the army has a lot of work to do
hello campers,
blah dee blah, lah dee dah, peace and hairgrease.
i typically shy away from discussions of race, mostly because i rarely see the utility in them. however, i was especially disturbed by a news segment on NPR earlier this week.
West Point, in its infinite military wisdom, recently dispatched a mini regiment of cadets to New Jersey to live for three or four days amongst the minorities, most notably in communities of people they, as soldiers, will be apt to encounter while patrolling the streets of Afghanistan or Iraq. the intended goal of this experiment in immersion was prefaced by a Major (and class instructor): we need to introduce our uncultured army-tykes-in-combat-training to the intricate, undiscovered facets of life that are the everyday experiences of peoples whose cultures they do not understand. (this sort of thing is expected to come in handy while the Bush Administration strives to (1) bring democracy to their otherwise lawless native homelands, and (2) figure out why not everyone is so keen on its methods).
NPR then trotted on a cadet, a young man from Arkansas, who prefaced his short-winded testimonial with a quick overview of his background: “white [and] from a town with 1500 people,” etc. he then went on to describe the welcome-with-open-arms, amiable nature of these [pre-selected], [America-based] families and mosques, and how he learned that they have families (gasp!) and pray and eat dinner (you don’t say!). granted, these might be valuable insights in the right context (they’re really not all terrorists!), there’s no getting around the superficiality of these revelations, particularly as they do nothing more than echo the typical talking points of culture shock.
the story, in its totality, amounted to nothing more than a bizarre exposé of “white ignorance” — the dissatisfied and disgruntled parent to “white guilt.” and i’m sorry, but this not news, nor is it worthy: everyone is ignorant to external (a.k.a. “foreign”) customs and cultures; that’s actually part of the point. moreover, being a minority does not give you some special magical insight into the life experiences of other minorities.
NPR should have instead focused on the substantive new learnings these cadets acquired: what types of misinformation about Muslims or Iraqis or Islam have been corrected? In what ways will Sir Cadet be better enabled to serve and protect the Sunni or the Shia? How do we respect fundamental distinctions amongst groups of people we so callously lump under the heading “Middle Eastern?” simply knowing they have families just isn’t going to move the needle. and as the listener, how exactly have i been educated with anything of value?
it seems our military might be trying to undo some of the unfair, imbalanced, and skewed perspectives rampant in American culture. but [American] media continues business-as-usual, inculcating a plethora of misconceptions and stereotypes with its oftentimes sensationalist journalism. in the end, we get more “news reports” long on superficiality, short on substance, and absent on opportunity for public enlightenment.
the army has realised the quid-pro-quo is hurting them; will the general public ever realise we’re not being well-served by it either?
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“99.99% of what happens is not on the news.” - Loesje –
