From: bhchan@soda.berkeley.edu (Billy H. Chan)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Re: Experiencing racism...
Date: 24 Jan 1993 05:28:11 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley, CS Undergraduate Association
Distribution: usa
NNTP-Posting-Host: soda.berkeley.edu

In article <1jso5r$i9a@agate.berkeley.edu> ollie@ocf.berkeley.edu (Oliver Wang) writes:
 >When it comes to discussing personal experiences of racism (or any other kind
 >of discrimination for that matter) and relating that to a bigger societal
 >discussion, keep in mind that just b/c you don't personally experience some-
 >thing doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

But don't you know that _some_ people do subscribe to the philosophy that
"If I don't see it, then it doesn't exist."?... 

 > I can't blame most of you.  Those of you who are college age or
 >older probably received around 12 years of American acculturation
 >where you learned that this is the greatest country in the known
 >universe and that there's nothing really all that wrong with it.
 >It's hard to unlearn all that rote pounding of propa- ganda
 >especially when you started at age 5 by saying the pledge of
 >allegiance.

Interesting.  Since you post from the OCF, I assume you're also in
the same boat... (you _are_ college age, right?).   (btw, for me,
the age is 6, not 5.  and there wasn't any propaganda... we all knew
how sh*tty this place really is under all the glamour :-P   )

[slightly demeaning/condecending stuff edited out]
>

 >The problem with colleges especially is that everything is handed
 >to you.  We're taught to passively learn, not actively seek knowledge
 >which is what I would >think learning is all about.  But we are

Woah!! do we go to the same CAL?  Helebear(tm) itself is enough of a
struggle that I wouldn't claim we're handed anything! >:)
I guess I've been one of the few lucky ones where we actually
discuss topics in discussion (instead of having to listen to the
TA/GSI lecture at us).

 >shoveled this stuff and we just accept >it without question...unless
 >it happens to go against what we learned before.  >In which case
 >people tend to flip and start saying "p.c." and "cultural elite"
 >and other sh*t just b/c they're too scared to have their ignorance
 >displayed >before them.  It takes a great deal of humility to really
 >learn as opposed to >being passively acculturated.  

You're correct in this case. Does take lots of humility to realize
that you yourself do not know everything, and that is a very humbling
experience...:)   But don't condemn people enmasse... you might not
like the reaction (esp. if they think you're falsely condemning them)
:)   ------\
	   |
	  \|/
 >Think about
 >it...and I mean THINK, don't just react to what you've been condit-
 >ioned with.  Are you person or a parrot?  > >"Writers treat me like
 >Coltrane...Insane.  Yes to them, but to me I'm a >different kind.
 >We're brothers of the same mind...UNBLIND."  C.D. of P.E.  >
 
nice quote though.  (but, a technicality, you're just parroting
what someone else has said before when you quote them... just a
minor nuisance, since you asked: "Are you a person or a parrot" :)

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Billy H. Chan <bhchan@soda.berkeley.edu> <bhchan@uclink.berkeley.edu>
~{3B:FH;~}    <bhchan@ocf.berkeley.edu>  <c60b-3me@web.berkeley.edu>
"Reality isn't always what you see but what you perceive." ~{?42;<{~}