Framework

Oppression in education is what prevents students from critically challenging

the squo – the judge can make this space one where we can challenge it
Kumashiro 2K (KEVIN K. KUMASHIRO, former Dean of the School of Education at the
University of San Francisco, “Toward a Theory of Anti-Oppressive Education”, 2000
http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1170593.pdf?refreqid=excelsior:9ba063bd396fb6de3733ce346
7885eb1, DOA: 7/14/17)//AK

Some researchers have turned to poststructuralism to help formulate conceptualizations of

oppression that center around notions of discourse and citation (Britzman, Santiago-Valles,
Jimenez-Munoz, & Lamash, 1993; Butler, 1997; Davies, 1989; Kumashiro, 1999a, 1999b; McKay
& Wong, 1996; Walkerdine, 1990). Earlier, I mentioned Walkerdine's (1990) study on nursery
classrooms. Her analysis suggests that oppression and harm originate in (or are produced by)
not merely the actions and intentions of individuals or in the imperatives of social structures and
ideologies. Rather, oppression originates in discourse, and, in particular, in the citing of
particular discourses, which frame how people think, feel, act, and interact. In other words,
oppression is the citing of harmful discourses and the repetition of harmful histories.

To understand this notion of citation, consider the "model minority" stereo- type of Asian
American students, that they are all smart and hardworking "aca-demic superstars" (Lee, 1996).
As I discussed above, researchers have explained the harmfulness of stereotypes by turning to
individual prejudice and discrimi- nation (Miller, 1995) and to a White-dominated racial order
that claims to be meritocratic and non-racist by pointing to the "success" of "model" minorities
(Osajima, 1988). They have argued that the power of a stereotype to harm either exists
inherently in the stereotype (so that an individual using a stereotype is like an individual
wielding a weapon) or derives from social structures and ideologies (so that using a
stereotype is like assisting in the maintenance of the structures/ideologies). They have also
argued that this stereotype has tangible consequences, that it may cause differential
treatment of students by teachers and even psychological harm (Crystal, 1989; Lee, 1996;
Osajima, 1993). These theories imply that in order to challenge oppression educators should
prohibit the use of the stereotype-as well as the voicing of hateful, harmful speech (Butler,
1997)-or strategize ways to "resist," "challenge," or dismantle an al- ready-existing structure
(through critical pedagogy).

Post-structuralism offers a different view. As I have argued elsewhere (Kumashiro, 1999b),

iterating a stereotype can cause harm because every such iteration cites past iterations of that
stereotype. In other words, the power of a stereotype to harm derives from a particular history
of how that stereotype has been used and a particular community of people who have used that
stereotype and who constitute that history (Butler, 1997). If someone was to tell me that I
should be a better student because I am Asian American, I would likely con-clude that the
speaker is making racist assumptions about me because I have heard other people talk about
and generalize about Asian Americans in similar ways before. The speaker's words would have
racist meaning to me because I would read them as constituting part of the history of how the
model-minority stereotype has been and is being used. Furthermore, if I believed that the
speaker was judging me based on this stereotype and I valued the speaker's judgment, the
speaker's words would likely produce in me feelings of failure or abnormal-ity. I should note that
the model-minority stereotype plays out not only in individual thoughts and interpersonal
interactions, but also in institutional prac-tices. Affirmative action offices and policies, or
advisory commissions on race, for example, that fail to address the racism experienced by
Asian Americans or otherwise ignore Asian Americans, are doing so because they are buying
into the model-minority stereotype. In these institutions and ideologies the associa-tion
between "Asianness" and "success" (or, the process in which Asianness cites success) gets
repeated over and over.

Narratives are good – they allow us to challenge rational and objective modes
of knowledge, which are net worse for accessibility and subjectivity
Chang 93 (ROBERT S. CHANG, Professor of Law and Executive Director of the Fred T.
Korematsu Center for Law and Equality, “Toward an Asian American Legal Scholarship: Critical
Race Theory, Post-Structuralism, and Narrative Space”, 1993, pages 1277~1281, DOA:
7/10/17)//AK

When the real question about objectivity is asked, further questions are revealed. What
counts as knowledge? What counts as evidence? One use of outsider stories is to demonstrate
the inequities of the present situation. The disempowered find ourselves in a peculiar position
in that the evidence we would use to prove our oppression consists of the very stories that are
now disbelieved or excluded because they are only stories. In this way, rules of evidence
silence us. In order to get our stories into evidence, we need to broaden or change the very
meaning of evidence.'73 In order to make the case for narrative, I turn now to epistemology
because our theory of knowledge largely determines what counts as knowledge and what
counts as evidence.

