A little frustrated...

Well I just finished reading the four articles for this week and I must say that I am a little frustrated. Although I enjoyed reading them, (especially in that order) I just feel all heated up about them. Despite the fact that he certainly didn't receive the "popular vote" for his opinions on multicultural literature, I found myself agreeing with Patrick Shannon. This was surprising to me because I had initially posted comments that were in alignment with the other authors (as far as members of the in-group being the best, if not only, people to take on the task of writing on behalf of a group of people.) At the end of the day I was just really put off by some of the comments made by Harris, Sims Bishop, and Cai.

I am still trying to figure out which perspective of multicultural literature I find the most suitable, but I am leaning towards "Multiple + Culture = multiculturalism." I mean, I get it, it is impossible to address every single culture that exists in one school year, but I definitely agree that "not only the underrepresented cultures but also the mainstream cultures should be included" (Cai 75). I just found it to be really annoying when the authors (aside from Shannon) kept saying that they aren't trying to exclude other cultures, but the most important thing to address in multicultural literature was race/ ethnicity. What about all the other cultures? They are important to. What about the middle class, white, male students that many teachers are bound to have in class? Should we as teachers not include books reflective of their (the dominant)culture? No, wait, we are supposed to be including books that teach white students to feel bad about their whiteness as a means of being socially/ morally informed right?

This whole debate disgusts me. Yes, we need to make sure that students understand that we live in a racialized society, but that doesn't mean excluding books that include the "mainstream culture." I personally favor the all inclusive definition of multicultural literature rather than one that emphasizes a particular sect of the population.