Protesting for Persepolis

Over the weekend, I picked up the Chicago Tribune (a rarity considering I usually access news online) and on the front page a found an article about some Chicago Public Schools banning a book. The book that they are banning is called "Persepolis". It is a graphic novel that details what it was like for a woman to grow up during the Iranian Revolution. The book is usually read in the seventh grade. It is a terrible thing that the school wants to ban a book but what is even more intriguing is how the students are reacting. After hearing the news that the school was planning on banning a book that was a vital part of their middle school years, students began to vent on social media sites. Furthermore, they checked out all of the copies of this book in the library in order to "preserve" the book.

The students organized a protest on Friday afternoon to show their frustration with the district officials who are planning on banning Persepolis. Something interesting in the article was the detail that "many of the student's signs were made from old posters used by teachers during their strike last year".  (Chicago Tribune). To me this is very symbolic of the will in everyone to stand up for what they believe in, both teacher and student alike. The students were taking direct action, which is something I feel is very rare for this generation. In response to the protest, a Social Studies teacher at the school said,"I tell my students all the time, this is what education is all about. You don't learn just so you can take a test. You learn so you can change the world. They are actually doing that now". This teacher is highlighting important values in American education that often get lost in the weekly tasks that students have to accomplish. In the moment, students feel like their main goal is to ace the test and sometimes that is what teachers are best prepared to teach. But the true enlightening lessons stem from experiences that can impact the world. The students are not only learning how to speak up for what they believe in but making an impact through their leadership.

Magazine Cover Promotes Age Old Stereotypes

Today I found an article that exemplifies many of the issues that we have been discussing in class about race. The article was actually a response to a magazine cover that many people found to be racist. The cover (right) belongs to a highly acclaimed financial magazine, Bloomberg Businessweek. This cover art depicts a home overflowing with money and four people sitting inside the house. The four people all appear to be minorities, either Latino or African American. When the drawing is viewed in relation to the title, "The Great American Housing Rebound", it still doesn't quite make sense. I would expect that the article would be talking about how minorities are helping to improve the housing market but instead the article talks about the housing market in Phoenix which I would assume readers are supposed to contextualize is a city filled with minorities. Other than this, the cover of the magazine seems very irrelevant.

What stood out to me when I first saw the cover was the expression of the African American man in the lower right hand corner. His exaggerated features and crazed look eerily reminded me of the 20th century cartoon clips and posters that we viewed in class a few weeks ago. Dedrick Muhammad, a senior director of economics at the NAACP said that,"[the drawing] still puts forth a historically racist depiction that minorities are out grabbing money and benefiting from it". Muhammad seems to illuminate an unspoken fear that the white majority seems to hold against many minorities in America. There always seems to be a new (minority) group to blame for the problems in the country.

In order to combat the criticism, the magazine's editor wrote an apology that said, "Our cover illustration last week got strong reactions,which we regret. Our intention was not to incite or offend. If we had to do it over again, we'd do it differently"(Politico). Obviously, the magazine did not intend to be present a racist imagine but their apology could not seem any less heartless to me. The editor never outright says that the magazine regretted publishing the image but rather that they regret the "strong reactions" that will now taint the name of their magazine. Instances like these make me wonder how far our society has come from the racist beliefs of the past. I am confident that racism still exists but with little "mistakes" like this one, the hope of progression may never be fulfilled in our lifetimes.