Celebrate Homogeneity! A politically incorrect parody for our time After years of occupying the top rung in the coolness sociological ratings, multiculturalism has fallen off its perch and entered the realm of dust-bunny has-beens. Yep, the new pop philosophy of note is UNdiversity. And not a moment too soon. It's hard to name the precise tipping point where attitudes finally turned against multiculturalism — there were so many of them. Let's review some possibilities. Culturally sensitive mathematics may have been well intentioned but it didn't turn out well in practice. Going from Euro-math (which was actually Arabic in origin) to the indigenous Mayan counting system was a bit over the top for many. (Some people were still struggling with reading Roman numerals at the end of old movie credits, where the year of the film is always shown in the style of Caesar.) The issue became even more complicated after the Abacus Caucus of the Asian Cultural Committee added their concerns. The ACACC (pronounced ack-ack) hoped that the Asian contribution to mathematics could be honored by more use of the ancient calculating device. Some attempted to combine Mayan counting with the abacus, but those who tried said it only multiplied their confusion. And then there were the Lego college entrance exams. They rubbed certain people the wrong way — particularly those folks hung up on books and standards and such. The idea was meant to create a noncompetitive college entrance scenario — harmless enough. Educators would observe a group of kids interacting by using the colorful snap-together toys. The emphasis was on cooperation rather than competition. What could be warmer and fuzzier than that? However, the criticism that it only measured whether the kid “played well with others” was hard to shake. The photos of college-hopeful students looking stumped with their toys were not helpful. And though part of the concept was not to be hung up on grades, the kids were judged on qualities like leadership. But positive grading on leadership was thought too Euro-culture by some and the consensus about assessing the uniqueness of individuals by observation of noncompetitive behavior fell into disarray. CELEBRATING DIVERSITY Holidays were challenging to even the most dedicated multiculturalist. Inclusion becomes time-consuming when everyone's cultural story demands to be told and all special days need to be appropriately recognized. Schools were scheduling enormous blocks of time to portray the traditions of Christianity (Protestants, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses), Judaism (Reform, Orthodox) and Islam (Shiite, Suni). Sikhism, Zoroastrianism and Bahá'í were added after their absence was noted. Educators were then reminded that such a curriculum was unfair to Jains, Hindus and Wiccans. More inclusion followed, but it started to seem like too much diversity. Secular humanists objected to the extreme religious nature of these observances. Aboriginal peoples noted that their very variety made proper recognition impossible. Some communities tried to squeeze a big celebration of multiculturalism into Thanksgiving. Plymouth, Massachusetts, (site of the actual Plymouth Rock) scheduled a week-long festival of miscellaneous cultural whatnot, from Jamaican drummers to Bolivian storytellers. Some in the religious community found the revamped “Thanksgiving” to be too secular and devoid of Puritan values. And the local aboriginal persons (aka Indians) were not into being thankful at all. Editor's note: Many of the examples in this tasteless parody are inspired by the real world. Among those are culturally appropriate mathematics, Lego college entrance exams (officially the Bial-Dale College Adaptability Index) and the week-long multicultural “Thanksgiving” festival at Plymouth Rock. Indeed, Thanksgiving is well on its way to becoming the holiday celebrating immigration. — by Brenda Walker