LETTERS
Editors: I write as the officer appointed by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York to supervise the recently concluded 1991 Teamster International Union Officer...
...Of course...
...Culture, which is not the same as race or ethnicity, cannot be reduced to easily taught categories like "values," "customs," or "beliefs...
...The other four days a week I spend in a working-class university trying to help students, a majority Chicano, to become successful teachers...
...Indeed, the presentation to the court of the proposed rules was accompanied by my request to hire twenty-five Regional Coordinators to supervise the election of International Union Convention delegates and alternate delegates...
...Benson's statement, the Consent Order did not give Mr...
...the old guard would have been `elected' easily after massive fraud...
...Numerous impartial observers, including members of the national press, reported that the Teamster Convention was open, contentious, and, most important, democratic...
...Benson has taken credit for the universally acclaimed fairness of the Teamster election process which I supervised...
...The full text makes it even clearer that he was threatening to use his rights only where local officials refused to "cooperate...
...The judge ordered that some twenty sections in Holland's proposed rules be similarly changed to provide for supervision by election officers instead of by union officials...
...In September I will celebrate my fiftieth anniversary in the UAW...
...We all know what that has meant to the labor movement...
...Unfortunately, the essay by Kay S. Hymowitz, "Self Esteem & Multiculturalism in the Public Schools" (Dissent, Winter 1992), instead of analyzing these efforts, was long on stereotypes and oversimplifications and short on information or remedies for the crisis of urban, multiracial education...
...Promises, promises, but there were no provisions for verifying whether these paper promises would be fulfilled...
...Mr...
...Benson's inaccurate reportage is further underscored by his comments regarding the ability of Ron Carey to directly reach the membership through the pages of the International Teamster...
...MICHAEL H. HOLLAND Washington, D.C...
...For students of minority-status cultures (in many cities and four states these students are the majority) study of their own culture, as it is, dynamic and evolving, can empower the student to make important life choices, such as the choice to complete high school or college...
...it was rather to demonstrate in its starkest form the danger of the sentimentality of multiculturalism in the schools...
...Since I have great respect for Carl's judgment, I surely accept his view that Holland deserves his fine reputation as a dedicated union supporter...
...In order for these elections to accomplish their mission, the rank and file must have confidence in the election process...
...The antidiversity campaign, like the anti-affirmative action campaign, represents a conservative backlash...
...It was AUD that called these dangers to the judge's attention and proposed to address them...
...In fact, the AUD was a tolerable, though unnecessary, adjunct to the democratic process implemented by me, the other courtappointed officers, and the United States District Court...
...I can assure Mr...
...For copies of our full presentations at the time, write me at AUD, 500 State Street, Brooklyn 11217...
...In his recent article, "Teamsters Choose Democracy," carried in the Spring 1992 issue of Dissent, Herman Benson—a founder of the Association for Union Democracy (AUD)—asserts that but for his organization's involvement the election "would have been a mockery...
...curriculum endorsed pluralism tomorrow, at least one third of our schools would still be disaster zones...
...the full text makes its real meaning clear, but even a slightly larger fragment is illuminating enough: Where cooperation is forthcoming from Local Unions, I do not intend to "take the gavel" and conduct the delegate nominations and elections...
...Mr...
...His work as the attorney for the Illinois Coal Miners' Union was more than up to standard...
...I was then the acting director of the Illinois State Council and Hillman's firm was our lawyer...
...Mr...
...That "even TDU found his rules essentially acceptable" speaks loudly to the proposition that Mr...
...But schools should build democracy as well as teach skills, and multicultural education, as it really exists, is central to that struggle...
...The list of school districts with programs in multicultural education offered in the article is misleading unless there is some measure of how many students in the district receive some assistance...
...Criticism of the historical validity of the Portland Baseline Essays on Africa does not refute the need for school and textbook reform...
...They will . . . threaten reprisals to those who oppose them...
...Kay Hymowitz Replies: One of the major purposes of my article was to underscore the sentimentalization of culture that is endemic to multicultural tracts...
...This situation is unacceptable, since these same officers who will be conducting the elections for the international convention will have great personal stakes in the election's outcome...
