El 4 Jul 97 a las 17:45, James M. Blaut <70671.2032@CompuServe.COM>
dixit:
> ...(A)ll of us have internalized racist beliefs -- this is a racist
> society! -- and we try our best to get rid of them, sometimes
> needing a bit of help from our friends.... In Boston, around 1970,
> Latino 6-yrear-olds who spoke no English were tested and -- guess
> what? -- found to be "retarded." Boston didn't have enough places
> for them in "special schools" so about 30,000 young Latino children
> at one time didn't go to school at all because they were falsely
> declared to be retarded! At my univeristy, Latino appliucants were
> being rejected on the basis of test scores (ACT/SAT) although we
> had proven statistically that these tests did not predict anything
> about Latino students' success in school -- in fact there was a
> slight (and insignificant) negative correlation between ACT score
> and probabilty of later success (graduation rate).... And nobody
> should hide behind the notion that races are not real but
> "constructed." Yes, you can call them constructed if you allow the
> process to have taken hundreds of years. But postmodernists are
> trying to tell us (sometimes) that racism is kind of silly and
> easily gootten rid of because races are just "constructed," not
> real. Bullshit.
Prof. Blaut's penchant for pointed, polemical harangues and
inflammatory, invidious comparisons never fails to amaze me. Often
wrong but never in doubt, and with the self-righteous, shrill whine
of a revival-tent preacher, he accuses one and all of harboring
"internalized racist beliefs, which surely are the fetid fruit of a
society that he brands "racist."
The more Blaut bleats, the more outr=E9 his bleatings become.
To back up these claims, he musters an anecdotal reference to the
performance of "LATINO" children, who didn't speak English, on
intelligence tests in Boston around 1970 and the disastrous
consequences that ensued therefrom. If, as Blaut claims, these
children knew no English, then should one suppose that they spoke
Latin, as the label he pins on them would suggest?
Of course not! But by electing to use the anachronistic, racially
imprecise term "Latino", instead of making his case in a clear,
convincing manner, Blaut succeeds in further miring an already
complex issue in the thick muck of unalloyed polemic. At the time of
the study in question, likely as not "Latino" was but a mote in the
eye of certain bubble-gum Bolsheviks, holed up in campus coffee shops
at Western and Midwestern brain-stamping mills. It didn't really
come into vogue until at least the mid-70s, and its meaning is
decidedly POLITICAL, not racial or ethnic; it's proven a most
effective "hook" to politicians and activists of whatever stripe in
the fierce, no-holds-barred free-for-all for federal funds. What's
more, "Latino" is still not fully accepted as a gentile name among
the very people whom it purportedly identifies--U.S. citizens and
residents of Spanish or South American origin.
Ironically, however, there's a racist twist to Latino. Seems this
slippery sobriquet might possibly derive from Latin America, a name
coined by the Chilean Bilbao and the Uruguayan Torres Calcedo and
appropriated by that notorious 19th-century racist Napole=F3n le
petit, who envisioned an apocalyptic showdown between the
Latin and Nordic races on which hinged man's fate. In the last
resort li'l Boney's grandiose vision became an ugly reality, albeit
to his abiding consternation.
In light of its checkered etymology, and consistent with my own
feelings toward race, I find the word "Latino" at best questionable
and at worst utterly repugnant. Why Blaut, who comes across as a
pugnacious paladin of pluralism, should choose that term is beyond my
ken. Whether his posting qualifies as dispassionate, scholarly
discussion is open to debate; but it surely proclaims his candidacy
for a berth on the bully pulpit, alongside two other well-known Jims:
Bakker and Swaggart.
Desde las Monta=F1as Verdes, saludos virtuales de
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#Stephen Homick #
#mailto:shomimid@pop.k12.vt.us #
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