05-19-2021, 05:20 PM
(05-19-2021, 03:11 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: With regards to #1, just focusing on slavery, any half decent curriculum would note that not every single white person in the colonies or US was a slaveholder and that Africans participated in the process. It may go into what percent of the transatlantic slave trade made its way to the US.
1.) But why these facts? Should we also examine the concept of slavery in Africa and the Middle East to the race-based chattel slavery of the US? Should be note the way that race, a social concept, was employed to provide pseudoscientific reasoning to legally treat Black slaves as less than people? We could confront the myth of Irish slaves and examine the difference in indentured servitude and chattel slavery. 2.)If we want to point things out to detract from the impact of slavery in the US, we're looking at those things for the wrong reason and without relevant context.
For #2, I am going to include the point you made about whiteness in #1. I absolutely mention the evolving concept of "White" because it's a critical component in understanding how race was employed to reinforce social and political power for the ruling class. It's important to note how fluid the concept of race is and why the concept had to evolve. I also note that privilege isn't just "White privilege" (as I mentioned above). At the same time, having a conversation on the weight of each privilege and intersectionality becomes important too.
For #3, There's a lot to unpack there. Particularly over the last year, I think many Asians would take issue with a rosy picture of the state of Asians in US society, given the wave of violence. There's also the issue with generalizing how institutionalized racism can manifest or who it impacts. Going back to the concept of race, 200+ years of justifying chattel slavery on the basis of race established a value and belief in our culture that Black people are less than human, and that was reinforced even after slavery ended. Asian Americans face their own forms of racism, but US culture lacked 200+ years of treating Asians as property and not people by the time the first Asian immigrants came in large numbers. When we first starting tracking the population of Asians living in the US, they comprised of 0.1% of the population of the states. That proportion would remain roughly the same for decades as we enacted immigration laws that stopped Asian immigration and established pro European quotas that would remain in effect until after WWII. Even in 1960 when we saw a change in immigration law and people began to use the "model minority" argument about Asian Americans to pushback against the Civil Rights movement, Asian Americans were still just half a percent of the population.
I think there's merit to the conversation and I think unpacking it provides a lot of practice in utilizing the perspective of critical race theory. I just have to ask, 3.) to what end are we trying to have the conversation? 4.) I would also add that issues regarding race are not worse. 5.) We live in a time with the most protections against race based discrimination. We're also just having conversations that we've never had before and I think that worries some people.
I'm trying to wrap up for the day here at work, but real quickly I just wanted to address the above.
1.) The reason for those facts is because they seem to be lost in a lot of these conversations that we see play out. Regardless of the teaching, this speaks to the learning or understanding of it.
I've seen, time and time again, people speak in a way that makes me question whether or not they're aware or are capable of understanding these things.
I don't think these facts can or should be glossed over. There's nothing accurate or constructive about assuming a white person's ancestors enslaved anyone simple because of their skin tone.
2.) Not at all trying to detract from anything. I just want to make sure people understand the entire picture, and don't engage in bad faith arguments. i.e. If you're white you're ancestors owned slaves, it can be assumed all white people have benefited equally or evenly from their privilege, all white people are colonizers, etc.
3.) I would hope it would be that we're trying to understand all of the complexities that surround these discussions, and that there are credible distinctions among any large group of people, race and religion included.
4.) Let be more specific: Race relations. We've seen this play out for the last decade. To each their own, but I think there's plenty of evidence to support this.
5.) Completely agree. It would be nice if we could focus on this a bit more as a means to have people feel empowered and capable of success. If we really hammer this home then maybe equal opportunity becomes more equal outcome.
