Multiculturalism and communication

I have always believed that diversity is an important part of life. For individuals, groups, cultures, and nations to survive, each one must learn to communicate in a culturally effective manner, and must appreciate the differences inherent in a multicultural society. Multicultural communication is not just speaking the same language, although that does help. The text-to-speech translation devices being developed may ultimately help with multilingual issues, but multicultural communication is not just language-based. Culture is more than language, ethnicity and religion. It is a fundamental way of looking at the world.

As a communications instructor at a technical college in the upper Midwest, almost all of my students are from northern European backgrounds. Although I emphasize cultural competency in my classes, I have not taken the concepts beyond lectures and exercises. For example, one of the assignments I give my students in the oral/interpersonal communication class is to write down at least one stereotype that they have, and for the next two weeks interact with persons they think fit the stereotype, and report to the class what they learned. They usually report on things like “My stereotype was that all UW-Stout students are snobby, but I talked to some where I work and we went out and had a good time and they weren’t snobby at all.”

One semester, during the stereotype exercise and discussion, two of the students made homophobic remarks, and another student quickly responded from the opposite viewpoint. I just as quickly shushed up the argument. I didn’t want controversy in my classroom. Now, I believe I am part of the problem if two people who hate homosexuals (or blacks, or Muslims, or any other group—minority or majority) take my class and leave with the same views as when the semester started. Hate crimes are up in my part of the world. Last year, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported that hate crimes appear to be increasing, with almost 30 percent committed by young people under the age of 20. Both of my homophobic students were 19. While I don’t want to foster a brawl, I think I should have let the discussion continue that day. Anna Deavere Smith, an African American playwright noted, “Language is a combat between individuals, a combat with the self. Language betrays us. It doesn't always do what we want it to do. I love that disarray. It's where we're human.” (http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itsv/0200/ijse/ijse0200.htm )
This attitude toward controversial communication is one that I personally, as well as other educators and writers, could do well to foster.