Marquez said he views consolidation as “a big push to just dump us into this ethnic studies trash can.... We’re always trying to make something out of nothing... We’ve been defunded, we’ve been neglected, we’ve been marginalized."
December 12, 2014
"Some leaders say consolidating four ethnic studies programs could save money..."
"... while others, including Political Science Professor Ben Marquez, the former Chican@ and Latin@ Studies chair, said it exemplified a greater pattern of marginalization...."
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They should consolidate them into non existence.
""We’ve been defunded, we’ve been neglected, we’ve been marginalized.""
Because your real-world value is marginal. Talk to an econ prof in the faculty lounge. He'll explain it.
Not marginalized enough.
One could do a fine major in Spanish/Latin American literature, or music, or art, or history, but that's not what these people want to do.
It seems that there is little desire to broaden outlooks and think bigger thoughts.
Cervantes and Madariaga are out of the picture.
"We’ve been defunded, we’ve been neglected, we’ve been marginalized."
And the bad news is?
Oh Christ, now there's a right to teach victimization studies?
Which amendment can this penumbra be found at?
and besides all that, what's up with the @ signs?
"We've always been trying to make something out of nothing."
How true.
"and besides all that, what's up with the @ signs?"
Gender equality.
If you Google what careers can you have with an ethnic studies major, you'll see there are a lot of options — more than you might think.
Calling someone a "Professor of [fill in the blank] Studies" is right up there with "Sanitation Engineer".
"One popular career option for majors is teaching, either in colleges and universities or secondary schools at the K-12 level. Another career option is in the counseling (clinical, career, or academic) field. A career in law can make good use of the major's specialized knowledge of underrepresented communities. That knowledge is also useful in many different careers, such as: journalism, marketing, community and housing development, radio and television, health and medicine, community and union organizing, social work, and a wide variety of positions in federal, state, and local governments as well as those at the city and county levels."
"We’re always trying to make something out of nothing."
Yup.
We’ve been defunded, we’ve been neglected, we’ve been marginalized."
He says that like its a bad thing.....
Their use of @ is a f@rce to be reckoned with.
Sanitation engineer may not be a real title, but there certainly are real engineers in this field, and woe to anyone who tries to get along without them.
Its a fine useful career providing an essential service.
If you Google what careers can you have with an ethnic studies major, you'll see there are a lot of options — more than you might think.
You can also have all those careers with a major in underwater basket weaving if ( as with ethnic studies ) you also get a degree in the field in which you want to work.
So, you come from an ethnic neighborhood, and then you have to study it in college.
Aren't all these programs inherently racist@?
Would they grant a certificate in white@ people studies?
What's the purpose of the @ at the end of the words?
What they really want is a handicapped parking pass, but all they could manage was a certificate in racist@ studies.
Hagar said...
and besides all that, what's up with the @ signs?
It's p@rt of the newest in-gr@up c@de; if y@u're n@t @ne @f the C@@l Kidz - @nd @bvi@usly y@u're n@t, @r y@u w@uldn't be @sking - y@u'll need a Secret Dec@der Ring(TM) t@ figure @ut th@t it me@ns n@thing except "I'm @ne of the C@@l Kidz!"
"The programs have not had their funding drastically cut, but being relatively small means any funding declines have large consequences."
Consolidation addresses this problem.
A teacher who is truly fluent in Spanish and who has an excellent background in Spanish literature and philosophy (who in US academia is majoring in Unamuno and Ortega y Gasset?) Would seem to bring more to the educational table than these "studies".
"One popular career option for majors is teaching, either in colleges and universities or secondary schools at the K-12 level. Another career option is in the counseling (clinical, career, or academic) field. A career in law can make good use of the major's specialized knowledge of underrepresented communities. That knowledge is also useful in many different careers, such as: journalism, marketing, community and housing development, radio and television, health and medicine, community and union organizing, social work, and a wide variety of positions in federal, state, and local governments as well as those at the city and county levels."
So all bullshit ephemera that will disappear when the political or economic winds blow hard enough.
"One popular career option for majors is teaching, either in colleges and universities or secondary schools at the K-12 level."
Shudder. Great way to perpetuate the sense of victimization.
