Well, it was a pretty good third week, really... though... As usual, I didn't use time well in the Introduction to American Culture and Literature class for (mostly) first-year English majors.
We are doing African American culture and literature now, a three-week unit. I was interested when I showed a picture on the screen of a white Barbie with a black Barbie, and asked the 100 or so students to raise their hands for the prettier Barbie, and the vast majority chose the white Barbie (only one or maybe two people chose the black Barbie!). So... I think unconscious racism is not uncommon in Japan, I suppose because Japanese people tend to have straight hair (like blond Barbie), and tend to grow up liking Disney characters and American movie and TV stars, most of whom are white. At the same time, they really think that racism and discrimination are terrible and wish they would go away. Anyway, after asking them about that, I told them about and showed them pictures of the studies of kids choosing a white or a black baby doll to play with, and white and black kids mostly choosing the white baby, and a picture of black Barbies being sold for half the price of white Barbies in a store, and showed them pictures of Beyonce as a little kid with natural kinky black hair and then as a superstar with straight blond hair... I wonder what they made of it all? Then I also introduced the Colin Kaepernick kneel down pose for the pre-game NFL national anthem events, as a form of protest to draw attention to the racism and discrimination in US society today, by which too many black men are killed by police relative by percentage to white men... And then there wasn't enough time to comfortably cover African American literature, slave spirituals, Gwendolyn Brooks' "We Real Cool" (including a great reading of the poem by Morgan Freeman), and no time at all for Jay-z's "99 Problems." And too fast at the end... Sigh... I'll try again next time! I do think I did OK with my other classes......
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Jefferson Peters (JP)
Can you find me in the picture above? Archives
December 2023
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