The Racism of Brian Williams and NBC News

I understand that Americans - at least white Americans - have a very hard time with the concepts of "Colonialism," thinking, as they seem to inevitably do, of funny three-cornered hats and Williamsburg, Virginia and George Washington and stuff.

But Colonialism is not that.

Colonialism is what NBC Nightly News celebrated last week in their "Making a Difference" series. Colonialism is the racist assumptions which lie behind the piece of journalism described below, and it is the racism while lies behind the actions of NBC News, their anchor Brian Williams, their "Education Nation" series, as well as the efforts of US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (and British Minister for Education Michael Gove), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and just about everything which comes out of the mouths of Michelle Rhee, Wendy Kopp, and their supporters.

British Empire, 1897 (above) American Empire, 1898 (below)

Colonialism, simply put, is the belief that a culture which has become dominant via military or economic force, has not just the right, but the duty, to convert all others into copies of themselves in order to make life for the dominant culture more pleasant and efficient. It works toward hegemony in ways both physically and economically forceful, as well as in complex forms of persuasion. Most effectively, it works via schools - by separating the young from their culture, their communities, their families, in order to make conversion easier.

Listen now, in the year of the Queen's Jubilee, as NBC Correspondent Shoshana Guy describes a 19th Century British widow deciding to devote her life to the poor and wretched children of British Colonial Africa...

"In the weeks after her husband died of leukemia, leaving her with three small children to raise, Deborah Kenny sought solace in books. 

“After he died I, like most people, couldn't sleep at night and so I started reading,” said Kenny.  

"Of all the books she read during those sleepless nights, it was the one written by a doctor who survived a concentration camp that changed the trajectory of her life.

“In ‘Man's Search for Meaning,’ [author] Viktor Frankl had this one line in the book where he said, ‘We had to teach the despairing men that it's not about what life has to offer you but what is life asking of you,’” said Kenny, 48. “That was the thing that uplifted me, because I thought, ‘Well, life is asking something of me.  I have to do something.’"

Oops, yes, wrong Queen on the throne at Buckingham Palace, wrong Diamond Jubilee, even, wrong Empire, and we're talking about 21st Century colonial Harlem in New York City, not Kenya, Tanganyika, Nigeria or Rhodesia in British Colonial Africa... but nothing else has changed one bit for NBC News and Nightly News Managing Editor Brian Williams. Nothing at all. Watch the story as it unfolded the evening of 6 June 2012... watch the visuals, watch the iconography, listen for the code words... There is nothing presented here which wouldn't gladden the heart of Cecil Rhodes. Not since Anna arrived to tutor the children of the King of Siam have we seen such selfless devotion to converting "the other" into someone "just like me."

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"The process of colonization involves one nation or territory taking control of another nation or territory either through the use of force or by acquisition. As a by-product of colonization, the colonizing nation implements its own form of schooling within their colonies. Two scholars on colonial education, Gail P. Kelly and Philip G. Altbach, help define the process as an attempt "to assist in the consolidation of foreign rule" (Kelly and Altbach 1).

No longer a colony, but still learning to be white...
Saint George's Grammar School, Obinomba, Nigeria. Circa 1966
"In December 1965, We went to Agbor motor park and market to purchase school related items: uniforms, plates, spoon, fork, knife, Biro ball point pen, Bournvita (advertising slogan "Sleep sweeter, Bournvita"), Nescafe coffee, St. Louis sugar, Peak milk, Cabin biscuits, M & Ms Candy ("The milk chocolate melts in your mouth - not in your hand"), Horlicks ("Horlicks guards against night starvation"), towel, comb, Omo washing powder ("Omo adds brightness to whiteness"), a pair of sandals, tennis shoes, cutlasses. I felt like I had died and gone to heaven."

