Indian identity in American schools

[Provost Harrison]

Now that's a fact...but thanks to caller display I have been able to avoid all the crap calls I seem to get...

[C0ckney]

Ganesha

nothing very constructive to add, but

wizzy noise vs haldolium - ganesha (pystrance mix)

what a tune

[Provost Harrison]

Wrong thread...

[Whoha]

Re: Indian identity in American schools

Originally posted by aneeshm
the negative images of India and Hinduism in particular have been promoted by our movies and talk show pundits (Indiana Jones

alright, hold up the presses, The Temple of Doom was ragging on the Kali death cult, not Indians.

[Pyrodrew]

I don't remember ever being taught anything negative about Hinduism/India.

Same here. If anything the image was slightly positive because of Ghandi. I also wouldn't say it receives the "worst" treatment, the guy is exaggerating.

I don't think all Muslims are terrorists just because '24' had some episodes with Muslim terrorists. The first time I saw Indiana Jones I didn't apply that to all of India anymore than I thought all Germans were Nazis. Not only did that take place in the past, but it was a fictional movie. I opened the ark yesterday & no ghosts came out.

I believe it was the American Race that showed the rat thing, but considering the American Race isn't a documentary & only entertainment anyone applying that to all Indians (when even AR didn't) is just stupid.

I'm guessing Oprah showed some female inequality/offensive thing?
I have no idea what 60minutes showed.

The author's grouse is that only the negatives of India and Hinduism are presented , and the positives ignored

I thought his grouse was more about Indians in America not standing up for Indian history/religion. This then results in the negative images/views he sees. He wants them to stand up so these negative identities are reduced/minimized.

Edit: My Catholic schools went over all the major religions. None were put in a negative light.

[Cyclotron]

I'd request the posters from the US to tell me what their own education told them about Hinduism .

Jack Sh*t.

[Sava]

Re: Indian identity in American schools

Originally posted by aneeshm

I'd request the posters from the US to tell me what their own education told them about Hinduism .

In my public school education... through high school... I can't recall learning anything about Hinduism.


Most of what I learned in school came in college in religion courses.

I was good friends with a guy who was Indian. I learned a bit about stuff from him... But mostly just general stuff. He was born in America, his parents came over years before he was born. But they did take trips back to India regularly.

[Imran Siddiqui]

In high school there was hardly anything about India in World History classes. American education is VERY Euro-centric, because, as pointed out that's what most teachers know. It's a vicious circle. Teachers only know about Europe, so they teach that and then future teachers end up only knowing about Europe, etc.

And yeah, nothing really negative about Hinduism at all.

[Cyclotron]

I certainly never got any negatiev stereotypes about Hinduism or Indians in my school; I don't think the subcontinent ever came up in class until I took classes on colonial politics in college. While that might be problematic, it's hardly the Indian slandering the author makes it out to be (at least not in my experience).

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Pyrodrew
The first time I saw Indiana Jones I didn't apply that to all of India anymore than I thought all Germans were Nazis.

Germans actually receive far harsher treatment in American schools than Indians ever had. American triumphalism is still apparent 60 years after WW2. Most American teenagers reflexively refer to Germans as Nazis, cannot differentiate between the Germany of WW1 and the Germany of WW2, and know absolutely nothing about Germany prior to 1900. The standard 1200-1800 European history section focuses on England, France, Italy, and Spain, rarely mentioning the H.R.E. or the Hanseatic League. All of this comes in spite of the fact that the majority of white Americans have at least some German anscestry.

I'd go as far as to say that Germans get the second worst treatment of any ethnic group in American schools (and American popular culture as a whole), with Arabs receiving the worst treatment and the Russians coming in as the third most stygmatized group.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Wycoff
I'd go as far as to say that Germans get the second worst treatment of any ethnic group in American schools (and American popular culture as a whole), with Arabs receiving the worst treatment and the Russians coming in as the third most stygmatized group.

Where do you get the Arab thing from? Sure, there's plenty of pop stereotyping these days, but I certainly have never seen the type of stigmatization that you refer to as pertaining to the Germans and Russians. There were middle east history classes at my high school before 9/11. What kind of stereotypes in schools do you see with regard to Arabs?

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Cyclotron
There were middle east history classes at my high school before 9/11. What kind of stereotypes in schools do you see with regard to Arabs?

Mainly the same ones that existed after 9/11.. Arabs are all backwards terrorists. For all the intensely negative imagery surrounding Germans, they were at least regarded as master scientists and engineers.

I went to high school in the '90s... maybe things were different prior to the rise of Islamic Fundamentalism, but even in the mid 90s Arabs were not held in high esteem. The biggest thing that I noticed was the theme that the Arabs used to be advanced in the Middle Ages, but that they have actually regressed through the centuries.

We didn't have a Middle Eastern history class in my high school, and I assume that my high school was of lower quality than yours. I think that my experience was probably more like that of a typical American highschooler.

[CrONoS]

Bhagavad Gita


Anyone read this?
One of the most enlightened religious book/poems I've ever read!

[Dinner]

This is bollucks. Indians aren't put down upon or given short shrift at all. They very fact that some many Indians do so well in the US shows how few barriers there are to Indian immigrants here.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Wycoff


Mainly the same ones that existed after 9/11.. Arabs are all backwards terrorists. For all the intensely negative imagery surrounding Germans, they were at least regarded as master scientists and engineers.

I went to high school in the '90s... maybe things were different prior to the rise of Islamic Fundamentalism, but even in the mid 90s Arabs were not held in high esteem. The biggest thing that I noticed was the theme that the Arabs used to be advanced in the Middle Ages, but that they have actually regressed through the centuries.

We didn't have a Middle Eastern history class in my high school, and I assume that my high school was of lower quality than yours. I think that my experience was probably more like that of a typical American highschooler.

Hmm, fair enough. The trouble is that any of our experiences are going to be quite isolated an unique - and that's what makes me wary of the author's point of view as well. It seems likely that he just is reacting to a handful of extreme examples of ignorance or misinformation, and uses that to make the argument that there is a fundamental problem. I won't deny that information on Indian and Hindu culture is virtually nonexistent in our educational system, but I wonder if the negative bias he talks about is actually as widespread as he thinks. To some degree, there are going to be examples of profoundly ignorant and negative things about every "Other" group in some American classrooms some of the time. The question is how widespread this is.