I emailed the speaker and received a prompt response. He did not mean to suggest that only whites in Arizona feared the response of people of color if the true history of the U.S. were taught. It is endemic, yes!
And he is aware of racial make up of his department. They are working on this problem! (It is only 2011!).
It is an old problem: Imagined impurities is feared and replaced with artificial representations of purity. Corporate partnerships are the last stand in the foundational warfare against racial impurities. The U.S. is the greatest country on the planet--and we liberal and conservative faculty and administrators alike will see to it that this narrative is the one the student learns first and foremost! All else is the narrative of heretics.
In a subsequent email, I used the words of another white chair of Black studies at a major Midwestern university who listened as I spoke of white fear and who responded with--I do not expect it to change anytime soon! Smart! The maintenance of the American Empire begins in the classroom, where racist and anti-working class attitudes and views help to legitimize the exploitation of people of color globally. White liberals and their counterparts would hope the order of things do not change anytime soon!
But that was a few years ago. While some American citizens have yet to awaken from the fog of the mall, others have their eyes wide open and ears fine tuned to catch the deception of doublespeak. While U.S. history is not taught because genocide, enslavement, exploitation, imperialism--torture and terrorism conducted by the U.S.--might disturb the production of future physicists, chemists, bio-engineers etc., the history of resistance cannot be taught by liberal and conservative faculty complicit in corporate benevolence. Resistance is the experience of people who resist!
At the Center for American Progress, Jennifer Washburn is wide awake. Along with her colleagues, Washburn completed a report on the impact of the oil industry on college and university campuses. In her October 14, 2010 expose, "Big Oil Goes to College," uncovers the extent to which democracy and freedom for college and university administrators is meaningless. Washburn writes that ExxonMobil, Chevron Corp, BP PLC, Royal Dutch Shell Group and ConocoPhillips Co have "forged dozens of multi-year, multi-million dollar alliances with top U.S. universities and scientists to carry out energy-related research." Ten universities have already agreed to be funded a total of $838 million over the next 10 years. Stanford University , for example, is contracted with ExxonMobil, and the University of California-Berkeley contracted with BP for 500 million. BP's narrative claims the corporation's partnership with the university will help to --green' its public image."
Who does BP think it is fooling?
Washburn continues:
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
