Blog 7- A Look at Diversity

Last week in my sociology class, we talked about Anna Julia Cooper. She had marvelous ideas, but because of the time frame that she was born in and the fact that she was African- American and a woman, her ideas were ignored for some time.

Some of the things that she talked about were race, sex and power. Probably one of the most intriguing topics we talked about was the section on diversity. In dealing with diversity, there are four ways that you can do it. One way is assimilation; "outside" cultures are supposed to conform to the main stream culture. Then there is segregation, where there is complete separation of differences. Third is genocide, which is the worst way to deal with differences. One example of genocide in American history is the "Trail of Tears." Many people died and this migration was all against their will.

The fourth way of dealing with diversity really got my mind going; Pluralism. I actually took a class on pluralism in Education before I decided to not pursue a career in education. This whole class taught me how to be accepting of others and their differences. We also learned more about different cultures to be able to understand our future students.

However, I am not too sure if I actually agree with pluralism. It sounds great, but once you start digging in to it, you realize that there may be some bad things that come out of it. Pluralism is where you celebrate the differences in culture while keeping your own. I think that it will actually turn into segregation. If people stay in their bubble of culture and celebrate their own culture, they will never venture out and learn about other cultures.

I choose this picture, because of the trend that I am seeing in education. They either are trying to enact pluralism or they are trying to make every one equal and having them assimilate. Even I felt like I was wearing the way too small one-size-fits-all t-shirt when I went to a public school for the first time in high school. It was an uncomfortable expirience, because I felt like I did not quite fit into the mold that they were trying to put us in. However, I really did not want to fit in the mold that they put me in, because I wanted to be true to myself and not let anyone tell me who I should be.

In conclusion, it was reather interesting to learn about Anna Julia Cooper. I loved hearing about her findings. Her thoughts definately had sparked a lot of thoughts.