The Insider-Outsider Issue

After reading the articles for this week, I find myself more confused than I was before I read. Each author makes good points, even though at times it seems like an ongoing argument that kind of annoyed me. When I really think about, I believe a few things about the insider-outsider debate. Shannon questions that because he is a "privelged, white male," does that exclude him from the debate of multiculturalism? Sims Bishop responds by saying, "I think it puts him at the center of the storm." I agree with this statement by Sims Bishop because white people, at least in the past, have not always been the most accepting people when it comes to those different than them, and I think that this definitely relates to multicultural literature. An example of this is our discussion last week involving sports teams named after Indians and how disrespected they feel from most of our interpretations. I think that we need to make sure that whoever is reading a book is doing so open-mindedly and not believing every word that is written as fact. That said, I do think that outsiders can write a story on another culture. Of course, they have to be careful what they write about and, in my opinion, they must do more than adequate research to make sure they are not including false information. If they can do this than I believe they can write a piece of literature that can be very successful. At the same time, insiders may produce a more in-depth story or novel, again because they have more experience or "research." There may be small aspects of a culture than an outsider will just not understand and those small points may alone may make a more in-depth and interesting book. However, being an insider does not automatically qualify you to write a book on your own culture. They can easily make some of the same mistakes that an outsider can make if they are not informed enough. Overall, I am still a little confused on the issue as I try to take a more definite position, but at least for now I believe that an outsider, as long as they are "qualified," can write about another culture just as an insider can.

Who I am

My name is Ryan Guimont and I am a student at Michigan State University in the College of Education. My two majors are special education with learning disabilities and English. I am interested in diverse literature because as a teacher, you never know what range of students you will have. Therefore, you must be prepared for anything and everything, and that includes literature. Making sure that there are books in the classroom that any child can relate to personally is extremely important for many reasons. There really isn't any one question that I have for this course, I would just like to increase my knowledge of which books will be helpful in the classroom and which books I should not include in my classroom library.