Community organizers

So here is my OMG from today's class:

OMG they don't know why or how "community organizer" became such a loaded term! Ok, one person knew that Obama considered himself a community organizer. But no one remembered that Sarah Palin disparaged them. Where were they?!?!?! Just 5 months ago, right? Sheltered? Inattentive? Selective? Or maybe Palin's comment didn't have that much play except among those of us who got offended. Hmmmm.

But today was a good class. We discussed "Philip Vera Cruz: A Personal History..." with questions like these:

• Let’s call Philip Vera Cruz a community organizer. A loaded term, I know. So let’s reload it. How do you think Philip Vera Cruz would define “community organizer”? Think in terms of knowledge, qualities, skills and other factors that you think are important.

I also asked about his lessons in leadership and coalition building and participation. Most importantly, I threw all sorts of current events into the mix: harassment of day laborers, "illegal immigrants," the stimulus package, majority rules, bi-partisan "compromise", driving while brown. What does Philip Vera Cruz's personal history have to tell us about these issues? Got a lot of participation! And my favorite, we got some disagreement and surfaced some prejudice. Teachable moments! Yeah!

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?!?!