OT - on Drudge right now:
a picture of Anna Wintour over the tease Rat problem worsens at One World Trade Center offices of CONDE NAST...
Some leaders say consolidating four ethnic studies programs could save money...
I assume one of those leaders is Captain Obvious.
Any major ending in the word "Studies" is not really credit for an academic discipline. It credit for some kind of one off study of a true discipline or not a discipline at all.
and besides all that, what's up with the @ signs?
It is an attempt to hide from themselves the inherent gender biases in the Hispanic/Spanish languages.
Nouns are masculine or feminine. Further more the articles associated with those nouns are also genderizes. La = feminine El= male. Those ending with the letter "a" are feminine. Mesa = table = feminine object. Chico = boy or young male = masculine Chica = girl = feminine.
Because the Latin languages have words that are masculine or feminine, these woymen are trying to hide from their own heritage by writing it as Chic@.
They want to fool themselves and can't face the reality of their very own heritage. Or the reality of life in general.
And I'm sure that there are lots of opportunities in the Diversity HR Departments of major Corporations.
These departments add zilch to the production of a product or the delivery of a service. They are a display of right thinking and a huge overhead that makes products and services more expensive.
Higher education is a business industry. It makes money on the ignorance of students and parents combined with the corruption of government and universities.
But the marks are starting to catch on. So the street crews are going to feel the squeeze first before the capos. And the capos before the dons.
Not marginalization, assimilation. Welcome to America, Marquez. What are your intentions?
Heck, even a major in medieval Spanish fantasy literature, the stuff that Cervantes made fun of, would be a fine course of study. It was a major part of the worldview of the conquerors and ended up shaping their colonies and their institutions. Besides which it is a rich, untapped source of material for a genre writer and Hollywood.
And it is great, bizarre fun.
The state of California was named after a place (and a character) in a sixteenth century fantasy novel.
Consider renaming California "Lorien" or "Gondor", to get an idea of the weirdness.
Ann Althouse said...Ann Althouse said...
If you Google what careers can you have with an ethnic studies major, you'll see there are a lot of options — more than you might think.
Respectfully, your list is exactly what I would have guessed without thinking much at all! Teach studies, work in gov. promoting the special interestes of the "studies" group, advocate for that group in law, medicine, a union, or for an NGO/special interest advocacy group.
I can't find the most recent red vs blue job title chart I saw but this one looks pretty good (for political contributions by job type)...the list you quoted seems to line up pretty well with the blue part of that graph. I am unsurprised.
...or secondary schools at the K-12 level.
Secondary schools are (7 or 9) - 12
They definitely do no include K-6.
I wonder what kind of studies major wrote that?
On the @, thank you for the explanation. I was not aware of this absurdity and fanaticism.
The Hispanics in the Empire of Spain had to learn 50 different racial status categories to identify the % of Spaniards, Incas Blacks, Aztecs and others. This keeping the mixed races straight is a full time job. Gringos have had it easy.
"If you Google what careers can you have with an ethnic studies major, you'll see there are a lot of options — more than you might think."
Yep, and if that's what you want in education or hiring or many other of the listed disciplines, go for it. Especially HR, what a tremendous choice.
Carnac says you'll be getting a lot more than you anticipated. And your legal staff might be more active. Win-win, right professor.
Blogger Rob said...
Their use of @ is a f@rce to be reckoned with.
That is brilliant!
Some leaders say consolidating four ethnic studies programs could save money...
My employer once consolidated all of the deadwood into one "team" where they could be useless together and not get in the way of productive people. Maybe the same thing here.
What a concept. Dumping four "trash can" ethnic studies programs into one big dumpster.
And in a few years a big truck will show up from Waste Management Inc, the nation's biggest trash hauler, and take the dumpster away.
Hispanic individuals going to UW-Madison to major in Chican@ Studies? There is a Cheech and Chong song about that one.
The racial categories were only necessary because the Spanish were such poor racists that they thought it proper to marry (yes, true, often to get a claim on the natives duly recognized property) the native women.
Hence there was an intense rate of race-mixing, even to a degree in the Spanish aristocracy. There is still a duque de Moctezuma, a direct descendant I believe.
