Anton Truer Listen to audio |
Andrew truer Listen to audio | Transcription by CastingWords Host: This call is being recorded.[background music]
[tone]
Anton Truer: Hey, Anton Truer is on the line. Andre Koen: Hey, Anton. Good to speak with you, Dr., sir. I just want to spend some time with some essential questions. Just so I can lay some foundation for who I am...Can you hear me pretty well? Anton: I can hear well, yep. Andre: OK. I saw you receive an award at the Facing Race Awards ceremony, probably about three years ago, maybe two and a half years ago. Anton: Yep. Andre: I looked you up, and I've just been fascinated work that you're doing out in Bemidji State, so if you could tell us a bit more about the work that you're currently doing. Anton: Sure. Right now I'm Executive Director of our American Indian Resource Center. I'm also a member of the faculty, professor on campus. I'm going to be shifting back towards more of my teaching duties internally, but, in addition to the work, I am a ceremonial leader in our community. I do a lot of work with K-12 and higher ed institutions around cultural competence and equity. Andre: All right. Great, great, great. One of the things that is currently happening, particularly in the Twin Cities, the Mall of America is choosing to prosecute some folks who did a protest at the Mall of America. I find it interesting that in that dialogue around what needs to happen, there seems to be two camps that have formed around the site of protests and what not. One camp seems to be the All Lives Matter Camp and the other is Black Lives Matter Camp. Unfortunately, what I don't hear is space for having conversations about American Indians in the struggle.I was wondering if you could speak to what do you think is the role of the space that American Indians should be occupying, or what should people be thinking about. Is it just as simple as all lives matter or black lives matter when we think about where our current state of affairs are, in regards to Community Policing and access to goods, shops, services and money.
Anton: Yeah, I think there are opportunities for conversation and some courageous conversation around these subjects. Unfortunately, a lot of the press or hot points end up being in the protest field instead of beung in the ear them start even a real conversation, if you like. Protests have a very important value, because any time we've had change - whether it was women suffrage or civil rights, somebody who was oppressed had to say, "I'm sick of it," and recruit allies then work for the change. I do see the extreme value of that, but I'd like to see us go deeper and get to that meaningful change too. Andre: What does that meaningful change look like? Anton: Finding opportunities to create greater equity in all realms of life: economic, policing, education. We need to have a pretty broad approach to all of the fault lines, and we need to figure out how to get beyond superficial feel good moments, or an effort to brush things under the rug. To do the kind of heavy lifting that's needed to get to some breakthroughs.We've seen in the world success in some places like South Africa post apartheid with their truth and reconciliation efforts. It didn't fix all the big issues, but it addressed a lot of them and it got some progress. Maybe it progressed up to a certain plateau and they haven't fixed everything else, but I'd like to see us get some breakthroughs.
To do that we have to get out of our Minnesota nice comfort zone, drop off casserole. Give people their space and instead, kind of lean in on the difficult conversations of our time. So that we can have a comfort zone and we can have honest frank conversations to do some real healing.
Andre: Now you used a word and you used this word a couple of times. You used the word equity. What exactly do you mean by equity or what does that word mean. What's its relationship to equality? Are we supposed to be looking for equality in the United States? Anton: Yeah. I think equality is a fundamental value and so is freedom. Sometimes those two can be at odds with each other ironically. If everybody had complete freedom, then we'd have anarchy. We have to put limitations on certain kinds of freedom to make sure that everybody is fairly treated. Those are just some of the bigger picture philosophical things that informed this discussion.Thinking in terms of equity, we need to think about what is not equal or fair right now that needs to be addressed, so that we can really have those equal opportunities. If we had a truly level playing field, it would be a different story. Right now people who don't have as much money are sometimes handicapped in a lot of different ways.
Sometimes people of color have sometimes large but more often small ways of barriers and micro aggressions and so forth that inhibit a truly equitable place in society. For me, speaking in terms of equity, rather than being color blind. Saying, hey I'm OK, you are OK, can't we just get along.
It's more important to be color conscious and acknowledge and validate one another for exactly who we are. Look at any sort of disparities with the intent to level that playing field, so that everybody has equal chance at sweet American apple pie.
