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7 9 , -(* , ;PT3PIYL[[P Often discussions of “multiculturalism” or “diversity” recycle the same rhetorical platitudes that urge us (meaning the peoples of the U.S.) to “celebrate our differences,” that assert vacuously that “our differences are our strengths,” or that patriotically echo our currency in declaring wishfully “e pluribus unum.” While such rhetorical flourishes do arguably contain profound wisdom, with too much frequency these flourishes forego the complex explanations they deserve and desperately need, remaining empty statements that, when not elaborated or interrogated, do more to perpetuate cultural conflict, racial tensions and prejudices, material and political inequalities, and all other kinds of inhumanity in U.S. culture and society, than they do to provide meaningful platforms from which to inquire into and address such problems. As a result of such postulates about diversity relaxing into platitudes sloppily invoked to evade tough social problems rather than spurring complex formulations that require explanations and arguments, on the whole as a people and culture we remain, I believe it is fair to say our behavior as a nation suggests, decidedly unpersuaded by any kind of postulation that diversity in our nation is a source of strength. At a minimum, our collective failure to genuinely understand and appreciate diversity makes it difficult , well-nigh impossible, to comprehend our full collective humanity and complexity. This lack of comprehension prevents us from developing the best knowledge we can about our world and from taking advantage of all people’s talents, skills, and understandings to produce the most humane and productive of all possible cultures—one which, intuitively speaking, gives priority to meeting the basic human needs of all. Indeed, Chris Schroeder opens this work in the introduction, following the sociologist Robert Putnam, with the assertion that despite the rhetoric we often hear and repeat about diversity, as a people and culture we are pretty much disturbed by and uncomfortable with diversity . John Sayles succinctly captures these duplicitous attitudes toward _PP   + 0 = , 9 : ,  ) @  + , : 0 . 5 diversity in his representation of this discomfort in his 1996 film Lone Star in a scene dramatizing a heated conversation among teachers and parents in a Texas high school about, in particular, the teaching of Texas history. In this scene, one parent asserts, “If we’re talking about food and music and all, I have no problem with that, but when you start changing who did what to who. . . .” A teacher then responds, “We’re not changing anything. We’re trying to present a more complete picture.” “And that has got to stop,” the parent retorts. What Sayles illuminates in this familiar dialogue is that as a kind of decoration, we can appreciate other cultures, but when it comes to any fundamental rethinking of our world which might be forwarded by a different cultural perspective, any fundamental alteration in what constitutes knowledge and understanding , or any fundamental ideological challenge that might threaten to motivate a reorganization of our socioeconomic relationships and practices —well, then, the appreciation stops and the repression begins. The recent legislation in Arizona banning ethnic studies in public schools in Tucson evidences this disturbance with diversity which Schroeder cites. Don’t mess with Texas—or Arizona, apparently! Or, in the case of Diverse by Design, go ahead and mess with Texas and Arizona! Indeed, in this work Schroeder effectively, if at times implicitly , challenges the thinking and efficacy behind such strenuous efforts as we see in Arizona to marginalize, if not outright to fully repress, any engagement with diverse cultural frameworks and historical experiences. Schroeder’s work not only endorses the formulation that “our diversity is our strength,” but it explains and argues why this is so, taking on this serious task of cultural persuasion and exploring the social consequences, the transformations, that follow—or ought to—from really respecting diversity. Those who earnestly ask, “Why is our diversity our strength?” and do not treat it as a rhetorical question, as Schroeder doesn’t, will find in this work some concrete and compelling answers to that question. One of the major theses of this work, which constitutes such a compelling answer to this basic and too-often unanswered question, might at first glance seem somewhat simple or even intuitive but is deceptively complex. Schroeder articulates this answer in his introduction, identifying it as one of the hypotheses that drove the project: “people who use more than one language, and thus have more than one way to express experiences and examine environments, have more resources than those who had...

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