C. Epistemological Strategies There seem to be two ways to argue the case for personal narra-
tive.174 The first takes place within the rational/empirical mode.175 In this mode, an
argument will be convincing if it meets certain standards of "impartiality, objectivity, evidential
confirmation, comprehensiveness or completeness, and explanatory power.176 Personal
narrative would be offered to challenge the current formulation of objectivity, but not the
notion of objectivity itself.177 In this sense, personal narrative reveals bias in supposed
objectivity and then reconstructs it to include previously excluded perspectives. Some strands
of feminist theory and critical race theory have this as their goal and rely to some extent on a
version of standpoint epistemology to legitimize the use of stories of oppression. I will examine
these arguments in Part II.C.1.

The second, more radical approach challenges the rational/empiri-cal mode by challenging the
very notion of objectivity and the accessibil-ity of knowledge. This more radical critique is
often characterized as post-modem or post-structural. 78 In challenging the rational/empirical
mode, this more radical critique also challenges the standpoint episte-mologies that might
support the use of personal narrative. Since all standpoints are equally validated (or
invalidated), there is no longer any compelling reason to privilege any viewpoint. To state it
differently, my personal narrative is as relevant as your personal narrative, and since both of
them are equally relevant, they are equally irrelevant.179 I will examine how post-structural
theory has responded to this challenge in Part II.C.2, but I turn now to the rational/empirical
mode.

L Arguing in the Rational/Empirical Mode

Mainstream academic legal discourse begins from the premise that objective knowledge
exists and is accessible. I call this the rational/empirical position. My own theoretical bias tells
me that this is a false premise, but I start here to show how the case for personal narrative
would appear within the context of mainstream academic discourse.180

Different disempowered groups have developed a similar methodology that tries to reveal bias
in supposedly neutral standards. Feminist legal scholars ask "[t]he woman question." They ask
"about the gender implications of a social practice or rule: have women been left out of
consideration? If so, in what way; how might that omission be cor-rected? What difference
would it make to do so?"181 Race scholars ask the race question, and so on. The use of the
objective voice is one of the social practices that has come under the scrutiny of those asking
this type of question.

The objective voice is obtained by abstracting from the individual in order to universalize the
perspective of the author so that not only does the author, as an abstracted entity, speak as
Everyman Everyperson, the author also presumes to speak for everyone. A favorite device is
the use of what one commentator calls the "constitutive we."182 This "constitutive we"
appears in the work of many philosophical and legal theorists. For example, John Rawls uses
"we" in a subtle way that includes "us" as fellow inquirers into the questions he poses.183 But
who does he think "we" is?184

Too often, the individual used as the model for the universal is a man, and more specifically, a
white man. Thus, one goal of personal narrative is to discredit this "we." For example, I might
use personal narrative to show that the "we" is a lie because it does not include "me." The
stories of outsiders become important because they tell the story from different perspectives,
perspectives that may have been excluded when formulating the objective, universal "we." It
is important to remember that at this stage, personal narrative is not being offered to replace
what had previously been thought of as objective: to impose my subjectivity upon everyone
else only repeats the sin.185 Rather, personal narrative is being offered to show that
objectivity may actually be a dis-guise for white male subjectivity, which takes away the
subjectivity of the disempowered.186
 Line by Line
Their ‘fairness’ claims are a product of the hegemonic discourse that
re-enforces racism.
Delgado 19 92 (Richard, Professor at Seattle University School of Law,
Shadowboxing: An Essay on Power,” 77 CNLLR 813)

We have cleverly built power's view of the appropriate standard of conduct

into the very term fair. [FN41] Thus, the stronger party is able to have his way and
see himself as principled at the same time. [FN42] Imagine, for example, a man's likely reaction to the
suggestion that subjective considerations-a woman's mood, her sense of pressure or intimidation, how she felt about the man, her
unexpressed fear of reprisals if she did not go ahead [FN43]-ought to play a part in determining whether the man is guilty of rape. Most men
find this suggestion offensive; it requires them to do something they are not accustomed to doing. “Why,” they say, “I'd have to be a mind
reader before I could have sex with anybody!” [FN44] “Who knows, anyway, what internal inhibitions the woman might have been
harboring?” And “what if the woman simply changed her mind later and charged me with rape?” [FN45] What we never notice is that women
can “read” men's minds perfectly well. The male perspective is right out there in the world, plain as day, inscribed in culture, song, and myth-
in all the prevailing narratives. [FN46] These narratives tell us that men want and are entitled*820 to sex, that it is a prime function of women
to give it to them, [FN47] and that unless something unusual happens, the act of sex is ordinary and blameless. [FN48] We believe these
things because that is the way we have constructed women, men, and “normal” sexual intercourse. [FN49] Notice what the objective
standard renders irrelevant: a downcast look; [FN50] ambivalence; [FN51] the question, “Do you really think we should?”; slowness in
following the man's lead; [FN52] a reputation for sexual selectivity; [FN53] virginity; youth; and innocence. [FN54] Indeed, only a loud firm
“no” counts, and probably only if it is repeated several times, overheard by others, and accompanied by forceful body language such as
pushing the man and walking away briskly. [FN55] Yet society and law accept only this latter message (or something like it), and not the

