Race is only a social construction

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/7524319.stm

Twins: one black, one white

So...

I logged into blogger to make a summer blog, and of course, was linked to this, our beloved WashU TASP blog.

I'm not sure that anyone reads this anymore, but a shoutout to all of you amazing, amazing people and a summer that was my most meaningful yet.

And America IS home to shit like that. Marriedtothesea only gets better and better.

Love.

shit like this

In Memoriam: Steve Biko

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6990937.stm
http://mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=319023&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/

Apartheid in the news again

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6950553.stm

Any thoughts?

Improving Education

Dear TASPers,
Alright, I'll keep posting. I hope you are all having good summers. When do you leave for university/ which is the lucky university for which you shall be departing?
I have been enjoying learning about British history from 1330-1550 for most of the summer. I have also, I must confess, been guilty of maurauding around the internet far too much as well. During one chevauchee around Facebook I noticed a group called Black Intellectuals' Foundation (http://umichigan.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2217456263&pwstdfy=ec0fdf1f68b2f1f62bdd0dfb07fbe620)
It brings up many issues of interest which are relevant to our TASP, but I was particularly intrigued by the discussion about how to remedy the Euro-centric education system. At the moment, all efforts at trying to make education more inclusive (in my experience, at least) seem to have made things worse rather than better. Even examples from math textbooks which refer to female pilots and physcists named "Jose" look so forced that rather than emphasizing that such characterizations shouldn't be out-of-the-ordinary they only seem to highlight the fact that society doesn't expect women to do anything technical like pilot airplanes or Hispanics to be high-powered intellectuals. (Moreover, African-Americans are still largely excluded.)
But before we get to math textbooks, I think one of the issues in education that needs to be addressed first is the way history is taught. (Then again, I am biased towards history.) TASP opened my eyes to so much, even though I was fortunate to have a superlative American history education. Surely American history courses have plenty of room to incorporate the experiences of this major segment of the American population... Indeed, how can a teacher even separate the experiences of one part of the population out from the rest of history in the first place without grossly distorting the facts (and thus failing to teach history, which is in essence the study of the facts and the truth)?
Another possible area for development is literature. At my school (where the English program was--for the most part-- dreadful), we read Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God and one or two Langston Hughes' poems, but no attempt was made to explain to us that rather than being one-offs Hurston and Hughes were part of the extensive, rich tradition of African-American literature. My teacher barely even mentioned that they were part of the important artistic movement known as the Harlem Renaissance. Meanwhile, although Hurston's book is fascinating and beautifully, imaginatively structured, why were we reading her work but not that of the Pulitzer-prize-winning Alice Walker or the Nobel-prize-winning Toni Morrison? I do not mean to suggest that an author's literary merit should be measured by her prizes or that Hurston should be reconsigned to literary oblivion, for that would truly be a loss; however, by half-heartedly inserting only a handful of poems along with a still somewhat obscure author's magnum opus into the curriculum, the English department is giving children the impression that black authors are either oddities or need to be forced into the literary cannon. Is the establishment still refusing to acknowledge that an African-American can be hailed as one of the best writers in the world? Once again, a half-hearted attempt to do the right thing seems to muddy the issue still further...
However, I know I am still ignorant and blind as to how to make education and society more inclusive-- I probably don't even realize how biased education and society are-- and have absolutely no right to criticize, as Carmichael and Hamilton would be the first to remind me. I'd be interested to hear your inputs and corrections, though... Please respond!
Please forgive such a muddled post. Hope to hear from you soon!

Happy TASPiversary

The new batch of TASPers should be settling in before their first seminar tomorrow... Happy days.

Does anyone still read this blog?