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(warning: some spoilers) About Blackspanic College How factual is Blackspanic College? Reviews Nightlife FOCUS/Midwest Blackspanic College funny, provocative, uplifting Carbondale After Dark from panty raids to riots Lost in Cyberspace a collection of H.B.'s writings About H.B. Koplowitz Who is this guy anyway? Buy Books Order CAD or Blackspanic College here |
How Factual is 'Blackspanic College'? How factual is "Blackspanic College," H.B. Koplowitz's memoir about teaching at a college in South-Central Los Angeles? Koplowitz did not begin teaching at the college with the intent to write a book, and he wasn't taking notes of conversations. It wasn't until months after he'd left the job that he began to feel that therein lay a story. But from various memos, class plans, rosters and most helpfully, the student newspapers that he had saved, along with his recollections and those of others from the college, he was able to compile a timeline of his experiences. There were some surprises -- it wasn't until half the book had been written that the author realized the dramatically fortuitous coincidence of having been called a racist on the eve of 9/11. Everything in the book happened, and in the same order, although in the particulars, especially the dialog, the author filled in memory gaps as best he could. Although he changed the names of the college and most of the people, they are all real. One section of the book the author did take factual liberties with is Chapter 10, "Final Project," about the teacher assigning public relations students to create a P.R. campaign to bring peace to the Middle East. The author did give his P.R. class such an assignment and spent several classes lecturing on "the history of the people, cultures, religions, governments and factions in the Mideast ..." (144). He also talked about current events in the Mideast and used some role-playing analogies on the students. But recognizing that the Middle East is a sensative issue, and that many of his opinions are politically incorrect and in some cases objectionable -- namely, that as badly as the Israelis have behaved, many Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims have behaved worse -- he massaged that part of his lecture to make it more nuanced, if not completely balanced. The last portion of the lecture, in which the teacher makes analogies between gangs in the Middle East and South-Central, leading up to the greatest jihad, "the struggle within each person to resist temptation and do the right thing," (156) goes the furthest in crossing the line between what he really said and what he would have said if he'd had six months to think about it. However, the four P.R. projects in the book are what the students actually came up with, and the wording of the final exam is verbatim from the original. The dean did show up as he was reading it, and the ending also happened as written. "Blackspanic College," by H.B. Koplowitz, Dome Publications, 978-0-9791393-1-4, $19.95 |
HBKoplowitz.com  Blackspanic College funny, provocative, uplifting  from panty raids to riots |