The “objective” approach is not inherently

former, more nuanced ones, to mean refusal. Why?

better or more fair. Rather, it is accepted because it embodies the sense of the
stronger party, who centuries ago found himself in a position to dictate
what permission meant. [FN56] Allowing ourselves to be drawn into reflexive,
predictable arguments about administrability, fairness, stability, and ease
of determination points us away from what *821 really counts: the way in
which stronger parties have managed to inscribe their views and interests
into “external” culture, so that we are now enamored with that way of
judging action. [FN57] First, we read our values and preferences into the
culture; [FN58] then we pretend to consult that culture meekly and humbly
in order to judge our own acts. [FN59] A nice trick if you can get away with it.
 K
METHODS OF BIOPOLITICAL CONTROL CREATED TO MANAGES POPULATIONS
FOR CAPITALISM

FUCHS 12 (Christian, Prof. Social Media, Westminster U., In Internet and Surveillance
p.37-8)

Although Marx also used the notion of sutveillance in the sense of counter-surveillance
(watching the watchers) when he said, for example, that "the press not only has the right,
it has the duty, to keep the strictest eye on the gentlemen representatives of the people"
(Marx 1974, 116), the two
main actors of surveillance that he identifies are capital and the nation state. He therefore
grounded a critical notion of surveillance that can today still be found in the critical
political economy of surveillance. Toshimaru Ogura (2006, 272) argues, for example,
that "the common characteristics of surveillance are the management of population based
on capitalism and
the nation state".Oscar Gandy says that the "panoptic sort is a technology that has been
designed and is being continually revised to serve the interests of 'decision makers within
the government and the corporate bureaucracies" (Gandy 1993, 95).

METHODS OF BIOPOLITICAL SURVEILLANCE WAS CONSTRUCTED TO PROTECT

THE CAPITALIST REGIME
OGURA 06 (Toshimaru, Prof. Dept of Econ., Toyama U., in Theorizing Surveillance
p.276.)

Political surveillance would be of no use if the system enjoyed stability or equilibrium.

As mentioned in the discussion of the historical layers of surveillance-oriented society,
the fundamental characteristics of surveillance are to forecast and remove the elements
that may
constitute barriers to fundamental preconditions of the capitalist regime. The most
important thing is how to control the population in an age of ICT. From crime to military
conflict, and micro-politics based on individuals to macro-politics based on international
relations,
there are several different dimensions of friction. As aforementioned, in the 1990s before
September 11, developed countries' main enemies transferred from being from the
socialist bloc to transnational crimes and anti-globalization movements by non-state
actors. Surveillance oriented society was constructed around these two factors.
Case
 Line by Line
The alt solves abdication - Oppression in education is what prevents students
from critically challenging the squo – the judge can make this space one where
we can challenge it
Kumashiro 2K (KEVIN K. KUMASHIRO, former Dean of the School of Education at the
University of San Francisco, “Toward a Theory of Anti-Oppressive Education”, 2000
http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1170593.pdf?refreqid=excelsior:9ba063bd396fb6de3733ce346
7885eb1, DOA: 7/14/17)//AK

Some researchers have turned to poststructuralism to help formulate conceptualizations of

oppression that center around notions of discourse and citation (Britzman, Santiago-Valles,
Jimenez-Munoz, & Lamash, 1993; Butler, 1997; Davies, 1989; Kumashiro, 1999a, 1999b; McKay
& Wong, 1996; Walkerdine, 1990). Earlier, I mentioned Walkerdine's (1990) study on nursery
classrooms. Her analysis suggests that oppression and harm originate in (or are produced by)
not merely the actions and intentions of individuals or in the imperatives of social structures and
ideologies. Rather, oppression originates in discourse, and, in particular, in the citing of
particular discourses, which frame how people think, feel, act, and interact. In other words,
oppression is the citing of harmful discourses and the repetition of harmful histories.

