Friday, September 10, 2010

Thoughtful Piece on Race in America Today

Longish, but worth the read.  By Henry Giroux.

 

Posted via email from reannon's posterous

1 comment:

Anna O'Connell said...

Well, it was indeed long. But it was also so full of jargon that I had a great deal of trouble understanding the point. Not to mention wondering about the difference between performance and performativity. Is there a difference? I can't tell from either the essay or the comments, but both terms get used.

I often use something I recall from _The Little Red School Book_ as a bullshit detector. "If it isn't said using language a reasonably intelligent 6th grader can understand, someone is trying to scam you about something."

There *are* racial and class issues in America. The autobiographical section of the essay helped illuminate the authors' personal experience of some of those issues. But I have no idea why, unless it was to denounce his un-enlightened younger self, he shared his history with his readers. He didn't connect his experiences with his claims that there is an "ever-deepening divide" between races and classes in America today. He didn't tell us what he did or learned that made him change his views on race or class from those he absorbed in his youth.

My experience leads me to the opposite conclusion; there is less racism and less classism now than when I was growing up. When racist and classist behavior occurs, it is more often called out as unacceptable in the public sphere. While the world is far from perfect, it is better in multiple ways than it has been in the past.