Language Diversity in the Classroom - ymerleksi - home

Multiculturalism and Multicultural Education 227the reality of multicultural education emerges from the particularities ofthe American context. As Kymlicka (1998) points out in an insightfulreview, the argument is that black students are the ‘storm troops’ ofmulticulturalism and that, had black people become more fully integratedinto society, contemporary multicultural accommodations wouldnot have occurred. This, Kymlicka thinks, is a correct but restricted view:it ignores the increasingly powerful presence of Hispanic Americans, forinstance. As well, multicultural policies have been adopted in countries(most notably, Canada and Australia) without the American history ofracial conflict. Glazer’s sense is that multiculturalism is irrevocably partof the American educational system, and that the questions now have todo with what forms its presence will take.Glazer’s point of view is not the only one possible. In his short pieceon ‘boutique’ multiculturalism, Stanley Fish (1998) argues that multiculturalismis impossible. On the one hand, the superficialities of weak(‘boutique’) multiculturalism hardly justify the noun at all. It is a sort of‘flirtation’ or ‘cosmetic relationship’, one that stops well short of athoroughgoing acceptance of difference. Fish refers to the scathing essayby Tom Wolfe (1970) on ‘radical chic’: Wolfe’s description of the party forthe Black Panthers held by Leonard Bernstein in his opulent Park Avenueapartment in 1970 remains, after almost 40 years, a delicious read. Thisweak stance may involve admiration, enjoyment or sympathy with the‘other’, but it will not extend its appreciation to offences against ‘thecanons of civilized decency’ (Fish, 1998: 69). There are many illustrationsof what Fish means here, and he cites some obvious ones himself; thus,while ‘boutique’ multiculturalists may respect religious beliefs othertheir own, they will draw the line at (say) polygamy. Fish is essentiallyrestating here the idea that toleration can mean very little if it covers onlythose things that are different but still generally ‘acceptable’. This, ofcourse, is a very interesting and murky area. Perhaps there may be broadacceptance at the extremes there are probably very few among us, forinstance, whose tolerance for the plurality of beliefs would embraceritual cannibalism but extreme behavior is rarely the issue.(I mention cannibalism on purpose here. I am not thinking ofHannibal Lecter, but of a recent gruesome case in Germany. In December2003, Armin Meiwes was put on trial for eating an apparently willingvictim, one Bernd Brandes. The two had initially ‘met’ through theinternet. Cannibalism is not a crime in Germany, and Meiwes wasoriginally sentenced to about eight years for manslaughter; later, at anew trial in 2006, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder.How many, I wonder, would be willing to apply to cases like this some