From DAY ONE, and I mean from day one, I discuss with my students the fact that America is unique in that it is a nation where the “collision of cultures” of different races in such a short period of time has probably never been seen before in the history on human kind. This collision has meant that the velocity of cultures mandated that there would be discrimination and conflict. It is less a melting pot than a traffic accident of high speed entities. Don’t get me wrong, the true immigrants who love this country want to “melt” into it and embrace it. My ancestors came to this country from Germany at a time when Germans were not welcomed (WWI) and had to literally change the pronunciation of our name (Wehner) in order to get jobs and feed themselves. To simply survive in this land of opportunity. They could have been really upset and joined the socialist movement (or any radical movement for example), but instead they adapted. They adapted the American culture and thrived. I don’t know if that is always the case anymore.
The conflict in culture has not just been between Whites and whoever else, the Irish, Germans and Italians were all discriminated against on some level during their migration here. Somehow they dealt with it. Anyway, I digress.
State Schools Superintendent Tom Horne debates his new controversial legislation that removes “race” based programs from Arizona schools in order “to get schools to teach kids to treat each other as individuals,” he says, is the key. Mr. Horne is interesting as he was a part of the March on Washington and claims that his law is based on Martin Luther King’s famous words that we should be judged by our character and not on our skin color. This video below is very interesting as the exchange brings up a lot of important points. La Raza is an organization, as we have seen, that can be very radical and is completely the opposite of what Dr. King would preach. Nonetheless, there are some issues with Mr. Horne’s legislation as there are some very good teen/school groups that do address the needs of a specific “race” of people and in peaceful and inclusive ways that will not be able to meet under this law.
I agree with Mr. Horne that we need to focus less on race, on exclusion, and to be “inclusive” and focus on individuals and the greatness of this country that provides such opportunity that all races flock here for some strange reason… you know, considering all our racism.
CW
It is these types of discussions or so called debates between two parties taking opposite sides unwilling to hear each other except to use what the other person says to heir own advantage is why I only watch C-Span. I will say I am against race based education that segregates knowledge. I found it interesting and laughed a bit at the picture of kids in khaki, sunglasses and berets They are probably more appropriately dressed then most students in high school.. The American experience has been an experiment (actually one of my favorite text books) and ike most scientific experiments there are moments of failure before leading toward success. Most scientific discoveries do not come with a “Eureka” but with, how did we get here? That ought to be in my opinion a guide for how history can best be taught. If the purpose of history being taught is to explain how we arrived at this point in time. Both the warts and the wonders need to be taught To me that means including, as an example the peonage system why it was implemented and how it was dismantled as well, as excuse me, that Tome Hume in 1963 march with Dr. Martin Luther King.
Strangely it was the German immigrants to America who were very involved in introducing socialist philosophy
I found these definitions of America that seemed to fiit this posting:
1. Woodrow Wilson called America, “the only idealistic nation in the world.”
2. Israel Zangwill said, “America is God’s crucible, the great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and reforming.”
3 .Barack Obama observed, “America is an unlikely place – a country built on defiance of the odds; on a belief in the impossible.”
This may move the goal of this posting a bit. One of the severest cultural clashes I see is the conflict with a certain group of people who have defined bigotry and prejudice as not including Christians. You know Those people who do not believe in evolution, against abortion and historically believe in a church that murdered millions of people. This clash enters the political field. Look at the description of members of the tea party movement. During this last presidential election the Rev Wright dilemma In one week it started with the Washington Times having a headline about Obama attending a church where “I hate America was stated with the question why was he there? The New York Times in their front page responded Obama’s religion is not a factor and is meaningless to the problems at hand. Did they hold that belief regarding Mike Hucklebee or Sara Palin? With them it was not only fair but correct to make fun of them and their illiterate supporters.
History from any specific perspective Eurocentric, Afro centric needs to make sure that it is dealing with facts that are not siloed allowing only one way of looking at the historical record , and not pressured by political correctness or ethnic/race chauvinism. I read this on the internet last week. During a conference a panel of elected and distinguished Egyptologists, Yoserph A. Ben Joachannan gave a presentation supporting the idea that ancient Greeks practically stole their civilization from Egypt. That Aristotle went to Alexandria with Alexander the Great to visit the Great Library which Aristotle sacked in order to write his works.
During the question Period a Professor of Classical Studies named Mary Lefrkowitz asked Jochannan why he would say that? Alexandria acquired the library well after the death of Aristotle plus Aristotle never visited Egypt. Jochanannan refused to answer saying that professor Lefkowitz lacked “empathy towards the opinions of the black population. After the conference Prof. lefkowitz was accused of Racism by a number of students
A Collision of Cultures: I looked at this Post once more. “Cultural collision” struck me that a cultural collision had occurred back in 1919 with the Prohibition Amendment. The Prohibition amendment had a coalition of the strangest bedfellows. Moralist, Suffragettes, Progressives and xenophobes This group were the most powerful lobby group in its time. They were able to successfully lobby and amend the Constitution. They passed a law that easily the majority of the voters in the country disagreed with. I could not find any data on this but some indirect data I found interesting. The Puritans on their trip to America carried ten thousand gallons of wine in is hold. They also had three times as much beer then water. By 1810 there were 14 thousand distilleries in New England Alone. In Northern Maine, Canadian whiskey was brought over the Saint
John River, hidden in the woods waiting for shipment south. America had a culture where drinking a tankard of hard cedar for breakfast, wine or beer with lunch, and wine and spirits for dinner was considered normal. Yet at midnight January 20, 1920 that became against the law and the impact on the culture was enourmous. (example songs such as Bessie Smith’s “You cannot shake your shimmy on tea” became hits, and alcohol became attached to being cool and glamerous. Al capone’s real nick name was not scar face but snorky, a slang term for elegance.