"If you Google what careers can you have with an ethnic studies major, you'll see there are a lot of options — more than you might think."
Per UC Berkeley
"One popular career option for majors is teaching, either in colleges and universities or secondary schools at the K-12 level. Another career option is in the counseling (clinical, career, or academic) field. A career in law can make good use of the major's specialized knowledge of underrepresented communities. That knowledge is also useful in many different careers, such as: journalism, marketing, community and housing development, radio and television, health and medicine, community and union organizing, social work, and a wide variety of positions in federal, state, and local governments as well as those at the city and county levels."
So mostly government job and community organizing, but I repeat myself.
Kids, let me tell you a little secret.
When you are looking for a job and they see the word "studies" on your resume, they will figure you are a stupid, lazy, whiny, self-pitying fool and a lawsuit waiting to happen.
They will immediately call the Hazmat team who will come out with giant tongs to carry your resume out to the toxic waste incinerator.
Pick another major.
Oops, I see the Professor has already posted the text from the Berkeley website.
Your not going to be working in any field that actually creates any wealth. You are going to be working to redistribute what others create.
I have noticed, in a couple of articles about the fake rape stories, that somewhere in the story is a campus officer/administrator that is an alumna (alumn@ ?) of the university.
This person (with a title along the lines of "Second Assistant to the Associate Dean of Campus Diversity Monitoring, Sexual Harassment and Plastics Recycling") turns out to be a recent graduate from one of the Studies programs.
This is the career path our hostess alludes to; spend four or five years getting a degree that is worthless in the real world, but brown nose the right people and after graduation, get hired by your school/department to right all the wrongs you've been so assiduously studying for the past years.
Its kind of a Perpetual Bullshit Machine.
But it is a great gig for the lucky few; 80K a year to start, benefits, don't have leave the warm confines of the campus, and some POWER. Lets get those evil fraternities, we've got POWER now.
But wait, it seems there are a few remaining adults in the hierarchy (hier@rchy ?); they are wracking their brains for a way to get rid of these totally discredited and eternally embarrassing studies programs. Consolidation ! Instead of shrinking separately they can all shrink together. A consolidated program only needs one "Second Assistant to the Associate Dean of Campus Diversity Monitoring, Sexual Harassment and Plastics Recycling" instead of one each for four separate programs.
Its a direct threat to the Perpetual Bullshit Machine.
"Oops, I see the Professor has already posted the text from the Berkeley website."
Yeah, I didn't bother to say it is Berkeley.
Wouldn't you think Berkeley would see the problem with the phrase "federal, state, and local governments as well as those at the city and county levels"?
Didn't Althouse once express the opinion that these "studies" academic specialties were created in the 1960s solely to put minorities and women in tenured positions?
"Engineer" is not protected; thus sanitation engineer, hairstyling engineer, computer engineer, engineer on the Santa Fe, etc.
"Professional Engineer" in whatever field is protected, and you can be charged and prosecuted for thus misrepresenting yourself.
The @ is just a combination of 'a' (feminine) and 'o' (masculine) in one character. It's kind of genius, if you think about it from a purely practical point of view. Compare the awkwardness of he/she. It doesn't look all that great aesthetically, though. And the politics of it, beyond the practicality, is a whole different discussion.
People are starting to realize that a lot of degrees aren't worth much in the real world, particularly in relation to the associated student debt.
Como se dice "Melting Pot" in chican@?
buwaya puti:
The Chinese also use intermarriage in their colonial efforts, notably in Africa. But, to be fair, after planned parenthood decimated the Chinese female population, they really have no viable alternative. And they desperately need to pair their postpubescent males, as well as recover resources from their de facto colonies.
What buwaya puti and Bill R said.
I can see a lot of value in a Spanish history or literature degree. There a lot of Spanish speaking people out there that many companies would love to sell stuff to.
An Ethnic Studies degree?
It seems to me that is someone who has been indoctrinated to consider me an oppressor.
"Wouldn't you think Berkeley would see the problem with the phrase "federal, state, and local governments as well as those at the city and county levels"?"
Well the people who wrote the text were most likely Ethnic Studies majors.
