Response to Jacob

Jacob asked: Is there a danger is seeking authors of different races rather than the merit of their work?
I don't see why seeking authors "of different races" and seeking authors for "the merit of their work" has to be mutually exclusive. A similar question was brought up in class and it seems like their is an assumption that if we supplement students' reading material with books written by people of different cultures, that the quality of their education will necessarily decrease. There are many good authors from different cultures, so I don't see why a school would choose a bad book to teach just because it was written from a different perspective. However, I think the question of what makes a book worthy of teaching needs to be addressed. Because I think that, if a book offers a unique perspective that is rarely discussed in classrooms, then that alone is valuable. Obviously, though, there are other things that make a book appropriate to teach in classrooms. If we are talking about nonfiction (such as first hand accounts of historical events) then I think a perspective from a different culture is always very worthy of being taught. However, if we are talking about fiction, then you would have to hold "multicultural" books up to the same standards as the usual books are. I think most people would agree on that.
You said that choosing books based on the author's culture is "dangerously close to perpetuating very false distinctions between races". Maybe I am misunderstanding you, but I disagree with your suggestion that there aren't distinctions between races. Of course I believe that there are no relevant innate distinctions between races, but it is undeniable that the world treats the races very differently, and to try and erase that is what's dangerous. The reason for offering students different cultural perspectives in school is partially to help them understand that we live in a world where races unfortunately haven't been treated the same, and because of that, different cultural groups may see the world very differently. Also, I can only speak for myself on this, but I know that in high school, I was really bored with books written by males after a while. I felt like I couldn't relate to their stories at all, and so I completely lost interest in reading. Because my experiences as a female in this society are different than a male's, a person of color will have different experiences that a White person's. This alone is a good reason to assign reading students at least partially based on the author's culture.
Question: Has anyone had a clearly multicultural education? What was it like?