"The idea of assimilation is important when dealing with colonial education. Assimilation involves those who are colonized being forced to conform to the cultures and traditions of the colonizers. Gauri Viswanathan points out that "cultural assimilation (is)...the most effective form of political action" (Viswanthan 85). She continues with the argument that "cultural domination works by consent and often precedes conquest by force" (85). Colonizing governments realize that they gain strength not necessarily through physical control, but through mental control. This mental control is implemented through a central intellectual location, the school system. Kelly and Altbach state that "colonial schools,...sought to extend foreign domination and economic exploitation of the colony" (2). They find that "education in...colonies seems directed at absorption into the metropole and not separate and dependent development of the colonized in their own society and culture" (4). The process is an attempt to strip the colonized people away from their indigenous learning structures and draw them toward the structures of the colonizers.

"Much of the reasoning that favors such a learning system comes from supremacist ideas of leader colonizers. Thomas B. Macaulay asserts his viewpoints about a British colony, India, in an early nineteenth century speech. Macaulay insists that he has "never found one among them [Orientalists, an opposing political group] who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia". He continues stating, "It is, no exaggeration to say, that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in Sanscrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgments used at preparatory schools in England". The ultimate goal of colonial education might be deduced from the following statement by Macaulay: "We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect." While all colonizers may not have shared Macaulay's lack of respect for the existing systems of the colonized, they do share the idea that education is important in facilitating the assimilation process." -  John Southard, Fall 1997, Emory University

Dress white, speak white, sit white, act white...
Mission School, Ft. Totten Indian Agency, 1881 by F. Jay Haynes.

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here we go: White woman teaches African-American children the "proper" ("white") way to chant, the "proper" way to sit, to dress, to be quiet, to fold their hands in obedience... (sorry about NBC's embedded adverts)

The conversion process, the "winning over" of a certain vulnerable group within the colonized happens many ways. It isn't just Deborah Kenny and her school and its celebration by Brian Williams. It's everywhere.

Here's a blogger discussing J. Crew advertising:

19th Century imagery

 "Whites saving Africans in danger. White school teacher saves the black kids from the ghetto, because you know black kids are always from the ghetto. White man steps onto an Indian Reservation and stumbles into a sweat lodge and discovers he’s a shaman and saves the tribe. White girl exposes the horrible work conditions of nannies in the mid-century South. The list goes on, and probably you’ve come to the conclusion that the image of the “White Savior” this is a personal pet peeve of mine. But the point of the story is there is a classic theme of Whites being the center of the story, in the J.Crew catalog you have White tourists being the center of what appears to be a celebration or a special occasion." Or, rushing back in time, "In South Africa in 1801 there was only one Hottentot who could read. Travellers thought that to civilise such savages was an impossible task. The missionary going forth to obey his Master's command " to preach the Gospel to every creature "has proved that the Word of God can reach and raise the lowest. It was not long, we are told, before " the Hottentot was seen poring over a tattered portion by the roadside, and the Kaffir shepherd on the veldt carried in his skin wallet a Testament, which he valued more than gold and silver."

21st Century imagery

Whether it is the Christian God, or the ability to read Roman alphabetical text (and thus be held more fully accountable for following the colonizers rules), or just buying the right clothes, "we" - the colonizers - make the wide world safe for trade and tourism and profit.

If Harlem is to truly be the fantasy land shown on Food Network Star - a Disney-like slightly ethnic space for the white and wealthy - Deborah Kenny's school is essential. "...education in ... colonies seems directed at absorption into the metropole and not separate and dependent development of the colonized in their own society and culture." The process is an attempt to strip the colonized people away from their indigenous learning structures and draw them toward the structures of the colonizers."


Colonies are, of course, not all external. The same intent which drove the English to outlaw the Welsh language in schools, the Irish language in schools, the Zulu or Swahili languages in schools, drove the Russians to try to wipe Ukrainian and many other internal languages during the Soviet era, drove Americans to attempt to drive out Native American languages in the "Indian Schools," drove Francisco Franco to attack Catalan and Basque during his Spanish dictatorship. And it is the same intent which drives the derision of indigenous speech patterns in contemporary America, from Spanglish to Black English.  That intent is to ensure that groups out of power begin school behind, and stay there. The cultural genocide is a by-product.

