In January 2012 the books listed below were removed from classrooms in Tucson as part of HB 2281, the Arizona state law that bans Mexican American Studies. Tucson’s public schools are 62% Latino. Books were even taken right out of students’s hands! Some were crying. Some said it made them feel like they were in Nazi Germany.
The seven most dangerous books in Arizona:
Elizabeth Martinez, ed: “500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures” (1990) – Mexican American history told in pictures, poems and the words of activists like Gloria Anzaldua. In English and Spanish. Put out to “celebrate” the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s landing, speaking “with grief and bitter truth but also joy and pride.” Students were particularly shocked to see this book being taken away.
Paulo Freire: “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” (1968) – how to teach without brainwashing, education as liberation not indoctrination of the oppressed. It is in effect Freire’s answer to Fanon’s “The Wretched of the Earth” (1961). Banned in South Africa under apartheid. White authorities in Arizona seem to regard this as the most dangerous one.
Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic: “Critical Race Theory” (2001) – seeks to understand the nature of race, racism and power in America and how to change them for the better. Among other things it says:
- Race is a social construct.
- Racism is ordinary and everyday.
- The American power structure serves only the interests of whites (institutional racism).
- Colour-blind policies can strike down only the most extreme cases of racism.
Rodolfo Corky Gonzales: “Message to Aztlán” (1997) – the epic poem “I Am Joaquín” and other writings by this civil rights leader.
F Arturo Rosales: “Chicano! The History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement” (1997) – History of Chicano civil rights. Made into a four-part PBS documentary.
Rodolfo Acuña: “Occupied America: A History of Chicanos” (2004) – If you read only one book on Chicano history, this is the one! Acuña is a highly respected Chicano historian. His book is now in its seventh edition.
Bill Bigelow: “Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years” (1998) – Articles and ideas for teaching Columbus to students of all ages. Presents Columbus through the eyes of Native American writers. Bigelow is another author that was banned under apartheid in South Africa (probably because he put a speech by Nelson Mandela in one of his books).
The 43 other books that were part of Mexican American Studies were to be removed too. Among them:
- Shakespeare: The Tempest (1611) – can be read as an allegory on colonialism. Oops!
- James Baldwin: “The Fire Next Time” (1963)
- Ronald Takaki: “A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America” (1993)
- Howard Zinn: “A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present” (2003)
- Howard Zinn: “Declaration of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology” (1990)
- Che Guevarra: “At the Afro-Asian Conference in Algeria” (1965)
- Sherman Alexie: “Ten Little Indians” (2004)
- Matt de la Pena: “Mexican White Boy” (2008)
- Luis Alberto Urrea: “The Devil’s Highway” (2004)
- Elizabeth Martínez: “De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views Multi-Colored Century” (1998) – recommended by Angela Davis and Howard Zinn
- José Antonio Burciaga: “Drink Cultura: Chicanismo” (1992)
- Sandra Cisneros: “House on Mango Street” (1991)
- Gloria Anzaldua: “Borderlands La Frontera: The New Mestiza” (1999)
See also:
Abagond 
I suppose this is like plugging a dam w/ chewing gum due to advances in technology. It’s possible most (if not all) of these books can be obtained through inter-library loans, online copies, etc. You can only keep people from knowledge for so long…:/
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This is disgusting
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Oh my Lord. Has the law been challenged in court yet?
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@ Abagond,
Interesting post. You would think it was inspired by some Orwellian fiction. Terrifying that it is true.
@ ch555x,
Exactly. In the era of information, these books just got the best publicity money could ask for.
*watching right wing American lunatics and race realists everywhere slowly melt*
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Orwell is exactly it: He who controls the past controls the future.
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A reminder about how important it is that you keep doing what you do. =)
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@ Bulanik,
Hey!!! How are you doing?
Myself, yeah, I have been the lurker as of late. I have to stop myself from posting sometimes when i read something. Its like okay i COULD post but what is the post really worth adding? LOL. Not sure so i stopped posting.
But thanks for the call out. =)
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I don’t see where the “Orwellian” associations necessarily apply in this case. Completely reasonable people from all backgrounds no doubt have large list of materials which they would deem inappropriate from being taught in schools.
Note this is different from banning access to such books, banning the sale of such books, etc. School systems have an obligation to control the curriculum to ensure appropriateness, effectiveness, quality, etc.
