Reflections 5

Megyn Kelly, a host on an NBC morning programme, said on air, in a panel of exclusively white people, that she didn’t understand why children couldn’t wear blackface as part of their Halloween costumes. In other words, it is ok for a white person to paint their face black to pretend they are a black person. Her remark was interpreted as racist all over the States and widely criticised. She is likely to lose her job over this (albeit not without a multimillion-dollar compensation).

If you do not know the context, you could probably see nothing racist in painting your face to pretend you’re someone else. But it’s enough to look at the relevant Wikipedia page to see what connotations ‘blackface’ has in order to understand the outrage the comment triggered among black Americans. (“Blackface is a form of theatrical make-up used predominantly by non-black performers to represent a caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the spread of racial stereotypes”)

On a few cable channels that covered this story, white hosts consistently turned to their black colleagues to ask for comment. As if white people don’t know if a remark is racist? And it turns out they were right. We don’t. As one of them explained – you don’t ask the attacker if what he did hurts the victim, you ask the victim. So you should ask a person of colour if a comment was racist, you should ask a gay person if someone’s words felt homophobic and you should ask a Jew whether a joke sounds antisemitic. Only the attacked have the right sensitivity to decide whether some words are harmless or offensive. It is not for Harvey Weinstein to decide if the women he invited to his hotel rooms under false pretences felt sexually abused. We have to ask the women!

We live in a relatively homogenic community of white Poles, just like Megyn Kelly probably lived in a white middle-class environment where casual racism goes undetected or seems innocent enough. What if, just like her, we lack the sensitivity necessary to see when we offend others? Especially others we are not very familiar with.

Article to read for Monday 22 Oct

Here is the article we'll discuss on Monday, 22 October (the whole class together). Make sure that you understand the words in bold.
Do animals have morals
And here is the link to the video referred to in the text of monkeys in India rescuing their mate.
Monkey Rescue

Reflection 4

A teacher friend was running his first lesson with a new class and, while he was going through some organisational things, a student said „Shouldn’t you introduce yourself first?!”

This sounds vastly inappropriate to me. First, even if it was a breach of good manners not to introduce yourself to a new class, this remark is plain rude and not the way to correct anyone’s mistake (whoever this person is). Second, what has happened to respect and trust that we owe people who are supposed to teach us? The teacher may later turn out to be incompetent or unfair and then we can treat them accordingly. But during our first encounter the natural attitude should be positive expectations, not aggression.

This incident is also one of many examples of the general collapse of authorities. We are told that we are all experts and we do not need to respect and rely on other people’s knowledge and opinions. Even if these people have spent their entire lives studying an area of knowledge. For example, against the unanimous opinion of the medical community, we know better that vaccines can hurt our children even if this claim is based on some anecdotal evidence and a rigged study whose author admitted he had faked the results and was sentenced by a UK court.

Reflection 3

A friend of mine spent her holidays in Switzerland. She lived in a friend’s flat and had first-hand experience of Swiss customs. It turns out each community has very strict rules regarding parties, guests, noise, recycling (you sort rubbish into about ten categories), the times when you can take a shower, flush the toilet or run the washing machine (not after 10 p.m.). If you break the rules, your neighbours can and will call the police. My friend was delighted with the clarity and precision of these rules and the order they imposed on people’s everyday lives. Well, I am not so sure…

The rules governing people’s coexistence in communities like blocks of flats or housing estates can’t be too oppressive and inflexible. What if I have a sick child who cries all night? Or food poisoning, which makes me use the toilet every ten minutes? Do I really have to wait till morning to flush it? Or can’t I have my eighteenth birthday party at home? It’s once in a lifetime after all!

House rules should be based on mutual respect and common sense. It should be obvious that we try not to disturb our neighbours with loud noise, nasty smells or other offensive stimuli. But we should be forgiven if, once in a while, we take a shower in the middle of the night because our child threw up on us.

Reflection 2

A student asked me the same question that I had already answered a few minutes earlier. In another class another student asked about the meaning of the word that I had just spent two minutes explaining. Are they deaf? Or dumb? Or am I so boring that they can’t be bothered to pay attention?

If I optimistically assume that I am not the most boring teacher in the world, the root of this problem must be some attention issues. We can blame the Internet, smartphones, the fast pace of living and the incredible amount of (often completely unimportant) information we have to process every minute. It may be true that our brains have changed and now can’t focus on one thing for more than a few minutes. We need to be constantly entertained to pay attention. And the tragedy is that without deep focus and deliberate attention serious learning just won’t happen. In order to properly understand and/or remember something, we need to pay attention. So please let’s not waste more time on unnecessary explanations and clarifications – pull yourselves together and focus the first time round!