Way Back Wednesday

I’m a big fan of historical photographs, particularly of subjects and events that are rarely covered in mainstream media.  So I’ve decided to create a new project here at Progressive Scholar, ‘Way Back Wednesday’.  I’ll be scouring the Library of Congress photo archives and other places for photos that captivate me.

Here are a series of photographs taken at the Agricultural and Mechanical College in Greensboro, North Carolina in the 1890s.  These photos were collected for the  “Exhibit of American Negroes,” which W.E.B. Du Bois helped to organize for the Paris Exposition of 1900. The collection, DuBois writes, is “an attempt to give, in as systematic and compact form as possible, the history and present condition of a large group of human beings.”  DuBois notes that the photographs encapsulates a wide range of different conditions, “beginning with the homeless freedman and ending with the modern brick schoolhouse and its teachers.”   The whole of DuBois’ article is spectacular so give it a read if you have the time or interest.

Founded in 1891, the Agricultural and Mechanical College quickly became one of the major African American colleges in North Carolina. Today it is known as North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.

A&M students learning Blacksmithing.

A&M students in the Biological Laboratory

A&M students learn buttermaking

Weekly Progressive Scholar Reader

There’s been great activity in the blogosphere lately.  Here’s just a hodge-podge of what I’ve been reading:

From COLORLINES:

Senate Negotiations Narrow DREAM Act’s Scope as Vote Nears

Image via Wikipedia

Rosa Parks and the Love For Justice

(Celebrating the 55th Anniversary of Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama.)

Campus Progress:

Pentagon Report on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t’ Tell Says Troops Are For Repeal

The Need for Unemployment Benefits Is Still Great

Celebrities’ Misguided Activism Compares Abstaining from Social Networking to Death

From EcoLocalizer:

Bicycle-Friendly University Award System

From Race-Talk:

World AIDS Day 2010: Victory and voice

ASU students rally to push passage of elusive DREAM Act

Why WikiLeaks is good for democracy

From Humane Connection:

Using a Little Sweat of Our Own to Find Out About Corporate Practices & Sweatshops

Dear Riki: Less Schtick, More Substance!

Ever since I read “Queer Theory, Gender Theory: An Instant Primer“, I have held Riki Wilchins as a role model and favorite queer theorist.  So you can imagine my glee (and my squeeee!) when I heard that she was slated to speak at my university.

Riki Wilchins (taken by Todd Franson, borrowed from metroweekly.com)

Having seen Angela Davis speak last year, I was expecting a brilliant speech about transgender issues and identities, an opportunity to open the door to more conversations of this sort and an increased awareness among the students, faculty and administrators in the audience. Instead, what we got was a whole lot of schtick and very little substance.

In Remembrance: Recent LGBT Suicides

I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.

Clockwise: Billy Lucas, Asher Brown, Tyler Clementi, Seth Walsh

In the past month, ten (ten!) lgbtq youth have taken their lives.  Every time I think about this my heart breaks and tears burn my eyes.  People like to think that gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning individuals are completely accepted now, like there was some queer-friendly wave that rushed over the country after Matthew Shepard and Brandon Teena’s tragic deaths in the 90s.

We are NOT a queer friendly nation. The resistance to ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) and the gay marriage are not just political games, they have real impact on our youth. There is a not-so-subtle message in these arguments and debates;  our society’s resistance to these policies is based on deep-rooted homophobia and transphobia.

This post is dedicated to our fallen youth, who will never again get the chance to shine their brilliant lights on this world.  You will not be forgotten, and your legacy will push people (myself included) to work harder to stop the hate and bullying and violence.

Raymond Chase

Among the deceased are: 13-year-old Seth Walsh who after months of relentless bullying hanged himself from a tree outside his California home this week; Billy Lucas of Indiana, 15, who hanged himself after being called a “fag” over and over again; Asher Brown, 13, whose classmates teased him without mercy and acted out mock gay sex acts in class, shot himself in the head; and Rutgers University freshman Tyler Clementi who killed himself by jumping off a bridge after his roommate secretly recorded him with another male student, then broadcast the video online. (Source)

Jeanine Blanchette and Chantal Dube

We also remember Raymond Chase (pictured above), a student at Johnson & Wales in Providence, Rhode Island, who died by hanging himself in his dorm room;  21-year-old Jeanine Blanchette and 17-year-old Chantal Dube, a lesbian couple who committed a double suicide; Justin Aaberg, age 15, who hung himself; and Cody Barker, 17, Wisconsin.

