Thinking about Diversity 'Outside' of Class

There have been a number of things I have been noticing the past couple weeks that directly relate to what we have been talking about in class.

The first of which I actually mentioned about in class last week, a Red Bull Energy Drink commercial that uses the representation of Native Americans to somehow relay the meaning, that "No Red Bull. No Happy Ending." I managed to find a clip of the commercial on the website, Visit4Info- here is the link (I had to put it on to two lines so everyone could view all of it, just copy and paste it into your browser), http://www.visit4info.com/advert/Only-Smoke-Signals-Without-
Red-Bull-Red-Bull-Stimulation/63996


The second representation of Native Americans I found in the State News today, February 17, 2009. It is a cartoon called Bizarro by Dan Piraro, and it shows two Native Americans standing in the front of the picture with a word bubble saying, "Melancholy Wolf must have been rolling in the Prozac flowers," which refers to a third Native American in the background who is skipping in the air. I wasn't able to scan this picture to put into my blog, but I will bring it to class tomorrow and give it to Deb if you want to look at it.

The last encounter I had this week was with a book actually titled Encounter by Jane Yolen which I was assigned to read for my Social Studies class. We were discussing the actuality of Christopher Columbus' travels and his treatment of the Native Americans. This book tells the story of a young Native American boy and his mistrust of the Europeans from the start. While discussing the book, a classmate of mine (Erika) noted that she had previously taken TE448 and wondered about whether or not the book accurately portrayed the Taino tribe. The author does make a note at the end to say that there are many things unknown about the Taino culture, but did her best to most accurately represent the information known.


Just a few things I've been noticing, and thought were worth sharing!

Inside & Outside

Prior to the assigned readings, I had a extremely small knowledge base of the insider/outsider debate. Each article offered an interesting point of view, however I picked out a few quotes that I really felt impacted my opinion of this debate the most:


My first quote comes from Patrick Shannon's article, I Am The Cannon: Finding Ourselves in Multiculturalism.... "Culture, then, is not limited to race because it includes region, gender, language, ethnicity, economic class, and other social markers which can demarcate a social group from others" (2).
-I personally can say that I have categorized multicultural literature as an outlet for different racial groups; with such a naive mindset I can understand why this issue has become so huge, I can only imagine how many other people are mistaking this outlet for something less than it is. Race is different from multiculturalism, and thinking that the two are one in the same means something desperately needs to change people's mindsets, and fast!

In Violet Harris' article, No Invitations Required to Share Multicultural Literature, there were two quotes that immediately drew my attention..." Shannon can decide to join the struggle at his leisure; I cannot. I am a central part of multicultural struggles whether I decide to join or not" (10).
-This statement is so incredibly powerful! I suppose that being a white female, I have often been oblivious to the fact most literature I have ever read I can identify with the character. Rarely do I recall reading books with multicultural issues in my childhood, although I can luckily say that my family did open my eyes to these issues without the use of text. I believe Harris is correct in saying that Shannon can choose whether or not he joins the struggle; but I do support Shannon in the fact that he is joining the struggle willing.

Second, Harris notes that "Donnarae McCann is European-American. She possess the critical consciousness that enabled her to create an excellent examination of the depiction of Native Americans" (11).
-Harris spends most of her article arguing that she is open to the idea of another culture writing about a specific culture, however, I find it odd that she can only find and support one example of this. If she did widely support this belief, wouldn't she have listed more sources to back her claim?

Lastly, I was struck my Mingshui Cai's article, Multiple Definitions of Multicultural Literature: Is the Debate Really Just "Ivory Tower" Bickering? The author notes that, "the view that all literature is multicultural has the merit of expanding our understanding of literature from a multicultural perspective" (316).
-I really just felt this was such a great way to stop categorizing different parts of this debate; if we can search for multicultural aspects in all literature, we will all be more knowledgeable about the world around us.