Literacies of Power: What Americans Are Not Allowed to Know

by Donaldo Macedo, Joe L. Kincheloe (Commentaries by), Paulo Freire (Foreword by)

Literacies of Power illustrates the many ways American schools, media, and other social institutions perpetuate ignorance. In this new, expanded edition, Donaldo Macedo shows why so-called common culture literacy is a form of dominant cultural reproduction that undermines independent thought and goes against the best interests of our students. Offering a wide-ranging counterargument, Macedo shows why cultural literacy cannot be restricted to the acquisition of Western heritage values, which sustain an ideology that systematically negates the cultural experiences of many members of society-not only minorities but also anyone who is poor or disenfranchised. Macedo calls on his own experience as a Cape Verdean immigrant from West Africa who had to surmount the barriers imposed by the world’s most entrenched monolingual system of higher education. His eloquence in this book is testimony to the very idea that critical thinking and good education are not and must not be culturally or linguistically bounded.A new concluding chapter by the author critically challenges the crucial role of schools in “the manufacture of consent” for the war in Iraq and the Patriot Act, and the “charitable racism” that is too often evident in the field of ESL. In essays new to this edition, well-known and respected educators Joe Kincheloe, Peter McLaren, and Shirley Steinberg share their insights on Macedo’s message, complementing Paulo Freire’s Foreword to the original edition.

Genres: Education, Politics, Nonfiction

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 23, 1994

Reviews

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Macedo argues here that our current U.S. (lower and middle class, at least) educational system is stupidifying us by patronizing lower class kids and only teaching them how to follow orders and do repetitive tasks so they'll be perfect factory robots, or incentivizing middle class students to dig so deeply into a specialized field that they'll have no general knowledge/will be unable to critically analyze the world as a whole. The main reason for all of this, he says, is so that we will not question the government/elite even when they blatantly lie to us, because it seems unpatriotic or even at a deeper level, as going against the grain of the metanarratives about our "democratic" society that we've been taught to believe in (equal opportunity for everyone, the efficacy of voting, etc). He argues for a truly democratic form of teaching where the teacher still holds his or her role as an authority figure, but is not authoritarian, and not only recognizes the overall oppression of women, people who are not European-American, and the lower/working class, but also actively works to change that through the way that education is structured (ie, having students, teachers, and parents with actual authority over what goes on in the school rather than just the administrators; recognizing that alternative forms of knowledge are valid--that kids in rough neighborhoods "can learn", for example, because they learn survival strategies from a very young age--and that kids' resistance to learning the dominant society's "knowledge" is legitimate; and that a child's first language should be valued and nurtured rather than subsumed into silence by an emphasis on only learning English rather than a bilingual approach).

One of my classmates commented that Macedo "is an angry, angry man," and I don't think Macedo himself would disagree, as he argues in his book that anger should be appreciated in academic discourse as something that keeps us from becoming apathetic and from losing hope. He definitely gives food for thought in his analyzation of the US government's actions (particularly honing in on Bush Sr's presidency, but in the last chapter, moving on to George W's) and I thought a lot of his arguments about how education today is structured were incisive and thought-provoking. However, the force of his arguments are somewhat blunted by the fact that they are so repetitive--it seems he occasionally copies and pastes entire sentences (maybe we didn't get it the first time?) throughout the book. (This is annoying and unfortunate, as he doesn't make endless choruses nearly as fun as 80s hairbands do.)

An interesting aspect of his writing is that large swaths of it are the voices of other people (suitable for what he's saying about a more democratic approach to education), so the book contains a lengthy conversation between himself and his mentor, Paolo Freire, and also a transcript from an NPR radio show about the lives of two young inner-city Chicagoites. I liked the idea of these interruptions, but it also felt like Macedo was being a little too self-referential when he included long memos/letters that he wrote to others about the necessity of a more multicultural approach to education. Some did elucidate his points further, but others just repeated them ad infinitum, and seemed more like they were included to give him an opportunity to air his grievances against anyone and everyone who may have academically slighted him in the past... which was just enough to make me wince. So, interesting analysis, but I didn't love the form or the writing style.