Oddly enough, in spite of the ethnic separatists, the intermarriage rate of "Hispanic" and white people in the US is very high, probably as high as the white-asian rate. And it seems to have been so for a long time, in the West.
"We’ve been defunded, we’ve been neglected, we’ve been marginalized."
Which should never happen because there's A Natural Law of Cosmic Justice that says these programs can only grow, but never ever shrink?
"Rivera said she felt no one was interested in getting to know people with different backgrounds and that they believed her differences in experience were trivial.
This frustration led her to pursue a certificate in Chican@ and Latin@ Studies..."
And thus she was insulated from "getting to know people with different backgrounds". It also assured she was reinforced in her belief that the differences in her experience were paramount. And raycizt.
"That knowledge is also useful in many different careers, such as: journalism, marketing, community and housing development, radio and television..."
I doubt it. Grievance mongering is a poor knowledge base for reaching out to customers and communicating features and benefits of goods and services. I can see journalism (though as a former writer and editor of an award winning newspaper it pains to acknowledge this is now true!) and government jobs belonging on this list. But please, keep these creepy degrees out of my profession. It's bad enough we tend to attract huge egos and corporate climbers. We don't need the perpetually disenchfranchise-focused making our team meetings even more tedious.
We are victims! Fund us!
Althouse wrote: If you Google what careers can you have with an ethnic studies major, you'll see there are a lot of options — more than you might think.
This reminds me of my days in art school. My dad used to send me newspaper clippings to the effect that "experts agree that any university degree can lead to job opportunities."
It turned out the experts were right, but that was in the 1980s. I can't imagine being so sanguine for my kids when they enter college.
We’ve been defunded, we’ve been neglected, we’ve been marginalized...we've been losing credibility, we've been losing students, we've been losing money...
RE: the use of @
If you read the postings from academics at the Chronicle of Higher Education, you will see that a popular term in the comments is "hu" as is "human" with the "man" deleted.
That was a while back; haven't been there in a while. Some of the postings there are jaw dropping - you don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Higher Education Bubble Update. There will be some natural selection taking place as education studies, subsidized by loans which doesn't result in a real and viable career will surely fade out. Young people without big mommy-daddy input are feeling very unsure of the whole system.
Most students in those couldn't pass the GED or the US citizenship test.
But they're in college...
"Rivera said she felt no one was interested in getting to know people with different backgrounds and that they believed her differences in experience were trivial."
So her beef is that people should have been awed by the her based on the hardships she had to overcome, but they didn't seem to believe those hardships were actually all that bad.
So she pursued a degree in a field that assures her that she has had to overcome much hardship, much of it invisible, and that the people who fail to acknowledge that are, in fact, the same people who are oppressing her.
Neat trick.
I am ashamed to admit there is an academic in my family: my only sibling is a professor in the sociology dept. of the CA State system. She is proud that many of her sociology majors are from the poorer, minority demographic -often the first in the family to ever go to college.
When she told me that, I responded with: "HUH? They get a chance to better their lives, and instead of picking a practical major like engineering, nursing, accounting or, GOD FORBID, going to vocational school to learn a well paying trade...they pick a useless major like sociology?"
"and besides all that, what's up with the @ signs?"
Gender equality.
Why not use the LGBT approved ⚧ transgender symbol and cover all the bases?
"They get a chance to better their lives, and instead of picking a practical major like engineering, nursing, accounting or, GOD FORBID, going to vocational school to learn a well paying trade...they pick a useless major like sociology?"
My wife and I don't have any kids, but her nephews and nieces are all "first generation to go to college," as am I, and they all majored in nursing or accounting or pharmacology.
Except that those majors will be at an extreme disadvantage in getting into those fields.
The Education racket and Teachers Unions prefer to restrict teaching those who majored in Education. E.g. in many states a chemist with a chemistry degree cannot teach chemistry in high school, at least not without additional "education". The same type of issues exist with the other career choices. They could become lawyers or electricians, too, but not without additional education and credentialing.
It seems to me these professors are taking advantage of vulnerable, naive, poorly advised kids. It is fraud.
The best thing would be to stop their having joint appointments in other departments, where they act as diversity zampolits. There may not be many of them, but there weren't many Bolsheviks either. Ruthlessness makes up for numbers.