Andre: I was on a panel with Mr. Belacourt and he was presenting the American Indian movements kind of stance on looking at creating these equitable systems. Are there some things that as people who consider themselves as allies to American Indians that we should be considering in terms of being color conscious?Unfortunately it appears that governmental systems typically don't collect data on many of the activities that American Indians face because their numbers don't give them good data sets. As people who consider themselves allies, how should we be supporting and being color conscious with our American Indian brothers and sisters?
Anton: I think we needed adaptive solutions. What people can do will really depend on where they live, where they work and things like that. The biggest part will probably be developing the awareness internally for each of us. Then working for the systemic changes within whatever institutions we are working in around everything from hiring practices to work culture, and so forth.There'd be kind of different ways I'd answer that, depending on the circumstance and so forth but there's a lot of work to do. Ultimately like for me, I'm native, I am dark, I am a man. I have a little bit of money and in a world that gives many, many special privileges and assumptions to anybody who has any money.
I have a certain amount of privilege. In a world that gives many special little courtesies and privileges, simply because I'm a man, I have a privilege there too. One of the greatest challenges for me is, how do I see when there is a privilege working to my advantage?
And, what do I actually do to interrupt that and challenge my own privilege. Because when I am wired to do it, we are wired to competitively seek to advance and grow our privileges and use them to our advantage or otherwise in a competitive environment.
So, I always have to check myself. I have to check myself even when I'm talking to my wife in our house, because of my gender, and because of the money situation.
I think it's like that for White folks in America dealing with native people.
I think honestly in some way it's true for...within the Black native relationship, although within...I don't want to digress too far off of what you are asking me here, but I will have to if you want me to.
Andrew Truer: No, that's fine. Andre: I think...I think that a huge part of the work is individual, but then at the same time, in addition to this kind of introspective individual work challenging our privileges. We have to be able to fit more meaningful and less threatening ways for everybody to see the systems are privileged that kind of work, silently and invisibly to advantage some people over others. Just because of Biology or whatever and the social conditioning we have around race.In addition to that, we have to have the ones that address the institutional types of racism too.
That would be, for example- in hiring practices for almost every organization, including in like K12 education which is dominated by people who vote democrats...and have some sort of fairness in the front of their brains.
That people who have a first name as Ahmed, or Aisha, or a last name like kingbird are much less likely to make it to the interview room than somebody named John Johnson.
Andrew: Right. Andre: And, that is because there is a subtle inherent kind of invisible prejudice that people will exercise, but not even be aware that they are doing it.It's like the fish that can see everything in its environment except for the bowl that confines him. That's how that works.
So, to interrupt that, then you need rules and protocol and procedures that can help address the institutional pieces.
If it's a hiring practice, then there should be a rule about truly color blind hiring decisions about who gets an interview when you are blacking out names and you are going off credentials, what they are saying in their...letters.
Even that is still going to have enough to tip people off about some people.
Andrew: All right. Andre: It means that when we...[Background noise]
Andre: ...have in our employment practices an onboarding protocol, we'll say, hey, welcome to Minnesota. Here's some what you need to know to interact with our native communities.The native people are less than 2 percent of the population, but 17 percent of this states in prison population.
It's not because native people are that much more criminally minded, but our system does disproportionately charge, and disproportionately try, and disproportionately convict and disproportionately deny parole to native people over their White peers.
If somebody is being hired in criminal justice, they should be presented with that information.
If they are being trained to be a police officer, a lawyer, or a judge then we should have information readily available and required of everybody who is being trained in those professions.
Same thing with health care, with education, and with other places where you have incredible disparities.
[silence]
Andrew: That's...yeah...I think that's an important...important point to extend the educational process outside of (a) the classroom, but to also include that in those policies and practices. Andre: Right, because some people are going to do it on their own as much as they can and it's just convenient and comfortable and we need to challenge people out of their comfort zones and we need to get systemic to what is required across the board, with work environments, school environments, political environments.[silence]
Andrew: As you see these political movements, these grassroots movements kind of growing, expanding...actually I think I just saw a thing on Facebook today where one of the Wynonna LaDuke is asking people not for a handout but for help in achieving some full goal, some energy goals......as you see these grassroots political movements kind of going.
