I really appreciate this educational resource. i am unlearning what i was taught in school. i remember my history class in 2002 explaining global inequality by saying that the fact that it was cold in the northern hemisphere made Europeans invent tools and technology to survive, which gave them an advantage over people in the southern hemisphere who "didn't have to invent any technologies to survive because it was so warm and easy to live there." this is obviously racists white supremacist propaganda. but it was taught not that long ago. and i remember as students we wanted to understand, we wanted to know why the world was the way it was. and all we got was weird lies and myths that made no sense. this is what was hidden, and what is still hidden, in schools. i think students can handle this information and that they deserve the truth. i believe that enough students are naturally distrustful of their school curriculum and looking for real information online, and that it is possible that our curriculum could be changed.
i'm really struck by the racist history and continued racism of social work and education, particularly in the case of the boarding schools and forced adoption of Native Americans. For everyone saying "reinvest in social work and education instead of police" i think we should be rethinking and ending a lot of what is normal in social work and schools, too.
not sure if i should make a second post for the second reflection question, but i'm posting here instead.
i want to help change how schools are funded--so that they all receive equal funding and it is not based on the property tax of your school district. entire neighborhoods have left the cities they are a part of, only so that they can have their own taxing district and segregate their children and their tax dollars into the schools of their gated community.
It is important to learn the history of people from all races.
i agree it is so important. i wish that the history of resistance to racism and other aspects of Black history and culture had been taught in my schools. i know many teachers are doing history this way. but it's never too late to learn.
I feel really horrified by the images and videos from the third portion of the module 1. The Jim Crow museum. in particular was really hard to look at. and then when he got to the Obama display, it made me think about this William Faulkner quote: “The past is never dead. It's not even past."
I've also been thinking about the images i grew up with shows like COPS and the DARE Program and the war on drugs, all that propaganda messaging in the 80s and 90s when the expansion of prisons was so rapid. the historian who was in the museum documentary said that a guest said "you can't legislate morality"--to which he said "no but by changing the laws and policies you allow behaviors to change." which reminded me of the message of Ibram X. Kendi's books, which is that the economic policies like slavery or mass incarceration were first, and then that the cultural racism came after in order to justify the policies and laws and economic exploitation--all enforced through violence. for a Nun