Reading Multiculturally

“Reading Multiculturally” by Daniel Hade fit in so well with To Kill a Mockingbird.  I love the quote by Hade that says, “And the meanings we hold about race, class, and gender (many of which may be stereotypes) mediate how we interpret text.”  As I read To Kill a Mockingbird, I saw Tom Robinson as the innocent man accused of a crime because he is a black man in a “white society.”  That is how the author wanted us to visualize the story or else it wouldn’t have been from Scout’s point of view.  What if the story had been from the point of view of someone in the jury or even worse, Mr. Ewell. We would see Tom Robinson from a completely different perspective and may even believe he is guilty of the crime.  “Interpretation is the means by which we understand text.”

I enjoyed this article and how he compared different stories to each other. My favorite comparison was probably The Giving Tree with Piggybook. I have never thought of The Giving Tree as a male exploiting the female. But when Hade compared it to a story of a mother serving her husband and two sons, it became more apparent that the tree is in the same situation. It is also true what Hade said, that the tree could have been an “it,” but Silverstein made it a “she.”  Hade stated, “By comparing the two books, new meanings become possible-meanings that explore the signs of gender.” I was very interested about the connections he made between all of the different stories he mentioned. I will be aware of the signs the author makes in a story but also challenge dominant assumptions about the inferiority of the poor, women, and races.

Reading multiculturally should be done by all readers and taught to children in schools. Reading multiculturally is a challenge to the status quo. What you are reading may be able to be seen in many different lights from different perspectives.  You have to choose to accept what you want to believe from literature and challenge what you do not. Hade quoted “Sartre (1988) wrote that literature can only exist in a true democracy-where readers have the freedom to respond, to argue, to choose.” Reading against an author is perfectly acceptable. Even with children’s literature, Hade read two or more authors against each other when comparing books. Multiculturalism is about reform.  Challenging what people think and write about race, class, and gender is important to multicultural education.

This all ties in with A Class Divided as well. A quote of Hade’s that stuck out to me after watching what the kids went through was, “Silence is the oxygen of racism and bigotry. Silence allows the dominant assumptions about the inferiority of the poor, women, and persons of color to remain unchallenged.” Jane Elliot was an amazing person for taking the risk of teaching her students about racism and discrimination in the manner that she did.  Her risk taught them a lesson that they will never forget. If everyone was silent about the fact that there is racism and discrimination in our society, then nothing would happen. It would stay the same or get worse. Discrimination cannot stay unchallenged and needs to be something that is talked about, especially in the classroom. I love that Jane Elliot had the courage and strength to do the experiment, many times, with her students and with adults as well. I believe that, if the teachers would be trained and ready, her experiment should be used in the schools. After seeing the impact it had on the people in the video, it could be very effective to anyone who is part of the experiment.