Related Articles

• LGBT Community Mourns String of Suicides (chicagoist.com)

An Open Letter to Teachers Everywhere | Teaching Tolerance

I first read this letter last year, and continue to go back to it for inspiration.  I hope it inspires you too.

An Open Letter to Teachers Everywhere
A look at an educator’s struggle to reconcile ideology with reality in our nations’ classrooms and schools.
by Rhonda Thomason

I am troubled.

As an educator, as a parent and as an activist, I am deeply troubled as I rethink public education and struggle to reconcile ideology with reality in our nations’ classrooms and schools.

Collectively, I hear educators — and parents and politicians and others — say children are our future. We say that we want students to think critically, that we want them to be problem-solvers, to ask questions, to challenge us to make the world a better place.

And yet I see educators setting aside these high aspirations, choosing safety and compliance over boldness and creativity. I see educators silenced by the fear of professional disfavor and criticism.

I want a revolution of hope. I want educators to seize a golden opportunity to rethink the nature and purpose of public education.

A revolution that eliminates the hands-off practice of urging students to resolve their own problems while leaving students vulnerable to bullying and burdened with issues too huge for them to ever resolve. A revolution that no longer supports sanctions that allow educators to ignore bullying or harassment when it echoes one’s own personal biases. A revolution that eliminates sanctioned school prayers which favor a particular religion and affirms the acceptance of students with differing beliefs.

Imagine such a revolution.

Read the rest here: An Open Letter to Teachers Everywhere | Teaching Tolerance

A poem about America on this Independence Day weekend.

America

by Tony Hoagland

Then one of the students with blue hair and a tongue stud

Says that America is for him a maximum-security prison

Whose walls are made of Radio Shacks and Burger Kings, and MTV episodes

Where you can’t tell the show from the commercials,

And as I consider how to express how full of shit I think he is,

He says that even when he’s driving to the mall in his Isuzu

Trooper with a gang of his friends, letting rap music pour over them

Like a boiling Jacuzzi full of ballpeen hammers, even then he feels

Buried alive, captured and suffocated in the folds

Of the thick satin quilt of America

And I wonder if this is a legitimate category of pain,

or whether he is just spin doctoring a better grade,

And then I remember that when I stabbed my father in the dream last night,

It was not blood but money

That gushed out of him, bright green hundred-dollar bills

Spilling from his wounds, and—this is the weird part—,

He gasped “Thank god—those Ben Franklins were

Clogging up my heart—

And so I perish happily,

Freed from that which kept me from my liberty”—

Which was when I knew it was a dream, since my dad

Would never speak in rhymed couplets,

And I look at the student with his acne and cell phone and phony ghetto clothes

And I think, “I am asleep in America too,

And I don’t know how to wake myself either,”

And I remember what Marx said near the end of his life:

“I was listening to the cries of the past,

When I should have been listening to the cries of the future.”

But how could he have imagined 100 channels of 24-hour cable

Or what kind of nightmare it might be

When each day you watch rivers of bright merchandise run past you

And you are floating in your pleasure boat upon this river

Even while others are drowning underneath you

And you see their faces twisting in the surface of the waters

And yet it seems to be your own hand

Which turns the volume higher?

‘Why should we change our language for them?’: False ownership and the importance of language

America doesn’t have an official language at this time.  We are a country comprised almost entirely of immigrants and many of our families did not speak English when they first arrived here.  There is not one monolithic group that people can point to and say, “those are Americans” and “those are not Americans” based on their language.  Throughout our history, Americans have spoken hundreds of languages.  English is England’s language, and on this Fourth of July holiday we remember that we claimed independence from England.  So, consider the idea of false ownership when you say or hear things like ”our language” or “our country”.  This country does not belong to English speaking people any more than Spanish speaking people or Mandarin speaking people.  We are all Americans.

