- This article seems to operate under the assumption that literacy, in the final instance, is inherently“political”? Do you agree with His assertion? Please explain.
- Mahiri seems to be pushing for a reconceptualization of literacy, which includes the cultural offerings of traditionally marginalized students. Do you see this as a clear challenge to the American “canon”; and, how realistic, in the face of the overdetermination of a Western, Eurocentric epistemology, do you think the prospect of this reconceptualization is?
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Mahiri & Sablo: Writing for their lives
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I would agree with Mahiri that literacy is inherently political. As Fine’s research notes, teachers tend to not discuss issues such as drugs, racism, poverty and abortion in class because they think it would be too political. Mahiri argues that we should revise our idea of literacy in the classroom to include the cultural offerings of marginalized students such as African Americans and Latinos. However, it is questionable whether this would be possible because our educational system is highly political and there are topics that teachers are not comfortable discussing in class. Politics defines what is taught and therefore causes literacy to become political as well.
ReplyDeleteFor many marginalized students, crime and violence are prevalent in their neighborhoods and it is often easier to join a gang and become a gang-banger than to find a respectable job. Unfortunately, though employers are supposed to be equal opportunity employers, when you are sitting in an interview, it is easy to make judgments based on what people look like, including the color of their skin. Races are stereotyped and when certain races walk into a store, they immediately have a target on their back because they are suspected of potentially stealing. Being so, these races could be stereotyped against because they look as if they may not be as trustworthy as someone who is, for example, Caucasian. Therefore, for marginalized students who want to help their parents out by getting a job, it is often easier for them to turn to gang-banging when they are turned away from jobs.
Teachers are supposed to teach that drugs, crime, and violence are bad because that is what is determined by society. Yet often in schools that have a lot of marginalized students, it is difficult to do so because you don’t know if any of those students are in gangs and it can cause contention between students and teachers. Additionally, many teachers are too uncomfortable to approach the subject. Therefore literacy that integrates talking about these controversial topics are often left out of the classroom due to societal norms dictated by political forces.
- Kathy Shen
My response answers Q1 and also relates to our Labeling Exercise in discussion and the discussion of how certain racial groups must take extra steps in avoiding trouble.
ReplyDeleteI agree more than disagree that literacy is inherently political. Even writing that argues that literacy is not inherently political is being inherently political by denouncing the power play. I searched the word political on Google and found that political can mean “of or relating to the government or the public affairs of a country” and/or “of or relating to the ideas or strategies of a particular party or group in politics.” Reflecting on the article, I realize that students in the present struggle to relate to (sometimes outdated and biased) school material the nation provides. With Ms. Parks and Ms. Brown’s students, it is questioned whether the nation can facilitate the changes needed to link learning to the cultural identity and backgrounds of these diverse groups of students. I thought about Troy, the prolific writer and rapper, where literacy is in many ways inherently political. Troy’s sense of identity (race, family ties, labels society puts on you like our discussion exercise) can be seen through his autobiographical rap, and literacy relates to the public affairs (discrimination, homelessness, crime, slavery) of a country (America) and of the ideas of a particular group in politics (African American youth). I thought about Troy’s strategies that he adopted in order to cope with the tension between the realities of life in the inner city. I also thought about Nora and Jeremiah sharing about African Americans in society and how they should behave in a police encounter and how they need to be cautious of their surroundings.
This piece by Mahiri and Sablo clearly makes an argument for the reconceptualization of literacy to expand beyond the point of academic norms and historical standards. While the case made is interesting and a possible point of debate of validity, therein lies a bigger debate of feasibility. The authors of this piece fight an uphill battle of history and arrogance stacked against them. As is stands, the works and curriculums that are respected as “academic” and worth studying re so engrained and consequently perpetuated that to overturn a system built upon them is large endeavor. Academia is based upon historical norms and traditions that have become so compounded, that undoing them years and expectations would take a large scale arrogance of scholars embedded within the system. A single pair of authors show no real challenge amongst the years and multitudes of disciplines. This also gives insight as to why real still stud seemingly “irrelevant” volumes of Shakespeare, when equal valid contemporary works exist. This point is debatable, but no less, demonstrates the effects and arguable arrogance of the conception of literacy. I think that it is important also to state a concession that the the tow authors fail to do. In their claim that literacy is political, Mahiri and Sablo's fail to note that their bid for re-conceptualizng literacy is innately political as well. Essentially, it is what they view as correct versus the perspective of others, and this political debate may never come to closure, only favor the side with the most influence.
