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livingdebIn my current job, I review syllabi to see if the courses meet our flag criteria. The worst are survey courses such as US History, Art Appreciation, or World Literature for which the student is hoping we will find evidence for a cultures-based flag.
Interestingly, while reviewing a US history course for a Cultural Diversity in the US flag, the expert on that flag said that it's a no-brainer because the text used was A People's History of the United States. So I read it.
First I want to say that I have mixed feelings about another approved text. It tries. For example it explains that when Europeans came to the new world it was actually already populated. But then on the same page, it mentions that the continent was only empty when the first Native Americans came over. Um, no, it was populated then, too. By animals. Many of which are now extinct, probably at least partly due to the arrival of people. So I felt like these are some rich white guys trying to understand, but they really didn't get it.
I have no such reservations about this book. The author is biased--and his bias is to describe history from the viewpoint of the powerless, of those who lost the battles, instead of the way history is usually described. So, as you can imagine, it's mostly horribly depressing. But I'm going to share with you a couple of paragraphs that made me laugh.
This is in the chapter about the beginning of women's lib, through which I lived. I remember the bra-burning, but I don't remember this:
Some of the New York Radical Women ... formed WITCH (Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell), and its members, dressed as witches, appeared suddenly on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. A leaflet put out by WITCH in New York said:
"WITCH lives and laughs in every woman. She is the free part of each of us, beneath the shy smiles, the acquiescence to absurd male domination, the make-up or flesh-suffocating clothes our sick society demands. There is no 'joining' WITCH. If you are a woman and dare to look within yourself, you are a WITCH. You make your own rules."
They did protests. Mostly the name of the organization just cracks me up, though of course we could never use "Terrorist" nowadays. We might have to settle for Women's International Troublemaking Conspiracy from Hell." Actually, with all the tea-partiers, we might not be able to use "Hell" either. How about "Women's International Tyranny-Crushing Hobgoblins"? No, I just don't have it.
Interestingly, while reviewing a US history course for a Cultural Diversity in the US flag, the expert on that flag said that it's a no-brainer because the text used was A People's History of the United States. So I read it.
First I want to say that I have mixed feelings about another approved text. It tries. For example it explains that when Europeans came to the new world it was actually already populated. But then on the same page, it mentions that the continent was only empty when the first Native Americans came over. Um, no, it was populated then, too. By animals. Many of which are now extinct, probably at least partly due to the arrival of people. So I felt like these are some rich white guys trying to understand, but they really didn't get it.
I have no such reservations about this book. The author is biased--and his bias is to describe history from the viewpoint of the powerless, of those who lost the battles, instead of the way history is usually described. So, as you can imagine, it's mostly horribly depressing. But I'm going to share with you a couple of paragraphs that made me laugh.
This is in the chapter about the beginning of women's lib, through which I lived. I remember the bra-burning, but I don't remember this:
Some of the New York Radical Women ... formed WITCH (Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell), and its members, dressed as witches, appeared suddenly on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. A leaflet put out by WITCH in New York said:
"WITCH lives and laughs in every woman. She is the free part of each of us, beneath the shy smiles, the acquiescence to absurd male domination, the make-up or flesh-suffocating clothes our sick society demands. There is no 'joining' WITCH. If you are a woman and dare to look within yourself, you are a WITCH. You make your own rules."
They did protests. Mostly the name of the organization just cracks me up, though of course we could never use "Terrorist" nowadays. We might have to settle for Women's International Troublemaking Conspiracy from Hell." Actually, with all the tea-partiers, we might not be able to use "Hell" either. How about "Women's International Tyranny-Crushing Hobgoblins"? No, I just don't have it.