Spanish spoken in the United States: Image via Wikipedia

People also say that “even though the United States has become a melting pot, we still need to stay solid in keeping English our main language in our country.” At what point in American history did it become a melting pot? 20 years ago? 60 years? How about two hundred years ago? The English were not the only ones on this continent in 1776; there were Native Americans, Africans, and Hispanics already living here. When those millions of Irish and Eastern Europeans immigrated to the United States in the 19th century, they did not speak perfect English. If it were not for their efforts in construction and industry, we would not have experienced the industrial revolution. And when the United States took Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California from Mexico in 1848, the majority of those state’s inhabitants spoke Spanish. Enslaved Africans (who were actively encouraged to remain illiterate) contributed greatly to the economic strength of our nation. Chinese and Irish immigrants, who largely did not speak English, are responsible for our coast-to-coast railroad system.

And all of these immigrants (except enslaved Africans) built and operated their own schools where they used their mother tongue. All of these immigrants contributed to making America great, often without the use of the English language. So why do we gaffe at such attempts by immigrants today?

If you’re interested in learning more, Ronald Takaki’s book “A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America” is a wonderful read. Also check out Ronald Takaki’s videos on YouTube, like this one.

Tove Skutnabb-Kangas (1995), an international leader in linguistic human rights, offers this Declaration of Children’s Linguistic Human Rights:

1.  Every child should have the right to identify positively with her original mother tongue(s) and have her identification accepted and respected by others.

2. Every child should have the right to learn the mother tongue(s) fully.

3. Every child should have the right to choose when she wants to use the mother tongue(s) in all official situations.

References

Skutnabb-Kangas, T. 1995. “Multilinguals and The Education of Minority Children” pp. 40-62 in O. Garcia and C. Baker, eds. Policy and Practice in Bilingualism: Extending The Foundations. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

A brief introduction to Black Studies as an academic field

W. E. B. Du Bois: Image via Wikipedia

Although Black Studies as a movement and an academic field began in the mid-20^th Century, we must go back much farther in time than that to gain the full scope of influence on the field.  We also cannot understand Black Studies without first “placing the movement in its historical and sociological context and … demonstrating its fundamental connection with the black struggle, particularly in the United States” (Adams, 1977, p. 100).

The field of black studies can be traced back to the mid-1800s with individuals such as David Walker and Frederick Douglass, who urged everyone to recognize the cultural importance and contribution of black Americans.  This call became stronger in the Reconstruction era and shortly thereafter, with the push for an emphasis on Afro-American history and culture in schools.  The field of Black Studies would not be complete without exploring the contributions of Dr. W.E.B. DuBois.  Trained in economics and history, DuBois published groundbreaking work on the black experience, including Souls of Black Folk and Philadelphia Negro, which was “the first scientific study of the conditions of black people covering all important aspects of life” (Crouchett, 1971, p. 194).

After World War II we saw a great expansion of social movements, mostly led by the youth of that generation.  From the mid-1940s onward we see the development of the Civil Rights, Free Speech, Anti-War, and Black Power movements.  All of these movements had an impact on the development of Black Studies; however, it was the Black Power movement that was the most influential.  Individuals such as Stokely Carmichael, who was a main player in the SCLC, Charles V Hamilton, and Nathan & Julia Hare were all instrumental in focusing the country’s youth on issues of Black Power and the black experience.  The first Black Studies program was developed at San Francisco State University (then known as SFSC) in 1966.  Karenga (2002) notes, “By 1966, the Watts Revolt and the Black Power Movement had ushered in a more racially self-conscious and assertive activism and Black students at SFSC and on other campuses began to respond to the resurgence of nationalist activism” (p. 13).

1968 was a pivotal year in the history of Black Studies.  Dr. King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated, which resulted in widespread rebellions in America’s streets.  There was also the Olympics protest, where two athletes (Tommy Smith and John Carlos) had their metals taken away for making the Black Power salute on the awards stand.  Due to these events and the social movements mentioned above, Post-1968 Black Studies wants to make sure that we do not focus on victimhood.  The way that history was discussed and analyzed changed from the enslaver’s point of view (victim) to the enslaved (agent).  In essence, the social turbulence of the 1960s created a pinnacle moment in history for African Americans to regain their sense of agency, which is why this era is considered the Reaffirmation or the Liberation.

References

Adams, R. (1977).  Black Studies perspectives.  The Journal of Negro Education 2(46), 99-117.

Crouchett, L. (1971).  Early Black Studies movements.  Journal of Black Studies 2(2), 189-200.

Karenga, M. (2002).  Introduction to Black Studies (3rd ed). Los Angeles: University of

Sankore Press.

