I Was Born into the Winning Team
"My name is Russ, and I ..." <exaggerated sigh and exhale>, "I was born into the winning team."
<Rousing, accepting reply> "Hi Russ!"
The first one to speak in this scenario, that’s me. A white, middle class male born and raised in the suburbs of Seattle, educated at a small, private liberal-arts university, now attempting to keep his head above water in the University of Washington Teacher Education Program. What holds all of these experiences together? Wherever I’ve been, I’ve always been part of the cultural majority. Except for a brief semester-long stint in the then-Republic of Estonia in the former Soviet Union, I have automatically had the privilege of being a member of the culture of power. Even in the Estonia experience I could blend because my skin color is the same as the general population of that country.
So why the confession? The admittance to a fictional group that I acknowledge my privileged place in society at large? A common topic in the multicultural education literature is the acknowledgement of privilege by members of white society. If one is truly going to accept the valuable contributions of the multitude of cultures in American society, one needs to begin by acknowledging what McIntosh calls a "damaged culture." This damage is caused by the historical and contemporary events and beliefs, both spoken and unspoken, that exist in the U.S. and maintain a culture of power based on the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. The fundamental flaw to this architecture is the simple fact that the United States is not a homogeneous society full of God-fearing WASPs. It is instead a vast network of complex cultural systems coming together to create a unique nation whose power can be attributed in large part to its heterogeneous composition.
I don’t need to interview many of my white friends, relatives, or acquaintances on the subject of multicultural education and pluralism before I begin to hear things like, "Well, only a fool would claim that we don’t have a diverse population, it’s obvious we do. But this is America and these people know that. And to be in America means certain things." These views reflect a rejection of the notion that a true multicultural society would benefit ... America? No, these comments reflect the rejection of the notion of true multiculturalism because these individuals know implicitly that they are priveleged, and wish to maintain that status by not fiddling with the current power structure. Their comments illustrate a defense mechanism for maintenance of their own culture in its place of power. The words show that their own culture is set apart from others ("...these people know that..."), not an integral part of a complex American culture, which is in turn comprised of a multitude of unique cultures. It is as though "America" is still all white, and "these people" are not a part of "American culture."
The kind of comments like those above cause long, drawn-out arguments about cultures of power, what it means to be American, deference to white culture, resistance to acknowledging invisible prejudices, etc. Like McIntosh, I was taught to recognize racism only in individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth. (McIntosh, 10) Subsequently, the concept of confession and admittance, as espoused by Howard, is surprising and unique, yet a critical undertaking for us to even begin to fairly educate those both within and without the mainstream culture. It is a critical first step because it involves a psychological shift in the minds of those currently making decisions based on the perceptions and needs of the mainstream culture. Howard suggests that "a peaceful transition to a new kind of America, in which no ethnic or cultural group is in a dominant position, will require considerable change in education and deep psychological shifts for many white Americans." (Howard, 37) Until this shift begins in earnest, indeed until it has been carried out in full, there will still be students who suffer because they are not receiving a "multicultural" education.
As long as the existing balance of power is in place, students in all cultural groups will suffer. Jews, Blacks, Native-Americans, homosexuals, Latinos, Chinese, Japanese, even White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Banks sums it up so well: A mainstream-centric curriculum has negative consequences for mainstream students because it reinforces their false sense of superiority, gives them a misleading conception of their relationship with other racial and ethnic groups, and denies them the opportunity to benefit from the knowledge, perspectives, and frames of reference that can be gained from studying and experiencing other cultures and groups. A mainstream-centric curriculum negatively influences students of color (because it) marginalizes their experiences and cultures and does not reflect their dreams, hopes, and perspectives. (Banks, 229) What better way to become involved in one’s own education than to recognize that the curricular content of that education addresses one’s own dreams, hopes, and perspectives? A "multicultural" education, therefore, is an education where the dreams, hopes, and perspectives of all groups are addressed meaningfully. Unfortunately, even Banks admits that "multicultural education is also a process whose goals will never be fully realized." (Banks, 4)
Instead of throwing our hands up in the air, however, we should take up the fight to move toward this unattainable goal. The effort itself can have meaningful and far-reaching effects on our students, and in turn our local community, American society, and ultimately, global community. This is possible by teaching students to adopt a certain way of looking at and querying the world around them and their existence in it. In my teenage years, I was a student at a high school that was comprised of a white majority, a fairly good representation of Asian-Americans, a few African-Americans, and a handful of special education students that resided in a portable at the back of the school. All of these, I would argue, are cultures. Yet cultural identities frequently cross boundaries as well. Most of my Asian-American friends still balance their home life, where family as a component of Asian culture is an imortant endeavor, with work and play, where they are just as much an "American" as the next person. They pay close attention to issues involving all people, yet also have a keen ear for issues involving Asians. The very fact that people can belong to different cultures moves around the common discussion on the topic, a discussion which usually asserts that cultures are based on ethnicity and race. The culture associated with being an active member in the homosexual community is another example of a culture whose members cross boundaries into other cultures, specifically, cultures related to their race and ethnicity. If you extrapolate on the notion of a complex system of cultures, and the belief that to understand how they intertwine with one another will help individuals understand themselves and their world, then it is imperative that all people, especially impressionable students, examine how cultures interact in the local, national, and global levels.
When I was in elementary school, we had a unit on "Indians." We learned all about how they hunted buffalo and had colorful corn and celebrated the salmon. At the end we had a "potlatch-style" festival with "Indian" food like buffalo, corn fritters, cooked corn, and smoked salmon. We did not learn that white hunters and settlers nearly eliminated the buffalo herds that were an integral part to plains Indian lifestyle, how in past years the Native Americans of the East showed the recent arrivals from Europe how to harvest plants from the soil, or how the salmon played a significant role in the overall belief system of Northwest Native Americans. Referring to Banks' four-level evolution of multicultural education, what we had was an example of what he calls the contribution approach, in that our teachers focused our attention on holidays and discrete cultural elements. It might not have been complicated, but it exposed us to something. In high school, we read the classics ("dead white guys") in advanced placement English class, and learned facts and dates in U.S. history. In college English, we had a little exposure to authors from other cultures, but the focus was still on the literary elements, not a social or cultural inquiry. This reflects a bit of a movement from the contributions approach to the additive approach; there was actual multicultural content, yet the structure of the curriculum had not changed. Movement can be seen up the ladder toward the transformation and social action approaches, where students are asked to examine their own cultural "place" by way of viewing it through the point of view of other cultures, and then make decisions on important social issues and take actions to help solve them. (Banks, 233)
In the face of resistance to a move toward a multicultural curriculum, there is still work that teachers can do. What we can do is help our students move through the hierarchy of approaches, if indeed it is true, as Banks asserts, that we cannot skip interim steps. We must be intricately conscious of what we are doing, so if we are confronted along the way by political and ideological forces contrary to a multicultural curriculum we can logically point to the benefits gained by students learning in a such an atmosphere of inquiry. If we are forced to "back down" from the attempts at integrating such a curriculum in our classroom, we are still bound to propounding the multicultural approach as a way to benefit not only our students, but ultimately, society at large. Perhaps a prerequisite to starting on they journey is to put it out of our minds that true multicultural education, as a process, is a goal that will never be met.
"Thank you for sharing, Russ."
Bibliography
Banks, J. A., & Banks, C. A. M. (1997). Multicultural education: Issues and perspectives. (3rd ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Howard, G. R. (1993). Whites in multicultural education: Rethinking our role. Phi Delta Kappan, September, 36-41.
McIntosh, P. (1989). Unpacking the invisible knapsack. Peace and freedom, July/August, 8-10