explicitly, in his book that hisliterally, the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, that word "oppressed" is taken right out ofhe says it right in the bookthat word "oppressed" is taken right out of The Communist Manifesto, where he talks aboutKarl Marx talks about the struggle of the history of manthe entire history of mankind being the struggle between the oppressed and the oppressors.
<snip>
JOHN HUPPENTHAL: Theresthose books were nottheres nonothing about my order that requires that those books be banned at all. You know, Ive read those books myself to familiarize myself with the issues at hand. But what we have concerns about are how those books are being used. You could use Mein Kampf (!!-Starry) in the classroom, but youd have to be really careful, because youif you found a teacher who wasnt using it to explore the issues in Mein Kampf critically, but you werethey were using it as a Bible, boy, that would be intolerable. And thats where the teachers have crossed over the line. Theyve gone from using these books critically, to get the students thinking about them from many vantage points, to using these books essentially as a Bible.
Wow, you can't even use the word "oppressed" in Tuscon without reigniting the Red Scare? And comparing critical works on race to Mein Kampf? Where do these people come from? I've read that racism is considered the one huge reason why the US has never shifted closer to socialism like in other industrialized countries. Reading things like this kind of underscores that for me. Where do you start when you can't even acknowledge that institutional oppression exists and has existed in this country?
(*and wtf is "racemizing" )
drm604
(16,230 posts)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racemize
Basically, the guy's a moron.
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)That's tragic. He's the Superintendent of Education! Of Arizona!
drm604
(16,230 posts)he thinks the word has something to do with race.
liberalmike27
(2,479 posts)While class war has waged now for decades more in the open, the rich attacking the poor in particular, and the middle class, when we start to fight back it suddenly becomes OK.
Racism is one of the tools the power elites use as a cudgel. It's brilliant if you think about it, as they use these deeply developed hatreds, encouraged by the media complex, against us, and manage to con a lot of people into voting for the worse of the two party choices.
And there are others too, to blind us from the real battle, between the rich, the capitalists, and the rest of us. They use xenophobia of all kinds, hatred of Immigrants, in particular Mexicans. They use hatred of Arabs, or any particular group we happen to be stirring up to start a war with at any given time. Iran is in the cross-hairs now. And there is their old buddy homosexuality too. Religious obfuscation of reality, of betterment through the system is also being deliberately used to confound a better society for all of us.
Too often when I hear discussions, I hear them expressed as incidental, all of these little fires, that obscure the big fire, the real fire, the Capitalist fire in which we all rotate and roast on a spit. These things are done quite on purpose. Awareness is a weapon against the act. I try when I get the chance to make people aware that their hatreds are being used against them economically.
Who else but Capitalists would ever conceive of slavery?
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)PETRUS
(3,678 posts)As usual, the concern isn't about the fact of historical (or contemporary) discrimination and oppression, but what the consequences of acknowledging and discussing it might be...
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)against *white people*. I wish I could say I'm shocked to see this kind of rhetoric gain a foothold in the US, but this seems to be ramping up quite a few notches. Check this out:
http://tucsoncitizen.com/three-sonorans/2011/12/27/john-huppenthal-can-ban-mexican-american-studies-after-ruling-by-arizona-judge-against-tusd/
Tom Horne, the former leader of the Department (of Education) said that he believes that African- and Native-American Studies in the Ethnic Studies program in TUSD also violate the law that he authored, but that he would only focus on MAS. The only investigations or application of this law have only been on the Mexican American Studies program. How on earth could the ALJ make such a conclusion?
Perhaps it all comes down to the words that let him get away with it; credible evidence. There may have been evidence, but the ALJ is not buying it. Not the campaign promises from John Huppenthal to Stop La Raza, a direct reference to Raza Studies in TUSD, which is what MAS was called before. Not all the non-stop bashing of the MAS program since 2006 from Tom Horne, the former state superintendent and current Attorney General.
I think one of the most telling conclusions is the following:
10. The Administrative Law Judge concludes that A.R.S. § 15-112(F) permits the historical (objective) instruction of oppression that may, as a natural but unintended consequence, result in racial resentment or ethnic solidarity. However, teaching oppression objectively is quite different than actively presenting material in a biased, political, and emotionally charged manner, which is what occurred in MAS classes. Teaching in such a manner promotes social or political activism against the white people, promotes racial resentment, and advocates ethnic solidarity, instead of treating pupils as individuals.
<snip>
I'm worried to see this in Arizona. I'm afraid it will spread to the other Western states. And then outwards.
ellisonz
(27,709 posts)This country needs to stop lying to itself.
P.S. Your subscribers just went up 1 member.