I'm not sure I agree with the author entirely here. I feel like this statement is underselling the importance of understanding colonial ideas in a society. I also saw this idea in the criticism against "freeing the mind" from colonialism earlier in this article. I think both of these ideas are fundamentally important when we talk about current systems of pushing against colonialist structures. Obviously every situation is different, but I think the author could spent more time emphasizing the importance of historical structures when addressing colonialism.

This reminds me of resource extraction in recently independent countries in Africa and Asia. These countries are abused by financial stronger countries in order to extract resources. The wealthier colonizing countries continue to gain natural resources and the colonized countries face environmental degradation. I see similarities to that idea in this paragraph.

This section reminds me of an article that we read for my Indian Ocean Worlds history class. The article Forced laborers and their resistance in Java under Japanese military rule, 1942–45 by Shigeru Sato describes the use of Javanese people as forced labor in World War ll and how they pushed back against this oppression. In both classes, people are viewed as labor resources that can be exploited by a colonial power. The Javanese are sent by train across the country to grow rice, and build infrastructure projects. The removal and forced labor are pushed back against by working slowly and running away. This designation of oppressed people as labor is line that can be drawn across colonial regimes.

This sounds like a classic "do you practice what you preach?" situation with education in America. We are taught that this country is the melting pot of the world, a community of immigrants and we should celebrate this background. But at the same time our education system pushes ideas like those highlighted here that work to make this country monocultural and monolingual. You can't have both, it's about time the education system starting teaching to the mixing pot and not the person standing overhead mixing.

It is interesting that these articles/books that we have read for this class are so tied up in simply things like phasing. Brown vs Board is completely related to this idea as are many of the other articles that we have read. I think this fight over wording shows the impact of the US government on our education system. If we worked within a system that was flexible and adapted to changing needs and cultures. We could argue less about wording. Instead, when politicians and judges get involved with writing out important education policy discussions it becomes less about the students. Instead of looking at the problems that currently exist in our schools and addressing them, better yet giving the schools the resources they need to do so. Politicians maintain their power over them by cutting funding, fighting over language and telling teachers what they can and can't teach. I believe we must schools more power to address the challenges they face.

This is paragraph related to the stripping of resources away from a non-dominant culture got me thinking about the relationships between cultural resource stripping and natural resource stripping from an underrepresented group. Both of these ideas occur on the local and global stage. I want to explore the impacts of impoverished resource rich countries. I video posted below describes the conditions that created these discrepancies. The most resource rich countries are growing slowest. I see a similar trend in education. The people with the richest cultural history are the most negatively impacted by the US education system. I think it's an interesting comparison to look. Especially when we discuss how to push back against these issues, drawing cultural connections is great place to start. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvW0kcajWKk