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"Ethnic studies" banned in AZ


SwordoftheMorning

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I take that back about the court. That may be further down the line, the first stop is

The final decision on whether a school program violates the law is to be determined by the state Board of Education or the state school superintendent.

The state superintendent is Horne, who evidently promised to continue to pressure the district to end its ethnic studies programs. (African American, Native American, Latino and Pan-Asian). He is, however, running for state AG.

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/article_5f222a2e-5df6-11df-a8d8-001cc4c03286.html

ETA:

School districts that don't comply with the new law could have as much as 10% of their state funds withheld each month. Districts have the right to appeal the mandate, which goes into effect Dec. 31.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ethnic-studies-20100512,0,5313151.story
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Holy crap, so they are cutting the founding fathers out, and our several decade long struggle against the British?

Or does this only apply to ethnicities that are brown skinned?

What does that have to do with anything? The colonists and the British were the same ethnicity. The founding fathers were mostly of British descent. How can you call that a war about ethnicity?

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What does that have to do with anything? The colonists and the British were the same ethnicity. The founding fathers were mostly of British descent. How can you call that a war about ethnicity?

He's saying American history is also ethnic history. It's just white people's ethnic history.

But as we all know, White isn't an ethnicity, it's the default!

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Ah, here it is.

We asked Mr. Horne if he understood why many community leaders were disappointed with his characterization of Dolores Huerta as “the former girlfriend of César Chávez,” and if he felt obligated to apologize for his remark. He issued the following statement:

The matter being highlighted centers on one fact: Dolores Huerta spoke to a mandatory high school assembly in the Tucson Unified School District and stated that "all Republicans hate Latinos."

http://www.latinopm.com/Latino-Perspectives-Magazine/March-2010/Tom-Horne-Responds/ Includes a lengthy response from Horne re: what's actually going on inside the program.

Now I personally think that remark by Huerta was decidedly inappropriate but I would also suggest a less drastic remedy than banning ethnic studies.

So the one spearheading attempts to shut down this program is also one of the primary people who stands to sit in judgment of said program under this new law, who initially took interest in the matter because of the remark made about Republicans to Tucson high school students, which he is running as for state Attorney General. Hm..

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He's saying American history is also ethnic history. It's just white people's ethnic history.

But as we all know, White isn't an ethnicity, it's the default!

But the law only objects to classes that teach 1) the violent overthrow of the U.S. government and 2) hatred of an ethnic group. Of course teaching 18th century U.S. history is okay; teaching Mexican history or focusing on African-American leaders during Black History Month would be just fine too. My understanding is that the law wants to prevent things like classes that teach Mexican/Mexican-American history with a decided "those damn whites fucked us over" slant, but by its focus on ethnicity rather than nationality, even the most biased anti-British teaching of the Revolution would be okay without any need for selective interpretation, since both sides were of the same ethnicity.

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So by disagreeing with this piece of law you are /for/ teaching middle school children to revolt against the United States Government?

Now i'm just a silly white boy that was raised in AZ, but i did have some radical teachers. Ethnic Studies was a Req in my high school and one of the two teachers that taught the course was known to have promoted an anti-government stance.

From what i understand of the law, the courses are going to be reviewed and the content is going to be standardized. I see no issue with that. It happens in every other course in the school. You can't have white teachers speaking highly of the settlers that spread small pox to the native americans, you can't have christians speaking puritanical gospel when discussing Plymouth Rock, and you can't have a creationist spouting off that filth in a science class.

Same thing here, you can't have a racist latino (yes, they do exist) spreading hate in the public school system.

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My understanding is that the law wants to prevent things like classes that teach Mexican/Mexican-American history with a decided "those damn whites fucked us over" slant

Um, thats pretty much exactly what happened. How else do you propose such classes be taught?

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Um, thats pretty much exactly what happened. How else do you propose such classes be taught?

No one's saying not to teach the 'history' of the events. Battles, land deals, expansion. Just don't say shit like, 'the white man kicked the shit out of my ancestors, we should revolt today' Everyone of every ethnic group had got the shitty end of the stick at some point in history (some more than others). The ability to learn from it and not repeat those injustices is why we teach them. Not to use them as a platform for revolt or to spread hate.