What is it that you hope that you will see come out of these things?
And what are some fears that you have about things that may come out these movements?
Andre: Well, I think we are at a time of accelerated change and even just the demographic shift in our country is going to either accelerate that change in a good way or make people dial back and get defensive in a bad way.What I am hopeful about is the opportunity presented by some really passionate people who want to see our world be a better place.
Getting the opportunity to voice their legitimate concerns and views and to get traction with other citizens from different backgrounds.
When we had a successful civil rights movement, for example, it did not happen because Martin Luther King Junior was right.
He was right, but there were many people before him who were right also but didn't get the same change.
The difference was that when Martin Luther King Jnr had the march on Washington D.C and the same as I HAVE A DREAM speech. BThere were 250,000 people who marched with him and a lot of them were White.
When White people said hey, it's affront to everyone humanity that Black people are being treated this way, in reference to Jim Crow laws and so forth.
Then we got the change, and it's not just the native people.Saying what is happening with mascots and native imagery in sports and media is not OK.
When other people start saying, that's a problem, we'll get the change. When it's not just the native people saying, it's disgusting that 50 percent of the native kids in this country cannot finish high school.
It's not because the kids are less intelligent, we'll start to get the change and ultimately we need to build those bridges so that native people aren't doing the advocacy work on their own, because nobody will listen to the 1 percent voice.
When everybody starts.
[Background noise]
Andrew Treur: Yup. Andre Koen: Sorry, just had another incoming call. Andrew: It's all good. Andre: Still with me? Andrew: Yes sir, I'm still here. Andre: Sorry about that. Andrew: It's OK. Andre: But in any event, I think we need to think really critically about how do we affect these kind of changes. I'm very hopeful, and encouraged by, a lot more people digging in, and having something to say about moving forward in a positive way, building bridges, and trying to overcome these kinds of equity gap based on race, and also on class, and on gender, and so forth.What I'm fearful about is that the programming in our society around values of materialism and individualism is so deep that it can run interference on equity minded grassroots political movements.
So, for example, we are conditioned so strongly to go to school, to get a job, to have two kids so they can go to school to get a job, that sometimes we put other values, like community, or extended family, much further down the list. To the point where most Americans have two children, and each child and the parents are living in separate states, and they see each other a couple times a year once everyone's all grown up. Those values are very strongly messaged and believed in.
So what happens, for example, is that when someone is at a disadvantage in terms of education, then people who have advantage and privilege don't always say, "Hey, that's not cool." They'll just say, "Hm, that's a shame," and then enable those disparities to persist.
If fifty percent of the children of color in our country are not finishing high school, that's not a shame. That's an abysmal failure. Pretty soon children of color are going to be the majority of children in the United States, and if our educational system is failing the majority of the children in the United States, that's not OK! That's not a recipe for a successful, healthy, prosperous, top-of-the-world leading nation. That's a recipe for disaster.
I look to some of the push-back we've had, like thirty states have made official English language declaration. That never happened before. That's a push-back. Or, in Arizona, the law AR 15-112, which said it is illegal to create or maintain a program designed exclusively for any one race, and then used that law to dismantle the Raza ethics studies program in Tucson, since the Hispanic kids there who are outperforming their Hispanic peers into the mainstream, where they did not do as well, put the books in a storage locker, and the teachers.
We've got to worry. If anyone's freedom of speech can be so easily trampled, then all of our freedom of speech is in jeopardy. If white people...some are...less concerned about the fate of minorities, they'll be singing a very different tune when they are the minority.
What we're poised for in some places like that is shifting the roles of oppressors. That's why some white folk are pushing back so hard about immigration, about language laws, and immigration policy, is they perceive the eroding power of their cultural tradition.
Bear in mind, the Arizona law, it was a shame in so many ways. Because in addition to the disservice to the Hispanic students, they're now preparing their white students for some fantasy land that will never exist, instead of the world in which they'll actually live and operate.
By the way, white kids are already the minority is Arizona. That is the same as apartheid. Preserving the hegemony of the whites' cultural and historical narrative and education over all others, even when white folk are the minority.
