Faces: University, Prisons. Not the same.

Anonymous,
Lincoln, NE.

I teach Native Studies (among other things) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and I volunteer with the Native groups in the state prison system. Walking across the quad I see mostly white faces– walking across the yard not so much. Makes me sad. And mad.

Also wanted to comment on your “South Pacific” segment. I memorized that show in 1965 when I was in the pit orchestra for the high school musical. Always thought it was a bit of a copout that Lt. Cable gets killed and doesn’t really have to face bringing a Polynesian war bride back to “Philadelphia. PA” and dumping the “blue-eyed kid” to whom he was engaged. Would his “uncle and dad make me part of the partnership of Cable, Cable, and Cable”? It’d be a lot easier if we were “carefully taught”–then we could just be untaught. But what about the white privilege implied by “Princeton, NJ” and its comfortable replication that is never challenged till war introduces one to “coconut palms and banyan trees and coral sands and Tonkonese”? I’ts much harder to unprogram things one takes for granted than things one was carefully taught.


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