The core issue ought to be about the underlying justification for the removal and the specific nature of those books. The automatic association of book removal with “Nazi Germany” seems like lazy thinking.
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Randy,
I would tell you to quit trying to deny and ignore that this is definitely mirroring Nazi-Germany, but we all know that you will play the innocent intellectual making excuses for the people who would most likely see you as more of a pawn than a brother.
Everyone,
This is beyond sick. Even though this has been going on for a while, this makes it no less deplorable to hear. This is whiteness in its purest and most evilest form, making non-whites, in this case Latinos, make them feel unimportant by taking away their history.
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Well, I’m not surprised about anything that happens in Arizona, where non white peop are concerned. It took them them many years to pass MLK’s birthday as a holiday.
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brothawolf,
When I’m examining an issue, I find that an oft-useful thought experiment is to rewrite the issue at hand with one of a polarity to which I’m unsympathetic. This helps create emotional distance which aids understanding.
Let me offer one to you to test the acceptability of the book removal action:
Following the passage of HB1234, the Tuscon school district removed copies of “Mein Kampf” and “The Birth of a Nation” from classrooms.
Is the action still Orwellian to you? I’m guessing no. Moving on.
So we’re back to the relevant issues being whether public schools in America should be teaching foreign country studies and whether or not a particular set of texts are classroom-appropriate.
1. Foreign country studies: When I was going to school, we never had learning modules on Irish Studies or Italian Studies. I’m fine with that to my knowledge nobody protested. It’s the job of immigrants to assimilate into the host culture.
Let’s consider two examples further out.
A province in China with population of Ghanian immigrants decides to discontinue the teaching of Ghanian studies in taxpayer-funded schools. Do you consider this decision “deplorable” and an example of “China-ness in its purest and evillest form”?
Is it even the job of the Chinese taxpayer to teach Ghanian immigrants to China about their Ghanian history?
A province in Ghana with population of Chinese immigrants decides to discontinue the teaching of Chinese studies in taxpayer-funded schools. Do you consider this decision “deplorable” and an example of “blackness in its purest and evillest form”?
Is it even the job of the Ghanian taxpayer to teach Chinese immigrants to Ghana about their Chinese history?
Let me know your answers to these and we can move on to part 2.
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@ Randy
The better reverse polarity thought experiment is this:
What if in 50 years the demographics in Arizona are reversed and Chicanos hold all the important state-wide offices but there are still pockets of Anglo control. Should the state then shut down Anglo American Studies and force all Anglo students to take de facto Chicanocentric courses? You know, because why should hard-working Chicano taxpayers have to pay for Anglo American Studies? If Anglos want to read Emily Dickinson or learn about the Pilgrims or the Greeks they can do it on their own.
Note this is different from banning access to such books, banning the sale of such books, etc. School systems have an obligation to control the curriculum to ensure appropriateness, effectiveness, quality, etc.
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Randy,
Thank you for proving my point.
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[…] "In January 2012 the books listed below were removed from classrooms in Tucson as part of HB 2281, the Arizona state law that bans Mexican American Studies. Tucson’s public schools are 62% Latino. Books were even taken right out of students’s hands! Some were crying. Some said it made them feel like they were in Nazi Germany. The seven most dangerous books in Arizona: … […]
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@Randy
Mein Kampf and Birth of a Nation were proven were proven to be inflammatory works, since the underlying message not only touted the supremacy of one group, but that others outside of it must be subjugated and restricted, either for their own good or for the good of the predominant group.
The works listed by Abagond have no such underlying messages and do nothing to inflamate, unless you consider the positive highlighting of different cultures sans the reminder that they are still secondary to and less than the predominant culture currently in place to be somehow inflammatory.
I believe there’s a difference between assimilating yourself into a host culture and obliterating any trace of your own culture for the host culture’s sake. Australia’s Stolen Generation is proof of how the latter can cause major problems and heartache.
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@ Randy
In Orwell’s “1984” one of the main ways the government controls people is by controlling history.
The history learned at school affects how people think of themselves. If it did not matter there would be no need to go all Nazi on Mexican American Studies.
One of the privileges whites enjoy in America is that their history takes centre stage. Everyone else appears as supporting characters at best. For blacks and Latinos it tells them they are nothing while at the same time robbing them of a true knowledge of who they are and what their position in history is.
Latino students who took Mexican American Studies at Tuscon’s schools did much better than those who did not: they had higher test scores, were more likely to graduate high school, more likely to go to university. One professor at the University of Arizona said they were easily among his sharpest students.
