Beyond Comfort Zones in Multiculturalism: Confronting the Politics of Privilege

For peoples whose legal agreements, treaties and other accords and conventions with the United States have been violated, multiculturalism as a pedagogical tool often becomes suspect of reinforcing the continued reification and abstraction of their cultures and nations, with little if any real meaning for educational and social transformation. The continued oppression and repression of the exercise of self-determination for African Americans, the persistence of policies aimed at the destruction of indigenous populations and land, and the insidious continuation of classical colonialism in the case of Puerto Rico are all vivid reminders to these peoples of the racist, classist, sexist and homophobic patriarchy that characterises their status. In order to restore people’s rights to fully determine their own histories, this text point out that it is imperative to destroy the material foundations that breed and recycle the ideology, discourse and cultural practices of domination. It is not enough to celebrate diversity and difference; there must be grand-scale social, political, economic and educational transformation.