Understanding the past and shaping the future

I have sent this across to the editor ... perhaps it will be published. If not, hey, you read that here ;)
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Thanks to Donald Trump’s election, and his statements and policies since the inauguration, students in my introductory economic geography class seem to be significantly more eager than ever to connect the academic discussions to the real world happenings. On their own!

During routine discussions on population dynamics, when my lectures usually put students to sleep reminding me of the hilarious scene in “Ferris Bueller's Day Off,” one question from the back row nearly jolted the class. A student asked, “Why is Portland so white compared to the other cities that I have been to?” Before I could respond, another question rang out: “Isn’t Oregon itself way white compared to even Washington?”

In my fifteen years of teaching at Western Oregon University, I have not been asked these questions even once in any of my classes. I doubt that these questions were merely a coincidence.

In responding to the students’ questions, and thanks to the technology in the smart classroom, I projected on the screen maps about the Great Migration from the American South and how very few came to Oregon. I pulled up a few photographs of African-Americans in Oregon, including about Vanport, in the Portland area. And about Oregon’s own “Trail of Tears.” The maps and photos were worth more than the proverbial thousand words.

As discussions died down, a student from a town in the Willamette Valley remarked that it now made sense to her why I am the first non-white teacher she has ever had in her entire life as a student—all the way from kindergarten through college.

Of course, as an outsider—first from India, and then from California—this whiteness in Oregon, and hence my brownness, was one of the first things that I had to quickly understand about this state that has been a wonderful home to me.

If this post-election politics has given us an incentive to understand these important issues, then we may as well put that to good use.

In the educational world of geography, there are many formal avenues for all of us to further explore and understand questions like the ones my students asked.  One such avenue is the Geography Awareness Week.  

The National Geographic Society created the “Geography Awareness Week to raise awareness to this dangerous deficiency in American education and excite people about geography as both a discipline and as a part of everyday life.”  Many centers affiliated with this activity have selected “civil rights” as the theme for the Geography Awareness Week in 2017, which will be during November 13-19.  

Civil rights has distinct geographic patterns and impacts. While we usually think of the American South, states like Oregon too have had, and continue to have, issues related to civil rights. 

We do not have to wait until the "Geography Awareness Week" in order to understand civil rights issues. As we plan for our excursions around the state during the gorgeous Oregon summer, I hope more among us will also spend some time stopping by the numerous places that will help us understand who we were and, therefore, who we want to be in the future.

Muslims in America?

It was my father, I am sure, who set me on the path of reading the newspaper every morning with his routine of sitting with the paper (and sometimes taking it to the bathroom too!)  Early on in my life--I wish I knew exactly when it happened--I got to that habit.  I was so much addicted that if The Hindu wasn't there, anxiety set in.

I read every page, whether or not I understood the deeper issues.  One of the most confusing moments, which I still recall, was when the business section of the paper had a report that jute prices were affected because of oil prices.  I could not ask anybody about it because in the culture back then we kids did not nag the elders with questions and I was terrified of teachers to ask them.  Stupid is as stupid does!

I read the sports pages too, and keenly followed the action even when I had not participated in the real world even for a nanosecond.  I celebrated the fact that a Muhammad Ali was winning boxing fights.  I did not understand what a jab or a hook meant, but I felt joyous that there was a name that I could recognize who was winning over names that were alien to me.  But, the mystery deepened within: how did one of our guys manage to get to America in order to box?

If the world is confusing to adults, well, it was head-spinning to the kid that I was.  Muhammad Ali looked like he could have been from India, was dark-skinned, and had a Muslim name, but was in America?

Imagine my surprise when I learnt that there were Muslims in the US and that Ali was one of the American Muslims.  When we are kids, I suppose the world is a fascinating place about which we are constantly learning something new every single day, but for some reason as we get older we think we have seen it all and that we know it all--and we stop being amazed with all things all around us.

Much later in life, here in the new country, I watched documentaries, especially Eyes on the Prize, which made me understand and appreciate Ali not for the boxing, which I don't care for, but for the phenomenally courageous civil rights fighter that he was, and for how well he articulated his views.  Which is also why of the homages that I read about Ali, I liked this part in Kareem Abdul Jabbar's tribute:

Today we bow our heads at the loss of a man who did so much for America. Tomorrow we will raise our heads again remembering that his bravery, his outspokenness, and his sacrifice for the sake of his community and country lives on in the best part of each of us.

Indeed!

Slate notes this from Ali's interview with Playboy back in 1975 on how he wanted to be remembered:

… I’ll tell you how I’d like to be remembered: as a black man who won the heavyweight title and who was humorous and who treated everyone right. As a man who never looked down on those who looked up to him and who helped as many of his people as he could–financially and also in their fight for freedom, justice and equality. As a man who wouldn’t hurt his people’s dignity by doing anything that would embarrass them. As a man who tried to unite his people through the faith of Islam that he found when he listened to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. And if all that’s asking too much, then I guess I’d settle for being remembered only as a great boxing champion who became a preacher and a champion of his people. And I wouldn’t even mind if folks forgot how pretty I was.

A "champion of his people" he certainly was.  And a pretty one at that.