Arizona Bans Ethnic Studies

This past Tuesday, Arizona nutjob governor Jan Brewer signed a bill into law which basically bans ethnic studies classes throughout the state, sending Arizona further down the dark spiral towards complete teabaggery chaos. It's just so skeevy the way it was done because the language of the bill makes it almost come across as hand-wringing political correctness---if you were only half-reading it, of course.

“Public school pupils should be taught to treat and value each other as individuals and not be taught to resent or hate other races or classes of people,”

This bill bans any classes that advocate “the overthrow of the United States government,” “resentment toward a race or class of people,” “are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group” or “advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.” Ironically, these things all describe most of the "classes"at teabagger homeschools and private Christian schools but anywho.

Apparently governor Brewer and others have a problem with students learning about American history: that the founders committed genocide, enslaved and tortured whole races of people, and built this country with greed, inequality, and violence. They also think they can keep Hispanics from learning that Republicans hate them. This is laughable, really---I am actually laughing right now---that they think they can pull that off. Too late!! You might have wanted to try a different technique than ARREST ALL THE BROWN PEOPLE, STAT!

It's also hilarious that a state official is actually trying to rewrite history because he's pissed off that the white people of this country have been the assholes for the majority of their involvment. Tom Horne said, "It's just like the old South, and it's long past time that we prohibited it," Uuuh, what the fuck is he trying to say? I actually have no clue. I am seriously confused on this one. Because the last time I checked, we used to own black people down here. So I'm not sure how students taking a class where they learn that white people used to treat them like shit is "just like the old South" and needs to be prohibited.

The Politico article also points out that neither the governor nor any supporters of the bill have identified a single example of a course that advocates overthrow of the US government.

Arizona bans 'ethnic studies'
Arizona gov. signs bill targeting ethnic studies