The talk focused on the ways the high school failed to adequately address the issues of race class and gender clearly present at a diverse urban school. Chikkatur's research and talk focused mainly on the teaching of an African-American history class, which was interpreted as a way for the school to diversify its curriculum. The teacher, however, was ill equipped to teach the class as she had not studied African-American history and did not feel comfortable discussing race.
Here are a couple of Chikkatur's findings that I find most provocative:
Diverse schools should offer opportunities for students to discuss and critique race class gender and sexuality and critique systems of oppression in the US.
Schools right now often ignore the two "foundational holocausts" of the formation of the US: the genocide of the Native American people's land and lives, and the enslavement and transfer of Africans to American soil to drive the nascent American economy.
I certainly agree that diverse schools need to do more to get their students talking about what is going on in their schools and how that reflects forces and systems in the wider society. I know, from having attended diverse high schools in Atlanta and Cleveland where practically no attempt was made to address diversity, that this can have disastrous consequences for students of all backgrounds.
I was also interested by Chikkatur's insistence on a hierarchy of oppression, arguing that the Eastern European immigrant experience and the hardships experienced by that community can not be compared with those of the enslaved African peoples.
I wonder if we can come up with a way of talking about oppression and domination that doesn't equate oppressions that are obviously difference in scope and effect and yet doesn't denigrate the real experiences of people, communities, and histories.
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