White people hate stuff

And now we begin in earnest...

News of the recently signed law attempting to put an end to ethnic studies programs in high schools in Arizona struck a chord with me. I am a white woman. I graduated from college in 2004 with a bachelor's degree in Africana Studies, an interdisciplinary major focusing on the African Diaspora. That was my only major. I took classes both within the Africana Studies department as well as in History, English, and Anthropology, all focusing on African, African-American, or Caribbean topics. My degree-granting institution was a large state school and a very diverse one - in terms of race, age, and socio-economic status. At the introductory level and in most of the out-of-department courses, my classes tended to have representation from all corners of the school. At the upper level, things changed a bit, understandably. I was the only white student in my Senior Seminar and one of only two in my Methods class, both of which classes were requirements for the major and limited to students majoring or minoring in Africana Studies. By the time I graduated college, ten years after starting, a lot of people wondered how I got into the field. Though I was 18 and naive when I did, my entree into the field was quite deliberate.

At 18, I was a product of a New York City public high school with no majority race or ethnicity. I graduated from that school in 1994 and went off to college at a small, exclusive liberal arts school hundreds miles from my home both physically and experientially. During high school, I had mingled among many social circles. I spent my senior year listening almost exclusively to hip-hop and R&B and trying to pass for Puerto Rican (or at least ethnically ambiguous, which I most certainly am not). I won't claim that I ever felt I truly fit in or that my high school was a happy melting pot (or tossed salad or bouquet or whatever description of ethnic-racial harmony you might prefer), but to be a white girl and to dress like I did and to listen to hip-hop was not unusual in my surroundings. And I believed that these things formed my identity in a certain way and that others would recognize this and understand. However, when I arrived at my at-least-80% white college, I found that my experience and my self-identification just didn't translate. While fumbling through my first semester, academically and socially, I started to discover ways to meet the people I wanted to, the people with whom I most identified. I had followed college basketball as a teenager, but that was Big East ball. However, I became a regular at my college's Division iii basketball games. I attended lectures by Bob Moses and Angela Davis when they came to my college. I went to hip-hop nights at the campus nightclub.

At the same time as all this was going on, I also started to have an academic crisis of sorts. I had entered college with the intention of majoring in Art History and becoming a curator. However, my experiences on arriving at college gave me a distaste for the exclusivity of the field. It felt selfish and useless to me. My second semester, I signed up for two Art History classes, both focused on the Northern Renaissance, and two African-American Studies classes. By the end of that semester, I was a declared African-American Studies major and I had decided I wanted to teach history in New York City public high schools. I thought that my major would give me good perspective for what I would face teaching in New York while providing a solid grounding in both African-American and African history (the latter of which was part the curriculum for Sophomores in NYC schools). My third semester, I signed up for several more African-American Studies courses and my fourth semester I spent abroad in Zimbabwe.

On returning from Zimbabwe, I went through several mini-life-crises that resulted in my leaving the small, exclusive liberal arts college, doing a bunch of other things, and finally returning to college full time in 2003. When I arrived at my state school alma mater, graduating quickly was my top priority. A review of my transfer credits showed that I was only a couple classes away from completing an Africana Studies major, so I returned, somewhat reluctantly I'll admit, to the field. While I hadn't lost interest in race history and race politics in my time out of school, I had developed different academic interests that I would have liked to pursue. But I was prepared to focus academically and I devoted myself to my classes diligently, if not entirely enthusiastically.

As the product of an ethnic studies program (or, technically speaking, a few ethnic studies programs), I can say from experience that these in no way breed hatred toward white Americans. They may even do quite the opposite. Any study of American History (or current events) from the perspective of a racial or ethnic minority is bound to reflect badly on white history and the dominant white culture of the U.S. Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona and the state Superintendent of Public Instruction there are obviously well aware (and afraid) of this reality. However, ethnic studies programs provide context for the experiences of students (both non-white and white) and draw attention to the importance of cultural sensitivity. This serves to benefit all students.

I'm not expecting to change any minds here. Obviously, supporters of this law won't see much value in my experience and will probably just wonder why I would waste my time majoring in Africana Studies. (Or, the question I always get, "What kind of job will that get you?" Well, a pretty good job in non-profit management, it seems.) But I did want to share my experience as a graduate of an ethnic studies program in light of the new law.

Managing my online life

I set this page up a long time ago and never once posted to it. In the interim, I have occasionally maintained another Blogger blog; a Tumblr; a few Twitter accounts; a FriendFeed account (ok, maintain might not be accurate for this particular account); a Posterous account (ok, maintain might not be accurate for this one either, for different reasons); and a very active facebook presence. However, with the August 2009 Facebook acquisition of FriendFeed, my incomplete satisfaction with Posterous, and my desire to occasionally post more than Twitter will accommodate, I've decided I may actually put this site to use. (I'm choosing this over my other Blogspot blog for, I hope, obvious reasons. Why I'm choosing this over my Tumblr I cannot completely explain.) I expect this will actually primarily consist of autoposts from my Posterous. So, we'll see how that goes. Ok?