Forum addresses flaws in U.S. educational system

  NICOLE MILLER/Daily Bruin Abdel Malik
Ali speaks at Wednesday’s "Miseducation of a Nation"
forum.

By Sophia Chakos-Leiby
Daily Bruin Contributor

Cultural assimilation, globalization and identity were the
topics discussed at an Affirmative Action Coalition forum in Moore
Hall Wednesday night.

The event, “Miseducation of a Nation,” promotes the
need to understand different communities as a solution to violence,
said Muslim Student Association president and third-year computer
science student Bilal Khan.

“If we know one another and understand our perspectives,
we wouldn’t let (violence) happen,” said Khan, who
mediated the forum, which about 100 students attended.

People can promote cross-cultural understanding through
education, said Li’i Furumoto, the director of a high school
outreach program in MEChA. But, she added, the United States has
misused education by turning it into a tool to promote capitalist
and imperialist values.

“Our education system has failed to provide us with truths
about history,” Furumoto said. “We are trained to think
in a certain way that benefits only a part of society ““ the
wealthy and elite.”

The United States used education to impose American cultural
values during its occupation of the Philippines after the
Spanish-American war in 1898, said graduate student Annalisa
Enrile, a Samahang Pilipino member.

When the United States set up school systems and taught children
English, the language classes imposed capitalist American values
represented by simple words such as “Coca-Cola” and
“toothpaste,” Enrile said.

Furumoto cited the U.S. military occupation of Afghanistan as an
example of contemporary colonial mentalities.

“We have to know the reasons behind what’s going
on,” she said. “In many political situations,
that’s the process of materialism.”

The United States must also end domestic imperialism ““
which occurs, speakers said, when the United States exerts power
over minority communities in the country ““ through racial
profiling and stereotyping by the media.

Abdel Malik Ali of As-Sabiqun, a member of the Muslim
organization based in Oakland, Calif., said such biases existed
long before the terrorist events of Sept. 11. He cited times when
the U.S. government quickly linked Muslims to terrorist attacks,
such as the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and called such response
unjust and reactionary.

For individuals to stop the scapegoating that occurs in cases
like the Oklahoma City bombing, Enrile said, it is important to
make education personally and socially relevant by constantly
examining what the teachers and readings say.

“We have to take what we learn to the streets to change
the community, to change the world through real social
transformation,” she said.