This essay argues that multiculturalism-inflected composition classrooms often "flatten" or efface radical alterities with which students--and teachers--should be encouraged to grapple. The authors demonstrate some of the limitations of such pedagogies, offer examples of provocative texts that celebrate difference--not identity--as a powerful critical and compositional tool for exploring subjectivity and justice, and call for a shift toward acknowledging our potential incommensurability and unknowability as a fruitful way to engage issues of social justice.