We talked about the characters Skids and Mudflap from the second Transformers movie in my Race and Ethnic studies soc class. I haven’t SEEN the movie, but just the description and picture alone (along with classmates describing them) was ridiculous to me. A GOLD TOOTH AND CURLY HAIR? REALLY? The point I brought up too was that they are supposed to be SPACE ALIEN ROBOTS. How would they have any concept of black American stereotypes or rap music? Anyway, I can get why some people find it offensive.
We have been covering each minority group with a special class focus on specific peoples with a study of a timeline, keys dates and a video and viewing guide. We studied Native Americans on Tues and then African Americans Weds, which is when this robot issue came up.
The video we watched on Native Americans was especially depressing. Monday is no class for the holiday, but Tuesday we talk about Chinese Americans. Considering all the horrible crap they went through after we basically told them, “COME TO AMERICA, BUILD OUR RAILROADS!” and then dumped them as soon as the rails were finished. And that there are specific TERMS like Sinophobia (a fear of anything to do with China) from the history surrounding Chinese relations I can only imagine the video and discussion we have on Tuesday is going to be depressing as well.
This class has definitely stirred up emotions. The two overtly racist acting people that said some insane stuff during class have dropped. They didn’t show up for Monday’s test and I definitely sighed happily. Things are much calmer feeling in that class now. I would be lying if I didn’t say I actually DREADED seeing one of the guys from class. He actually scoffed my smile after class one day because I dared to disagree with his “those people” scenario. He was saying that “those people” shouldn’t be getting handouts. And “those people” use the system and abuse OUR HARD EARNED TAX DOLLARS (hurr durr). It was basically like the episode of South Park when all the hillbillies scream, “THEY’RE TAKIN OUR JERBBBSSS!”
I wanted to punch that guy right in his shitty Celtic knot armband tattoo for even SAYING THE WORDS “THOSE PEOPLE” in a class of such mixed races and cultural backgrounds. All the kids I sit by turned and talked to me after he’d said that. We get a break each class and that class break was especially interesting. We just shook our heads and said under our breath, “Does this guy realize we ARE THOSE PEOPLE!?”
C’est la vie, jerk. I hope you got a W for dropping.
