J
November 12, 1970
THE CAROLINA JOURNAL
at, just like black people’
Page 5
Vietnamese war. It gets some
opposition from a few teachers.
Some support it. But a vast
number of professors who know
perfectly well what’s happening
copping out again. And in the
hi^ schools, you can forget it.
Stillness reigns.
I’m not sure why teachers are
so chickenshit. It could be that
academic training itself forces a
split between thought and action.
It might also be that the tenured
security of a teaching job attracts
timid persons and, furthermore,
that teaching, like pohce work,
pulls in persons who are unsure of
t themselves and need weapons and
other external trappings of
authority.
At any rate, teachers ARE
^ort on balls. And, as Judy
Eisenstein has eloquently pointed
out, the classroom offers an
artificial and protected
environment in which they can
exercise their will to power. Your
neighbors may drive a better car;
gas station attendants may
intimidate you; your wife may
dominate you; the State
Legislature may shit on you; but
in the classroom, by God,
students do what you say — or
else. The grade is a hell of a
Weapon. It may not rest on your
hip, potent and rigid like a cop’s
gun, but in the long run it’s more
powerful. At your personal whim
^ -- any time you choose — you can
keep 35 students up for nights
and have the pleasure of seeing
; them walk into the classroom
pasty-faced and red-eyed carrying
a sheaf of typewritten pages, with
title page, MLA footnotes, and
margins set at 15 and 91.
The general timidity which
causes teachers to make niggers of
their students usually includes a
more specific fear - fear of the
students themselves. After all,
students are different just like
black people. You stand exposed
in front of them, knowing that
their interests, their values, and
their language are different from
yours. To make matters worse,
you may suspect that you
yourself are not the most engaging
of persons. What can protect you
from their ridicule and scorn?
Respect for Authority. That’s
what. It’s the pohceman’s gun
again. The white bwana’s pith
helmet. So you flaunt your
authority. You wither whispers
with a murderous glance. You
crush objectors with erudition and
heavy irony. And worst of all, you
make your own attainments seem
not accessible but awesomely
remote. You conceal your massive
ignorance — and parade a slender
learning.
You might also want to keep in
mind that he was a nigger once
himself and has never really
gotten over it. And there are more
causes, some of which are better
described in sociological than
psychological terms. Work them
out, it’s not hard. But in the
meantime, what we’ve got on our
hands is a whole lot of niggers.
And what makes this particularly
Churches play
host for CIH
Once again this year during the
Christmas holidays, churches
Across the land will be playing
host and providing hospitality for
international students in the
United States. Forty-five hosts in
twenty-four states provide a
pleasant alternative to an empty
norm or a deserted university
Campus.
Sponsoring committees in the
''arious communities provide
housing in private, home or
educational buildings which
become temporary dormitories.
Christmas International House
offers a way for the international
student to enjoy Christmas in a
local community and with other
international students.
Activities vary according to the
host community, but usually
includes tours to local attractions,
ihsits with city leaders, parties.
opportunities for dialogue, and
just plain rest. Christmas
International House is open free
of charge to all international
students regardless of race,
nationality or religious
background. Reservations are
necessary. If you are interested,
see Miss Mildred English or Dr.
Loy H. Witherspoon for locations
from east to west and north to
south and for an application
blank.
Although the Christmas
International House is free, the
student is responsible for
financing his own trip to and from
the host community. Everything
else, once the student arrives, is
provided as a free service to
international student.
It is imperative to get your
reservation in early-especially if
you want to go to Florida or
California.
BUS’S
Wide variety of
delicious foods
PIZZA
Choice selection
of beverages
grim is that the student has less
chance than the black man of
getting out of his bag. Because the
student doesn’t even know he’s in
it. That, more or less, is what’s
happening in higher education.
And the results are staggering.
For one thing, damn little
education takes place in the
schools. How could it? You can’t
educate slaves; you can only train
them. Or, to use an even uglier
word, you can only program
them.
Educational oppression is
trickier to fight than racial
oppression. If you’re a black
rebel, they can’t exile you; they
either have to intimidate you or
kill you. But in higli school or
college, they can just bounce you
out of the field. And they do.
Rebel students and renegade
faculty members get smothered or
shot down with devastating
accuracy. In higli school, it’s
usually the student who gets it; in
college, it’s more often the
teacher. Otliers get tired of
figlrting and voluntarily leave the
system. This may be a mistake,
though. Copping out of college,
for a rebel, is a little like going
North, for a Negro. You can’t
really get away from it so you
miglit as well stay and raise hell.
How do you raise hell? That’s a
whole other article. But just for a
start, why not stay with the
analogy? Wliat have black people
done? They have, first of all,
faced the fact of their slavery.
They’ve stopped kidding
themselves about an eventual
reward in the Great Watermelon
Patch in the Sky. They’ve
organized; they’ve decided to get
freedom now, and they’ve started
taking it.
Students, like black people,
have immense power. They could,,
theoretically, insist on
participating in their own
education. They could make
academic freedom bilateral. They
could teach their teachers to
thrive on love and admiration,
rather than fear and respect, and
to lay down their weapons.
Students could discover
community. And they could learn
to dance on the IBM cards. They
could make coloring books out of
the catalogues and they could put
the grading system in a museum.
They could raxe one set of walls
after another and let life come
blowing into the classroom. They
could raxe another set of walls
and let education come blowing
out and flood the streets. They
could turn the classroom into
where it’s at - a “field of action”
as Peter Marin describes it. And
believe it or not, they could study
eagerly and learn prodigiously for
the best of all possible reasons —
their own reasons.
They could. Theoretically.
They have the power. But only in
a very few places, like Berkeley,
have they even begun to think
about using it.