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But the law only objects to classes that teach 1) the violent overthrow of the U.S. government and 2) hatred of an ethnic group. Of course teaching 18th century U.S. history is okay

Feel free to establish how modern schools do not teach ethnic solidarity and hostility to other nationalities, such as the English, with their rose tinted version of the birth of our nation/founders. How holding up folks as icons of freedom despite the fact that they mortgaged and raped their slaves doesn't diminish the value of those presented as non-American. How the claims that X-white person 'discovered' X-landmark on X-date doesn't do the same when oodles of Native Americans had been living next to that landmark for years.

And after doing all that please feel free to establish that is all totally different then the classes this law targets. Please do not use "Well were white" or "Those people didn't even have flags." as a rationalization.

No one's saying not to teach the 'history' of the events. Battles, land deals, expansion. Just don't say shit like, 'the white man kicked the shit out of my ancestors, we should revolt today' Everyone of every ethnic group had got the shitty end of the stick at some point in history (some more than others). The ability to learn from it and not repeat those injustices is why we teach them. Not to use them as a platform for revolt or to spread hate.

Ahh, so we should just tell kids that the Boston tea party happened, and not why the folk dressed up as Indians were so ticked off? Or does this logic similarly only apply to brown people?

I am sorry, but early American history is all about glorifying people who violently overthrew their government.

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Feel free to establish how modern schools do not teach ethnic solidarity and hostility to other nationalities, such as the English, with their rose tinted version of the birth of our nation/founders. How holding up folks as icons of freedom despite the fact that they mortgaged and raped their slaves doesn't diminish the value of those presented as non-American. How the claims that X-white person 'discovered' X-landmark on X-date doesn't do the same when oodles of Native Americans had been living next to that landmark for years.

And after doing all that please feel free to establish that is all totally different then the classes this law targets. Please do not use "Well were white" or "Those people didn't even have flags." as a rationalization.

Ahh, so we should just tell kids that the Boston tea party happened, and not why the folk dressed up as Indians were so ticked off? Or does this logic similarly only apply to brown people?

I am sorry, but early American history is all about glorifying people who violently overthrew their government.

I think you are looking at this the wrong way. Teach the boston tea party in all it's glory. Teach the western expansion and the ass kicking of the mexicans. But don't caveat with 'we should still be pissed at the english for what they did to our fore fathers' or 'We should go out and kick the shit out of some white folks/hate the government for past crimes' That type of logic/instruction is destructive at best.

No one is saying (especially not the law) that this issues shouldn't be taught, discussed, and critiqued. Again, what I read it is getting at is that these issues shouldn't be used as a platform for revolt and hate mongering. I think any rational thinking individual can agree public schools should not be the breeding ground for revolutionaries and racists.

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This issue has been simmering for quite a while. IIRC(google is full of the recent news) the Tucson ethnic studies program was really, really hardcore, and possibly off limits to white teachers/students. Horne also asked repeatedly for an audit of the program and was told to go stuff himself.

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I'm sure the other UK boarders will recall a revolting piece of legislation passed by the Tories in 1988 known as Section 28. The defenders of that little gem insisted in a similar manner that they never intended to ban teaching schoolchildren about homosexuality: just to prevent the promotion of homosexuality to children (and its presentation as an acceptable 'pretended family relationship').

Nobody gave that a second's credibility, and I suggest that nobody gives this BS about 'promoting ethnic solidarity or resentment' a second's credibility either. It's nothing more than a fig leaf to try to hide the nakedness of the prejudice. The intent of Section 28 was to stop teachers talking to kids about homosexuality: the intent of this legislation is to stop teachers talking to kids about black or Latino history.

Perhaps I'm wrong. Here's a good test. Section 28 was only used once, and that unsuccessfully, because nobody could ever find a school that actually had ever 'promoted' homosexuality to kids. So if anyone can show that there are presently a significant number of schools in Arizona deliberately teaching ethnic minority schoolchildren to resent white people, speak up now. Absent that, I think we can safely say this is just racism dressed up with a token excuse.

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But as we all know, White isn't an ethnicity, it's the default!

Indeed. We need to address that by White Cultural Studies departments, White history months and all the other sinecures that are handed out to academic under-performers of non-default ethnicities. Let's have a bit of that post-racial society Teachable-Moment-In-Chief promised and have racial grievance and tribalism for everyone, not just for some!

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Indeed. We need to address that by White Cultural Studies departments, White history months and all the other sinecures that are handed out to academic under-performers of non-default ethnicities. Let's have a bit of that post-racial society Teachable-Moment-In-Chief promised and have racial grievance and tribalism for everyone, not just for some!

