Giddings misunderstands
Rep. Priscilla Giddings’ recent proposed bill demonstrates a serious misunderstanding of what social justice in education means. I have taught at the college level with a “social justice” curricula for nearly 30 years, and never once have I taught that one race is superior to another, an example from Giddings of social justice education (Lewiston Tribune, March 6).
In my courses, you’ll hear the voices of those often omitted from “traditional” courses.
If you’re taking my African American literature course, you’ll read diverse literature written by African Americans. In my American Indian literature course, you’ll read texts written by Native American authors and experience life from their perspectives.
Why do I call this social justice? Because students can’t help but learn about the history of justice and injustice from the stories these writers tell. Students experience the genius, artistry and creativity of authors they may never encounter in any other course in their entire educational experience. I cannot count the number of times students have exclaimed to me: “Why did I have to get to college to learn this?” or “I feel cheated that they didn’t teach this in high school.”
Students want a full and fair understanding of our country, and often they want to work to make our country better.
It is fair and just for Idaho students to learn from diverse voices and perspectives. After all, we live in a beautiful, diverse and complex world. Let’s equip students to thrive in it.
Janis “Jan” Johnson
Lewiston
Keep the dams
... Congressman Mike Simpson has come up with a plan to remove our dams in order to save the upper Hells Canyon dams that impact his district. I do appreciate the fact that he has considered the tremendous losses that we would incur. ...
The large sum of money slated to go toward our transportation losses would not even come close to making us whole.
The hypocrisy lies in the fact that the four lower Snake River dams have extensive fish ladder systems that allow for most all of the fish to travel past. The Hells Canyon dams that impact Simpson’s district are impassable to fish because they do not have any fish ladders or any way for the fish to pass.
His 35-year moratorium buys off lawsuits at our expense. ...
The batteries required to support the wind and solar infrastructure that he is proposing would require unsustainable lithium mining. His other solution is a “couple of six packs of small nuclear reactors.”
Who wants that in their backyard? ...
Let’s spend more of that “printed money” figuring out how to make the dams even more fish friendly. We could also study the impacts of predators and commercial fishing in our oceans. ...
If the dams are removed it is widely considered that transportation costs would double if not triple to get our products to market. This would break many if not all the farmers in our area, diminish property values and leave one of Idaho’s greatest assets fallow.
Greg Branson
Nezperce
An American story
I am a second-generation American, well, at least on my mother’s side of the family. On my father’s side it is a bit less clear. I suspect his family fled Ireland during the horrible potato famine in the 1840s and 1850s.
When they got to America they were not necessarily greeted by open arms and changed the family names to sound more American. They found jobs a lot of “landed” people didn’t want to do — dirty and dangerous jobs — and they sent their kids to school and some off to college.
My grandmother could not speak English. My cousin, who incidentally helped design the lenses that went into space and the moon and who was a professor at UCLA, well, his father could not speak a word of English. But they made a life of it here. ...
In travels to Central America, I have seen poverty and violence that is beyond description and human despair. No wonder people, our brothers, sisters and children try to escape to America. And frankly, the United States is no innocent actor in much of this.
We need to recognize many of these immigrants pick our food, roof our houses in sweltering heat, work in terrible conditions in slaughterhouses and do jobs that no “American” would want to do. It’s all in an effort to realize a better life for themselves and their children. No more detention facilities. No more deportations. No more hatred. Isn’t that what America is all about?
Roger Hayes
Moscow
Editing changed letter
In a recent letter headlined “Government lied,” the Tribune substituted “indigence” for “indignance.”
Both words contain the letters i, n, d, and c — they’re interchangeable, right?
Groaaaaan. ...
Bridger Barnett
Clarkston
