Power & Race

Overall, I am really happy with the way our (Race) presentation went today, but I'm also really glad that it was paired with the Power presentation. I suppose that Power kind of goes along with all the subgroups, but it was a really great way to synthesize all of the discussions going on across our courses right now. 

The Power group presented really great new ideas about the correlation between power and information. I don't think we really came to a consensus, but I don't know if anyone really can. Overall it just sounded like the censoring of information by any public institution is bad, whether that is the state or a public school system or the public library. Concealment of knowledge from the public is a misuse of power by the state. 

I saw a great quote about this the other night on Pinterest: "The books that call the world immoral are the books that show the world its own shame" - Oscar Wilde

The big issue is that for the most part the government is run by the racial majority. Which means that the majority race gets to decide what goes into "public knowledge" and on a smaller scale, what goes into public school as the "canon". That's our real issue as teachers. We must deconstruct the idea of "normative" and seek our own personal self.