Memo to Rebecca Wright, Affirmative Action Officer, from Joye Hardiman about the Third World Meeting, 1981
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Memo to Rebecca Wright, Affirmative Action Officer, from Joye Hardiman about the Third World Meeting, 1981
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Date
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1981
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extracted text
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The Evergreen State College
October 15, 1981
TO:
Rebecca Wright
Affirmative Action Officer
FROM:
Joye Hardiman ~:fl-J
Member of the Faculty
I have read over the material you gave me during the Third World meeting
with Dan Evans on Wednesday, October 7, 1981. My skepticism still remains. All the material was based on, was a written version of the Rainbow Training
given by the Seattle Public Schools. I attended that workshop as part of my
research on inter-cultural pedagogy several years ago and while it was a fun
workshop, it did not deal with the problem. The problem being that a great
many White people do not value, like, or know themselves.
{It is not their
fault. It's part of the Americanization process which exaults homogeniality
and sameness). And i t seems to me i f people can't recognize and respect their
own culture, ana it's diversity, how can they recognize and respect someone
else?
Margaret Mead in -speaking with David Hurst Thomas, Chairman of the
American Museum of Natural Histor~ Department of Anthropology in response to
his request on how to best prepare himself for doing face to face field work
in another culture, did not repeat the standard aphorism about leaz·ning the
languages or memorizing the relevant literature and famous people, but instead
said: "Get your humanity well in hand before you go off cluttering up some
other culture with your own inexperience."
I think the most effective thing you can do as a White woman in your
position, is to organize a conference around "whiteness." How marvelous i t
would be to get pivotal people from various campus cliches to speak about what
it was like to grow up as a Jew in America, or what is valuable about WASP
consciousness, or what is midwestern sensitivity, or the cultural background
of vigor or the non-verbals of old boyism, etc. I think i t would be great.
I would come.
cc: . Stone Thomas
Thomas Ybarra
York Wong
Dan Evans
Third World Community
Otymp1a . Vlashing:::;n 9!3505
