Lie of the Month: Ethnic Studies Attacks Frightey-Whitey

[texshelters]

Lie of the Month: Ethnic Studies Attacks Frightey-Whitey
Support my post here: http://texshelters.wordpress.com/2011/03/27/lie-of-the-month-ethnic-studies-attacks-frightey-whitey/comment-page-1/#comments

I generally like humans, humans of all stripes and kinds. The ones I can’t abide are those who use their identity, race, religion, gender or ideology to take away the rights of others. That is why I despise the paranoid white people in Arizona, the nation, and in Europe.

There are Northern European Americans that promote the idea that teaching ethnics studies hurts white people.

The main frightey-whitey in this campaign is former Arizona School Superintendant Tom Horne. Tom Horne promoted an end to Mexican-American studies in the Tucson Unified School District because it “promotes a radical agenda”. The newly elected (Republican) Superintendant says, “ ‘No school district has a right to provide incorrect, unfactual American history that pits a class against another,” Huppenthal told Arizona’s KGUN9. “It’s unhealthy and if that’s what going on there’s going to be a confrontation.’ ”
http://colorlines.com/archives/2010/10/arizona_teachers_sue_to_protect_ethnic_studies.html

Promoting things that are “unfactual” is in this case in the eye of the beholder. Native Americans might argue that Europeans took their land.” Europeans might argue that they took the land that the natives weren’t using and made it productive. Mexican-Americans might argue that they have faced discrimination in the U.S. and European-American Republicans in Arizona would ask incredulously, “What discrimination?” Because these frightey-whiteys can’t stand a historical narrative that might point out how some whites have discriminated against some brown people, they want to ignore the First Amendment and cancel all Ethnic Studies classes, mainly targeting Mexican-American studies.

Isn’t all history up for question? Was Washington a great military leader? The text books infer he was, but historians will quickly point out he lost most of his battles. Was Lincoln going to ban slavery as president? Well, the frightey-whiteys (racist southerners of 1860) were so convinced he was that Lincoln would end all slavery that they started a war against the North. However, historical documents quote Lincoln as saying that he would stop the spread of slavery, not end the practice.

The point of history is to make one think and evaluate the past to inform the present and future. Should we stick to the standard double speak, the false narratives, the myth of the “manifest destiny” (as if God was willing the European-Americans to take land), the lies from the Alamo that we must never forget, the rugged frontiers people and their dignity, without regard to the Native American land claim, genocide and slaughter? That is what Russell Pearce (head of the Arizona Senate and lead racist), Tom Horne, Huppenthal and all the other frightey-whiteys in Arizona want you to do.

They also want the people of Arizona to be more white. Why have ethic studies? Why not take pride in being like everyone else. These scared citizens of the far right buy into the false dichotomy. They feel that to be American, you must learn the stories of the dead white guys and the token Blacks, Latinos, Mexicans, let alone learn about Asians, Africans, or Pacific Islanders. It’s okay to mention Martin Luther King, and read a sentence about Malcolm-X, but let’s leave John Lewis out. It’s okay to mention Selena or Rickey Ricardo, maybe even mention Santana. We can mention a few characters, but to discuss how these different peoples are diverse and have rich cultures and they contribute to the United States and make it a better place, to have pride and understand where you are from? That is uncalled for and Un-American.

Certainly, we can point to some who have pride in their culture and put down others. I would say the Republicans of Arizona do that with much of their legislation and bans on ethnic studies. There are Black Power preachers that hate whitey. Does that invalidate Black Studies? It enhances Black Studies, for that is a very real split in the Black Power movement. And, it is only one small part of the African American experience that includes slavery, lynching, murder, school and church bombing and other degradation. Nevertheless, according to the Republicans in Arizona, mentioning these things is an attack on America. That can be the only explanation for the accusations Tom Horne makes about the Tucson Mexican-American studies programs.

The four activities identified by the bill that warrant fund withholding include classes that:

• Promote the overthrow of the United States government
• Promote resentment toward a race or class of people
• Are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group
• Advocate for ethnic solidarity

These are incredibly serious allegations especially considering that advocating the overthrow of the US government could constitute treason. So, the key question becomes:
What evidence does Mr. Horne have to support his allegations?

Mr. Horne’s primary source of information is a disgruntled former TUSD instructor named John Ward. Mr. Ward was briefly a “teacher of record” in one of the Mexican American Studies classes, and claims that the program breeds ethnic hatred from a radical perspective.

Mr. Horne publicly repeats these allegations as he did on a May 20 segment on CNN where is said, “ is a small group of radical teachers, anti-Capitalists, anti-Western civilization, anti-free enterprise…”
http://tucsoncitizen.com/three-sonorans/2010/08/10/tom-horne-preaching-american-values-and-then-trampling-them/

How is a discussion of Mexican-Americans a call for the overthrow of the United States government? Perhaps if you take the call for a return to Aztlan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztl%C3%A1n seriously, and you consider it a viable threat, than it is a call to overthrow the government. If you take “the return to Aztlan” as a call for ethnic pride, as rational people see it, than it’s not a threat. Again, the paranoid amongst us set the agenda in Arizona. In this case the agenda is white history only.

Promoting resentment is a worry for those that penned the ethnic studies ban. Why? Do minorities have a reason to be resentful and stating facts will enhance this feeling? So what? Aren’t students resentful they have to listen to lies about the U.S. government day in and day out? Let’s ban all education then. These far-right censors want to whitewash history and avoid topics that are controversial. They want unthinking drones coming out of our schools.

They want to ban classes that are designed for a particular ethnic group. Well, current history, civics and social studies classes teach primarily European American history, so we need to ban all classes except math and science. There is nothing in the curriculum of Mexican-American studies classes that bans Asians, Blacks, or Whites from attending them. I took Native-American studies classes and there were plenty of white people in the classes.

The most ludicrous part of the law in banning classes that “ethnic solidarity”. Is that because they are afraid that when they are the minority they will be lynched, infected with disease, run off their land, slaughtered, sterilized, and treated the way European Americans treated Blacks, Natives, Chinese, and other minorities? Ethnic solidarity does not mean “revolution”. It only means revolution to frightey-whitey.

Watch the trailer here
http://vimeo.com/15062646

Check out the Precious Knowledge page and see their documentary promoting diversity in education.
http://www.facebook.com/preciousknowledge?sk=wall#!/preciousknowledge?sk=info

Brown and Proud Page for Arizonans
http://www.ellabakercenter.org/blog/2010/05/arizona-and-the-rising-temperature-of-fear/

Peace,
Tex Shelters

[Mojeoux]

1. Some Arizonans, Have No Shame

Thanks for posting. "The truth will set you free?" indeed.

The thing is..........the truth is like gravity. It never goes away, never stops being true.

It's really funny though, I mean does he think a young person would read the sad history of how the West was won and go crazy?

[Name removed]

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