What's post racial discourse got to do with it? Obama and implications for multiculturalism in college classrooms

Jennifer Thorington Springer

doi:10.14434/josotl.v14i3.3449

Abstract

With the election and re-election of Barack Obama as the first Black President of the United States came the vexing yet perhaps expected conclusion that issues of race and ethnicity were no longer grave concerns. Somehow Obama’s presence suggests the transcendence of race. While a nod to the political progress made in terms of social race relations may be in order, Obama’s election does not translate into a “color-blind,” “post race” American nation. This essay explores how current and ongoing conversations about a post race nation shape student perceptions of race and how they directly affect the teaching instruction of professors, like myself, who are invested in multicultural and inclusive pedagogy. As an instructor invested in inclusive learning, my former struggle of getting students to understand the importance of acknowledging the validity of cultural differences has resurfaced as students who buy into the rhetoric of a “post race” nation no longer think it necessary to examine closely racially charged inequities. Rather than adhere to the problematic ideology of Obama as the embodiment of a “post race” nation, I propose an exploration of his identity and politics as those that encourage fluidity and cultural plurality without denying rightful acknowledgement of race as a viable political reality.

Highlights

The value of a multicultural and inclusive education is well established and has been embraced steadily by educators who recognize the ways in which the employment of cultural diversity– through the use of varied texts and student centered class discussion–makes for a more enriching educational experience
As an instructor whose teaching career began in the early 1990s when the fight for inclusive teaching was at its peak, it is rewarding to note progress. It seems that the post racial rhetoric that permeates recent scholarship and social media net works due to the election of a black U.S president has somehow interrupted the progress of a multicultural education
Does one manage students’ desire to discuss specific sites of cultural representation and ethnicities instead of others? What is it with race and this thing called blackness, in particular, that students want to avoid? This paper explores the effect of post race rhetoric and its negative influences on student perceptions of race, and how it directly affects the teaching instruction of professors, like myself, who are invested in multicultural and inclusive pedagogy

Summary

Introduction

The value of a multicultural and inclusive education is well established and has been embraced steadily by educators who recognize the ways in which the employment of cultural diversity– through the use of varied texts and student centered class discussion–makes for a more enriching educational experience. While race is not the only viable way to adhere to or address issues of diversity it is safe to say that most of our scholarly conversations about inclusive teaching and the need for it began using racial inequities as a starting point: “Multicultural education is a product of the U.S context and exemplifies the highest democratic ideals. No longer would a black person be disadvantaged or discriminated against due to racial status These sentiments were held mostly by my white students while the few students of color argued for a different type of raced nation based on their individual and collective experiences, not one that was post but one that continued to demonstrate racial inequities.

On Multiculturalism and Diversity

On Gender and Sexuality

Conclusion