RE: For Black History Month
February 20, 2012 at 12:01 pm
(This post was last modified: February 20, 2012 at 12:15 pm by thesummerqueen.)
Okay, let me try to clarify this:
First of all, I didn't express my last point to my satisfaction. I'm not stupid or blind, and obviously comparing one race/religion with blacks in America is pretty retarded, as no other race were traded as slaves. Point against me there, but the point I was trying to make is this: there are also successful blacks in this country - people who didn't let racism get them down, who live good lives of many different sorts. There are latinos and other racial groups who do as well - and they definitely don't have the focus of a month directed at them - a month might be designated, but no one's learning Mexican history outside of a world history curriculum.
People who refuse to let themselves be bogged down by race or religion and pursue an education to the best of their ability, who learn to be multi-cultured and not focused on the color of their skin and how it gets them down, or feel guilty about it, or what sort of genitals they have and how it inhibits them from doing their job - they fucking get ahead. If religious or racial or gender ideals were REALLY the important consuming factor in their life they wouldn't strive to be part of this country. They strive DESPITE them, because for every one group or subset you have in this country, you have someone else who hates them for dumbshit, or not so dumbshit, reasons.
I'm against things like affirmative action and I find the idea of cultural "months" in education ludicrous because I think they are band-aids, and distract people from the truth: that humans have the barest percentage of a difference between them that alters their outward appearance - something a good science class could blow a kid's mind with. Instead of "you're black, I'm white" how about "wow - this tiny gene makes you a different color than me - flipping one switch does that much? Cool! What else can they do?" I figured this out when I was 12, Rev. 12. I'm not the smartest or the only person to have come to this conclusion, and I do think that more people don't say it because they get drowned out by the fuckwads who want their band-aid.
Second: people who shout about anyone learning anything outside of their culture are a loud minority.
I never heard anyone bitching about its existence in my school - except for the fact when assemblies WERE held for Black history, in particular, speakers would act as if slavery still existed in this country. It does, but not plantation slavery, and it's multi-cultural. Everyone else was offended - slave owners have been dead for years now, and we were their great-great-etc grandchildren - and most of us would never own or trade slaves and found it offensive. It felt like being blamed for the sins of our fathers. It's not our fault, and the more we teach the similarities between people, the less reasons people will have for xenophobia.
"We used to be really shitty towards these people, but now we don't think that way and we're working to make it possible for everyone to receive a good education."
Don't make a big deal about someone's accident of birth, and focus instead on what they bring to the table. Discuss how things REALLY happened with as many primary sources as possible and less of the teacher yakking and more of the kids TALKING about it.
The complaints are partially from assholes. They're also partially from people like me (and I won't speak for others here) who think that women, and blacks, and other races and religions, don't have it as bad as they used to and they should be absorbed into this great country as another puzzle piece that makes up a map of us hopefully staying on top in the world as a place of dreams that can become realities.
My problem is that it's not enough to devote a month to some group or other, as I've stated before, and if you're teaching history properly, then it's unnecessary at best.
For the record, my entire complaint rests with the way history is taught, and not the arbitrary naming of a day to make someone or other happy. If I have a complaint with naming a month or day, it's exactly because it becomes a bandaid, not an educational tool. I'm merely stating why other people might have a complaint without it necessarily being a product of racism. Name days or weeks or months whatever the hell you want. But don't expect me to find such a practice actually useful without the practical application that should go behind it with or without the name.
First of all, I didn't express my last point to my satisfaction. I'm not stupid or blind, and obviously comparing one race/religion with blacks in America is pretty retarded, as no other race were traded as slaves. Point against me there, but the point I was trying to make is this: there are also successful blacks in this country - people who didn't let racism get them down, who live good lives of many different sorts. There are latinos and other racial groups who do as well - and they definitely don't have the focus of a month directed at them - a month might be designated, but no one's learning Mexican history outside of a world history curriculum.
People who refuse to let themselves be bogged down by race or religion and pursue an education to the best of their ability, who learn to be multi-cultured and not focused on the color of their skin and how it gets them down, or feel guilty about it, or what sort of genitals they have and how it inhibits them from doing their job - they fucking get ahead. If religious or racial or gender ideals were REALLY the important consuming factor in their life they wouldn't strive to be part of this country. They strive DESPITE them, because for every one group or subset you have in this country, you have someone else who hates them for dumbshit, or not so dumbshit, reasons.
I'm against things like affirmative action and I find the idea of cultural "months" in education ludicrous because I think they are band-aids, and distract people from the truth: that humans have the barest percentage of a difference between them that alters their outward appearance - something a good science class could blow a kid's mind with. Instead of "you're black, I'm white" how about "wow - this tiny gene makes you a different color than me - flipping one switch does that much? Cool! What else can they do?" I figured this out when I was 12, Rev. 12. I'm not the smartest or the only person to have come to this conclusion, and I do think that more people don't say it because they get drowned out by the fuckwads who want their band-aid.
Second: people who shout about anyone learning anything outside of their culture are a loud minority.
I never heard anyone bitching about its existence in my school - except for the fact when assemblies WERE held for Black history, in particular, speakers would act as if slavery still existed in this country. It does, but not plantation slavery, and it's multi-cultural. Everyone else was offended - slave owners have been dead for years now, and we were their great-great-etc grandchildren - and most of us would never own or trade slaves and found it offensive. It felt like being blamed for the sins of our fathers. It's not our fault, and the more we teach the similarities between people, the less reasons people will have for xenophobia.
"We used to be really shitty towards these people, but now we don't think that way and we're working to make it possible for everyone to receive a good education."
Don't make a big deal about someone's accident of birth, and focus instead on what they bring to the table. Discuss how things REALLY happened with as many primary sources as possible and less of the teacher yakking and more of the kids TALKING about it.
The complaints are partially from assholes. They're also partially from people like me (and I won't speak for others here) who think that women, and blacks, and other races and religions, don't have it as bad as they used to and they should be absorbed into this great country as another puzzle piece that makes up a map of us hopefully staying on top in the world as a place of dreams that can become realities.
My problem is that it's not enough to devote a month to some group or other, as I've stated before, and if you're teaching history properly, then it's unnecessary at best.
For the record, my entire complaint rests with the way history is taught, and not the arbitrary naming of a day to make someone or other happy. If I have a complaint with naming a month or day, it's exactly because it becomes a bandaid, not an educational tool. I'm merely stating why other people might have a complaint without it necessarily being a product of racism. Name days or weeks or months whatever the hell you want. But don't expect me to find such a practice actually useful without the practical application that should go behind it with or without the name.
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