They are programs of study about nothing. They are sure to be a hit.
"The Education racket and Teachers Unions prefer to restrict teaching those who majored in Education."
A friend of mine decided he would go into teaching after he retired from the Army. Had to go back to college for two years to get an Education degree.
He taught middle school for two years in an inner-city school before quiting. He couldn't stand the bureaucracy.
"specialized knowledge of underrepresented communities"
In other words, there are many careers available based on your ability to tell people about the importance of all the differences between us. Why does this sound like a self-licking ice cream cone?
Speaking of Berkeley, local /city govmt and sanitation engineers: The recent heavy rains deeply flooded the Ashby Ave underpass, drowning several cars and thoroughly blocking that access to the city. One TV report mentioned that the drainage pumps had failed.
My immediate thought was "Of course they did." When a member of the Berkeley city council uses the word "infrastructure", they don't mean nasty greasy stuff like drainage pumps, they mean teams of academics publishing reports on diversity in city department regulatory compliance staff.
Hence the flooding.
"He couldn't stand the bureaucracy."
The military could be considered one of the most layered, bureaucratic systems on the face of the earth. The fact that an ex-military type found the educational system to be too much is really saying something, IMHO.
Three credits of ethnic studies is a degree requirement at the U of Wisc. Those courses aren't only for the dunderheads.
Ethnic studies "considers ethnic/racial minorities that have been marginalized or discriminated against in the U.S" [Faculty Document 1736].
From the Berkeley blurb: "A career in law can make good use of the major's specialized knowledge of underrepresented communities."
It would be far more accurate if the sentence read, "A career in law can make good use of the major's specialized knowledge of activist approaches to underrepresented communities."
As a naive first year university student, I had some intellectual curiosity in the various "xyz studies" subject areas, and I considered taking a few. I imagined that the programs would involve rigorous examinations of the experiences of the groups in question, viewed through the prism of culture and history, finding the universal and the unique, and fitting these experiences into a larger framework of our shared society. I "shopped" a few of those courses, and I realized quickly that they had little resemblance to what I imagined.
I really didn't understand at first that the "xyz studies" weren't so much about the "studies" as they were about formalized training in unsubstantiated "theory" for people who wanted to become leftist activists. In a way, these undergraduate programs are nothing more than professional certification courses.
LOL, "oh that stupid Spanish language, with its gendered nouns! Gender is icky! Gender is bendy and stretchy and wibbly-wobbly! @@@!!!!"
You've really got to wonder if they're literally mentally retarded -- if you administered an old-school IQ test whether they'd be in the 70s.
Besides, isn't it "cultural appropriation" to tell Chicanos that they're not actually Chicanos because their language is inappropriately penised?
Three credits of Spanish language as a practical conversational tool, would be a far more useful way to open a channel to the relevant ethnic minorities than three credits of an ethnic studies course.
Obviously this stuff is not required for any practical purpose.
It seems to me that these types of course requirements are a form of make-work for the departments.
If you get a perfect score in one of these departments' classes, do you get an @?
kcom -- uh, no. It's not genius. It's illiterate.
If you want to develop a language that doesn't have gender in it, and get it adopted and used, do so. Otherwise, that's simply "wrong".
(Does that still exist in this language anymore? What about "incorrect"?)
@ Dust Bunny Queen Well said.
BTW, the US is already a full-time ongoing ethnic studies course. Most of the population (OK, maybe not backwards places like Wisconsin, but all the civilized regions, like Texas and California) now live cheek by jowl with ethnic minorities. They talk to them, supervise them, are supervised by them, teach them, are taught by them, marry them, etc. The most parochial people left seem to be those that think that ethnic studies are necessary.
Heck, my family is a PhD level ethnic studies course on its own.
People once used travel and work to learn about other cultures. Now, one must take courses with exquisite explanations about how each culture has been victimized. Apparently, you learn wrong things when you experience them first hand.
"..We’ve been defunded, we’ve been neglected, we’ve been marginalized."
Faster please...
"We’re always trying to make something out of nothing"
Truer words were never spoken. Not they way he meant it, though.
