Comments on: Ethnic Studies Classes in Arizona

By: jaehwan

jaehwan — Tue, 04 May 2010 06:10:23 +0000

Alpha,

Oi, Mark Burnett is British, as is Jamie Oliver. I’d definitely keep Mark and Jamie, I just don’t like American Idol. I guess I’d have to find another way to discriminate against AI. Haha….I feel like an Arizona politician, trying to come up with new ways to discriminate against people.

By: jaehwan

jaehwan — Tue, 04 May 2010 06:08:47 +0000

Tim,

Good points, and I like your APAP blog!

I think there are always problems when governments use the law to restrict teaching. Unless, of course, they’re restricting the teaching of so-called intelligent design. Seriously, many of these politicians are stubborn and refuse to listen to their minority constituents, and I too wouldn’t trust that superintendent to make a decision over what is chauvinistic.

By: jaehwan

jaehwan — Tue, 04 May 2010 06:04:13 +0000

Haha! The only problem is that American Idol might get more votes or text messages than Byron. In which I’d still be stuck hearing the office workers talking about who got sent home.

By: Eric Jacobus

Eric Jacobus — Mon, 03 May 2010 22:59:48 +0000

If tax dollars controlled American Idol, you’d get EXACTLY what you want. That’s why a business runs it. Same cannot be said of Arizona’s school system.

By: Tim

Tim — Mon, 03 May 2010 18:31:14 +0000

The problem is that whatever the bill says, its announced goal is to kill ethnic studies, and specifically the Mexican American Studies program in the Tucson schools. And according to the bill, the person who gets to decide whether a program promotes “resentment” or “ethnic solidarity” is the state schools superintendent–the very guy who wrote the bill and has already made clear that he finds the Tucson program to be “ethnic chauvinism.”

So yes, while a close reading of the bill would suggest that no imaginable ethnic studies program should run afoul of these ridiculous requirements, in practice it will certainly be used to shut down any ethnic studies class conservatives don’t like. And it will have a chilling effect on school districts who will be afraid of losing state funding. Sure, a good lawyer could probably fight the state and win, but what school district could afford a protracted battle like that?

Well, we agree that the bill should be killed, so I guess that’s the important thing.

By: Alpha Asian

Alpha Asian — Mon, 03 May 2010 12:28:41 +0000

Given Arizona’s track record of late, I can see the law passing, but not standing given that it would violate free speech.

Oh well, I never cared to see the Grand Canyon anyway.

You ever notice how many Brits and Aussies there are on American TV and movies? Our society is very accepting of them, but we tend to pull the welcome mat for people of color from Asia or south of the border.