[Editor's Note: A chronological list of
AICL's coverage of the shut-down of the Mexican American Studies classes at Tucson Unified School District is here.]
Last night,
The Daily Show with John Stewart aired a
segment on the shut down of Mexican American Studies classes in the Tucson Unified School District. Most of it was an interview of TUSD school board member, Michael Hicks.
I wonder if Arizona's Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal or Arizona's Attorney General, Tom Horne watched it? Or Mark Stegeman, the president of TUSD's governing board?
Thanks to
The Daily Show, millions of people saw Michael Hicks embarrass the district and the state, too.
Citizens of Tucson: It is not in your best interest to have Hicks on the school board. I think you should sign the petitions to have him recalled. Learn more about Hicks from
TUSD's Hicks Recall Effort Begins Sunday. and from David Safier's blog post,
Michael Hicks' letter to UA Dean of Social and Behavioral Sciences.
Below is my transcript of the Daily Show segment. Beneath it is a response from Michael Hicks. Beneath his response is a post to Mark Stegeman's Facebook wall. As more responses appear, I'll add them.
Stewart introduces
segment on Mexican American Studies:
John Stewart (Daily Show): Your children’s education… Nothing is more important! You want them to
learn enough to do well in the world, but not so much that they can win
arguments with you.
But, what are they really learning in school? Al Madrigal
followed this eye-opening story.
Madrigal introduces
the law:
Al Madrigal (Daily Show): Across the country public education
is failing, but in Arizona, lawmakers have found a solution to the biggest
problem facing their schools.
CNN TV news: Arizona’s governor Jan Brewer just approved a
bill banning ethnic studies classes in public schools.
Al Madrigal (Daily Show): And using this new law, the Tucson
School Board banned the K-12 Mexican American Studies program. School board
member, Michael Hicks:
Madrigal’s interview
of Michael Hicks:
Michael Hicks (TUSD school board member): My concern was a
lot of the radical ideas they were teaching in these classes, telling these
kids, that this is their land, the whites took it over and the only way to get
out from beneath the gringo, which is the white man, is by blood shed.
Al Madrigal (Daily Show): When you sat in on these classes,
what types of...
Michael Hicks (TUSD school board member): I chose not to go
to any of their classes. Why even go? Why even go? I based my thoughts on hearsay
from others so I based it off of those.
Madrigal's set up for interview of Curtis Acosta:
Al Madrigal (Daily Show): With powerful evidence like hearsay,
the Tucson School Board ended the program, protecting kids from dangerous teachers
like Curtis Acosta.
Cut to Madrigal’s
interview of Curtis Acosta:
Curtis Acosta (TUSD teacher): Our students are much more
likely to graduate, to go to college… Their test scores have improved, and most
of all, they’re excited about education so they can pursue it in their future
lives.
Al Madrigal (Daily Show): And you do that by teaching them
to hate white people?
Curtis Acosta (TUSD Teacher): We don’t teach them to hate white people. What
we’re trying to do is provide a more complex version of what has happened in
our past so that our students are engaged and they can ask themselves critical
questions and build their own understanding.
Madrigal's set up for interview of Michael Hicks:
Al Madrigal (Daily Show): Critical thinking? More like
critical brainwashing, and it gets worse.
Cut to Madrigal’s
interview of Michael Hicks:
Michael Hicks (TUSD school board member): They would, every
week, go out and buy burritos and feed these kids.
Al Madrigal (Daily Show): What?!
Michael Hicks (TUSD school board member): Yeah! What that
does is that it builds a, more of a bond, between the teacher and students.
Al Madrigal (Daily Show): Sure… “I’m loyal to this guy
because he bought me a burrito.”
Michael Hicks (TUSD school board member): Right. Right. Right.
Cut to Madrigal’s
interview of Curtis Acosta:
Al Madrigal (Daily Show): You slip your burritos to kids,
don’t you?
Curtis Acosta (TUSD teacher): Why would giving food to our youths be
frowned upon?
Al Madrigal (Daily Show): When the program goes away, the
burritos go away. That’s why these kids are upset. No mas burritos.
Curtis Acosta (TUSD teacher): That’s pretty offensive.
