The American Anthropological Association has commissioned a board to study race and racism within our discipline. A well trained anthropologist is egalitarian and has to be able to harness ethnocentric teachings. Obviously and sadly this isn't the case. Racism must be the most powerful of human emotions.
http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm The problem of lack of inclusion stems from several causes, amongst them would be the lack of knowledge about how the Human Genome Project should have impacted on the AAA"s Statement on Race. The second concerns studying anthropology as if were separate from the persona. The third would be students who decide to do a doctorate in this field who come from a disparate subject area, and as such have insufficient education in physical anthropology, and fourth the willful or absent minded lack of acceptance of our current and more egalitarian view of the concept of "race".
I am glad that after 40 years that I have remained an ardent independent anthropologist. I love my colleague's pristine White papers, but it was my observation that being an academician was a different path from my desire to help to end racism via understanding and knowledge. For over 100 years we have sat back silently while the unproven concept of "race" has nearly destroyed American society.
I walk alone. I am not black, I am not white, I am not brown, I am a human being, and that is the way I defined myself over 48 years ago. That knowing has persisted and been a stalwart reminder of why I resist the most damaging of social constructs.
For 40 years I have conducted my own ethnographic studies, as a " non-minority, non-black, non-Hispanic, non African-American " within the self accepted "Black American" communities. No one else in this discipline can make the claim that they are holding expertise in the study of the African American phenomena from a position of inclusion and yet not a bona-fide member, simply by being able to "blend" in, not even scholar Dr. Leith Mullings whose legendary work can make this claim precisely because she is an "African American" and the psychological and political acceptance of being " Black in America " informs her views.
I wrote to the Commission and stated the following in response to their plan:
One of the modules of study you are considering I have long held that it is sorely needed.
This next paragraph is on the e-mai l received - which I have re-posted, as follows:
" (Who teaches Anthropology? Collect information on the teaching of anthropology at K-12, in tribal colleges, historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and community colleges. How does anthropology get taught? In what school and school systems is anthropology taught? Share information on outreach programs to K-12 and community colleges to encourage students to consider majoring in anthropology in college. Develop a plan to better reach diversify communities of students at the K-12 and community college level.)" (Bullet format.)
However there is a reason to be concerned that teachings of Black Studies would bleed into the curriculum. Black studies programs like the traditional past teachings of American history are rife with ethnocentric commentary and sublime messages of superiority, and sometimes not so sublime depending on the instructor. I was fortunate that when I began my college career my first anthropology teacher Dr.Ruby Leavitt was an egalitarian instructor with a no nonsense perspective and that was in 1975.
When are we going to make this world better? One of my anthropology students at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, said to me "how is it that if you anthropologists know all of this(on understanding “race”) you don't get the information out? (well we do don't we? in academic circles of inclusion, and in all fairness as in all other disciplines,) I recall my own feelings of "gotcha" so I gave a very nicely packaged answer, I said, "our job is to study the phenomena, your job as our youth is to take the information and be a beacon of change in the world" or something weakly similar. He had in my mind "called me out".
It is by belief that if you are not going to let the scientific study of the Human Genome project be used as a bulwark in the social and physical release of anthropological data, then for what purpose other than some vision of a phantom presence will it provide? This is why I remain a rogue, an applied rogue anthropologist -seeking truth in a Barnum and Bailey society.
In closing, I had to smile on this "existing idea"; "Ethnography of US. A number of individuals have suggested that we might try to support (fund?) our own students to study the careers of anthropologists, marginalized or privileged, as well as the institutions they belong to". (Again one of the plans being considered by the Commission).
Good idea, I know that there are 300 students walking around who have solid grasp of what we do and are "supposed to do".
I have this to say: Free Your Mind.
Posted By: Marta Fernandez
Thursday, April 28th 2011 at 8:46AM
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