I do see some of that kind of push-back, and that's the part that scares me. That in order to preserve the advantages and privileges afforded to white folk, some people will work to defend those, so that they don't have to switch roles of oppressor, rather than attack the issue of oppression, period.
Andrew: I'm glad you brought that up, because I think that is a fear. I've seen some jokes on Facebook and in social media, that talk about karma coming back to get folks. I don't necessarily agree with that, or even think that that's particularly funny, but the thought that folks need to hold on to the current system because they're afraid that the power shift will come and they will be the victims of that same system.I do have to say, I'm excited by something Paula Ferer offered, which was that we don't have to have the oppressor and the oppressed. That there can actually be a third relationship that actually can be created to mutual benefit. I think people afraid, or don't know how to get to that third way.
Andre: Mm-hm. Absolutely. You look, for example, ninety percent of our students of color in this country go to schools that are dominated by ninety percent students of color. We're actually more segregated now than we were before Brown vs. Board of Education, and they're incredible disparities.Where some students are going to school districts that have a $5,000 per pupil expenditure, and some are going to school districts that have a $26,000 per pupil expenditure. Some people are teaching in schools where they're making $28,000 a year, and some are teaching and making $88,000 a year. Those teacher salaries are, by the way, this year in Minnesota right now.
Andrew: Wow. Andre: A $60,000 per year difference! What happens is that we have students of color doing horribly poorly, who are predominantly taught by people who are making a lot less money, in school districts that have far fewer resources; that our most disadvantaged students have their disadvantages heightened, and our most privileged and advantaged students have their advantages and privileges accelerated.What do you think the reaction would be if we nationalized spending on education, took all the school district budgets and then kicked them back on a per capita basis, so that all children were treated equally? Every single privileged school district would have their politicians fighting that tooth and nail because it would diminish their privilege and advantage
Andrew: That's crazy! Crazy stuff. Andre: Yeah. Andrew: Well I want to say thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to speak with me. Andre: Well, what all you're doing, send me links and I'll be happy to help and support any way I can. Andrew: Yes sir, I will do that. Thank you so much for your time. Andre: OK. Andrew: Enjoy your trip. Andre: OK. Thank you. Andrew: All right. Goodbye. Andre: All right. Bye.
[tone]
Anton Truer: Hey, Anton Truer is on the line. Andre Koen: Hey, Anton. Good to speak with you, Dr., sir. I just want to spend some time with some essential questions. Just so I can lay some foundation for who I am...Can you hear me pretty well? Anton: I can hear well, yep. Andre: OK. I saw you receive an award at the Facing Race Awards ceremony, probably about three years ago, maybe two and a half years ago. Anton: Yep. Andre: I looked you up, and I've just been fascinated work that you're doing out in Bemidji State, so if you could tell us a bit more about the work that you're currently doing. Anton: Sure. Right now I'm Executive Director of our American Indian Resource Center. I'm also a member of the faculty, professor on campus. I'm going to be shifting back towards more of my teaching duties internally, but, in addition to the work, I am a ceremonial leader in our community. I do a lot of work with K-12 and higher ed institutions around cultural competence and equity. Andre: All right. Great, great, great. One of the things that is currently happening, particularly in the Twin Cities, the Mall of America is choosing to prosecute some folks who did a protest at the Mall of America. I find it interesting that in that dialogue around what needs to happen, there seems to be two camps that have formed around the site of protests and what not. One camp seems to be the All Lives Matter Camp and the other is Black Lives Matter Camp. Unfortunately, what I don't hear is space for having conversations about American Indians in the struggle.I was wondering if you could speak to what do you think is the role of the space that American Indians should be occupying, or what should people be thinking about. Is it just as simple as all lives matter or black lives matter when we think about where our current state of affairs are, in regards to Community Policing and access to goods, shops, services and money.
