I just subscribed, knowing nothing about you or this blog, after reading this article. You are a compelling writer. You could definitely use an editor (this piece is really long and you repeat yourself in places) but that doesn’t change the fact that you are worth the price of a subscription.
Some thoughts:
The second half of this piece is what I found the most interesting. The first half comes across as annoyed venting toward a person who represents a perspective you deeply dislike. An approach far too common these days. Don’t get me wrong, I get it, but you clearly have the ability to move beyond that to something much more valuable to your readers.
The second half of this piece gives us a way of seeing and possibly understanding a group of people most don’t understand or even know exist. Most important, you reveal them as the humans they are. You help us see them as real people, with a cultural experience and perspective outside the mainstream, who likely find applied post-modernism and the many associated theories hard to understand much less embrace. You also help us see that some among them are nevertheless seeking to understand and address issues like racism as best they can.
I would love to read more from you where you helped us to see this group of people we don’t know, and most importantly, see them as human, some good, some not, but worth understanding.
“Write what you know” is a well worn phrase and maybe that’s what I’m asking for because you’re in a position to help me see and understand in a gracious way some people I might otherwise be inclined to demonize and hate. I can’t help but think of J. D. Vance and how he helped us see why poor Appalachain people would support a rich privileged white man for president. He revealed them warts and all, but kept their humanity intact.
I would love to read more about people like the principal at your former school and how they are trying to get students in those cultural backwaters to think about race and it’s implications. That brief mention gave me far more hope than anything I’ve read in a long time.
What Guttman seems to miss in his analysis of ML King’s approach is that King recognized the humanity and potential for change in everyone, even the people who wished to do him harm. King didn’t throw rocks at his enemies like Guttman is doing. King took the blows thrown his way without complaint and in so doing awoke the conscience of enough people to change this country for the better.
Somewhat orthogonal, but as someone who was briefly a teacher in Mississippi as the country got up in arms around Common Core and the then-latest iteration of ‘new math’, even if one took at face value the Weiss et al claim of ‘thousands of people are writing me letters complaining about anti-racism curriculum’ in schools…I would not at all be convinced that this would represent a greater number of complaints than parents make about *any* part of the curriculum they don’t understand, whether morally loaded or not.
This isn’t to say there are not, of course, higher stakes societally, and more self-identity issues personally, when parents complain about anti-racism in curricula, but just that, *people complaining en masse about this curriculum* is hardly evidence of a societal crisis, or ‘the dam breaking’, so much as it is the everyday fuming of parents who a. don’t pedagogy particularly well (not their fault! Everyone has a layman’s experience of education, few are taught pedagogy) and b. parents don’t like the idea of being ‘wrong’ about anything/not understanding how and why their kids do anything differently than them (this one, definitely more their fault). Anyone who thinks otherwise can go look up the frothy facebook posts (and news segments) of any new math worksheet.
I just subscribed, knowing nothing about you or this blog, after reading this article. You are a compelling writer. You could definitely use an editor (this piece is really long and you repeat yourself in places) but that doesn’t change the fact that you are worth the price of a subscription.
Some thoughts:
The second half of this piece is what I found the most interesting. The first half comes across as annoyed venting toward a person who represents a perspective you deeply dislike. An approach far too common these days. Don’t get me wrong, I get it, but you clearly have the ability to move beyond that to something much more valuable to your readers.
The second half of this piece gives us a way of seeing and possibly understanding a group of people most don’t understand or even know exist. Most important, you reveal them as the humans they are. You help us see them as real people, with a cultural experience and perspective outside the mainstream, who likely find applied post-modernism and the many associated theories hard to understand much less embrace. You also help us see that some among them are nevertheless seeking to understand and address issues like racism as best they can.
I would love to read more from you where you helped us to see this group of people we don’t know, and most importantly, see them as human, some good, some not, but worth understanding.
“Write what you know” is a well worn phrase and maybe that’s what I’m asking for because you’re in a position to help me see and understand in a gracious way some people I might otherwise be inclined to demonize and hate. I can’t help but think of J. D. Vance and how he helped us see why poor Appalachain people would support a rich privileged white man for president. He revealed them warts and all, but kept their humanity intact.
I would love to read more about people like the principal at your former school and how they are trying to get students in those cultural backwaters to think about race and it’s implications. That brief mention gave me far more hope than anything I’ve read in a long time.
What Guttman seems to miss in his analysis of ML King’s approach is that King recognized the humanity and potential for change in everyone, even the people who wished to do him harm. King didn’t throw rocks at his enemies like Guttman is doing. King took the blows thrown his way without complaint and in so doing awoke the conscience of enough people to change this country for the better.
Great read as always.
Somewhat orthogonal, but as someone who was briefly a teacher in Mississippi as the country got up in arms around Common Core and the then-latest iteration of ‘new math’, even if one took at face value the Weiss et al claim of ‘thousands of people are writing me letters complaining about anti-racism curriculum’ in schools…I would not at all be convinced that this would represent a greater number of complaints than parents make about *any* part of the curriculum they don’t understand, whether morally loaded or not.
This isn’t to say there are not, of course, higher stakes societally, and more self-identity issues personally, when parents complain about anti-racism in curricula, but just that, *people complaining en masse about this curriculum* is hardly evidence of a societal crisis, or ‘the dam breaking’, so much as it is the everyday fuming of parents who a. don’t pedagogy particularly well (not their fault! Everyone has a layman’s experience of education, few are taught pedagogy) and b. parents don’t like the idea of being ‘wrong’ about anything/not understanding how and why their kids do anything differently than them (this one, definitely more their fault). Anyone who thinks otherwise can go look up the frothy facebook posts (and news segments) of any new math worksheet.
You are right about all of this.
great read . thank you. what was MLK's dream again? Guess we have forgotten...