Beyond the "rainbow coalition"

One of the most interesting points of the essay Postcolonial Approaches to Communication (Shome and Hedge) was the criticism of “the packaging of otherness”. Postcolonialist scholars reject the rhetoric of multiculturalism that sees cultures as retaining their “pristine flavors” and being “separate in their authenticity”. This rhetoric takes away the underlying power structures and colonial histories that ethnic cultures have been subject to. That way, multiculturalism can be used to further perpetuate “the normativity of whiteness”.

The scary thing about this is how people and media products can use “the cosmetic approach to multiculturalism” (inadvertently) to perpetuate current power structures, even if they're seemingly challenging them. As the professor says, it's not a group of conspirators sitting on a table and stroking their beards. It's something that happens without them even noticing it most of the time. That makes it more difficult to challenge.

I like that the postcolonial scholars are trying to bring the past into the present in their studies. It really cannot be erased, and it challenges the idea of a pristine culture. If you go back far enough, our histories are very interconnected and, as they say, constitutive of each other. I don't think this erases difference, but it does give it another meaning and has made me rethink the concept of multiculturalism.