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| Editors: | |
| James Blasingame | James.Blasingame@asu.edu |
| Lori A. Goodson | lagoodson@cox.net |
The Diversity Connection
Ronn Hopkins, Editor
Michigan State University, Lansing, MichiganA World of Difference: Multicultural Connections in the Public SchoolClassroom
After returning to school from a sick, mental, or just plain deserved,Friday day-off from school, I was accosted by several of my eighth graders justbefore homeroom.
"Oooh," Mr. Hopkins," one student shook his head eagerly, "You won't believewhat that man said about you."
"What man? Melvin, what are you talking about?" I asked in totalbewilderment.
"That man who was `subbin' for you the other day," he continued.
"Who was the `sub,' and what did he say?" I asked enthusiastically.
"Well, he said that he was a preacher," Velma said.
"And he said that the stuff that you was teaching was pure trash. And thatyou shouldn't be teaching in the public schools if you have to bring that`filthy stuff' in the classroom," Robin added.
"Well, what on earth was he talking about?" I asked.
Velma explained. "You know, that book we been reading. The one about thewhite man who turned Black?"
"Yeah."
"Well, he was reading some of it, and he got mad because it had so many cusswords in it. He told us that we shouldn't be reading it. Then he went throughthe whole book underlining the cuss words."
"Well, thanks for sharing this information with me. And don't worry aboutit."
Worry is all I could do that day for three periods straight. I even thoughtthis one was good enough to bring up in the teachers' lounge.
"How dare a substitute come into a class and make such remarks about a textthat he had not even read," said Ms. Dawson the music teacher.
"Can you believe him?" I asked.
"Well, I think that you should report the guy to Principal Weathers, andrefuse to have him sub for you again," offered Ms. Wein, from the sixth-gradeteam.
"Well, I think that he's right!" exclaimed Ms. Spain, chair of theseventh-grade team. "Our kids don't need to hear all that filthy language, andbesides, there are lots of other books that don't have that kind of stuff init."
"But Ms. Spain," I said, as I explained why I taught Black Like Me,"the novel is about learning about the oppression of others and sharing intheir cultural experiences. The use of language is realistic and accuratelyexpresses certain characters based on their own realities."
"I still don't see why there has to be so much cussing," she said.
Being the new kid on the block, I was hesitant to say anything more aboutthe matter. I decided to just forget about it and just try to get through theremainder of the day. But as students mentioned the same story hour after hour,I became more and more frustrated. The next day in each class, I allowed thestudents to talk about the incident and express their opinions. The lesson'sobjective was to reiterate to my students that teachers, students, parents,principals, and substitute teachers alike, should learn to appreciate"difference." In our world there are different environments, cultures, andexperiences that can be expressed in a multiplicity of voices. I learned somuch from that teaching experience from my students that I have been able toresolve for myself my position on teaching in a world of difference.
Teachers interested in offering a pedagogy encouraging and enabling theirstudents to consider, understand, and appreciate "other" viable culturalperspectives, how these value systems develop, and how they see themselves inrelation to others, is recognition of the importance in teaching matters ofequity. Because teachers are viewed by parents and students alike as validatorsof experiences, particular beliefs, attitudes, and lifestyles, it is imperativethat we assume a proactive role in helping young minds develop sensitivity andunderstanding of psychological, sociological, political, and economic issues --such as class, race, gender, sexual orientation, and others. Within theclassroom proper, through lectures, syllabi, and podiums, all teachers use theclassroom as a platform to impose our self-constructed narratives, that is, ourbiases, likes and dislikes. Unfortunately, this pedagogical presentation of theself does not reflect a broader perspective of cultures: it is often limited toour own experiences, and oftentimes ignores the individual voices andexperiences of our students. Rather, this style of teaching merely reflects thevery narrow, individualistic culture of that teacher. Paulo Freirewrites:
The teacher talks about reality as if it were motionless, static,compartmentalized, and predictable. Or else, he expounds on a topic completelyalien to the existential experience of the students. His task is to "fill" thestudents with the contents of his narration -- contents which are detached fromreality, disconnected from the totality that engendered them and could givethem significance. Words emptied of their concreteness and become a hollow,alienated, and alienating verbosity. (The Pedagogy of the Oppressed,1987, p. 201).
