Why Penny Pritzker Matters: On the Chicago Teachers Strike

We must first consider what Penny Pritzker wants for her children and the children of parents like her (Rahm Emanuel is one of these parents) who can afford private education: well-funded and resourced libraries, useful arts and music programs, good gyms and physical education, new facilities with the latest technologies, computer labs with enough working and up-to-date computers for the annual class-load, texts for every student, well-equipped and healthy cafeterias, and the best, most-educated, pedagogically progressive teachers a school could desire. We must second be willing to admit that Penny Pritzker does not think these things are a priority for Chicago Public School parents, teachers and students. You might believe this is a bit harsh, a little too mean, maybe even an unfair claim. It’s not. The problem with her involvement in public school reform is cultural.

What she wants for "those" people—and believe me that’s how she thinks about public school students, teachers, and parents—is a degraded form of what her privileged community can access. This degraded school is The Charter School. Charter schools don’t work as well as the kinds of private schools rich kids’ parents can afford. Why not? They are not fully-funded. I argue this under-funding and lack of resources is by design. The parents don’t have the time and money to fund and dedicate themselves to organizing the schools. The students still live in the problem neighborhoods, with problem cops, and often problem homes. The teachers are still under-paid and not provided with the best resources and appropriate materials. Nor do they have job security. People like Penny Pritzker know about these problems, but they also believe that they know how best to advise under-privileged people and their under-developed communities how *they* should work to earn what she already possesses. We have a culture that informs us about the purpose wealthy patrons of educational reform, government organizations, corporations, and misguided parents choose to insist appropriately funding public education is pointless. We should examine that culture, too, not just students and teachers.

What’s different at charter schools? Well, they’re pseudo-public schools that pretend to provide the benefits of an idealized--imaginary--private-school education. They can fire teachers and drop students who aren’t meeting oppressive standards they had no stake in implementing. In spite of rigging the system to look successful to the best of their abilities--the ability to get rid of low-performing students and teachers who don’t meet benchmarks--charter schools fail to live up to their missions all over the country.

Penny Pritzker wants poor kids to have schools that aim to reflect the kinds of private schools she admires. Why the need for the struggle and aim as imprecise as it happens to be? Because rich people believe they have earned their ambition and that poor people have yet to prove they are worth it. This isn’t to say Penny Pritzker and people like her don’t think she’s doing the right thing and being a good citizen. She does think so. People think she’s a blessing to the world. Believe me. She throws money at all sorts of things. It’s just that she’s wrong. And it’s our responsibility to keep this in mind and insure that people like her aren’t the ones setting our education agenda. Penny Pritzker shouldn’t be on a school board and engaged in curriculum development. She has not earned the right to help create educational policy.

Let’s be clear: teachers’ unions with all their complex problems and yes, even bureaucracy, are what we should get behind. This strike, the first in 25 years, is important because these are the people—the teachers and their students—who have a stake in the successful operation of public schools. They are not catering to the textbook industry, the corporate educational reform movement and its CEOs, the charter school movement, parents, and politicians. They are engaged with and within the classroom. They necessarily provide the tension we need when negotiating educational reform.

And now they are in the streets because citizens tend to afford rich people like Penny Pritzker the respect and ambition they have not earned and tend to distrust workers. Workers here are Students and Teachers.

dagNotes: on privilege and white power in Korea

[from my tumblr blog, posted earlier today]

In my last post, I talked about the problem with white people coming to Korea and suddenly becoming conscious of race. Except, they don’t see white power and privilege, which is everywhere on display. They see racist Koreans.

Then, I received an anonymous ask shouting at me for being white and calling out white supremacists and racism. An obvious troll, but one who provides me with an opportunity to discuss why white people experiencing racism like the young woman in the former post are so misinformed.

I’m white. I argue I have a responsibility to betray my inherited privilege and unearned ambition. And not for any reward either. Simply because I, like everyone else, have an ethical obligation to fight the white power structure that constructs individuals as white subjects. White people don’t exist. Whiteness is constructed and protected and inherited. I may be able to benefit most from this racist ideological apparatus that shapes capitalist society, but I should reject it. It’s a moral obligation, in my opinion.

