Working Paper 94-13 February 1994(1)
By Lerita Coleman
Psychology Department, University of Colorado - Boulder
(1) This paper is an edited transcript of a talk given by Lerita Coleman for the Intractable Conflict/Constructive Confrontation Project on November 6, 1993. Funding for this Project was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the University of Colorado. All ideas presented are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Consortium, the University, or Hewlett Foundation. For more information, contact the Conflict Resolution Consortium, Campus Box 327, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0327. Phone: (303) 492- 1635, e-mail: crc@cubldr.colorado.edu.
© 1994. Conflict Resolution Consortium. Do not reprint without permission.
I am going to be speaking today from the perspective of a professor who is operating within the academy. Certainly within the last five or ten years we have had a number of national and international debates about the canons of the academy, about what is and who can define valuable knowledge--about what it is that we need to be teaching students. I am sure some of you have had the opportunity to read newspaper articles, magazine articles, or books which discuss whether or not we are watering down our curriculum by making it a bit more inclusive. I want to address the issue of diversity and multiculturalism as it operates within the university, and particularly how it affects research and teaching.
People often act as if diversity and multicultural issues are intractable, although I don't think they have to be. The real problem lies with what things mean to people. For example, let's just take the word "differences." In our culture and in our society we often think and equate differences with deficit. That is, if someone is different, then he or she is less than another, or is devalued or is available to be denigrated. I do research on stigma, which is basically what that is about--the devaluing and degrading of people because they are different. From my research I see that one of the issues underlying the arguments about multiculturalism and about diversity has to do with this tendency, which is embedded in our culture, of equating different with deficit.
Within the University right now, we are going through a major transformation. We are having a number of arguments about who is going to define what is knowledge and whose voices are going to be included in that. The dispute about the canons of the academy, which is also how it is framed, affect both research and teaching. I would argue that knowledge is enhanced and teaching is enhanced by being more inclusive. In constructing theories that involve a variety of people, we learn much more about human behavior. We learn much more about life when we have a variety of voices and ideas and cultures to choose from.
Let me just give you a couple of examples of how being more inclusive enriched our own campus within the last couple of years. We had the "Novels of the Americas" conference last year, which was really wonderful. One of the reasons why the conference was so wonderful was because it was very inclusive. There were a number of novelists and writers there. I can't imagine what this conference would have been like ten or twenty years ago, or what it would have been like if they had said that the novels of the Americas included only what white males had written. One of the things that enhanced this conference was the fact that it included a variety of voices-- each writer represented a different voice, a piece of how someone was experiencing life. That was probably one of the best conferences that I have ever been to on a college campus. We had some astounding people here for that conference.
Another example of how diversity can work to enrich and enhance what we know was the Civil War lecture by Barbara Fields. What was amazing about this lecture was that the Glen Miller Ballroom was packed for an history lecture! We can hardly get people to history classes, but for this lecture they just didn't have enough space in the room. When I went to school I learned that Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves--everybody was taught that. One of the things that was just really delightful about this lecture was that Barbara Fields came along to tell us that this wasn't quite true. She argued that there were other aspects to the abolition of slavery that we needed to know about. For example, Lincoln was quite ambivalent about freeing the slaves, because he was a lawyer and was more concerned about protecting the property rights of the slave owners, than he was about slaves. That was a really important piece of information to know. In addition to that, she also showed us that it was the Union soldiers, the slaves themselves, Congress, and, to a certain extent, Lincoln, who came together to emancipate these people. Now, I can't imagine that some other kind of historian would have given us this richer picture of what went on in this historical period. Here again is an example of how being more inclusive, bringing in the voices of a variety of people and perspectives, gives us a much better idea about what is going on. And this was not one of these "feel good" lectures when talking about the slaves. As a matter of fact, Barbara Fields could have taken this perspective and said, "Well, I'm doing my book just on how the slaves saw the Civil War." She did not choose to do that. She chose to try to give a richer picture by involving a variety of people.
To take this idea a little bit further, in psychology we have a definite problem with not being very inclusive in our work. The vast majority of theory in psychology is based on white college sophomores. It's scary to think about it that way, but that is basically what it is. Oftentimes when researchers test these models on other people and other people don't respond as these white college sophomores do, they then write about why these other people are deficient or different, rather than saying, "Maybe I need to modify my model so that it is going to be more representative of human behavior." There have been a few people, for example, Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesan, who have done amazing amounts of work on the expression of emotion. They have a theory that tells us what is universal about the expression of emotion, and what is culturally specific. It's beautiful. People are beginning to do this on the construction of self. But it is again utilizing the voices of a variety of people to make the research richer. An interesting question for me, as a psychologist, is why aren't more people doing this in their respective fields? Why are people so resistant to including more voices in the work that they do?
