Tatums article raises a lot of key issues, especially in regards to education and teaching. One of the interesting points she brings up concerns the relationship between a teacher and student when the student is a member of a subordinate group while the teacher is a member of the dominant group. Tatum discusses an essay by Herbert Kohl that suggests that when a teacher treats a student as "other" that student is forced to make a decision between learning from someone who does not respect his or her integrity, or rejecting their world by refusing to learn from them. The question that arose in my mind, then, is;
What if it is the teacher who is a member of a subordinate group and seen by her student(s) as the other? How might this influence the classroom dynamic and how might a teacher overcome this obstacle?
My opinion is that one of the key skills a teacher needs to develop is the ability to take challenges and obstacles and use them as educational tools. Granted, a teacher is one voice among thousands, fighting against or trying to work with the multitudes of other influences in a child's life. However, if the student has developed these views of "us" and "other" via his or her parents or the media, or any of the other numerous influences in a child's life, the teacher still has the right and obligation as an educator to offer alternative views and to educate on tolerance and equality (though I hate the term tolerance, as it implies something that needs to be tolerated). A teacher might take it as an opportunity to discuss her own culture, race, etc and those of her students with the goal of making each group not seem so foreign to the other. Multicultural days are a great option and allow students to get creative and share things like food, art, songs, etc with one another.
Another issue raised by Tatum is that of beauty standards. She uses the example of hair and the desire by many in the black community to straighten their hair to make it look "whiter." According to Tatum, there is a general notion of straight "white" hair as being "good hair" and that this is a form of internalized oppression. The question that came to my mind when I read this was;
Does this apply to the beauty standards that white people have adopted from the black community as well? Does the fact that having a "white persons bum" (a more polite term than the one usually used) is considered an insult, or the fact that white women who usually have thinner lips than black women feel the need to get collagen injections symbolize a negation of the beauty of whiteness?
My belief is that, in a way, yes. Whiteness has become dichotomy; on one hand it is represented as the ideal standard of beauty by the media. On the other, it has also become associated with certain undesirable attributes. My belief is that, when it comes to issues of beauty, everyone is a victim of unattainable standards enforced by the media, and it should be a topic on which everyone can come together to overcome rather than another method of division.
Edit: It occurred to me as well that there is another standard of "coolness" which has become associated with blackness, specifically in relation to hip hop. More and more I have noticed that young white people (especially males) are adopting the hip hop and rap subculture which initiated as a black empowerment movent, and are trying to be more "black" --- by that I mean the stereotype of blackness. It strikes me as ironic that white males are striving to achieve the stereotype that black people are trying to get rid of. I wonder if this is due to the fact that white people are not given as many opportunities to explore or consider their race as an element of their identity...
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Monday, September 10, 2007
What does it mean to have cultural identity?
As a student of anthropology, the subject of culture is one that I feel very passionate about. Culture (at least from an anthropological perspective) is a combination of abstract values, beliefs, and perceptions that manifest and reflect themselves in people’s behaviours. There are four specific characteristics of culture;
1) Culture is shared. Culture is something unique that binds people together and is intelligible to other members of that culture. Specifically, culture is a means by which groups of people become able to predict one another’s behaviour and know how to react accordingly. It is important to note that the concept of culture differs from that of society. Society refers to geographic groups of people, and often a society can have within it a wide array of cultural groups (like Quebec). In addition, while it is shared, culture is not uniform! No two members of a culture will have identical interpretations of their culture. Smaller subculture groups exist within larger cultural groups.
2) Culture is learned. Culture is NOT BIOLOGICALLY INHERITED! Culture is learned and transmitted from one generation to the next through the process of enculturation. The color of your skin DOES NOT determine your culture, the environment you grew up in, the groups you belong to, and the resulting values, customs, beliefs, and norms that you learn determine your culture.
3) Culture is based on symbols. Art and religion are both parts of culture that involve symbols. Take, for example, a Christian cross, an Islamic crescent, a Jewish Star of David, these symbols mean something to the cultures that use them; they are symbolic of a specific cultures philosophy or creed. At the heart of the symbolic aspect of culture is language, the shared use of words (symbols) to describe the world around oneself.
4) Culture is integrated. I don’t want to get into this point too much since I could go on for pages, and this isn’t an anthropology class, but generally speaking, it refers to the fact that all parts of a culture function together in an interrelated whole.
Source: Crawford, G., Fedorak, S., Haviland, W., & Lee, R. (2002). Cultural Anthropology. Toronto: Nelson.
The video that I would encourage everyone to watch is can be found through the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAARrZpX2l0 it is called Mifugo Ni Mail which means “Herd is richness” and depicts the Maasai Paracuyo culture. It includes images of their daily lives, traditions and rituals and you can get a glimpse of the integrated and interrelated element of their culture. In addition it is very interesting to see how they have incorporated Catholicism within their culture, and how they interpret it as a result of their culture. Furthermore, there is a section that talks specifically about education, and the man who speaks at the end of the clip has some very profound words that I think are important for everyone to remember. While it may seem disconnected from our lives here in Canada, it’s important to recognize that individual, distinct cultures exist within the framework of our society, and it’s vital that we acknowledge, treasure, protect and respect those things that make us unique as well as those things that tie us all together.
1) Culture is shared. Culture is something unique that binds people together and is intelligible to other members of that culture. Specifically, culture is a means by which groups of people become able to predict one another’s behaviour and know how to react accordingly. It is important to note that the concept of culture differs from that of society. Society refers to geographic groups of people, and often a society can have within it a wide array of cultural groups (like Quebec). In addition, while it is shared, culture is not uniform! No two members of a culture will have identical interpretations of their culture. Smaller subculture groups exist within larger cultural groups.
2) Culture is learned. Culture is NOT BIOLOGICALLY INHERITED! Culture is learned and transmitted from one generation to the next through the process of enculturation. The color of your skin DOES NOT determine your culture, the environment you grew up in, the groups you belong to, and the resulting values, customs, beliefs, and norms that you learn determine your culture.
3) Culture is based on symbols. Art and religion are both parts of culture that involve symbols. Take, for example, a Christian cross, an Islamic crescent, a Jewish Star of David, these symbols mean something to the cultures that use them; they are symbolic of a specific cultures philosophy or creed. At the heart of the symbolic aspect of culture is language, the shared use of words (symbols) to describe the world around oneself.
4) Culture is integrated. I don’t want to get into this point too much since I could go on for pages, and this isn’t an anthropology class, but generally speaking, it refers to the fact that all parts of a culture function together in an interrelated whole.
Source: Crawford, G., Fedorak, S., Haviland, W., & Lee, R. (2002). Cultural Anthropology. Toronto: Nelson.
The video that I would encourage everyone to watch is can be found through the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAARrZpX2l0 it is called Mifugo Ni Mail which means “Herd is richness” and depicts the Maasai Paracuyo culture. It includes images of their daily lives, traditions and rituals and you can get a glimpse of the integrated and interrelated element of their culture. In addition it is very interesting to see how they have incorporated Catholicism within their culture, and how they interpret it as a result of their culture. Furthermore, there is a section that talks specifically about education, and the man who speaks at the end of the clip has some very profound words that I think are important for everyone to remember. While it may seem disconnected from our lives here in Canada, it’s important to recognize that individual, distinct cultures exist within the framework of our society, and it’s vital that we acknowledge, treasure, protect and respect those things that make us unique as well as those things that tie us all together.
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