Instead of creating "alienating verbosity" in the classroom, we should becareful to consider the personal frame from which we teach, and we should becertain to construct a classroom environment reflecting and promotingmulticultural and multiethnic learning experiences in which all children canjoin in the discussion. We must be honest and explain to our students that anyapproach to teaching reveals some part of our own personal, social, andpolitical agenda.
As teachers, we need to guide students to a consciousness allowing them tobreak down the barriers of cultural difference. Also, we should encourage themto take a proactive role in development of moral sensibilities. Students shouldbe encouraged not only to question, but to condemn inappropriate treatment ofdifferent cultures through the texts they experience, as well as, in society atlarge. Teachers and students should celebrate diversity by sharing ofthemselves and providing experiences that help everyone involved become awareof the pervasiveness of sexism, racism, heterosexism, homophobia,ablebodiedness, and other issues related to multiculural and multiethnicgroups. Together, teachers and students can celebrate in our one world of manycultures.
Lanky Lizards! Francesca Lia Block Is Fun To Read But . . . :
Reading Multicultural Literature in Public Schoolsby
Suzanne Reid
Radford University
Radford, Virginiaand
Brad Hutchinson
Bristol Middle School
Bristol, VirginiaUntil recently, few authors of young adult novels have depicted a social worldthat easily accepts people with differences. While some novels describe othercultures from a variety of viewpoints, and others portray characters whoseidentities bridge two cultures, few have modeled a community where culturaldifferences are equally valued. In her young adult novels, Francesca Lia Blockdoes exactly that. Weetzie Bat (1989) depicts a "live and let live"world where diversities are not only tolerated but welcomed. In WitchBaby (1991) the characters find that tolerance is not enough; they mustactively strive to understand and share the problems of people who sufferbecause of their differences.
The Bat books are set in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles, a place wherediverse cultures mingle easily and often. In Weetzie Bat Block creates acommunity representative of this diversity centered on the punk Weetzie Bat, "askinny girl with a bleach-blonde flat top,...pink Harlequin sunglasses,strawberry lipstick." She is the daughter of Charlie Bat, a Jewish writer fromNew York City who looks "like a cigarette," and Brandy-Lynn, a Los AngelesB-movie starlet who drinks cocktails and relaxes with Valium. The marriage doesnot work because Charlie needs New York but Brandy Lynn loves LA and neitherwill compromise. The clash between these North American cultures -- East Coastversus West Coast -- leads to the Bats' angry separation. In contrast to herparents' intolerance, Weetzie embraces cultural diversity.
It is her mother's Los Angeles, full of differences, that Weetzie prefers; shefeels alienated from her high school because no one understands the wonder of acity where "you could buy tomahawks...plastic palm tree wallets...cheese andbean and hot dog and pastrami burritos...and all night potato knishes" (pp.3-4). She loves this city's diversity "where it was hot and cool, glam andslam, rich and trashy, devils and angels, Los Angeles" (p. 19), but she lovesit alone until she meets Dirk, "the best-looking guy at school" (p. 4). Theybecome best friends, and enjoy the city together, but this is not a regularromance:
"What were you going to tell me?" Weetzie asked.
"I'm gay," Dirk said.
"Who, what, when, where, how..well not how," Weetzie said. "It doesn't matterone bit, honey-honey," she said, giving him a hug.
Dirk took a swig of his drink. "But you know I'll always love you best andthink you are a beautiful sexy girl," he said.
"Now we can Duck hunt together, Weetzie said, taking his hand" (p. 9).
