At least once a semester, at least one of my colleagues or I hear the following complaint from a student: “I’ve heard enough about diversity and multiculturalism!! Why can’t we just treat each other as human beings?” I’d hazard a guess that anyone who’s taught a social-foundations course in education or other classes where this topic pops up gets a similar complaint. It’s a minor vent\/rage against the topic itself as well as a response to disturbing views that someone might be reading. And until recently, I didn’t understand it except as someone resisting the analysis required by the topic.<\/p>\n
At least once a semester, at least one of my colleagues or I hear the following complaint from a student: “I’ve heard enough about diversity and multiculturalism!! Why can’t we just treat each other as human beings?” I’d hazard a guess that anyone who’s taught a social-foundations course in education or other classes where this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-teaching"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pag0MB-3O","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nAnd then, in a committee meeting this spring, when we were discussing something (I can’t remember what) and another member talked about the need for tolerance, I responded in my usual way to caution against that word—probably something like “You may not be aware that I’m not<\/strong> tolerant of racism”—when I felt something I usually don’t on the topic: this small blurb of rage, a totally irrational spate of livid thoughts. I don’t think I said much based on this, but afterwards, I realized that I was most angry at the assumption that mentioning tolerance was sufficient to paper over deep differences in power and philosophy. I was pissed that the popular language of diversity had replicated structural-functionalist language precisely over issues that generated conflict. “As long as you talk about it, and I tell you that I tolerate your views, that’s enough.” Aaaiiiii!
\nAs my colleague Barbara Shircliffe has pointed out, the language of multiculturalism and diversity can be absorbed and coopted into the curriculum in a variety of ways, and this may be a reflection of its success. Like so much other reformist language, diversity<\/em> is a malleable concept. Why do students need<\/em> to learn about diversity? Beware that word “need,” because it prompts a functionalist response—to be able to fit in as an adult in different workplaces. Now, I know that’s true, but it’s such a shallow explanation, and it shrinks the issues tied to diversity into the social psychology of the workplace. I guess we don’t have to discuss affirmative-action policies, since you don’t need to know that to “fit in” at work. And I guess we don’t have to discuss anything else related to public policy, either.
\nSo the next time I hear a “diversity tantrum,” I’m going to probe a bit more deeply. Maybe it’s a healthy response to rhetorical pablum that effaces conflict. That doesn’t mean I’m going to agree with the speaker, necessarily, but it’s another lever for discussion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"