Chicanos are miseducated for the same reason blacks are: whites want them as a cheap, reserve labour force that is politically apathetic. Full stop. Mexican American Studies does not provide that service for the white community.
Nearly half of Latinos in Arizona drop out of high school. Whites WANT that. It is a WET DREAM for them. When Tucson’s Latino community found a way to close the achievement gap in education by way of Mexican American Studies (that was one of its main purposes), it became a threat. Do you see how this works?
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Following the passage of HB1234, the Tuscon school district removed copies of “Mein Kampf” and “The Birth of a Nation” from classrooms.
Is the action still Orwellian to you? I’m guessing no. Moving on.
Yes it is. This book and movie should be seen and read in classrooms so people will know what kind of events preceded them, so as not to repeat them for one. These two formats should be taught to illustrate certain thought processes at these times in history, along with the opposing arguments by way of literature and media at the concurrent time. Mein Kampf was a treatise from a lunatic with no basis in fact and so was Birth of a Nation, a wistful longing for the good old days down South, another fairy tale. But taught in their historical context as an education tool, would be appropriate.
It’s the job of immigrants to assimilate into the host culture.
But your an immigrant Randy. Who decides which is the 'host' culture? The white supremacist one that covertly tells you that you are not really 'American' unless you're 'white' and everything else is inferior or to be used for 'entertainment' purposes such as sports, singing and dancing?
Do you consider this decision “deplorable” and an example of “China-ness in its purest and evillest form”?
This post is not about China, it’s about Tuscon Arizona in particular. Besides, those clowns stole that land from the aboriginal inhabitants in the first place as they did elsewhere from other aboriginal/first nations people throughout the continent. Your arguments are lame, you are a racist plain and simple. Stop hiding it in pseudo-intellectual babble and write what you mean which is you aren’t enamoured with blacks, and take it from there. Most here could care less as to whether you like black folk or not. It’s the subterfuge they find enervating.
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@ Randy
The better Chinese analogy is what China is doing to the Uighurs, whose country of East Turkestan China took over and made into the province of Xinjiang:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/uighurs/
Arizona, if you remember, was once part of Mexico. If anyone is an “immigrant” from a “foreign country” it is the white people.
In 1848 the U.S. Senate ratified the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which gave the U.S. control of Arizona. In that treaty the U.S. promised that Chicanos living there could keep their language, religion and culture.
http://www.theunapologeticmexican.org/elgrito/2007/04/newt_destroys_the_spanish_language.html
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@ Randy
Due to white racism, assimilation only works in America if you can pass for white. The Indian boarding schools proved that.
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@ Randy
From the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which the U.S. agreed to (emphasis mine):
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Randy said
This makes me wonder when and where Randy went to school…and if he actually received an education? When I was in school we did indeed have “modules” on “foreign country studies.” Egypt, Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Prussia, Germany. We learned about the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires. About England. About Russia and the Soviet Union. These were the staples, which we learned about every year from about the sixth grade, on. Less frequently, but still mentioned were the *ancient* civilizations of China, India, Mexico, and Peru. For some reason, those cultures didn’t warrant examinations of their modern periods — even though they were indelibly linked to some of the European countries listed above.
When people trash “ethnic studies,” I want to ask them why it’s okay to learn about the Greeks, the English and the French, et. al., but not the natives who were conquered or displaced as a result of those European “immigrants” who NEVER assimilated into their host cultures?
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Arizona Bans Books…. I am getting very tired of the government thinking it has any right to ban anything (except for reason stated in the lower paragraph) let alone books, which is a main way we get knowledge, and other cultures. The only reason is to try and control what others are allowed to know, which results in more control of them. The fact that books were taken from students hands is nothing less than theft of knowledge and property. I could agree if they said to not bring it back, not that the ban is right by any means, but to actually steal it is reprehensible.
I could only see myself supporting a ban if the thing being banned was actually dangerous (drug, chemicals and food additives for example) and the banning was only to save us all from harm.
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@ Abagond
Not shocking at all. Part of the indoctrination is the erasing and the “forgetting”. In the South, they are taking slavery out of their curriculum due to it’s “inaccuracies” to prove that it was really, really bad for blacks to be in chains! And let’s not forget the “offensive” nature in which it offends white students.
This country is becoming more and more military every day.
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Abagond:
As American demographics change, American history includes more people from those ethnicities. This has happened before.
