aconybell.

Harvard Students to Learn About Black People By Watching The Wire →

jesuisperdu:

youmightfindyourself:

Harvard, the nation’s insufferable institution of higher learnin’ attended by the nation’s most insufferable kids from its most insufferable families, will offer a course on HBO’s The Wire, the best TV show ever made, so as to better educate their pampered student body about life in the ghetto. Says William J. Wilson, who will teach the class: “I do not hesitate to say that (The Wire) has done more to enhance our understanding of the challenges of urban life and the problems of urban inequality, more than any other media event or scholarly publication.

FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU. FUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK YOU. Seriously Harvard? Stop sucking dick and live outside of the mindless, meaningless, and overly polished lives you boost about. The Wire is a terrific show, but really? So now all of you will “understand” black people now, right? What a load of bullshit. I don’t normally get this annoyed over the blatant ignorance in this world, but come on, Harvard. An ivy league course on it? Completely frivolous. Do you really think it is that simple to fool people? You are losing your luster even more.

I say we round up all the Harvard kids and make ‘em live in Bed-Stuy for a few days. Or OTR. Or Oakland. I actually think that’d be a pretty fun experiment. Maybe I should work my ass off to become a Harvard professor some day so I can maybe organize that.

In all seriousness though: it’s not like they’re trying to educate them on what it’s like living in Haiti or Sudan or the slums of Mexico City. It’s fucking pathetic that they have to teach these kids what it’s like in their own back yard. How can anyone be truly educated about their own world (much less country) if they’re totally isolated from it?

Actually, there are a lot of people who go to Harvard that are not rich and are not from the best areas of the country. Including black people, Asian people, every kind of people. Not everybody is from an actually “urban” city and don’t really understand the ins and outs of them. Americans have so many misconceptions about cities and the history of urban inequality. I think it’s actually a good thing they’re doing this. Even if you grew up in a major city, you might be forced to think about it in a different way. Hell, every neighborhood in Boston has a different idea of urban inequality and they don’t tend to really mix and mingle with residents of other neighborhoods. You can’t write people off and call them ignorant because they’re from Iowa. You can’t learn if you’re never taught. I don’t only mean taught in school, because there are obviously different ways of “teaching”, but if you’ve never really had the opportunity to experience these things first hand, how would you really know about them? The Ivy League schools are known for having classes like this that expose you to different things and think in different ways you wouldn’t necessarily have the opportunity to do at another school. Isn’t gaining a better understand of the world what college is really about?

Posted November 3, 2009 at 2:53pm || home