I am so frustrated with my master's classes! I'm tired of feeling guilty about who I am and where I come from. I'm tired of feeling guilty about my skin color. I didn't choose my identity anymore than people from other countries who are complaining about being oppressed. I've been reading articles for these classes and all they talk about is how generalizing a group of people is bad and causes people to devalue their culture/language (students, in particular). Great, I get that. No, we shouldn't over-generalize people who have a certain look about them (i.e. accents, skin color, etc). Which brings me to my next issue in asking where people are from when I notice an accent. Apparently, it's a bad thing to ask people where they're from because it means I'm looking to label them. But then again, if I don't ask them where they're from, I might tend to "assume" where they're from which causes them to be pissed off because I just categorized them. What the ? It's human nature to categorize and that's how we make sense of the world. It's what you do with that categorization afterwards that matters. Sure, if you put certain people in a category and then say that they can't have the same privileges as other groups, then yes, that's bad. What I really don't get is how these professors say that we should accept everyone and treat them the same no matter what but then we're supposed to appreciate their differences too. But wait, doesn't that mean we're supposed to notice differences too? Which can also be negative? What do they want from me? I'm not supposed to care about differences but at the same time, I need to know where my students came from and appreciate their diverse backgrounds.
Another thing is apparently, calling groups "minorities" is looked down upon. Well, I agree with the fact that nowadays, the "minority" groups are becoming the majority groups with how much the United States is changing. Change is good. :) I'm all for change but I don't think the United States is as bad as it was way back in history. I mean, we just elected a black president! That says a whole heck of a lot about how far this country has come and so now we should look towards the future instead of constantly looking back and feeling sorry for ourselves!
Again, my main concern though about these classes is that I have this constant feeling that I should apologize for my forefathers and the fact that I'm white and middle class. I shouldn't have to apologize much like these people shouldn't have to apologize or feel guilty for who they are either.
I'll step off my soapbox now. :)
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