[NLA] [Fwd: [NIFL-ESL:7324] COABE plantation tour]

[Ralf St.Clair]

I would very much like to support Elsa's position on the plantation 
tour. Last year in Memphis COABE organized a trip to the Nike 
factory, but managed to ignore the possibility of a trip to the Civil 
Rights Museum. It seems to me that this is both a problematic 
exclusion and a unacceptable inclusion. Several of us wrote about 
these choices on our conference evaluations. To find COABE ignoring 
these comments is disappointing but not particularly surprising. In 
some circles COABE's choice of the most expensive possible hotel in a 
given city has become something of a legend.

I worry about COABE's continuing insensitivity to significant 
political issues. This is not a matter of political correctness, but 
of political engagement. The organisation's unwillingness to 
recognise issues of huge importance (historical and contemporary) to 
many learners, such as exploitative working practices and the 
depiction of slavery, is a disgrace. In this kind of case I'm afraid 
I do not mind embarrassing people.

Ralf