By David Zinser

The intention of this interrogation into whiteness as it infects the
academic institution is not to suggest the dismantling of multicultural
doctrine as a means of empowering disenfranchised non-white students.
Rather, the purpose is to facilitate much needed, on-campus discussion
regarding the seemingly overlooked issue of multiculturalism as it pertains
to whiteness and academia. On-campus debate concerning multiculturalism
often takes two forms: (1) Multiculturalism is beneficial for the academic
institution because it provides collegiate opportunity for disadvantaged
youth and improves on-campus diversity therefore strengthening the social
and educational opportunities of the institution for all parties involved.
Or (2), multiculturalism has failed because it serves to ethnically
segregate the college campus. Ultimately, I agree with argument (1)
although challenge its underlying notion of commodification; for
multiculturalism (as defined in this essay) is the end result of the process
by which predominantly white, private, liberal-arts colleges actively
recruit non-white students to diversify the ethnic variable of their
on-campus student population so as to further heighten the marketability of
the institution. Furthermore, I disagree with argument (2) primarily,
because I used to believe it until I was asked the question, "For whom has
multiculturalism failed?"

The main purpose here is to reevaluate the notion of
"multiculturalism" for those individuals who consciously, or unconsciously,
refuse to dissect it and therefore collude with an institutionalized
marketing strategy employed by the college to enhance the physical and
ideological whiteness of the university, the privilege associated with
whiteness and prospective white students' possessive investment in their
whiteness. Thus to uncover the hidden agenda of multicultural doctrine, it
is necessary to examine a couple of concepts.

In her text Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary
Imagination author Toni Morrison examines the impact that living in a
racially charged world has on the white author's imagination, creation and
textual representation of the African-American persona. Morrison develops
her text with the notion of a "willful critical blindness" that permeates
America's readership and therefore equates with a complicit acceptance of
the white author's misrepresentations of black, African, or African-American
identity by that readership. Ultimately, these representations are
misrepresentations because, "since the author was not black, the appearance
of Africanist characters. . . in a work could never be about anything other
than the 'normal,' unracialized, illusory white world that provided the
fictional backdrop". Thus, these white literary misrepresentations of
black identity are neither accurate nor authentic, and serve to grant
greater insight into the white world of which they are a product, than the
world of the "other" they claim to accurately depict. Morrison states, "the
subject of the dream is the dreamer". To clarify and reiterate: The
subject of the dream [misrepresentations of black identity] is the dreamer
[the white author].

Now to appropriate Toni Morrison's concept: If the subject of the
dream is the dreamer, then the subject of the dream of multiculturalism is
the predominantly white, private, liberal-arts college whose livelihood
depends upon attracting the financial capital of prospective white student's
parents via the institution's marketability as diverse. And how does
marketing itself as diverse attract white students or the capital of their
parents? Ultimately multiculturalism attracts white students under the
various aspects of a "fulfilling college experience" many of which manifest
as reality. For example, a diverse, on-campus, student population will
theoretically enrich the academic and social lives of all students as a
result of the myriad of lived and learned experiences converging in
classroom and social settings. Therefore, multiculturalism serves to
capitalize on the compunction of liberal white parents who by sending their
kids to "diverse" schools are attempting to purchase a clean conscience that
was lost somewhere between the days of civil and women's rights activism and
whoring themselves to corporate America. This is not to suggest that the
apex of an institution's desirability rests solely with its ethnic makeup.
Rather, it is to recognize that the recruitment of non-white students by the
academic institution is, in fact, the commodification of cultural diversity.
And the proposed methodology behind this commodification is to attract white
capital.

The second concept critical to an understanding of this interpretation of
multiculturalism is the applied definition of the word "lamp black." For
those unfamiliar with the term the abbreviated definition is as follows: A
finely powdered black soot used as a pigment to enhance paint, ink, etc.
While dissecting this term in class, professor Phyllis J. Jackson of Pomona
College brought to our attention exactly how the substance is used. When
mixed into white paint, lamp black pigment actually intensifies the
whiteness of the white paint. Thus, black pigment is added to white paint
to make it whiter. If you're skeptical call any paint manufacturer, mixer,
or wholesaler and ask them what the deal with lamp black pigment is; they'll
tell you the same. Therefore lamp black-ness is a specific state, achieved
when "black" is added to "white" for the sole purpose of enhancing
whiteness. And if we understand multiculturalism as the end result of the
process by which predominantly white, private, liberal-arts colleges
actively recruit non-white students as a means to attract even more white
students and capital; then multiculturalism, can therefore be defined as
institutionalized lamp black-ness.

What about the notion that multiculturalism has failed? In order to
accurately address this question, one must ask, "For whom has
multiculturalism failed?" Has it failed non-white students? No and yes.
Without a doubt multiculturalism provides an empowering collegiate
opportunity for non-white students otherwise unattainable in a culture that
historically encodes whiteness as property and ensures white privilege by
law. Although I believe the notion of a culturally diverse, residential
campus is primarily marketed to wealthy white students, those non-white
students attracted to a school based on this same premise, ultimately find
out - after committing and attending - that they are the diversity.
Obviously, this was not their intended experience upon committing to a
"diverse" academic institution.

Now, has multiculturalism failed the wealthy white students it is intended
to attract? To be honest, this is a tough question to answer. As far as
I'm concerned, many of these wealthy white students coming from
predominantly wealthy, white private high schools consider one non-white
student to be representative of a "diverse" student body. Thus perhaps
multiculturalism hasn't failed them. Nonetheless, the promise of an
ethnically heterogeneous campus as marketed by academic institutions serves
to reify in the minds of wealthy white students, and parents, their ability
to buy diversity. Thus, in lieu of taking steps to foster cultural
diversity in their non-academic environments, these students ease their
consciences by paying to attend a "diverse" campus where at, perhaps they'll
make friends with one or two non-white students. That's enough diversity in
their lives, right?

This is an attack on all small, private, liberal-arts colleges hell-bent on
marketing themselves to prospective students as multicultural. This is
because the promise, pedagogy and practice of multiculturalism as purported
by the college is institutionalized lamp black-ness attempting to actualize
the college's fantasy of on-campus cultural diversity to attract white
capital so as to physically and ideologically enhance the whiteness of the
college. Ultimately, recruiting non-white students under the pretext of
cultural diversity needs to be maintained for its ability to provide
collegiate opportunity for disenfranchised students; I pray it does not fall
victim to the same racist, rugged-individualistic rhetoric that brought down
Affirmative Action in the UC system. However, I want us all to consider in
what capacity is this process doing other work?

A while back I told a professor that multiculturalism, as practiced by
colleges and universities, had failed in its mission to promote on-campus
diversity. She looked confused. In an attempt to clarify, I stated that it
failed because it appeared to ethnically segregate college campuses. She
still looked confused and asked, "For whom has multiculturalism failed?" I
thought about it and she was right, it had failed me. I was sold on a dream
that had yet to materialize at college and have concluded that the promise
of an intense ethnically diverse campus predicated on a purely philanthropic
framework is a fallacy.