Great post Lehi. I always wonder how many people cannot be inconvenienced to even consider communicating to audiences beyond their immediate circles. This problem is likely increasing with the growing plurality and focus of divisions that one may use to separate themselves and the like-minded from others. These are why labels such as “liberal” and “conservative” are so appealing: we no longer have to explain or defend ourselves when we can position outsiders as an “other” which either cannot understand or “suffer from some defect” which makes them consistently wrong or inferior. As troubling as this language sounds, these practices make values such as diversity, community, and collaboration more difficult. Solving problems collectively has been proven to be a massive success in a majority of situations but the problem is, as you mentioned, that it’s uncomfortable. It requires patience, effort, sensitivity, and even the outlandish possibility that one may be vulnerable or wrong. I agree with you that we should prize and appeal to these solutions which are more creative and collaborative; hopefully we can get there sooner rather than later despite this growing culture of ideological isolation.

Great comments Matt. I share some of your angst about our generation’s upbringing in this regard: we were taught our whole lives to be “colorblind” (whatever that really means) and to not discuss race, gender, sexuality, and class because they were “not nice to talk about”. It is amazing to me that we are so surprised when many individuals and collectives today are fighting for the ability to be heard discursively and politically. Being able to decide what should and should not be discussed is a massive red flag regarding privilege that has rarely been acknowledged until recently. Your sister’s experience is indicative of some of the biases latent in what many consider to be “harmless” assumptions of language and stereotypes. These problems are deep and many disturbing, with your family’s experience appearing to be one of those “ah-ha” moments where we are forced to think about them.

Great post Armin. Teaching to a diverse audience can prove rather difficult for many, especially when we/they haven’t been held to that standard previously or even been encouraged to consider the matter. Unfortunately, I believe diversity is often limited to simple rhetoric rather than practice, though there are several initiatives including the wonderful ones that you cited that are determined to make these ideas more of a reality. I think that a key hurdle is achieving more diversity within the teaching population so that they may more accurately appeal to their student base and embody diversity in practice. I do not propose that white teachers are somehow becoming “irrelevant” to any extent, but there is something to be said about students appealing to educational role models who they consider to better understand their personal experiences. Intersectionality aside, I agree with you that the whole of the educational community should be actively attuned and sensitive to these issues as well as be more prepared to seek activism and/or accommodation depending on their positionality. The “call” for social justice has always been present to some extent and we simply know conclusively that inequality and exclusion dominate the pedagogical landscape; it is just a shame that there are large populations who don’t care or don’t care enough.

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