And as some folks are claiming, I’m not doing this to point the finger at white privilege. I’m actually trying to examine how it works for myself and in my life, and I’m writing about it. DagSeoul isn’t a “white people are privileged” blog. So, please stop sending me stupid shit in my ask-box about that.

***

I don’t go around claiming I’ve experienced racism in the manner most white people do. Most talk about angry black people, hateful hispanics, crazy Koreans—jealous others whose envy for power causes them to hate their whiteness so much that they act in a racist manner. Of course, that’s utter nonsense. It’s bullshit. That’s not racism. Yelling at whiteness, hating whiteness, having a problem with white people isn’t always racist. It’s a sign of white power. It’s a response to white supremacy.

I play football almost every Saturday in Korea. I live in a Korean neighborhood, so all my teammates are Koreans. They’re all men. They’re almost all younger than me. I’m bigger than all of them. Stronger than many. I’m not the most skilled footballer, but I’ve played since 1978. I’ve got skill. I can score. I’m fast. I know and love the game. And, I can run all day. When a bald (I shave my head) and bearded white guy is booking down the field with the ball, it’s intimidating. A lot of Korean guys are super-fit and strong, but smaller than me. When I run into them at full speed, I feel it, but they really feel it. And I play a much more physical style of football than Koreans do. Fans of the game will understand this. Most guys love it when I show up with my Korean teammates to play. They talk to me on the field. It’s fun. But it’s not always fun.

When I first arrived, a colleague took me around to meet various clubs in the area. Word got around rather quickly that there was a foreigner who wanted to play and he was good. I got asked to play by my team. I was invited. I considered myself lucky. I really figured I’d have to find foreigners to play with, but I wanted so much to play with Koreans. It’s one of the reasons I was excited about coming here. Anyway, I felt accepted. In a few months, I had twenty-five younger brothers. It was a wonderful feeling.

One of the teams we regularly played often got very mad at my teammates that I was playing so well. It appeared that way to me. I didn’t get it. I’ve since learned that some Korean players think its unfair that they should have to play a foreigner. I’m big and strong and can hurt them. I don’t hurt them, but we’re talking intimidation here. I had so intimidated a couple of players that they couldn’t contain their frustrations any longer. After a day of playing together, they confronted me and my team. We almost had a brawl. My teammates were standing up for me. I was pulling guys away from one another. And one player on the other team yelled, “Yankee, Go home!” Some of us laughed. Some of my teammates wanted to fight. The oldest players stepped in and yelled at everyone. My wife had showed up to watch. She was very upset.

Simple story, right? I play. I play with Koreans. I play well. A little physical, but nothing dirty. I score goals. My team wins a lot. The frustrated players on the other team blame the foreigner for fucking up the peace. One guy says something insulting. Many white people would call it racist. Dude’s a hater. It’s not even racist.

Once, I parked my scooter in front of a cafe and the owner told me to move it somewhere else. She didn’t want it in front of her shop. I told her it was legal. She yelled at me for being a spoiled foreigner. Many white people would call it racist. But. It’s not even racist.

I’ve been involved in pushy moments in the crowded subway where I’ve been yelled at in Korean, called out as a rude foreigner. Many white people would call it racist. But. It’s not even racist.

Koreans who call me out for doing things Koreans often do and explicitly scolding me as a foreigner are often referred to by white people in Korea as racist Koreans. They’re not racists.

White people love to see racism against them. And why not. White power works that way. White people are raised to feel precious and deserving of good treatment. They deserve respect. Why would anybody pick on them because of who they are?

Fact is, there are haters in Korea. The longer I live here, on the other hand, the more I recognize my white privilege is in full effect here. And the rudeness with which I’m treated at times simply requires a little patience and understanding. This might sound patronizing, but it’s not. After all, I was brought here and treated well because of who I am, treated well in a manner that the majority of Koreans will never experience.