As Michelle Foster noted in 1992, the Kenny/KIPP/TFA model is designed to shatter the connection of African-American students to their community, while guaranteeing that these students remain behind the children of the dominant culture. "A failure to employ, "a culturally congruent approach to teaching" (King, J.E. 1991, King, S.H. 1993) that leads to what is then described as a "failure to learn" (King, 1991)."1

There are, despite what those in power suggest, other choices. There is what might be called "The Black Panther Model," but which, in a bid for less controversy, I call "The Bank of America Model." (a SpeEdChange Post) That is, the creation of parallel system for out-of-power groups so that wealth can be re-circulated and power developed. There is the George Bernard Shaw Pygmalion model (another SpeEdChange Post), the ability to see the attempted colonization and to break free from it. There is the forcible liberation through Romantic Nationalism - the opposite of the "Common Core" - as in Ireland's embrace of the ancient Irish language and Gaelic Games, or Israel's embrace of the even more (at the time) antiquated Hebrew.

But Deborah Kenny, Brian Williams, and Arne Duncan will deny all this, they will not even acknowledge it as possible, because it suggests the possibility of a much more complex world in which, perhaps, their skills and their genetics do not get a free ride.

I haven't expected any response to my complaints from Williams or NBC, or from Kenny. If any were to come it would be in the form of angry indignance anyway. How dare I challenge a saintly missionary... a widowed saintly missionary at that. She is, "making a difference," though they will have a tough time explaining what that difference is, beyond scoring well on tests designed by their friends.

In my Pygmalion post I began with this... "Wendy Hiller is brilliant in the 1938 film of [George Bernard] Shaw's play when she realizes exactly how she has been played by Higgins and the British establishment. "Am I free?" she asks. When you have traded who you are for entrée into another culture, are you ever able to be free again?"

I might ask Brian Williams to go back to Kenny's colonial outpost and ask the kids that question, or better yet, find them in 15 years and ask...


The Wind that Shakes the Barley, opening scenes

- Ira Socol

1. Foster, M. Sociolinguistics and the African-American Community: Implications for Literacy, 1992

Pygmalion

George Bernard Shaw knew both Ireland and England, and knew colonialism when he saw it. He also understood the concept of the "West Brit."

Pygmalion, 1938 film, Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller

Wendy Hiller is brilliant in the 1938 film of Shaw's Pygmalion when she realizes exactly how she has been played by Higgins and the British establishment.

"Am I free?" she asks.

When you have traded who you are for entrée into another culture, are you ever able to be free again?

So what is a "West Brit" and what's the connection? A "West Brit" - especially, say, 1880-1930 or so - was an Irish Catholic who worked really hard to sound, act, and appear "English," as a way of climbing the ladder of Dublin society or careers in Dublin tightly tied to the British Empire. It was (is) a derogatory term, essentially the same as when one African-American might accuse another of "acting white."

Shaw's Pygmalion is a close look at this phenomena. Is the culture of Henry Higgins really so superior to that in which Eliza Doolittle has been raised? Is it about the language, or, as Eliza points out, is it about dignity - that Colonel Pickering treats her as a human from start to finish, while Higgins only sees her as worthy when "his creation" - the Greek Myth underlying the story - has been fully formed?

Is it "OK" to speak and act, to think and be, Irish? Or, in order to succeed in the rough world of 19th and 20th Century capitalism, must we all learn to mimic those in London's "City."

Who's culture is OK?

