Today is the first day I've read the newspaper since my diagnosis.  It felt good to be in touch with events outside my personal drama.  I was heartened by Obama's speech about scrutinizing the budget for cost savings.  I agree wholeheartedly with the folks that say he also needs to be addressing the issue of entitlements, which account for 54% of our federal budget.  I think it's good that he is sticking with the current Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates.

Two things from the news stuck in my craw a little bit though.  The first, Treasury Secretary Paulson's announcement of $800 billion more in federal aid designed to loosen up credit and get the engines of the economy rolling again.  I don't mind making it easier for small businesses to get credit in this environment.  I don't particularly mind the purchase of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage backed securities in order to give the agencies more money to lend.

But I do question the wisdom of pouring money into consumer credit markets.  Part of the reason we're in the state we are in, has to do with our national philosophy of "buy now, pay later."  If there was ever an opportunity to turn us from a nation of profligate spenders (who don't understand the connections between debt, interest rates and lack of personal freedom) into a nation of savers (who understand the freedom of purchasing what is needed for cash, what is wanted tomorrow and what is dreamed of after hard work)--well that opportunity is now.

For Paulson to focus on loosening consumer credit now is like Bush telling us it was our civic duty to go out and spend money after 9/11.

My second little rant-inducing article concerns a tradition between two elementary schools in Claremont, California.  For a number of years, these schools have re-enacted the classic myth of Thanksgiving by having the student body of one school dress up as Indians/Native Americans and having the other dress up as Pilgrims.  One school walks to the other where they re-enact the laying down of enmity and sharing of a feast.

It sounds like a lovely tradition to me. 

Even so, the mother of one of the students involved this year is a Native American.  The annual event bothered her because it seemed to tell a false story about America's treatment of Native Americans over the years and to encourage stereotypes through the use of costumes. 

"It's demeaning," Michelle Raheja, the mother of a kindergartner at Condit Elementary School, wrote to her daughter's teacher. "I'm sure you can appreciate the inappropriateness of asking children to dress up like slaves (and kind slave masters), or Jews (and friendly Nazis), or members of any other racial minority group who has struggled in our nation's history."

While I belive Raheja has a point, even a good point, that some members of a racial minority group might find this tradition offensive, I am not in agreement with the school board's decision to suspend the costumed aspect of the affair.

How much better would it be for the kids involved to have the event and to learn, in preparation or in debrief, that this is an idealized version of an isolated event in our history?  What harm would come from these kids putting on their costumes and then learning that our nation's treatment of the native people who made this country their home centuries before Europeans beached their boats on our shores was brutal, often dishonest and at times, shameful?

Isn't that a better "teachable moment" than one that makes a concerned descendant of a wronged people into an "elitist" and a spoiler; that makes other concerned parents into folks who would rather have a party than tell the truth?


 


Comments

Kenneth R. Morefield

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 10:59:45

Hi Laura,

While I understand (and share to some degree) your frustration with Raheja, I'm probably more sympathetic to the school board's decision than you appear to be.

My experience in teaching is that teachable moments come more frequently if you strive to create an environment where reflection, dialogue, and engagement are promoted more so than if you try to create a learning moment through a particular exercise. I've taught two sections of the same class back to back and watched as some lesson or exercise worked like a charm in one section and failed to do much with the other. A lot depends on the people in the class and what the the exercise means to them.

Earlier this week I was teaching Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" and the class was struggling with African writer Chinua Achebe's assertion that Conrad's book was "racist." Given Conrad's condemnation of the deplorable and immoral treatment of the Congolese and his indictment of the Belgian and European cultures that sustained it, it seemed understandably hard for most of them to grasp how the depiction of the Africans and the marginalization of them as characters was not a relatively minor matter in comparison to the broader good the book might effect. But I also know from other classes that stereotypes and their effects may be hard to quantify, and the cumulative effects of not having balancing representations may make it easier for aggrieved parties to magnify the importance of errors or distortions that strike some of us as relatively minor.

Conversely, the rhetoric of race is such that too often offense (or even feigned offense) is used as a convenient shortcut to stop conversation rather than further it. I don't know if that was the case in this example, but I suspect from past experiences that the larger cause the protester claimed to be arguing on behalf of might have been better served by arguing to get the practice modified or complemented rather than merely shut down. If people genuinely don't mean any offense, they tend to look at such protests as being petty and it just makes it that much easier to dismiss all protests or complaints as being frivolous.

Regarding the financial part of your post...I confess I'm also ambivalent. If credit markets are like infrastructure, then I certainly share your frustration, but I also realize it is hard to fix just those roads (or lanes of roads) that responsible drivers use.

I will say that I got an offer on a house I was trying to sell today from a first time buyer who might have, a month ago, had a hard time securing credit not because he was a bad risk but because there just wasn't much to be found. That in turn gives me a lot more flexibility to save, invest or even just consume (at a non-profligate rate, of course).

While I know this is simply a pair of anecdotal examples, it is helpful to remind myself (and others, I guess ;-), that such issues touch actual human beings and are thus hard to reduce to absolute certainties about motivation, utility, and effect.

 

Laura

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 13:15:28

Hi Ken,

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I think the key thing that bugged me in the school situation is that instead of engaging each other in dialogue, instead of furthering the discussion of race and the more embarassing aspects of our country's founding--this all devolved into two relatively predictable camps:
The aggrieved minority (aka the spoilers) and the defensive majority (aka the unintentionally racist).

We're capable of so much more.

Your point that this might not make for the most teachable moment is certainly within the realm of probability. If they'd tried, they might have made it worse. But it seems to me that an opportunity was missed.

Vis a vis the house (congrats on the offer!), I wasn't referring to money for loosening mortgage credit. I don't even have that much of an issue with money intended to loosen car loans. But money targeting credit card companies for assistance seems to me to be the wrong medicine for our current economy.

Someone buying a house is one thing. Someone financing a new big screen tv that they can't otherwise afford is another.

 

Lucas King

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:31:02

Great article! I just loved reading this article. I am particularly impressed with the thoughts about Credit Card Companies and their role in current economies. For more details please visit to this <a href="http://www.mortgageloans.ie/First-time-buyer.html">first time buyer</a> website.

 

Laura

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 19:29:47

Thanks, Lucas.

Things must be a bit tough for you these days wrt first time homebuyers!

Welcome to the blog.

 



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