...thus, the multiculturalists themselves are creatures of cultural assumptions that are often at odds with those of the students they claim to be empowering...
...All students need to know how this society works...
...The descriptions offered by Hymowitz and in similar articles elsewhere do not match any reality I have seen...
...While I have refrained from commenting during the two-year election period, it is appropriate—now that the election is concluded—that the record be set straight...
...CARL SHIER Chicago, Ill...
...Benson's comments reflect a distorted viewpoint...
...DUANE E. CAMPBELL Sacramento, Calif...
...Benson and the AUD spent considerable time during the election process accusing myself and the independent administrator, Frederick B. Lacey, of having "collapsed and abandoned their responsibilities as defenders of Teamster democracy...
...The savage inequalities of funding, teacher preparation, time, buildings, and equipment devastate urban and rural poverty areas...
...A decisive change, no...
...As with the "scandal" of all-black commencements last spring and the furor over all-male, black schools, the number of such programs, in comparison to the number of students in devastated, underfunded, failing schools, makes the "problem" identified by white liberals absurd in comparison to the problems experienced by this generation of urban students...
...Those who work in real schools know that there are many racial, ethnic, and cultural groups in the classroom...
...Carey that opportunity...
...Contrary to Mr...
...There is no way for even the most well-meaning teacher to disentangle from his or her own culture...
...Most teachers know that success in school builds self-esteem more than Mayan mathematics...
...Favorite topics have been bilingual education, the absurd PC debate in which the right created a demon in order to get published and slay the demon, and...
...Space available here does not permit me to comment on that or on other important aspects of the election rules...
...It was criticized by most of the progressive and minority organizations in the state...
...The attacks on multicultural education miss the point...
...Indeed, it is multicultural education that is most radically bringing up the issue of the democratic role of education, while the neoconservative "reformers" are engaged in tying schools closely to markets, incentives, and testing...
...The strategy is to distort reality, demonize ideas and progressive people of color, to keep power in the hands of the present masters...
...Many children from Latino, African American, and other minority cultures experience devaluation of their humanness by their stereotypic presentations in texts or, at times, their omission...
...Benson's assertion is grounded upon the proposed rules for the supervision of the Teamster election process and his contention that they "would have surrendered control [of the election] to incumbent local Teamster officials...
...Holland writes about the rules...
...I encourage my students to read Jonathan Kozol's recent book, Savage Inequalities...
...At the same time . . . I have no intention to waive my right and responsibility under the Consent Order to supervise on location every phase of the election process...
...Benson is either being purposefully disingenuous or has failed to read my proposal and the remarks I made—both orally and in writing—simultaneously with the submission of the rules to the district court...
...Benson that this staff would not have been "sitting in Washington," awaiting tally sheets from the various local unions...
...I had to in this case because Michael Holland deserves better than an article that made it appear as if he were a stooge of the old guard in the Teamsters' Union...
...In school the child learns the skills, attitudes, and knowledge base of the dominant culture...
...While the Election Officer has commented that he will consider "the history of prior proceedings alleging improper election conduct" in determining the proper amount of supervision, this subjective determination is insufficient...
...It is far deeper, or "thicker," as anthropologists put it, reflected in everything from a person's smallest automatic gestures to his or her largest unconscious assumptions about the self...
...I would add that once the judge imposed effective oversight rules upon Holland, he did an excellent job of supervising the election and guaranteeing an honest count...
...For instance, AUD protested vociferously my decision, approved both by Judge Lacey and the very same court he now praises, not to prohibit unelected delegates, e.g., regional representatives, to attend the international union convention, albeit with no right to participate in the election process that occurred there...
...I spend about a day per week working in schools serving Latinos, Asians, African Americans, and whites, most of them the working poor...
...However, I believe that Benson went afield in making my good friend and dedicated trade union supporter Michael Holland into a dupe of the "old guard...
...Michael Holland has had a record in the labor movement that was FALL • 1992 • 557 exemplary...
...This is not the first time that Mr...
...Multicultural education has a small positive impact on improving skills...
...To that end, the Election Officer must oversee each and every facet of this election in order to prevent any possibility of fraud, coercion, intimidation, harassment, or threat in any of its varied forms...