>>"We’ve been defunded, we’ve been neglected, we’ve been marginalized."
Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
"... dump us into this ethnic studies trash can ..."
Can we get video of that?
>>Apparently, you learn wrong things when you experience them first hand.
Yes. Life loses something in the original.
It now takes a truly superior education to be unable to see cause and effect. It's all circular logic:
1. White people (usually men) are privileged because they have access to higher education and the power network.
2. We need quotas to ensure that minorities and women get access to higher education and, thus, to power.
3. The white power structure used the Bakke decision to outlaw quotas.
4. We must emphasize the importance of diversity to circumvent Bakke.
5. Women's and ethnic study program reinforce why diversity is important.
6. Those uninterested in identity politics avoid women's and ethnic studies like the plague.
7. Strained budgets call into question the continued existence of marginal programs.
8. Hence, the importance of women's and ethic studies must be defended at all costs.
9. The existence of a "rape culture" and "check your privilege" emphasize that white men have too much power and must be corrected at all times.
How do you pronounce "@" within the context of "latin@?"
It seems this is a construct developed by people who engage in very little face-to-face verbal communication. With written communication, if you know the rules and are wise to the game, the "@" construct can provide a self satisfied odor of sanctimony as it simmers on the backburner. What happens once "@" passes into the realm of verbal communication. Does one say, "I majored in Chican-at Studies?" If it was silly before, it becomes downright boneheaded in a verbal context.
Which then illustrates the Never-Neverland of the whole "studies" category in academia. A shallow, fetid swamp, which in the minds of studies majors is the Cibola of their dreams. Their line of work does not and cannot exist within the real world, so a fantasy world with its own rules has to be created from thin air in order to give their lives validity. This includes the appropriation and restructuring of language to suit their insular worldview. It's not surprising that they get bent out of shape when structural underpinnings of that view are challenged by reality.
What do you call defunding, neglecting and marginalizing ethnic studies programs? A good start.
It seems to me the sole purpose of people with degrees in whatever-ethnic studies is to complain that there aren't enough [insert "oppressed" minority group here] with real jobs.
Chef Mono,
It's pronounced exactly like the opening calls in Gloria Estefan's "The rhythm is gonna get you"
"We’ve been defunded, we’ve been neglected, we’ve been marginalized."
Keep going. Keep going.
If they needed to grab some academics to deal with proper Hispanic academic subjects then they can just hire some from Spain, or Mexico, or elsewhere south. They have lots of academics to explain Cervantes, etc. And they are all commies too, so they should get along very well.
I heard on NPR (so it must have been true) 15 or 20 years ago that the diversity studies majors were created to allow colleges to hire minorities in order to balance their faculty numbers.
With garbagemen now being referred to as "sanitation engineers," some actual sanitation engineers (solid and liquid waste specialties of Civil Engineering) have taken to calling themselves "Environmental Engineers."
Just thought I would warn young ladies looking to save the earth to read the details of the course syllabus before they commit themselves.
Ho. Hum.
D the M: Yes. Life loses something in the original.
Brilliant.
David53 said:
"Why not use the LGBT approved ⚧ transgender symbol and cover all the bases?"
As a bona fide and gleefully gay person, I must protest that I was never consulted by my "LGBT" betters about whether I would approve use of this symbol. These actions have marginalized and denigrated me and my rights, and have thereby exponentially deepened my victimization.
It is hurtful and disparaging, and I am seeking a progressive lawyer to help me with my grievance.
I can't read "latin@" without thinking "dyslexic person twittering the Vatican."
And, better, "chican@" is a dyslexic person twittering a Japanese sexual predator.
(Yes, that's actually "chikan".)
For those with strong stomachs and a hearty sense of humor, Bruce Bawer covered in depth the cultural hara kiri this tawdry complaint symbolizes in his book The Victim Revolution.
Ethnic studies are one huge trash can. Put in women's studies and gay lesbian studies for the trifecta. Dump all that trash. All it is is teaching leftism with a slightly different face. And you're a victim of an oppressor. 99.99999999999999% of the time it will be a white male. Who are evil. Except for the liberal whites who take said courses to show they are not like those evil whites the courses vilify.
trash can?
