User:Harris.ansari

FINAL REFLECTIONS ON WIKIEDU: AFPRL290.26

After spending a semester with Professor Gaunt, I can confidently assert that I’m walking away from this course with a newfound knowledge and even newfound lifestyle habits. The act of persevering through works and simply doing rather than striving for perfection has been very helpful for someone as detail-oriented as me.

Nelson George’s Hip Hop America was published in 1998 and still proves to be very relevant. George’s assertions remain strong and his predictions turn out to be correct. The mass media still has a negative view on hip-hop and, as a minority, this draws me to it even more; it’s a relatable art form for the oppressed and misrepresented.

To fight misrepresentation, we were assigned to edit Wikipedia articles. With the diverse classroom I learned it, it’s safe to say we have done the most an academic environment can do in fighting gender and racial biases. Being that Wikipedia is sought to be the sum of all human knowledge, it is essential that we have all types of humans participate in enriching it. Knowledge should be an open book for everyone. Otherwise, we stagnate and run around in the same circle of partisan debate that we have been running in since nearly the foundation of this country.

Race most definitely came into play. It was not until he took this class that a white male student got a hint of the fact that he was born into immense privilege. To be a white man is to have unchecked power. And after this class, I think we all feel a little more powerful.