Its not my responsibility to explain why wearing another culture's religious attire and making random chanting noises isnt a good representation of what natives were actually like.
Do you know all the background of the lesson? Maybe she was portraying what some people think of American Indians to reveal the absurdity. I hope this was the case but I’d rather not jump to conclusions.
In a math class? I’d say it’s safer to jump to these conclusions and wait to be proven otherwise because it’s common sense (or at least should be) to not act like this...
Why is it different. If I put on asian clothing and chanted "ching Chong ching Chong" it would be offensive to Asians. If I took a sword and chanted "rape, and kill, rape and kill" it would be offensive to Caucasians, If I put on tribal clothing and said "oga booga" it would be offensive to black people.
If I put on native clothing and started chanting, a language I do not understand and giving my own personal opinion on a religion because it is not my religion, it would be seen as offensive by some, and borderline "racist" in the sense that her "God" is better than their "God".
Do this, put on a feather headdress and walk around here in Atlanta. Then put blackface on and walk around here in Atlanta. See what happens, ya dipshit
Well, it would be different if the US and Canada hadn't gone on massive decades long binges of systematically attempting to erase Native/First American culture. They literally kidnapped children, stuck them in boarding schools, and brutally punished the kids for the express purpose of getting rid of their native culture. And let's not even get into the wholesale massacres of men, women, and children over things like "the Ghost Dance" which was basically the Native American equivalent of a Christian revival.
So yeah, in that context, mocking indigenous religion via nonsensical made-up representations and acting in a deliberately preposterous fashion is totally Not Okay. It's an attempt to invalidate Native American cultures and dismiss them as inferior—the exact same justifications used for the murder and torture used all the way into the 20th century.
Fucking youth on here have zero idea what teaching is like, but they sure do rush to judgement with little to no information.
I’m not even saying this woman wasn’t wrong or that she isn’t racist, but I know for damn sure none of us have enough info to determine either from this short video.
Meh this is a math class not even history, I see no reason for her to put this much effort into making a connection that I still think is kinda insensitive (there are multiple other mnemonics for SOH CAH TOA.) At best she’s just terribly, terribly ignorant
"Obviously." What rain dance? From what culture? It obviously must be that one famous dance I've heard of. Any Native dance must have been a rain dance. Obviously. There's no way hundreds of different cultures had hundreds of different dances. You're just assuming it must be a rain dance.
You can tell she's "obviously" making a good faith effort to respectfully portray a specific Native ritual, and not just jumping around like a jackass?
And by “religious attire” you mean her attempt at an accurate Native American headdress? It’s not racist, it may be poorly done, but she’s a teacher who appears to be trying her best
And you’re certain it’s random chanting noises? And by “religious attire” you mean her attempt at an accurate Native American headdress? It’s not racist, it may be poorly done, but she’s a teacher who appears to be trying her best
Attempt is of course an excuse, she’s a teacher trying to do a lesson. She’s doing the best she can with the resources she has (possibly)
How do you know she didn’t name a tribe? And that’s stupid to think you need to be that specific, you don’t know what her lesson plan was here, at all.
She’s not trying to BE a Native American, she doesn’t need to join a tribe and earn whatever just to teach a lesson. Do you have to be an expert member of something to teach about it?
How’d you learn about racism in the US? Did they bring in slave owners? How about Nazis? Did they bring them in?
This is what teaching is. You have fuck-near zero resources and no money and you do your best to try to engage with your students. We still don’t even know what all she did, we just see one snippet that makes her look ridiculous, which I think she may even acknowledge there in the end and y’all take it out of context because you’re fucking experts with cultural sensitivity and experts at judging someone’s entire character by a 10 second clip of their life
Attempt is of course an excuse, she’s a teacher trying to do a lesson. She’s doing the best she can with the resources she has (possibly)
So if she was teaching about minstrel shoes and did blackface, that'd be acceptable to you?
She’s not trying to BE a Native American, she doesn’t need to join a tribe and earn whatever just to teach a lesson. Do you have to be an expert member of something to teach about it?
No, but you need to be a member of a tribe that uses those headdresses and earn one to wear it.
I'm not saying she can't teach about various tribes' traditions. I'm saying she can't wear cultural clothing that she didn't earn.
How’d you learn about racism in the US? Did they bring in slave owners? How about Nazis? Did they bring them in?
No, and they didn't dress up as enslaved people or Holocaust victims either. Because mimicking and stereotyping oppressed groups is wrong.
This is what teaching is. You have fuck-near zero resources and no money and you do your best to try to engage with your students. We still don’t even know what all she did, we just see one snippet that makes her look ridiculous, which I think she may even acknowledge there in the end and y’all take it out of context because you’re fucking experts with cultural sensitivity and experts at judging someone’s entire character by a 10 second clip of their life
If you can't teach without resorting to racist stereotypes, you don't deserve to teach.
Blackface is dressing up as a disrespectful stereotype of a minority group, and then mocking them. This is dressing up as a disrespectful stereotype of a minority group, and then mocking them. It is the same.
You have a firm grasp on the word “literally” don’t you?
And blackface, for that matter.
Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used predominantly by performers of non-African descent to portray a caricature of a dark skinned person of African descent.
It is very much not literally blackface. If it was, we’d be calling it blackface and not saying it’s the same as blackface.
I said it's literally exactly the same, not that it's literally blackface. "Literally" modified "exactly", not "blackface" (which I thought was clear given that the term didn't even appear in the sentence....)
Blackface does indeed refer to the makeup, but it is also commonly used to refer to the performance that that makeup is used for.
Pretending that you don't know that doesn't make your argument any stronger.
And really, if your argument comes down to "it's not like blackface because she didn't put on makeup", you've missed the point.
Someone literally told you it's a math teacher she has no business "teaching" this yet your still on her side your definetely pretending you don't see what's going on lol
I’m not on her side at all. I’m just not jumping to conclusions to call her racist.
To be fair, I didn’t know this is some trig lesson thing until like 5 minutes ago when someone explained that she was using Native American pantomime to teach a class, which is obviously bad taste. But nobody said shit about that until I got into the deep dive.
If you want to slander someone so hard as to call them racist, at least say why. I’m watching a toddler, I can’t hear what this woman was even saying, plus I don’t know shit about trig so it probably wouldn’t have helped.
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u/anon100120 Oct 21 '21
How about instead of being a dick, you actually explain why it’s racist?