Yesterday in NPR Race Fail (wrt Arizona Race Fail, Part Deux)

[kitchen_kink]

One of the goals of the Mexican-American studies program in Tucson was to promote Latino critical race pedagogy. Well, you know, for non-academics, that probably just sounds like gobbledygook, but the whole idea of promoting race pedagogy I think strikes most Americans as very un-American.

-Linda Chavez, Chair, Center for Equal Opportunity


For those who don't know, Arizona has failed at race relations yet again. Twice in one month is pretty astonishing for a state, I know. But besides the insane immigration law, Arizona has now passed a law essentially banning ethnic studies classes from public schools, claiming that they promote the overthrow of the US government and ill feeling toward white people. (There might be other reasons why the Mexican, African-American and Native American kids are pissed at the white kids, but that isn't addressed here.)

I was listening to Talk of the Nation on NPR yesterday and finding myself becoming more and more incensed. Neal Conan was moderating a discussion including the woman quoted above (who, incidentally, is also a Fox News political commentator and notable arch-conservative, but nobody bothered to mention that), who is the head of "the only [conservative] think tank devoted exclusively to the promotion of colorblind equal opportunity and racial harmony." This organization has a hotline called "Affirmative Action Watch," which has people call in discrimination complaints if someone gets hired because of affirmative action. So we start with this winner.

Then they add James Banks, who is professor of diversity studies and director of the Center for Multicultural Education at the University of Washington-Seattle. He's obviously knowledgeable and, dare I say it, sweet, but he's not as quick on his feet on the radio as his interlocutor. Still, he fights hard and gets pretty pissed at one point, citing recent (if controversial) research.

What annoyed me so much was that nobody was actually willing to say, "Yes, these kids are angry; yes, America is still racist and these kids should know that; no, the most important goal should not be to assimilate kids into becoming the same as everyone else and fulfilling the white Anglo-American dream." Someone actually called in and said "How would you feel if there were a Caucasian Studies course?" I almost yelled at the radio, "There is - that's American History class!" Chavez used familiar language about putting race "on the back burner," promoting color-blindness, and not wanting to excite hostilities or make kids believe they are victims. Nobody on the show talked at all about how much this is an example of white people being terrified. James Banks, I believe, was very concerned about proving how innocuous the ethnic studies programs were - which is a good goal if you're in his position, I think, but it still makes me angry. It made me extra-angry when Conan seemed to favor Chavez's speech over his, stopping him from speaking to let her finish several times, saying once, "You already said that," and then dropping this gem when Banks got too uppity:

"But James Banks, one thing you were talking about, classes like the ones that Willis is describing that were in the Marine Corps that were inclusive of all groups, not just one group in particular. And as I think you know, Linda Chavez has studied education for much of her life and is her opinions are based on more than just opinion. So that's why we have her on the program." [Full transcript behind link.]

This, after it had been made explicit several times that the Arizona classes do not exclude students of any race, and after Banks got exasperated and said we shouldn't go by opinions "based on just whatever."

I wanted to call in and ask everyone: haven't a single one of you even read the most basic of texts on race and privilege? Have you all been asleep while you sit here and use one derailing tactic after another to keep this conversation dumbed down and not moving toward any change at all?

Sorry this isn't incredibly coherent. Any help on this? Comments? *flails*

Comments

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

NPR has a lot of uppity white folks. They're not usually Fox News uppity, but I guess this was a whopper with cheese, mayo, bacon and more mayo.

I hate mayo. I've also lost the topic wicked fast...

I'd never read McIntosh's piece before and it's fascinating. Thank you for the link.

Arizona is losing its mind. If North Korea hadn't turned their crazy up to nine point what the fuhh this week, I bet this wouldn't gotten more press.

Maybe we have to let Arizona get as batshit racist as possible so they can hit bottom. They need to understand that racism on their level is a crutch, an addiction. It lets them avoid realizing how precarious their situation is -- dependent on outside water and electricity, run by redneck retirees.

I think I'm rambling, too. Actually, you were plenty coherent -- you just didn't feel like you were reaching your conclusion fast enough.

The point? Most white folks still have no clue how privileged they are. They just don't. The best thing to help shatter that delusion is the rise of a gay culture -- suddenly discrimination is obvious, petty and amazingly retarded and you're still white.