Mack Lyons:
Nobody is talking about obliteration. The question is whether the taxpayer should be paying to promote exclusionist ethnocentrism.
Abagond:
Are you claiming that teaching Mexican Studies was a direct cause of higher test scores? I would like to see evidence of this. A link would be fine if you have one.
Abagond:
So not promoting Mexican solidarity is what you call “miseducation”? I guess I was miseducated too because my school never encouraged me to embrace Irish or Italian solidarity.
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Herneith:
The host culture would intuitively be defined as the culture present where you emigrated, including characteristics like language.
Herneith:
I do write what I mean, though I’d accept criticism that my skills are poor and that I don’t communicate well. Further, I express the same opinions in person that I do online, though this format is more suited to providing a context for such discussions to develop than regular day-to-day conversations. None of this has prevented me from having friends who are non-white and non-Christian.
grin and bear it:
The Arizona law does not prohibit teaching about other cultures. That seems to be a common misconception. Here is the bill below:
A SCHOOL DISTRICT OR CHARTER SCHOOL IN THIS STATE SHALL NOT INCLUDE IN ITS PROGRAM OF INSTRUCTION ANY COURSES OR CLASSES THAT INCLUDE ANY OF THE FOLLOWING:
– PROMOTE RESENTMENT TOWARD A RACE OR CLASS OF PEOPLE.
– ARE DESIGNED PRIMARILY FOR PUPILS OF A PARTICULAR ETHNIC GROUP.
– ADVOCATE ETHNIC SOLIDARITY INSTEAD OF THE TREATMENT OF PUPILS AS INDIVIDUALS.
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Abagond:
Do you take this to mean that the taxpayer is directly responsible to teach separate ethnocentric solidarity for every ethnicity in a country?
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@ Randy
That is not what I said and you know it. All your other answers also sidestepped the points people were making.
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The MLA:
http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/opinion/report/030712_mla_ethnic_studies/mla-ethnic-studies-courses-books-are-scholarly-not-political/
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@ Randy
From:
http://www.razastudiesnow.com/articles/tucson-s-maiz-based-curriculum-mas-tusd-profundo/
The state audit broadly agrees with that:
http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report/061511_ethnic_studies/huppenthal-tusds-ethnic-studies-violate-law-audit-says-otherwise/
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Ha! Shakespeare also got the axe??? Wow, land of the free my behind.
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Abagond:
If banning MA studies is a continuation of a pattern of “miseducation”, then clearly ethnic studies promotes non-miseducation. Since I was not exposed to such areas of study, I conclude that I was miseducated. I had to learn Italian solidarity from my family.
BTW, there’s a broader issue in this discussion. Allow me to suggest that any time a situation presents as a “brown vs. white” polarity, many of your commenters jump in immediately on what they believe to be the brown side.
As I’ve explained, there are actually 3 separate issues here:
1. Acceptability of states curating the materials available in class
2. Acceptability of ethnocentric studies
3. Suitability of a particular set of texts
Most people can think of situations where #1 is acceptable (Herneith, how about if they removed Hustler from classrooms. Do you still object?)
We hadn’t even addressed #3, so that leaves us at #2. A number of commenters objected to the law because after all they teach Greek and Roman history, do they not?
Of course this ignores the actual law, which does not prohibit the teaching of international studies. What is does is ban exclusionary, potentially divisive ethnocentric studies. That’s a horse of a different color.
Allow me to offer a final example.
The Alabama legislature decides to ban the teaching of pro-white identity and white separatist instruction in schools. Books by David Duke will be removed from the official curriculum.The specific law is as follows:
Show of hands, who is outraged? No one? Me neither.
However, when the same scenario was presented as “brown v. white” dynamic, some of you jumped right in to express strong feelings on the matter.
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@ Randy
You are playing with words and missing my point.
What I said was:
and:
I am clearly not talking about Italian Americans or that level of white ethnicity. I even gave the reason for that:
So as a white person you were not miseducated in this sense. You had White American Studies – they were called “English” and “Social Studies”.
Personally I do think everyone in America should take White American Studies – as well as Black, Native, Asian and Mexican American Studies. EVERYONE in America needs to know that stuff.
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“Randy,
@Abagonds
Do you take this to mean that the taxpayer is directly responsible to teach separate ethnocentric solidarity for every ethnicity in a country?”
