In Political News, Where is THE ISSUE?

If you have read the newspaper or the headlines for online news feeds in the last few days, most of the major United States domestic news has been aimed at providing coverage of the superficially over-hyped, presidential race for 2008. The way major news headlines have told us everything we have ever wanted to know about the candidates lives, views on issues and more, but my dissatisfaction is not with the amount of candidate coverage. My dissatisfaction lies on the notion that the most important domestic/international topic is no longer getting covered in today's news, and that is the war in the Middle East. Maybe everyone is tired of talking about and reporting on a war that doesn't seem like it is on the road to resolution anytime soon, but that is the exact reason why we need to continue to make this front page news! As long as the United States continues to send 18 and 19 year old men and women to a region of the world to enforce a political agenda, the war in the Middle East should continue to remain a front page headline.

Higher Education Indoctrination

Last week (November 1st) a discussion topic on Glenn Beck (CNNHN) was debated on the state of higher education, and if modern universities are not educating now just indoctrinating.  The topic that was up for debate, and venomously opposed by Mr. Beck's program was the orientation of new students into the university housing (dorm) system and the accepted university definitions of several life terms and experiences.  The terms that were taken exception to were the definition for what/who is racist, and understanding sexual identity.  Now these are very complex issues that could be discussed as dissertation topics, but they chose to give an editorial commentary on Mr. Beck's television program.  Mr. Beck's conclusion stated that the universities have gone away from institutions of higher learning, and now are houses for left-winged, pro-socialist, anti-American professors attempting to indoctrinate young minds.  In response to these claims I will discuss these assertions to the best of my ability.

First, Mr. Beck had two guests on the program to discuss the state of modern universities and the educational practices thereof, but neither contributor to the program was a higher education professional nor were they a higher education researcher of any kind.  What type of adequate debate can take place when only one side of the argument is represented?  There was an independent film maker and the President of FIRE (The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) on dare I say a panel.  The university in question was the University of Delaware, and their housing practices, but this isn't really about them.  This is about the way they are dissecting a program to single out the parts that they don't like.  Glenn Beck made a statement "that as tuition paying parents we've got to change that. (That being the composition of university faculty and staff that as he put it were pro-socialist, anti-Americans going unchecked.)"  What about writing a tuition check for your son or daughter makes you entitled to the hiring practices of that institution? If I go to Best Buy to purchase a television, I do not get to comment on their corporate structure.  I can complain about poor service.  I can start shopping at Circuit City, but I cannot tell Best Buy who they can and cannot hire.  Maybe this is for another discussion?  The state of American money and the entitlement people feel by spending it, I just want to remind everyone that no one makes you go to a certain school or store.  If you don't like what you are getting in one place, you can go to the next.

So some parents feel uncomfortable that their children have to learn about some difficult topics when they get to college, but isn't that what college is for?  To make the point that some people are offended by the definition of a racist, should be moot.  In the resident training program from the university in question (Delaware), a racist is a person who resides in and profits from a racist society.  So by this definition an African American, in America, cannot be a racist, because African Americans do not and have not profited in any form of the American racial hierarchy.  This may be an uncomfortable topic of discussion for many, but that doesn't make it untrue.  In our modern society, we like to embrace our 'oneness'.  We celebrate our diversity, by having unity weeks and diversity pride parades (gay pride, black family reunion, Latino pride, etc.), but we don't discuss how the wealth of our society has been unevenly distributed throughout the history of this country.  If you happen to be someone who came from a group of people that could not own land or had to be subject to Jim Crow laws until recently, your outlook on racial disparity has to be different from the people who are trying to live it down.  

Also on this topic, we must understand the difference between a racist, and a person who is prejudice.  They are discussing being racist.  Someone can be ashamed of a system in which a hierarchy had been created, that they themselves had nothing to do with and not embrace it, but that does not make that person exempt from profiting from the history of what was created.  To be or display prejudice, would be the thinking or acting on preconceived beliefs about one's race, gender, sexual orientation.  That is different from racism, and we all know the power is in the definition.  It is a weird thing in American society to discuss race, because for so long it was broken down into two groups.  You were either white or black.  One was acceptable, and the other was not.  Now, as a society we have come a great distance from that time in history, but we must not forget that the era of civil rights was just 40 years ago.  You cannot just wash away a history of behavior in one generation, and a society that is still operating on terms that have been in place for hundreds of years.  He want to forget the mistreatment of people in our society.  We want to relieve ourselves of the guilt that we feel for this American holocaust, by saying things are different now, and they are, but that doesn't change the things that took place.  Just because we feel guilty, doesn't exempt someone from it.  That is the purpose of a university is to challenge thoughts, that you may not embrace or accept, but that does not make them any less real.

The university experience as a whole, IS AN INDOCTRINATION, but that does not make it negative!  It is the indoctrination for young adults into adulthood.  Many of the ideas that circulate around in institutions of learning are not parallel to the ideas that the average high school student take for granted, nor are they always the accepted ideas that would be thought at your home.  Why do you think that universities are their own entities with university villages or college towns?  It is because you are not at home anymore in your suburb that made you so comfortable.  University is about expanding your mind, not just expanding your wallet.  So many people believe that college is simply about earning a degree to get a job.  It is not!  It is a place of learning on many levels, and in some cases learning some things that are not so comfortable for you to talk about.  Now the university experience is not perfect, but nothing in life is perfect.  If we are at a place in society that we are complaining that our children are forced to hear things we are uncomfortable with, we as a society are doing a lot of things wrong, and that does not start and stop with the university system.