(NAME-MCE) Intellectual lynching

Tue Jul 15 14:25:22 EDT 2008

Teja so well stated. Aesthetic negation, a by product of our educational system gives?us daily forms of intellectual lynching. What is taught in school has to be reinscribed in the media. In this cullture visual image is power. Today Intellectual lynchings can be slow, as the characteristically rough gymp of noose rope is replaced contemporarily by staging within various media formats. For instance, yesterday Barack is highlighted for his "audacity" to have an innocent interview that highlights his family and their loving relationship on a network entertainment program. 

Today the character of the rope for intellectual lynching has changed to media dispersal of image, such as the racist laden?New Yorker cover. As an veteran art educator, I have come to believe aesthetic values are a part of our psychological makeup. As I prepare for the fall, questions surface beneath the technological gallows of education. How will these images impact students? conversations and artmaking based on coexistent truths.?The critique by Matt Lauer on the appearance of the Obama family leaves me confused, Is it a directive reminiscent of racial ettiquette?or the premier of a standard all will be held to in the future???

I am glad you are producing a PBS special that will help?bring attention to how the remorping of Jim Crow provides technological nooses made of canons that comprize our American fabric. Be sure to talk about Oliver Harrington , an African American political cartoonist and expartiot who would bring enlightened undertanding to the political cartoonist at the New Yorker. Thanks to Harrington the community of color has long seen critical political cartoons that allow for emic perspective, and therefore look for?informed approaches to context, imagery, and audience predisposition.
?
Medhurst and Desousa once said cartoon commentary safely implies or reflects a cultural/political truism. In teacher education programs that focus on the arts, what multiculltural pedagogies prepare teachers to counter these racist images with Harrington's important political cartoons pertaining to civil rights? What teacher training programs and arts programs make sure that those who are to be a part of staffs such as the New Yorker could bring context to the origins of race and political cartooning? My experiences tell me that credentialing teacher educplaulette? Spuirrel ation institutions who produce consumers of?the unaccomplished stages of educational reform face a myrid of challenges (see Banks, Gorski, Wade Boykin, Geneva Gay, Sonia Nieto,and Paulette Spuirrell Fleming?). Truth is ultimately arrived at when classroom teachers shut their doors. ?It is a mulltifacetated problem and I am glad NAME makes space for corageous conversations.

Please let?me know how your project is progressing.

d.

-----Original Message-----
From: Teja Arboleda <Teja at EntertainingDiversity.com>
To: name-mce at nameorg.org
Sent: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 9:13 am
Subject: Re: (NAME-MCE) Intellectual lynching

Intellectual lynching, as we know is prevalent and in many cases, the
driving force within the economic and social needs of many institutions. As
a professor, actor and television producer, this is what I talk about and
produce about, and yet, most of the world doesn't listen - rather, they
don't want to listen. I'm producing a new series of PBS, and the 'sell' for
the series, even for PBS is a struggle, because of what people are
comfortable with - yes, even the PBS audience.

My father's mother was from Hilton Head. Most of my Black relatives live in
trailers, mobile homes, and are systematically being squeezed off the land.
If a girl cries because she doesn't want to teach in a system with Black
kids, then I ask this question: Is she crying because she is scared? Or is
she crying because she feels guilty?

As an actor, I know that there will always be people of color in the
audition waiting rooms, but they won't actually get the jobs -this is the
way casting companies can prove to the world that they do audition, and
value diversity. But we know for a fact that Chris Tucker (Rush Hour I, II
and III) represents what the world wants to see - and he bows to the system
because it makes him wealthy. We talk about this in my last documentary,
"Crossing The Line: Multiracial Comedians".

And as a professor, I know that most young people have not been taught to
think outside of their experiences (including the limitations of diversity
in the media), so how can we expect them to jump in to a world that they've
been taught to be scared of? One of my interns who knows very well the kind
of work that I do told me that she doesn't like Black people (I nearly
jumped out of my seat). She explained that two Black guys killed her aunt,
and she was sexually molested by two Black men. I flipped the story by
eliminating the 'Black' quotient, and emphasized 'Men'. She stopped, thought
about it, shook her head as if she just realized that it's Men she doesn't
like, including her boyfriend...now that made me laugh!

Early experie
nces in life is what designs us. Without investing in the
future by training children to absorb diversity (not 'tolerate', because
that suggests resistance, and not 'acceptance' because that suggests
struggle), then intellectual lynching will be the design for profit and
power. 

--
There is no box.

Teja Arboleda, M.Ed.
Entertaining Diversity, Inc.
PO Box 126, Dedham, MA 02027
(781) 329-7040

Member: National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME)
Member: Alliance for a Media Literate America (AMLA)
Member: Filmmakers Collaborative

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