What is Multicultural Education?

Back in the 80's, 90's and early 2000's multicultural education separated people rather than brought them together, that is in the camps that 'didn't get it.' All you had to do was mention the term 'multicultural education' and you could see the mind clickers working: oh, you're a communist, you're a liberal, you're socialist...you're a feminist, you believe in abortion rights...the list goes on and on. Depending on whose mind was clicking, you might even be called racist, believing that Blacks [or African Americans] should be given top status, no matter what, put in no work, but because of past sufferings, past enslavement and then Whites should be paying penance everyday [or the opposite]: believing that Whites have carte blanche rights, just because. Yeah, wipe my nose.

Au contrare' - 21st century multicultural education has come full circle. Everybody needs somebody, sometimes. Is not that what the blues lament? Multicultural education is inclusive: you wanna be in? You're in. Run away from the cliques. Run away from the quiets. Yes,'the quiets.' People who whisper demise, smiling in your face: backstabbers...remember the O'Jay's 'Backstabbers' song? What they do...they smile in your face...all the time they want to take your place...the back stabbers...they smile in your face...all you fellows who have someone and you really care...then it's all of you fellows who better beware...yeah, yeah...somebody's out to get your lady...a few of your buddies they sure look shady...blades are long, clenched tight in their fist...aimin straight at your back...and I don't think they'll miss...the back stabbers...I keep gettin' all these visits from my friends, yeah, what they doin to me...they come to my house...again and again and again and again, yeah...what can I do to get on the right track...I wish they'd take some of these knives off my back...smiling faces sometimes tell lies...[http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/pride/backstabbers.htm]. Doesn't sound like we are post-anything yet, huh?

Multicultural education has come to mean that we have our work cut out for us. We have a lot to do and are living in one of the most exciting eras in which to do it. It means coming together to love, share, accept, just be who we are. Impressions are for clowns, for idiots, for the ignorant. We need to be working, day by day on building good relationships, good habits of living and loving anybody. We need to be building our young now. Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, notable 20th century educator, said ' we have a powerful potential in our youth and we must have the courage to change old ideas and practices so that we may direct their power toward good ends.' Multicultural education is no longer about us creating something - it is about re-creation, paying it forward now. Teachig the young to love. Teaching the young to explore, to share, to reach out, to look out, and embrace somebody outside of themselves. Do something!

I was watching a video clip of the Woodstock Festival of 1969 and got really jealous of how much love and outpouring happened on that weekend...looking beyond the drugs, I saw youth personified and amplified many, many times over ushering in along with the Civil Rights movement and other pennacles, introducing an era of multicultural education. People were inter-marrying, upchucking the status quo, re-writing the history books.

It's a new day Will I Am says...its time for unity, for us and we, that's you and me together...I woke up this morning feelin brand new, cause the dreams that I've been dreamin finally came true...yeah I woke up this morning feelin alright, cause we weren't fightin for nothin, and the soldiers weren't fightin for nothin...no Martin wasn't dreamin for nothing...and Lincoln didn't change it for nothin...and children weren't cryin for nothin...it's a new day!