Gayness, Multicultural Education and Community

By Dennis Carlson
Erika

QUOTES:
1. “Within normalizing communities, some individuals and subject positions (i.e., white, middle class, male, heterosexual, etc.) get privileged and represented as “normal” while other individuals and subject positions (i.e., black, working class, female, homosexual, etc.) are disempowered and represented as deviant, sick, neurotic, criminal, lazy, lacking in intelligence, and in other ways “abnormal.””
What does this quote not say?! It sums up the whole class! It goes along with SCAWMP, Johnson, and Deplit perfectly summing them up. Within this article it is telling us how “normalizing” is working in our society.
2. “…normalizing texts systematically exclude and neglect the culture of those outside the norm for the purpose of ratifying or legitimating the dominate culture as the only significant culture worth studying. …we do not get very far if we look for what is said about gayness in educational texts. We get much further if we pay attention to … the “silent spaces” or the “not said” of the text.”
Schools are systematic in what can be taught and backhanded about what won’t be taught. Important things in educational texts have been left out because they did not fit the norm or support the dominate culture. This has been done to every marginalized group not just gay people. Without the whole picture students only “see” what the schools want them to see.
3. “…gay people have found more acceptances within the middle class and among the college-educated than within the working class. Similarly, gay culture has been overwhelmingly “white” and this makes it difficult for many young black gay people to affirm both their gayness and their blackness.”
What a double edged sword. While reading I was pondering this exact statement. A page before this quote I wrote, “White vs. Black and gayness. Which is easier? Whites more accepting and open about gayness? Blacks less tolerant/ less open about gayness?” So, when I read this quote it was like words taken out of my mouth. It is true that on college campus students are more open and accepting of gayness, so why is there intolerance in high schools?
QUESTIONS/COMMENTS/POINTS TO SHARE;
This was a GREAT article. I enjoyed reading it. It seems a shame that schools are oppressing yet another group of people. This article screamed the key points in some of our other discussions, culture of power, silenced dialogue, SCWAMP, and Johnson. I was shocking on how the way gays are portrayed effect young gay people. I was shocked at the point brought up about engaging in dangerous behavior and them feeling like getting AIDS is part of being gay. ALSO this point may be a bit outdated. One point that seems right is the acceptance of the over feminization of gays and how that is just a way to keep gays in their place. I can’t say enough about how powerful this was but I’ll save some for class. :)