Linda says,
Randy, I am an immigrant and I am US resident who pays taxes, so therefore, I am also a taxpayer, just like all those Chicanos in Arizona.
And as a taxpayer, do you, Randy, think it’s fair that I have to pay my hard-earned money into a government system that has citizens that don’t even know their OWN bloody history!!
I would appreciate that my tax dollars, as a brown woman, goes to educating dumb Americans properly….don’t you think the dumbing down of your country has gone on long enough–that’s something we all are paying for.
The majority of those books on that ban list are about the FIRST wave of immigrants Americans (the Spanish-speaking ones called “Chicanos”) who lived in Arizona before your white US American government took it over.
Many of those people in Arizona you are calling “immigrants” have roots in North America and US longer than your own Italien/European immigrant family….so yes, it does behoove the rest of you immigrant-descended white Americans to learn about the people who originally lived in each State before your government stole, bought, or occupied the territory.
These “Chicanos” are the Mexican mestizos and Native Indians, who are the Original inhabitants of Arizona and SW United States…these people’s family are the ones the US government fought in order to gain the territory. (remember that little thing called the Mexican-American War)…guess what, those brown people living there– didn’t leave.
So, If you have a REAL point to make, it would great if you made it.
I’ve reposted below the link Abagond wrote to you about the history of Arizona, in case you forgot how this State came into the Union.
on Sat 15 Sep 2012 at 15:39:38 abagond
Arizona, if you remember, was once part of Mexico. If anyone is an “immigrant” from a “foreign country” it is the white people.
In 1848 the U.S. Senate ratified the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which gave the U.S. control of Arizona. In that treaty the U.S. promised that Chicanos living there could keep their language, religion and culture.
http://www.theunapologeticmexican.org/elgrito/2007/04/newt_destroys
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The host culture would intuitively be defined as the culture present where you emigrated, including characteristics like language.
Intuitive to whom? I wouldn’t characterize it as the ‘host’ culture but the invading culture.
I do write what I mean, though I’d accept criticism that my skills are poor and that I don’t communicate well.
You do communicate only too well. I doubt you could care less as to how you are perceived by a bunch of black folk.
Further, I express the same opinions in person that I do online, though this format is more suited to providing a context for such discussions to develop than regular day-to-day conversations.
So what?
None of this has prevented me from having friends who are non-white and non-Christian.
That’s mighty white of you sah!
Most people can think of situations where #1 is acceptable (Herneith, how about if they removed Hustler from classrooms. Do you still object?)
Yes as there are quite a few courses on pornography and its’ effects. Personally, I would prefer a beefcake course on nudie men magazines.
What is does is ban exclusionary, potentially divisive ethnocentric studies. That’s a horse of a different color.
In other words, do not provide courses that make whites look bad. You can do so to the other groups though, better yet put them on the periphery of history. If an attempt to teach a more rounded version of history, it might upset the coloureds!
Show of hands, who is outraged? No one? Me neither.
I think clowns like David Duke and his ilk should be taught about in school. People need to know the kinds of loons whatever their stripes, are out there. Hiding them does nothing to enhance any sort of understanding what so ever. In fact the fringe lunatics can provide unrelenting comedy once people realize what buffoons they are. Not really teaching or discussing these folks only enhances their mystique in a perverse way.
However, when the same scenario was presented as “brown v. white” dynamic, some of you jumped right in to express strong feelings on the matter.
No, they were just responding to your tomfoolery.
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Early US beauty pageants might as well have been called “Miss White America” as they were not open to anyone but white women. It was because of this exclusion that others, including Blacks, created their own contests.
Even when the pageants started allowing one or two Black contestants, they were nothing more than tokens, and had no chance of winning the contest (that is, until the late 70s, when a Black woman won a pageant [‘Miss Universe’] for the first time).
Now that theyve bothered to include us as Americans too, they, the ones who are even aware of their own race’s history of exclusion of PoC, feel that we should simply scrap the ‘Black’ contests, historical educational institutions, magazines etc that we created…cuz, otherwise, it’s just, gosh darnit, NOT fair to whites.
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@Abagond
This is what it boils down to at the end of the day, although the Powers That Be™ in this nation are ready and willing to make their fellow whites a part of this cheap, politically apathetic reserve labor pool, as well.
@fiamma blu
This is social self-centeredness at its finest.