Dirk falls in love with Duck Drake, a blond-haired blue-eyed surfer, andWeetzie meets My Secret Agent Lover Man, the man she has been longing for. Theyall live together, visited by a host of acquaintances: the RastifarianValentine Jah-Love, his Chinese wife Ping Chong, their son Raphael, and Coyote,a Native American shaman. My Secret Agent Lover Man makes movies, enlistingthese new friends as extras and they all become successful.
These diverse cultures are mirrored in their parties, where they eat "Weetzie'sVegetable Love-Rice, My Secret Agent Lover Man's guacamole, Dirk's homemadepizza, Duck's fig and berry salad and Surfer Surprise Protein Punch,Brandy-Lyn's pink macaroni, Coyote's cornmeal cakes, Ping's mushu plum crepesand Valentine's Jamaican plaintain pie" (Witch Baby, p. 5). Thesegatherings, like the community itself, mix these different cultural ingredientsinto a excitingly spicy blend of fun and friendship.
However, this feast of personalities is not enough for Weetzie; she wants ababy. "The world's a mess," My Secret Agent Lover Man says, "And there's no wayI feel okay about bringing a baby into it" (Weetzie Bat, p. 48). ButWeetzie is determined and gets pregnant by sleeping with Dirk, Duck, and MySecret Agent Lover Man. She had thought that once she was pregnant, mere lovewould change her husband's mind. She is wrong. My Secret Agent Lover Man, hurtand angry, leaves. When he finally returns nine months later, Weetzie hassuffered from his absence, but is joyous at his return. All seems resolved. Thebaby that has brought them together is lovely; and oddly enough, she seems tohave physical characteristics of all her fathers. They name her Cherokee.
Then another more troublesome addition arrives: Witch Baby, alias Lily.Fathered by My Secret Agent Lover Man while he was away, the infant is left ontheir doorstep by her witch mother, Vixanne Wigg. My Secret Agent Lover Manwants to return the baby to Vixanne, but Weetzie replies, "If you can acceptCherokee as yours without being sure, then I can accept Lily, even though Iknow she's not mine; I can accept her because you are her daddy-o" (WeetzieBat, pp. 62-63). Again Weetzie proposes unquestioning acceptance, butothers in the group are not so sure. "I hope she is not a voodoo queenalready," Dirk says. "I hope she is not going to hex me if I don't give her herfavorite kind of Gerbers," Duck adds (Weetzie Bat, p. 63).
Soon after Witch Baby's arrival, two other upheavals threaten the family. Duck,distraught with fear because a former friend is sick with AIDS, runs away, andWeetzie, saddened by her father's suicide, crumbles. However, in the end, loveprevails. Dirk persuades Duck to return home, and My Secret Agent Lover Mannurses Weetzie back to her former cheerful self: "love and disease are bothlike electricity, Weetzie thought. They are always there.... We can choose toplug into the love current instead. I don't know about happily ever after...,but I know about happily" (Weetzie Bat, p. 88).
Weetzie Bat (1989) is a novel that's "mostly wild and sometimes woozy,but it's full of life and the author cares for her characters. So willmany readers.... Some readers may be offended by Dirk's homosexuality and byoffhand references to different kinds of passion, but the book is funnyand reads beautifully aloud.... Weetzie Bat probably isn't like anythingelse you're going to read this year, but you owe it to yourself to try afew pages" (Nilsen and Donelson, 1990, p. 78). These reviewers are talking toEnglish teachers and scholars, readers of the English Journal. We haveunderlined the "buts," and that's the way most public school teachers feelabout these novels.
"Francesca Lia Block's books are wonderful to read, but I wouldn't teach themin high school," declared Brad when we first started discussing these novels,and Suzanne agreed. So did most of her college students, who read the novels ina first-year class, and a few of Brad's former middle school students who readthe novels during the summer, outside of school. Almost all of our studentsfelt that the struggles of a gay couple or of teens with drug addiction or easysex were realistic, describing experiences readily available even to youngerteens. But many of our students also felt that these novels were notappropriate for in-school reading. While the issues of homosexuality,interracial dating, and sex outside of marriage are common in the movies,novels, and TV shows they watch outside of class, they shied away fromaddressing these volatile subjects in school, especially in printed texts,which seemed to lend them some moral authority: "like when you sign a contractto make [a promise] real, when you read a book you make your own realitiesbecause you use your own imagination." Dealing with "real" issues in highschool seems dangerous to about half our students, and attractive to the otherhalf: "You shouldn't teach these books to students below the eleventh ortwelfth grade because they wouldn't be mature enough to accept the topicsdiscussed," vs. "Why didn't you give me these books in the eighth grade? Theydeal with real life issues I need to know about."
