Multiculturism in America, #3 Blog Assignment

Ok this one is tough for me. I don’t have my own teaching experiences to reflect on diversity and multiculturism in the classroom, and during my years of education, I never really thought that much about it. And to be frank, I never paid that much attention in history class either, which has always haunted me. Therefore, I really have to do some catch up work. The one thing I do remember is that February is black history month. Every February, the history lessons for the entire month were always centered on black history, and at times I wondered why black history should get a whole month devoted to it. I wondered why we didn’t devote an entire month to the history of any other culture or ethic group such as Native Americans, Chinese, or even European Americans. I don’t know about any of you, but I feel like the issue of racism towards African Americans has been beaten into the ground and by both sides for that matter.

In the three multiculturism readings, the most intriguing to me was the article by Samuel Taylor. Taylor is obviously a very conservative, white male who basically bashes the nation’s effort to teach students a multicultural view of American history. He compares multicultural history to affirmative action and says “just as whites are to step aside to give hiring preferences to minorities, whites are to set aside their own point of view and study those of others. Non-whites, on the other hand, are free to promote their own interests and exclusionist histories” (Taylor). He argues that blacks are learning “the kind of history that whites once learned—a history that builds identity” while white children are learning that nothing is certain and they will not be able to look back on their nation’s past with pride. I think he has some legitimate points in that textbooks should not try to cloud the past by making it sound as though America was always multicultural. However, I think he takes it overboard. The fact is we are making history as we speak and our nation is very multicultural. So eventually, the history books will be telling the truth. If other nations aren’t trying to promote diversity by including minority cultures or if minority cultures in the US aren’t including white culture in American history, we shouldn’t get discouraged by that and follow suit. We, as Americans should be proud that at least the predominantly white textbook writers in this country are making an effort.

In the Pithissippi Burning article by Tobia, we get a more liberal viewpoint about race and American culture. While Taylor is afraid that white culture will soon be altogether lost, Tobia fears that since a black man was just appointed into the highest office in our country, African Americans will be blamed for our “tanking” economy. And lastly, in the “Why Multiculturalism is Wrong” reading, the Netherlands author’s view of multiculturism is totally different from Taylor’s view. This author says that multiculturism in the Netherlands is the opposite of equality. He says, “A multicultural society is a society where African immigrants clean toilets, and upper-middle-class ethnic Dutch are the lawyers, pilots, surgeons and bankers.” This perspective differs vastly from Taylor’s. Taylor is against multiculturalism because it enforces equality here in America while the Netherlands author is against it because it enforces inequality.

Sigh…Dog gone it, why can’t everyone just get along and give credit where credit is due regardless of race, culture, or ethnicity?