race law class

i'm taking a race law seminar at school this semester. at first i was not a fan, because it constitutes the twenty or so of us in the class sitting around a table in a small classroom once a week for two hours, venting about our feelings towards contemporary racial issues as they relate to our class readings which center on seminal race cases of the past. without getting too much into it, i felt uncomfortable and i felt that it was such a fruitless exercise because we were all basically pointing out racism present in our society that everyone in the room was already aware of, so it seemed an unproductive exercise to sit around and harp on it. further, because the class is quite ethnically diverse, there seemed to be a lot of tip toeing around certain big issues that are the pink elephant in the room, resulting in choosing words very carefully should they potentially offend anyone. (of course, i am in no way discounting the discrimination or hardships faced by these groups.) in sum, it was kind of exhausting.

but over time, i warmed to the class. this is going to sound very self centered and self promoting, but i think the turning point was when we got to the chapter in the book on the chinese exclusion act, and my interest peaked because frankly, finally, it was a chapter about me.

anyways, i now find myself interested in this class week to week because i really am learning a lot about american history and legal policy. one classmate made the comment last week that it was depressing and disheartening to go through this book because it showcased a new color discriminated against each week, and it is. what's even more depressing to consider is that many of the racist sentiments expressed in United States history still shows up in many different places in our present society. we are far from being a color-blind nation, we are not there yet. i'm really excited to be doing a research paper in this class about the policies of the federal government in terms of its treatment of the native americans.

i had been waiting for someone to say something inflammatory in our race class, which seems inevitable in light of the very sensitive issues that are raised and discussed. one of the goals of this class is to not only arise consciousness for these sensitive topics, but to begin to learn how to better dialogue about these ideas in a way that is more articulate of our true feelings and with honesty and frankness as a means of prompting a more productive conversation even outside of the seminar classroom. six weeks into the class, we hit a breaking point in our class where the comfortability had been set higher and people felt more free to really say what was on their hearts and it was a lively conversation, to say the least, but it was productive and it was heartfelt, and though i wasn't a direct participant of the discussion, i felt that i walked away with a slightly better understanding of the struggles of some of my classmates.

so in sum, i am a fan of race law class. i'm sorry if my post seems centered on a lot of generalities and doesn't have more specificity, but i'm not very good at articulating my thoughts on race and things because i'm not very sure where i stand on a lot of these things and it gets complicated very quickly.