Historical Experience And Current Ethnic Culture example essay topic

Summary: "Antiracism, Multiculturalism and Interracial community: Three Educational values for a multicultural society". Lawrence Blum is a philosophy professor at University of Massachussetts. He starts off his article stating four values that are important to the education program. They are anti racism, multiculturalism, sense of community and individuality. Racism is when a person or group has attitudes over another.

The goal of anti racism is to be "without racist attitudes". Multiculturalism is the understanding of another's culture, and the ways of a culture. Community involves saying that people in a community have a somewhat "bond" to other people of races and. Individuality is recognizing the person as an individual when that person is a different race and different ethnic group.

He states that these values are different from each other. He also states that these values support each other, but there is tension between them. Antiracism. Blum defines racism as "referring both to an institutional or social structure of racial domination or injustice-as when we speak of a racist institution-and also to individual actions, beliefs, and attitudes, whether consciously held or not, which express, support or justify the superiority of ones racial group to another". (16) Antiracism branches off to three parts; (a) all individuals are equal. We not only need to comprehend this, but we need to feel it. (b) what people don't grasp about racism is "a psychological, historical phenomenon" and (c) opposing racial actions and attitudes.

(17) Blum also makes it a point to say that when the victims or racism don't take a stand for themselves, they "made their own history". (17) Multiculturalism. Multiculturalism breaks off into three parts. Affirming one's cultural identity, respecting and learning about other cultures and valuing diversity. Affirming one's own cultural identity involves learning about someone else's cultural heritage. So, in other words, in order to understand another culture, you need to understand yours first.

Respecting and learning about other cultures involves the desire to learn and understand about other cultures. Valuing of diversity involves the encouragement of appreciating groups of diversity. Blum states that he knows this is difficult, but it needs to be done. Blum then goes on to state about the three dimensions of cultures that need to be taught in school. They are ancestor culture, historical experience, and current ethnic culture. Blum starts off speaking about ancestor culture and how many cultures celebrate their ancestors.

He states, "While all ethnic cultures have an ancestor culture, not all current groups bear the same relationship to that ancestor culture". (18) He gives the example of African-Americans. Another is historical experience. In an ethic group's historical experience is its many successes and failures, contributions, and many more achievements. He uses Chinese-Americans as an example to say that the experiences they go through in the Untied States are not the experiences of the culture they would experience in their own country. He goes on saying "It is a culture with its own integrity".

(19) Current ethnic culture is experienced in the present. Rituals, foods, customs, values, and musical preferences "bears complex relationships to the ancestor culture as well as to the group's historical ethnic experience in the United States". (19) This can change over time. This needs to be given respect. Blum uses an example of an Arab girl who wears traditional headgear to show that people should respect that because in fact it is her culture. Blum then goes on to talk about how moral relativism and pluralism is related to multiculturalism.

Blum states. ".. No one from one culture is in a position to judge another culture, no one is in a position to say which culture should be given priority in the allocation of respect. ". (20) If you want to look at different cultures, the best way to do it is through the pluralistic view. By doing this, one can appreciate another cultures values.

Sense of community. "A sense of community that embraces racial and cultural differences". (21) To sum it all up, this shows that there is a bond between the people in a community. When this happens, there is no racism. Conclusion. Blum gives two key points to help with forming interracial communities.

One is that groups should not be defined as "black" or "white". The other is to give let the students experience some type of discrimination, being both the discriminator and the one being discriminated against. In his conclusion, he states that differences need to be recognized, respected and understood. He states that the United States needs to have a "pluralistic community".

(22) He quotes Robert Be llah, "one which involves a sense of bond and connection stemming from shared activity, condition, task, location, and the like-and grounded ultimately in an experience of shared humanity- yet recognizing and valuing cultural differences (and other kinds of differences as well). (Blum 22) (816 words).