Multicultural Literature

The debate over who can write multicultural literature was very interesting to me. The authors of each of the articles that we read for class this week seemed to feel very strong on their position of what they thought about this. I thought that the way Patrick Shannon comes off in his article seems rude. He thinks of himself as the “normal” American being and every other person that is not like him as the “other” American being. After reading through each of the articles in the order we were given I found myself rereading the first article by Shannon because of the comments that were made about him and his article in the other three articles. In the Shannon article he quoted Sims Bishop as saying, “Sims Bishop concludes that culturally conscious fiction written by same-race authors is superior to all other books about that race” (Shannon, page 2). Sims Bishop is saying that people of other races writing about an opposite race do not write fiction that depicts the correct facts. In some ways I think that this is correct but not always. I think that there can be authors that have done research or have grown up around other races that could write just the same or better fiction pieces as that of someone of the same-race.
Another thing that interests me is that teachers who teach in predominately white, middle-class schools do not think it is necessary to teach about other cultures. They seems to think that if it doesn’t effect them or their students directly then there is no reason to teach about it. I think that is wrong. Teachers should always being teaching their students about all cultures because some time in their lives they are going to come across a time when they are going to need to be aware of other cultures.
The author of each of these articles brought up good points that make their opinion valid. I think that anyone can write multicultural literature as long as they know the facts. Someone of a different race cannot write literature about another race other than theirs if they are going to make assumptions about a certain race. People already have misconceptions about certain races because of society there is no need for multicultural literature to make them worse.