Boy, I'm glad I didn't say that in Madison. I would get the Best Buy treatment, not Sesame Street.
Althouse's quote about the jobs available to ethnic studies majors comes from the Berekley web site. While the list isn't wrong, in most cases I doubt that an ethnic studies major would be the best preparation for these jobs. It might be better to say "some employers of a particular persuasion might be willing to hire ethnic studies majors for these jobs."
Ethnic studies, at least in my impression of how they are taught, are a narrow window than (say) economics, history, political science, psychology or similar majors that could also prepare you for the non teaching careers listed. If you want to teach ethnic studies, probably it's the best preparation, but maybe not that either.
Also, how much critical thinking is taught and encouraged in ethnic studies. It does not present as a field where skepticism or iconoclastic tendencies are highly valued. I hope I am wrong about that but my sniffer for conformity based thought is experienced and it is sensing things.
For evidence, I note that gay libertarian Peter Thiel (my daughter's employer) was shouted down at Berekley this week in a speech on the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the free speech movement there.
How can you say that "Studies" programs don't have real world opportunity. Bill Ayers got a BA in American Studies from Michigan and that lead to a great career in Communist Revolution and political Murder.
"a big push to just dump us into this ethnic studies trash can.... We’re always trying to make something out of nothing... We’ve been defunded, we’ve been neglected, we’ve been marginalized."
At last, something I can really get behind in the ethnic studies area! I say go for it! Dump the trash studies into the trash can!!
When he says, "We’re always trying to make something out of nothing..." he even admits that there is no substance to these courses. Trash, empty trash, all of them.
A liberal studies course isn't that much better if you're looking for job skills. Still, at least if you stusy Shakespeare you can be said to be studying something that matters historically, and you can at least walk away saying you are cultured. Is it worth going into debt over? not, if you're then goign to get an office job. But at least it's just a waste of money as opposed to teaching you your country sucks, and your skin tone makes you responsible for the worlds ills. Or your penis makes you an oppressor.
Any money saved on consolidating these programs would be more than lost in welfare costs when these unemployable "academics" get dumped out of the university...
"Cervantes and Madariaga are out of the picture."
But they're dead white men who just happened to speak Spanish! How can they be taken seriously!
Courses in Gang Culture such as the one offered at Berkeley are much more likely to provide a rewarding, albeit shorter, future for minority students.
@DBQ, DtheM & Chef Mojo/
To show you how delusional these people can be in fooling themselves in order to maintain their fantasy ideological views totally un-moored from reality, I would relate a conversation/argument I had with a Tulane feminista majoring in Spanish and Latin American studies that I had in Roberts' Bar just across Claiborne Ave and Tulane Univ circa 1995. I noted that I thought it strange her affinity for such a "patriarchal" language as Spanish for a dyed-in-the-wool feminista. Like an enraged Tiger she vehemently denied that the Spanish language was any such thing. "Here, come with me," she said motioning to the back of the bar where two 20-something guys and a gal were playing pool. Turns out they were all friends of hers visiting from Barcelona. She put the question to them. Likewise all three protested and averred that their language was distinctly NOT sexist, that I was sadly misinformed. "See!" she said triumphantly.
Moral of the tale? Facts, logic and reason are of little use against the beliefs of ideologues. If lefty Spanish students are that delusional about their own language, "well my God!"
Ah feministas! Circa 1978 I had a discussion with a fellow lawyer--she being of the Gyno-American persuasion, and very much a Women's Lib, Feminist type. Words like "male chauvinist" were bandied about.
I informed her in what appeared to be all dead seriousness that there was both a masculine and a feminine version of the word "Chauvinist".
Of course the term itself derives from a Monsieur Chauvin, a Frenchman of the type that gives jingoism (and Chauvinism) a bad name.
But I told her that there was actually a word "chauvinista" for female chauvinists. Now that may have been an Obama style argument--you just make stuff up. I was using Obama style arguments in downtown Los Angeles whilst Obama was still doing choom debates in dorm rooms at Occidental ten miles to the north.
But it worked; she sputtered and fumed, how could that be etc. But she bought it--at least for a while.
