School Daze: More On The Daily Show’s Tucson Ethnic Studies Story

By Arturo R. García

The Daily Show’s Al Madrigal exposed the closed-mindedness behind the city of Tucson’s ban on ethnic studies in the most elegant way possible: let a member of the local school board make himself look like as much of a fool as possible. Two days after the report aired, the fun part is starting: watching people try and distance themselves from the scrutiny Madrigal has forced upon the issue.

Of course, Madrigal couldn’t have done it alone; he found the perfect spokesman for the board’s decision in Michael Hicks, who told him he was concerned about the “radical ideas” being taught in those courses–”that this is their land,” Hicks said. “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.”

Which led to this exchange:

Madrigal: When you sat in on these classes, what types of…

Hicks: 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.

Hicks also revealed that the ban won’t be applied to courses related to African-American studies or courses related to other ethnicities, leading to another memorable exchange after Madrigal asked Hicks to teach him about slavery “without feeling resentment toward white people”:

Hicks: Slavery was … I gotta think on that … Ok. The white man did bring over the, uh, Africans …

Madrigal: What kind of jobs did we do?

Hicks: The jobs that you guys did was basically slavery jobs.

Madrigal: So after we were freed we got to vote?

Hicks: Yes! Well, you didn’t get to vote until later.

Madrigal: And we were equal?

Hicks: Almost equal.

Madrigal: What? We were sort of like half? Or three-fifths?

Hicks: My personal perception of it? I would say you were probably a quarter.

And to stick the landing, Hicks reminded Madrigal that, “Rosa Clark (sic) did not take out a gun and go onto a bus and hold up everybody” when discussing modern race relations.

According to American Indians in Children’s Literature, Hicks took to Facebook to respond to the criticism but not his own page; he posted this statement on a page owned by Democratic Congressional candidate Wenona Benally Baldenegro:

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.

A fellow board member, Adelita Grijalva, described the interview as “irresponsible” to KVOA-TV.

“You know when you google ‘The Daily Show,’ it says there, comedy show, not a real news show,” she said.

The station also published a statement it said it got from Hicks (Latino Rebels also said it got the statement, which indicates at least some sort of coordinated response):

With all due respect, “the Daily Show” is a money making satirical show. It is not a news show. They do not present the complete remarks of their guests.

They splice and dice footage to serve their need to entertain.

I went on this show to talk about the Mexican American Studies (MAS) classes. I was mislead (sic) by the ‘reporter’ (sic) and was told that they were interested in a real interview. It was nothing of the sort.

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