When I was a kid, a pro basketball star named Rick Barry, who played for the San Francisco Warriors and shots fouls "like a girl" but with incredible accuracy, had signed a contract to 'jump' to the Oakland Oaks of the American Basketball Association. But before he could legally do so, the Oaks had moved to Washington DC, and then, were on their way to Virginia. Barry, who liked San Francisco Bay, and was willing to go the nation's capital, was however, drawing his line in the sand along the north bank of the Potomac. "My son Scooter is supposed to go to nursery school this year. I hate to think of the complications that'll cause in Virginia," Barry told Sports Illustrated. "I don't want him to go down there to school and learn to speak with a Southern accent. He'll come home from school saying, 'Hi yall, Daad.' I sure don't want that."

The end result of that statement was Barry being traded to "my team," beginning the short but wonderful history of the New York Nets,1 which is why I remember this so clearly. But the key question here is, "was Rick Barry right?"

See, I can use the United States Department of Education's NAEP results to "prove" that if a student has a southern accent, they are both more likely to be "below basic" on school skills, especially reading, and less likely to be "advanced." In fact, I can "prove" that the heavier the southern accent, the poorer the performance on standardized tests in general. These are "statistical facts."

So let us look at the Common Core argument, or that advanced by the "Acting White" theorists like Stuart Buck. According to them, the solution to this disparity - why would Alabama kids perform below Ohio kids? - can't be because of school spending or teacher unionization or economic success over the past decade, right? - would be to wipe out the Southern Accent in schools and to make sure that no one in the South criticized kids for "Acting Northern."

And if we could go one better, get those Alabama kids talking like Massachusetts kids, along with swapping grits for Maine oysters, we'd really leave no child behind. So our "Common Core" might be best be described as "Talk like a Kennedy."

See, "Black English" and "Spanglish" are really no further - linguistically - from "The Queen's English" than the American Southern Accent is, or the thick New England Accent is, our culture has simply decided that certain variations are OK because they embrace the power structure, and certain are not because they represent threats to the power structure. Just as, in the United Kingdom, it is fine if you have an Edinburgh Accent, not fine if you sound like you are from Liverpool. Fine if you are clearly from Devonshire, not fine if you are clearly from Glasgow. None of this is about competency or fluency or understandability, rather, it is completely, and only, about power.2

Ethnics emerge dressed as Americans after being "dunked" in The Melting Pot
at a graduation from The Ford Motor Company's "English School."

Conversion

None of this is new. "Established in 1914, the Ford English School taught the company’s immigrant workers more than just how to speak English. It taught them about American culture and history and instilled the importance of such virtues as thriftiness, cleanliness, good manners, and timeliness." There has always been a tension in the United States between the expressed ideal of a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural society - you know, that brilliant combination of ethnicities in any World War II film - and the reality on the political ground, which is that "our leadership" would find things "much easier" if we were all "white, protestant, straight, northern Europeans."

Actually not.

They don't want that. If everyone were "the same" the "leadership class" would not know at-a-glance who belonged and who did not. So, what they want is for everyone "else" to waste enormous effort trying to be like them, while they race comfortably ahead. Remember, if we run back through the past 400 years, the number of national leaders of the United States and United Kingdom (combined) who have been - simply - Catholic - totals one. One. And, to put it in history book terms, "He served as President of the United States for a thousand days before he was shot and replaced by a Protestant." The US Republican Party has never even nominated a Catholic (or an African-American, or any other non-white Protestant) for President. These things, just aren't done. Tony Blair could only convert to Catholicism after he stepped down as Prime Minister of the UK. And what, a quarter of Americans are so distraught by having an African-American as their leader that they spin fairy tales about his birth.

This is not about language, or behavior, or communication, or shared culture, it is about power and the preservation of power.

How to speak and how to drink tea

There are many odd parts to the "Common Core" idea, it isn't just content that is being standardized, but delivery. The Onion, as expected, has it right, '“Before these standards, there was too much pressure in doing my job. Having to figure out what I needed to teach and how to teach it all by myself; it’s way too much to expect. I’m much more relaxed now by just sticking to the standards.'