Rather than complain, the Professor in the article should be making a statement of why the classes matter, and how valuable they are to the University and its students. He's given a platform and botches it. Maybe that mindset he has is part of the problem.
Humanities are worthwhile subjects to study. Why can't Humanities Professors make the case that they are?
"We’ve been defunded, we’ve been neglected, we’ve been marginalized."
If only it were true...
I have an engine vibration problem in my 2000 Mercedes c230 Kompressor Sport. Are there any ethnic studies majors or professors that could help me out. Sometimes I think it is a motor mount problem but then it goes away after a long warm up so it must be...Any help would be appreciated and really shocking.
Notice that there are no departments called "Physics Studies" or "Chemistry Studies" or "Engineering Studies."
That might suggest something to somebody.
"Notice that there are no departments called "Physics Studies" or "Chemistry Studies" or "Engineering Studies."
I want to see Ethnic Studies programs with test-to-destruction experiments like Engineering has...
I am trying to read some of this to my husband but I can't figure out how to pronounce the @.
Using the @ symbol that way is SO twee. UW should shut down the program just for insulting everybody's intelligence.
Here's a solution: Move all these "ethnic studies" classes along with the professors who teach them to the nearest community college.
poker1one said...
Are there any ethnic studies majors or professors that could help me out.
poker1one-
Drivetrains - no.
Drivethroughs - yes.
That's because you're marginal.
Ethnic Studies is a good major for those who want to go into the taking professions. They get a lot of blow back here because so many of the readers are in the making professions, like engineering, etc. The making professions most often require, if not math, an understanding of mathematical concepts. A strong barrier to "Ethnic Studies" majors.
Taking professions, like law and politics for example, where the vast majority of it involves fighting over the productive result of those who create fundamental value, is a perfect career choice for people who don't want to do anything directly productive and enjoy sticking it to people they don't like to begin with. These people wear suits to distinguish themselves from people who create the actual value we enjoy as a society, the making class.
Then there are the aggregating professions, where other people in suits aggregate the value produced by making people. These people can get fabulously rich. They also wear suits to separate them from the actual people who create the stuff that makes up our lives. The reason that "Ethnic Studies" majors don't go into the aggregating professions is that there is way too much math, lots of math, as there often is the making professions.
The requirement for math is a great barrier which relegates people to the taking professions, or the teaching profession.
I, for one, welcome the day we have degrees in "Studies, Studies."
Not that students will have to study to graduate.
Carter Wood, at some universities accumulation of enough hours qualifies one for a degree in "General Studies" despite lack of fulfillment of the required coursework for any given discipline.
It is essentially a "get out of jail" card for those who never understood what they were in for.
TiV: You remind me of a bloke I worked for (building a house) one summer. He had been once a mek-a-nik for Detroit Diesel. On a trip to the UK (c. 1970) to work on a stationary plant, he first visited the general manager, fully uniformed in suit-and-vest-and-tie. After preliminaries concluded out by the actual equipment, the GM asked, "and where is your Fitter?"
My bloke responded "Right here" and proceeded to remove his outer layers, revealing a boiler suit.
Cue priceless expression on GM's phiz.
Some folk can do both engineering and marketing, but it's rare.
"Studies" programs began in the 1970s as ways to tie together separate academic departments that focused on particular geographic areas united by a common language and culture. The first such "Studies" programs were in East Asian Studies, South Asian Studies and Russian Studies. The heart of these programs was the study of the relevant foreign language - Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, Sanskrit, Russian, etc. - but they also provided the historians, economists, literature profs., anthropologists and others who focused on these geographic areas an opportunity to get together and talk about subjects of mutual interest and gave students a chance to focus on one historical culture through the lens of different academic disciplines.
Sometime in the 1980s, we began to see the development of "Studies" programs that were not academically serious but were instead just hothouses of ethnic, racial and sexual grievances. You can tell that they were not academically serious because they did not require the study of a very difficult foreign language. It's a pity, because the original "Studies" programs were valuable, but now they've all been tarred with the Cultural Marxism label.
Hey Marquez,
Your fields are trash, if you were properly "neglected" you wouldn't get a single penny, or a single room, and nothing could "marginalize" you more than you've done to yourselves, with your racist claptrap.
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