...If those threats took place at that convention, no one—including AUD —has brought them to my, Judge Lacey's, or the court's attention...
...Actually, I once studied it in Mexico and found it interesting...
...In most of the cases cited in the article, there is a program in one or two schools, with one or two teachers...
...What provided that access to Mr...
...How does a teacher "build upon" this...
...My piece did not suggest that Holland was a "stooge" for the old guard but that he and other government officers were almost "outmaneuvered" by the old guard...
...Some thirty students, out of over five thousand, studied Mayan mathematics...
...As a labor lawyer he has been in the forefront of many progressive battles in Illinois and elsewhere...
...And, to "cooperate," they needed only send him an acceptable plan outlining how they, the officials, would run their own elections...
...It is a misleading fragment...
...In explaining his order, the judge wrote: The final election rules [i.e., Holland's] leave many critical election functions to the officers of local unions...
...that application further noted my intention to hire additional field staff for these same purposes...
...It provides a more accurate description of school realities...
...AUD predicted that these unelected delegates would "come as an organized praetorian guard . . . armed with the power to intimidate...
...And the battle for multicultural education or antiracism education is not a black-white issue...
...This becomes a news item, when, of course, 4,970 students did not study Mayan math...
...Locals where members are intimidated or reluctant to lodge protests may be inadequately safeguarded...
...Carey and other serious candidates—which contact I also believe was essential to ensure an open and honest election—were the very same rules I proposed and he so roundly condemns...
...Both the proposed rules and my written comments regarding them stated unequivocally that I intended to exercise "my right and responsibility under the Consent Order to supervise on location every phase of the election process" (emphasis added...
...Writers from Allen Bloom to Dinesh D'Souza seek to ferret out small islands of attempts at democratic reform in a decaying public education system...
...in fact, in saying that "the task of the teacher is . . . to build upon the culture . . . the child already has" he dramatizes my point...
...They would have been most actively involved in every phase of the election process, closely supervising the entirety of that process "on location," as I stated...
...The California FALL • 1992 • 559 state Framework praised by Hymowitz, for example, was co-authored by neoconservative favorite Diane Ravitch, now appointed by President Bush as an Undersecretary of Education for Research and School Reform...
...That's because Holland proposed to permit the incumbent locals' officials, the old guard base, to run the election, distribute and count the ballots, and even, at one stage, to print them...
...The democratic left needs to understand and participate in the struggle to reconstruct the common school as an instrument of political and economic democracy...
...Editors: I write as the officer appointed by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York to supervise the recently concluded 1991 Teamster International Union Officer election...
...The struggle to change the texts is important...
...q Multiculturalism Debate Short on Facts Editors: A concern to address the dismal rate of success for minority students, a concern for the nation's economic future, changing immigration patterns, the significant growth of minority student population in schools that are underfunded and failing—all have led to a renewed interest in multicultural education and bilingualism...
...Herman Benson Replies: Carl Shier's character testimony for Michael Holland does not address the issues in the Teamster elections...
...Here is what the judge insisted upon instead: "All ballots shall be counted by the Election Officer or his representative...
...Here is just one example among many: On "Counting the Ballots," his proposed rules provided: "All ballots shall be counted where they are cast," with no requirements or even references to supervision by any representative of the election officer, none whatsoever...
...I have worked in multicultural classes with minority teachers for over twenty years...
...If, in retrospect, Mr...
...In actuality, then, his rules meant turning control over to the local combines...
...Holland's reference to what AUD characterized as the "bogus" unelected old guard staff appointees who were permitted certain delegate rights on the convention floor is unrelated to my Dissent piece...
...No, not at all...
...Have unproven claims been made about self-esteem...
...I know that Michael Holland was extremely reluctant to take on the election assignment...
...None of this changes in the slightest the reality that if the rules proposed by Holland had prevailed, the election would have been a farce, votes would have been stolen, and the old guard would probably still be in power at the top of the Teamsters union...
...His associate in the election was Barbara Hillman, with whom I worked in the days when I was loaned to AFSCME by Walter Reuther...
...The number of friends who worked in the electoral process was an indication of Holland's commitment to democratic unionism...
