The bill HB 2281 bans schools (in AZ) from teaching ethnic studies because it supposedly promotes the overthrow of the U.S. government. Also outlawed are courses designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group and those that advocate ethnic solidarity..

Tom Horne (state Superintendent of schools and the force behind the Arizona law SB 1070) claims that ethnic studies “serve to divide rather unite”. He says; “Fundamentally, I think it’s wrong to divide students by their race … the program teaches ‘one-sided’ propaganda and is inconsistent with American values.”

Now all of the sudden it is wrong to divide individuals, in this case students, by race or ethnicity. Is it because, according to the government, this class or this ‘division’ would be a threat to the government? How is it that when they divided the students, the community, the COUNTRY by the color if their skin – it was not considered to be wrong? In that case the United States has been incoherent when it comes the “American” values, the “United States”values, the “White man” values. Since dividing people by their race is not wrong, then why did the U.S go through slavery, segregation and is currently going through institutionalized racism?

Ethnic solidarity is when a particular group of people who share a common ethnicity or culture bond together to achieve a common goal. Ethnic studies will enable students to recognize the resemblance between their own culture and the culture of those who surround them; the beauty of ethnic studies is that it will give birth to ethnic solidarity between different ethnicities.

To read the bill click on this link: HB 2281

http://www.truth-out.org/ethnic-studies-classes-illegal-arizona-jan-166457