In terms of teaching, I certainly do believe that students learn much more when they are exposed to different perspectives and world views. They have a chance to ponder why people in another part of the world might think about the world differently. It also helps them question their own perceptions about what is going on. I often like to teach about conflict, contrast, and being on the edge, between this side and that side. I think that students learn a lot more in that way and are enriched by having a variety of perspectives. I often go in the classroom and say, "I only believe 40 percent of this." This kind of scares them because they are not used to this. They are used to thinking there is one right answer.
In a sense, the conflict of ideas is like the playground problem. You have a sandbox in a playground and you have a couple of kids (sometimes I think my colleagues act like kids) and you have a variety of ways of dealing with the sandbox in the playground. You can say, "Well, I was here first and so it's mine and if you want to play in here, that's too bad." Or you can say, "Well, I'm pushing you out of the sandbox because I am bigger than you and I want it myself." Or you can say, "Well, maybe I'll let you in, but I don't have to speak to you or play with you while you are here," or "I'll play for 15 minutes and I'll let you play for 15 minutes," or "We can both play together," or "We can both play, but not together." We have a lot of these scenarios going on in terms of how it is that we deal with knowledge, especially in terms of how it is that we deal with multicultural issues. Inherent in this scenario is this idea of ownership. It is almost as if I own the ideas and so, therefore, I get to make the rules. But, we know that oftentimes ownership is an illusion--we don't bring anything into this world and we don't take anything out with us.
Basically, intractable conflicts over diversity and multiculturalism, particularly in the university, exist because people are generally resistant to change. I was the first African American professor in my department, and there are days when I just go home and shake my head. But a friend delightfully brought to my attention that I have to understand that just my mere presence in my department represents change. Some people are going to welcome that and some people are going to try to throw crap at you. You just need to know that you don't even have to say anything, just walking around is enough. So, the issue of being a person who is representing change, symbolically and in other ways, is certainly tied to this issue of conflict. This is connected to another problem--change is always going to happen whether we like it or not. Things are always changing, but somehow many of us would prefer to say, "No, no, we can't."
Two or three other issues that are connected to differences and change. One is the fear of difference. Certainly in my study of stigma, I know that people do fear differences. They do fear what they are ignorant about. Often this fear is connected to the need for control or, once again, to the illusion of control, since there is not a whole lot we can actually control. One of my colleagues once told me, "Well, you know I think my problem with ethnic groups is that I just don't know enough about them to be able to predict what they are going to do." That was really enlightening for me. . . that he was into being able to predict behavior. By knowing more he felt he was going to be able to predict what was going to happen. Part of the problem with diversity issues is the need for those who are presently in control or power to remain in control or power.
But, it is important that we recognize just how biased our culture is. It is terrible that I, for instance, could get out of college and not really know anything about the Harlem Renaissance and that one of my colleagues who has been walking around with a Ph.D. for 25 years has never heard of the Harlem Renaissance. Or, another colleague, for example, when recently I asked him, "Have you read anything by Toni Morrison?" He said, "No. I guess I am going to have to now that she has won the Nobel Prize!" I certainly couldn't walk around saying I don't know anything about Greek and Roman history. People would be appalled. It is those kinds of issues that we have not yet addressed.
A second issue is competition and control over available resources. It is always an issue in all groups. When it is about money, the economy, when things get tight, food, land, water, whenever resources appear to be scarce, differences become accentuated. People start categorizing people--who is in the "in group" and who is in the "out group"; who is in the family, who is not in the family. We repress the idea that we are all here on the same planet and that we basically want the same sorts of things: recognition, love, safety. However, one person told me that when things get tight, people then begin to invoke the Golden Rule--the one with the gold makes the rules.
Lastly, some of these issues have to do with disconnection from others and disconnection from self. In many cases people are very much disconnected from themselves. They have very little self-knowledge, and because of that, they are less likely to be connected to other people. When we lack self-knowledge we certainly accentuate differences and assign "good/bad" evaluations to those differences. People who look and act and talk like us are good people, and people who don't look and act and talk like us are the bad people. Usually we want to change the latter group so that they will look and act and talk like us. Self-acceptance goes a long way in helping to resolve some of these conflicts over differences-- when you can accept yourself with all your flaws and all your idiosyncrasies and problems, then it is much easier to accept other people who are not like you, who differ physically, culturally, economically with all their flaws and all their idiosyncrasies.