Abu Ghraib has no meaning

OMG they did not recognize this image. It was only 6 years ago (Spring 2003)! Are they really so sheltered? So unaware? But okay, they were teenagers. Maybe their parents kept them from seeing the images from Abu Ghraib.

Still it makes me wonder how to teach the meaning of this and other events. I teach from a place of experience, of having events in the real world propel me to look for meaning. Of working with others to "sense-make", and in turn, to create change.

That's what I, and I'm sure other ethnic-studies professors, bring to teaching. And yet, what is this image to my students? I can express myself passionately, I can tell them the meaning, but will they feel it? Will they get it? Will it make them feel connected to other's suffering? Will it propel them to action, or at least to look for meaning, too? So what is the whole exercise of ethnic studies about, anyway?

Anyway, this isn't a soul-searching moment that I'm expressing. Just a reaction to my second day of class. I've got 38 students, though today only 23 showed up because of snow. I asked if anyone knew who Maj Gen Antonio Taguba is. As expected, not many knew. I pulled up this photo, thinking I would then make a point about how only parts of a story get embedded in the public psyche, and that we often forget really important people. But their psyche was empty. Al laa.

I got a similar shock when I first started teaching and no one could tell me what People Power was. It had meaning for me when it happened because I was a whitewashed 2nd year college student with a politically connected roommate. So even though I didn't really want to care, he kept the TV on the story and I, like many others, was gripped by the nuns kneeling in front of the tanks. It was one of my consciousness raising moments. But most of my students weren't even born yet. That really woke me up.

But 2003?!?!