ReplyDeleteI do also have to agree that literacy is inherently political because literacy has the ability to structure our social relations. This signifies that we are caught up in different facets of these social relations including class, race, and gender. It is because of this that we use literacy to categorize people. The idea is similar to what Gee means when he says we begin to differentiate people based on “who is an insider and who isn’t, who is normal and who isn’t…” In Mahiri and Sablo’s piece, I think we see that literacy inherently puts some in better position than others while in school. African Americans struggle many times because the discourses offered in school are not linked back to their cultural and sociopolitical class.
ReplyDeleteReconceptualization won’t be easy. If cultural offerings were to be integrated then I believe it has to be done slowly so that it doesn’t alienate anyone. It’s important to at least start this cultural integration because I believe it’s one of the best ways to tackle the inherent political nature of literacy. I understand that Western culture is highly emphasized in today’s classrooms but I think teachers should slowly start introducing topics like drugs, crime, and gangs to see how the class reacts to it. To me, the risks of discussing these subjects can be high, but the rewards should be higher. It can be easy as just having a sharing time or having time to draw whatever you want to help unleash that literacy many kids have developed outside of school. I feel students just need more venues to show their creativity and if time is set aside to implement this, I think I it can go a long way.
Is literacy inherently political? I think the answer is definitely yes, but because the concept of literacy is so broad, multifaceted, and in many ways hard to pin down because of the obfuscation of that concept committed by various scholars and non-scholars, that literacy is political is true in several different senses.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I think literacy simply as language, is political, because language itself is political. No matter what people might say, it matters what language you speak and in what context. There’s nothing wrong with speaking Portuguese or being forced to learn Portuguese—if you’re a Portuguese person growing up in Portugal. But when that language is imposed onto another person or people group—say an African nation colonized by the Portuguese, then you’re making a statement of cultural dominance, and consequently language has become political. The politically cooperative ones are the ones who choose to assimilate linguistically—and those that don’t are marked as either dangerous or simply uncultured and savage and in need of a sort of white man’s salvation.
Furthermore, literacy is political in that political power is generally granted to those who are considered educated—that is, literate. To put it simply, we don’t elect people we see as dumb. But that perception of ability and intellect is dependent often on our perception of that person’s literacy—consequently the person who controls the definition of literacy is controlling the distribution of political power to a large extent (the obvious example being the literacy tests of the mid-1900s that characterized elections in the south in particular). Literacy is not inert, it is not purely a scholarly consideration—it has real-world implications and has an actual effect on the power balance of different groups.
I agree that literacy is inherently political. People who would say that literacy is not inherently political probably don’t understand literacy and everything that it means and entails. If literacy were just reading and writing, then it might be possible to argue that literacy is not political. But the problem is that literacy is much more than that: literacy is the ability to understand and interpret the world around us. So another way to put it is that literacy is the ability to survive and succeed in whatever context, country, society, culture, etc, that you are in. When you think about it like that, then it seems very clear that literacy must be political, because politics are all about power relationships. Politics are about being savvy, about understanding how to convince and influence and persuade. Those who, in a society, are more literate are the ones who will have more power to leverage. And in large part, it becomes all about perception—people often have more power just because they are perceived as being more literate.
ReplyDeleteAnother sense in which literacy is political is that the ones who define literacy are the ones who control who has the power in a society. Generally there is one dominant culture whose version of literacy gets imposed on all the other cultural groups—the result is that those groups become disempowered and disaffected. And so those groups often reject the power system of the dominant culture because they feel that they are unable to thrive and succeed under the control of such a system. They develop counter-cultures and their own hierarchies of power, making it hard for understanding across cultural lines. And so a proper understanding of literacy is crucial for bringing about positive change in any society, because literacy is so political.
Additional Questions:
ReplyDelete• In many ways, America promotes diversity; however, it also prevents it. In what ways is this dichotomy influenced by political infrastructures? In what ways does the American canon limit literacy? Or does it?
• What opportunities in the classroom are available for students to use in order to learn more about their culture?
• Do you think institutions such as the MCC (Multicultural center) should be in all high schools? What about grade-school?
Answering the last part of Josh's Question
ReplyDeleteI do believe that institutions such as the MCC should be placed in grade school. I think that it should start in middle school. I believe that it is around this time that we start to really understand race in America and I believe in order to combat what society's prejudices, as well as our family's prejudices of different races we need to create more spaces discussing race instead of acting as though it does not exist.