Easy sex, reckless experimentation with drugs and alcohol, automatic andunquestioning acceptance of ethnic and social differences: in its openingchapters, the book seems to encourage the kind of indulgent lifestyles soattractive to teenagers anyway. The style mirrors MTV -- technicallyimpressive; superficially glitzy, sensual and attractive; portraying theexciting side of sex and experimentation. Yet soon, Weetzie and her friendsfind that "Love is a dangerous angel" (p. 14), and as the novel continues, theyexperience the deep pain of separation from loved ones and the fear of thatloss.
Because of its facile tone, the book also seems to fulfill its characters'dreams through magical chance more than through personal effort. Weetzie wantsa boyfriend for her, a lover for Duck, and a place to live; she rubs an oldlantern and presto! a genie literally appears, and soon she has them all. Heringenuous optimism is familiar to teachers of young adolescents who feel thatmost of the problems in the world could be solved if people would "just behappy"..."just do it!" At the end of the first of these novels, Weetzie's ethicseems like this simplistic happy-face kind of love. Like most of us, she wouldrather ignore the reality of painful effort, hiding her fears under smiles. Shefails to remember that love came to her and Dirk only after long lonelywaiting, and that the house was left to her and Dirk because they generouslybefriended an older relative.
Perhaps this simplistic faith in luck is analogous to our early efforts atmulticultural teaching. Many of us use books and stories about other culturesto introduce our students to "politically correct" attitudes, assuming (orperhaps just hoping) that exposure to different cultures will breed toleranceand acceptance. One of Suzanne's students admitted, "Yeah, we all say the rightwords in class and we're nice and everything, but socially we don't hang aroundwith "them" because then we might be considered, you know, ...people wouldthink we were...." In the same class were two international students who hadwritten briefly but poignantly about their desperate loneliness. Tolerating and"being nice" is obviously not enough, yet we are reluctant to discuss thechanges we would have to make in our personal lives to form genuine friendshipswith people who are culturally different.
In her second novel, Witch Baby, Block addresses Weetzie's facilesolution: tolerance of everything. By now, the irritable, irritating baby hasgrown into an adolescent who is jealous of Cherokee's and Weetzie's cheerfulnature. Witch Baby insists on covering her walls with newspaper stories aboutthe tragedies of the world, stories of poverty and suffering. Like My SecretAgent Lover Man, she feels that she wants "something strong." She avoids theparties and the easy starlit loving of the people that surround her, insistingon her anger and her sorrow, though she also yearns for their acceptance andlove. She recognizes herself as an outsider, a disrupting force to their easyhappiness. But when she runs away to find her mother, Vixanne Wigg, she findsthat escaping pain is not an answer. Vixanne and her other witch friends livein a creepy mansion where they watch Jayne Mansfield movies and eat candy,lulling themselves and Witch Baby into apathetic anomie. Dissatisfied with thismere half-life, Witch Baby renews her search for a home: "Where do I belong?"she asks. "At home in the globe" (WitchWitch Baby, p. 17), says the man whosells her the globe-shaped lamp which she furtively gives to My Secret AgentLover Man, who mistakenly attributes this thoughtful gift to Weetzie. AndWeetzie, distracted by his new hope and cheerfulness, never gets around totelling him otherwise.
