Post Reading Week 1

The students and faculty who protested against their own administration in 1968 were fighting for an end to racial discrimination and bias in academics.  In a white dominated society, students who belonged to various “minority” groups felt that they were not learning things in school that pertained to their own cultures and lives.  Upset by this lack of academic equality, students challenged their administration to offer courses and programs that would allow for greater equality in education with regard to non-whites.  They achieved a great step towards their end goal when, after holding one of the longest student strikes in United States history, the protesters managed to get the university to create a College of Ethnic studies.  

Monteiro argues that traditional history classes would actually be outlawed under HB 2281 because they 'primarily teach the history of white people and white studies'.  I would agree with this statement based on the kind of education that I have received throughout my academic career.  

Schools have always had various standards with regard to what should be taught in schools, standards that base themselves on ideals of a white dominated society.  The result is an education system that better adheres to a white perspective.  In turn, this education creates students that see history from the same perspective, perpetuating white influence and dominance in society.   

Before a high school teacher of mine taught us about all of these problems and how they still affect many Americans today, I unquestionably learned the historical perspective that we have all been designed to adhere to.  From this High School teacher I learned that, quite often, the truth to histories taught in schools is either skewed or even outright dismissed.  As I have said in class, what is often represented is a “glorified” version of the past that hides certain truths to uphold a more positive image of white history.  An example that exemplifies this idea is the topic of slavery in the United States.  Most often, the typical high school history class will go over the topic of slavery, discuss the idea that yes, whites once owned slaves and that this segment of history is negative, but hardly is this history done justice with regard to conveying how brutally oppressive this time period was.  What we end up learning is the version of history that represents the actions of whites in as positive a way as can be.  Since this is the type of history that is always represented to us, then, under HB2281, these classes would also be outlawed for their focus on a single ethnic group’s perspective.  
434 words