Madrigal's set up for interview of Michael Hicks:
Al Madrigal (Daily Show): And now that they’ve eradicated
Mexican American Studies from the schools, they can focus on other ethnicities.
Cut to Madrigal’s
interview of Michael Hicks:
Michael Hicks (TUSD school board member): Honestly, this law
won’t be applied to any other of our courses. It was strictly written for one
course, which is the Mexican American Studies program, and nobody has
complained about any of the other, pan Asian, or any of the other courses that
are being taught.
Al Madrigal (Daily Show): What about African American Studies?
Michael Hicks (TUSD school board member): The African American
Studies program is still there. It’s not teaching the resentment of a race or
class of people.
Al Madrigal (Daily Show): I’m a black kid. Try to teach me
about slavery without me feeling resentment towards white people.
Michael Hicks (TUSD school board member): How am I going to
teach you about slavery… Slavery was…
Al Madrigal (Daily Show): How did I end up here?
Michael Hicks (TUSD school board member): Slavery was… I
gotta think on that… Ok. The white man did bring over the, uh, Africans...
Al Madrigal (Daily Show): What kind of jobs did we do?
Michael Hicks (TUSD school board member): The jobs that you
guys did was basically slavery jobs.
Al Madrigal (Daily Show): So after we were freed we got to
vote?
Michael Hicks (TUSD school board member): Yes! Well, you
didn’t get to vote until later.
Al Madrigal (Daily Show): And we were equal?
Michael Hicks (TUSD school board member): Almost equal.
Al Madrigal (Daily Show): What? We were sort of like half?
Or three-fifths?
Michael Hicks (TUSD school board member): My personal
perception of it? I would say you were probably a quarter.
Al Madrigal (Daily Show): The more he taught me about Black
history, the more I realized that Arizona has figured out the right way to
teach it.
Michael Hicks (TUSD school board member): We now have a
Black man as a president. You know, Rosa Clark did not take out a gun and go
onto a bus and hold up everybody…
Madrigal's set up for interview of Curtis Acosta:
Al Madrigal (Daily Show): Sadly, the peaceful lessons of
Rosa Clark are lost on the radical reactionaries teaching Mexican American
Studies.
Cut to Madrigal’s
interview of Curtis Acosta:
Curtis Acosta (TUSD teacher): I think this is a great country. In some
countries, I might actually be locked up for teaching the way I have, and,
well, in this country, I’m just banned from doing it.
Al Madrigal (Daily Show): You’re very close to getting
locked up…
Madrigal's set up for interview of Michael Hicks:
Al Madrigal (Daily Show): Until then, Arizona’s children can
count on professional educators like Michael Hicks to protect them.
Cut to Madrigal’s
interview of Michael Hicks
Al Madrigal (Daily Show): Do you think it will be ok for the
school district to have a Mexican American Studies program when the district is
100% Latino?
Michael Hicks (TUSD school board member): No.
Al Madrigal (Daily Show): But at that point, there would be
no white people left.
Michael Hicks (TUSD school board member): Well, if there’s
no more white people in the world, then, ok, you can do what you want.
Cut away from interview,
closing comment from Madrigal:
Al Madrigal (The Daily Show): Oh, don’t worry, Mr. Hicks. We
will. We will.
-----------------END OF TRANSCRIPT-----------------
Michael Hicks responded to the segment, saying (the quote appears on Wenona Benally Baldenegro's page on Facebook. She is running for Congress, and if elected, will be the first American Indian woman in Congress. She is Navajo. For background, read the
Navajo Times story on her.):
As you know
(and I know now) the Daily Show is a satirical news show and thus does
not always represent the true remarks their guest make. I went on
this show to talk about the Mexican American Studies (MAS) classes. What
I believed to be would be a true interview ended up being nothing of
the sort. It is unfortunate that the Daily show opted to amuse rather
then inform.
On his Facebook page, Mark Stegeman, president of the school district's governing board, is getting criticism about his support of Hicks. Curtis Dutiel (I don't know who he is) wrote:
Wow, Hicks made an even bigger ass of himself. Didn't think it possible.
Based on the reasoning that Hicks presented on The Daily Show tonight, I have no friggin clue why you voted with him Mark and Miguel, but you two have got to seriously re-think your support for Hicks and his actions.
I'll add more responses as I see them.