Related Articles

• Black Studies Programs Lack Support At HBCUs (huffingtonpost.com)
• “Study: Black males graduating at lower rates” and related posts (itismymind.blogspot.com)

The Difference between Race and Culture

NOTE: This information is copyright protected.  DO NOT copy/paste without giving appropriate credit.  An appropriate APA citation for this would be:

Kean, M. (2010). The difference between race and culture. Progressive Scholar blog.  Retrieved from http://progressivescholar.wordpress.com/2010/05/13/race-and-culture/

To begin, we must start at the fundamental concepts of race and culture. Race is a social construct that is used to categorize and divide people based on physical characteristics, which often leads to conflict and oppression.

In short, RACE is a label forced on someone based on their skin tone and physical characteristics.  A person’s race is externally decided and has nothing to do with culture, intellect, ability, or personality.

Americans often tend to substitute race for culture, and culture for race. However, culture is a system of shared beliefs and values (also known as ‘worldviews’) that may include  a shared geographic region, language, religion, spirituality, or livelihoods. Communication style and interpersonal relationships are integral aspects of culture and can vary dramatically from one culture to another. It is important to remember that everyone on earth has culture; not just those groups who are considered ‘civilized’. The majority of culture is unseen, below the surface. The beliefs and values that lie beneath the surface can be the most difficult to change when it is necessary.

People of the same race can have many different cultures among them, and people of the same culture can have many different races among them.

With an understanding of the difference between race and culture, we can move on to understanding microculture and macroculture. The macroculture, or Culture of America, includes such values as expansionism and manifest destiny, individualism and individual opportunity, and equality as an ideal (Banks & Banks, 2007). Microcultures are cultures that inhabit the same geographical area as the macroculture, but which ascribe to slightly different beliefs, values, and behaviors.

In America, the macroculture is based on Anglo-American culture. American macroculture, for example, is very task oriented and competitive, which is also seen in the Anglo-American culture. However, European-American culture is in the minority when it comes to many other cultural traits. In many of America’s microcultures (African American, Latino, and Native American, for example), family is put above the individual, whereas in European-American culture, the individual is put above the family. In many of America’s microcultures, time is less restrictive and situational whereas in American schools, which use European-American values, time is rigid and structured. With respect to learning styles, today’s classrooms primarily use auditory learning in a structured and linear style. However, many microcultures excel in cooperative learning and storytelling.

So, someone’s race is determined their physical characteristics and those of their biological family.  Race is a label that we force on someone.  Culture is all the ways that we express ourselves, how we interact, what we believe in spiritually, and how we perceive things.   Culture is not based on physical characteristics but on a person’s way of life.

References

Banks, J. A., & Banks, C. A. (2007). Multicultural education: Issues and perspectives (6th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Manning, M. L., & Baruth, L. G. (2009). Multicultural education of children and adolescents (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

_________________________________________________________

NOTE: This information is copyright protected.  DO NOT copy/paste without giving appropriate credit.  An appropriate APA citation for this would be:

Kean, M. (2010). The difference between race and culture. Progressive Scholar blog.  Retrieved from http://progressivescholar.wordpress.com/2010/05/13/race-and-culture/

Racial Incidents on Campus & The Failure of Colorblindness » The Color Line

Racial Incidents on Campus & The Failure of Colorblindness » The Color Line.*

C.N. writes,

…Simply exposing a White child to racial diversity is not enough. Merely expressing generalized respect for racial diversity is not enough. This is because in keeping matters on a general level, racial differences and history get “watered down” and children do not understand why, despite the fact that we’re all supposed to be equal, Blacks and other people of color occupy different statuses and are portrayed in stereotypical ways in the media, which they inevitably are exposed to.

In other words, without a detailed and specific understanding of racial discrimination, children then just assume that it’s because individual Blacks and persons of color are entirely responsible for their subordinate status and have “earned” the scorn, prejudice, and hostility directed at them, not to mention being blind to the subtle privileges they enjoy as being part of the White majority. Ultimately, the assumption becomes, “Since American society is supposed to be equal, why aren’t you successful? What are you doing wrong?”

*The article erroneously refers to an incident at “Missouri University”.  It should say the University of Missouri-Columbia (my alma mater).

You can find my previous post about higher education and the “colorblind” perspective here.