I learned a lot about racism when I went to Europe. Europeans treat Arabs the way most Americans treat black folks -- invisible, hated, the works. When you don't know the local racism well enough, you wind up getting cheap and delicious meals and can't figure out why the restaurant is empty.

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

NPR has a lot of uppity white folks.

This, unfortunately, seems to be true. One of the things that infuriates me is the way the right screams about the "liberal media," when even NPR can't get something like this close to right.

I should point out, though, that Professor Banks, the only person about whom I (sarcastically) used the word "uppity," is black (http://faculty.washington.edu/jbanks/).

The best thing to help shatter that delusion is the rise of a gay culture -- suddenly discrimination is obvious, petty and amazingly retarded and you're still white.

I don't think so. If anything, the women's movement and the gay rights movement have not done nearly enough to include people of color, and while theories of intersecting oppressions are becoming more well-known and accepted, I think whiteness is still the biggest privilege-marker of all.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Was it true that ethnic studies classes in Arizona were restricted by ethnicity, that only Mexican-American students could do Mexican-American Studies? The law reads to me as predicated on that assumption.

I'm speculating here, but it seems more likely to me that white students simply did not choose to enroll in that sort of class. If that's true, it says to me that there's a significant opportunity in Arizona right now because of the new law (perversely), and a progressive school system might demonstrate compliance, retain their curriculum, and increase uptake of inter-racial dialogue by *requiring* an ethnic studies component in their social studies program.

A required course would, by definition, be open to all students, and demonstrate that it was not intended to teach the overthrow of the US or identification with one's ethnicity over one's country. (Though really, we have a sense of a system that requires identification with one's country above all else, which is fascism. But that's a different ramble.)

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

Was it true that ethnic studies classes in Arizona were restricted by ethnicity, that only Mexican-American students could do Mexican-American Studies?

No, of course not. The entire law seems predicated not only on this assumption but on all kinds of wackoloon assumptions based entirely upon white anxiety about brown people finding out how badly they've been fucked.

Your speculation is a hopeful one, but I somehow seriously doubt it, unfortunately.

(Though really, we have a sense of a system that requires identification with one's country above all else, which is fascism. But that's a different ramble.)

The Chavez quotation I used at the beginning of the article filled me with terror. It's like a program imlad saw during the Bush administration that was the first thing he'd seen in America that reminded him of communist Russia. One politician said to another something like, "You know, some of these comments you're making could be interpreted as anti-American."

Not just the comment itself, but the tone, which suggests that such things should not be said if one is interested in not being sent to Guantanamo Siberia. *shudder*

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Yeah, speculation is based on the presence of a progressive school district, which may well be a Mythical Beast.

In fairness, I didn't get anything approaching ethnic studies in public school either. Closest we got was Black History Month, which would inevitably get White Parent Complaints every year. My 6th grade Social Studies teacher did introduce us to the idea that the rest of the year was White History Month, though, which generally shut up the kids on the subject, as we had to agree. So I suppose you could see some progress in the fact that the classes exist to be banned, when they didn't exist at all for our generation. I'm hopeful and stupid sometimes.

[desiringsubject.livejournal.com]

Also, if you're going to use Linda Chavez as a defense of ethnic studies you'll be in a world of hurt. IIRC she's the most conservative person I've ever read who could still be called a Chicano theorist in any substantive way. She's every conservative's favorite Chicana. Tho, I haven't double checked if I'm thinking of the same person. But still. There are better examples to trot out. Which makes conservative's bad reactions to her even weirder!

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

Right, as I said at the beginning, she's totally a conservative nutjob. It was just amazing to me that Talk of the Nation had her on as the voice supporting the law, and didn't make it clear what her background on such issues was. Also annoying was the fact that he kept her on longer than Professor Banks and let her get the last word in before the segment was over. Fail.

[dpolicar]

You're entirely right that Chavez and the people she is pitching to at the very least do not want to have the conversation about race and privilege. (I never know whether, on an individual basis, they don't get it, or they are knowingly rejecting it, or somewhere in between.)

And the fact is, they get a payoff for not getting it, or for rejecting it. Talking explicitly about how a group is privileged is the first step in disassembling the power structure that supports that privilege, and from which that group benefits; derailing the conversation ensures that the power structure is kept safe.

It's not surprising that having that conversation is difficult.

Which I guess means there's no help forthcoming from this quarter... my reaction, now that I think about it, really boils down to "Well, what exactly did you expect?"

Which I appreciate is not at all helpful. Sorry.