The beginning of the answer

A good beginning to the process of exploring the answer to what is multiculturalism would be to say that it is much more than being aware and respectful of other cultures around us. Being culturally aware/sensitive is a great way to broaden one's world views and opinions. As humans we owe ourselves at least the minimum of learning how to approach different cultures with interest and curiosity. Approaching those different than use with interest and hopeful curiosity would help us moderate a common problem of dominant cultures throughout history, a sense of superiority that can easily denigrate to uncontrolled arrogance. Unchecked arrogance has been an influential and contributing factor on the demise of nearly all great cultures in the history of humanity. The influence arrogance has had in hurting great cultures is partly due to the problem that it tends to foster complacency, apathy towards those different than "us". The resulting problem is that the more we believe in our superiority the easier it becomes to dismiss the "other" and their culture. It is in this state that the practice of "awareness" becomes very appealing, it is a great way to feel like one is contributing while avoiding all the pesky stuff such as actually living with a different culture. However, awareness is not all bad, it can be the beginning of an amazing journey that can enrich anyone's life in more ways than can be imagined.

A new beginning

It has certainly been a while since I've written anything here. I did make one attempt to make myself blog by asking my friends to send me questions which would require a response from me. Unfortunately I was not able to make myself blog on a regular basis. So, here I am now giving this blogging things one more shot. I am now assuming nobody reads this other than me and if you've stumbled onto this rambling, I apologize if it is boring.

What is multiculturalism?
My church is dealing with the reality of seeking to become multicultural. Of course, as we get deeper into it I realize how little the members of the church really know about the subject. This makes me wonder how prevalent this problem is in the "church world". My assumption is that very few churches know what multiculturalism is much less what it means to live with it.

I think the first major misunderstanding I have come across is the thought that awareness is the same as action. This is something our American society is very well versed in and something we see as the appropriate way to respond to problematic issues. We are very good at bringing awareness to our worlds. Please click on awareness to see a very good explanation of what I mean by that word as something we love. Awareness has become the best way we have to feel as though we are "doing something" without having our lifestyles suffer in the least. Awareness as action is the reason we buy bracelets or ribbons, etc. Of course, many would say that they do the "cancer walks" and various other activities related to that. However, these are things that are very rarely inconvenient and for the most part benefit us much more than the people actually suffering.

So, we are still left with the question of what IS multiculturalism.