Dancing With Bigotry: Beyond the Politics of Tolerance - Hardcover

NA, NA; Macedo, Donaldo; Bartolomé, Lilia I.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312216084 ISBN 13: 9780312216085

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000

Synopsis

As the end of the century draws closer, one of the most pressing challenges facing educators in the United States is the specter of an 'ethnic and cultural war' - a code phrase that engenders our society's licentiousness toward racism. In Dancing With Bigotry, Macedo and Bartolomé use examples from the mass media, popular culture, and politics to illustrate the larger situations facing educators and how this type of argument is both ignored in much of the academic research and rhetoric. They also examine why it is essential to take on the sources of 'mass public education.' Academia needs to understand that the popular press and mass media educate more people about issues regarding ethnicity and race than all other sources of education available to U.S. citizens. By shunning the mass media, educators are missing the obvious - more public education is done by the media than by teachers, professors, or anyone else. Dancing with Bigotry sheds light on the ideological mechanisms that shape and maintain the racist social order, while moving the discussion beyond the reductionist binarism of White versus Black racism. Discussing social complexities, including ethnic cleansing, culture wars, hegemony, human sufferings, and intensified xenophobia, Macedo and Bartolomé explain why it is essential that we gain a nuanced understanding of how ideology underlies all social, cultural, and political discourse and actions. This book shows that it is imperative that we appreciate what it means to educate for critical citizenry in the ever-increasing multiracial and multicultural world of the twentieth century.

About this title

About the Author:

DONALDO MACEDO is Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Education at University of Massachusetts, Boston.

LILIA I. BARTOLOMÉ is Associate Professor at the Graduate College of Education, University of Massachusetts, Boston.

Review:

'This excellent book by well-qualified authors is written in a very readable and understandable style and speaks to important issues in American education today.' - Choice

'. . . a provocative analysis. . . This book is a good read for educators, regardless of their perspectives, and for a general readership concerned about this important trend in education.' - Booklist

'By far and away the best and most trenchant book published on multiculturalism in years, and one of the very few that understands that language and attitudes towards language stand at the very heart of the politics of multiculturalism in the United States. Macedo and Bartolome's book is crucial reading for anyone who cares about the current state of schools and society.' - James Paul Gee, Tashia Morgridge Professor of Reading, University of Wisconsin, Madison

'In this thought provoking text, Donaldo Macedo and Lilia Bartolome ask us to think critically about what it means to go beyond tolerance in understanding difference. By deconstructing current debates about multicultural and bilingual education, they lay bare the ideology of exclusion that undergirds much of the discourse surrounding these topics. Writing persuasively and passionately, Macedo and Bartolome peel away the layers that hide the raw racism in our schools and society and they demonstrate that, if we remain silent or permit the dance of bigotry to proceed, we collude in devaluating and miseducating all students.' - Sonia Nieto, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

'The ethical integrity of educators requires that they move beyond a mere discourse of culture tolerance so often embraced by mainstream teachers. The ethical integrity of educators also requires that they have the courage to recognize equality in diversity and act accordingly. In Dancing with Bigotry, Donaldo Macedo and Lilia I. Bartolome demonstrate amply what it means to have courage to imagine and live in a radical cultural democracy guided by cultural respect and solidarity.' - Ramon Flecha, University of Barcelona

'The book's strength is that although it deals with often complex explanations of the causes of inequality, it does so in a clear way, using an accessible style. This means that Dancing with Bigotry should have a wider readership than just teachers or lecturers. Ultimately the book remains a good source of background material on the consequences and racism. The cover photograph captures the divisive nature of racism most effectively.' - Graeme Kemp, Media Education Journal

About this edition

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0312216084
• ISBN 13: 9780312216085
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 190