America letter # 2. Racism.
October 21, 2007
Dear friends,
I have earlier thought that a letter a week is good. Now four weeks have passed since my first letter. Monday through Saturday are study days. Sunday is do-something-else-for-example-write-a-letter-day. If I do so much on a Sunday that I will not manage to write a letter, I will hope for next Sunday. I do not manage to give enough time on a normal weekday. I have studied much in Norway, as I have chosen to; here you are expected to read a lot. A bad calculation showed that I have to read 10 hours a day, Sundays included. I am trying to learn to read faster… Sundays were supposed to be free, but I must admit I have read a bit today, and I think I am not quite finished. I have four small papers this coming week. To papers a week is a quiet week. Three is normal. Four is a more hectic week. Three weeks ago I did not write a letter because I wrote CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) application. Two weeks ago I was camping (four days fall holidays at Lake Superior with two books to be read in my backpack). A week ago I browsed quite a few CPE sites, in an attempt to find out where in the country I want to do CPE next summer. Today this letter is the first on my library program.
I mentioned last time that Dubuque is not very well known, and what it is known for is racism. This was one of the subjects the first week. The course for all new students the first week was “Theology in context”. The goal for the week was to be aware of own background and the transfer to seminary, to start to formulate an own theology, and to get to know Dubuque a bit. Dubuque is a “European” town; i.e., less than 1% of the population has been of African origin. We saw a film advertising the town, showing a more colorful town than we had discovered, and we understood that international students (from Africa) often are the alibi of the town. The town has tried to attract a more mixed population, but not everybody has been very eager, and in the 1990s it was especially difficult to be a minority here.
A few weeks ago an ecumenical worship of lament and reconciliation was organized. A white man was stabbed by a black man outside a pub a short week before I came. The alcohol culture does not seem to be much more civilized here than in Norway, and when it is mixed with tensions of racism, the consequences can be tragic. I heard about vengeance. The African students at Wartburg were a bit nervous the first weeks. They preferred to be together with someone. Fortunately, we have not experienced anything. Perhaps the word of the worship, that it is our responsibility to stand together and create a good future, was heard.
Dubuque is not the only town with racism tendencies. We have had a visit from a Palestinian who is pastor for the first Arabic-speaking Lutheran congregation in the USA, in New York. I guess I have heard a bit from Palestinians, but I was not aware how fast you are blamed in this country if you have an Arabic name or appearance. We have also had a visitor from Germany, a great challenging professor who meant that it was time for the churches in USA and Europe to start to listen to the churches in the South.
Except for this, racism is not a common theme in the courses I take here. In “Academic Writing” it has been a theme, though. It is a course I will not get credits for, but I chose to take it (as I have so much time…) in order to improve my English and to get some advice for writing papers in English, as I have not really done that before. This course is required for most of the international students and for some of the natives who need some help in reaching a master level in writing papers. Last week we only managed half of what was planned for the lesson, as there was much discussion around inclusive language. Many of the examples were in relation to gender, and there were few protests against gender neutral words or saying both he and she. When we came to the “race neutral” words, it was not that easy for the students from the US to see that the “bad examples” not were inclusive. I was a bit surprised to hear that they did not understand the problem with the word “black” describing something negative and “white” something positive, or that they had not thought about that the exchange student from Brazil might also be an American, just not a US American (which is a word I will start to use). It might be a Midwest syndrome. They might be a bit odd. There my prejudices came to the surface. It was time to get out some of them. Not all US Americans are like that, and not all Midwesterners. But there are enough of them that I had a need to write out some frustration about them. In general they are quite nice. ;-)
I have no big plans for next Sunday, so there should be a possibility for a letter again. May be I should give myself a low max-X-words-limits so that I will manage it regardless of how little time I have (take).
Greetings from Hanne.
Dear friends,
I have earlier thought that a letter a week is good. Now four weeks have passed since my first letter. Monday through Saturday are study days. Sunday is do-something-else-for-example-write-a-letter-day. If I do so much on a Sunday that I will not manage to write a letter, I will hope for next Sunday. I do not manage to give enough time on a normal weekday. I have studied much in Norway, as I have chosen to; here you are expected to read a lot. A bad calculation showed that I have to read 10 hours a day, Sundays included. I am trying to learn to read faster… Sundays were supposed to be free, but I must admit I have read a bit today, and I think I am not quite finished. I have four small papers this coming week. To papers a week is a quiet week. Three is normal. Four is a more hectic week. Three weeks ago I did not write a letter because I wrote CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) application. Two weeks ago I was camping (four days fall holidays at Lake Superior with two books to be read in my backpack). A week ago I browsed quite a few CPE sites, in an attempt to find out where in the country I want to do CPE next summer. Today this letter is the first on my library program.
I mentioned last time that Dubuque is not very well known, and what it is known for is racism. This was one of the subjects the first week. The course for all new students the first week was “Theology in context”. The goal for the week was to be aware of own background and the transfer to seminary, to start to formulate an own theology, and to get to know Dubuque a bit. Dubuque is a “European” town; i.e., less than 1% of the population has been of African origin. We saw a film advertising the town, showing a more colorful town than we had discovered, and we understood that international students (from Africa) often are the alibi of the town. The town has tried to attract a more mixed population, but not everybody has been very eager, and in the 1990s it was especially difficult to be a minority here.
A few weeks ago an ecumenical worship of lament and reconciliation was organized. A white man was stabbed by a black man outside a pub a short week before I came. The alcohol culture does not seem to be much more civilized here than in Norway, and when it is mixed with tensions of racism, the consequences can be tragic. I heard about vengeance. The African students at Wartburg were a bit nervous the first weeks. They preferred to be together with someone. Fortunately, we have not experienced anything. Perhaps the word of the worship, that it is our responsibility to stand together and create a good future, was heard.
Dubuque is not the only town with racism tendencies. We have had a visit from a Palestinian who is pastor for the first Arabic-speaking Lutheran congregation in the USA, in New York. I guess I have heard a bit from Palestinians, but I was not aware how fast you are blamed in this country if you have an Arabic name or appearance. We have also had a visitor from Germany, a great challenging professor who meant that it was time for the churches in USA and Europe to start to listen to the churches in the South.
Except for this, racism is not a common theme in the courses I take here. In “Academic Writing” it has been a theme, though. It is a course I will not get credits for, but I chose to take it (as I have so much time…) in order to improve my English and to get some advice for writing papers in English, as I have not really done that before. This course is required for most of the international students and for some of the natives who need some help in reaching a master level in writing papers. Last week we only managed half of what was planned for the lesson, as there was much discussion around inclusive language. Many of the examples were in relation to gender, and there were few protests against gender neutral words or saying both he and she. When we came to the “race neutral” words, it was not that easy for the students from the US to see that the “bad examples” not were inclusive. I was a bit surprised to hear that they did not understand the problem with the word “black” describing something negative and “white” something positive, or that they had not thought about that the exchange student from Brazil might also be an American, just not a US American (which is a word I will start to use). It might be a Midwest syndrome. They might be a bit odd. There my prejudices came to the surface. It was time to get out some of them. Not all US Americans are like that, and not all Midwesterners. But there are enough of them that I had a need to write out some frustration about them. In general they are quite nice. ;-)
I have no big plans for next Sunday, so there should be a possibility for a letter again. May be I should give myself a low max-X-words-limits so that I will manage it regardless of how little time I have (take).
Greetings from Hanne.
posted by Hanne at 7:08 PM
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