Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Through The Looking-Glass



As in Lewis Carrol's children's book. I often feel like that, these days. Here are just two examples. First:

A bill that aims to ban ethnic studies in Arizona schools was signed into law Tuesday by Gov. Jan Brewer, cheering critics who called such classes divisive and alarming others who said it's yet another law targeting Latinos in the state.

The move comes less than 20 days after Brewer signed a controversial immigration bill that has caused widespread protests against the state. The governor's press office did not return requests for comment Tuesday evening.

HB 2281 bans schools from teaching classes that are designed for students of a particular ethnic group, promote resentment or advocate ethnic solidarity over treating pupils as individuals. The bill also bans classes that promote the overthrow of the U.S. government.

Overthrowing-the-Government 101 will now be history, I guess. Most American classes were originally designed for the group "whites" or even the group "white men." It would seem that every course must now be scrutinized with that in mind. Don't you think?

The second example may be a failed attempt at sarcasm:

The idealized vision of suburbia as a homogenous landscape of prosperity built around the nuclear family took another hit over the past decade, as suburbs became home to more poor people, immigrants, minorities, senior citizens and households with no children, according to a Brookings Institution report to be released Sunday.

That's a loooong list of not-so-ideal neighbors! And only white non-immigrant people can have nuclear families.

I read it as sarcasm, given the subtitle "Ozzie and Harriet, RIP." but the rest of the article doesn't quite support that assumption.