'“I just turned to the section on ‘Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas’ to see if there was something I hadn’t considered and there it was! Item #5 said to ‘Add audio recordings and visual displays to presentations when appropriate to enhance the development of main ideas or themes.’ Eureka! I hadn’t thought of that one before, so I checked out a record player and film strip projector from our building audio-visual room and presented a film strip on Hairless Mammals of North America that very day!"'

Gentleman's Agreement, 1947, do we really have to let Jews into our country clubs?

Those advocating the "Common Core" are fascinated with standardizing large parts of instruction - the "Core Knowledge" folks carry this to extremes, listing acceptable poets and when they can be read. But this comes out of world view crafted in post-World War II America, with only white people on the television (saying stuff like "soda pop"), only white people in the schools attended by people like E.D. Hirsch, Jr., and the biggest social issue on the agenda being, in the wake of the Nazi slaughter, would we really have to let Jewish people into our country clubs?

But the basic idea is that we must teach all of our children to be exactly like "us." This would (a) make people like E.D. Hirsch, Jr. more comfortable - he would not be faced with having to learn other cultures or behaviors, and (b) as a bonus, the children of the rich and powerful can trod softly ahead of the pack while poor kids sit in KIPP Academies and Common Core schools spending years learning how to behave, speak, and learn, correctly. A win-win, as they might say.

Odd cultures

We all need to learn to look the same and drink tea correctly.

Years ago, I attended a wedding in Yarmouthport, Massachusetts. It was a very old friend of mine - an Irish-Quebecois Catholic - marrying a man of New England nobility. His entire family came dressed essentially identically. It was summer, and every male had a blue blazer and white pants, most with - I'm not making this up - straw boaters for hats. The women all looked like Daisy from The Great Gatsby - clothes-wise at least. They drank tea from cups with their pinkies extended, they held their wine glasses "just so," they used words we did not understand and gave us funny looks when we didn't understand...

Honestly, they looked ridiculous. It couldn't have been more bizarre to us New Yorkers (who I'm sure looked like the barbarian hordes to the hosts) if we had stumbled into a full hip-hop wedding with everybody sagging. I mean, is there a difference? Or is it simply that one group owns 50% of the money in the US and the other doesn't?

You know, there's a reason great universities crave diversity in their student bodies (and I will exclude Harvard, Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania from that group because those three Ivy League schools are homogeneous social class finishing schools3): It is because, education, like societies, work best - makes the greatest strides - when there is neither "Common Core Knowledge" nor "Common Culture."

It is exactly the clash of cultures, of language, of knowledge - the synthesis of thesis and antithesis - which produces breakthroughs in learning, invention, culture, and understanding. Michigan State University - as an example - seeks out students from just about every nation on earth.4 Not because they are the same - because they have the same Core Knowledge and the same understanding of the classroom culture - but specifically because they do not. As at every great university it is that "coming together" which builds an atmosphere of creation.

That is what makes London and New York, Paris and Berlin, Chicago and Los Angeles great cities - not homogeneity, not any "Core Knowledge," not any standard behavior - but the richness of the often uncomfortable clash of cultures.

We don't need E.D. Hirsch, Jr, Bill Gates, and Arne Duncan making Eliza Doolittle's out of us. We don't need to be sculpted by Pygmalions from any era. We need to be who we are and we need the equal opportunity to turn ourselves into the best that we can be.

And there's my rant for the Fourth of July... the freedom to be who we are.

- Ira Socol

1 - My junior high era basketball buddies did want me to grow much taller and get a hook shot so I could be more like "my namesake," the Virginia Squires Ira Harge, though I'm not sure now why we we liked the guy.
2 - Fabulous archive of accents http://web.ku.edu/~idea/dialectmap.htm  
3 - If you need to go an Ivy League school, do yourself a favor and stick with those in New York and Rhode Island. 
4 - "While 89% of students come from all 83 counties in the State of Michigan, also represented are all 50 states in the U.S. and about 130 other countries"