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Is it now politically incorrect to talk about events from history?


http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/05/31/michigan-teacher-suspended-after-segregation-lesson/?intcmp=latestnews


Doh! Wrong forum!

(I assume a mod will be along to move this any moment now.)

I ALSO assume that something funny is going on in this story. Either some parent is blowing something WAY out of proportion, or something happened DURING the lesson that isn't being reported.

 Jimsolo wrote:
(I assume a mod will be along to move this any moment now.)

I ALSO assume that something funny is going on in this story. Either some parent is blowing something WAY out of proportion, or something happened DURING the lesson that isn't being reported.

Yep, I notified them once I saw what I did.

"History is History"

My favorite quote from this article. The teacher was just describing something that happened, he wasn't making any opinion on it so he can't have done anything wrong.

 sing your life wrote:
"History is History"

My favorite quote from this article. The teacher was just describing something that happened, he wasn't making any opinion on it so he can't have done anything wrong.

Unless he said or did something that was ACTUALLY racist while doing it, or conducted the lesson in a crass or offensive manner, or responded inappropriately to a (inevitable) negative comment from a student. It's highly unlikely we're hearing the WHOLE story in this small snippet of an article.

 Jimsolo wrote:

 sing your life wrote:
"History is History"

My favorite quote from this article. The teacher was just describing something that happened, he wasn't making any opinion on it so he can't have done anything wrong.

Unless he said or did something that was ACTUALLY racist while doing it, or conducted the lesson in a crass or offensive manner, or responded inappropriately to a (inevitable) negative comment from a student. It's highly unlikely we're hearing the WHOLE story in this small snippet of an article.

Why? It hardly seems like he did any racist that hasn't been mentioned yet.

I'm thinking a parent went nuts with the white actors painting their face black bit not knowing the content of the subject matter

 Jihadin wrote:
I'm thinking a parent went nuts with the white actors painting their face black bit not knowing the content of the subject matter

I'm thinking this is what happened.

Looking at other articles, it looks like her actually showed a video that was a performance f blackface

From what I've read of this, my thoughts are that you have a school administrator that had a beef with the teacher, and this was his last chance to make something of it, since the teacher was retiring.

The article lacks enough context to make any significant determination from it.

After reading more versions of the article, *NO* parents complained, *NO* Students complained. In fact, students complained that the administrator turned off the video because they felt it was relevant to discuss.

Sounds like some school politics. There was no parental outrage or calls for her job.

 sing your life wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:

 sing your life wrote:
"History is History"

My favorite quote from this article. The teacher was just describing something that happened, he wasn't making any opinion on it so he can't have done anything wrong.

Unless he said or did something that was ACTUALLY racist while doing it, or conducted the lesson in a crass or offensive manner, or responded inappropriately to a (inevitable) negative comment from a student. It's highly unlikely we're hearing the WHOLE story in this small snippet of an article.

Why? It hardly seems like he did any racist that hasn't been mentioned yet.

Because the way the article was presented doesn't provide any rational motive for what's happening. EITHER someone was unfairly out for his job, OR someone at the school is out for his job, OR some parent/community member has lost their flippin' mind, OR some other factor is in play that isn't in the article. I'm not saying he's at fault; I'm saying something, somewhere, smells fishy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nkelsch wrote:
After reading more versions of the article, *NO* parents complained, *NO* Students complained. In fact, students complained that the administrator turned off the video because they felt it was relevant to discuss.

Sounds like some school politics. There was no parental outrage or calls for her job.

That would make sense. If Pitfall were about being a teacher, then daft administrators would be the alligators.

Vague article from Fox News about "political correctness gone mad!!!"? Yeah, I bet we're not getting the full story.

 Jimsolo wrote:

Sounds like some school politics. There was no parental outrage or calls for her job.

That would make sense. If Pitfall were about being a teacher, then daft administrators would be the alligators.

An administrator wouldn't be in the classroom unless it was an 'observation', and a teacher usually does a special lesson plan for observations. So if the administrator felt the need to yank the plug, sounds like he was looking to give a bad eval.

I am sure the union will deal with this issue. That is why teachers have unions.

Does Michigan still have teachers' unions?

Without knowing what exactly this included:

"As part of the instruction, he showed a video of how white people back then used blackface to imitate African Americans during what they considered entertainment in the 1800s"

There is really zero point in talking about this story.

Because I have just as much reason to assume that it was a bunch of white people in the video painted with shoe-creme eating watermelon and fried chicken calling each other n***** as I have to assume that it was a completely factual and non-offensive portrayal of minstrel shows throughout history.

Everything about this story hinges on that video, and without knowing what the video was it is a non-story that relies 100% on people being outraged based on pre-existing notions of racism and PC culture.

What the hell is offensive about this:



Al Jolson used to 'black up' in order to do performances based on African American music culture, Jazz was seen (correctly) as music of African American origin and non-black performers would often black up to play Jazz. . If anything this is a homage rather than a hate crime. It was a traditional act and didn't mean anything then, so why should it be taken to mean anything now.
Yes there was a lot of racism in this era, but this wasn't it. The idea that gollywogs or blacking up was racist is revisionist history, racism was not the motive for the genre.

