If you're seeking to be trained with studies not related to regular school curriculum, San Francisco State University (SFSU) has you covered. Instead of sticking with traditional subjects such as law, science, or even literature, SFSU has launched a new revolutionary major: “Race and Resistance Studies.”
Certain people might consider race to be a ridiculous way to look at their world or themselves However, those old-fashioned views are becoming less popular due to the messages being broadcast across academics as well as other public institutions. Skin color is the latest “content of their character.”
San Fran State is keeping up with current trends. So, the undergraduate study program's goal in a nutshell:
The purpose of Race and Resistance Studies is to help students be able to think critically, develop an understanding of the social, engage and respond to the needs of communities, and develop leadership abilities, while establishing a solid base of knowledge about the various cultural and historical contexts of people of color both within and outside of the United States. To do so, Race and Resistance Studies utilizes an approach that is comparative/relational, interdisciplinary, intersectional, and centered in a praxis of resistance.
According to SFSU.edu, the program is “committed to the study of race-related processes underlying many social problems and the forms of resistance and struggle aimed at social justice.”
In other words, whites make the rest of us suffer:
Our program investigates these processes using the lens of a relational and comparative approach by examining the ways in which indigenous and people of color…confront and fight social injustices. We use an approach of comparative analysis, which focuses on comparing and contrasting the different experiences of various racialized groups.
The courses purportedly “provides students with a multi-faceted understanding of the forms of oppression and struggles for change.”
And intersectionality is at the center:
Our curriculum focuses on intersectionality, which is the analysis of the ways existing knowledge structures like gender, race, class as well as nationality, sexuality, and religions can be used to marginalize, degrade, and marginalize those who hold multiple positions… Race and Resistance Studies explores how social problems are driven by discrimination on the basis of race and ethnicity using these various techniques.
What does the school hope graduates will do with their newly acquired understanding of the causes of Caucasian oppression?:
Our program will create cohorts of highly motivated socially conscious students who will apply their analytical frameworks to enhance existing organizing and service work in communities of color that are marginalized across and around the U.S. and abroad. We aim to create a praxis that combines the study of theory and practice with organizing.
It's certainly not the only time that a school has prepared activists. For example, a Florida university launched a degree program to train “Social Justice” activists–along with other schools that have rolled out “racial justice, equity and inclusion” programs to prepare students for “success” in government. Another state university launched a graduate program in “Antiracism.” Yet another, major university offered a Racial Justice Center that funded nonwhite initiatives and provided “Masterclasses in Activism.”
According to Campus Reform, San Francisco State University students will learn how to resist the system through the program covered in RRS520: “Race, Radicalism and Revolution.”
Other options:
RRS 350 Race Labor, Class, and Race
RRS 29 Sounds of Resistance Race, Rhythm, Rhyme, and Revolution
RRS 380 Coloring Queer: Imagining Communities
RRS 466.060 AIDS as well as People of Color in the U.S.
RRS 48 Youth Culture Race, Resistance, and Youth Culture
RRS 490 Race, Art, and Social Justice
RRS 473 Antislavery and Slavery within the United States
None of these courses use the “We Are the World” approach. At the very least, SFSU promotes nonwhite gut health. Bon appetit to the folks in RRS 304: Decolonize Your Diet, Food Justice in the United States and Gendered Labor in Communities of Color.
There seems to be no need for old-fashioned academics. The public education system now appears to be primarily an instructional system for ideologies. Perhaps, in the eyes of Uncle Sam, the government is guiding young Americans towards becoming good citizens. But is it teaching them to think of other citizens of their community as decent?
