Well, if the Arizona legislature’s autocratic approach to its large immigrant-worker population was not enough, last night the wild-west legislature’s white legislators decided to take on first amendment rights to freedom of speech in the form of courses being taught in the schools. Of course, the attack once again is centered on its Mexican American population, and other people concerned with the histories and racist realities faced by Americans of color, and with creating pride in groups resisting oppression. One news report by Capitol Media Services today puts it this way:
HB 2281 would make it illegal for a school district to have any courses or classes that promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, are designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity “instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.” It also would ban classes that “promote resentment toward a race or class of people.”
So I guess an honest discussion of the history of whites’ racial oppression targeting Mexican Americans, Native Americans, African Americans, and other Americans of color in the southwest and elsewhere will be out of the question when and if this legislation goes into effect. Truth-telling about our white-racist history, and resistance to it by Americans of color, that gives people honest understandings (and/or group pride) will actually be illegal, as seen in this legislation of the folks in the Arizona legislature. They clearly fear that such a history might create resentment toward the oppressors. Will other states soon follow up on this lawmaking?
One Tucson state senator, Democrat Linda Lopez, has pointed out that an immediate cause of this white attack seems to be an academically successful program by the school district’s Mexican-American studies department that
simply provides historical information, which conflicts with state School Superintendent Tom Horne’s assessment the program is promoting racial hatred and “ethnic chauvinism.”
Senator Lopez has also pointed out just how serious is this attack on honest discussion, indeed pointing to its absurdity:
To make her point, she proposed schools be prohibited from teaching about the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor because that would promote hatred of people of Japanese ancestry. The proposal was rejected. She had no better luck with a measure precluding teaching about the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Lopez said the 700 incidents targeting Arab-Americans in the nine weeks after the incident prove that teaching about the event promotes resentment toward a class of people.
The courses actually being taught seem to be rather modest in orientation, yet they are stimulating this type of white supremacist reactions. Freedom of thought and honest discussion of the U.S.’s racial history are once again considered to be dangerous. (Here is one honest history of white-on-Mexican oppression by the major social scientist Rodolfo Acuña, which will not likely be seen in Arizona public schools if this becomes law.) Arizona seems to be pioneering in this police-state approach to U.S. polity and society. It is interesting that those who say they fear government and oppose government intervention in regard to things like federal health care legislation are often the first to push government intervention when it comes to their often reactionary notions about society.
This is beyond outrageous!!! Part of the irony, of course, is that the pro-racial retrenchment folks often claim that “you can’t legislate thoughts.” That is especially true in their argument against hate crimes. Yet, to prevent hypothetical future hate crimes against themselves, they resort explicitly to legislating thoughts!
I have a question. Anyone who has read the Constitution and foundational US law knows that the US’s most fundamental legal documents treat people as racial/ethnic groups and not individuals (e.g. Naturalization Act of 1970; 1924 Immigration Act; 3/5 compromise in US Constitution). This new bill would make teaching the founders’ view of the Constitution illegal! I doubt that’s an outcome the nativist AZ legislature intends.
Actually, I didn’t have a question–just an additional point.
This business about ethnic studies has been going on for a while here in Arizona. Try to convince them that what schools teach is white ethnic studies. “Of course not,” comes the reply. “They’re not white ethnic studies. They’re American studies.”
They make our jobs so easy.
I know!
“So I guess an honest discussion of the history of whites’ racial oppression targeting Mexican Americans, Native Americans, African Americans, and other Americans of color in the southwest and elsewhere will be out of the question when and if this legislation goes into effect. Truth-telling about our white-racist history, and resistance to it by Americans of color, that gives people honest understandings (and/or group pride) will actually be illegal, as seen in this legislation of the folks in the Arizona legislature. They clearly fear that such a history might create resentment toward the oppressors. Will other states soon follow up on this lawmaking?”
That’s what it comes down to, they fear the truth about not only their TRUE history, but the history of others especially when it comes to their treatment at the hands of the European whites.
The last question is a good question. For some time, much of the history taught has been about whites and hardly about anyone else. For blacks, we were mostly taught about that we came from slaves, that MLK saved us, and not much else.
For those who believe we are living in a post-racial society, and many of those who do believe that would likely not come to this blog for fear of truths, how can this be a post-racial society when the only race that matters is still white?
José, Danielle, Glenn, and Will, thanks. Yes, there is a deep irony in the reality that most of the “American” whatever courses taught are to some significant degree, white-American studies. In content or framing.
While much of the backlash for this legislation centers around its effect on Latin Americans, it has the same and a more nuanced effect for Native Americans.
There are 3 Arizona universities which provide programs in Native studies, one a joint doctoral and legal program, and two tribal colleges in Arizona.
It is unclear how this law will effect the ability of tribal colleges to operate at all and it will certainly have a killing effect on the state university programs and their potential funding.
Tribal colleges, as sovereign institutions should not be included in this, but the history of U.S. law suggests that the Dine will not be untouched by this.
I should also point out here that the immigration law is likely to produce yet another way to harass Native Americans as well as Latinos.