Anton: Yeah, I think there are opportunities for conversation and some courageous conversation around these subjects. Unfortunately, a lot of the press or hot points end up being in the protest field instead of beung in the ear them start even a real conversation, if you like. Protests have a very important value, because any time we've had change - whether it was women suffrage or civil rights, somebody who was oppressed had to say, "I'm sick of it," and recruit allies then work for the change. I do see the extreme value of that, but I'd like to see us go deeper and get to that meaningful change too. Andre: What does that meaningful change look like? Anton: Finding opportunities to create greater equity in all realms of life: economic, policing, education. We need to have a pretty broad approach to all of the fault lines, and we need to figure out how to get beyond superficial feel good moments, or an effort to brush things under the rug. To do the kind of heavy lifting that's needed to get to some breakthroughs.We've seen in the world success in some places like South Africa post apartheid with their truth and reconciliation efforts. It didn't fix all the big issues, but it addressed a lot of them and it got some progress. Maybe it progressed up to a certain plateau and they haven't fixed everything else, but I'd like to see us get some breakthroughs.
To do that we have to get out of our Minnesota nice comfort zone, drop off casserole. Give people their space and instead, kind of lean in on the difficult conversations of our time. So that we can have a comfort zone and we can have honest frank conversations to do some real healing.
Andre: Now you used a word and you used this word a couple of times. You used the word equity. What exactly do you mean by equity or what does that word mean. What's its relationship to equality? Are we supposed to be looking for equality in the United States? Anton: Yeah. I think equality is a fundamental value and so is freedom. Sometimes those two can be at odds with each other ironically. If everybody had complete freedom, then we'd have anarchy. We have to put limitations on certain kinds of freedom to make sure that everybody is fairly treated. Those are just some of the bigger picture philosophical things that informed this discussion.Thinking in terms of equity, we need to think about what is not equal or fair right now that needs to be addressed, so that we can really have those equal opportunities. If we had a truly level playing field, it would be a different story. Right now people who don't have as much money are sometimes handicapped in a lot of different ways.
Sometimes people of color have sometimes large but more often small ways of barriers and micro aggressions and so forth that inhibit a truly equitable place in society. For me, speaking in terms of equity, rather than being color blind. Saying, hey I'm OK, you are OK, can't we just get along.
It's more important to be color conscious and acknowledge and validate one another for exactly who we are. Look at any sort of disparities with the intent to level that playing field, so that everybody has equal chance at sweet American apple pie.
Andre: I was on a panel with Mr. Belacourt and he was presenting the American Indian movements kind of stance on looking at creating these equitable systems. Are there some things that as people who consider themselves as allies to American Indians that we should be considering in terms of being color conscious?Unfortunately it appears that governmental systems typically don't collect data on many of the activities that American Indians face because their numbers don't give them good data sets. As people who consider themselves allies, how should we be supporting and being color conscious with our American Indian brothers and sisters?
Anton: I think we needed adaptive solutions. What people can do will really depend on where they live, where they work and things like that. The biggest part will probably be developing the awareness internally for each of us. Then working for the systemic changes within whatever institutions we are working in around everything from hiring practices to work culture, and so forth.There'd be kind of different ways I'd answer that, depending on the circumstance and so forth but there's a lot of work to do. Ultimately like for me, I'm native, I am dark, I am a man. I have a little bit of money and in a world that gives many, many special privileges and assumptions to anybody who has any money.
I have a certain amount of privilege. In a world that gives many special little courtesies and privileges, simply because I'm a man, I have a privilege there too. One of the greatest challenges for me is, how do I see when there is a privilege working to my advantage?
And, what do I actually do to interrupt that and challenge my own privilege. Because when I am wired to do it, we are wired to competitively seek to advance and grow our privileges and use them to our advantage or otherwise in a competitive environment.
So, I always have to check myself. I have to check myself even when I'm talking to my wife in our house, because of my gender, and because of the money situation.
I think it's like that for White folks in America dealing with native people.
I think honestly in some way it's true for...within the Black native relationship, although within...I don't want to digress too far off of what you are asking me here, but I will have to if you want me to.
Andrew Truer: No, that's fine. Andre: I think...I think that a huge part of the work is individual, but then at the same time, in addition to this kind of introspective individual work challenging our privileges. We have to be able to fit more meaningful and less threatening ways for everybody to see the systems are privileged that kind of work, silently and invisibly to advantage some people over others. Just because of Biology or whatever and the social conditioning we have around race.In addition to that, we have to have the ones that address the institutional types of racism too.
That would be, for example- in hiring practices for almost every organization, including in like K12 education which is dominated by people who vote democrats...and have some sort of fairness in the front of their brains.
