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Thread: My ethnic studies class not what I thought...

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    God/dess Paris's Avatar
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    Default My ethnic studies class not what I thought...

    The catalog describes it like this:
    Ethnic Studies at XXXX Community College was created over 35 years ago. The discipline strives to provide for the interdisciplinary study of the histories and experiences of the four major racial minority groups in the United States: Americans of African and Asian descent, Chicanas/os and Latinas/os, and the indigenous peoples of the Americas, Caribbean, and Pacific Islands. In addition, Ethnic Studies provides space for students to critically analyze the intersections of race and ethnicity with other variables such as: gender identity, sexuality, disability, class, nationalism, and globalization.

    I kind of figured it was going to look at modern issues, cultural differences, how people express racism in modern culture...and it did on the first week. I'm halfway through the term now and we've only rehashed how terrible European settlers treated everyone that wasn't a European settler of English, French or German origins.

    I already know that slavery was a horrendous thing in America's history. Ditto with the genocide of Native Americans. Go ahead and throw in the Irish, Italians, Polish and Scandinavians mistreated by "true Americans" when they emigrated to the US in 1800-1900's. The treatment of the Chinese immigrants in the 1800's was deplorable as well. How horrible has the American government treated Hispanics throughout this country's history? Despicable! So was the internment of the Japanese-Americans in concentration camps during world war 2. This thread can be followed right up to modern day abuses of people within our borders for reasons of race or ethnic background.

    My question is where is the lauding of achievements of racial or ethnic minorities? Everyone except the original 13 colonies' white population are being depicted as helpless victims. This really pisses me off, because I know that minorities are anything but helpless. This teaching of only the victimization of minorities without balancing out the achievements of minority leaders appears to have the effect of further marginalizing minorities.

    This is a required class, too. I live in a VERY white part of the world. Like 95% of the residents are white. If this is a required class for this region, what exactly are we supposed to learning?


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    Default Re: My ethnic studies class not what I thought...

    Some people have theorized that the victimhood culture that you are seeing in that class is a large part of the reason that many ethnic minorities are mired in poverty...if they continue to view themselves as such, then they can just use that as an excuse to not achieve.

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    Default Re: My ethnic studies class not what I thought...

    that reminds me of most of my grade school history classes where we mostly learned about battles/struggles/wars where white people either kicked everybody's ass or fought amongst themselves.

    also, when i tried to take african history in college they said i had to take a pre-requisite history course although i had already taken a basic history course as a requirement. i had no problem taking specialized philosophy or sociology courses after fulfilling the basic requirements in those fields.

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    Default Re: My ethnic studies class not what I thought...

    Why were you surprised ? Teaching "victimhood" instead of accomplishment has been a standard part of so-called "education" in this country since the 60's.

    The other side of the coin was the "bleaching" of American History as it was taught to me ( and millions of others ) in grade school through high school. We were taught about slavery and Booker T. but not about what REALLY happened during Reconstruction or about Dubois.
    We were taught what a great guy Woodrow Wilson was and not what a disgusting racist he proved to be. So there was plenty of room to fill in Black historical people , movements and trends as well as Latino ( did you know that a large number of the Texican heroes of the Alamo were Tejanos ? ) and other groups.

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    Default Re: My ethnic studies class not what I thought...

    You know the worst part is that through all the struggles, we are minorities. I don't know about acheivements or anything, but I would imagine to be considered equal would trump any achievement. It's funny though, because something so simple shouldn't be something that has taken millenia to achieve. Much less something that has been fought for and made to be such a big deal. Recently there have been alot of achievements by diverse ethnicities, but to be honest it's hard to see changes in how we treat each other.

    A course like your taking is actually backwards, focusing on the victimazing of other cultures takes away from actually learning about them. Courses like that shouldn't be about past achievements or struggles, but about understanding each other better. Thas just what I think.
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    Default Re: My ethnic studies class not what I thought...

    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

    I agree that curriculum as depicted by OP is rather narrow, parochial, and ultimately piss-poor preparation for dealing with various factions in todays global economy. Instead of fixating on long past "injustices", how about looking at long ingrained traits/ethos of certain cultures, and how normal "Yankee" instincts/habits could be awkward in certain situations. Things like the oriental concept of "face" (could that be why I've never seen an Asian panhandler), or how some cultures can be touchy feely, while others, touching is a big taboo, or looking one in the eye could be construed as insulting, etc.

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    Default Re: My ethnic studies class not what I thought...

    I always get irritated when I think of the warped views offered by the American education system. I remember in grade school, we would color pictures and sing songs and stuff on Columbus Day, cause he was the one who discovered America and he's a hero and so on and so forth...then you get older and find out that he was actually quite a bastard, a sadist, and he tortured and slaughtered thousands of natives...and he didn't even discover North America, he never set foot on this continent, he was only in Central America...and he didn't discover that, either... And it's not like people didn't know these things when we were little. They just decided to make this awful chapter in world history into some little fun arts-and-crafts project for kids. Then we get older, and it's like, "Oh, sorry, kids, we lied." I mean, wtf?

    And growing up down South, every year in History class we would never make it to the 20th century because we spent so much time on the Civil War, as it was a pivotal time in the South and we've still never really recovered economically. Then I move to NY in 11th grade, and we went over the Civil War in ONE DAY. And they said it was just a political struggle, and I was like, "Um, it was a lot more than that."

    And of course, in the South, the whole racial struggle of the 20th century was taught in every class. But then I move up to NY and they haven't even heard of half the leaders of that movement, or they don't know about the forced desegregation of schools and colleges, and so on.

    Nothing's consistent in this country, and no one seems to give a damn.

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    Default Re: My ethnic studies class not what I thought...

    Eric, your post reminds me of what Churchill said: " History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.'.

    We were taught the northern view of the War of Northern Aggression. (I was in Fl.)
    Quote Originally Posted by The Snark View Post
    But then I suppose the sort of people who write this kind of crap generally don't allow their opinions to be tainted by things like "facts" and "reality".
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    Default Re: My ethnic studies class not what I thought...

    Quote Originally Posted by glambman View Post
    Eric, your post reminds me of what Churchill said: " History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.'.

    We were taught the northern view of the War of Northern Aggression. (I was in Fl.)
    I love that term, " The War of Northern Aggression". It's been a southern , white, racist, revisionist shibboleth for decades. Who fired the first shot ? The South. Who tried to secede ? The South. Who owned slaves ? A small percentage of white Southerners. Who killed Lincoln ? John Wilkes Booth, a southern spy and sympathizer. Who started the Klan ? Nathan Bedford Forrest.

    Part of the problem is elevating feelings to be the equal of facts and substituting ideology for evidence. However, there is another side to the coin where the Hannitys, Levins, Limbaughs and O'Reillys only what the positive things about American History taught and not any of the less savory episodes. I want it ALL taught.

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