Guest commentary: Chingaderas — It’s the system stupid

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By Rodolfo F. Acuña / Guest contributor

I differ with Devon (G. Peña) on some of his criticisms of my last blog, “How History is Socially Controlled in K-12: Setting Standards.” Devon opens the door for others to raise issues that are not to the point. For example, I mentioned that my favorite apostle was Thomas — not because I believe in him — but because he was the only one in the story who questioned the resurrection. So the story goes — Thomas wanted to know if it was really Jesus, and if he had really risen from the dead. So he put his fingers in his wounds — I cannot help it, I like the story.

With that said I appreciate suggestions. I know my weakness — I am lazy when it comes to correcting grammar. Hate correcting student exams; it is the worse part of teaching.

But, let’s stick to the points made by the blog: what I was writing was about how inequality is perpetuated in public schools, and how a small clique of fanatics with the support of well-funded foundations control what is taught in the schools. This is done through the overt censorship such as Tucson’s banning of the books, but it also done through the authority of arbitrary standards.

It is not a secret that many members on these boards seek to enforce their ideological beliefs. I further posited that this form of structural control occurs surreptitiously without our realizing what is happening.

Often we are complicit and go along with flagrant censorship out of fear, laziness or indifference. Americans seem to be driven by fear, and as of late they have surrendered many of their liberties to the state.

It was this fascination with power of fear that compelled me to make a quantum leap, and draw the simile between the serfs and lords and us, thinking I could slip this generalization by the Devons of this world.

I concede that Devon’s arguments have merit, but, as is my modus operandi, I am still going to engage him and others in my usual chingaderas.  Just to clarify my position, I have nothing against Marxism — I only object to the true believers who try to tell me what he said. In the sixties and seventies, we used to say that we had nothing against Trotsky (a great revolutionary) but disliked his followers.

Only a fool would dismiss Marxism; its critique of capitalism and inequality is the best theoretical model for understanding society. However, it should never become dogma, there are errors in its literature such as Engels’ Origins of the Family.

A member of the Communist Party once warned me not to romanticize the working class. Poverty and inequality often warp the workers’ consciousness; after all the working class is comprised of human beings.

We only have to turn to history to find examples of workers betraying their class interests—i.e., Ohio workers who put who was sleeping with whom or a person’s color ahead of their economic issues.

In Corridors of Migration I document the complicity of white miners and the Western Federation of Miners with management in return for keeping the camps white and maintaining a double wage system.

Yes, the peasants often fought back – there is no question that the masses have the  power to transform society.

In his critique, Devon cites the example of the revolt of the Rhineland peasantry. He cites Karl Marx: “the forced separation of the peasants from the land.”

However, Devon should have added that while Marx condemned the exploitation of the peasantry – neither he, Lenin or Mao believed that the peasants would be at the vanguard of the revolution. They also made the distinction between peasants and the proletariat.

Furthermore, Devon’s example of the peasantry oversimplifies history. The terms peasants and serfs are not synonymous, and my own gut feeling–that I cannot document–is that many peasants were initially complicit in their own semi-enslavement, as were many of the proletariat.  Using my mind, I ask why and how?

Well the most rational answer, at least in my own mind, is FEAR. They always had fortified castles that they could retreat to in case of an attack.

Isn’t it possible if not probable that out of fear the peasants surrendered their liberties? Witness what happened at the concentration camps, and what still happens in everyday life. I am not judging just trying to understand.

Those who resist become the heroes in history. They are the ones who mobilize the energy of the masses by taking them to a higher consciousness.

Devon also oversimplifies Mexican history. Colonialism played a huge part in controlling and exploiting the Indians. Moreover, while slaves from Africa played a role in the exploitation of labor, the number of Indian slaves far exceeded the number of black slaves in Mexico.

Devon also pontificates that we should be “concerned … not just [with] the book ban – especially if that is carried out to the on-line market – but rather with the continued digital divide.” The digital divide is important, but it is not my priority. In my opinion, the problem is more systemic, more structural.

In my blog, I specifically dealt with K-12 that is in every sense of the word a captive audience.  The Jesuit motto “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man” still applies.

A child’s worldview is formed in K-8 when a tolerance to inequality is formed.  So I will leave the digital divide to Devon and other esteemed Chicana/o scholars.

I also disagree with his premise that “we can overcome this [divide] in the context of K-12 education” through more “equitable funding of our public schools.” The system will not be corrected by spending money!

That is why I wanted to call attention to the culture war and the right wing’s control of the so-called standards that dictate what students learn, how they learn it, and what books they use, which in turn dictates what they teach in college.

At this point, it would be useful to read Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society, which is a critical discourse on education in modern capitalist societies.

In the context of this discussion, it is no surprise that Chicana/o Studies is marginalized by the application of ideological standards. Teachers and professors are complicit in maintaining this form of neo-colonialism.

Recently Cal State Northridge recertified its General Education courses. A faculty committee was formed. It was supposed to make sure that our general education classes complied with the state board of education’s standards. Because CHS is interdisciplinary, it has a huge stake in multiple categories in GE.

Recertification is a snake pit with departments vying to expand their holdings by limiting others. The loss of one course can mean the loss of multiple sections and a professor or two. The relatively large number CHS has in the GE package has not gone unnoticed by the other departments. So in this recertification departments precipitated in a covert war for a chunk of the 166 sections CHS offers.

The head of the social science recertification committee is a biologist. He and other committee members know nothing about American Institutions or ethnic studies. However, this does not stop committee members from arbitrarily sending our courses back multiple times for revision to what they perceive to be state and campus standards.

Most CHS members were intimidated because as I have mentioned the failure of a single course could mean the loss of several sections. They did not want to rock the boat so they complied.

My feeling was that I have a PhD in history, and I know more about the subject matter than the committee members. So why should I comply with unreasonable requests. I felt that we as a department should pack the recertification meetings and confront the committee members.

What are their credentials? What is the basis of their objections?

Recertification was a learning moment and answers the question of why CHS programs are marginalized. It is my feeling that we have lost our edge. The structure controls us.  Out of fear or just wanting to liked – some of us buy into the fiction that we have too much to lose.

A parting chingadera:  My only caution is not to forget how to count. The great majority of Latino students come from the state and community colleges. CSUN alone has over 11,000 Latino students – that is our future. As the great John Dewey use to remind teachers, teaching is teaching the child not the subject.