That people who have a first name as Ahmed, or Aisha, or a last name like kingbird are much less likely to make it to the interview room than somebody named John Johnson.
Andrew: Right. Andre: And, that is because there is a subtle inherent kind of invisible prejudice that people will exercise, but not even be aware that they are doing it.It's like the fish that can see everything in its environment except for the bowl that confines him. That's how that works.
So, to interrupt that, then you need rules and protocol and procedures that can help address the institutional pieces.
If it's a hiring practice, then there should be a rule about truly color blind hiring decisions about who gets an interview when you are blacking out names and you are going off credentials, what they are saying in their...letters.
Even that is still going to have enough to tip people off about some people.
Andrew: All right. Andre: It means that when we...[Background noise]
Andre: ...have in our employment practices an onboarding protocol, we'll say, hey, welcome to Minnesota. Here's some what you need to know to interact with our native communities.The native people are less than 2 percent of the population, but 17 percent of this states in prison population.
It's not because native people are that much more criminally minded, but our system does disproportionately charge, and disproportionately try, and disproportionately convict and disproportionately deny parole to native people over their White peers.
If somebody is being hired in criminal justice, they should be presented with that information.
If they are being trained to be a police officer, a lawyer, or a judge then we should have information readily available and required of everybody who is being trained in those professions.
Same thing with health care, with education, and with other places where you have incredible disparities.
[silence]
Andrew: That's...yeah...I think that's an important...important point to extend the educational process outside of (a) the classroom, but to also include that in those policies and practices. Andre: Right, because some people are going to do it on their own as much as they can and it's just convenient and comfortable and we need to challenge people out of their comfort zones and we need to get systemic to what is required across the board, with work environments, school environments, political environments.[silence]
Andrew: As you see these political movements, these grassroots movements kind of growing, expanding...actually I think I just saw a thing on Facebook today where one of the Wynonna LaDuke is asking people not for a handout but for help in achieving some full goal, some energy goals......as you see these grassroots political movements kind of going.
What is it that you hope that you will see come out of these things?
And what are some fears that you have about things that may come out these movements?
Andre: Well, I think we are at a time of accelerated change and even just the demographic shift in our country is going to either accelerate that change in a good way or make people dial back and get defensive in a bad way.What I am hopeful about is the opportunity presented by some really passionate people who want to see our world be a better place.
Getting the opportunity to voice their legitimate concerns and views and to get traction with other citizens from different backgrounds.
When we had a successful civil rights movement, for example, it did not happen because Martin Luther King Junior was right.
He was right, but there were many people before him who were right also but didn't get the same change.
The difference was that when Martin Luther King Jnr had the march on Washington D.C and the same as I HAVE A DREAM speech. BThere were 250,000 people who marched with him and a lot of them were White.
When White people said hey, it's affront to everyone humanity that Black people are being treated this way, in reference to Jim Crow laws and so forth.
Then we got the change, and it's not just the native people.Saying what is happening with mascots and native imagery in sports and media is not OK.
When other people start saying, that's a problem, we'll get the change. When it's not just the native people saying, it's disgusting that 50 percent of the native kids in this country cannot finish high school.
It's not because the kids are less intelligent, we'll start to get the change and ultimately we need to build those bridges so that native people aren't doing the advocacy work on their own, because nobody will listen to the 1 percent voice.
When everybody starts.
[Background noise]
Andrew Treur: Yup. Andre Koen: Sorry, just had another incoming call. Andrew: It's all good. Andre: Still with me? Andrew: Yes sir, I'm still here. Andre: Sorry about that. Andrew: It's OK. Andre: But in any event, I think we need to think really critically about how do we affect these kind of changes. I'm very hopeful, and encouraged by, a lot more people digging in, and having something to say about moving forward in a positive way, building bridges, and trying to overcome these kinds of equity gap based on race, and also on class, and on gender, and so forth.What I'm fearful about is that the programming in our society around values of materialism and individualism is so deep that it can run interference on equity minded grassroots political movements.
