Dialogue about our pasts

Hasan’s statement at the end of The Civic Empowerment Gap highlights one of the real challenges we all face in a multicultural society. He says, “I think we’re different because we have to fall back on our parents’ background because our parents--that’s what they teach us” (41). The idea that certain backgrounds produce certain conceptions of what it means to be American is important to consider. It is inevitable that each person’s past will inform, shape, sustain, or motivate their level of participation in civil society or even the extent to which they feel limited or empowered by civil structures. The problem occurs when our society privileges the past backgrounds of some people over the backgrounds of others. The injustice is furthered when we don't acknowledge this is happening. This ties with Shor’s insight that access to small classes is something that people usually attain by having a past history of wealth or privilege that allowed them to attend an institution with smaller class sizes. But is this frequently talked about? From reading Shor and Freire, I’ve concluded that the most productive way we might be able to build a future together despite the reality that people will always come from different pasts and backgrounds is through dialogue. “Dialogue means a permanent tension in the relation between authority and liberty” (Freire, 102). I like the idea that dialogue isn’t always comfortable, but rather tense. Dialogue is permanent. We are never going to be finished talking about these so-called “issues” that fall under multiculturalism. We don’t even need to think about them as issues, but rather as the wonderful realities of life that we will be dialoguing about for the rest of our lives. I hope we can think about this as exciting rather than daunting!