...Duane Campbell's letter is no exception...
...An inclusive curriculum is one small step toward educational democracy...
...Writers select examples they have read in other tracts and cite them as evidence of a trend...
...Assuming a teacher is from a different cultural background, he or she cannot possibly do this without trivializing, not to mention patronizing, the child's identity as much as any ethnocentric teacher...
...Holland now likes to think that AUD's intervention was "tolerable though unnecessary" it must be because he is the victim of a merciful lapse of memory, forgetting that AUD alerted the judge to the fraud dangers in Holland's proposals, that the judge mandated critical changes, and that all the court-appointed officers later admitted in open court that the judge was right...
...And he was campaign manager of Richard Trumka's successful campaign for the presidency of the United Mine Workers Union...
...At court hearings on October 4, 1991, Judge Edelstein said, "I went beyond the recommendation of my own court-appointed officers...
...Benson has either misread, misunderstood, or ignored all that which does not lend support to his heartfelt belief that without AUD no fair, open, honest election would have occurred in the Teamsters...
...The same applies for the thirty young African Americans who studied a "mind models" technique...
...Complete supervision of all facets of the election process is the only way to guarantee the integrity of the elections and encourage extensive rank and file participation...
...Students also need to learn to read, to write, to perform mathematics...
...Campbell never addresses this argument...
...I wasn't aware that any of this could be labeled conservative...
...There's nothing new here in what Mr...
...I haven't written a letter to the editor in all these years...
...Having defeated the democratic left in politics, the right has moved to concentrate its attack on universities and public school curricula as vestigial remaining centers of another point of view...
...The Teamster Elections—II Editors: Herman Benson's article on the Teamsters' Union election (Dissent, Spring 1992) was very informative to readers who had relied completely on the business press...
...To take one of my more obvious examples, what if the child comes from a culture that does not accept education as a route to a better life...
...For more than twenty-five years I've practically been the Chicago agent of Dissent...
...In many of these cases, we felt it necessary to appeal from his decisions to the independent administrator...
...Holland will remember, too, that AUD represented rank-and-file Teamsters in dozens of cases that came before him where he sat essentially as a neutral while AUD was their advocate...
...Holland's quote from his own earlier comments didn't convince the judge...
...Furthermore, what happens when the child's cultural values are in conflict with the goals of democratic education that Campbell so forcefully articulates...
...The two examples in the Hymowitz article, cited from Sacramento, are, in fact, ridiculous...
...now multiculturalism...
...nor do I see why you have to accept multiculturalism in order to decry the savage inequalities of our nation's school system...
...Surely, TDU, "the most remarkable rank-and-file reform movement ever recorded in American labor history," would not have found acceptable rules that would have made any election a "mockery...
...He made essentially these arguments two years ago, but they were rejected by Judge Edelstein in his order of July 10, 1990...
...My purpose in using "ridiculous" examples was not to "cite . . . evidence of a trend...
...Now that the forces of reaction have held the center of federal power and of many state powers for over a decade, they seek to guarantee that their particular view of history and culture is taught as truth in the schools...
...For a more complete discussion of this issue I urge readers to see "Willie Horton's Gonna Get Your Alma Mater," by Elizabeth Martinez in the July/August 1991 issue of Z, or to come to meetings of the Anti-Racism, Latino, and African American Commissions of DSA,where progressives experienced in the school wars discuss these issues...
...Holland may recall the recorded reply of independent administrator Frederick Lacey that "there was a caucus of the court-appointed officers and the government after your Honor amended our submissions and we agreed you were right and I am glad you did what you did...
...and, yes, to that 558 • DISSENT extent AUD does indeed deserve an important measure of credit for assuring a fair Teamster election...
...On the contrary, it is because I believe that multiculturalism will unwittingly perpetuate those inequalities that I wrote the article...
...Are the descriptions contained in articles such as that of Kay Hymowitz a reasonable facsimile of reality...
...The task of the teacher is to respect the culture the child brings from home and to build upon the culture and language the child already has...
...560 • DISSENT...
...If every U.S...
...Are there errors and abuses in multicultural education...
Vol. 39 • September 1992 • No. 4
