Rare social issues post
I was reminded of this the other day, and want to sort out what I'm thinking on this. Several years ago, my first term at college, I took the introductory writing class. This class was taught by the professor who taught most of the feminist 101 courses, and the professor who taught most of the African courses. And many of the things they taught in there made me roll my eyes, because I'd probably grown up in one of the most race-blind environments in America.
My elementary school was about half and half white and Asian, with maybe a third miscellaneous others, and my high school was mostly Indian, Asian, and Middle Eastern, with the rest about equally Hispanic, mixed, and white. The worst racial tensions in the school were between the Indians and the Pakistanis. The one time I ENCOUNTERED outright racial prejudice had been when some guy not from our school had thought one of the Sikh kids was a Muslim terrorist shortly after 9-11. Which partially stayed with me because of the absolute ignorance inherent in that. All the Sikhs I know have been traditionally taught to fight with swords because of past Muslim incursions into India. That really, really doesn't say Muslim to me.
Nowadays, I'd give that class a little more credit for what they're talking about, but some of what they said remains downright absurd.
One line, around which they focused two lectures, and could really have been the motto for half the course, was "Women and people of color consist of the majority of the world's poor."
At the time, it bugged me. On a purely logical level, "Oh wow! You mean approximately 50% of the population + any other population consist of the majority of a somewhat arbitrarily defined socio-economic class? Who would have thought?" I know what they were aiming for, but the poor phrasing irritated me.
The second part that bugged me is the way "people of color" lumps people together. Someone from China has no more in common with someone from Africa as they do with someone from the US. People complain about the phrase non-white because all it says is what they're not. Great. I'd rather define people by what they're not than lump them all into an arbitrary and overly broad categorization. (I dislike the phrase minority too, but only when they're talking about something like the Hispanic population of Southern California. That is not, under any rational meaning of the term, a minority.)
The third part of that that bugged me is what did it mean? Does it mean that women and non-whites make up the majority of America's poor and they were doing the standard American thing of America=the world? It would certainly make it more applicable to the theme of racism and gender discrimination.
If not, then they were saying that the fact that the majority of the richest countries in the world are either European or colonized by Europeans is racist. Um.
There's truth in that, but it's so complex that I'm having a hard time sorting out what it is. First, that Europeans are the richest certainly hasn't always been true. Until the Renaissance, Europe was just a backwater continent of barbarians, in the eyes of civilized countries like China and the Byzantine empire. Europeans started to gain in the Renaissance partially because China went into a decline (and someday I am going to have to research more into China's history, because that has to be fascinating.) And partially just because Europe had a number of things going for it at the time to make it expanding. I don't really want to get into the causes of that right now, especially since while I think Guns, Germs, and Steel did a great job of covering Europe's advantages, it didn't cover why then. Although I'm reading a history of Spain at the moment that may help explain it. Isabel and Ferdinand's reign was certainly an interesting one. Why the hell didn't we get taught anything about it in school? Damn history classes.
But a LOT of the wealth and power of European countries is remnants of the colonial period. I'd say the US is beginning to decline (though my dad says it's echoing the beginnings of Roman Empire, to which I say I really need to study Roman history one of these days), while I'd say that most of the major European powers have really been in a decline since WWII. And the colonial period was, without a doubt, incredibly racist.
...Dear self, stop side-tracking on history and get to the point. Didn't you decide not to major in history because you weren't interested in history?
After trying to write the next paragraph three time, and side-tracking into history each time, twice on musings of the implications of the Russo-Japanese war and how I want to research more into it, I give up. This is why I'm a lousy writer.
The point I was going for, I believe, was that the way that was presented dismissed non-European countries as having nothing to do with European countries being the richest. And that makes me roll my eyes in much the same way that the noble savage stereotype makes me roll my eyes. Because saying that people are noble victims of other people's cruelty is still ignoring what they actually are as irrelevant. And that's what bugs me so much about everything I learned in that class.
My elementary school was about half and half white and Asian, with maybe a third miscellaneous others, and my high school was mostly Indian, Asian, and Middle Eastern, with the rest about equally Hispanic, mixed, and white. The worst racial tensions in the school were between the Indians and the Pakistanis. The one time I ENCOUNTERED outright racial prejudice had been when some guy not from our school had thought one of the Sikh kids was a Muslim terrorist shortly after 9-11. Which partially stayed with me because of the absolute ignorance inherent in that. All the Sikhs I know have been traditionally taught to fight with swords because of past Muslim incursions into India. That really, really doesn't say Muslim to me.
Nowadays, I'd give that class a little more credit for what they're talking about, but some of what they said remains downright absurd.
One line, around which they focused two lectures, and could really have been the motto for half the course, was "Women and people of color consist of the majority of the world's poor."
At the time, it bugged me. On a purely logical level, "Oh wow! You mean approximately 50% of the population + any other population consist of the majority of a somewhat arbitrarily defined socio-economic class? Who would have thought?" I know what they were aiming for, but the poor phrasing irritated me.
The second part that bugged me is the way "people of color" lumps people together. Someone from China has no more in common with someone from Africa as they do with someone from the US. People complain about the phrase non-white because all it says is what they're not. Great. I'd rather define people by what they're not than lump them all into an arbitrary and overly broad categorization. (I dislike the phrase minority too, but only when they're talking about something like the Hispanic population of Southern California. That is not, under any rational meaning of the term, a minority.)
The third part of that that bugged me is what did it mean? Does it mean that women and non-whites make up the majority of America's poor and they were doing the standard American thing of America=the world? It would certainly make it more applicable to the theme of racism and gender discrimination.
If not, then they were saying that the fact that the majority of the richest countries in the world are either European or colonized by Europeans is racist. Um.
There's truth in that, but it's so complex that I'm having a hard time sorting out what it is. First, that Europeans are the richest certainly hasn't always been true. Until the Renaissance, Europe was just a backwater continent of barbarians, in the eyes of civilized countries like China and the Byzantine empire. Europeans started to gain in the Renaissance partially because China went into a decline (and someday I am going to have to research more into China's history, because that has to be fascinating.) And partially just because Europe had a number of things going for it at the time to make it expanding. I don't really want to get into the causes of that right now, especially since while I think Guns, Germs, and Steel did a great job of covering Europe's advantages, it didn't cover why then. Although I'm reading a history of Spain at the moment that may help explain it. Isabel and Ferdinand's reign was certainly an interesting one. Why the hell didn't we get taught anything about it in school? Damn history classes.
But a LOT of the wealth and power of European countries is remnants of the colonial period. I'd say the US is beginning to decline (though my dad says it's echoing the beginnings of Roman Empire, to which I say I really need to study Roman history one of these days), while I'd say that most of the major European powers have really been in a decline since WWII. And the colonial period was, without a doubt, incredibly racist.
...Dear self, stop side-tracking on history and get to the point. Didn't you decide not to major in history because you weren't interested in history?
After trying to write the next paragraph three time, and side-tracking into history each time, twice on musings of the implications of the Russo-Japanese war and how I want to research more into it, I give up. This is why I'm a lousy writer.
The point I was going for, I believe, was that the way that was presented dismissed non-European countries as having nothing to do with European countries being the richest. And that makes me roll my eyes in much the same way that the noble savage stereotype makes me roll my eyes. Because saying that people are noble victims of other people's cruelty is still ignoring what they actually are as irrelevant. And that's what bugs me so much about everything I learned in that class.