Curriculum Disruption Week at The New School
As part of the #400YearsofInequality observance leading up to its 100th anniversary, The New School asks its university community to disrupt business as usual to question how it can do better.
Leading up to the 400th anniversary of the first Africans arriving in Jamestown, Virginia, we are encouraging the New School community to engage in evaluating how this affects us.
From October 12–18, that effort, 400 Years of Inequality, is propelled by a week of “curriculum disruption” in which classes throughout the university will be encouraged to “take a break from business as usual” and think of how the class’s subject area relates to 400 years of inequality, an effort led by Mindy Fullilove, William Morrish, Robert Sember, and Maya Wiley.
The diversity of perspectives and breath of the conversation will be transformative for us and we hope will launch a national engagement with this history and its implications.
Below, find five of the Daily Disruptions that were part of the Curriculum Disruption Week. Each disruption includes a fact, a personal account, and a tool for resistance and tackles a specific subject. These Daily Disruptions were authored by Ricky Tucker ’14 with research assistance by Professor Mindy Fullilove.
NATIVE AMERICANS
Fact: When Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas, he almost immediately began instituting cruel and genocidal policies that rapidly devastated Native populations.
Columbus, in his log, 1492:
“They (Arawak Natives) willingly traded everything they owned…they do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane… they would make fine servants… with fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”
What systemic precedents were set by these first engagements with native populations?
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Personal Account: Speech by Powhatan, Chief of the Tsenacommacah Tribe, as recorded by John Smith, 1609:
“Why will you take by force what you may obtain by love? Why will you destroy us who supply you with food? What can you get by war? We are unarmed, and willing to give you what you ask, if you come in a friendly manner… Take away your guns and swords, the cause of all our jealousy, or you may die in the same manner.”
If the colonists had interacted with native populations peacefully, what would life in America be like today?
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Tool for Resistance: Learn everyone’s story.
When we think of 1619 and the 400 years of inequality that followed, we need to have a holistic understanding of history, thinking of the Powhatan Indians, the men and women brought over as indentured servants to “conquer” the “new” land — our first immigrants — and the Africans, sold into bondage.
How does learning multiple historical narratives help us understand our current situation?
WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE
Fact:In 1848, the Women’s Rights Convention welcomed editor and former slave, Frederick Douglas, to speak on the virtues of universal voting rights. Douglas was later quoted as saying:
“Our doctrine is that right is of no sex.”
In 1870, when the 15th Amendment granted newly freed black men the right to vote, many white women suffragists resented this measure. Indeed, as the Constitution would not give women the right to vote for another 50 years.
Why is the right for America’s citizens to vote continually contested, and how can we all act as accomplices in securing this right for all?
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Personal Account: Mark Twain, Votes for Women Speech, Hebrew Technical School for Girls, January 20, 1901
“I should like to see the time come when women shall help to make the laws. If women had the ballot today, they would rise in their might and change the awful state of things now existing here.”
Today, women make up 19.6% of the U.S. Congress. What if their political representation were 51%, like their percentage of the population?
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Tool for Resistance: A monument can serve as both commemoration and a symbolic reminder of the once attained aspirations of a collective.
In America, however, a commemoration is entirely subjective.
As protest against the 1970 Equal Rights Amendment making discrimination based on sex illegal, the LDS Church created The Monument to Women Memorial Garden. This two-acre park in Illinois is home to twelve statues depicting women in traditional roles, like “Fulfillment” where a woman sits quietly quilting, and “Joyful Moment” where a woman is mothering a group of small children.
Should monuments shift along with cultural mores? What would your monument be — and to what would it aspire?
RACE/CLASS
Fact: Shortly after North America’s first slave and indentured servant revolt in 1663, the Virginia House of Burgesses took great measures to exploit the few differences between its black slaves and impoverished white citizens.
The fear was that the two marginalized groups might continue banding together to resist oligarchical rule in the new colonies. Divisive legislation would soon follow.
How is this manmade rift between black and poor white citizens still in effect today?
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Personal Account: Governor Howard of Virginia
June 1680 (Law)
“I, Francis Lord Howard Baron of Effingham of Virginia, enact a most necessary and good law to deter and prevent the insurrection of Negro slaves by the too frequent remissness of Masters not restraining their Negroes… and by such liberty giving them the opportunities of meetings in great tumults… to extend their bloody purposes on their Masters and Mistresses. For the future, no Negro slaves shall either carry or arm himself with any staff, club, gun, sword, or other weapon, offensive or defensive.”
*In 1705, Virginia subsequently passed a law requiring all masters to provide white servants at the end of their service ten bushels of corn, thirty shillings, 50 acres of land — and a gun.
What was the purpose of these disparate laws?
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Tool for Resistance: a manifesto
Like the Declaration of Independence and Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, a manifesto is about vision, change, and the collective consciousness. In it, opinions and facts are blended for a desired outcome, which can inspire and rally like minds that aren’t able to physically congregate. In the end, however, a manifesto is a call to action.
What action would your manifesto call for — and why?
LGBTQ RIGHTS
Fact: LGBTQ youth make up 40% of all young people experiencing homelessness, a disproportionately higher statistic than that of their peers. This data is staggering considering LGBTQ youth are 7% of the total youth population.
As a nation, how do we create familial spaces outside of those given to us, and as a a culture, should we be responsible for all of our children?
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Personal Account: David, a 15 y/o student in Manchester, UK
“Once at school this lad was bullying me, the usual stuff: f*ggot, queer… I was so stressed that the teacher didn’t do anything that I punched him. I ended up getting into trouble for that. I just can’t talk to anyone. I feel insecure and unprotected. I think if it was just talked about, that would make it easier.”
Brian, a teacher in Manchester, UK
“I teach as an openly gay man at a Manchester High School, and in my first six weeks there I came out to a class where I had witnessed verbal and physical homophobia and embryonic queer bashing. Later some of the students knocked on my door with either a sweet or a piece of work or simply to ask if I was ok? A tiny step had been taken.”
Is there a difference in outcome when individuals in power refuse to perpetuate inequality?
*Source: LGBT Foundation, UK
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Tool for Resistance: Talk about it.
Fear comes from ignorance, and ignorance is only the lack of information. We’ve all been there. Like many instances of inequality and discrimination, the more we talk about it and inform one another — the less there is to fear.
What if every act of discrimination could be prevented by a single conversation?
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
Fact: In 1987, a study by The United Church of Christ Commission on Racial Justice found that over 15 million African Americans, 8 million Hispanics, and half of all Pacific Islanders and Native Americans at the time resided in communities with at least one abandoned or uncontrolled toxic waste site.
Is there a hierarchy to environmental wellness today that mirrors that of class and race?
*Source: United States Environmental Protection Agency
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Personal Account:
“It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.” — Ansel Adams
“When it comes to the groundwater contamination and the poisoning of people, I see it as a a moral issue. Nobody’s ever gonna convince me that a CEO wouldn’t care if his own child was poisoned.” — Erin Brockovich
“Every drop in the ocean counts.” — Yoko Ono
“It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one destiny, affects all indirectly.” — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
If all of Earth were one organism, what would be the current state of its health?
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Tool for Resistance: In order to defy the system you must know it.
Like the ecology of inequality, there are many moving parts to the ecosystem of environmental justice — and they are all inextricably linked: policy, development, race, class, voting rights, clean energy, et al.
Vote. Know the virtues and limits of technology. Run for local office. Learn the geographies of oppression. Use your monetary vote discerningly. Interrogate how laws effect lives.
Then resist.
