People always say racism is gone and we live in a world were everyone is equal and has the same opportunities, I wish that were true. The truth is though that if your are a different skin color than white one has to work a little harder and through more obstacles to prove themselves. There are events in history that prove my exact point and a bill that was just passed two years ago that shows that we are not as close to equality as we think. On January 6, 1969 the official strike of students at San Francisco State College began. The students resulted to a strike for more than one reason, the main reason though was because the black students at that time felt the college was mistreating them by giving there Black Studies Department not as much as much as all the other departments. The strike was such a huge event that even the American Federation of Teachers took an interest because they felt that the students had done such a good job in standing up for what they believed in, that they also had too. This strike went on for two and a half months with daily confrontations, until both parties made an agreement on March 20, 1969. In this specific situation it only harmed a specific set of people the next example affects a whole state not just a college. In Arizona there was a bill that was passed in 2010 that stated the no ethnic studies classes were allowed to be taught anymore in any on the colleges in Arizona, which included for example Raza Studies, Asian Studies, Black studies, and many more. They said tat it establishes more racism by putting each race into groups and teaching them how they were oppressed which is nonsense. These two events have similarities because in each one of these events they are showing racism in both these issues. The only difference between these two events is that in 1969 they were only attacking one ethnicity and presently in Arizona they are attacking all the ethnicities. The other issue is that in both situations these people like learning about their ethnicity and how much they have struggled to get this far. In my opinion in both of these events its the white race trying to not let us educate ourselves on how far we have gotten as an ethnicity no matter what ethnicity you are. People always say knowledge is power, so I think in both these situations they are trying to take the power away.
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Hi Nelson,
ReplyDeleteWhat a thorough job you did of explaining the strike and HB 2281. However, I would encourage you to do a re-check of your dates; the strike began in 1968 and lasted five months. The compare and contrast of the two events is really important because it shows some of the continuities between the two events. I also like how you brought in issues of power- in Ethnic Studies we examine how power is distributed very closely, and education is a major vein by which power is distributed. I would urge you to revisit this thought when we discuss race, disability and education later in the semester.
--eas