When Duck decides to confront his parents with the truth about his sexualpreference, Witch Baby accompanies him. She can and does express anger whenDuck's mother refuses to accept his message. She sees the mother's selfishmotives and forces her to probe into the truth about herself. When Witch Babyreturns from her odyssey to help Duck and to discover her true identity,Weetzie has taken the time to reflect on Witch Baby's nature and her ownresponse to it. Like Weetzie, whose "hair is really dark, you know, beneath allthis bleach," Witch Baby is a black lamb,
"the wild one who doesn't fit in....[who] expresses everyone else's anger andpain. It's not that they have all the anger and pain -- they're just the onlyones who let it out.... You face things, Witch Baby. And you help us facethings." (Witch Baby, p.108)
Weetzie recognizes that she "gets so caught up in being good and sweet andtaking care of everyone that sometimes I don't admit when people are really inpain" (p. 108). In this book Weetzie and her friends realize that love andconcern entail active attention to the problems caused by a non-inclusivesociety.
Block's books, like other utopian visions of mutual friendship amongindividuals with diverse backgrounds and values, illustrate the kind ofacceptance of differences that we foresee in our schools:
We want our classrooms to be just and caring, full of various conceptions ofthe good. We want them to be articulate, with the dialogue involving as manypersons as possible, opening to one another, opening to the world. And we wantthem to be concerned for one another, as we learn to be concerned for them. Wewant them to achieve friendships for one another. (Greene, p.18)
Maxine Greene's vision sounds good to most of us who have been raised tobelieve in our country's democratic principles and in teaching as a benevolentprofession. She is articulating a goal of "multicultural education," a genericterm that includes global awareness, cultural plurality, and democraticeducation. These concepts embrace the need for understanding and respectingcultural differences in an effort to build a world where all people interactharmoniously while enjoying the freedom to maintain their cultural uniqueness( Banks, 1986; Garcia, 1982; Tiedt, 1990).
But how do we create such an environment? Like Weetzie and her multiculturalfamily in Witch Baby, we realize that it is no longer enough to mouthpolite wishes for toleration and universal love. Like Witch Baby, we must facethe deeper issues of multicultural ethics, doing more than introducing ourstudents to the various foods, costumes, music, and dialects of other cultures.If we believe in the principles of multicultural community, we must acknowledgethe worth of people with different values, even when they threaten ourtraditional habits of thinking and living. But how?
When Suzanne introduced these books to first-year college students, they voicedstrong reactions against the discomfort that these issues caused. Severalstudents described their impatience with the efforts of their high schools "toshove multiculturalism down our throats.... I mean, what about `our'[mainstream middle-class] culture?" Perhaps their reaction confirms the needfor assigning books like these where the connection among multicultural lifestyles is made real and possible in print, and where the painful questionsraised by meeting different lifestyles are given authority by their inclusionin school discussions. After all, one source of learning is cognitivedissonance, an uncomfortable recognition that what we believe to be true nolonger fits our definition of truth. If we are serious about participating in ademocratic society, perhaps we must undertake the responsibility of acting asethical guides, encouraging our students not only to tolerate but to welcomeand assist people of different cultures to participate equally in the life ofthe classroom.
Does this mean that we should sanction every uniqueness, encouraging everyoneto "do his or her own thing?" In the third novel of this series, Cherokeeand the Goat Guys (1992), Block describes what happens when individualsfocus on self-fulfillment, ignoring the needs of others. Cherokee and herfriends Raphael, Angel Juan, and Witch Baby are at that stage in adolescencewhen they yearn to test and taste the power of their newly acquired selves.Witch Baby at first meets this urge by burrowing into the mud like "a seed inthe slippery, silent, blind, breathless dark..., a secret green dream deepinside" (p. 11). Worried about her stepsister's retreat from life, Cherokeeseeks help from Coyote, the adult in charge while the rest of the family isaway shooting a movie. Sensing the depth of Cherokee's concern, he helps herfashion a pair of wings for Witch Baby, which raise her from the mud. Then thefour friends decide to pool their talents and form a band, The Goat Guys. Theywork together in wonderful harmony until, venturing into the nightclub scene,they freeze, unable to cope with the tawdry worldliness of the public. BecauseCherokee has urged them to perform, she feels responsible for their failure.With the help of Coyote's magic, she obtains a costume for each member:haunches for Raphael, horns for Angel Baby, hooves for herself, and the wingsfor Witch Baby. These talismans exaggerate the qualities that each member ofthis rock and roll quartet brings from his or her cultural background,intensifying their individual differences in similar fashion to the costumes orsocial masks many adolescents use to help define their separate identities. Butfocusing on their differences engenders self-centered pride and even jealousywhich begin to drive these adolescents apart. They begin to think more aboutimmediate self-gratification than the future of their mutual friendship. Onlywhen Coyote resumes his responsibility for guiding his young charges towardspiritual community does this group of four resume their healing circle ofmutual appreciation and support.