On the other hand, I’ve noticed that most Asian-Americans don’t even bother with attempts for inclusion into the greater white American collective except when it involves making money…
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@randy:
You are really pathetic kid. Try to be so smart and pose as intellectual when you are just another dumbass extreme right wing nut. When you will grow up and be pround of your neo nazi values? I guess you are too much of an coward to do that.
@all:
I quote Milos Forman here: “There is only one kind of censorship. How do I know? I lived it.”
Forgot who said this but this is what is all about: I hate your opinions but I am willing to die for your right to have them.
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Abagond:
You suggest a rather reasonable proposal, both in scope and distribution. Don’t forget my Filipino and Chinese peeps though. The list could get pretty long by the time all is said and done.
Linda:
A) If you’re an immigrant, then it’s just as much your government as it is mine.
B) The Mexican-American studies program in Tuscon was being offered to a predominantly Hispanic student body. How do you suppose that would help to educate my fellow white “dumb Americans”? Also, nice racism.
C) How does the language of HB2281 (which I’ve posted twice above) prevent the type of education you’re advocating?
sam: When you will grow up and be pround of your neo nazi values? I guess you are too much of an coward to do that.
Nice Godwin. You appear to offer a textbook example of my assertion that many people superficially parse a complex issue to determine the “white / brown” polarity and then immediately choose sides.
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@ Randy
Here is a thought for you to consider Randy as I noted you made this initial comment in an earlier response to Brothawolf you said:
“…When I’m examining an issue, I find that an oft-useful thought experiment is to rewrite the issue at hand with one of a polarity to which I’m unsympathetic. This helps create emotional distance which aids understanding…”
Its the ability to be emotional, to feel, to relate, to be empathic which creates understanding. Its this false “Spock type logic” of a belief system and its need to create emotional distance which prohibits understanding rather than assisting it.
Even if you didn’t believe this to be true the plethora of detailed analytical comments addressed to you should alert you to the possibility you may be intentionally distancing yourself from receiving valid and relevant communications.
Just saying…
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“The Mexican-American studies program in Tuscon was being offered to a predominantly Hispanic student body. How do you suppose that would help to educate my fellow white “dumb Americans”? Also, nice racism.”
Linda says,
Yes, Randy, I must be a racist because I think “Americans” are dumb—LOL 🙂
By the way, I like your projection. I never said “white Americans” …but good try though.
I know you white Americans like to think you are the only ones to represent your “stars and stripe” and as the center of the universe, you come first in all things but your arrogance is the reason why you all have a problem recognizing ” the forest for the trees”
So, basically, you must be saying that because whenever there isn’t enough white American students in a classroom, learning about other Americans of different Ethnicities is a waste of time? Is that what you’re saying Randy.
Learning about the countries ENTIRE history is only valid when there are enough white people in the room? or if it only discusses the white American governments
Version of history.
Randy, these Chicano students are AMERICANS, therefore, they and everyone else should be learning about US’s entire history with all the important events and players (not just the white ones)
Call me racist if you like, I don’t care… doesn’t change the fact that history and information is being parsed and portioned out like a slice of pie and this under-education keeps the population ignorant….but I guess that’s OK by you
So, yes, I am against my tax dollars being used for the continued “dumbing down” of children in the American school system…but it seems, you are all for it.
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@randy:
Sides? I am not on anybodys side. I am a humanbeing. It is in your head where these imaginary sides live on. Sorry bout that.
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Abagond said:
Are we not putting the cart before the horse? I see no logical reason why a MAS program would make someone graduate who otherwise wouldn’t have. Perhaps the students that took these classes were already predisposed to being serious students in the first place who would’ve graduated whether they attended an MAS class or not.
That’s a pretty bold statement there. You really think people would rather see people dropout and become uneducated delinquents than educated, productive citizens? How is it in anyone’s best interest that Latinos drop out? It cost $10,000 a year to educate a kid. If that kid spent 10 years in school and then dropped out that’s a $100,000 waste of taxpayer dollars. Why would anyone in their right mind WISH this? And that doesn’t even get into what happens after they drop out, such as increased likelihood of crime, need for welfare, section 8 and all the other ill side-effects of having a large class of unskilled and uneducated people.
We don’t need American-born Chicanos as reserve, cheap labor. There’s a virtually limitless supply south of the border already.
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@ Tulio
From what I understand MAS increased graduation rates. If it was just a matter of MAS pulling in the more serious students, there would be little overall change.
Because they are racist – which means they are not in their right mind.
Your argument assumes that “people”, meaning white people, are not racist, that they do not put white self-interest above the interests of blacks and Latinos.