[Paul, · Rating 1 out of 5]

I started reading Literacies of Power: What Americans Are Not Allowed to Know by Donaldo Macedo because I enjoy reading about education, the title was intriguing, and someone left it on the kitchen counter. I only read two chapters before I had to stop for several reasons. In typical anti-establishment, neo-Marxist style, everyone who disagrees with Macedo is not only mistaken, they are evil upholders of the capitalist ideal. Yeah, right. Like most school teachers are politically savvy enough to indoctrinate their students. Anyway, I don't particularly like being called evil. It gets on my nerves.

Second, the book is so reminiscent of Ayn Rand's depiction of the writings of socialists that it made me giggle. Macedo actually took several pages to explain how easy his book was to read. His examples were a semi-literate woman and a teenage boy. Evidently, his book brought tears of joy to their eyes due to its comprehensibility. Therefore, anyone who does not think his book is easy to read is either stupid or so blinded by their capitalistic education that they are functionally illiterate. Which I found funny because his book is full of bad grammar, long sentences, and TONS of Marxist lingo. That being said, Macedo did make some very interesting points. One of my favorite was pointing out the irony of a child being disciplined for choosing not to recite the pledge of allegiance. But I did not appreciate the two page tirade on the political motivations of a teacher who is “manufacturing consent” to a “monolingual capitalistic ideology”. Right. Either that or it was a a tired, underpaid teacher who didn't want to put up with some punk's crap first thing in the morning. So, I'm sure there was more good stuff in there, I just don't feel like wading through the BS to find it. But to me, neither of these were the deepest flaws in the book.

The deepest flaw in the book, in my opinion, was its unquestioning affirmation that justice equals equality of outcome. There was no indication that an alternative position even exists, where I would tend to come down on the side of justice being equality of opportunity. Where Macedo would ask the question, “Is it just that people starve in Africa while there is food to spare grown in America?” I would ask, “What if there was no America?” Well, I probably wouldn't ask it like that. In fact, I would probably move the discussion away from economics altogether. Let's talk about equality of outcome elsewhere and see if it looks like justice. Let's see. I'm in a band. The Beatles were in a band. And yet, they have millions of fans and I have tens of fans. That's on the order of 100,000 to 1 ratio! That's not even close to equality of outcome. If justice equals equality of outcome then The Beatles, Blondie, The Styx, and me should all have roughly equal numbers of fans, albums sold, publicity, etc. Anything else is unjust. I have written essays, articles, poetry. Yet Shakespeare, Tolkien, Locke, Kafka, Meyer, Rowling, are just a few among the thousands of authors who have published more books with more readers than me. Rowling has sold more than 400 million copies of her books. How is that fair? Is that just? Didn't I work hard for my book too? And what about school? How is it just for some students get A's and others get C's? Or sports? Why do the Lakers have so many championships? Shouldn't they have to give up some of their best players every year so that other teams can have a chance? For me, it become much clearer that equality of outcome does not look anything like justice when I look at non-economic or political things. Of course, it wouldn't be just to steal Beatles fans and give them to me. I don't want people to read less Shakespeare or Tolkien to read my work.

The problem is that equality of outcome is easy to measure, while equality of opportunity is impossible to measure. So, people whose outcomes don't match their expectations can always blame the lack of opportunity. And to be fair, opportunity can't be equal for everyone. We all have different genetics, different talents and abilities, different societal and family structures, different familial resources, different homelands and nationalities, different educators. I'm not sure how one legislates justice in my view. I mean, we can forbid written laws and codified practices that discriminate based on unchangeables. But we can't regulate the unwritten rules and structures without looking at outcomes. And we certainly can't give everyone the same set of abilities and talents. Maybe justice is something that has to be embodied, not legislated.

[Scott Ford · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very powerful book. Macedo softens no blows here. Critical of both sides of the political fence, Macedo clearly articulates the dangers of indoctrination in any form.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first book I have read by Donaldo Macedo, but it will not be the last. His concepts of pedagogy of liberation, pedagogy of lies, schools/universities as center for domestication, and manufacture of consent are supported by many examples drawn from recent US history. These ideas will continue to spur me on in my studies and have provided me with a new vocabulary to express thoughts I had no words to express. His book has also inspired me to read more intently the works of Freire, Chomsky, hooks, and Marx as well as more of his books. I highly recommend this thought-provoking book, not because it gives you answers, but because it makes you want to find your own answers through critical reflection and study!!!

[Jonathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Was not impressed...I get what he's trying to say, but I think that the conspiracy theory was vastly overreaching. People are much more self-culpable in this than Macheo assumes them to be.