Terra Jones
5 hrs ·
Chicago, IL ·
I'm feeling angry and frustrated.
In the view of one political scientist, Joseph Overton, there is an acceptable range or window of public opinion, known as the Overton window. That is to say that for a given time and political climate, some opinions are policy, some are popular, some, merely tolerated and some are so radical that they are unthinkable.
For instance, slavery was once legal and an issue people had disagreements on. Now the thought of legalizing slavery would fall squarely outside of what modern society would tolerate, and for good reason. Where now civil rights are the law of the land and no one would expect teachers to teach both sides of lynching, it was once controversial. Nor would they ever ask a teacher to be impartial about holocaust denial. Or the legitimacy of inter racial marriage which at one time was very controversial, political even. Some issues essentially leave the realm of politics and become an odious personal behavior.
I feel like before Donald Trump won the election racists and homophobes were effectively shut out of the debate. Workplaces had and for now still have policies that frown on overt displays of racism, and homophobia, misogyny. No one would consider giving equal time on black history month to people opposed to civil rights.
I'm an educator. I used to be a teacher, now I'm a tutor. I'm also transgender. Many of my students are immigrants. Our guidelines, with I feel good reason discourage us from talking politics with our students. It's not fair for an adult to propagandize to children who are legally compelled to be there. But there is a a problem with being a political. For some of us, it is effectively impossible.
For me my ability to exist, to work as an educator and be LGBT is inherently political in the current climate regardless of what I do or say in class.
Why am I angry? The Trump administration issued an executive order revoking protections for transgender students. With the victory of Donald Trump, the Overton window has given legitimacy to fringe views while at the same time civil rights, voting rights, the rights of minorities to live is now a political controversy. I keep seeing news stories of school districts bowing to pressure to take down pride flags, to roll back instruction in civil rights, ethnic studies, feminist history.
A recent news story featured a school principal instructing teachers to take down a poster of a an American flag hijab wearing woman, along with two other posters because it was political. How!? What case or controversy is that, that Muslims are Americans? Is this in debate territory now?
A local school is getting opposition for doing a seminar on civil rights for black history month with serious calls for the seminar to be cancelled. Why? Civil rights are left wing.
All of this is because Trump's election has legitimized opposition to civil rights and the dehumanization of minorities of various kinds.
The truth is that while I do not approve of using ones position as a teacher to spread personal politics, the fact is that effectively everything is potentially political depending on where that window is. For many of us, our day to day lives are a political statement.
Neutrality is itself a bias. Neutrality is a privilege for people who do not experience marginalization. The truth is not necessarily in the middle when the debate concerns your right to exist, to not be lynched, to not have one's immediate family be deported.
The call to be impartial and neutral is really in effect a call to be "normal," to live inside the frame work of the oppressor.
Good news for me is that I teach math which is while not immune to politics is somewhat insulated from them.
Still it is impossible not to see and hear and feel the effects. These students of mine, most of whom are immigrants had their president tell them they and their families were rapists. Their president is in the process of getting a colossal monument to racism built in the form of a border wall. Their president had his press secretary seriously say an infant refugee is a security threat.
And I'm next. With the recent targeting of trans folk in Trump's executive order, a little more legitimacy is granted to folks who say or insinuate that trans women are mentally ill perverts.
We're not proper people, we're controversies. Telling our stories in ethnic studies classes, seminars, or electives is being political according to the centrist view. Meanwhile you look in a lot of history textbooks and see the narrative of those who oppress us passed off as objective truth: America is the greatest country on earth, the founding fathers elevated to virtual sainthood despite being slave owners and rapists, all of human history the story of great men, women and people of color reduced to background characters and props, the illegal conquest of the northern half of Mexico is described as a "purchase," the overthrow of democratically elected governments by the CIA to be replaced with mass graves and tyrants is presented as "defeating communism." We tell elementary students that "In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue" but of course let's completely forget the genocide that followed. When I was a child for thanksgiving the school dressed us up as a horrifically offensive caricature of a Native American.
Really? That's apolitical but a picture of a woman in a hijab is too much? One month of the year where we celebrate black history, is too political? If a celebration of the humanity of people of color is an offense against conservatives then maybe they shouldn't have been and should not continue to be constant enemies of marginalized groups.
We're at war for the soul of our county. Respect our existence or expect resistance. We have seen previously buried debates rise from the grave in a chorus of "what about the straight white men." There is no more neutrality and there never was. Bigots and conservatives need to go back to being afraid again.
The truth is not somewhere in the middle. We will not teach both sides. We will stand up for immigrants, for refugees, for black folks, for queer folks, for voting rights, for health-care, for facts, for women, for the environment, for a living wage, and we're not going to let Trump's ignorant white trash control the narrative.