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Abagond:
I can say without reservation that your weakest arguments are the ones where you make assumptions about what white people supposedly think and want, and not just because reducing 150m or so people to a single set of talking points is inherently error-prone.
In this case, you appear to believe that white people deliberately want to undereducate Latinos. I have not heard any rational grounds for this assertion, and have yet to meet a single white person who desires more poverty, more crime, more unpaid medical bills, more demands on social services, and more need for “Para español, oprima numero dos”.
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@ Randy
Do not look at what white people say or what would be reasonable for them to want. Look at what they DO. If you take something from me I am gong to assume you do not want me to have it.
In this case White Republicans killed the only programme that was closing the achievement gap. They went OUT OF THEIR WAY to do it. Passed a special law and everything. If educating Latinos properly were at all a concern of theirs they would have a) written HB 2281 with clear-cut, objective standards to address whatever legitimate issues there might be and b) found some way to save MAS instead of just killing the whole thing outright, throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Or, better yet, they would have not messed with MAS at all – if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
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Randy,
What abagond described was an example of oppression against Latinos. The White Republicans were and are hell-bent to rewrite history for the sake of White Americans ONLY. They do so under the lie that they want to cancel out ethnic studies. If that were true, they would cancel out white history as well. But they didn’t because of the following:
1. To paint a more rosy picture of American history.
2. Highlight numerous victories, glories, accomplishments and inventions by (White) Americans to get students to have love and pride for this nation.
3. Because of the fear that teaching ethnic studies would put white people’s lives in jeopardy somehow.
All is done for the benefit of White America and only White America.
The people who will get screwed are Nonwhites, particularly Latinos. By rejecting their history, they are setting them up for failure. You take away an important part of what makes certain people who they are, and you help contribute to the creation of wayward people with no since of pride or self-respect about how they are.
If the oppressed have no self-respect, then some of them will likely project that onto others in the form of violence or on themselves as abuse. They will become depressed and frustrated not just because of their lack of knowledge, but from other forms of oppression they are likely unaware of but are victims of.
One way or another, this is a horrible move on the part of the state of Arizona.
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This is probably only partially on topic , but in the big picture I believe it’s relevant.
I joined a local business group some time ago that I am no longer affiliated with. It is a small business networking group that meets once a week with about 35 or so businesses all different. Every week you were supposed to bring in leads for other members of the group.
The guy that brought me in I met while handing out business cards . I told him about my business and he thought I would be a good fit because there were no other companies like mine in the group. He was on the board and he owns a construction company. I got to meet some of his crew he has around 8 to 10 workers and they are all either from Costa Rica or Mexico. I asked him why that was, and he said that young blue collar whites are all on drugs or they don’t want to work. He said he even pays these guys more because they are more dependable and are more efficient workers. He has two sons.. one is like 17 and the other one is in college around 20 or so. I asked him how would he feel if his sons weren’t college material and someone discriminated them for being white because of some bad experiences (and I’ll bet even though he pays these guys more he probably expects them to work like machines). He said that his son’s will be like him… the boss. But without working up the ranks he is robbing them of humility in my opinion. He said that if I was smart when I got my business going I should hire Mexicans, because they work hard and they don’t give you any trouble.
I think that may be some of the issue here. These guys who make the laws down there might have money in companies such as this and they want people who won’t ask too many questions or try to eventually take them over.
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@ Brothawolf:
Please don’t even bother with the likes of Randy. He has shown time and again he has a knack for the run around routine. It’s getting old.
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“It cost $10,000 a year to educate a kid. If that kid spent 10 years in school and then dropped out that’s a $100,000 waste of taxpayer dollars. Why would anyone in their right mind WISH this? And that doesn’t even get into what happens after they drop out, such as increased likelihood of crime, need for welfare, section 8 and all the other ill side-effects of having a large class of unskilled and uneducated people.”
Typical rightwing neo conservative idiot thinking. If a kid spends even ten years at school he/she is no longer uneducated. He can read and write and, if need be, can be re educated or learn on him/her own because he/she has the tools for it. In a working place he/she has the tools to learn more and progress in his/her career.
