Friday, May 22, 1998
Overcome superficial race-based judgments
MULTICULTURALISM: Narrow view of diversity does not understand
big picture
By Daniel B. Rego
The cries for multiculturalism are quite loud. It is claimed
that it (and by implication of the arguments, it is the only
thing), can teach us and change us into happy, shiny people. Of
course, proponents have a tendency to not tell you what
multiculturalism really is. What they mean by it varies from the
rather innocent concept of learning something new, to more
commonly, the method of stressing a singular viewpoint on
people.
The concept of multiculturalism is that we live in a society
(usually "global") and we must all learn to live and understand the
pain of other cultures, as well as respect them. (Right and wrong
are claimed to be relative.) The only way this can be done, it is
claimed, is to educate (i.e. indoctrinate) individuals when they
are as young as possible. The funny thing is that those who seem to
stress this are the most non-diverse group of individuals one could
imagine.
They have a tendency to demand a singular view of history and
the world, while claiming that contradictions in mores and folkways
are necessarily there. This view includes such concepts as,
"Europeans are evil" and that everyone but them is right, even
though they contradict each other. Now, individuals can have
different views, but contradictions cannot exist about such
fundamental things as 1 + 1 = 2. (Yes, there are those who think
such unvarying truths are "culturally biased.")
This trend of thinking views people as nothing more than
cultural stereotypes determined by ethnicity. It follows,
accordingly, that individuals of a certain ethnicity must
necessarily think alike about folkways, mores, etc., while persons
of different ethnicities are inherently alien to each other.
This is ludicrous! I can contradict this with just one example:
I bring up two of my roommates last year. One was Latino and from
the same county in California as me, while the other was white
(like myself), but from Chicago. The roommate from Chicago was far
more different and I learned more from him than my other roommate,
who was Latino. Beliefs and even lesser things, such as nuances,
are inherent within the individual only.
This is what is ironic about those who associate diversity as
something one can learn from race. True, one can learn different
things from a classroom of two different races than a class with
one race, but that same can be said of a classroom with one race
only, and another with the same race but different individuals.
Perspectives are learned from individuals, regardless of race, and
individuals are diverse; race is but a superficiality.
One can actually learn more from individuals of the same race
than from one of a different race. The opposite can be true also,
but that only underscores that we learn from diverse
individuals!
Perspectives are inherently different from ethnicities. True, we
should allow individuals to speak their mind, but the university
has no obligation to subsidize all of them. The UCs should stress
the perspective (sadly under constant assault by those who claim
"diversity") of America (a place, in reality, of many ethnicities)
and California; after all, this is where we live, and we should at
least take the time to learn about the place were we live.
The problem with the so-called "diversity requirement" is that
it is a key tool for indoctrinating students to view things in a
certain way. Not all cultural classes are this way, but we should
not force it upon others. (Doesn’t multiculturalism demand that we
respect different cultures, including this one, or not?) Demanding
more required classes does impact some students trying to graduate
in less then half a decade.
We should require that students actually learn about the culture
that is around them (American culture, with many commonalties
holding these 50 sovereign states together). I fear that there will
soon come demands that we take such classes that are being rammed
down the throat of students of other colleges. For example: How
whites oppress minorities in America; How no one is really
"straight," but both male and female; All of Europe is into
imperialism; etc. Classes such as these are required at some
colleges!
We must realize that we are all individuals, and that
individuals – not class or culture – can truly reflect diversity.
We learn folkways and mores by not making assumptions about others
and learn it as we go. There are more commonalties than the
"multiculturalists" lead you to believe. Let’s learn from
individuals, and abandon the one-sided view of the so-called
"multiculturalists."