White Cultural Studies - pretty much anything not otherwise disclaimed. See particularly things like Classics or History.

White History Month - again, pick any month of the year and you will see remembrances (or reinventions) celebrating events and people who are white. Having to have "non-white history time period" simply reinforces that any other time *is* white history time. (The very word "non-white" describes people and things only in relation to whiteness, rather than in any other context.)

Sinecures handed out to under-performers of non-default ethnicities - you'll have to be more specific, as I've no idea what you mean here, but I have a feeling that such equivalents already exist.

Racial grievance and tribalism - St Patrick's Day. Columbus Day. Irish/Italian/German/Dutch/Polish/whatever-Americanism. Objecting to 'impositions' such as having to acknowledge that white people are not the only people with history, or who've made contributions to the US, or who still have an influence on today's society and therefore should be represented in said society and its education. On the non-racial but still tribal: people lamenting "The War on Christmas", people who object that the "National Day of Prayer" has been ruled un-Constitutional, people who decry that non-Christian holidays are officially recognised and/or Christian ones aren't, and on and on and on....

This isn't new, and isn't unusual, and is still a load of horseshit intended to protect the status quo, rather than "protect the United States" or whatever the purported purpose is.

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This issue has been simmering for quite a while. IIRC(google is full of the recent news) the Tucson ethnic studies program was really, really hardcore, and possibly off limits to white teachers/students. Horne also asked repeatedly for an audit of the program and was told to go stuff himself.

It wouldn't surprise me given that he said stuff like this:

My criticism of Delores Huerta was of her abuse of the privilege of addressing high school student, not of her relationship of Caesar Chavez. What I said about that relationship was something I heard a number of times and did not make it up.

Again, perhaps something else besides banning ethnic studies was possible? Part of the reason they exist is because the standard classes don't get into it much.

In Texas the amendment to add some Latino figures was defeated by the state board earlier this year, for instance. I realize it's a different state, but I use it as an example for why those programs are important.

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So by disagreeing with this piece of law you are /for/ teaching middle school children to revolt against the United States Government?

Er, and what curriculum in the country teaches that to begin with?

Now i'm just a silly white boy that was raised in AZ, but i did have some radical teachers. Ethnic Studies was a Req in my high school and one of the two teachers that taught the course was known to have promoted an anti-government stance.

Anti government does not equal "advocating the overthrow of the US government."

Arizona just thumbed its collective nose at the feds. They're being a little hypocritical in saying they don't want kids learning how to overthrow the US government.

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Peterbound,

So by disagreeing with this piece of law you are /for/ teaching middle school children to revolt against the United States Government?

Now i'm just a silly white boy that was raised in AZ, but i did have some radical teachers. Ethnic Studies was a Req in my high school and one of the two teachers that taught the course was known to have promoted an anti-government stance.

You do realize the U.S. was founded by a group of people rebeling against and withdrawing consent from the "legal" government in their territories? As such is it really so shocking that groups of people who have not necessarily benefited from the U.S.'s independence and Manifest Destiny should have a different view of American history and Triumphalism?

If we really believe in freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and freedom of expression we should allow these classes to be taught and these subjects be discussed. Heck, we should encourage these classes to be taught and the subjects be discussed.

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I think you are looking at this the wrong way. Teach the boston tea party in all it's glory. Teach the western expansion and the ass kicking of the mexicans. But don't caveat with 'we should still be pissed at the english for what they did to our fore fathers' or 'We should go out and kick the shit out of some white folks/hate the government for past crimes' That type of logic/instruction is destructive at best.

No one is saying (especially not the law) that this issues shouldn't be taught, discussed, and critiqued. Again, what I read it is getting at is that these issues shouldn't be used as a platform for revolt and hate mongering. I think any rational thinking individual can agree public schools should not be the breeding ground for revolutionaries and racists.

Mostly what the Scot person said, but teaching Early American history, without a serious overhaul of the American education system, is all about glorifying revolutionary racists. If you are going to argue that there is no place in school for the negative aspects and consequences of the founding fathers and their actions, then alls you are doing is saying only white racist revolutionaries are acceptable.

If you want to PC up the school house fine. By all means. You however have to start by adopting a whole lot of the rhetoric contained in the curriculum this law targets. As of right now however, these classes simply do for Hispanics what American history classes do for white male protestants.

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