So, for example, we are conditioned so strongly to go to school, to get a job, to have two kids so they can go to school to get a job, that sometimes we put other values, like community, or extended family, much further down the list. To the point where most Americans have two children, and each child and the parents are living in separate states, and they see each other a couple times a year once everyone's all grown up. Those values are very strongly messaged and believed in.
So what happens, for example, is that when someone is at a disadvantage in terms of education, then people who have advantage and privilege don't always say, "Hey, that's not cool." They'll just say, "Hm, that's a shame," and then enable those disparities to persist.
If fifty percent of the children of color in our country are not finishing high school, that's not a shame. That's an abysmal failure. Pretty soon children of color are going to be the majority of children in the United States, and if our educational system is failing the majority of the children in the United States, that's not OK! That's not a recipe for a successful, healthy, prosperous, top-of-the-world leading nation. That's a recipe for disaster.
I look to some of the push-back we've had, like thirty states have made official English language declaration. That never happened before. That's a push-back. Or, in Arizona, the law AR 15-112, which said it is illegal to create or maintain a program designed exclusively for any one race, and then used that law to dismantle the Raza ethics studies program in Tucson, since the Hispanic kids there who are outperforming their Hispanic peers into the mainstream, where they did not do as well, put the books in a storage locker, and the teachers.
We've got to worry. If anyone's freedom of speech can be so easily trampled, then all of our freedom of speech is in jeopardy. If white people...some are...less concerned about the fate of minorities, they'll be singing a very different tune when they are the minority.
What we're poised for in some places like that is shifting the roles of oppressors. That's why some white folk are pushing back so hard about immigration, about language laws, and immigration policy, is they perceive the eroding power of their cultural tradition.
Bear in mind, the Arizona law, it was a shame in so many ways. Because in addition to the disservice to the Hispanic students, they're now preparing their white students for some fantasy land that will never exist, instead of the world in which they'll actually live and operate.
By the way, white kids are already the minority is Arizona. That is the same as apartheid. Preserving the hegemony of the whites' cultural and historical narrative and education over all others, even when white folk are the minority.
I do see some of that kind of push-back, and that's the part that scares me. That in order to preserve the advantages and privileges afforded to white folk, some people will work to defend those, so that they don't have to switch roles of oppressor, rather than attack the issue of oppression, period.
Andrew: I'm glad you brought that up, because I think that is a fear. I've seen some jokes on Facebook and in social media, that talk about karma coming back to get folks. I don't necessarily agree with that, or even think that that's particularly funny, but the thought that folks need to hold on to the current system because they're afraid that the power shift will come and they will be the victims of that same system.I do have to say, I'm excited by something Paula Ferer offered, which was that we don't have to have the oppressor and the oppressed. That there can actually be a third relationship that actually can be created to mutual benefit. I think people afraid, or don't know how to get to that third way.
Andre: Mm-hm. Absolutely. You look, for example, ninety percent of our students of color in this country go to schools that are dominated by ninety percent students of color. We're actually more segregated now than we were before Brown vs. Board of Education, and they're incredible disparities.Where some students are going to school districts that have a $5,000 per pupil expenditure, and some are going to school districts that have a $26,000 per pupil expenditure. Some people are teaching in schools where they're making $28,000 a year, and some are teaching and making $88,000 a year. Those teacher salaries are, by the way, this year in Minnesota right now.
Andrew: Wow. Andre: A $60,000 per year difference! What happens is that we have students of color doing horribly poorly, who are predominantly taught by people who are making a lot less money, in school districts that have far fewer resources; that our most disadvantaged students have their disadvantages heightened, and our most privileged and advantaged students have their advantages and privileges accelerated.What do you think the reaction would be if we nationalized spending on education, took all the school district budgets and then kicked them back on a per capita basis, so that all children were treated equally? Every single privileged school district would have their politicians fighting that tooth and nail because it would diminish their privilege and advantage
Andrew: That's crazy! Crazy stuff. Andre: Yeah. Andrew: Well I want to say thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to speak with me. Andre: Well, what all you're doing, send me links and I'll be happy to help and support any way I can. Andrew: Yes sir, I will do that. Thank you so much for your time. Andre: OK. Andrew: Enjoy your trip. Andre: OK. Thank you. Andrew: All right. Goodbye. Andre: All right. Bye.