Everyday Sociology Blog

Lies My Teacher Told Me: In Memory of James Loewen

By Myron Strong

In my Intro to Sociology courses, I often recall a story I told students when I was teaching at Little Rock’s Parkville High School in Little Rock, Arkansas while working on my masters in secondary education. While analyzing a canonized text on King Arthur to a group of 10^th graders, I pointed to many of the problems centered around gender, class, violence, and history. At one point, I got heated and yelled, “they don’t want you to know this!” The students looking somewhat confused, asked who doesn’t want us to know? Surprised by their responses, I scrambled and replied, “the school board.”

I laughed thinking about it and the story warms me, in part because it reminds me of the book the Lies My Teacher Told Me. James Loewen, who passed away on August 19, 2021, published the book in 1995. It became an instant classic as it challenged the Eurocentric, white, patriarchal, narrow views of classroom texts by presenting an alternative text that corrected many of the myths and lies that are taught by the education system.

Asian American Hate: Exploring the Intersection of Race and Gender

By Myron Strong

More than a year ago in my post, "Fear, Race, and the Yellow Peril," I explored many of the historical aspects of anti-Asian hate. Racialization of COVID-19 served as a catalyst for the increase of violence that has manifested in mass shootings, violent attacks, shunning, civil rights violations, verbal, and online attacks.

Equally disturbing are that most of the attacks have been directed toward women. This brings to mind dangerous stereotypes noted in the article “From Exotic to Invisible: Asian American Womens' Experiences of Discrimination,” where authors Shruti Mukkamala and Karen Suyemoto explore the consequences of the many stereotypes associated with Asian women. The authors note that Asian women are seen as docile and subservient, overly sensual or erotic ("The Geisha"), the manipulative and untrustworthy "Dragon Lady," or the hardworking, conscientious worker bee.

Who is Afraid of CRT?

By Myron Strong

Sociologists Rashawn Ray and Alexandra Gibbons recently wrote article for the Brookings Institution noting that the term “critical race theory” (CRT) has been mentioned 1,300 times in less than four months on Fox News. They attribute this to critical race theory becoming a new boogie man for people unwilling to acknowledge our country’s racist history and how it impacts the present.

This boogie man is getting bigger in some of the media and state governments who spread misinformation and propaganda. This plays on the fears of many whites who have not been given the tools to process change, and lack the proper understanding of the historical context for the circumstances of people of color.

The Challenges of Academia and Finding Positivity during the Pandemic

By Myron Strong

There is a sadness in parts of academia, facilitated by toxic structures like outdated tenure systems, labor exploitation, unrealistic research demands, financial constraints, isolation, and COVID-19, to name just a few. And as I go on Twitter and scroll through posts, there is so much pain from professors and students and I am reminded of Jay Z’s song Song Cry:

“I can't see 'em comin down my eyes
So I gotta make the song cry.”

Some social media posts often convey a sense of hopelessness from academics, and even if I cannot see the tears coming down their eyes, I can feel them. Without question academia can be a challenging place and the pandemic and magnified existing problems. Yet how can we begin to fully understand the world and how to solve problems if we are caught in a web or sorrow and misery?

Reflections on the Capitol Insurrection: Values, Symbols, and Contradictions

By Myron Strong

Like most kids in the 1980s, part of my daily school routine each morning back then was to stand for the pledge of alliance. Images of my grade school teachers asking a class of snaggle-toothed, freshly groomed brown-skinned joyous third graders run across my mind. We all rose for the pledge, but none of us really knew what it meant. How could we, since we were children? 

I remember standing together, silent and thinking more about the impending morning chocolate milk more than the pledge. But the pledge has never felt right to me, even when I was just a kid. I stopped rising and standing for it about 30 years ago. Throughout the years various people have asked me why I don’t rise. I usually just respond with an answer based on the treatment of minorities (racial, sexual, religious) and women, and I explain that I do not feel like the United States its iconography represents justice, respect, acceptance, and freedom.

Collective Effervescence and the Election

By Myron Strong

On Saturday, November 7, 2020, the result of the election for the President of the United States was officially confirmed. At that moment, many people across the world expressed a sense of relief as well as a physical and emotional weight being lifted. Regardless of who you voted for, or your feelings about the election, the feeling and sentiment expressed by others was undeniable.

And as I bathed in the joy, I also pondered what it meant. This moment was the closest I have ever felt to what Émile Durkheim called collective effervescence. According to Durkheim, these are events that transcend everyday lives. People experience intense enjoyment by sharing the sentiments and values of a larger collective, because it makes people feel part of something larger. It creates a collective conscience, the common sentiments and values that people share as a result of living together, and they glimpse eternity, as we experience a moment that will outlive us.

Who Gone Check Me Boo? The Backlash to Women and Power

By Myron Strong

In season two of The Real Housewives of Atlanta, a now iconic scene is featured where co-star Sheree Whitfield demanded to know “who gone check me boo?” Her powerful retort came in response to her blatantly disrespectful party-planner refusing to follow her instructions. While meeting with him, the planner started screaming profanities and calling her names saying that someone needed to “check her.”

His aggressive manner prompted Sheree to verbally remind him that not only does he work for her, but also that she was in control. Sheree’s calm but strong-willed comment illustrates how she refused to back down. As she asserted her point of view, the male party-planner felt insecure and powerless--prompting him to say that someone was going to check her to which she defiantly replied, “who gone check me boo?”

White Man's Burden: Understanding Race and Ancestry through Travel

By Myron Strong

Our knowledge is limited based on our cultural experiences. Traveling is a great way to expand not only our knowledge, but our capacity for compassion, understanding, and hope. In a career that is built on being busy, traveling slows you down and makes you reflect and appreciate simple things.

For these reasons, I often say traveling abroad and specifically leading students abroad is one of my most rewarding experiences as a professor. But beyond that, I am reminded that our lives and decisions are not entirely ours – we carry the hopes and dreams of our ancestors. And, as much as we think we are individuals, we are all connected, and our histories speak too much to how we are rooted.

Fear, Race and the “Yellow Peril”

By Myron Strong

As the globe grapples with COVID-19, violent attacks on Asians and Asian Americans continue to climb. There are continuing horror stories coming from the United States, Europe, and Australia: stories of people irrationally screaming profanities, telling them to go back to China and news reports of Asian and Asian Americans violently attacked. As a matter of fact, NBC news reported that there were over 650 racist attacks against Asian Americans last week alone.

The anti-Asian racism demonstrates how history can inform our understanding and interpretation of the outbreak in China. The messages attached to the COVID-19 virus have a history.

Afrofuturism Can Save us All

By Myron Strong

“The world of ‘what is’ can be supplanted by the world of what never was or what could be.”

I spoke these words to an audience of college students during a presentation on pop culture and Afrofuturism this past spring. As I explained Afrofuturism, I shared the story about the many times I stargazed as a kid, but how this one time in particular that my mom and I actually saw a UFO. My memory of the experience isn’t as clear now, but I do know that it triggered my imagination.

Immediately after my presentation, students came up to me and I began to further connect the ideas between black people and science fiction and sociology. That experience left me thinking about ways to integrate Afrofuturism into my classes as a way to both reach students and to complicate the many long held canonical teaching beliefs.