I’m often asked, Why would you come to Korea? Koreans talk about their country being no bigger than a booger (우리나라는 코딱지 만큼…)  or no bigger than a palm (우리나라는 손바닥 만큼…). Why would I come to a place most Koreans can’t leave? Well, the answer is because I’m privileged. That’s the answer. The humiliating aspect of that answer is its correlation: I can leave whenever I want to. In other words, I can go home. I have a place to go other than here. I can return. That’s what Koreans see me as sometimes, but especially when they’re annoyed at me. They are confronted with privilege. And they sometimes take it out on me. It’s not racism. Try telling that to many white people in Korea, though.

I’d have to be a real dick to deny this privilege. That guy yelling “Yankee, go home” at me is reaching for something to say at all in the face of my belligerent presence in his life. He was being a dick, but he can’t speak English and he yelled the one insult in English he knew might hurt my feelings. The power he feels that oppresses him in a daily manner is a problem with Korean culture, centuries of oppression. Shit I don’t get. But I’ve added another element. Now he has to play soccer, on his day off, with a white guy who reminds him of a specific and painful lack of privilege and I’m going to knock him down, too. I’d be a dick not to expect some sort of response.

Annoying things white people do when they get to Korea

Arrive in Korea and insist they're an oppressed minority and discover prejudice, bigotry, exaggeration, hatred, and inequality everywhere around them. Fucking Korea!

Then, they start blogging about how bad Korea is: they post on ESL forums; they post on expat forums. The time spent is Korea becomes an examination of popular culture and media--the way Koreans see and represent foreigners. When you search for theses authors on the google, you will learn that their activism only developed after they arrived in Korea. And the ones who've left, well, they stopped their vital work informing against hate and oppression as soon as they got home.

White Power Douchebaggery, even in Korea. This shit is what I call the privilege of being able to leave minority status behind enables and emboldens thousands of privileged white mother-fuckers to speak out against non-white haters. It's Safe Activism: thousands of white people each year finding a place, like Korea, to displace their own privilege and to project their own guilt and shame.

Privilege and Complaint

I know I can sound difficult, mean even, when addressing issues I care deeply about. In my defense, I do believe I live in a community--the expat community in Korea--that takes its privileges for granted, that believes it has earned its status on its own, that wants freedoms and liberties it doesn't necessarily care that other communities have, that feels its free will expressed in written and verbal discourse is the sine qua non of public discourse.

All of that is complex. The simple fact of the matter is that nobody can expect much change to occur without first coming to terms with our status quo. That many of my peers--native speaking English teachers, in this case--are unable to discuss this basic problem of organizing to promote useful change is all too clear. Look at the public writing about teaching in Korea, subtract from the list the useful practical teaching blogs, and you're left with two kinds of discourse: tourism and complaint.

I'm not very optimistic about these authors being able to organize much more than a web site that lists information already available nor to organize much more than a group of their close friends to meet from time to time to complain about problems, to publish lists of demands.

Legend of the Persecuted White Guy

David Sirota's new essay in Salon is good reading.  Here's the article from Newsweek asking whether or not white masculinity can survive the recession.  With a straight face.

We all know the truth about white male privilege. Even now, white men are statistically the most insulated group in society.

The legend of the persecuted white guy (and his girlfriends) exists even in Korea, where white guys love to write I Hate Korea blogs because Koreans don't privilege white people by default. The white power structure is in full effect here and the privileges white skin with good English with good education affords translates into a standard of living that is, in fact, more comfortable stable than for the majority of Korean citizens. Koreans know it and some--not all mind you and nowhere near close to all--resent it. White people are massively privileged in Korea.

Imagine what would happen in the US if our government used tax revenue to bring native-speaking Spanish speakers from Mexico into public elementary, junior and high school classrooms--and paid those native speakers with graduate degrees more than many of the citizens who teach at those schools get paid, paid for their flights to and from the US each year, paid for much of their housing, paid for their medical care, paid for their pleasure, paid for their pensions, and when they left paid them nice bonuses. Imagine what would happen then.

White people, especially white men, hate unpackaging privilege and thinking about it. Talk to a libertarian about privilege and you'll see where I'm coming from. Bring up white power structure with many liberals and you'll get a fight.