Overdue Ethnic Studies updates and comments

by David Safier

I've been out of town, so I haven't had a chance to digest the lastest Ethnic Studies/MAS news, let alone comment on it, until now.

Because of the bold move by a group of students to chain themselves to the Board members' chairs, the whole world, as the saying goes, is watching. In an uneven power struggle where those in power have the authority to make decisions affecting those without an official voice, the "voiceless" need to shout loudly and effectively to be heard. That's what this group of young people did. Their "shout" was heard as far away as the UK, where the UK Guardian wrote a strongly favorable article about the protest.

The Board cancelled the meeting. It had no other choice unless it wanted to arrest the students, which would probably have led to enough uproar, the meeting would have been cancelled anyway. The meeting is rescheduled for May 5 (Cinco de Mayo? That might be a bad choice) in a larger meeting room. If the meeting is disrupted again, the same choice may repeat itself — arrest or cancel.

Allow this old English major/English teacher to talk about the symbolism of putting yourselves in a situation where the power structure either has to beat heads, arrest bodies or capitulate. Labor strikers and other protesters do it by picketing in front of a place of business. Gandhi did it by having people lay down on railroad tracks. Vietnam War protesters and anti-nuclear activists did it by chaining themselves to gates leading into war- or nuclear-related facilities. It is a time honored tradition to create a body-to-body confrontation in place of invisible backroom decisions (or public votes where the public can only watch and wait) which have negative effects on people's lives.

Opening yourselves to the possibility of being arrested? Martin Luther King made an art of forcing the law to overreact to his strikes and marches and sit ins, turning oppression that would otherwise have been hidden into a form of theater where the segregationists are forced to become villainous actors in a very public drama.

And chains. Not only does locking yourself to the Board's seats of power — literally — say, "We Shall Not Be Moved." The chains create a visual image of a minority group whose treatment by the majority imprisons them, keeping them locked away, in this case, from achieving their dreams of educational and economic success.

I'm not sure what will happen next. But it's very possible those fighting the resolution to make MAS history courses electives will win again in one way or another. It's also possible that if the Board and/or the Superintendent "win" in the short term, it will actually be a loss for them in the longer run.

I think today's Star editorial gets it exactly wrong. It says the protesters are playing into the hands of those who want to end Ethnic Studies (The Star backs Stegeman's resolution, which surely influenced the editorial's opinion). Sure, Horne, Huppenthal, et al, will try to use this. Horne already has. But my feeling is, telling the protesters to act like good little boys and girls in the face of a situation which will make their lives worse is wrong-headed. It's like telling the Civil Rights era "negroes" they were hurting their cause by acting like "uppity n—–s." "Just keep quiet and stay in your place, or you'll just make things worse for yourself." It's like telling the recent Wisconsin protesters to go home and the Democratic legislators to return to the state house rather than doing themselves even more damage. "The Republicans are going to pass that law eventually. Why make things worse for yourself?" I'll try to restrain myself from making comparisons to the uprisings in the Middle East. The comparison would be apt if the scale weren't so wildly different.

What should Pedicone and the Board do now? They should declare they're delaying the discussion and vote on the Resolution until some time in the future. First, I think it's the right thing to do. Second, even though it will feel like a defeat, it will be a mature action that will forestall the likelihood of a serious confrontation, including posible arrests and maybe injury of students TUSD is tasked to help, which would be a far greater defeat. The May 5 meeting will not resolve this issue. The situation will be worse for everyone if the resolution is brought to the floor than if the discussion is tabled for further thought and review.

A final thought. Where the hell is Board member Miguel Cuevas? He's the tie-breaking vote on the Resolution. He has more than enough information to decide how he plans to vote. If he plans to vote against the Resolution, the whole thing would be over since it would be defeated. If he plans to vote for it, he should have the courage to say so. Either way, he needs to make a clear statement and be ready to defend it in public.