[lbo-talk] Michaels, Against Diversity

[Alan Rudy]

It absolutely floored me the first time I asked the question in the first
semester of my first year
here during the first Intro Soc class I'd taught in nine years.  I ask it of
every class every time I teach Intro - about five times a year - and always
get the same basic results... and there are always a number of young women
who see themselves as naturally made to be baby factories - though, even
among these, the numbers and timing of desired children is pretty variable.

The KKK's strong in Howell, the various factions of the Michigan militia are
still about and the Dutch Reform folks in the West verge on scary
conservative... to good ole left, coastal,  cosmopolitan me.

On Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 10:05 AM, Jeffrey Fisher <jeff.jfisher at gmail.com>wrote:


> On Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 8:57 AM, Alan Rudy <alan.rudy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >  Furthermore, about a third of my student athletes were told by
> > coaches, parents or peers that blacks have an extra muscle in their leg
> > that makes them able to run faster and jump higher and another third were
> told
> > that there are no physiological differences between the races except that
> > blacks came out the jungle around the time of (American chattel) slavery
> > and therefore had to run away from predators and chase prey more recently
> in
> > their evolution than white people did...
> >
>
> Um. Seriously? I presume this is from talking with them in class or
> something? Or did you put together a survey of student attitudes on race or
> something like that (not being sarcastic)?
>
> I'm really not calling you a liar, but I am having a really hard time
> processing this. In the years I've been teaching (in WV and now in WI),
> I've
> seen racism (it's impossible not to), but I've never heard this kind of
> pseudo-science out of my students. It's just staggering and makes me want
> to
> cry.
>
> Jimmy the Greek is not dead.
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>

-- 
*********************************************************
Alan P. Rudy
Dept. Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work
Central Michigan University
124 Anspach Hall
Mt Pleasant, MI 48858
517-881-6319