The thing that bugs me about the terminology, and this is a two-sided coin
is, firstly, I agree with Jay's statement. The difficulty is bringing
social inequities into the public consciousness without petrifying it as a
"thing", a technocratic terminology by which administrators can claim a
left-leaning stance while encoding and interpellating racial and
differential hatred into the public discourse.
As (The Rev. Left) is wont to say: What to do, what to do?
A focus on difference promotes a heightened sense of difference. What's the
effect of this? Not acceptance, it would seem, but ultimately increased
tension.
My experience is difference in America is always put to some form of
measurement. Often when we acknowledge difference the American's initial
response is to put it in some form of hierarchy. Acknowledging difference
is often seen in the context of how to assimilate one into middleclass
culture. For example, the response to the cultural differences in learning
if often translated as how we can best fix or fit those learning styles into
the way "middle-class" children learn. Some conclude that when teaching
about other cultures if you don't put the cultures in a hierarchy with
America on top, you are teaching america is bad or denying America its
rightful place
Secondly, there has never been a country in known history that wasn't
"multicultural" in the true sense of the word (I may be totalising here,
not knowing much about the Northern European countries like Norway, but I
think there has been intercultural interaction there too for years.
This reminded me of a class I took with a group of mostly white women
attempting to convince themselves of their diversity. Diversity has become
a bandwagon everyone wants to be on. There is an element of intercultural
action everywhere but it is not always mutual collaboration. America has
been affected by many cultures, but those in power chose what aspects they
want to assimilate. The intercultural interaction is not a mutual process
it is controlled by those in power. Diversity is a threat because it offers
competing ideologies to those in power.
As for less developed cultures, like New Guinea, for instance, 99 languages
are spoken there, and the cultural differences are huge from area to area.
If a doctrine of difference is propounded, difference becomes the catch cry
and focus of attention. If one remains silent, inequities abound. If one
speaks out, inequities flourish. Tokenism is, to me, many more times cruel
than exclusion. Exclusion is, however, unthinkably inequitous.
As (The Rev. Left) is wont to say: What to do, what to do?
Phil
perplexedly
>Bruce and Phil
>
>back in April -- I think neither of you was on the list then -- I asked
>much the same question about what *diversity* means in a US of A context,
>as it sounded to me like the people on the xmca were using it as some kind
>of "technical" or "administrative" term. Or, rather, as if the xmcaer's,
>whose work is characteristically motivated by social justice, were pursuing
>the issues in a political environment where *diversity* had been petrified
>into something technical, administrative, which they had to deal with.
>
>As I was curious enough to repeat my question a couple of times, there was
>some discussion, which I found really helpful. I especially remember one
>long message by Phillip White and one by Jay Lemke.
>
>Phillip gave some of the history (from his Colorado perspective):
>At 21.06 -0600 98-04-21, Phillip Allen White wrote:
>> Many Anglos referred to the push to hire more minorities as
>>'reverse discrimination'. Some of my closest teachers friends took this
>>position, to my amazement.
>>
>> Soon, the term multicultural because politically loaded. So,
>>those who had been hired as multicultural administrators (racial
>>minorities, of course) as well as the multicultural council, decided to
>>change the terminology - to emphasize that they were inclusive in nature
>>and value and belief - and so the term used was Diversity.
>>
>> But, of course, everyone took the term Diversity to be a code term
>>for multicultural, which was in turn a code word for 'reverse
>>discrimination'.
>
>
>And Jay, as usual, fearlessly called a spade a spade:
>At 14.02 -0400 98-04-23, Jay Lemke wrote:
>>All this being said, one has to realize that Diversity in the US always
>>really means racial diversity; it is in fact a code-word or disguise for
>>Race Difference. To make the disguise more effective, diversity as a term
>>has been broadened to include all difference, from gays to the physically
>>handicapped, as well as all language and culture differences. In the
>>academy, because "culture" is now the primary concept for thinking about
>>social difference (and we are much in need of more radical and exhaustive
>>critiques of the concept of "culture" which is probably much too weak and
>>old to carry this burden that is placed on it today, esp. in the US),
>>"cultural diversity" has become an acceptable deflection from the more
>>basic issue, again in the US context, of "race difference", or to be more
>>candid, "race hatred".
>
>The full messages can be found at:
>http://communication.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.9804.dir/index.html
>
>-- Phillip's with a subject line of *Re: Scales of "Diversity"* and Jay's
>with a subject line of *Re: Of interest to everybody* (due to my weird
>subject line practice in the initiating message).
>
>Also mCole's AERA paper *Can Cultural Psychology Help Us Think About
>Diversity?* is already available on the Web at:
>
>http://communication.ucsd.edu/LCHC/paper/cole/aera.html
>
>
>About the upcoming discussion on the topic, I think it would be worth
>having it here in the international "living room" rather than some other
>parlour.
>
>Eva
>
>
>
>
Phil Graham
pw.graham who-is-at student.qut.edu.au
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Palms/8314/index.html