This picture is racist because he played up every possible black stereotype when he painted himself. Bit bulging eyes, big fat lips, these are no different than putting a giant fake nose on your face and saying "look, I'm a Jew" or painting yourself in red-face.

"I pay tribute to black music by stereotyping blacks when I black up" is racist, pretty simple.

Lets put this in perspective.

Should feminists get upset when they see men in drag? Is it an insult to women for men to be in drag?

We have to ask Frazz about the time period he was living through when females were not allowed on stages as actors in a play. Even dirt calls him "Dad" I heard

 Orlanth wrote:
Lets put this in perspective.

Should feminists get upset when they see men in drag? Is it an insult to women for men to be in drag?

Should women be upset when they see a man dress up as a "dumb cheerleader", "slutty blonde", "[insert any other judgemental and demeaning stereotype about women]" and choose drag that places all the attention on negative stereotypes about women?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Edit: Defending the act of "black face" is pretty much off-topic for this thread though.

The question is about the video, and without knowing what the video was we can't answer if it was racist.

Were they part of the subject block of instruction? Drag? Feminist?

 d-usa wrote:
This picture is racist because he played up every possible black stereotype when he painted himself. Bit bulging eyes, big fat lips, these are no different than putting a giant fake nose on your face and saying "look, I'm a Jew" or painting yourself in red-face.

"I pay tribute to black music by stereotyping blacks when I black up" is racist, pretty simple.

You have to look at motive. It may be seen as racist now because of the hair trigger sensibilities prevalent today, stereotypes for entertainments was a staple of early 20th century comic media. However in the context of the time this was satire and entertainment nothing more. This is why you need to see blackface without revisionism, blackface performers were not as a rule racist, racism was not their motive and they saw nothing wrong with the genre. Most importantly people did not take offense at the genre, if nobody (or next to nobody) was offended then, why should we be offended on their behalf now.

Because it is offensive now.

Pretty simple.

 d-usa wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
Lets put this in perspective.

Should feminists get upset when they see men in drag? Is it an insult to women for men to be in drag?

Should women be upset when they see a man dress up as a "dumb cheerleader", "slutty blonde", "[insert any other judgemental and demeaning stereotype about women]" and choose drag that places all the attention on negative stereotypes about women?

A lot of entertainment drag emphasises visible female underwear anyway, so is it automatically 'slutty', however 'acting dumb blonde' is about an activity not a dress style.

 d-usa wrote:

Edit: Defending the act of "black face" is pretty much off-topic for this thread though.

The question is about the video, and without knowing what the video was we can't answer if it was racist.

I cant see how blackface is off-topic. As far as we are aware from the limited info on the OP's link a teacher teaches on blackface at school and gets suspended.
Showing the video isn't racist, no matter what was on it.

Lets try this one, sorry to Godwin but Nazis are racist so.; is showing a video of the Nuremburg rallies in a school 'racist', Is History Channel 'racist' for showing WW2 programs, because you can't avoid seeing images of the Third Reich war machine if you watch the channel for more than a few hours.
Should schools ban WW2 images from education curricula in case it causes offense?

White Chicks
Soul Man
...........

Showing a video about nazis can be innocent or 100% racist.

It depends on the video being shown. It depends on how the video is presented. Without knowing that, just like we don't know anything about the video in this case, it's impossible to say.

 d-usa wrote:
Because it is offensive now.

Pretty simple.

Pretty simplistic rather than simple. There is a difference. A teachers showed this material to his students so its for educational purposes, do you really think we should mollycoddle kids against seeing politically offensive imagery.
What sort of wishy washy junk education do you want to impose on todays youth, that they cant see history in case someone has a hissy fit.
It also panders to ignorance because if people would take offense now, its means they will be free to assume it was intended to cause offense then which would be grossly unfair and factually untrue. That is nothing less than vile revisionism, 'morasl truth' rather than actual truth, and causes more unnecessary racial division because its makes people see racism where no offense was intended..


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 d-usa wrote:
Showing a video about nazis can be innocent or 100% racist.

It depends on the video being shown. It depends on how the video is presented. Without knowing that, just like we don't know anything about the video in this case, it's impossible to say.

So the historical videos of Nazis are to be taken in context, good.

Why not the blackface videos then?

 Orlanth wrote:

So the historical videos of Nazis are to be taken in context, good.

That is not what I said.

Nazis being Nazis is a historical fact, and nobody is arguing that they were racist. It's a silly example for you to use considering you are comparing a known racist thing with something that you argue isn't racist.

But historical videos can be racist depending on what the video is talking about and how it is presented.

Why not the blackface videos then?

I'm not arguing that the presentation of this particular video, or the particular video itself, is racist.

I'm arguing that looking back today at blackface, it is pretty much agreed that blackface is racist.

We don't know what the video was about or how it was presented. So it could have been racist or it could have not been racist.