Should multicultural literature be included in the high school curriculum?

Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: Should multicultural literature be included in the high school curriculum?
Position‹2 of 3›: No, multicultural literature should not be taught in schools
Argument‹2 of 3›: The Outsider status

The experiences of any cultural or racial group should only be presented by a member of that group.

The argument

Students will be confused and angered if the teacher presenting the multicultural literature does not identify with the cultural or racial group; they will be an “outsider.” An outsider is incapable of fully empathizing with the experiences of those who are in a different culture to them. By the year 2020, one in every two students in the United States will be a person of color, while less than 20% of teachers are people of color. If implemented into the curriculum, the likelihood of a white teacher instructing a multicultural literature course is high.

Premises

[P1]A teacher who does not belong to the cultural or racial group in a text is an outsider, incapable of fully empathising with its experiences. [P2] Students will be confused and angered by being taught multicultural literature by such an outsider. [P3] With fewer than 20% of US teachers being people of colour, a white teacher would very likely end up teaching the course. [C] Therefore, because of this outsider problem, multicultural literature should not be taught in schools.

Counter-arguments

A qualified instructor does not have to share their own experiences or talk about cultural groups' experiences for it to be valid for students. Teachers can increase their own cultural knowledge and develop their sensitivity and teaching skills to promote cross-cultural understanding and use multicultural literature to validate expressions of cultural knowledge, perspectives and differences.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] A teacher does not have to have lived a culture to be able to credibly teach it.