This novel illustrates the inevitable constraints of a democratic society onindividual development, where the actions "of the people" must be balanced by aconcern "for the people." This tension forms the crux of the multiculturaldebate. While tolerating and even celebrating individual differences, we asteachers might remember that our responsibility is to encourage mutual care andcooperation.
Yet we are also concerned that individuals are allowed the freedom to developand practice their unique identities even while sharing in a community ofmutual concern. The fourth novel in the series, Missing Angel Juan(1993), describes Witch Baby's realization that she must develop her own giftsto become whole rather than depend on her friend Angel Juan or any other soulfor sustenance. Lonely for her beloved Angel Juan who has gone off to New Yorkto find himself as a musician, Witch Baby convinces Weetzie Bat to let her stayin Charlie Bat's old apartment. There she meets his spirit, a Chaplinesqueghost who guides her through the streets and smells of the city and helps herlearn not only to be herself but to like and respect herself. As she admits herown strengths, redefining her identity as an agent for change rather thanvictim of circumstance, Witch Baby recognizes the need for Angel Juan to befree to define an identity of his own to love and respect. With a newconfidence that their friendship is more than her dependent need for hispresence, she lets him start his own journey.
As teachers we can help our students recognize that balance between genuinefriendship and dependence, between embracing new people and ideas and allowingthem and ourselves freedom to define and express individual identities.
We hesitate to hand these and similar books to our younger adolescents whomight see only the facile glitzy surface, the excitement of tasting differentadventures, and the glamor of knowing colorful unusual individuals withoutrecognizing the complexity of that kind of lifestyle. Already our students areexposed to the language and the images of easy sex and drugs, attractivelypackaged with only glibly worded tags warning them of the risks. The media ourstudents watch is immediate and flashy; they can comprehend the excitement andthe intensity viscerally, from the rhythm and the beat. But grief and pain,illness and death take time to convey.
Block's language enchants her audience in the same way, capturing the flashyrhythms and the glamorous speed of teenage TV. But with this major difference:she also portrays the consequences, capturing the loneliness, the fear, and theyearning of young people who live in a fast-paced world of fascinatingventures. She moves her readers beyond the easy thrills and the superficialexcitement toward reflections about the complex nature of love and friendship.For the young adults in our charge who already know the dangers of easysuperficial love, we might introduce Block's books as a metaphoric manual forthe kind of living where so many choices are available. We might use her booksto elucidate the complexities of living in a world where the multiculturalethic dominates. Perhaps it is because our younger students might miss Block'smessage that we should teach these and similar books.
If we intend to create the kind of community Maxine Greene describes, we mustgrapple with the difficult issues of living "multiculturally," not onlyappreciating each others' foods and music and fun, but also listening to eachothers' stories, hearing the troubles and pain along with the strength andcelebration. Hearing these stories, we begin to conceive of friendships whereno one is dominant because of their cultural background, where members of acommunity offer each other both the support and freedom to develop individualidentities which can work and play in harmony.
References
Block, Francesca Lia. Cherokee Bat and the Goat Guys. HarperCollins,1992.
______. Missing Angel Juan. HarperCollins, 1993.
______. Weetzie Bat. HarperCollins,1989.