To understand this notion of citation, consider the "model minority" stereo- type of Asian
American students, that they are all smart and hardworking "aca-demic superstars" (Lee, 1996).
As I discussed above, researchers have explained the harmfulness of stereotypes by turning to
individual prejudice and discrimi- nation (Miller, 1995) and to a White-dominated racial order
that claims to be meritocratic and non-racist by pointing to the "success" of "model" minorities
(Osajima, 1988). They have argued that the power of a stereotype to harm either exists
inherently in the stereotype (so that an individual using a stereotype is like an individual
wielding a weapon) or derives from social structures and ideologies (so that using a
stereotype is like assisting in the maintenance of the structures/ideologies). They have also
argued that this stereotype has tangible consequences, that it may cause differential
treatment of students by teachers and even psychological harm (Crystal, 1989; Lee, 1996;
Osajima, 1993). These theories imply that in order to challenge oppression educators should
prohibit the use of the stereotype-as well as the voicing of hateful, harmful speech (Butler,
1997)-or strategize ways to "resist," "challenge," or dismantle an al- ready-existing structure
(through critical pedagogy).

Post-structuralism offers a different view. As I have argued elsewhere (Kumashiro, 1999b),

iterating a stereotype can cause harm because every such iteration cites past iterations of that
stereotype. In other words, the power of a stereotype to harm derives from a particular history
of how that stereotype has been used and a particular community of people who have used that
stereotype and who constitute that history (Butler, 1997). If someone was to tell me that I
should be a better student because I am Asian American, I would likely con-clude that the
speaker is making racist assumptions about me because I have heard other people talk about
and generalize about Asian Americans in similar ways before. The speaker's words would have
racist meaning to me because I would read them as constituting part of the history of how the
model-minority stereotype has been and is being used. Furthermore, if I believed that the
speaker was judging me based on this stereotype and I valued the speaker's judgment, the
speaker's words would likely produce in me feelings of failure or abnormal-ity. I should note that
the model-minority stereotype plays out not only in individual thoughts and interpersonal
interactions, but also in institutional prac-tices. Affirmative action offices and policies, or
advisory commissions on race, for example, that fail to address the racism experienced by
Asian Americans or otherwise ignore Asian Americans, are doing so because they are buying
into the model-minority stereotype. In these institutions and ideologies the associa-tion
between "Asianness" and "success" (or, the process in which Asianness cites success) gets
repeated over and over.

You say we are abdicating our role, but we spill over - There are empirical
examples of Asian American institutional engagement – the 1974 Confucius
Plaza protests prove
AAFE ND (ASIAN AMERICANS FOR EQUALITY, pan-Asian organization, “Our History”,
http://www.aafe.org/who-we-are/our-history, DOA: 7/21/17)//AK

For Asian Americans for Equality, it all began in the streets of Chinatown in 1974. Moved to
action by a developer who refused to hire Asian workers for the massive Confucius Plaza
construction project, local activists raised their voices, staged months of protests and finally
prevailed. In so doing, they created a powerful grassroots movement that has endured for
four decades.

In the 1960s and early 1970s, tumultuous national and world events were having a profound
effect on Manhattan’s Chinatown. After strict immigration quotas were lifted in 1965, a large
number of Chinese immigrants poured into the historic neighborhood, remaking the
traditional ethnic enclave. Already difficult living and working conditions — including
overcrowding and exploitation by employers — became worse in a community that had
always been neglected by City Hall. At the same time, the Asian civil rights movement was
gaining momentum, partially inspired by the black civil rights campaigns of the ’60s. Many
young, idealistic New Yorkers of Chinese descent, some of them radical leftists, began focusing
on Chinatown’s many troubling issues and decided the time had come to demand equal rights
and equal access to city services.

Throughout Chinatown, the injustices at Confucius Plaza were causing great outrage. The
DeMatteis Corp., in charge of building the government-funded project, rejected pleas from
the youthful activists, then known as Asian Americans for Equal Employment, to honor the
city’s fair- hiring policies. Protests began May 16 and continued to pick up momentum through
the fall. Picketers carried signs with slogans such as, “The Asians built the railroad; Why not
Confucius Plaza?” Dozens were arrested.
A June 1 New York Times report noted, “The meticulously organized protest, similar to those
that have been taking place at sites in black and Latino areas for 11 years in the city, is
something new to Chinatown. While residents have often complained of discrimination and
short-changing on city services, public protest has been rare.”

Reflecting on the dramatic events of 40 years ago, AAFE Executive Director Chris Kui says protest
among New York Asians wasn’t just rare, it was unheard of at that time. “I remember the Asian
community was afraid to speak up about issues they faced… lack of access to equal employment
or services.”

DeMatteis Corp. eventually relented, agreeing to hire 27 minority workers, Asians among
them. It was a major victory for the community and immediately established Asian Americans
for Equal Employment as an organization that people could rely on when they had nowhere
else to turn. The volunteers established an office in Chinatown, which quickly became a
resource center for tenants facing harassment, those encountering immigration issues and
workers being mistreated. There were more protests, too, against illegal sweatshops and
deplorable conditions in local garment factories.