Dennis Carlson

Gayness, Multicultural Education, and Community
Dennis Carlson


Carlson argues that the American school system uses many “techniques and apparatus of power” to try to keep “gayness” in, what they consider, “its place”. Moreover, the way the school system has been trying to deal with what they believe to be abnormal, “gayness”, is in some ways marginalizing and taking way the rights from those who have different sex-preference than the rest of the people who are straight and therefore considered to be “normal”.

• “At the level of state educational policy, it is noteworthy that no state currently recognizes gays and lesbians as legitimate minority or cultural groups to be considered in text book adoption or to be included in multicultural education; and a number of states explicitly prohibit teaching about homosexuality.” (Pg. 236)
• “This cleansing of gayness from the literary canon is often defended as an effort to maintain the reputation or “good name” of the authors by not “outing” them. Yet such concern is, of course, another way of affirming that being gay is cause for loss of respect. (Pg. 236-237)
• “One of the effects of this closeting of gay teachers may be an overzealous effort by gay teachers themselves to avoid any class discussion in which gayness may come up, since that presume that to be publicly “out” at school would cost them their jobs.” (Pg. 238)
• “Straight teachers often participate in silencing practices because they are fearful of raising a controversial issue that might provoke conflict in the classroom.” (Pg. 238)
• “These abuses get tolerated because gay teachers and students operate in an environment where they feel afraid to stand up for themselves and because any discussion of gay people continues to be absent in the curriculum so that homophobia is not interrogated.” (Pg. 239)

The quotes mentioned above shows some of the way the rights of gay people are violated inside our school system. As they are part of a minority, they are not part of the “culture of power”, so they have no privilege and feel afraid to speak out and defend their rights. All this quotes remind me of Johnson and Delpit. Because gay teachers and even straight teachers are afraid of speak about the issue, solutions become harder to find. As Johnson argues, we need to use the words and talk about the problem in order to accomplish any change in our society.
It’s sad the way gay people are been treated. As human beings, they deserve the same treatments and have the same rights straight people have.