In Finland school is for free for all. Even the poorest go to school. There is a mandatory education up untill you are 16 and even after that you usually go to mid level education up untill you are 18. All that is free. In some professional schools you have to buy some books, some other stuff, but the actual school is for free. All this is payed by taxpayers. And yes, even over here, rightwingers think it is a waste of taxpayers money and we should privatise education and make it “cost effective”. Right…
Check out the PISA results. Check out the lists of the most competitive countries. Yes. And remember that in most European countries education is for free or almost for free to all, regardless of ones ethnic backround or religion or social status.
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Abagond:
You could object to a program for any of a number of separate reasons, including its goals, methods, or results. You said before that you favored a White Studies program. Let’s say that kids in poor areas of Appalachia in the program had higher test scores and graduation rates than their peers who were not in the program. Let’s also say it uses the works of David Duke (or other controversial author) in the curriculum.
Would Abagond the legislator object to this program? If so, would that make him a racist who wants white people to fail? That would be a fallaciously simplistic accusation, and you’d probably exhort people to unpack this complex issue and not automatically just resort to the racism argument.
You might say something like, “just because this program produced better results than previous efforts does not by itself make it ultimately beneficial to the children or to society.”
A debate about the appropriateness of the curriculum would seem far more rational and productive than simply assuming that any non-white person who objected to the program necessarily did so out of a desire to see those white students underperform academically.
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@ Randy
America has a LONG history of providing people of colour poor educations with a white supremacist message. HB 2281 is not some strange accident that came out of the blue, one that fits no known pattern of white behaviour. It is just more naked and out in the open than most of what goes on. Like Rosa Parks, MAS merely showed them up for what they are.
At the same time that White Republicans were passing HB 2281 in Arizona, they were erasing Latinos from the high school history books in Texas – in a heavily Latino state!
The political censorship of history courses that Republicans have carried out in both states is flat-out WRONG.
I do not agree with David Duke, but as a legislator it is not my business to tell parents how and what to teach their children beyond certain broad standards. Like, they can teach creationism so long as their children have enough understanding of evolution to pass the state test. The state can require scientific literacy, but it should not have the power to make science into a kind of religion.
By writing the test the state already has more than enough power. Anything beyond that crosses the line into state censorship and brainwashing.
American and world history as taught is racist. Leaving out David Duke does not change it that much. David Duke’s STYLE of racism has fallen out of fashion, but the band plays on.
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Sickening and annoying to say the very least, but the sad truth is that I am hardly surprised by the idiocracy that is Arizona. Having lived there for a brief period a couple of years ago, I can’t tell how many times I’ve dealt with straight-uP all-out racism there, from both the so-called men, and the witchy women, too!
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There is one ethnic group that has ALWAYS been ignored or
treated in a very negative light–Native Americans. In high
school we were taught how the “treacherous savages” slaughtered
General Custer and his entire command–but nothing about
massacres of Native women and children at Bad Axe, Ash Hollow,
Humboldt Bay, Bear River, Sand Creek, Washita (Custer’s work),
Marias River, Big Hole, or Wounded Knee. Or about the treatment
of tribes like the Ponca who were forcibly removed from a reservation
in their own (northern plains) territory to a malarial swampland in
Oklahoma where a third of them died (They sued the government
to be allowed to return to their own country–and won). There is
only one way to describe the treatment the Native Americans got–
genocide.
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[…] "In January 2012 the books listed below were removed from classrooms in Tucson as part of HB 2281, the Arizona state law that bans Mexican American Studies. Tucson’s public schools are 62% Latino. Books were even taken right out of students’s hands! Some were crying. Some said it made them feel like they were in Nazi Germany. The seven most dangerous books in Arizona: … […]
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This sounds great. Is there a campaign for this?
I must admit I applaud Abagond’s patience with Randy. But that was 2 years ago.
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Brothawolf said:
“By rejecting their history, they are setting them up for failure. You take away an important part of what makes certain people who they are, and you help contribute to the creation of wayward people with no since of pride or self-respect about how they are.
If the oppressed have no self-respect, then some of them will likely project that onto others in the form of violence or on themselves as abuse. They will become depressed and frustrated not just because of their lack of knowledge, but from other forms of oppression they are likely unaware of but are victims of.”
My family are Mexican Americans from Arizona. As we all know, people of color are very resilient. We do still have a strong sense of pride and self-respect, but yes, never having access to an official explanation for why your life is the way it is leaves you with a hole in your life and sets you up for a bunch of life problems dealing with a bunch of BS that education about your own ethnic group’s history and Ethnic Studies classes point the way out of. These classes heal and empower people of color and that’s why they restrict our access to them.
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